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The news is grim. Housing values are dropping, subprime mortgage meltdowns are spreading, the stock market's uncertain and the overall economy seems to be heading into a recession.
No wonder plenty of us are worried.
Still, you can protect yourself. Here are some experts' top five must-make strategies to do your best now that the economy is likely in for a choppy ride.
Now that the subprime mortgage industry has collapsed, policymakers fear that Americans are shifting their debt to credit cards with deceptive and exploitive terms.
Cox and Alm need to read a disturbing report by the public policy group Demos and the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University. "By a Thread: The New Experience of America's Middle Class" says that only 31 percent of middle-class families are secure.
Voting Rights Groups Demos and Project Vote Send Intent to Sue Notices to Arizona and Florida for Noncompliance with National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
A report last year from New York-based think tank Demos found that about one-third of cardholders have paid interest rates in excess of 20%, and that borrowers can incur a "cascade" of penalties and end up in a "trap" of high-cost debt.
The nine states that have already passed election-day registration — also known as EDR — have seen an increase in voter turnout by more than 5 percent throughout the entire state, and more than 10 percent among voters in the demographic of 18 to 24-year-olds, according to statistics provided by Solheim and Morfeld.
While the downturn appeared first with the collapse of a relatively discrete sector of the US market-the so-called "sub-prime" mortgages-it quickly exploded, revealing a gaping hole in the credit system itself. As the former Chief Economist at the US International Trade Commission, Peter Morici, recently wrote, "The subprime meltdown reveals fundamental structural flaws in the US banking system.