News and Finance

Mortgage rates were mixed this week as the index of leading indicators fell for the fifth straight month, home prices continued their decline and consumer confidence reached a 5-year low, Freddie Mac reported Thursday.
The government-sponsored loan buyer said 30-year fixed-rate loans averaged 5.85% for the week ending Thursday, down from 5.87% last week. […]

Republican John McCain said Tuesday that government isn’t in the business of saving and rewarding banks or small borrowers who behave irresponsibly though he offered few immediate alternatives to fixing the growing housing crisis.
"I will consider any and all proposals based on their cost and benefits," the certain GOP presidential nominee, who has acknowledged […]

The European Central Bank on Thursday offered up to $23.5 billion to cash-hungry banks, aimed at keeping them supplied through the four-day Easter holidays.
The central bank for the 15-nation euro zone announced the €15 billion fine-tuning operation earlier in the day and said that demand far exceeded supply, with banks submitting bids worth €65.8 […]

In his first public testimony since his company’s product became the subject of the largest recall of meat in U.S. history, the president of Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. acknowledged Wednesday that at least two "downer" cows depicted in hidden-camera videos appeared to have entered the U.S. food supply.
He previously had denied any had gotten into […]

The author James Baldwin once summed up quite nicely my feeling about refund-anticipation loans, which are marketed heavily at this time of year by tax-preparation companies.
Baldwin said: “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”
When you’re living on the edge financially, you cannot afford the convenience […]