Influx

While the “local” trend has been around for a while, it’s mostly been focused around the “soft” things like farmer’s markets and some large corporations acknowledged the trend’s presence by trying harder to appear more “local” and to be more...

While there have been a few promising innovators in the field of financial services, like Mint and some peer to peer lenders, nothing has really shaken the industry out of its lethargy and done something to meet the real needs of consumers.BankSimple could be about to change that. Instead of trying...

Edelman has just released it's annual survey and to prove it seems to be measuring the right things, the data it uncovered on banks is astonishing- their trust rating has plummeted like a stone- from the 3rd ranked sector in the US to the 9th and a rating drop in excess of 30 points. Looking at...

It looks like Americans are becoming allergic to debt, the numbers had been accelerating upwards every single year, The Fed started records in 1979, now it looks like they are tumbling downwards. What defines a country when new homes, new cars and the debt financing of those material possessions...

While money is tight and the world seems to be stuck trying to work out where it's heading next, the conference industry seems to move forward always looking for new opportunities to bring people together to network and discuss. Despite the tight caps on travel and expense budgets, if the topic is...

Of course, the time is right to launch a new bank complete with a new set of values, but importantly, a new way of doing things. Banks have been masters of trying to tell a story of change and doing very little about it. Ally Bank is a new entity that's arisen out of the former GMAC. It should have...

If you want to understand why we are in the mess we are in, you can do worse than read or listen to Gillian Tett. Gillian studied Social Anthropology at Cambridge and then went into journalism with the Financial Times. Most books on finance are pretty dull affairs, but her book Fool's Gold, which...

Clearly nobody understands what is going on, what to do about it, but most of all, how to explain this to the American public. An explanation in this clip of what happened stated here as September 15th,(more likely the 18th) and it's potential consequences is startling. Apparently, according to...

American Public Media 's Marketplace does a nice job of explaining Hedge Funds.A look inside hedge funds from Marketplace on Vimeo.Posted by Ed Cotton

Here's a great visual from The Deal that explains the packaging and re-marketing of credit. Sort of explains how the badness was turned into goodness and everyone slept soundly at night until the day they realized the badness was real bad. It's also the system that propped up the consumer economy....

We might be in real trouble, but our experts are confused and uncertain."Is the global financial system headed for a meltdown? From Nobel Prize-winning economists to captains of industry, the world’s top experts are united by a common answer: We don’t know."From Foreign PolicyPosted by...

If the continuing financial crisis has told us one thing, it’s that you can’t trust the experts. Everywhere you look supposed experts and authority figures seem to have been clueless; from the ratings agencies, to governments and senior officers and large financial corporations. It...

The subprime mess was the big business story of 07 and is likely to continue to be the major story in 08. Always a difficult concept to explain and understand, so it's rather revealing to hear this comedians talk about it in a sketch. It's clear from watching, that the humor comes from the...

The latest news from Fidelity investments announcing the departure of a key marketing executive who developed its recent brand campaign, is yet another example of the ongoing marketing battle between product and brand marketers.Focusing on brand building made sense as Fidelity had a great...