When the government and banks are trying to convince you to do something because it's "responsible" you can bet that it's a bad deal for you.

Faced with people defaulting on their mortgages because it's the sensible thing to do financially, mortgage bankers and the Obama administration are telling people to do the "responsible" thing and pay their ( Read more... )

The Times had a piece today on various services you can buy to avoid getting personal information stolen while shopping online ( Read more... )

So now, were up to 14 people indicted for insider trading related to the Galleon hedge fund ( Read more... )

The Dow and S&P were both up significantly today (1.37%, to 9731 and 1055, respectively) on news that the dollar is weakening against commodities and other currencies, a completely nonsensical explanation. Of course, mainstream financial reporting consists mainly of picking two things that happened today and stating that one caused the other. ( Read more... )

Because the FDIC has made it a better deal for the banks to just foreclose on properties, rather than allow a short sale or modification.

Bob Hertzog has it here:
So, you ask...Why does this program hurt short sales? Because, our brilliant government offers this SAME PROGRAM FOR FORECLOSURES! The only difference is, the government picks up 80% ( Read more... )

In an attempt to make EPCOT as boring as possible, they're creating a new exhibit called the Great Piggy Bank Adventure that tries to teach kids lessons in personal finance.

( Read more... )

As details come out about the housing bailout, we learn that it isn't just reckless banks that will get to feed at the trough. It seems that the government has plenty of cash available to help out people who bought stuff they didn't need with money they didn't have. Peter Schiff explains:
( excerpts here )

The housing bill that the Senate passed over the weekend is a fine example of Bismark's observation that law is a lot like sausage; you don't want to see what goes into either.
( more here )

You may have heard that IndyMac bank collapsed last weekend, leaving the deposits of their customers in jeopardy. It got so bad that the cops were deployed to prevent a riot from breaking out at some branches ( Read more... )

These were the headlines on my home page this morning:

Banking News Apr 18, 9:15 am ET • U.S. stock futures rally after Citigroup, Google results - MarketWatch ( Read more... )