Source: SMH
New York’s new masters of the universe are enjoying a golden age - thanks to increasingly exotic and risky credit derivatives. Stuart Washington reports. NEW YORK’S Central Park is a verdant green, and dappled sunshine plays on happy family picnics, Frisbee throwers and New Yorkers just lying around. But the city’s investment bankers, lawyers and traders have no time for walks in the park. They are focused on an entirely different kind of green: money, and lots of it. [more]

Did you know that USA consumer debt has grown by over 2 TRILLION Dollars since 1957? Did you know this equates to owing the company store for every man, woman and child in the United States - $33,000! Did you know that this year USA INTEREST on national debt will EXCEED the annual deficit?

Read Hugh Simpson’s explanation that includes a simple example to show you just how bad things are for every American. And he’s right, if those figures don’t wake you up, you’re dead. Either way, that is.

Source: The Age (AU)
There is a palpable fear spreading throughout the barbecue belt as growing numbers of working families — classic “Howard battlers” — reach the limits of their capacity to service their borrowings. Paradoxically, it is this fear that could prove either the Coalition’s greatest strength, or its greatest weakness.

Households now owe a staggering $160 — and counting — for every $100 of disposable income, up from about $50 in the early 1990s. Reserve Bank figures show that families are now siphoning a record 12 per cent of their disposable incomes into interest payments. That’s up from just 6.9 per cent five years ago, and well above the ratio that prevailed in the early 1990s, when official interest rates hit 17 per cent. Now, evidence is emerging that growing numbers of Australians are struggling to service their debts. It is resulting in growing bankruptcies, credit agreements and, evidence suggests, mortgage defaults and evictions. [more]