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The US Economy: Latest News

Renters becoming latest victims as foreclosure crisis widens
November 23, 2009. NEW YORK -- A new wave of foreclosures stands to hurt people who may have never taken out a mortgage: renters. In cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, where many investors are carrying upside-down mortgages on large rental buildings, some tenants are watching their homes fall apart along with the financing.

Wave of Debt Payments Facing U.S. Government
November 22, 2009. WASHINGTON -- The United States government is financing its more than trillion-dollar-a-year borrowing with i.o.u.’s on terms that seem too good to be true.“What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter. The United States is not only not saving nuts, it’s eating the ones left over from the last winter.” WILLIAM H. GROSS.

Expect tightening from the FHA
November 21, 2009. For the past several years, the Federal Housing Administration has been the go-to financing resource for cash-strapped home buyers who can't come up with a big down payment. It has zoomed from barely a 3 percent market share to nearly 30 percent of home-purchase loans. But now, wildly popular FHA-insured mortgages could be on the verge of becoming more expensive and tougher to obtain.

The Federal Reserve is a Private Bank
November 20, 2009. The Federal Reserve is a private bank. While this is not new - it has been this way since 1913 - it is certainly news to most people. The Fed is owned 100% by shareholders, who are all private banks. It controls the creation of money, and then uses that to buy US Treasuries. In other words, it lends the money it has just created to the US Government, and secures a revenue stream in the form of interest payments from that. It pays a guaranteed 6% return to bank shareholders, who also get to borrow money more cheaply than anyone else, and create their own money through leverage. The express purpose of the Federal Reserve Act was and is to protect private banks, not the government. That is why great figures such as Jefferson and Lincoln bitterly opposed the bankers and their financing systems, fearing them more than standing armies.

Want to avoid foreclosure? Go see a counselor
November 18, 2009. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Housing counselors, who've received more than $400 million in federal funds to help mitigate the mortgage crisis, are helping troubled homeowners avoid foreclosure and lower their monthly payments, a study released Wednesday has found.

Real US Unemployment is Already Over 20%
It feels as if the world has been on tenderhooks waiting to hear when US unemployment will cross the 10% mark. After all, consumers account for 70% of the US economy, and with all economies built around either exporting to the US, or exporting to countries that export to the US, they are the demand engine that powers the whole world economy.
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