Archive for September, 2008

What Did Your Representative Vote On the Bailout Bill?

The United States House of Representatives voted NO to the $700 billion bailout bill, officially Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (H.R. 3997). I was interested to see how my congress representative voted.
First, if you don’t know who your representative is, there is a Write Your Representative service provided by the House of Representatives. [...]

Mortgage Loans Around the World

In so many articles about the housing and mortgage crisis in the United States, adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) are invariably mentioned as one of the culprits. People can’t pay when the interest rate on their loan resets. The words ARM and dangerous are often used in the same sentence. Should ARMs bear the blame though? [...]

Breaking The Buck Is Not a Big Deal

If you have read newspaper or watched TV, you probably heard that a big money market fund “broke the buck” last week. That means it was not able to maintain the stable $1 Net Asset Value (NAV). Investors in that fund lost 3% when the NAV dropped to $0.97. Another money market fund run by [...]

Crime and Punishment

There is no doubt the financial market crisis is perpetrated by Americans. American homeowners decided to speculate on housing prices. American lenders lent irresponsibly. American borrowers decided not to honor their debt. American financial institutions packaged and sold mortgage backed securities to other American investors and to investors around the world. American bond rating agencies [...]