For months now, consumers have been hunkering down in an economic storm, buying only what they need to survive, like groceries, diapers, medicine — and shoes. The New York Times reports.

One of the federal government’s most opaque methods for bailing out the banking system allowed a handful of giant institutions to save up to $25 billion on their borrowing costs, a Congressional panel estimated on Friday.

The U.S. commercial real estate market, slammed by the credit squeeze and recession, is likely to hit bottom in 2010, according to a survey of industry investors, developers, lenders and consultants.

Nearly a year after leaving Bank of America under a cloud of controversy involving massive losses, executive bonuses, and lavish office decorating, former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain is set to emerge from his self-imposed seclusion Thursday at a hedge fund event in Greenwich, Conn.

Fed officials must weigh improving economic data against the risk that a burgeoning recovery remains on shaky ground. The uncertainty is evident within the Fed itself.

The economy and the stock market have very good potential to climb, as the strength of the recovery will surprise many, two market experts told CNBC Tuesday.

The European Union's former communist members spooked the West earlier this year, when some investors and analysts believed their crumbling economies could send shockwaves through the system and even sink the EU. The International Monetary Fund and the EU have pumped billions of euros in Central and Eastern European countries to alleviate the pain of the crisis, but their economies are still suffering. Click ahead to see what they expect for this year.

Britain's two largest retail lenders have agreed to a massive shake-up of the UK banking sector that will see both sell hundreds of branches and key businesses to appease EU competition concerns over state aid.

The world will slump into a depression similar to that in the 1930s if stimulus measures are pulled out too soon, an economist warned. But investors have a chance to make good money in stock markets, a strategist said.

Two months after going on the market, a house next door to President Barack Obama's Chicago home is still waiting for a buyer- and for good reason.

On the final business day of October, the Obama Administration released the most complete report yet on how the Recovery Act is performing in the greater U.S. economy.

It seems the financial crisis isn't all doom and gloom: one in four people are glad the world's economy slumped like it did, because it helped them realize their priorities in life, according to a global survey.

East Germans are nostalgic for the "good life" they had under communism despite a propaganda campaign to discredit the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the widow of ex-GDR leader Erich Honecker says in a new video.

More than 650,000 jobs have been saved or created under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, the White House said Friday, saying it is on track to reach the president's goal of 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.

Defaults by small and medium-sized U.S. businesses on the loans, leases and lines of credit they use to finance capital equipment investment rose in September as lenders remained reluctant to extend fresh financing, PayNet Inc reported on Friday.