Crash Survival Zone

We will be working on a project out of the country until February 7th and will be unable to provide you with our usual excellent service.  We apologize for the interruption and we look forward to serving you when we return.

The stimulus plan the U.S. government is currently considering is necessary to help American citizens, but it will likely not reverse the country’s economic decline, hedge fund manager and billionaire philanthropist George Soros said on Monday.

“It is not enough to turn the situation around,” Soros told the U.S. Conference of Mayors about the $850 billion [...]

George Bush is leaving the White House with a dismal economic record. By almost every measure — GDP growth, jobs, median incomes, financial-market performance — he stacks up as probably the least-successful President on the economic front since Herbert Hoover.

It’s not all Bush’s fault. He inherited an inevitable recession in 2001, and even last year’s [...]

By John Kemp

The United States and the United Kingdom stand on the brink of the largest debt crisis in history.

While both governments experiment with quantitative easing, bad banks to absorb non-performing loans, and state guarantees to restart bank lending, the only real way out is some combination of widespread corporate default, debt write-downs and inflation [...]

by Gretchen Morgenson

The concept of the financial supermarket — the all-things-to-all-people, intergalactic, behemoth banking institution — bit the dust last week.

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Clearly, the entire financial industry is in the midst of a makeover. And while no one wants to call it nationalization, perhaps we can agree on this much: The money business as we have come [...]

The government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced on Monday a new bailout for the British financial system that increases its control over lenders, saying it would offer banks insurance on troubled assets and take other measures to restore credit and support the foundering economy.

The government also said it was revising the terms of its [...]

The world economic crisis has increased chances the United States will erect new barriers to trade but broad tariff increases, like those often blamed for causing the Great Depression, are unlikely, analysts said.

President-elect Barack Obama’s criticism of China’s currency practices, the North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade deals have raised concern his inauguration [...]

by Paul Krugman

Old-fashioned voodoo economics — the belief in tax-cut magic — has been banished from civilized discourse. The supply-side cult has shrunk to the point that it contains only cranks, charlatans, and Republicans.

But recent news reports suggest that many influential people, including Federal Reserve officials, bank regulators, and, possibly, members of the incoming Obama [...]

by Tom Friedman

Many commentators have suggestions for Barack Obama on what should be his first meeting at the White House. Here is mine: Mr. Obama and his economic team should convene the 300 leading bank presidents in the East Room and the president should say to each one of them something like this:

“Ladies and gentlemen, [...]

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama is seeking new ways to end a credit crisis that is roiling world economies and he warned on Saturday of the vast challenges a worsening economy poses for Americans.
A top adviser to Obama, who takes office on Tuesday, said a fresh approach to the crisis would be unveiled in coming days.
People [...]