Boston.com posted an article today, Reworked mortgages not working, about how more than half of delinquent borrowers who had their mortgages reworked earlier this year to avoid foreclosure were behind on their new loan payments after just six months.
Whose fault is it anyway?
We have the banks, who sold the mortgages, and the buyers who overextended [...]

What can you do?  If your central government runs the nations politics and economics into the ground?Â
No, not the US (yet), Iceland.  Icelanders protested and stormed the central bank over economic tensions. Â
“Iceland has seen its banks and currency collapse in just a few weeks while prices and unemployment soar — leaving a country regarded [...]

In the US we have the FDIC which insures deposits up to $250,000 (now, it’s up from $100,000 as of a recent bill).  This is per depositor, per bank.
What does the UK have?
The UK insures their money with the FSCS, Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
If you’re unclear about the details, the FSCS insures payments will be [...]

In the last two days we have seen dramatic action at yet another two banks, with National City (NCC 2.08 10/24/08) being bought by PNC, and now Alpha Bank and Trust of Alpharetta, Georgia becoming the 16h Bank this year to be seized, by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance.
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In the past two months, [...]

Regional Banks Struggled Through 3rd Quarter
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Based on quarterly numbers, three large regional banks report losses. One announced that it will look to reduce its work force by 14 percent. And a forth had 47 percent decline in profit. Â
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Breakdown: National City Corporation (NYSE: NCC 3.01 10/21/08)
 

Fifth quarterly loss in a row

Increased reserves for [...]

We all secretly worry about how safe our money is.  After all, why do we use banks?  If money were very safe at home, wouldn’t we just want to hold onto our own cash?
There are multiple definitions of “safe” when it comes to money.  

It won’t be stolen
It will be worth the same in the [...]

We’re all thinking it. Will Citigroup fail?
Well, lets take a look at the stock compared to the others that have failed.
Take a look at Citigroup’s stock pricing on Google Finance (EHD).

Citigroup’s 52 week YTD high was $10.03. Currently Citigroup is priced at $7.15.  Yes, Citigroup has gone down 15% in trading today (October 10, 2008).  Citigroup [...]

First off, I apologize for the title, I thought it was amusing.
After leading lender, Kaupthing Bank, was seized by the government of Iceland, all trading stopped.
The bank requested that the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority assumed the power of the bank.  The entire board has resigned, and the government is now running the board meetings.
The crisis [...]

Although congress has passed the 700 billion dollar rescue plan last week, most economist and industry leaders believe that many more banks will fail by the end of 2008 and well into 2009. The real quesiton is not when the banking crisis will end. But rather how many banks will fail in that time period. [...]

Although there is no official reason as to why the bank should fail, many investors have become scared of the possibility of UniCredit failing, and have caused the share price to fall more than 22% over the past two sessions.

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UniCredit SpA is Italy’s largest bank by assets.
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In an effort to shore up finances UniCredit is [...]

The United States Senate announced plans to hold a vote on Wednesday for the $700 billion financial bailout package. Their plan will include tax breaks, alternative energy and higher limits on insured banking deposits in an effort to sweeten the deal for House representatives, in hope of hash out a new vote this week.
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Breakdown:
Possible [...]

Fortis, the Belgian-Dutch financial group, which only last year, was part of the consortium that took over Dutch bank ABN AMRO is looking like it might be in trouble.
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The Banking crisis is no longer only affecting the United States, now its impacting the global markets.
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Fortis, Belgium’s largest bank on Friday denied that it [...]

WaMu becomes the 13th bank to fail in 2008, and the largest bank failure on record based on assets. The closets was Continental Illinois who’s 40 billion dollar failure occurred in May 1984
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However one man’s failure (garbage) is another man’s success (gold). This is the second major acquisition for JPMorgan Chase this year. After the [...]

This video goes into the history of how banks got to be the way they are.  How credit works, how savings accounts work, and how the fiat economy works (well, works or doesn’t work — how it operates).

Before all of this mess, there was an article posted at Seeking Alpha that reviews Wachovia’s (NASDAQ:WB)business, Is Wachovia the Worst Run Bank in America?
From the title, we’d have to say “It should” right?  I mean, since then we’ve had a few bank failures (to say it mildly) and Wachovia is still standing.  Shouldn’t the worst [...]