Word: cards
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...expect a little bit of everything. Sears has quadrupled the number of items in its sales flyer to 677 this year, from 165 last year. Power discounter Wal-Mart launched Operation Main Street, presenting a new round of markdowns every week until Christmas. Mattel will give a $50 Visa card to those who spend $100 on select Barbie toys. Sears and Radio Shack are urging eco-conscious consumers to dump their power-sucking old equipment, offering gift certificates for the trade-in value. Likewise, Staples offers $30 toward the purchase of a new camera or laptop for buyers who recycle...
...perhaps the biggest wild card in the talks will be Tibetans inside Tibet, says Robbie Barnett, a professor of Tibetan studies at Columbia University in New York City. (There are 5.5 million, compared with about 130,000 in the global diaspora.) They won't be able to attend in person, but many of them are making their views heard through informal or secret communications. And with this group, too, there is a wide range of views, from radicalized former prisoners to those who are pushing for more concessions to China in the hopes of bringing the Dalai Lama back...
...Treasury Department says nothing has been finalized, but reportedly Paulson and his advisers are looking into using TARP funds along with some money from outside investors to buy up credit card, auto loans and other, non-mortgage consumers debt. The financing mechanism for that type of debt, often called securitization, has stalled like much of the rest of the banking sector. Paulson is hoping that buying up debts directly will be a better way of stimulating lending than just purchasing banks' shares and trying to force the firms to extend loans...
...some economists wonder why buying up credit card and auto loan debt is any better or easier to do than buying up mortgage bonds. In fact, when it comes to credit card debt it could be riskier way to use taxpayer money. That's because credit card debt unlike mortgages is unsecured. If a borrower defaults, there is no house to repossess. What's more, credit card debt, unlike a mortgage, can be wiped away in bankruptcy. (Read "Four Steps to Ending the Foreclosure Crisis...
...what the rationale for this new program is," says Baker. "If it was a bad idea for the mortgage market, then it's a bad idea in the credit card market...