Saturday’s Boston Globe reported that MA Treasurer Tim Cahill has approached the Treasury about extending credit to the state on terms similar to those that have been offered to Wall Street, and the LA Times says that the “Governator” of California has also written Treasury Secretary Paulson to ask for a short-term loan of $7 Billion. Read the full article

A recent survey finds that households that have put into place a comprehensive financial plan tend to experience greater confidence during times of market uncertainty than those that don’t. These households also are more likely to be actively pursuing behavior that enhances the likelihood of financial success. Read the full article

For the last couple of years, Fidelity Investments has surveyed parents of children under the age of 18 about their plans for future college expenses. The most recent survey of about 3,000 parents, reported in this news release from Fidelity, looks at anticipated college costs and family resources available to pay for college. This year’s survey found that 62 percent are counting on student loans to help cover the cost of their children’s college education. Read the full article

As residents of Houston and Galveston grapple with the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, it strikes me that every year, some part of the US must deal with a natural disaster. Hurricanes in the Gulf and southeastern states, wildfires and earthquakes in California, and flooding in the Midwest often leave lasting consequences for those living in the affected areas.
Although such events happen relatively infrequently in New England, the region is hardly immune from the possibility of a serious natural disaster. Being prepared for a disaster should be an important part of every household’s risk management strategy. Read the full article

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston recently issued an interesting analysis of the nature of the subprime mortgage crisis in Massachusetts. Using data on mortgages, home equity loans, and deeds recorded between January 1987 and March 2008, the researchers were able to examine in detail the nature of the loans that ended in foreclosure. Some of their conclusions are surprising, while most fall in line with what one might have guessed. Read the full article

Last Friday’s Boston Business Journal reported that banks in Massachusetts have cut back significantly in making both commercial and consumer loans. Also, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of Boston survey, since the beginning of the year, banks have been tightening their approval standards for all kinds of loans. Read the full article

Recent changes to the PLUS federal student aid program should provide last-minute help for families seeking to fund college or graduate school expense this fall. In light of the failure of the Massachusetts Educational Finance Authority to secure funding for a new round of college loans, students who were counting on MEFA loans are scrambling to find an alternative. With many banks withdrawing from the education loan marketplace, options for loan funding have been shrinking this year. Read the full article

The latest version of the Case Schiller Home Price Index, updated through the end of the second quarter, shows a continued decline in the broad housing market. Prices remain down versus 2007, but for April, May, and June, there were small increases in the Boston housing price data. At the end of last month, after a second month of small increases, the Boston Globe ran an article suggesting that local housing market may have turned the corner. Is three-month uptick enough to be confident that the end of the bust is in sight? Read the full article

For the fifth year in a row, Massachusetts will have a “sales tax holiday” on purchases of many items costing less than $2,500 on August 16-17. The Commonwealth joins fifteen other states and the District of Columbia in this attempt to boost in-state retail sales by exempting purchases from the 5% state sales tax. Read the full article

The Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority (MEFA) announced late last month that it’s unable to raise funds needed to provide fixed-rate private education loans, as it has in the past. Families counting on MEFA loans will be scrambling to find other funds in the next few weeks unless a plan proposed by Governor Deval Patrick succeeds. At the end of the post I offer some last-minute ideas for families who will be facing a funding crunch if MEFA loans do not come through this fall. Read the full article

Several MA cities, towns, and the Mass Turnpike Authority received some investment help from Attorney General Martha Coakley recently. Although it’s often assumed that institutional investors are sophisticated in their understanding of investments, the case initiated and settled by the Massachusetts AG shows that even “big” investors sometimes fail to follow one of the cardinal rules of investing: make sure you understand what you’re investing in. Read the full article

Although most of us are still basking in the joys of summer, winter will be here before we know it. The University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute released a report today projecting the impact of increased energy costs on heating bills in Massachusetts over the next couple of years, and the news is pretty bleak. Read the full article

One solution to soaring gas prices: walk there. A new website that rates how walkable city neighborhoods are gave Boston the number three slot. The site has a nifty mapping feature tied into Google Local that rates “walkability” on the basis of proximity to amenities: parks, restaurants, grocery stores, and the like. Read the full article

Yesterday the Labor Department released updated regional figures for inflation from June 2007 to June 2008. Nationally, the CPI-U, which measures inflation for all urban consumers, was up 5%. Read the full article

One of the consequences of the subprime debacle is a sharp rise in foreclosed properties. Some areas are especially bad off; in May, the majority of homes sold in the Sacramento area were foreclosures. Foreclosures nationwide were up 48% in May vs.the previous year (RealtyTrac.com), and in Massachusetts they were up 32% (ForeclosuresMass.com) over the same period. The rate in MA would have been higher but for a new law that went into effect May 1st, forcing lenders to delay foreclosure proceedings by an additional 60 days. There seem to be quite a few ads claiming that great deals are available through foreclosure sales. Is buying foreclosed property a "can't-fail" way to make money? Read the full article

On three occasions since 2002 the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute has ranked the states on the basis of how well they’re competing in the knowledge economy. For the third time in a row, Massachusetts ranks #1, while California slid from second to fourth place. Encouragingly, four of the top ten states are in New England. Read the full article

In the Boston area – and probably elsewhere – residential contractors are looking for work. For most of the last 20 years, and especially in the last decade, it’s been hard to find contractors willing to do small renovation jobs, but with the slump in residential construction, there appears to be window of opportunity. Read the full article

Elsewhere I've written about the localized nature of housing markets. I just discovered that there's a very cool resource at the Boston Federal Reserve Bank website that lets you map foreclosure and subprime mortgage exposure for each MA city and town. Read the full article

Mark Twain is credited with saying a great many things that he may or may not have actually said. Among these is the observation that “People commonly use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post: for support rather than illumination.” If Twain did say it, he might have had housing statistics in mind. If you pay attention to news reports, you're likely to hear widely-varying assessments of the state of the housing market. Who's right? Read the full article

There is a warm place in the Bostonian heart for locals who have become famous (or notorious, at least). One such was Charles Ponzi, the colorful fraud who emigrated to Boston in 1903 with a couple of dollars in his pocket and managed to become a millionaire by 1920 (before he got caught). Although he did not invent the “Ponzi Scheme,” he carried it off with such flair that when it recurs – as it does fairly often – it is invariably referred to by his name. The Associated Press reported recently that the SEC has frozen the assets of Safevest LLC and its proprietor, Jon G. Ervin of Mission Viejo, who apparently was seeking to follow in Mr. Ponzi's footsteps. Read the full article

The Postal Service has announced that the cost of first-class postage will increase to 42 cents for a one-ounce letter starting next Monday. The news has apparently ignited a bull market in Forever stamps. Is it a good idea to go out and buy lots of Forever stamps, as people seem to be doing? Read the full article

For some months, the number of articles in financial publications on rising commodity prices has increased noticeably. I guess it’s not a surprise that articles in the popular press on rising food prices are now cropping up with greater frequency. Read the full article

Journalists love ranking cities by all sorts of criteria. A recent addition to this genre is an analysis of the best cities for recent college graduates; Boston has been declared the Avis of post-college towns, topped out by archrival Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin is still getting his revenge on the Puritans. Read the full article

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