Free Republic

Recovery is still distant for a cruise industry scrambling to stay afloat. Shocking numbers released by Stock Apps show the industry is on track to lose around $20 billion in revenues this year. While $20 billion is an incredibly large number in itself, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Cruise lines worldwide are borrowing billions, refinancing, and selling vessels to be able to sail, hopefully, in the next year. The combined loss incurred by the cruise lines and the shore-based service industry supporting the cruise lines could well run into trillions of dollars in 2020. Huge Growth Numbers Collapse The...

Most anybody in the mortgage business will tell you that August was a month that will live in infamy: The market was in turmoil, as doubts about the stability of subprime loans spread to other sectors of the mortgage world. How bad was it? A survey of mortgage brokers suggests that one in three consumers who recently signed purchase contracts canceled in August -- up from just 4 percent three years ago, according to the research firm that conducted the survey for Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade journal. The cancellation rate undoubtedly was fed by two scenarios playing out: Many...

LONDON – The fate of the world economy hinges on what happens to house prices in America and that may not be a good thing, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said on Monday. Speaking at the Reuters headquarters in London, the former Fed chair delivered a gloomy prognosis on the state of the global economy – U.S. house prices are likely to fall further and they could drag the rest of the world with them. * * * “The critical variable in this judgement is the price of homes in the United States,” said Greenspan, who ran the U.S....