The national credit crisis, and its symptomatic rash of foreclosures, is potentially devastating for Baltimore city. It risks undoing modest and fragile gains made in homeownership in this beleaguered city. As housing advocates argue, homeownership is key to the health of Baltimore: those who own their residences are more likely to upkeep them and remain within the neighborhood, thereby stemming the tide of boarded up housing. Homeowners, as opposed to renters, are the building blocks of stable communities.

On January 14, 2008 the FDIC web site began posting the rules for reimbursing depositors in the event of a bank failure. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is required to “determine the total insured amount for each depositor.....as of the day of the failure” and return their money as quickly as possible. The agency is “modernizing its current business processes and procedures for determining deposit insurance coverage in the event of a failure of one of the largest insured depository institutions.”

As Americans begin to taste the bitter dregs of recession; the economy spirals to the top of primary election rhetoric. Briefly displacing the issue of Iraq.

As record numbers of homeowners default on their mortgages, questionable practices among lenders are coming to light in bankruptcy courts, leading some legal specialists to contend that companies instigating foreclosures may be taking advantage of imperiled borrowers.

Consumer confidence sustained its steepest one-week drop in more than 20 years of ongoing polls this week, falling to its lowest level since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in late October 2005.

Back in the 1980s, it was leveraged buyouts (LBOs, for which this publication was named, sorta). In the 1990s, it was the dot.com’s. And in this upcycle—do we ever have deep downcycles anymore?—it’s been private equity (PE). Sure, the hedge funds have been playing a major supporting role, but they’ve been around for a while. The stars—armed with an economic philosophy even—have been private equity. Sometimes it seems like the 1980s all over again.

IN 1985, THE FORBES 400 were worth $221 billion combined. Today, they’re worth $1.13 trillion—more than the GDP of Canada.

Economic Democracy Vs. Parecon: Debating Life After Capitalism
What follows is a debate between David Schweickart, author of After Capitalism and SolidarityEconomy.net editor, and Michael Albert, author of Parecon and founder of Z Magazine. The debate was sparked by Schweickart’s critique of Parecon, “Nonsense on Stilits.”

Housing slowdown creating 'ghost towns'
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The housing slowdown has turned some parts of the Phoenix and Las Vegas metropolitan areas into "ghost towns," where many unsold homes stand empty, Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, said Monday.