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New credit card rules
Tue, 11/10/2009 - 10:06
The New York Times' personal finance columnist walks us th ...

Drought Of Credit For Consumers Hampers Economic Recovery According to The Wall Street Journal, a year after the U.S. economy was brought to its knees by the bursting of the housing bubble, credit for consumers is still being aggressively ratcheted back. Total consumer credit outstanding, which includes everything from credit-card debt to loans for recreational vehicles, fell $12 billion in August, or at a 5.8% seasonally adjusted annual rate, the Federal Reserve reported Wednesday. It was the seventh straight month of declines, the ...

Signs Don't Point To A Typical Recession Recovery The wounded U.S. economy has shown signs of improvement in recent weeks. But many economists, who were caught off guard by the brutality of the downturn, are accentuating the negative, bracing for head winds that could cause the recovery to be weak. "Traditional economic models are built like a rubber band: You pull it hard and it will snap back," said Martin Neil Baily, an economist at the Brookings Institution. "I find it hard to see where that will come from in this ...

Goldman Sachs To Repay TARP Funds Goldman Sachs Group Inc. reported $1.81 billion in profit Monday and set plans to raise $5 billion through a sale of stock. The bank plans to repay the $10 billion of federal loans as soon as the government approves. One of the reasons to repay the money quickly is to avoid any restrictions placed on it by the government. (The Wall Street Journal ...

Consumer Credit Card Balances Rose In January Credit card balances rose in January, according to the Federal Reserve's monthly G.19 report. Revolving credit, a category of loans made up almost entirely of credit card debt, rose 1.2 percent. Revolving debt grew to $961.3 billion from a total of $960.4 billion in December. Nonrevolving credit grew 0.6 percent in January to $1.6 trillion. ...

Political blame game causes foreclosure freeze The foreclosure freezes announced by JP Morgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. is directly related to the rest of the TARP money and additional the money Wall Street hopes to milk the government for. ...

Citigroup Splits In Two Citigroup Inc. plans to split into two units as Bank of America Corp. takes $20 billion in governemnt aid. Both banks suffered losses from the credit crisis. Citigroup said Friday that it will divide itself into one business focused on commercial and retail banking, and another on brokerage, retail asset management, consumer finance and troubled assets. It will seperate into Citicorp and Citi Holdings. ...

Consumer Confidence Hits New Low In the midst of the recession, the Conference Board, a New York-based business research group, said Tuesday that it's Consumer Confidence Index fell to 38 in December from 44.7 in November. They cite the dismal job market and the credit crunch for causing the sharp decline. (CNN) ...

Bush hands over bailout funds to automakers President George W. Bush announced a rescue plan for General Motors and Chrysler, two of the automakers seeking a bailout from Washington D.C. The automakers will receive $13.4 billion from the $700 billion bailout meant for Wall Street. The automakers will have to prove that they are viable by March 31 or they will have to repay the loans and, possibly, declare bankrupcy in an "orderly fashion." ( ...

Calif. Lawmakers Pass $18 Billion Plan Democratic lawmakers passed an $18-billion plan to ease the state's financial crisis Thursday through higher gas, sales and income taxes and cuts to schools and healthcare. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he would veto the plan. (Los Angeles Times) ...