Currencies of desire: what's wrong with the money system - and what hope for change? Vanessa Baird draws a few conclusions.
THE money system as it stands today is remarkably efficient. Remarkably efficient at making the majority of us lose out, that is. Our labour and its value isn't factored into its humming computers. The ciphers that zip across the globe, bringing hardship to the many so that a few...

How the Cleaver family destroyed our S&Ls; low mortgages, high CD rates, and money market funds allowed Americans over 40 to take the rest of us to the cleaners.
How the Cleaver Family Destroyed Our S&Ls After a fair amount of confusion over which vague entity ("deregulation," "campaign finance") deserved the blame for the $500 billion savings and loan crisis, congressional leaders and the press are helpfully trying to focus the nation's resentment on one of two...

Stealing home.
How the government and big banks help second-mortgage companies prey on the poor Just before the credits roll in the movie Tin Men, a couple of 1960s aluminum-siding salesmen commiserate about losing their licenses to hawk home improvements. A city commission has decided to punish the "tin...

Stop panicking over inflation; why liberals should hate Volcker and Greenspan and love low interest rates.
Paul Craig Roberts holds the William E Simon chair at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, D.C Why liberals should hate Volcker and Greenspan and love low interest rates Just the facts, ma'am. The 1980s has been a period of...

Appreciating depreciation: reflecting on that red-hot downtown residential market.
in the Pentagon, they like to say, "Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics." There should be a similar saying for Sarasota real estate. "Amateurs buy residential, professionals buy commercial." If so, the amateurs are having a field day in Sarasota today while the pros are hedging their...

The structure and growth of the credit union industry in the United States: meeting challenges in the market.
I Introduction THE DEREGULATION of the financial services industry in the United States, which began to be implemented in 1977, is now more than fifteen years old. Depository, investment, insurance, brokerage and credit type financial intermediaries have evolved into what is called the financial services industry. A complex...

How large is the federal financial safety net?
In the 1980s and early 1990s, U.S. taxpayers paid $130 billion to make good on the federal government's guarantee to protect depositors in thrift institutions (U.S. GAO 1996: 14). The crisis affecting thrifts in the late 1980s exhausted the funds that had been set aside by the deposit insurance...

Fringe financial services, inner-city banking & community-based solutions (1).
Abstract This article considers the cost of fringe financial services--including payday lenders, cheque-cashers, pawnbrokers--for individuals and an inner-city community as compared with mainstream bank services. The analysis finds that the significant costs associated with fringe banking explain a variety of community-based models that seek, in different ways,...

Swaziland: indigenous bank comes out tops; In a survey pitting the giants of global banking against the little ones, SwaziBank, the indigenous commercial bank of Swaziland, has beaten all its peers for providing excellence. Thandi Gumede reports from Mbabane.
It was a proud moment for Swazibank, the indigenous commercial bank of Swaziland, when it was voted the best development agency and the second best bank in the country. Other banks operating in the country are South African-based giants like Standard Bank, First National Bank and Nedbank which are...

Papering over the problem: killing the dollar to save Bear Stearns.
AS THE NEWS BROKE on March 14 that the Federal Reserve would backstop the rescue of Bear Stearns by JPMorgan Chase, it's unlikely that many of the drivers paying record-high prices at the gas stations off the West Side Highway thought to glance toward midtown, where two sleek towers...