One of my favorite authors, Robert Caro, has dedicated his professional life in large part to a series of books on President Lyndon Johnson. They are an unblinking portrait of a flawed, yet powerful and in many ways (known and unknown) good man. Here are some quotes from an article he authored in [...]

This statement is from an analysis report based on bankruptcy filings between 1991 and 2007. According to this analysis, the number of senior citizens being forced into bankruptcy is ’soaring’. In 1991, filers over the age of 55 accounted for 8% of bankruptcy filings. That number almost tripled by 2007 at 22% [...]

Here is a link to one very cool site: http://www.sciencedaily.com/
Michael

Here is an article about a movie which I have not seen, but would like to see. It is about a woman who made a home movie of her neighborhood and hurricane Katrina, before and during and after it happened. She lives in the Ninth Ward and her story sounds like one of a [...]

In my mail this morning is the latest report from one of my favorite economists, Marc Faber, who writes monthly reports which may be found at his site: www.gloomboomdoom.com. In it he refers to a chart which I want to discuss further.
If one is to understand the breadth and depth of the current [...]

Here is an article on the recent comments from Professor Kenneth Rogoff who is a former chief economist for the IMF. He predicts that there will be not only smaller banks failing in the US but also a large bank or investment bank. I do not disagree, however, another way to look at [...]

This is not exactly “new news” but the housing market continues to crater. “Banks repossessed almost three times as many U.S. homes in July as a year earlier and the number of properties at risk of foreclosure jumped 55 percent as falling prices made it harder to sell or refinance.
Bank seizures rose 184 percent [...]

The Federal Reserve has followed through with its plan for an auction of money with an 84 day term. This action by the Fed was once considered impossible but finding new and better ways to print and pump money into the economy, no matter the negative effect on the value of the dollar is [...]

Amid rumors first reported in the Wall Street Journal on July 21, 2008, Mervyns has refused to comment on any plans to file bankruptcy. However, the company recently stopped providing its financial information to credit-monitoring firms, leading to speculation that the chain may file for bankruptcy protection.
Bob Carbonell, chief credit officer of Bernard Sands, a [...]

We have previously noted the precipitous decline in the value of MBIA and Ambac, the companies which insure certain types of securities. Once again, the market had already given its opinion of the value of the companies by pushing their stocks into the basement before the ratings companies officially downgraded their credit. The [...]