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Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner offered a glimmer of hope to investors who are facing huge tax increases on capital gains and dividends next January. In a CNBC interview late Wednesday, Geithner said the Obama administration still hopes to hold the top tax rate on both capital gains and dividends to 20% next year – the level the White House has been proposing since taking office. Of course, a 20% rate would represent a big increase over the current 15%. But it’s a lot better than the 39.6% top rate for dividends that congressional Democrats have signaled they were planning next...

The latest estimates for the stimulus package are about $787 billion, a number so mind-numbing large it's hard to even imagine a number of that size. Yesterday's "The Gartman Letter" puts it in perspective for us: $787 billion would buy 4.6 million homes here in the US at the most recent median price of $170,300 for January 2008. $787 billion would send a check for $2,623 to every man, woman and child in the US. $787 billion would fund 7.7 million four year scholarships to the average private university in the US at current tuition rates. $787 billion would fund...

The Treasury Department on Wednesday began to apply a series of new stress tests for the nation's 19 largest banks as part of a new capital injection program that could lead to the nationalization of several financial institutions. According to the "stress test" approach, government regulators are looking at each financial institution's balance sheets and capital needs over the next two years and evaluating how much capital the company will need over that period. Based on that analysis, the government would press financial institutions to convert their taxpayer-funded preferred shares into common shares when losses that were forecast by the...

In an effort to attract private capital back into the banking system, the Treasury plans to allow firms to introduce preferred shares that can be converted into common stock as part of its new Capital Assistance Program (CAP). According to the Treasury Department, the program allows banks the "opportunity to turn first to private sources of capital, should additional capital buffers be deemed necessary for a financial institution." The preferred shares will carry a 9% dividend yield and can be converted into common equity at a 10% discount to the price, the Treasury said. Securities that have not been converted...

Madoff youtube video Humor is everywhere if you just look. I decided to have my friends at Flinch Studios, the folks who do our in arena Mavs videos put together a timely parody of the FreeCreditReport.com commercials. Enjoy !

While the Obama administration battles to keep people from losing their homes, one Florida lawyer said she has a better answer to the toxic mortgage epidemic sweeping the country - fight back against the loan servicers and banks that are improperly pressing the foreclosure actions. "The loan servicers bringing most of the foreclosure actions in the country don't own the mortgages and have no standing to take away a person's home," said the lawyer, April Charney, who has stopped scores of foreclosure actions in Jacksonville, Fla., where she works as a Legal Aid lawyer. In essence, Charney has forced scores...