Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Still On Top in Home Loans?

Ever since the great housing collapse of 2008, legislators and regulators have tried to scale back – or even eliminate – federal mortgage megalenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But as new regulations n private lenders, the agencies everyone loves to hate just keep on...

What’s Ahead for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

Fannie and Freddie are still headed for the chopping block. The demise of those venerable home loan agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac might not seem to matter to anyone who’s not looking to buy a house. But some market watchers worry that the dismantling of the...

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...

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,...

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...

Not a Student? Student Loan Debt Still Hits Home

You’re not a college student. You don’t have a child in college. But the escalating crisis of student loan debt still affects you, in ways large and small. In the spring of 2014 the total student debt load in the US had reached $1.1 trillion – and that burden of debt...

The Stimulus Fades, But Interest Rates Stay Low

The ongoing draw down of the Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing plan is in full swing, with another $10 billion slashed from the buyout budget every couple of months. According to predictions, that should cause interest rates to jump. But despite the fading of the...

Gen Y: Changing the Economic Game

Move over, baby boomers. There’s a batch of new kids in town, and their numbers have knocked you out of first place as the biggest age cohort in the country. We’re talking about the millennials, or Generation Y, whose buying patterns and lifestyle choices are changing...

America’s Getting Younger – And Making Changes

Move over, baby boomers. The younger generation is taking over – at least in terms of population. The latest US Census Bureau stats reveal that the much-analyzed baby boomers, those people born between 1947 and 1960 or so, are no longer the country’s biggest...

Mixed Messages on Housing Shadow Economic Recovery

Is the housing market in recovery? Or decline? It depends on who you ask – and when. New figures suggest that the much-touted housing recovery may have flattened after a promising surge in 2013 – a trend that, if true, has significant consequences for the health of...