Foreign Exchange: USA

USA foreign exchange rate calculation.... Not Yet Published...

Information Economy Report 2007-2008: USA

The Information Economy Report 2008 - Science and technology for development: the new paradigm of ICT, analyses the current and potential contribution of information technology to knowledge creation and diffusion. It explores how ICTs help generate innovations that improve the livelihoods of the poor and support enterprise competitiveness. The report examines how ICTs affect productivity and growth and reflects on the need for a development-oriented approach to intellectual property rights in order to enable effective access to technology. ICT has also given rise to new models for sharing knowledge and collective production of ideas and innovations, known as "open access" models, which often bypass the incentive system provided by intellectual property rights.

Subprime Effect Around the World

The mortgage lenders that retained credit risk (the risk of payment default) were the first to be affected, as borrowers became unable or unwilling to make payments. Major banks and other financial institutions around the world have reported losses of approximately U.S. $170 billion as of February 2008, as cited below. Owing to a form of financial engineering called securitization, many mortgage lenders had passed the rights to the mortgage payments and related credit/default risk to third-party investors via mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDO). Corporate, individual and institutional investors holding MBS or CDO faced significant losses, as the value of the underlying mortgage assets declined. Stock markets in many countries declined significantly.

Subprime mortgage crisis: USA

The subprime mortgage crisis is an ongoing economic problem manifesting itself through liquidity issues in the banking system owing to foreclosures which accelerated in the United States in late 2006 and triggered a global financial crisis during 2007 and 2008. The crisis began with the bursting of the US housing bubble and high default rates on "subprime" and other adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) made to higher-risk borrowers with lower income or lesser credit history than "prime" borrowers.

Subprime lending

Subprime lending (also known as B-paper, near-prime, or second chance lending) is lending at a higher rate than the prime rate. The term "subprime" in mortgage lending refers to loans that do not meet Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac guidelines. It may or may not reflect credit status of the borrower as being less than ideal and may not even reflect the interest rate on the loan itself.