Why Consumer Debt Is Hazardous to Your Financial Health

You don’t have to look far to find a financial expert who will tell you that consumer debt is bad ... . But has anyone ever really explained what the problem with consumer debt like credit cards and car loans is? On the surface, consumer debt doesn’t seem so awful. After all, using these types of credit lines [more...]

Date: 2009-01-04 13:49:19

Blog posts (31) | Videos (31)
 

Double Barrels Hit Financials

95129c Most industries get to spread out their bad news. The current exceptions appear to be the automotive and banking sectors ... that large financial firms will have to cut the amount of credit that they offer consumers. She expects ... to credit card customers. While the move will save the banks a lot of money on defaults, it will loss [more...]

Date: 2008-12-01 16:20:57

Bad Mortgages Are Just The Beginning

credit card health Yesterday I talked a bit about how, through the bailout bill, ... be looking at credit card companies such as American Express following suit. I thought ... . Americans have almost $2.6 trillion in consumer credit outstanding, according to the Federal Reserve [more...]

Date: 2008-10-16 17:29:00

MortgageNewsClips: Spreadsheet Resource, Realtors Beware, Credit Cards, Lou Ranieri, Securitization Primer, Popular Sells, Asymmetric Risk, Damage Report, Disparity, NY Mortgages, Freddie Automates, 3 more News Clips

RESOURCE: has list of sites offering free spreadsheets - Spreadsheets: Free to Learn - No-cost tutorials, instruction, ... Ross - Inman News ———— BusinessWeek_logo Credit-Card Rage - Debt-strapped consumers vent ... -old concept of securitization a bad name, IMF Economist Andreas Jobst writes. Securitization [more...]

Date: 2008-09-02 10:37:39

Citi to hive off India arms after global split

Citi Financial, one of the largest finance companies operating in India, may sport the ‘For Sale’ sign, ... or bad loan ratio in India for its credit card and consumer banking business in India rose to 6.3 ... loss of $8.29 billion. Citi Financial, whose businesses in India span mortgages, personal loans [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 05:43:13

Is It A Good Or Bad Thing That So Many Companies Are Going Out Of Business?

What exactly will 2009 bring us in terms of businesses closing down for good? ... to the economy - which while sad for the workers is not necessarily a bad thing. We have consumed ourselves ... $2.56 trillion in consumer debt, with the average household’s credit card debt amounting to $8,565 [more...]

Date: 2009-01-06 14:00:00

The Bad Paper Chase

And the handout/buyout craze continues. The Federal Reserve said Tuesday it will buy up to $600 billion in mortgage-backed assets in another attempt ... obligations from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as the Federal Home Loan Banks ... also unveiled a new program to help unfreeze the market that backs consumer debt such as credit cards [more...]

Date: 2008-11-26 00:46:42

Sellers think you don't have to lower prices or offer closing help? The next shoe is dropping, this time Credit Cards!

With the stock market down big today and oil back up I have to admit it's been a downer of a week. I did have to chuckle though today in reading this story about just how bad it's getting for the banks. Lenders have long relied on consumers' credit scores to decide whether to approve card [more...]

Date: 2008-06-21 05:23:51

and we lost 5 bucks in the laundry yesterday, too

talkleft tells us that the stock market lost $3 trillion in the last three days: more bad news on the economic front ... for the program to support financial markets that supply consumer credit in such areas as credit card debt [more...]

Date: 2008-11-13 04:27:10

House Price Searches Soar as Prices Plummet

With the market tailspin continuing, we are seeing some interesting changes in consumer search behavior that point to opportunities for marketers ... . Bad Time for Borrowers At the same time, we have seen an increase in searches related to credit cards and loans. For example, share of US Internet searches for "credit cards" are up 107% in the past [more...]

Date: 2008-09-30 14:30:04

Tightening Credit May Reduce Big Retailers' Christmas Sales by 8%

The consumer credit retrenchment is coming even faster and harder than many anticipated ... in the credit they extend to shoppers to avoid being left with bad loans when customers can't pay them ... at or near the limits on their primary credit card, and 20 percent said they're approaching the limit [more...]

Date: 2008-11-02 09:27:52

JPMorgan profit drops 76 percent

JPMorgan Chase & Co. said that its profit fell 76 percent as rising defaults. The company said in a statement that the year-old U.S ... More consumers are paying late on their credit cards and mortgages, forcing banks to increase reserves, the statement said. JPMorgan has almost tripled its provisions for bad debt in the past year. Fourth [more...]

Date: 2009-01-15 14:23:57

"The Current State of Consumer Arbitration"

Ted Frank (with co-author Ohio State lawprof Sarah Rudolph Cole) ... and credit card companies, provided support to many antiarbitration advocates' claims that consumer arbitration is bad for the "little guy," a conclusion repeated with little scrutiny by stories [more...]

Date: 2008-11-22 02:13:15

Ctrl BG: A Shortcut to Financial News 11/29

Hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving weekend and got some great bargains yesterday! ... facility to support consumer finance, including student, auto, and credit card loans and loans backed ... prices also dropped a whooping 17.4% from a year ago, a record decline. Along with this bad economic [more...]

Date: 2008-11-29 14:40:00

How To Eliminate Credit Card Debt

by Ada Denis There is almost nothing more serious than having too much debt to pay each month. Consumers get debt for many unusual reasons out. Sometimes illness, accidents, or just bad fate can make it appear impossible to find finances ... taking control of your financial position is to learn how to get rid of your credit card debt [more...]

Date: 2008-11-23 17:42:51

This sounds less bad

I doubt anyone can know how much it might help, but the desperation apparent in this move should be obvious. From Bloomberg: The U.S ... it improves auto sales much. Maybe people pay off some credit cards and take some classes ... up the consumer-finance market, using money from the government’s $700 billion rescue, two people familiar [more...]

Date: 2008-11-25 05:46:00

Another Bad Day Dawns in Asia

As of this writing, the Nikkei is down nearly 500 points. Singapore is least trashed, down 3%, the Hang Seng is down over 6% ... no confidence in Paulson's latest folly, the "let's bailout credit card debt so the banks can let consumers ... in at least 15 years, according to Credit Suisse AG. ``Besides [more...]

Date: 2008-11-13 04:32:03

Life goals for 2009

This time last year, I had three New Year resolutions: pay off all consumer debt in four months, ... : Never miss payments on credit card and mortgage loan. Last year, I had two late payments ... two steps backward and one step forward in personal finance may not always be bad. Like buying [more...]

Date: 2009-01-03 01:00:32

Consumer Reports Retirement Survey: Planning Ahead May Be Just As Risky As Rewarding

February issue offers 17 moves to rebuild the nest egg and secure the future In the wake of big investment losses many have turned to Plan B to ... their credit card use and spent less on groceries and household goods. “When bad investments happen to good people, they have to work harder to slash debt, cut spending and save more. Switching to Plan [more...]

Date: 2009-01-06 12:09:04

Banks and Consumers Are the Problem, Not Bad Assets

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced that he has shelved the original plan to buy troubled mortgage assets via the recently approved $700 ... loans, student loans and credit cards. This is creating a heavy burden on the American people [more...]

Date: 2008-11-14 12:14:14

No getting laid in the NYT

Rob Walker's "Consumed" column in the NYT Magazine on Sunday (9 November) looks at prepaid credit cards, in particular the Prepaid Visa RushCard, "the product of a partnership between Unifund (a Cincinnati company best known for buying up and collecting on bad debts [more...]

Date: 2008-11-12 15:59:03

Consumer civilization collapses. Now it's all up to MAKE magazine!

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/remake_the_world.html? ... was that the credit-card-driven, debt-ridden, pay-later economy wasn't sustainable. Not economically ... of times and the worst of times." We hear plenty about how bad it is or how bad it is going [more...]

Date: 2008-12-13 11:54:01

Headline News - January 7, 2009

Hypercom Appoints Stuart Taylor Vice President, Global Marketing New Mercator Advisory Group Report: Small Business Credit Card 2008 Update: ... in credit card terms Economix Blog - NYTimes.com: Crisis Comparisons: How Bad Might It Get? Laru ... from Credit Cards, Could Save Consumers $500 Million Annually Over Competing Prepaid Cards Get Rich Slowly [more...]

Date: 2009-01-07 13:30:03

Six Simple Steps to Avoid Credit Problems in a Bad Economy

The New York Times ran a story today that says the next consumer crisis is credit cards — a sobering fact in a nation that has racked up massive amounts of credit card debt. Unfortunately, when times get hard, many people turn to credit cards ... this myself, buying things on credit when I had no other way to pay for them. I’m not talking about [more...]

Date: 2008-10-29 23:20:31

Credit Card Lenders Clamp Down Hard

Consumers are in a newly austere mood, and those who have lived beyond or at the edge of their means may be forced to retrench whether they want to ... wrote off an estimated $21 billion in bad credit card loans in the first half of 2008 ... , some can come back to haunt consumers. The result can be a lower credit score, which forces a borrower [more...]

Date: 2008-10-29 03:50:36

A Bright Light From Home Depot (HD)

95129c The first reaction a lot of investors would have to Home Depot's (HD) is that they are bad. Very bad. Earnings bet Wall St ... lines and credit card capital, the consumer should be doing almost no home improvement work ... economy. Stopping to reflect on the housing market and lack of available consumer credit, the figures [more...]

Date: 2008-11-18 11:33:04

Friday morning links

TOP STORIES Rate cut from Japan, Barclays seeks funding - Reuters Nevada, Michigan, Florida lead 'underwater' list - AP Housing plunge: ... is more likely than many assume - MarketWatch Banks, consumer advocates urge U.S. to allow credit card debt ... it feels so bad - CNN/Money Economic data point to the start of a recession - LA Times Recession Ghost [more...]

Date: 2008-10-31 13:20:00

Consumers Get a Break on Credit Cards - Finally

First the bad news: these rules don’t take effect until July, 2010 ... barring the deceptive and punitive practices of many credit card issuers. The policy statement ... thirty days late on a payment. In that case, credit card issuers can still increase your interest rate [more...]

Date: 2008-12-19 01:43:31

A Good Decision from the OCC's Tim Long

Regular readers know I don’t normally have much good to say about OCC bank regulator Tim Long ... proposal to defer losses on bad consumer credit card debt. The plan, concocted by an odd alliance of bankers and consumer groups, was a one-two punch of dumb ideas. First, it would have let card lenders “ [more...]

Date: 2008-11-14 19:35:26

Building New Credit For Credit Repair Success

By katie George Build New Credit Now The most common credit repair mistake people make is putting off building new credit ... with MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and Discover. Avoid store cards and consumer credit like furniture ... . If bad financial times have left you without open accounts you must start the rebuilding process [more...]

Date: 2009-01-03 16:29:15

A consumer complaint about Consumer Reports

This story just drips with irony! 2 ... be trusted. No fault of theirs, my credit card number got out to some bad guys in Malta or Africa, and the credit card company detected it, contacted me as I was checking into a hotel in NY (by declining [more...]

Date: 2009-01-12 13:57:29

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