As Election Day approaches, one of the most publicized presidential races of the past several decades has captivated the minds of people around the world and set records for participation in the US democratic primary system. As the first woman to run as a mainstream candidate for president, New York Senator Hillary Clinton has quite a race in front of her by anyone's standards.

On February 14th, a manufactured day devoted to romantic love, Wall Street wasn't interested or feeling any good vibes: The Dow, as well as most of the other major stock markets around the world, finished down on recession fears. Why so spooked? For one, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke elected to announce that, despite recent encouraging news on the market floor, the sub-prime crisis has not remained contained as he had previously predicted, but had spread to other sectors of the economy, in particular consumer spending.

After weeks of increasingly dismal reports from the financial sector, many regular Americans are beginning to worry that the US may be close to or already in recession. While government intervention in the economy is relatively uncommon in US history, since its establishment in the 1930's, the Federal Reserve has been able to manipulate interest rates, giving them the power to make all real estate loans more or less expensive by some degree, which comes with a hefty responsibility: controlling inflation.

The Texas Governor's Mansion, which is located a block southwest of the Texas State Capitol Building in downtown Austin, is the most historic home in the Austin real estate market and the longest continuously inhabited executive residence west of the Mississippi River. Built in 1856, the Governor's Mansion underwent construction after the Texas Legislature appropriated $14,500 in order for a suitable home to be built for the 5th governor of Texas, Elisha Pease, and his wife, Lucadia.

Recently the news has been dominated by developments with the 700 billion dollar bailout package, and rightfully so. 700 billion is an astronomical sum of money. The first problem is that the 700 billion dollar bailout adds a huge amount of money to the national debt. Not only that, some have hinted that the bailout is so large it could actually lower the US Credit Rating.

This week 30 year mortgage rates rose over half a point. This is the largest one week increase this year. It's interesting that the rate increases happened after the bailout was passed by the government. Although this is not a sign the bailout will fail its not a positive sign of its future effectiveness. The primary purpose of the bailout was to influence banks to lend.

The much anticipated speech was given; it was the details that were missing. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was expected in his speech this week to give the nitty gitty particulars about how the Obama administration will spend the rest of the money from the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, commonly called the "bailout." But it seems lawmakers and investors walked away scratching their heads, unsure of how exactly Geithner plans to stabilize the shaky banking industry.

Is the worst still to come? That is the $789 billion dollar question. Or in the case of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the 2.5 trillion dollar question. Despite Congress getting ready to vote on the stimulus bill compromise, the Treasury Department getting back to work on the banking system and President Obama's declarations that swift action will avert disaster, Americans seem short on hope and long on financial worries.

Maybe it was the stern talking to they took from Congress this past week that put the big banks into a charitable mood. J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America have all agreed to freeze foreclosures while the Obama administration works out plans to help bolster the floundering housing market.

As noted in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, "We will not add to the foreclosure process any new owner-occupied residential loans that are owned and serviced by J.

$787 billion is a nearly unfathomable number. What does it really mean and where it all that money going? According to the official American Recovery and Reinvestment Act website the money is broken down in the following manner:

$288 billion - Tax relief
$144 billion - State and local fiscal relief
$111 billion - Infrastructure and science
$81 billion - Protecting the vulnerable
$59 billion - Health care
$53 billion - Education and training
$43 billion - Energy
$8 billion - Other

The biggest chunk of the money goes to something called "tax relief.

The term "toxic assets" is tossed around quite a bit these days, especially now that the Treasury Department has announced plans to buy up U.S. banks' bad assets to the tune of $1 trillion dollars (more on that in a minute). Terms like toxic assets have become common place, like the terms mortgage meltdown, financial crisis and economic stimulus.

The term "cap-and-trade" is heard a lot these days when discussing global warming and environmental policy. What exactly is cap-and-trade? Well, it's the government giving companies an allowance (the cap) on pollution by setting CO2 emission standards. Companies that stay under the cap can sell (the trade) their leftover allowances to companies that go over the pollution standards.

In March of this year, the Obama Administration authorized a new federal program to help stabilize the housing industry. The feds poured a mere $75 billion into the Making Home Affordable (MHA) mortgage program intended to avert further foreclosures, assist responsible home owners in retaining their homes and stabilize the nation's communities.

Home Affordable Refinancing Program (HARP) and Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) are the two initiatives under the umbrella of the MHA that are being used to distribute the funding for the program.

In need of a loan to buy a house, make repairs on your home or buy a house and make repairs on a home? Are you thinking you might not qualify, though, so you've not started the process? You just might be surprised. The federal government currently has a variety of 18 federal mortgage assistance programs available to eligible homebuyers. Keep in mind, however, that most are for those who have very low- to middle-income and the home mortgaged must be your primary residence.