Free Republic

Despite potential tax and investment problems, more investors have been borrowing from their 401(k) plans or taking hardship withdrawals in recent months, some retirement plan providers say. Many in the field expect more borrowing in 2008, as consumers struggle with tighter credit and potentially higher mortgage payments. "I don't think it's a groundswell but it's enough to be noticed," said Rick Meigs, president of 401khelpcenter.com, which provides information on 401(k) plans. Increased borrowing on 401(k)s could be because of the credit crunch and slumping housing prices. To be sure, the indications are preliminary; it's too early to say why it's...

Fortune Magazine) -- Here I go. I am about to walk into one of the biggest sucker's games in the whole world of economics: declaring that the U.S. consumer is tapped out, so desperately in hock and troubled about the future that he finally just can't spend like it's 1999 anymore. And to be clear, that is what I'm declaring. Unless I can talk myself out of it by the end of the column. I must be nuts. One of the most reliable ways to look like a business dope over the past several years has been to announce that...

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....

Late payments on U.S. home equity lines of credit rose to a 5-1/2 year high in the second quarter of 2007 but delinquencies on many other types of consumer loans fell, the American Bankers Association said Wednesday. In its quarterly report on consumer borrowing, the bankers group said delinquencies in repaying home equity lines of credit rose to 0.77 percent in the April-June period. That compared to a rate of 0.60 percent in the first quarter and represented the highest rate since the fourth quarter of 2001 when the rate was 0.81 percent. However, the rate of closed-end home equity...