For banks, some borrowing is cheap and they still won't lend: The federal funds rate has averaged 0.29 percent since the Fed cut the rate to 1 percent on Oct. 29. The Fed is expected to cut the rate to a record low of 0.5 percent in December.
The losses in global stock markets is staggering: down $31 trillion while write-downs and credit losses have totaled $1 trillion in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
The losses in global stock markets is staggering: down $31 trillion while write-downs and credit losses have totaled $1 trillion in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Home prices dropped initially in only a few states but are now going down nearly everywhere: in 80 percent of U.S. cities. The median price declined 9 percent from a year earlier and one-third of sales involved a mortgage default. New home construction fell in October to an annual rate of 791,000 units, the slowest pace since records began in 1959.
The biggest declines were in California. San Bernardino median prices dropped 39 percent to $227,200, Sacramento down 37 percent to $212,000, and San Diego fell 36 percent to $377,300. Elmira, New York, had the biggest increase in the U.S., with a 13 percent rise to $105,000.
U.S. companies cut 1.4 million jobs in the last six months, the biggest reduction since 1975.
Retail sales have fallen every month since July, the longest series of declines in data going back to 1992. The Conference Board's index of consumer confidence that began in 1967 fell last month to the lowest ever recorded.
Oil prices have fallen 63 percent since reaching a record $147.27 a barrel in mid-July. Consumer prices last month fell by one percent, the largest amount since records began in 1947 as gasoline pump prices dropped by a record amount.
Besides energy, the big drop in inflation reflected widespread declines. Core consumer prices, excluding food and energy, fell by 0.1 percent last month, the first decline in core prices since December 1982 when the U.S. was emerging from two years of recession. The drop in consumer prices was a reversal from just a few months ago when rising energy prices raised concern that inflation was out of control.