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Latest
head-line news on mortgage, housing market, remodeling, investment, ...
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Only One
Person Knows a Home's Value: Its Buyer – Wall Street Journal
11/20/2008 House-Price Index Readings Can Be
Inflated, Built on Shaky Foundations, and Not Even in the Right
Neighborhood.
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Fannie
Mae, Freddie Mac halting foreclosures – biz.yahoo.com
11/20/2008 Mortgage finance companies Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac are suspending foreclosures for about 16,000 households
during the holiday season.
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Educated
Homeowners Surviving Housing Crisis – realestate.yahoo.com
11/19/2008 It's up to you to learn what you are
getting into before you embark on what's likely the most valuable
acquisition you'll ever complete. It's no surprise new mortgage
modification programs, foreclosure assistance and bankruptcy laws come with
mandated homeownership counseling.
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Is
Deflation Good for Workers? – Business
Week
11/19/2008 A key underlying cause of the
financial crisis was a fall in real wages. A bit of deflation may be just
what consumers need
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SoCal
median home prices fall 33 percent, sales soar 67 percent in October – San Jose Mercury News
11/18/2008 San Diego-based MDA DataQuick says
the median price for homes and condos tumbled to $300,000 last month from
$445,000 in October 2007. There were 21,532 homes and condos sold in Southern
California last month, up 67 percent from the year-ago period.
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Apartments
finally going up over 'the hole on Cole' – Dallas Morning News
11/18/2008 One of the most storied properties in
Dallas real estate is at last being developed after more than a 20-year
wait.
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Changing
real estate market prompts creative ways to buy and sell – The Providence Journal
11/16/2008 As Rhode Island’s house prices fall
to their lowest level in five years, people are finding their dream houses
on the market for tens of thousands of dollars less than they were just a
year ago. But as they go searching
for mortgages, they’re also finding that the skittish banking industry is
far more selective about who they loan money to, scrutinizing borrowers’
finances more closely than years past. Still, if you make the grade, you
can make out.
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Maybe There
Is an Upside to This Mess – Wall
Street Journal
11/16/2008 The market has tumbled, the
financial system is wobbling, and global economies likely are in a deep
downturn. But one big positive has emerged: The plunge in prices of all
kinds of commodities, from oil and natural gas to steel and copper.
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Real
Estate Close-Up: Houston – Miami
Herald
11/14/2008 While the rest of the country
withered under $4 a gallon gas, Houston and its commercial real estate
market thrived. Thanks to an economy heavily dependent on the oil and gas
industry, the city's office and industrial market posted strong rental and
low vacancy figures through the third quarter. But the choke hold on credit
markets, a limping economy and falling oil prices could seep into Houston's
seemingly resilient market.
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How
Much Home You Can Buy for $500,000 – finance.yahoo.com
11/13/2008 For many people who once only dreamed
of a $1 million home, today a $500,000 home is looking pretty good.
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Foreclosure
rates up 25 percent year-over-year – biz.yahoo.com
11/13/2008 The number of homeowners caught in
the wave of foreclosures in October grew 25 percent nationally over the
same month in 2007, data released Thursday showed. More than 279,500 U.S.
homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice in October, an
increase of 5 percent over September.
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Water
customers facing rate gusher – Columbus
Dispatch
11/13/2008 Ohio American Water customers in
Franklin County will see a big jump in their water bills soon. Yesterday,
the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio approved an average rate increase
of 30 percent for water and almost 37 percent for sewer service for
customers in Franklin and Portage counties.
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Real estate
investors snap up deals – Fresno
Bee
11/13/2008 Lower price ranges see the biggest
impact as investors grab bank-owned homes. After a two-year absence, real
estate investors, reacting to falling prices and an abundance of supply,
are back in the marketplace at the levels they were before the crash.
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New Mortages
Rules Aimed at Consumer – Wall Street
Journal
11/12/2008 The Department of Housing and Urban
Development plans to announce Wednesday morning its final version of new
rules designed to help Americans shop for mortgages more effectively. The
rules update requirements of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act,
known as Respa, a 1974 law that sets federal rules for home-purchase
transactions.
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Federal
program will offer mortgage help to many – Columbus Dispatch
11/11/2008 A far-reaching plan was announced
today to assist homeowners by speeding up the process to modify delinquent
loans held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or guarantee nearly 31
million U.S. mortgages, or nearly six of every 10 outstanding.
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A
Retreat From Retail, Consumer Slowdown Dashes Big Plans – Washington Post
11/10/2008 The slowdown in consumer spending,
along with the housing meltdown and credit crunch, are putting the brakes
on retail expansion projects in the region, which had been one of the
hottest commercial real estate markets in the nation. Developers here and
across the country are postponing, scaling back and even canceling retail
projects.
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Obama
wants to limit foreclosures - but how? – San Francisco Chronicle
11/09/2008 On the campaign trail, the
president-elect proposed a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures, giving
Bankruptcy Court judges the right to modify mortgages on primary
residences, a $10 billion foreclosure-prevention fund and a mortgage tax
credit of up to $800 a year for homeowners who don't itemize their
deductions.
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Charlotte-area
lot prices latest to take hit in real estate – Charlotte
Observer
11/09/2008 The crippled Charlotte-area real
estate market is feeling a new pain: Sales prices of home-building lots
have taken a double-digit dive.
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City
stuck with lots that were to be developed – Columbus Dispatch
11/09/2008 Like a banker holding foreclosed
properties in marginal neighborhoods, Columbus is saddled with trying to
sell lots in depressed areas to recoup the millions in loans it provided to
buy the land.
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New
real estate brokerage bucking trend opening offices – Palm Beach Post
11/09/2008 Start a real estate brokerage in a
recession? That's like going for a nice sail in a hurricane.
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How
do you make an open house stand out? – Washington Post
11/08/2008 Sometimes agents go to extremes, but
the glitz doesn't always help.
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September
pending home sales fall – money.cnn.com
11/07/2008 The Pending Home Sales Index for the
month fell 4.6% to 89.2 after climbing 7.4% in August, according to the
National Association of Realtors (NAR). Still, the index was up 1.6% from a
year ago.
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Mounting
job losses fueling foreclosures – money.cnn.com
11/07/2008 As the economy tanks, unemployment
is the major factor driving a much larger proportion of foreclosures now
than in the earlier stages of the mortgage meltdown. In June, 45.5% of all
delinquencies reported by Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) were due to
unemployment or the loss of income, according to the company. That's an
increase from 36.3% in 2006.
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Uneven
lending landscape: Mortgages plunge by 50% in some Brooklyn minority
communities – New York Daily News
11/06/2008 When it comes to real estate,
Brooklyn is a tale of two boroughs. The number of mortgages issued boroughwide
dropped 18% in 2007 - consistent with citywide trends. But in predominantly
minority neighborhoods such as Brownsville and East New York, the number of
mortgages issued plummeted by more than half.
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Weaker
Job Market Leads to Lower Mortgage Rates – realestate.yahoo.com
11/06/2008 Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) today
released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) in which
the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 6.20 percent with an average
0.7 point for the week ending November 6, 2008, down from last week when it
averaged 6.46 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged
6.24 percent.
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Obama
Makes History, U.S. Decisively Elects First Black President; Democrats
Expand Control of Congress – Washington
Post
11/05/2008 Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois was
elected the nation's 44th president yesterday, riding a reformist message
of change and an inspirational exhortation of hope to become the first
African American to ascend to the White House.
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Slow
Mortgage Start: effort to help distressed homeowners off to a slow start
– Wall Street Journal
11/05/2008 Lenders filed just 42 applications
to refinance troubled mortgages under the federal Hope for Homeowners
program in the two weeks after the program's Oct. 1 launch, according to
the Federal Housing Administration. Some estimates have suggested that it
could eventually help as many as 400,000 homeowners.
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Forecast
2009: Your home, The prediction: Prices will fall further before year-end
– money.cnn.com
11/05/2008 You know the drill - banks' troubles
have made it harder for many home buyers to get mortgages, and those who do
qualify have to pay more. A borrower with good credit and a 20% down
payment recently got charged an interest rate of 6.7%, on average,
according to HSH Associates.
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The
best time to buy a home – money.cnn.com
11/04/2008 No one knows when we’ll reach a
bottom, but you can get a great bargain, if you shop around.
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U.S. targets
firms promising to clean up credit records – San Jose Mercury News
11/02/2008 Federal Trade Commission and 24 state
agencies announced the kickoff of "Operation Clean Sweep,'' targeting
credit fix-up operations nationwide that allegedly take consumers' money in
exchange for boosts in credit scores that they cannot deliver.
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Living
small as Downsizing gains toehold among home buyers – Columbus
Dispatch
11/02/2008 Living small as Downsizing gains
toehold among home buyers.
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High
real estate inventory may mean bargains in Palm Beach – Palm Beach Daily News
11/01/2008 For once-distant admirers of Palm
Beach's elegant lifestyle, now could be the time to make the hop onto the island.
According to a count on the Multiple Listing Service this week, there were
120 single-family homes from the North End to Sloan's Curve priced between
$1 million and $5 million.
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Fighting
Fear With Information – Washington
Post
11/01/2008 The mortgage world has suddenly
become very frightening to many people who have no real reason to be frightened.
One thing that people suffering from mortgage fright often forget is that a
mortgage loan is a contract between two parties and cannot be violated by
either without the permission of the other.
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As
Seen On TV? Not Exactly – Washington
Post
11/01/2008 Real Estate Shows Help Educate
Public, but They Skip the Drudgery.
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No
Time for Wishful Pricing – New York
Times
10/31/2008 Those needing to make a sale can’t
afford to start out with a wishfully high asking price.
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JPMorgan
expanding mortgage-modification program – news.yahoo.com
10/31/2008 JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Friday
became the latest major bank to beef up its mortgage modification efforts.
JPMorgan's expanded program aims to help avoid foreclosures on an estimated
$70 billion in loans, which could help as many as 400,000 customers. The
New York-based banking giant has already modified about $40 billion in
mortgages, helping 250,000 customers since early 2007.
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Gifting Your
House and Living in It, Too – Wall
Street Journal
10/30/2008 Plunging real-estate values have
made it an opportune time for older homeowners to give property to their
children, while realizing big savings on gift and estate taxes. They can do
this by moving the home out of their estate with a so-called qualified
personal residence trust, or QPRT, which allows homeowners to live in a
property for many years before passing it on to their heirs.
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Government
May Guarantee 3 Million Mortgages – Washington Post
10/29/2008 Officials with the Treasury and the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. are nearing agreement on a plan under which
the government would guarantee the mortgages of millions of homeowners now
struggling to avoid foreclosure. According to three sources familiar with
the discussions, the plan would cover up to three million homeowners. It
would cost between $40 billion and $50 billion and cover as much as $600
billion in mortgage loans.
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Mortgage
applications jump 17% on lower rates – money.cnn.com
10/29/2008 Borrowers streamed back into the
mortgage market last week as loan applications jumped nearly 17%, according
to a regular survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
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September new home sales
rise by 2.7 percent – biz.yahoo.com
10/27/2008 Sales of new single-family homes
rose by 2.7 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of
464,000 homes, Commerce said. Economists had expected sales would drop from
the August level. The median price of a new home sold in September declined
by 9.1 percent from a year ago to $218,400, the lowest price level since
September 2004, a period when home prices were rising rapidly as the
country experienced a five-year housing boom.
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Fresh Tumult
as Signs of Recession Go Global – Wall
Street Journal
10/25/2008 In rich countries and poor countries
alike, markets are plunging, companies are scrambling for credit and
cutting their growth plans and consumers are keeping cash in their pockets.
The U.S. and some governments in Europe and Asia are spending heavily to
stanch the problems in markets and Main Streets globally, but the attempts
have not halted the damage. Fears of a prolonged recession pushed shares
down across the world on Friday. The slide started in Asia, where the
benchmark Nikkei Stock Average fell 9.6% to a five-year low of 7649.08, and
markets in Hong Kong, Mumbai and Seoul registered similar declines. Europe
followed next, where the pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index fell 4.7%
to 198.80, dropping below 200 for the first time since mid 2003. In the
U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 312 points, or 3.6%, to finish
at 8378.95, a 5 1/2-year low.
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Global
Shares Plummet on Gloomy Data, US Trading Halted Before Opening – New York Times
10/24/2008 Stocks plummeted worldwide on Friday,
and United States futures fell so steeply that they reached their daily permissible
limits, indicating a sharp decline in share prices when official trading
opens in New York. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 550
points and both it and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index were locked,
although the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq said trading in the
official markets would open as normal at 9:30 a.m., Eastern time.
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Treasury
Considers Backing Mortgages: FDIC Proposal Aims to Help Homeowners – Washington Post
10/24/2008 The proposal by FDIC Chairman Sheila
C. Bair, presented to the Senate Banking Committee, represents the most
detailed idea yet on how the $700 billion federal rescue package might
directly address the blight of foreclosures sweeping the nation.
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Hot
Market: Orlando Searing As Market Turns – realestate.yahoo.com/
10/24/2008 Realtors in the Orlando, Florida,
area have found themselves very busy this fall. Sales are up a whopping 37
percent in September with more than 1,300 buyers moving into their new homes
compared to the same period a year ago. With prices slipping about 9
percent to a median sales price of $182,000, the area's affordability index
leapt in September to 123.74 percent.
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US
foreclosure filings up 71 percent in 3Q – news.yahoo.com
10/23/2008 Nationwide, nearly 766,000 homes
received at least one foreclosure-related notice from July through
September, up 71% from a year earlier, said foreclosure listing service
RealtyTrac Inc. Six states - CA, FL, AZ, OH, MI and NV - accounted for more
than 60 percent of all foreclosure activity in the quarter, with CA alone
making up more than a quarter of all U.S. foreclosure filings. Detroit and
Atlanta were the only cities outside CA, FL, NV and AZ to make RealtyTrac's
list of the 20 hardest-hit metropolitan areas.
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AEP
customers criticize proposed 15% rate hike – Columbus Dispatch
10/21/2008 Stung by a slumping economy and
rising expenses, several American Electric Power customers said today that
they can't afford the utility's plan to raise rates about 15 percent in
each of the next three years.
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Not
all Foreclosures are Created Equal – realestate.yahoo.com
10/20/2008 Within the realm of real estate
investing each type of investing has its good and bad times to buy.
Understanding not only what market you should be investing in, what area
within the category you should look to specialize in, and when to buy in
the cycle will be critical to maximizing the potential of your investment
while reducing the risk to the lowest possible level.
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Yes, you
can still get a mortgage – San
Jose Mercury News
10/19/2008 It would be a big stretch to label
housing the sunny side of the market at the moment, but there's a lot more
light there than in most other financial sectors.
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Loan
Regulation Probably Wouldn't Have Prevented This Crisis – Washington Post
10/18/2008 With a presidential campaign in the
middle of a financial crisis, it is not surprising that we are besieged
with misinformation. Much of it is finger-pointing about responsibility for
the absence of effective regulation that would have prevented or moderated
the crisis. Who has political responsibility for inadequate regulation?
There are two financial sectors where more extensive regulation might have
made a difference: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
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Fallout from
financial crisis hammers housing – biz.yahoo.com
10/17/2008 Financial crisis takes toll on
battered housing market; Wall St. ends week with relative calm. The nation
is on track to build fewer homes this year than at any time since the end
of World War II, adding to the woes of an economy that analysts said Friday
has almost certainly entered a recession.
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The
bright spot in a dark economy: Saving is on the rise – money.cnn.com
10/16/2008 Saving is on the rise. That's a
long-term good, though it won't help battered job and housing markets.
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Home
Prices Seem Far From Bottom – New
York Times
10/15/2008 Home prices across much of the
country are likely to fall through late 2009, economists say, and in some
markets the trend could last even longer depending on the severity of the
anticipated recession.
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Manic
Monday: Dow roars back from worst week ever – news.yahoo.com
10/13/2008 Wall Street stormed back after its worst
week ever and staged the biggest single-day stock rally since the Great
Depression on Monday, catapulting the Dow Jones industrials to a 936-point
gain and finally offering relief from eight consecutive days of stock
market carnage.
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Deed
the House to Your Child or Put It in Your Will? First, Do Your Homework
– Washington Post
10/11/2008 There may be serious tax
consequences if you transfer your property to your children while you are
living. You might not be doing them a favor.
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Market's
7-Day Rout Leaves U.S. Reeling – Wall
Street Journal
10/10/2008 Stocks in a Slow-Motion Crash as Dow
Drops Another 679 Points; Dow Jones Industrial Average broke through
another milestone, closing below 9000 for the first time since 2003; After
Year of Declines, Investors Lose $8.4 Trillion of Wealth.
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Incomes
no match for housing, as financial squeeze got tighter from 96 to 06 – Columbus Dispatch
10/09/2008 Mortgages, utilities, insurance
soared 65% in a decade as pay rose 36%
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Dow's Damage:
13% in Five Days, Industrials Lose 508.39 Points, and the S&P Slips
Under 1000 – Wall Street Journal
10/08/2008 Stocks fell for the fifth straight
day as traders and investors turned their focus back to troubled financial
companies and brushed aside potentially positive news on interest rates
from the Federal Reserve. After gains at the start of the session, stocks
turned down steadily around midday. A late-day rout left the Dow Jones
Industrial Average 508.39 points, or 5.1%, lower at 9447.11, its lowest
close since Sept. 30, 2003.
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Housing Pain
Gauge: Nearly 1 in 6 Owners 'Under Water' – Wall Street Journal
10/08/2008 More Defaults and Foreclosures Are
Likely as Borrowers With Greater Debt Than Value in Their Homes Are Put in
a Tight Spot
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FHA
wants help handling increase in loans – Columbus Dispatch
10/05/2008 The Federal Housing Administration
-- the Depression-era home-loan insurance agency that still offers 3
percent down, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with consumer-friendly credit
standards, even on large loans in high-cost areas of California and the
East Coast.
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Bailout
Will Help, but Pitfalls Remain – biz.yahoo.com
10/03/2008 With the feds stepping into the
bloodbath, the hemorrhaging should stop. But the economy is still in
precarious shape, and unrealistic expectations about the bailout could end
up disappointing consumers hoping for some kind of immediate relief.
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House
Approves $700B Financial Rescue Package, President Bush Signs Bill Into Law
Same Afternoon – Washington
Post
10/03/2008 In a dramatic reversal, the House
today approved by a comfortable margin a $700 billion financial rescue
package that will bring the greatest intervention of the federal government
into the private marketplace since the Great Depression, attempting to
prevent the economy from sliding into a deep recession.
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Buffett’s
Bet on G.E.: Almost as Good as a Bailout – New York Times
10/02/2008 Mr. Buffett, the billionaire investor, announced on Wednesday
that he would invest $3 billion in General Electric, the industrial giant
that is also the nation’s largest nonbank financial company. The move comes
eight days after he said he would invest $5 billion in Goldman Sachs.
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