Just as the housing sector appears to be recovering, gathering problems in the commercial real estate market threaten to become a new drag on the economy.

The collapse in home prices sunk many big banks last year, but this year smaller lenders and community banks are going bust at an alarming rate because of their exposure to souring commercial real estate loans.

At least 115 banks have failed this year, many because of their exposure to deteriorating commercial loans for retail space, of...

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Facebook was awarded US$711 million in damages from a convicted spammer on Thursday, but the social networking site is hoping a separate criminal action will eventually send him to jail.

Sanford Wallace was sued by Facebook in February along with Adam Arzoomanian and Scott Shaw for allegedly obtaining the login credentials for accounts. The accounts were then used to send spam to those users' friends starting around November 2008.

The spam either linked to other phishing sites that sought to co...

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"Clunkers: Taxpayers paid $24,000 per car"

A total of 690,000 new vehicles were sold under the Cash for Clunkers program last summer, but only 125,000 of those were vehicles that would not have been sold anyway, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the automotive Web site Edmunds.com.

Still, auto sales contributed heavily to the economy's expansion in the third quarter, adding 1.7 percentage points to the nation's gross domestic product growth.

...The Cash for Clunkers program gave ca...

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Loraine Mullen-Kress carries a Bank of America credit card and religiously pays off her balance.

"Flawless credit," she boasted.

Yet now, her good credit habits could cost her. Earlier this month Bank of America started notifying customers like Mullen-Kress that they will be charged a new annual fee of $29 to $99.

"There is a big segment of their population that they will have never made money on, which is people who pay their bills on time every month," said Ben Woolsey, Director of Consu...
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"Home builders' confidence slips in October"

Expiration of tax credit threatens to derail recovery, trade group says

Faced with the imminent expiration of a government subsidy for new buyers, U.S. home builders' mood turned more pessimistic again in October, a trade group reported Monday.

The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo sentiment index fell to 18 in October from 19 in September. It was the first decline since June. The index bottomed at a record-low 8 in January...

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Quote:
Dear Members,

First off, this does NOT pertain to most of you, but there are a few that this does pertain to.

I am NOT the best admin around, BUT, I DO pay members, i DO process ads, and i DO answer emails (when the system is not messing up) so that makes me a pretty decent and honest webmistress.

So with that being said, when someone submits an ad for 'getting paid to help cheat the script' i tend to get a little irritated.

If you try to submit any type of ad for cheating software or to ge...
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Whether a newbie or seasoned budgeter, nearly everyone has spending holes -- leaks in your budget that drain money with you hardly noticing.

These small drips can add up to big bucks. Once you find the holes and plug them, you'll keep more money in your pocket. That spare cash could be the ticket to finally being able to save, invest, or break your cycle of living paycheck to paycheck.

Here are 20 common ways people waste money. See if any of these sound familiar, and then look for ways to pl...

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