Oil prices gain 3.6% for the week

This article reports the recent price of crude Oil, and gives an analysis about the fluctuation of Oil prices. It talks what information could be reflected from the changes of Oil price. Also, it explains what factors influence the price of crude oil. For example, it points out that the price of crude oil is influenced by the stronger dollar early Friday, a day after the discount rate increased to 0.75%. At the end of this article, this report also mentions that the gas price is influenced by the price of crude oil.

Banks nervously await new credit card law

By David Ellis, February 19, 2010

The new credit card law that was recently issued is set to take effect Monday. The CARD act is estimated to cost banks and credit card issuers quite a lot in revenue. Current estimated losses are at more than 5.5 billion in 2010 and a total of 50 billion in the years through 2015. The estimated loss in revenue is due to the restrictions on when banks can increase annual percentage rate for cardholders. Under these new laws banks are restricted from increasing APR on current cardholders, and will now be required to wait 60 days before raising the APR of delinquent customers.

In order to counteract the effects of the CARD act on many institutions have raised the cost of existing fees and created new fees. According to this article the early-stage delinquency rates have dropped, a positive sign since loan losses are on the rise more than ever. National unemployment has finally dropped below 10% last month, another positive sign for the U.S market. Institutions must now find ways to increase profit without decreasing the amount of credit card customers, by making the credit cards along with all the fees somehow more appealing to customers.

Greek Crisis Fallout: Could the Euro's Days Be Numbered?

This article talks about how Greece's financial woes could eventually lead to the downfall of the Euro. It says that the European Union is more of a monetary union with little coordination among member countries in terms of taxation and budget. It also talks about how Greece needs to drastically cut government spending and increase taxes to reduce the budget deficit even if it is unpopular among taxpayers.

Let the Greeks ruin themselves

Germany is known to have the biggest economy in Europe. That is why all eyes are focused on Germany to bail Greece out. Greece is having an immense amount of trouble right now and it all started because they have been concealing their bad financial situation. If Germany helps Greece out the currency will suffer.

Obama defends economic stimulus

this article talks about how the stimulus plan is expected to save or create 1.5 million jobs in 2010, and how it has already saved or created at least 2 million. this is will help increase the rate of job finding but the problem in our current economy is the fact that the job separation rate is still very high as businesses are making a lot of job cuts. the article also talks about how the stimulus really needs to show results in this import election year to make the democrats look good.

Credit-Card Fees: the New Traps

This article discusses the new policies the Federal Government is placing on credit card companies. Basically the government has told the credit card companies that they have to be more responsible in letting their customer know where they are with their credit, and can only over spend on their cards if they agree ahead of time to pay huge interest on what they over spend. This has left the card companies out of an estimates 12 billion dollars a year, so know the card companies are looking for ways to make that back. With drawing money out of country will come at a big expense, and paying the monthly minimum will also wind up giving you much higher interest rates.

This Federal policy has good intensions it sounds like but the card companies will find a way to make this lost money back in a different way, so overall it probably won't be that effective.

Fed’s Bernanke to Assure Congress Higher Rates Not Imminent

After the Fed's decision of raising the cost of direct loans to commercial banks, there has been several expectations that the economy may sooner or later suffer from inflationary pressure, which could lead the Fed to increasing the benchmark interest rate. In order to rule out this possibility, the Fed chairman will probably assure the Congress and the public that an increase in the federal fund rate is not imminent.

Many Fed's officials state that tightening monetary policy is not going to happen unless there is a significant improvement in the prospect of the job market. They also emphasize that maintaining growth, rather than combating inflation, should be the main goal of policy makers. This is especially true after the recent report about Consumer Prices has been released. Core prices, which exclude highly volatile items such as food and energy, unexpectedly fell by 0.1 percent.

Germany Doesn’t Have Plan to Aid Greece, Finance Ministry Says

We all know that Greece is in a big trouble. The only way Greece can handle the deficit crisis is to get some help from EU countries in some form of financial aid. Lately, there has been a lot rumors/speculation going about what are the next steps in helping Greece to get out of default on its debt. For example, one of the articles appeared in a recent edition of the respectable German magazine reported that Germany is asking euro-area governments to provide $35 billion worth of loan to help Greece. Magazine also said that Germany would finance 20% of the aid, without saying how it got the information. Once the article was reported, there was an instant message from the German ministry of finances that there is no such decision in this regard, and Germany is not considering a "concrete plan". Overall, it would be very interesting to witness how European Union is going to solve this economic problem, and hopefully, too big too fail policy would apply to Greece.

Consumer prices rise marginally

In January, consumer prices rose less than expected. The prices without food and energy fell for the first time since 1982 with the fed keeping the interest rate low for an "extended period". CPI rose last month in January by .2 percent which was influenced by a rise in energy cost which also increased by .2 percent. Reuter analysts predicted an increase of .3 percent in january. In 2009, there was an increase of 2.6 percent which was also below market expectations (2.8). Quarterly reports say that the inflation rate will stay where it is now until 2012. This may be due to a change in the White House.

Unemployment? Not for the Rich.

I keep the old title of this article because it is interesting.
We all agree that unemployment rate is currently high. But the article showed an insight view that we are at "full employment" somehow because unemployment for the top income people are only 3%. The article comments that the rich are not really in unemployment stituation or recession.
The high inequality is expanding, it happens not only in income distribution but also in unemployment situation.