A new financial crisis may be coming up in the emerging economies that could cause much more damage than 2008 - that is what a World Bank report says after having analysed the international transactions of the central banks of most major economies ( Read more... )

John Oliver made a splash the other night, when he brought up the problem with the debt-buying industry, namely that it allows hospitals to sue thousands of patients for having the impudence to be both sick and poor. He shined the light on the illegal tactics that debt collectors often use to get paid for debts they often cannot prove anyone owes.

( Read more... )

Putting lurking mode off and weighing in, in turn, on the Greek issue - although the other day's post was indeed very good, and much has been said. I am only going to focus on two questions: "How did it come to this", and "What now". So bear with me.

Greece's detractors have been arguing that the referendum that Tsipras called was a populist move, ( Read more... )

The payment schedule on the Greek sovereign debt looks pretty full as of now. First, Greece will have to pay 200 million euro back to the IMF, come May 1. And then in June, there are a bunch of new payments to the IMF worth a total of 2.5 billion. Those are installments that Greece received from the IMF as part of the earlier aid package.

Christine ( Read more... )

Frankly, I haven't stopped watching this counter for a few minutes. It's mesmerizing:

U.S. National Debt Clock: Real Time

Alright. Now that all most of the hubbub surrounding the shenanigans on Capitol Hill has subsided somewhat, time to get back on topic, i.e. "Speculative Scenarios". And the topic I'm gonna occupy you with, is again... the debt ( Read more... )

The sheer silliness of even casting a shadow of a glimmer of a sliver of blame on the Democratic Party members in Congress regarding this shutdown thing is laughable enough. There is more than enough evidence that the Tea Party has run with this ball all the way. I won't bother recounting it here ( Read more... )

I was just reading now on LA times (McManus: Europe's continental drift), and a phrase really captured my attention; The author, while describing how bad the situation is in Europe (especially the southern countries) goes as far as saying:

"
Southern Europe is experiencing its worst drop in living standards since World War IITo anyone who has been ( Read more... )

So apparently the city of Detroit is having to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, to help the city restructure the 18.5 billion dollars in debt it owes to creditors. Less than a month ago, the city of Detroit diverted roughly 283 million dollars from economic development funds to help fund a new arena for the Detroit Red Wings, the hockey team owned by ( Read more... )

From the New York Times

'Someone loses their job,' Ms. Wu said, 'so they can’t pay their bills - and now they can’t get a job because they couldn’t pay their bills because they lost a job? It’s this Catch-22 that makes no sense.'
Back in 2010, I posted an OP about employers essentially saying "the unemployed need not apply" for job openings. I ( Read more... )

 [Before you tare apart my post, please try to do so constructively. I am new in the insurance industry but not new to sales. I sold my first policy on 11-28-12! My Agency is bound to Farmers Insurance Exchange but I paid for this franchise so, keep in mind my heart and soul is in what I do, it feeds my family. With that said I am looking for ways ( Read more... )