2009 August Finance, Insurance & Real Estate News: More Money for Write-Downs
The August 2009 issue of Finance, Insurance & Real Estate News, a monthly insert in Budget & Tax News, reports the Obama administration has announced ... (read more)

Congress Targets Credit Card ‘Swipe’ Fees
U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Kit Bond (R-MO) have proposed congressional intervention into a long-running battle between the issuers of credit cards ... (read more)

Credit Scoring for Insurance Benefits Consumers
Legislators across the country have been proposing bans on the use of credit scores in companies’ decisions to issue or price insurance, even though ... (read more)

Fed Panel Pondering Fannie, Freddie Future
As consumers across the country continued to default on mortgages, the nation’s two largest providers of home loans—the Federal National Mortgage ... (read more)

Feds Offer Insurers Billions, But Some Reject the Money
Some of the nation’s largest life insurance companies have said, “Thanks, but no thanks” to the Obama administration’s recent offer ... (read more)

Feds’ Stress Tests Criticized as Politicized PR Effort
The results of government “stress tests” of banks with assets greater than $100 billion—19 banking organizations in all—have evoked ... (read more)

How Government Can Mitigate Systemic Risk Without Bailouts
For the past 50 years, Americans have invested most of their financial assets in private and public capital markets. The risks we undertake and the way ... (read more)

Obama Expands Ineffective Mortgage Program
Congress and the Obama administration are expanding taxpayer subsidies to mortgage lenders and servicing firms for writing off loans to potentially delinquent ... (read more)

Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Sarbanes-Oxley Accounting Board
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case challenging the constitutionality of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, whose accounting and ... (read more)