My post yesterday about Congressional efforts to extend unemployment led me to a rather off-the-cuff comment about how efforts to reform unemployment have left those homeowners without a job to face the brutal foreclosure system. And the unemployed homeowners aren’t able to qualify for programs to modify their mortgages because they don’t have sufficient [...]

I put down my keyboard for a few days after the President signed the congressional legislation offering the nation credit card reform. The result has been a long vacation and four months of silence on this website. When I woke up this morning, I noticed a brief news story regarding consideration of the [...]

If you are unemployed and 60 days or more behind on your payments to CitiMortgage, help may soon be on the way, according to the Wall Street Journal. Citigroup is expected to announce a program today to temporarily decrease mortgage payments on loans of $417,500 or less to ~$500 a month for homeowners collecting unemployment. The program for those who have recently lost their job will also waive interest and penalties during the three month period of lower payments.

The program is a great idea, though I wonder about the execution and some of the exclusions. Why does this mortgage modification require 60 days of delinquency and exclude homeowners with jumbo mortgage loans?

Last week, Hyundai began running a commercial that offered an incentive for those considering buying a car but were nervous about losing their job: if you lose your job within one year of buying a new car, they will let you return it with no penalty.  I thought it was a brilliant promotion in the [...]

Today was a busy day for economic news.  President-elect Barack Obama announced his economic stimulus plan, Wal-Mart decreased its earnings outlook after weaker than expected holiday sales, the Labor Department released data that almost half a million more Americans joined the unemployment line last week, and consumer borrowing fell a record $7.9 billion in November [...]