AIG plans to absorb $5 billion in losses for a dozen insurance units after their securities-lending accounts suffered $13 billion of write-downs related to subprime-mortgage exposure. AIG will also inject an undisclosed amount of capital into some of the subsidiaries. Investors, in general, never want to see the words "undisclosed amount of capital" in a press release.

American Express announced intra-quarter guidance today saying that the company would be impacted by worse-than-expected credit conditions. They expect their business to be impacted as economic activity slows and consumer late-pays and credit defaults on AMEX cards continue to mount.

A report released by KPMG, FTSE Group ("FTSE") and Asian Public Real Estate Association ("APREA") today states that the credit crisis in the U.S. and Europe has put pressure on the decade of sustained growth in global real estate. On the other hand, the report observes the inflow of capital to Asia's real estate market is accelerating off the back of a prolonged period of steady growth which is powered by a combination of opportunistic and increasingly longer-term investments.

MBIA posted a loss twice as large as anticipated by analysts, as the company was forced to write-down the value of its credit default swaps by $3.58 billion.

Many on Wall Street, the epicenter of the credit mess, seem to think that the worst is over. For the first time in months, analysts and executives sound upbeat again. Many of them see a broad, sustained recovery in both the economy and the financial markets coming in the second half of this year, a prediction some market strategists call hopeful at best.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson continued the recent PR blitz begun by Wall Street CEO's, claiming that as far as the credit crisis is concerned, "we're closer to the end than we are to the beginning."

The Premium Class New York-London carrier EOS Airlines is forced to shot down flight operations, but the planned investment does not close.

Want to know why stated income loans are called liar loans? Because people lie on stated income loans. Not just some people, some of the time and by some little exaggeration. It’s most of the people, most of the time by mostly large exaggerations.

As lawmakers return from their two-week spring recess, more a more voices are calling for a mortgage bailout. All those greedy people who profited from the housing bubble are now expecting the federal government to come to the rescue.

In an attempt to calm investors' nerves after posting $1.6 billion in losses on $3 billion in write-downs, Ambac CEO Michael Callan jumped on the bandwagon with all of the other financial company CEOs by implying that the credit crisis was past its nadir.

Autism campaigners in the United Kingdom have urged Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Chancellor Alastair Darling to help families with autism during the present financial turmoil.

The five-year-old Iraq conflict is America’s first “credit card war.” And like anyone who has run up a huge credit card bill knows, a credit card debt can turn into a crushing burden with long-term consequences. This, too, will be a legacy of the Iraq War.