Big fun coming: The federal agency that insures bank deposits, which is asking for emergency powers to borrow up to $500 billion to take over failed banks, is facing a potential major shortfall in part because it collected no insurance premiums from most banks from 1996 to 2006. The Federal Deposit ...

Today was a busy news day! President Obama administration’s 2010 budget proposes to limit the mortgage deductions on “higher income� households defined as making $208,850. per year. Quoting from the budget: “The Administration’s Budget includes a proposal to limit the tax rate at which h...

No more eager beavers in Beaverton: Beaver, USA Buy From Art.com Pinnacle Bank, Beaverton, Oregon, was closed today by the Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered in...

Bloomberg is reporting that the $15,000 tax credit has been mostly dropped from the stimulus bill. Hat tip CR: “Asked what a proposed $15,000 tax credit for homebuyers looks like in the compromise plan, Baucus laughed and said, “not much.â€� He said that proposal has largely been dropped, t...

This is Part Four of a series of articles on foreclosures. This article does not constitute legal advice. Foreclosure laws vary from state to state. Homeowners in financial distress should always hire legal counsel. Call your local state bar association for a referral.  Reduced or free legal aid ma...

Man, all the craziness this week on Wall Street is really freaking us out. I mean, we don’t own a home or anything, but, wow, when we heard that our longtime bank of choice, WaMu, imploded last night in what experts are calling the largest bank failure in U.S. History, well, hell…that sh...

The editors of the WSJ agree with Brad DeLong that the Fannie/Freddie problem is that their short-term cash flows may be(come) impaired: The most immediate danger is that investors will shrink from rolling over the debt of the two companies, leading to a run a la Bear Stearns....With so much on the ...

Feds have seized, closed, and frozen all of its assets. Depositors will have access to ATMs ONLY. via Bloomberg July 11 (Bloomberg) — IndyMac Bancorp Inc. became the second-biggest federally insured financial company to fail today after a run by depositors left the California mortgage lender s...

a follow-on from the previous post about the dow jones free-fall... So much for that second-half rebound. Truth be told, that was always more of a wish than a serious forecast, happy talk from the Fed and Wall Street desperate to get things back to normal. It ain't gonna happen. Not this summer. Not...

We live in some interesting economic times. According to a report in the April 14, 2008 issue of Fortune, the current slowdown differs from previous slowdowns in one key way. Usually, the economy drags down the markets. Not this time. This time, the markets are dragging down the economy. I’m not a...