With high street banks in turmoil, many of us wonder where to put our cash.
This week's dramatic part-nationalisation of UK banks may be costing taxpayers unimaginable sums, but it does at least mean savers have some new safe havens.
The Federal Reserve has announced it is lowering the federal funds interest rate to between 0.00% and 0.25%. This means it will now be even easier for banks to create new money. When banks borrow money from the Federal Reserve, the Fed is not lending them money it has saved. The Fed is creating entirely new money that did not exist before.
HOWRAH STATION in Calcutta was packed with travelers as I arrived to catch the 3:30 p.m. train to Jangipur. Passengers and porters charged in all directions, some carrying their suitcases or cloth bundles in their hands, some with their baggage on their heads. One man with a chair; another with a stepladder. At my feet, someone was charging his cellphone on the station’s electricity supply.
TWELVE North Wales branches of NatWest bank are offering free, impartial financial guidance to everyone, including customers of other banks and people without bank accounts.Branches involved in the programme include Bangor, Colwyn Bay, Deeside, Llandudno, Llangefni, Menai Bridge, Mold, Porthmadog, Pwllheli, Rhyl, Wrexham and Aberystwyth.
Finally, interest rates are starting to fall for consumers – assuming they can qualify for a loan in the first place.Banks are grudgingly lowering some credit-card rates, mortgage rates, and the interest on auto loans. Economists expect those rates to go lower in the weeks and months ahead – something that may eventually help the economy.
For the past three years, a startup called M2Z Networks has been figuring out a way to blanket the nation with a free wireless broadband network to ensure all Americans have access to basic high-speed Internet connections.
Stocks tumbled on Monday as signs of a deepening economic slump around the world erased much of last week's sharp gains, with banks and retailers among Wall Street's biggest casualties.
Adding to the market's woeful day, the arbiter of U.S. business cycles declared that the United States entered recession in December 2007 and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the U.S.
Apparently Citibank and the U.S. government (i.e., we taxpayers) have reached a deal whereby we will backstop something like $300-billion in screwed assets on Citi's balance sheet. That $300-billion figure is, as we say in the business, way fucking bigger than the $50-billion "bad bank" number that had been tossed around earlier in the weekend.Here is the gist:
The Federal Reserve has slashed its benchmark rate to 1%, yet many people are getting hit with higher rates and fees on their credit cards.
Normally, when the Fed cuts rates, credit-card issuers follow suit, resulting in lower monthly payments for cardholders.
A little noticed trade on shares of VW may cost hedge funds billions of dollars in losses. And several investment banks are also rumored to have been on the losing end of the trade. What happened is that these investors bet that VW shares would fall and they were spectacularly wrong. Besides their own poor judgment, German financial reporting practices are coming in for some of the blame.
