Over the holidays, the Associated Press reported on just how serious delinquent credit card debt had become. Here’s a snippet:
The value of credit card accounts at least 30 days late jumped 26 percent to $17.3 billion in October from a year earlier at 17 large credit card trusts examined by the AP…At the same time, [...]

Yesterday, as most people already know, President Bush announced a program designed to stem the rising rate of foreclosures.
By coincidence, yesterday was also the day that I (well, Mr. Footnoted) received this letter (pdf) from Countrywide (CFC), a company at the heart of the current crisis, offering us a “lower, more affordable monthly mortgage payment [...]

A few weeks ago, my passport arrived in the mail. Not the one that gets me into other countries, but the one from Chico’s (CHS), which offers me a 5% discount for the rest of my life. At the time I thought it was odd, since I was never a big Chico’s shopper, and especially [...]

Thanks, autumn, for finally showing up here in the Northeast. I can stop feeling sorry for all those sweaters sitting in store windows as women strolled by in tank tops. I’m not surprised that this press release issued late last week by Ann Taylor (ANN) said “unseasonably warm weather” had cut into October sales. Or [...]

Yesterday, many of the nation’s largest retailers reported their weakest October sales in 12 years. Among those whose same store sales were down were Macy’s (M), which reported a 1.5% drop and Kohl’s (KSS), which reported a 3.8% drop.
Of course, anyone who’s been in a store lately had to have known things were looking a [...]