Articles About Financial Crisis

The Treasury Department is laughing all the way to the bank. Insurance Giant AIG repaid $2.15 billion that it had borrowed through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).  In 2008, the government helped the giant get back on its feet with a $180 billion loan.  AIG has been gradually repaying the money.  The most recent […]

Emerging from a financial crisis of the enormity that the United States has lived through the last several years, it is natural that the road to recovery is slower and bumpier than in a typical recession.  This is the opinion of Rick Mattoon, a Senior Economist and Economic Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of […]

Standard & Poor’s may have downgraded the United States credit rating from AAA to AA+ and the bears may have taken over Wall Street, but the Berkshire Hathaway chairman and billionaire Warren Buffett believes that the nation deserves a AAAA rating. In a recent appearance on CNBC, Buffett said that he still believes that the […]

American home prices may start rising as soon as the 3rd quarter as a foreclosure decline makes more homes available for sale, according to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan.  “It’s very unlikely that we will see a significant further decline,” Donovan said.  “The real question is when will we start to see sustainable […]

The Federal Reserve is identifying risks in the financial system that could someday erupt into a new financial crisis, but regulators must be careful not to unintentionally hamper lending as they set up new oversight, according to Chairman Ben Bernanke.   “We want the system to be as strong and resilient as possible,” and more intense […]

The Treasury Department is planning to sell $142 billion worth of toxic assets that it acquired during the financial crisis.  According to Treasury, it wants to sell approximately $10 million worth of assets every month, depending on market conditions and hopes to end the program next year.  Treasury acquired the securities — primarily 30-year, fixed-rate […]

The Federal Reserve made some serious money in 2010. The central bank’s profit soared to $81.7 billion, a record high, primarily from growing interest earnings on federal agency and government-sponsored enterprise mortgage-backed securities.  The Fed’s balance sheet — which also can be monitored monthly — ballooned to $2.43 trillion, up $193 billion from 2009, as […]

The Federal Reserve’s second round of stress tests requires the 19 largest U.S. banks to examine their capital levels against a worst-possible-case scenario of another recession with the unemployment rate hovering above 8.9 percent. The banks were instructed to test how their loans, securities, earnings, and capital performed when compared with at least three possible […]

At the instruction of Congress, the Federal Reserve has released the names of the approximately 21,000 recipients of $3.3 trillion in aid provided during the financial meltdown –without doubt the nation’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.  Not surprisingly, two of the top beneficiaries were Bank of America and Wells Fargo, who received approximately […]

The Federal Reserve has observed that Wall Street’s big banks eased credit terms for hedge funds and private equity firms in the 4th quarter of 2010.   More banks believe that credit terms have “eased somewhat” than those that think it has “tightened somewhat” in the last three months of 2010, according to the Fed’s year-end […]