The Colorado Independent

Posts Tagged Banking

WATCH: Mint’s machine gun target of U.S. bank failures

By | 06.21.10 | 3:53 pm

Mint, a personal finance software site, posted one of those time-span graphics that have become the rage in documenting the ravages of the recession. There was the dramatic Slate unemployment map posted in December. Now Mint has made…

Calculate your eternal indebtedness to the credit card industry

By | 05.12.09 | 3:10 pm

Here’s a good game for a rainy Sunday.

Several credit card companies have launched a new Web site designed to help struggling card users manage their debts amid the economic downturn. The site includes tips to avoid penalties and links to access counseling services. But the fan favorite has to be an interactive tool allowing consumers to calculate the minimum installment required to pay off balances within a given time frame. It’s worth a whirl.

Regulating the regulators: the continuing Geithner problem

By | 04.29.09 | 11:10 am

Reading a recent New York Times article on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s relationship with the “finance club” he is charged with rescuing and regulating, Baseline Scenario blogger James Kwak makes a point many people have missed.

Obama enters banking fray while lobbyists rope-a-dope Congress

By | 04.28.09 | 8:04 am

President Barack Obama’s sheer popularity will make it harder for members of Congress to water down banking and finance regulations, but his willingness to play legislative hardball has already score a major victory over another key bank lobby priority: student loan subsidies.

Journalist “slobs” still looking to impress CEOs as Vanity Fair-era dies

By | 04.27.09 | 1:52 pm

At the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) conference yesterday in Denver, the opening panel featured mainstream-media heavyweights admitting that journalists “blew” coverage of the financial crisis, that they missed the “big story” as it unfolded over the course of a decade.

A root problem, as TV journalist Allan Dodds Frank put it, was the “posture of reverence” adopted by business reporters toward their subjects, a posture that sees CEOs as stars and “corporations as sexy.”

Bank execs looting customers, shareholders and taxpayers

By | 04.24.09 | 11:15 am

Some of the largest U.S. banks may be on the ropes these days, but the disparity between the plight of financial executives and ordinary Americans has never been starker. Over the past two decades, the banking system has grown accustomed to scoring massive profits by preying on its own customers, making 2009′s transition to pilfering taxpayer wallets an easy one.

After burying the economy under a mountain of unaffordable debt, bank CEOs are now finding ways to subsidize their own paychecks with taxpayer bailout funds.

Banks 1, People Zip. Congress delays credit card reform

By | 04.24.09 | 9:34 am

If Capitol Hill lawmakers were playing a high stakes game of chicken with the banking industry over your credit score, guess who just blinked?

Mike Lillis, congressional reporter for our sister site The Washington Independent, examines the winners and losers in the latest setback on credit card reform to rein in outrageous rate hikes and hidden fees.

Bankers and their GOP friends battle American people, cont’d

By | 04.23.09 | 12:15 pm

Monday, the state was presented with the downcast rural face of the banking crisis — the fallout in Greeley of the bad loans and shrinking reserves that mark the nation’s economic reality.

How many more Greeleys should we expect to see in the next few months? According to the influential Baseline Scenario bloggers, it depends on who wins in the great and mostly unreported battle that’s waging between the Finance Industry and the American People.

Greeley bank failure strains farm, dairy loans after old-fashioned bank run

By | 04.21.09 | 9:53 am

The failure of the $2 billion New Frontier Bank of Greeley April 10 has left farmers and dairy owners struggling to find agriculture loans to finance the impending growing season, The Greeley Tribune reports. “This is the time of year when farmers need to rely on a line of credit,” said Tony Miller, president of First FarmBank of Greeley.

State shutters, feds seize Greeley bank in largest U.S. bank failure this year

By | 04.11.09 | 1:24 pm

Colorado banking regulators shut down the $2 billion New Frontier Bank of Greeley Friday night and federal officials stepped in to cover insured deposits after no buyer could be found, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced. It’s the largest bank failure in the nation so far this year and the second Colorado bank to go under following the failure last month of Colorado National Bank in Colorado Springs.