NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nearly one out of every three U.S. home sales in the first quarter was a foreclosure property as steep price discounts boosted demand for distressed real estate, RealtyTrac said in a new report on Wednesday. Foreclosure homes accounted for 31 percent of all residential sales in...

theeconomiccollapseblog.com | At times like these, it is hardly going out on a limb to say that we are headed for hard economic times.  In fact, it seems like almost everyone in the financial world is either declaring that a recession is coming or is busy preparing for one.  The truth...

theeconomiccollapseblog.com | This week headlines across the United States screamed that new home sales in the U.S. had declined to the lowest level since the U.S. government began keeping track in 1963.  But in the news stories covering this data in the mainstream media, they we...

latimes.com | The city of Maywood will lay off all city employees and begin contracting police services with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department effective July 1, officials said. In addition to contracting with the Sheriff's Department, the Maywood City Council voted unanimously Monday nigh...

yahoo.com | WASHINGTON – Sales of new homes collapsed in May, sinking 33 percent to the lowest level on record as potential buyers stopped shopping for homes once they could no longer receive government tax credits. The bleak report from the Commerce Department is the first sign of how the end of f...

usawatchdog.com | Last week, three stories acted as signposts for the direction of the U.S. Dollar value.  The first is about a letter President Obama sent to members of the G20 (Group of 20 major industrial countries) in advance of next weekend’s meeting in Canada.  The President’s l...

slttoday | CASA GRANDE, Ariz. — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took over a foreclosed home roughly every 90 seconds during the first three months of the year. They owned 163,828 houses at the end of March, a virtual city with more houses than Seattle. The mortgage finance companies, created by Congress ...

yahoo.com | Former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan has an op-ed in the WSJ arguing that the runaway Federal Deficit threatens to turn the US into the next Greece. He doesn't actually think that the US debt bears any credit risk, due to our ability to print at will, but that there is a substantial risk tha...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Great Recession drove more families into homeless shelters in 2009, a new federal report has found. Some 170,000 families needed shelter last year, up from 159,000 in 2008, according to an annual survey from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. There were ...

BBC | Japan is at "risk of collapse" under its huge debt mountain, the country's new prime minister has said. Naoto Kan, in his first major speech since taking over, said Japan needed a financial restructuring to avert a Greece-style crisis. "Our country's outstanding public debt is huge... our pu...

thetrumpet.com | Greece announced on June 2 that it would begin selling off virtually all publicly-owned assets to shrink its budget deficit. In the midst of an economic crisis, the government couldn’t have chosen a worse time to sell—but there is little choice. If Greece wants the bailout money, se...

americanthinker.com | The Houston Chronicle reports that the Obama administration has ordered the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) department to implement multiple modifications to their facilities to make life easier, more comfortable, and pleasant for the hundreds of thousands of illegal ...

thecomingdepression.net | Carolyn Angelette said around 100 clients have canceled summer rentals in Grand Isle, LA. Other clients have postponed plans to buy a home until they see the full extent of oil damage. At this rate, she warns, her Century 21 office will go out of business.”   It is o...

theeconomiccollapseblog.com | Perhaps the greatest victims of the economic nightmare that is unfolding right in front of our eyes are our children.  The overall economic numbers are really bad, but when you examine the impact that this economy is having on children things get really h...

rueters | The report that was sent to lawmakers Friday night with no fanfare said the ratio of debt to the gross domestic product would rise to 102 percent by 2015 from 93 percent this year.   "The president's economic experts say a 1 percent increase in GDP can create almost 1 million jobs, ...

rumormillnews.com | You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much? Read this: Boy, was I confused. I have been hammered with the propaganda that it is the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us. I now find that to be RIDICULOUS. I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over...

shtfplan.com | Most Americans know that the U.S. economy is in bad shape, but what most Americans don’t know is how truly desperate the financial situation of the United States really is.  The truth is that what we are experiencing is not simply a “downturn” or a “recession”.  What we are ...

June 4 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is poised to increase the U.S. debt to a level that exceeds the value of the nation’s annual economic output, a step toward what Bill Gross called a “debt super cycle.” The CHART OF THE DAY tracks U.S. gross domestic product and the government’s total de...

thenewamerican.com | Bank closures throughout the United States continue to be telling of the state of the economy. Friday witnessed the closing of three more banks in Florida and one in Nevada and California, totaling 78 failed banks in this year alone.  Friday’s bank closings in Florida brin...

theeconomiccollapseblog.com | It is incredibly hard to put into words the absolute horror that is happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now.  The millions of gallons of oil that have gushed into the Gulf of Mexico and BP's efforts to fight the massive leak are turning the Gulf into a lifel...