Government Grants Aimed At Debt Relief and Small Businesses

Gold Standard ... Similarly, the gold exchange standard typically involves the circulation of only coins made of silver or other metals, but where the authorities guarantee a fixed exchange rate with another country that is on the gold standard. This creates a de facto gold standard, in that the value of the silver coins has a fixed external value in terms of gold that is independent of the inherent silver value...

Deficit Reduction In The United States ... Measured as a percentage of GDP, debt held by the public ranged between 23% and 50% during the 1971-2007 period, then rose significantly in the wake of the financial crisis and recession of 2008–present, ending 2010 at 62.1% GDP or $9.0 trillion... Causes of recent deficits and debt increases Economic growth and employment are key factors driving recent deficits...

Financial Position Of The United States ... The net worth of the United States at the end of 2008 was $75 trillion or 5.2 times GDP. Net worth Net worth is the sum of assets (both financial and tangible) minus liabilities for a given sector...

Loan ... In a loan, the borrower initially receives or borrows an amount of money, called the principal, from the lender, and is obligated to pay back or repay an equal amount of money to the lender at a later time. Typically, the money is paid back in regular installments, or partial repayments; in an annuity, each installment is the same amount...

Bush Tax Cuts ... The Bush tax cuts had sunset provisions that made them expire at the end of 2010, since otherwise they would fall under the Byrd Rule. Whether to renew the lowered rates and how became the subject of extended political debate, which was resolved during the presidency of Barack Obama by a two-year extension that was part of a larger tax and economic package, the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010...

United States Housing Bubble ... Any collapse of the U. S. Housing Bubble has a direct impact not only on home valuations, but the nation's mortgage markets, home builders, real estate, home supply retail outlets, Wall Street hedge funds held by large institutional investors, and foreign banks, increasing the risk of a nationwide recession...

Fiscal Policy ... Contractionary fiscal policy occurs when government spending is lower than tax revenue, and is usually undertaken to pay down government debt... Consuming prior surpluses A fiscal surplus is often saved for future use, and may be invested in either local currency or any financial instrument that may be traded later once resources are needed; notice, additional debt is not needed...

Loan Origination ... There are many different types of loans. For more information on loan types, see the loan and consumer lending articles...

Risk-free Interest Rate ... Why risk-free? One explanation for the assumption that no default risk exists is due to the nature of government debt... In this case, true default is theoretically impossible: owners of government debt can always be paid, but with money that may have substantially lower value...

Debt Levels And Flows ... Within mainstream economics, levels and flows of public debt (government debt) are a cause of concern, while levels and flows of private debt (especially households and corporations) is not seen as being of central importance... In measuring debt, stocks and flows are both of interest: stocks are amounts, levels of debt (e.g., $100) and have units of currency (such as US Dollars), while flows are changes in levels – in calculus terms, the derivative – (e.g., $10/year), and have units of currency/time (such as US Dollars/Year)... In order to make these stock and flows comparable between countries and across time, one may normalize these by some measure of the size of the country's economy, most often GDP, that is, compute the debt to GDP ratio...

United States Public Debt ... The public debt has increased by over $500 billion each year since fiscal year (FY) 2003, with increases of $1 trillion in FY2008, $1.9 trillion in FY2009, and $1.7 trillion in FY2010... As of March 29, 2012 the gross debt was $15.589 trillion, of which $10.831 trillion was held by the public and $4.757 trillion was intragovernmental holdings... The annual gross domestic product (GDP) to the end of 2011 was $15.087 trillion (Jan 27, 2012 estimate), with total public debt outstanding at a ratio of 103.3% of GDP...

Insolvency ... A business may be 'cash flow insolvent' but 'balance sheet solvent' if it holds illiquid assets, particularly against short term debt that it cannot immediately realize if called upon to do so... Conversely, a business can have negative net assets showing on its balance sheet but still be cash flow solvent if ongoing revenue is able to meet debt obligations, and thus avoid default: for instance, if it holds long term debt... Consequences of insolvency The principal focus of modern insolvency legislation and business debt restructuring practices no longer rests on the liquidation and elimination of insolvent entities but on the remodeling of the financial and organizational structure of debtors experiencing financial distress so as to permit the rehabilitation and continuation of their business...

Securitization ... Critics have suggested that the complexity inherent in securitization can limit investors' ability to monitor risk, and that competitive securitization markets with multiple securitizers may be particularly prone to sharp declines in underwriting standards. Private, competitive mortgage securitization is believed to have played an important role in the U. S...

Mortgage Industry Of The United Kingdom ... Finally, bad debt provisions relative to advances were only 0.4% for the top 20 societies compared with 2.8% for the four banks...

Islamic Economics In The World ... The only significant distinction between the Islamic waqf and English trust was "the express or implied reversion of the waqf to charitable purposes when its specific object has ceased to exist", though this difference only applied to the waqf ahli (Islamic family trust) rather than the waqf khairi (devoted to a charitable purpose from its inception). Another difference was the English vesting of "legal estate" over the trust property in the trustee, though the "trustee was still bound to administer that property for the benefit of the beneficiaries." In this sense, the "role of the English trustee therefore does not differ significantly from that of the mutawalli." The trust law developed in England at the time of the Crusades, during the 12th and 13th centuries, was introduced by Crusaders who may have been influenced by the waqf institutions they came across in the Middle East...

Debt Consolidation ... Debt consolidation can simply be from a number of unsecured loans into another unsecured loan, but more often it involves a secured loan against an asset that serves as collateral, most commonly a house...