Articles About Economics

General Motors took its Hummer brand off life supports and will let the iconic SUV die a peaceful death.  GM’s brief statement said that its planned sale of Hummer to the Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines Company “cannot be completed,” without giving a reason. The $150 million deal had been stalled as the companies awaited […]

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke may get all the headlines, but the retirement of Vice Chairman Donald L. Kohn is giving President Barack Obama the historic opportunity to reshape the nation’s central bank. Kohn is one of seven Fed governors who set U.S. monetary policy and regulate the financial system. The change comes at a […]

The rate of mortgage delinquencies – borrowers who are one payment late – fell slightly between the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2009 from 9.64 percent to 9.47 percent.  According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), a fourth quarter decline is unusual — even when there is no recession — because winter and the holidays typically […]

Economic indicators show that the recession is over.  This is the opinion of Rick Mattoon, a senior economist and advisor in the economic research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and a lecturer at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.  Rick’s primary research focuses on issues facing the Midwest regional economy. […]

The last 30 years have seen a boom for skyscraper construction because the cost of borrowing money had declined significantly. When investors borrow money to purchase assets, they send prices higher.  The problem is that this borrowing makes the markets susceptible to busts when investors sell assets to pay their debts.  The recent financial crisis […]

Eleven American banks that received money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) originated 13 percent more loans in December than they had the previous month. The Department of the Treasury released this information in its monthly survey of loans made by recipients of the $700 billion government bailout money. According to the Treasury Department, […]

Commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) are expected to remain below $15 billion in 2010 as borrowers cope with falling property values.  According to Alan Todd, a JPMorgan analyst, debt sales backed by CBD office, hotel and shopping center loans could be as low as $10 billion this year.  Aaron Bryson of Barclays Capital is more optimistic, […]

An independent audit released by the bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) has found the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to be effective, so much so that the Department of the Treasury has extended it to October 3, 2010.  Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner plans to use the remaining funds to assist families facing foreclosure […]

Greece, Spain, Ukraine, Austria, Latvia and Mexico are among the nations in danger of sovereign debt default, putting the global economic recovery from the recession at risk.  Sovereign debt is the debt of nations.  For example, U.S. Treasuries are backed by the “full faith and credit” of the government; similarly, other countries sell bonds to […]

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is starting to look at ways to back off from the central bank’s heroic efforts to keep the nation’s economy afloat through the financial crisis of the past 18 months. The trick to raising short-term interest rates, which have been at historic lows for more than a year, is to […]