On Monday, President Obama announced that the U.S. Treasury would buy as much as $15 billion Small Business Administration (SBA) loans in order to further boost the secondary markets for small business loans. The fiscal move by the Treasury should increase the SBA's lending ability to banks and then ultimately to small businesses by further enabling those bank lenders to free up capital in order to make new small business loans. Small businesses are "not only job generators, but the heart of the American dream," the President said. "Too many entrepreneurs can’t access the business capital they need to start or grow their businesses." The new policy aims to change that quickly. Cynthia Blankenship of the Bank of the West in Grapevine, Texas said, "This is an incredible tool for community banks nationwide to help jump start the economy." Congressional leaders also hailed ...

The once booming business of private equity faces an uncertain future. What’s not uncertain, however, is that many private equity deals are imploding from the weight of leveraged debt and greed. Inevitable bankruptcies will result in higher unemployment and a deeper recession.

Private equity is an asset class consisting of equity securities in operating companies that are not publicly traded.  The name “private equity”is the rechristened, kinder and more gentile label for what used to be known as leveraged buyouts, or LBOs. But make no mistake about it, while leverage may not be part of the name any more, it remains a big part of every private equity deal.

LBO firms, or “franchises”, as Henry Kravis, co-founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), likes to call his shop, acquire publicly traded operating companies. Then they streamline management and operations to increase profitability and hope to cash out

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Consumer credit could be the next “aftershock” of this financial crisis, says Jason Simpkins. Banks have suffered big losses on mortgages, and are now looking to reduce their exposure to credit card debt. This could be the death knell for the American consumer, and deepen the US recession in 2009.

This from Money Morning:

U.S. consumers are already losing their jobs at an accelerating rate.

The same thing is now set to happen to their credit lines.

But with so many Americans already losing their main source of income – their jobs – at an ever-spiraling rate, will an economy that derives two-thirds of its power from consumer spending end up mired in its worst funk in decades because those same consumers are now losing their charge accounts?

Before you dismiss the possibility, consider this: The U.S. economy weakened across all regions since the middle of October as it became

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