The North Carolina Bankruptcy Information Blog

Need signs that credit card companies are getting more aggressive with their credit card tactics and tricks? Well, there’s 346 million reasons from one particular credit card purveyor, Citigroup.

Based on a new report from The Wall Street Journal, in the third quarter alone, the bank mailed more than 346 million credit card offers to unwitting customers. Keep in mind, that’s more than the approximately 308 million people in the U.S, according to the Census Bureau.

Despite this high volume of consumer credit offers, according to the financial experts at Bloomberg, revolving credit usage, which includes credit cards, dropped the most in six months in July.…

Last week, Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America said it would cut about=a35,000 jobs and reduce annual expenses by $5 billion, as it struggles with costs from its 2008 takeover of Countrywide Financial Corp and a nearly 50 percent drop in share price this year.

The layoffs could have huge ripple effects for the North Carolina economy.

Already dealing with double-digit unemployment in July 2011 (10.1 percent) due to over 100,000 state government layoffs, the state’s impending loss of additional jobs for thousands in the languishing local private financial industry could mean the slow-to-recover North Carolina economy could get much worse before it gets better.…

The big news recently seems to be rising unemployment, with jobs coming back into focus as yet another election season begins to heat up. But a recent jump in another bad economic bellwether—home foreclosures—is a new cause for concern in these uncertain economic times.

According to a latest reports, the number of mortgage-default notices filed by banks climbed 33 percent between July and August — the biggest single-month increase in four years, according to the data provider RealtyTrac.

As The Huffington Post put it, “Default notices are the first step in the foreclosure process, and the uptick in August may mean that lenders are beginning to clear the logjam that has held up home foreclosures since 2010.…

If you’re unemployed you have a ton to worry about.

Past due bills, mounting debts, going without health insurance, possible repossession of your car or foreclosure of your home, are just some of the not-so-pleasant thoughts plaguing the millions of average Americans facing extended joblessness.

Unfortunately, now there’s one more concern to add to the job market meltdown mix: a new report by the National Employment Law Project has found that employers are continuing to discriminate against unemployed people in their online job ads despite increased scrutiny surrounding the nation’s hiring practices.

According to a new report by The Huffington Post, “The jobs crisis is far from over: As of June, nearly 6.3 million U.S.…

As things heat up in the waning days of summer, the job growth cooled down in August, with the U.S. economy picking up [read my lips:] no new jobs in August as the unemployment rate stayed steady at 9.1 percent. These figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday now stand as the most clear and present symbol yet of a stalled economic recovery that has the words “double-dip recession” written all over it.

According to a new report from The Huffington Post, Wells Fargo economist John Silvia doesn’t believe the United States is currently in a recession now, but  he “wouldn’t be surprised if the economy enters into a recession in the near future.…

Historically low interest rates haven’t really reaped the kind of benefits they normally would in a post-recessionary period. In reality, economic growth has stagnated, the real estate market remains in the gutter, and consumer confidence has yet to recover to pre-recessionary levels.

But bargain-basement interest is also having unintended effects, including what the Associated Press called “killing savers”—like retirees and others who depend on interest income. In turn, the Federal Reserve’s low-rate policies may actually be hurting the country’s economic prospects, reducing the income of these “savers” by some 27 percent in the last three years, and therefore decreasing the amount they can pump back into U.S.…

As active duty service members come home from wars winding down abroad in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are welcomed to friends, family and staggering unemployment. Now, tens of thousands of veterans are flooding the job market at a time when millions of civilians can’t even head back to work.

According to a new report from Reuters, unemployment among recent veterans grew to 13.3 percent in June, more than 4 percentage points higher than the national average. “From 2008 to 2010, that rate rose from 7.3 percent to 11.5 percent, and it’s expected to climb further as more troops come home this year — 10,000 from Afghanistan and, unless Iraq requests some to stay, the remaining 46,000 from that country.…

Amid the lingering housing crisis, full of fraudulent foreclosures, falling home prices, missed mortgage modifications, and underwater homes drowning in delinquencies, many disenfranchised Americans have turned to renting to keep a roof over their heads, and their heads above financial water.

But new numbers from the Census Bureau and Morgan Stanley reveal that home ownership rates have fallen even more dramatically than previously thought, with average Americans avoiding the real estate reckoning through a variety of rental safety nets.

While, the official home ownership rate is around 66 percent, if you take out the widening number of mortgage delinquencies, this figure is actually 59.7 percent.…

Are you buying forecasts that we’re in a slow-but-steady economic recovery?

Well some believe the economic recovery never actually happened.

Just ask Nobel Prize winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. On the heels of the recent debt ceiling crisis, 600-point plunge in the Dow Jones industrial average and the drop in interest rates to near-record lows, Krugman warns that the United States economy was never truly ‘on the road to recovery.’

As Krugman writes in this week’s New York Times, “It’s not just that the threat of a double-dip recession has become very real. It’s now impossible to deny the obvious, which is that we are not now and have never been on the road to recovery.…

In this new “rough and tumble” economic era, 117,000 sounds like a lot.

$117,000 dollars. 117,000 shares of stock. 117,000 jobs?

Well, in all but one of those cases, you’d be right. In July, the American economy beat expectations by adding 117,000 new jobs to the current market and dropping the unemployment rate from 9.2 to 9.1%.

But what was truly great about this news of six-digit job growth was that it well eclipsed the paltry figures of positions added only one month earlier in June. Back then, economists had anticipated the June report would show about 120,000 private sector jobs added to the economy — barely enough to keep pace with population growth.…

No one needs to tell you times are tough and money is tight.

And all too often in this “new economy” (full of new financial realities), average Americans just like you—already suffering under the intense strain of rising mortgage costs, consistent credit card debt, mounting medical bills, employment woes, and other blights on your bank accounts—are also in the market for more ways to trim shrinking household budgets.

This was confirmed by a brand new survey from Harris Interactive, published this month, proving that two years after the recession officially ended there’s no real end in sight to all of the coupon cutting, penny pinching and wallet tightening.…

In the two years since the end of America’s recent Great Recession, there have been plenty of ups and downs in economic forecasts, fiscal prognostications, and financial facts and figures. Polls have also been a big part of taking the country’s financial pulse, as average Americans are often asked, “how are you feeling now, post-recession?”

Some experts will tell you that as recently as last fall—with news that businesses were back to hiring, some saying the housing market was no longer in a tailspin, and the economy looking less bleak than before—men and women throughout the country were beginning to feel better about their personal financial prospects.…

Just when the financial experts said it was safe to call the economy “in recovery,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says many Americans will face hard times for a long time to come.

Geithner reemphasized in an episode of “Meet the Press” that we remain in the midst of a very tough economy in which, for a lot of people, “it’s going to feel very hard, harder than anything they’ve experienced in their lifetime now, for a long time to come.” He also revealed that he believed  President Barack Obama has rescued the United States from a second Great Depression and will continue the hard work of trying to strengthen the economy.  Unfortunately, Geithner also predicted that it would be some time before many people actually feel like the country is recovering.…

Despite the continuing economic malaise, American spending habits appear to be alive and well, overleveraging already beleaguered budgets hit hard by the housing crisis, high unemployment and rising unsecured debt loads. In fact, despite lessons learned from the recent recession, Americans continue to spend about 15% of their household incomes on luxury items defined by “wants” instead of “needs.”

So where (and on what) are we wasting our money this time?

According to an article from 24/7 Wall St., reviewing our latest spending habits and the changes in spending patterns over the past two decades,  “The ten categories of unnecessary purchase can be balanced against the ability of Americans to save money or pay off debts.…

Recent gains for marriage equality in states like Iowa and New Hampshire have been met by a lot of legal questions for those who are actually considering marriage with their gay and lesbian partner. Confusing differences in relationship recognition amongst state and federal laws can create true legal challenges for same-sex couples throughout the country. These legal hurdles for gay and lesbian spouses include barriers when these couples seek the benefits of bankruptcy. Because the federal government crafts bankruptcy legislation and bankruptcy law is decided on the federal level—and yet, bankruptcy law is regulated on the state level—differences can emerge in the way cases are handled, especially where same-sex couples are involved.…

While a majority of economists and other financial experts firmly believe we are experiencing a modest economic recovery, a new poll reveals that a large, vocal minority of Americans feel that the economy will never fully recover from the effects of the recent “Great Recession.”

A New York Times/CBS News poll found that 39 percent of people responding believe “the current economic downturn is part of a long-term permanent decline and the economy will never fully recover.” The survey is one of many revealing overall distress with the current state of the American economic picture. Back in June, a CNN poll found that nearly half of Americans believe another Great Depression is either “very likely” or “somewhat likely.”

According to a recent article by The Huffington Post, there are even more signs that a lot of the nation’s folks are feeling financially fraught.…

In these tough economic times, some households have had to put basic needs above plans for higher education, turning to personal savings and college funds to fight off foreclosure, meet mounting medical costs, and in some cases, even keep the lights on and food in the fridge. In the wake of the recent Recession, many commentators have begun to question the cost-benefit of analysis of spending for higher education versus the realities of the jobs (and salaries) earned as a result.

But according to a new Gallup/Sallie Mae study, despite tightening budgets and high unemployment, most students and their families are not cutting back on education.…

If you’re like so many Americans experiencing tough economic times, you may feel completely overwhelmed by your current financial situation and unsure as to what options actually exist to alleviate it. Maybe you’ve been unable to modify your mortgage, hit with the costs of an unexpected medical situation, dealing with high interest credit cards or are navigating through the pitfalls of unemployment or underemployment with little understanding of how to pull yourself out of the subsequent a financial hole.

At times like these it’s often important to get “back to the basics,” separating fact from fiction in order to make an informed decision that can get you back on track for a better financial future.…

It’s no secret that a big reason for our country’s lingering financial malaise is the real estate market’s seemingly unending mortgage crisis—forcing many Americans out of house and home while also contributing to a bleak economic environment for home purchases, investment and spending.

But along with the knowledge that the mortgage servicing industry foreclosed on more than one million homes last year and is on track to do better in 2011, comes more bad news for the beleaguered economy: high unemployment is now further dragging down the housing market and subsequent prospects for our country’s economic recovery.

This news comes according to a new report from The Huffington Post.…

As temperatures heat up all across the country this season, so too are concerns about inflation, with rock bottom housing prices, and a weak labor market, adding fuel to the summertime fire. The result? Tanking consumer confidence in May, at least according to a private sector report released this week, and fears of something more economically-sinister a’ brewin.’

Based on a Reuters reading of the new economic data, “The Conference Board, an industry group, said its index of consumer attitudes fell to 60.8 from a revised 66.0 in April. The reading was below economists’ forecasts for 66.5. April was originally reported as 65.4.…