New and used car prices are higher this summer.
How could that be?
We’re in the middle of a recession that drove General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy and caused new car and truck sales to plunge from about 17 million a year to fewer than 10 million.
Yet buyers are paying very close to sticker price for [...]

Ever since the unemployment rate reached 9.5%, the airwaves are awash with gleeful free-market pundits and conservative politicians.
They point an accusing finger and proclaim the $750 billion economic stimulus spending plan President Obama and the Democratic Congress approved last winter is a total failure.
But can we really say that — or more importantly, know that [...]

The federal government will now pay $3,500 or $4,500 for your old, gas-guzzling car or truck when you trade it in for a new vehicle.
The Car Allowance Rebate System (as it’s formally called) runs through Labor Day.
If you qualify, the rebate is incredibly easy to get. The dealer does all the work and deducts the [...]

Jon Stewart created a hilarious introduction for Peter Schiff when the ardent defender of free market capitalism and possible Senate candidate appeared on the The Daily Show this week.
Stewart showed a collage of clips from as far back as 2006 in which Schiff warned the economy wasn’t sound and predicted the collapse of the housing [...]

Federal Reserve chairmen do not do interviews.
But Ben Bernanke broke with tradition and did a long interview with CBS reporter Scott Pelley for “60 Minutes” last night. (Click here to watch the first part of the interview)
His message: If the federal government hadn’t bailed out the nation’s banks, and insurance giant AIG, we’d have fallen [...]

There’s a lot of hand-wringing over how much Washington will interfere in the day-to-day affairs of General Motors now that it’s in bankruptcy and the government is supplying all the money.
President Obama has responded by promising that his administration will be a hands-off investor and sell its 60% stake in the automaker as quickly as [...]

George4title has won a following on the Internet with his YouTube videos on the dire consequences of the housing crisis and recession, and how to prepare for an impending, economic catastrophe.
He’s bought into the Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, Glenn Beck line of thinking that the huge deficits Washington’s running up to bailout the banks and [...]

This report from CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight” says the “pay gap between pubic and private workers is exploding.”
It cites a study that says the difference in average compensation — that’s wages and benefits — between federal and private workers grew from 68% in 2000 to 102% in 2007.
The average compensation for federal workers [...]

The government has finally confirmed what many private economists and consumer groups, not to mention millions of frustrated homeowners, have been telling us.
Lenders simply aren’t serious about modifying unaffordable mortgages.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision studied 35 million mortgages and found that only about a third of [...]

Let’s opt out of “overdraft protection”
Congress and the Federal Reserve are considering new rules or laws that would stop banks from signing checking account customers up for costly and unnecessary overdraft protection without their permission.
It’s about time.
When debit cards were new, customers weren’t allowed to overdraw their accounts.
If you went to a store [...]

Many of the nation’s biggest banks actually made fewer loans at the end of 2008, even though they had received $148 billion in bailout money from the federal government.
According to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, outstanding loan balances fell $46 billion at 10 of the 13 biggest beneficiaries of the Treasury Department’s Troubled [...]

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The Daily Show With Jon StewartM – Th 11p / 10c
Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 2

Daily Show Full EpisodesImportant Things w/ Demetri Martin
Political HumorJim Cramer

Give CNBC’s Jim Cramer credit for showing up on “The Daily Show” last night to face his network’s headline-making tormentor, Jon Stewart.
But Cramer [...]

As you know, I do not understand why President Obama is pussy footing around with the big banks like Citigroup.
If they’re insolvent, you let the FDIC seize them, clean them up, and sell them off. You don’t go into business with them, as the Obama administration has done, and make the nation’s taxpayers partners to [...]

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The Daily Show With Jon StewartM – Th 11p / 10c
CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full EpisodesImportant Things With Demetri Martin
Political HumorJoke of the Day

When Rick Santelli canceled an appearance on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart didn’t just fill the spot with another guest.
Oh no. Stewart used the [...]

That’s the headline on David Leonhardt’s column in today’s New York Times, and it delivers a clear and simple summary of who’s suffering and why during the current downturn.
“What does the worst recession in a generation look like?” the Times’ economic columnist asks.
“It is both deep and broad,” he says. “Every state in the [...]

Why is the Obama administration hesitating to seize big, insolvent banks when it’s already throwing about two, smaller insolvent banks a week into conservatorships?
Just allow the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to do its job. The FDIC protects depositors, disposes of the bad loans and other assets that wiped out the bank’s capital, and then sells [...]