Posts Tagged ‘credit card’

What are the Real Mortgage Rates?

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

The financial crisis is largely being blamed on the housing bubble that recently popped. Existing and New home sales had fallen considerably over the past year. Not till recently has there been a pause in the dramatic decline. This current pause has been largely attributed to the efforts of the US Government by supporting low mortgage rates and providing a home buyer tax break.

With foreclosures on the rise and property values around the USA still falling, what happens if the government runs out of political will and stops supporting the market?

Credit card rates have been steadily rising over the past few months as default rates have been gaining momentum. With very little political will for credit card debt, banks are forced to raise rates to help offset the rising risk. Over the same period of rising defaults there has also been a reduction in credit card use.

Without a doubt risk has increased on Mortgage financing. What happens when the US Government takes the “training wheels” off? Is the real estate market stabilizing or just reacting to short term government intervention?

Are Bank’s Balance Sheets going Green on the Taxpayers Back?

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

The Federal Reserve and the US Treasury Department have made dramatic moves (at a heavy taxpayer cost) over the past few months to artificially suppress rates to reduce the cost of lending. Unfortunately these actions also reduce money market yields.


Recently large banks have been revealing their surprisingly profitable beginning of the year. I would note that these so-called profits are actually not including further write downs on bad loans they have made.

Are credit card rates at all time lows? Interestingly the other day I received a notice in the mail from a credit card indicating that they were raising their profit margin (prime plus their margin). My credit rating has not changed. Are they raising their profit margins on their good standings customers to help pay for the bad ones? Am I paying for their credit rating being reduced?

So even though prime is at a very low at 3.25% it seems as though credit card rates have managed to stay the same. Could mortgage rates actually be lower than they are now? Are banks gouging us to claw back from the grave?

Consumer spending is down and savings rates are on the rise. It seems to me that the people would rather make more money on their savings than letting banks make more money off of us.