EconomicCrisis.US

North American mining companies are hunkering down to ride out a global economic slowdown; looking to rein in spending and perhaps delay some projects and exploration.

Barrick Gold Corp. and Newmont Mining Corp., the world’s largest gold producers, have been forced to wrestle with volatile commodities prices, fluctuating oil prices, inflation and frozen credit markets. Some analysts believe the industry will lower 2009 production forecasts but the impact primarily will be felt overseas, where most of the world’s gold mines are located.
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If you have a mortgage you know who collects your monthly mortgage payment, but do you ever wonder who actually gets the money? There may be no way to find out.

That’s because your original lender likely sold your loan, and tiny pieces of it have ended up all over the world. This is called securitization, a term you’ve run across if you’ve been reading about the worldwide financial crisis.

In securitization, pooled mortgages are divided into bonds and sold to private financial institutions, or to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored businesses that were supposed to help keep homes affordable by repurchasing mortgages.
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A recession isn’t officially a recession until the National Bureau of Economic Research says it is.

You don’t have to wait for them, though. The nonpartisan group often doesn’t declare a recession until after it’s over _ but when unemployment is high as incomes fall, you may know it’s a recession long before any economic brain trust has made it official.

Take, say, most of this year. If it has felt like a recession to you, you’re not alone.

Alan Greenspan, a former Federal Reserve chairman, said after Bear Stearns collapsed in March that “the current financial crisis in the U.S. is likely to be judged as the most wrenching” since the end of World War II. And Harvard professor Martin Feldstein, former head of the National Bureau of Economic Research, said that month he believed the country was in a recession that could be severe.
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Volatility rocked the markets once again last week with interest rate cuts from central banks around the world and further support measures from Governments and the International Monetary Fund failing to appease jittery investors.

The rising toll of the credit crisis carnage did little to dispel the gloom with Bank of England figures putting the cost at $2.8 trillion. Its half-yearly Financial Stability Report estimates that paper losses have more than doubled since its last update in April, with the UK calculated to have lost £123 billion so far.
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