Will National ID Protect Us From Identity Theft?

(C4L) – According to the Department of Justice, the personal credit and debit card information of 130 million was stolen. They are dubbing this “the single largest hacking and identity theft case ever prosecuted”, according to Fox News.

“Working Poor” report: Nearly 30 percent of US families subsist on poverty wages.

A report released in October 2008 by the Working Poor Families Project reveals that more than 28 percent of American families with one or both parents employed are living in poverty.

The Expiring Economy – Paul Craig Roberts

Tent cities springing up all over America are filling with the homeless unemployed from the worst economy since the 1930s. While Americans live in tents, the Obama government has embarked on a $1 billion crash program to build a mega-embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, to rival the one the Bush government build in Baghdad, Iraq.

This Depression is just beginning

Too bad Pulitzers aren’t handed out for blog-entries. This year’s award would go to Zero Hedge for its “The ‘Money on the Sidelines’ Fallacy” post. This short entry shows why the economy will continue its downward slide and why the US consumer will not get off the mat and resume spending as he has in the past. The fact is the Net Wealth of US Households has “declined from a peak of $22 trillion to just under $12 trillion in early March.”

Why America is a Bank-owned State

In my last column I introduced the idea that America’s handling of the financial crisis, and in particular the way it has refused to deal with the banks, is more in keeping with how an “emerging” economy might behave and act. So this week, I will say that America has become a bank-owned state, allowing its banking oligarchs to suffocate the economy so they can survive at any price.

U.S. Foreclosure Filings Hit Record for Second Straight Month

Foreclosure filings in the U.S. rose to a record for the second consecutive month in April as banks increased efforts to seize homes from delinquent borrowers.

MSM: US foreclosures up 24 percent in 1st quarter

The number of American households threatened with losing their homes grew 24 percent in the first three months of this year and is poised to rise further as major lenders restart foreclosures after a temporary break, according to data released Thursday.

MSM: U.S. Home Resales Fall; Prices Drop by Record 13.2% (Update2)

Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) – Sales prices for existing U.S. homes fell the most on record in November, tearing a deeper hole into households’ already tattered finances.

The median resale price fell 13 percent from a year before, to $181,300, “probably the largest price decline since the Great Depression,” National Association of Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in Washington. Sales slid to an annual rate of 4.49 million, lower than forecast.

MSM: Home values seen losing over $2 trillion during 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Homes in the United States have lost trillions of dollars in value during 2008, with nearly 11.7 million American households now owing more on their mortgage than their homes are worth, real estate website Zillow.com said on Monday.

U.S. homes are set to lose well over $2 trillion in value during 2008, according to an analysis of recent Zillow Real Estate Market Reports.