The ASU Repeat Sales Index (ASU-RSI) continued to decline in June, but the numbers contained positive signals that improvement is the trend in the Phoenix metro real estate market.

The deepest recession since World War II was caused by the collapse of the financial sector, but that disintegration is not proof that markets don't work, said Stanford economist Edward Lazear, who was chief economic advisor to former President George W. Bush.

John C. Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Mutual Fund Group and President of its Bogle Financial Markets Research Center, has been warning us for decades about the danger of short-term thinking and greed as motivator in the U.S. financial sector.

Warren Buffet said: "When the economic tide goes out, you find out who is swimming naked." The financial upheaval of the last two years has revealed a number of inadequately clad investors.

In his classic book on economic history, Charles Kindleberger argued that asset bubbles follow a predictable pattern. A new opportunity or technology sparks investor euphoria. Asset prices quickly rise to an unsustainable level. Then suddenly, people stop buying, and panic ensues.

In September 2008, the financial storms that had battered global markets since spring began to threaten the legendary investment bank Goldman Sachs. The 139-year-old financial titan had seen its stock plummet nearly 50 percent in a matter of weeks.

Bernie Madoff. AIG. Allen Stanford. When Marianne Jennings talks to her undergraduate students about business ethics these days, those are the subjects they want to talk about.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) recently came out with new rules governing "mark-to-market accounting." Entities employing mark-to-market adjust the value of financial assets up or down, according to fair market value.

Hope Berman Levin, the regional president for U.S. Bank in Arizona, recently touched on some of the rapid-fire changes that are happening in banking, during a talk at the W. P. Carey School's 26th Annual  Dean's Council of 100 Executive of the Year Luncheon.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced the Obama administration's plan to rescue financial markets yesterday. The plan was long on promise and short on details, however, which sent markets spinning.