Tag: banking
-
Is the Fed Finally Ending the Stimulus?
Is it curtains for QE3? The Federal Reserve has announced that Quantitative Easing, round three, better known as QE3, is coming to an end – although key interest rates won’t rise until mid-2015. The end of the stimulus also marks the end of a massive experiment in government intervention that sparked debate both at home…
-
Lower Credit Standards: Economic Boost or Bust?
We’ve always been told that success depends on setting high standards. Lowering your standards, so the conventional wisdom goes, leads to accepting low quality and ultimately bad outcomes. But in a bid to offset a sluggish recovery, the US government is advocating just that, with proposals on several fronts to lower borrowing standards to make…
-
A Cash Free Society? Sweden Leads the Way
Hard metal in the hand or virtual numbers on a card, money is what people agree that it is. And now, as Sweden moves quietly toward a cash-free society, the very nature of money – and what it means – could be forever changed. Sweden has long been in the vanguard of cultural shifts. Its…
-
US Dollar Rides High in World Markets
After the roller coaster ride of recent recession years, the US dollar is on top again – at least for now. And its strong showing against other world currencies may be due to the Federal Reserve’s much-maligned Quantitative Easing plan. According to a recent Business Insider article on the performance of the dollar and other…
-
Do Borrowers Need Banks?
Banks are an essential part of the financial landscape – or at least, they’d like you to think so. But are they? New banking alternatives may be making the traditional bank loan a thing of the past. The traditional banking model has been around for centuries, supersized to today’s massive institutions like Bank of America,…
-
International Conflict Hits Americans In the Wallet
It’s a small, small world, as the old song goes. And that’s increasingly obvious as events across the globe have the power to hit Americans hard at home. In a world that’s ever more connected, global conflicts can quickly become local ones, with consequences for the US dollar, energy reserves and consumer goods, and the…
-
FICO Score Changes: A Boost For Risky Borrowers?
Fair Isaac is changing his game. And that has some financial experts worried. The nation’s premier credit scoring agency, the Fair Isaac Company, has come to an agreement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to change the way credit scores are calculated. It’s a move that could boost lower end scores by 25 points or…
-
Money Talks — But What Does It Say?
What does your money say? Of course, most of the time, we’re more concerned with what money can buy – and what various institutions like the Federal Reserve and the megabanks are doing with it. But a country’s history, culture and values are written on the coins and bills it keeps in circulation. Case in…
-
Can Corporate Tax Inversions Harm the Economy?
The chief financial officer of drugstore giant Walgreen’s just departed his job. And while the movements of higher ups at megacorporations often resemble a round of musical chairs, this particular job change sheds light on a new trend in corporate tax evasion: tax inversion. Tax inversion is a milk toast term for a sweeping strategy…
-
Can Living Wills Prevent Another Banking Collapse?
People make living wills – and now, so do banks. To prevent a major financial meltdown like the one that hit the country in 2008, major US banks are now required to create a contingency plan for failure and submit it to government regulators. But because those regulators haven’t been monitoring those “living wills,” the…