In the recent times, the consumers are largely attracted towards the different offers placed by the credit card companies.

• Zero percent financing
• 12 months no payment schemes
• No annual fees to be paid on the credit cards

Nowadays, the consumers have more buying powers than ever before. Sometimes, they feel like swimming happily in a sea of credit until they realize that it has got too late for them and are now drowning in a quagmire of debt.

What’s to be done when you find yourself in such a situation like this? There are professional services to offer aid to such consumers. You may opt for a debt settlement program and get your financial freedom back again.

In order to restore good financial status, many people have found debt settlement a good option for getting back. In such a program, a debt negotiator will work out an agreement with your creditors for settling your previous delinquent payments or unpaid balances. If you are behind on your payments and try to catch up, it may take you longer time to be debt free because of the highest interest rates charged by the creditors. A debt negotiating company will get your outstanding balance negotiated to half the total outstanding balance. The interest rates will be brought down according to your affordability and monthly payments will be set on your terms.

While you are in a debt settlement program, the creditor calls will get reduced because the debt negotiator will explain your situation to the creditors and arrangements already worked out. This way, the creditors will realize that you can now pay your debts with the help of the debt settlement company and hence, they don’t need to call you further.

In addition to these benefits, you can always speak to the counselor to offer you some tips for maintaining a healthy spending practice and keep your budget in control.

You can almost put any type of unsecured debts in the debt settlement program. In most cases, the consumers put their credit card debts in the plan. This is because credit card debt is one of the easiest and fastest types of debt to acquire. It takes a very long time to pay off the delinquent debts on which credit card companies will charge the highest interest rates. Besides credit card debts, you can actually put all other types of unsecured debts in the program. There are different types of program for every consumer addressing to their wide ranging needs.

Consider a debt settlement program only when you have gone behind on your payments and its negative effect and charged off account is showing on your credit report. Wait till the time if you can manage paying it on your own and are able to work out payment arrangement with the creditors for reducing the interest rates. If this doesn’t work, debt settlement is the best option for you.

Many people don’t realize that their financial history is at a mess until they decide to make a big purchase and are being turned down by the creditors. Be proactive with your financial situation in advance and seek advice from a credit counselor. You will never find yourself in a financial loss.

There are only few measures to prevent the type of crash that occurred in the stock market in the year 1929 or in 1987. The biggest question is can their be another crash? Or will the measures adopted really work? No one knows the answers for sure, but it is reasonable to assume that many people in this industry are working everyday to make sure that the disaster is not repeated again.

The stock market crash in the year 2000-2002 was quite painful, but if you think it was big enough, see the list of the ten worst crashes. It barely made to the list of the ten worst markets crashes in U.S. history.

Worst Stock Market Crash Ever:

Date Started: 4/17/1930
Date Ended: 7/8/1932

Total Days: 813
Starting DJIA: 294.07
Ending DJIA: 41.22
Total Loss: -86.0%

Investors lost 86% of their money over this 813 day beast. If you had $1000 on 9/3/1929 (beginning of the 4th worst crash, it would have gone down to a whopping $108.14 by July 8th, 1932 (end of the worst crash) or an 89.2% loss.

2nd Worst Stock Market Crash:

Date Started: 3/10/1937
Date Ended: 3/31/1938

Total Days: 386
Starting DJIA: 194.40
Ending DJIA: 98.95
Total Loss: -49.1%

Investors thought the market was finally good again, following a recovery of almost half of the great depression losses, the market plunged again due to war scare and Wall Street scandals.

3rd Worst Stock Market Crash:

Date Started: 1/19/1906
Date Ended: 11/15/1907

Total Days: 665
Starting DJIA: 75.45
Ending DJIA: 38.83
Total Loss: -48.5%

This crash was called the “Panic of 1907.” The U.S. Treasury department bought 36 million dollars worth of government bonds to offset the decline

4th Worst Stock Market Crash :

Date Started: 9/3/1929
Date Ended: 11/13/1929

Total Days: 71
Starting DJIA: 381.17
Ending DJIA: 198.69
Total Loss: -47.9%

It was the shortest market crash observed but the effects were deadly. Investors saw almost half their money disappear in just two months. Often this crash is the worst in most people’s minds.

The 5th worst stock market crash:

Date Started: 11/3/1919
Date Ended: 8/24/1921

Total Days: 660
Starting DJIA: 119.62
Ending DJIA: 63.9
Total Loss: -46.6%

This crash followed a post war boom (Stock prices rose 51%). After the crash bottomed out in August of 1921, this decade saw tremendous growth in the stock market and the economy (often called the roaring twenties).

6th Worst Stock Market Crash:

Date Started: 6/17/1901
Date Ended: 11/9/1903

Total Days: 875
Starting DJIA: 57.33
Ending DJIA: 30.88
Total Loss: -46.1%

DJIA records are not available before 1900. Take a look at the following facts to draw perspective of what things were like during this period.

• Life expectancy in the U.S. was 47
• Only 14% of homes had a bathtub
• Maximum speed limit in most cities was 10mph
• Average wage was 22 cents and hour - avg salary/year was about $300
• More than 95% of all births took place at home
• Only 6% of the population had graduated from High School
• The #1 cause of death was Pneumonia and Influenza
• The American flag had 45 stars

7th Worst Stock Market Crash:

Date Started: 1/11/1973
Date Ended: 12/06/1974

Total Days: 694
Starting DJIA: 1051.70
Ending DJIA: 577.60
Total Loss: -45.1%

This was another long market crash and people have remembered it for a long time. Think about the Vietnam and the Watergate scandal during this time.

8th Worst Stock Market Crash:

Date Started: 9/12/1939
Date Ended: 4/28/1942

Total Days: 959
Starting DJIA: 155.92
Ending DJIA: 92.92
Total Loss: -40.4%

It took nearly 3 years to recover from this crash! With WWII and the attack on Pearl Harbor, the markets had a very tough time.

9th Worst Stock Market Crash:

Date Started: 11/21/1916
Date Ended: 12/19/1917

Total Days: 393
Starting DJIA: 110.15
Ending DJIA: 65.95
Total Loss: -40.1%

The market during this period suffered about a 40% loss. It’s difficult to break even after a 40% loss. On a $1,000 investment, your portfolio went down to $600. To get back to $1,000, it would have to go up 66.7%!

10th Worst Stock Market Crash:

Date Started: 1/15/2000
Date Ended: 10/9/2002

Total Days: 999
Starting DJIA: 11,792.98
Ending DJIA: 7,286.27
Total Loss: -37.8%

This crash required the longest recovery time of all crashes in this list. The combination of the tech bubble bursting and the September 11th terrorist attack served a deadly blow to the stock market, but relative to markets past, this was a minor one.

Stock market falls in front of Thanksgiving Day about the worries of Mortgage Market and the high oil price. Wall Street restarted its journey on Wednesday because of the dropping mortgage market. Dow Jones Industrial average and S&P both fell by more than 1.5 percent, Dow Jones index dropped by 210 points and ends up at 12,799.04. S$P dropped by 22.93 and ends up at 1.416.77. And the Nasdaq index down by 34.66 or 1.33 percent and finished at 2,562.15.

The stock market is in negative mood for the year because of the decline in the S&P index. Many investment policies and the value of the mutual fund is dependent on S&P. The investors are shifting to the Govemment securities for safety. For the first time since 2005 the yield of Treasury’s 10-year note dropped by 4 percent. The stock market has been dropping for several days because the investors are gauging about the reaction of the companies after the slowness in the U.S. mortgage and housing market. People worried about the recent credit market and the increasing price of oil, the oil price has raised to $99 a barrel.

Loan can be termed in other word as debt. It is the redistribution of financial assets between lenders and borrowers. The circle goes in this way, the borrower receives money from lenders and they pay back to the lenders with some additional cost which is known as interest. Contractual agreement between lender and borrower makes a loan secured.

It is the principal tasks of the financial institutions to act as a provider or lender of loans. It is always important to raise the money supply in a nation and the bank or other financial institutions are playing that role.

Types:

Generally loans are categorized in two parts:

• Secured loans
• Unsecured loans

Secured:

Secured loan can be defined as “a loan in which the lender or borrower pledges assets like property, land, home, car etc. as collateral.”

Mortgage loan is one of the most common and popular types of secured loan which individuals used to purchase home. The financial institutions are given the license to repossess the housing and sell it to recover the due amount if the borrowers are unable to pay off the full amount of loan. Car loan is another type of well known secured loan, but its duration is much shorter than housing loan.

Unsecured:

Unsecured loan can be defined as “It is a loan which is not secured against any assets of the borrower.” Unsecured loans are available in the financial market in the form of different marketing packages like:

• Credit card
• Personal loan
• Bank overdraft etc.

The interest rates on these loans vary from lender to lender. These loans may not be regulated by any law.

Some Abuses of loan:

Predatory lending: One of the popular abuses is predatory lending. It works in this way; lenders put the borrower in a position from where they take advantage over the borrower.

Loan shark: It is known as loan shark when the moneylenders are not authorized. That means loan shark is nothing but a lender who offers illegal unsecured loan and with high rate of interest.

Usury: When any unsecured loans are given at excessive interest it is called usury.

The Federal Reserve is just a name on dollar to Most of the Americans. They don’t know the act of the Central Bank (Federal Reserve) to the economy of USA. If you want to know about Federal Reserve and its act on money, banking and to the economy then you must watch this video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-466210540567002553