The publishing industry is experiencing an new and booming business in e-books. According to Forrester Research, consumers spent $1 billion on e-books in 2010. That number is expected to triple by 2015. In the US there were about 10 million e-readers in circulation in 2010, triple that of 2009.

The two leading players in the e-reader market are Amazon (AMZN) with its Kindle and Barnes and Noble's (BKS) Nook. With these readers a single reader can use the reader or a friend can be added as long as they know each other's email, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In another sign that banks remain hesitant about lending to each other amid the European debt crisis, the three-month Libor, or London interbank offered rate for loans in dollars, rose Wednesday for the 12th straight day, to 0.538% -- its highest level since July 6, 2009, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday.

The Libor, which serves as a sort of 'ATM for banks,' rose to a stratospheric high of 3.65% during the financial crisis' acute stage when Lehman Brothers collapsed in the fall of 2008. The rate also serves as the benchmark for about $360 trillion in financial products globally, encompassing everything from mortgages to student loans.

Everyone wants the banks to lend more -- even the nation's chief executive. But absent a supermajority in Congress (it takes 60 votes to get major legislation passed in the Senate), what can one do to get the banks to lend?

Like President Obama, one can request, make a strong it's-in-the-interest-of-the-banks case for increased lending, but at the end of the day, given the U.S.'s economic system, it's still a private sector matter and the bankers' call.

The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) issued its statement indicating again that interest rates will remain low for an extended period of time. The decision was unanimous.

The Fed continues to avoid any potential language which could disrupt the financial markets. Chairman Bernanke, a student of the Great Depression, does not want to do anything to damage the current stabilization in the economy.

In an appearance on CNBC today, Donald Trump argued that it's time for the federal government to step in and force banks to lend. "Banks are not lending money, no matter how prime you are," Trump said. "The economy can't come back until the banks start lending."

"I don't think any bank in this country is soliciting loans," he added "Banks are bragging about the fact that they're making loans and they're not making loans."

It's been a week of mostly positive data points for U.S. investors. Here's another: the Libor-OIS spread has narrowed to a level former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said he regarded as "normal."

The Libor-OIS spread, which measures the reluctance among banks to lend, fell 1 basis point Thursday to 25 basis points -- its lowest level since January 24, 2008, Bloomberg News reported. The spread had surged to an incredible 364 basis point in October 2008, during the global financial crisis' acute stage.

You've probably seen or heard about all the money the federal government has loaned to banks, whether through TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) or other acronyms. Hundreds of billions of dollars flowed into the banking system through the back door. Yet very little of it seems to be going out the front door to consumers for mortgages or cars or other reasons for which we all used to borrow. What are the banks doing with that money and why aren't they getting looser with credit instead of tighter?

Two things dominate all others for banks: yields and capital in reserve for potential losses. Yields have to do with making the most return for the money loaned. Right now that isn't in new mortgage originations. With yields below 6% for most mortgages, there's little incentive for banks to make those loans. That's because there are plenty of other investments that yield 8%, 9% or more that are backed by mortgages and spread risk much better than a single family mortgage that relies on one or two people keeping their jobs to make the monthly payments. Those other investments are called mortgage backed securities.

There's perhaps no more accurate indicator of the state of bank lending than the stance of banks in the Northeast U.S., a region replete with high median incomes and a disproportionate share of the nation's wealth.

Three years ago, in July 2006, banks were willing to make the following deals:

• $2.5 million variable-rate loan, with up to 100% financing for 3 investment partners, for a 10-unit speculative condominium complex in Fairfield County, Connecticut.

For the fourth month in a row, Bank of England interest rates will remain at the record low of 0.5%. In an announcement today, the UK's central bank said it would not expand its quantitative easing of financial markets, much to the surprise of the market. The bank has been buying up assets aggressively, printing cash to finance what is likely to be £125 billion in purchases by the end of this month.

Financial markets expected a much different play, involving an increase in this asset purchase target by another £25 billion (to £150 billion). This move would have let the Bank of England shove even more money into the economy through next month, which is when the bank publishes its latest quarterly economic forecast.

Retail sales took an unexpected downward turn in May in the United Kingdom -- for first time in three months. Cautious banks appear to be the problem, as their rationing of credit is impeding broader economic recovery. Retail sales fell 0.6% from the previous month, while economists had predicted a 0.3% change in the other direction.

Year-over-year, retail sales were off 1.6%. Sales for the year are down 1.1%, the greatest decline since score-keeping began in 1988. Of course, there's plenty of fodder for rationalizing the results. The annual change was affected by an "unusually large" retail sales estimate for May 2008. Clothing, textile, and footwear retailers and department stores led the plunge, with nonfood store sales off 1.4%, compared to a 0.3% increase in food retail sales.

The entire country has been struggling with the current recession, and while we are still not out of the woods just yet, there are signs that the economic free fall is at least close to coming to an end.

This morning President Obama stated that we were starting to see "glimmers of hope" in the economy, claiming that we are "starting to see progress" on a number of fronts. While Obama admits that the economy is still under "severe stress", he noted that we are seeing a boom in demand for mortgage loans and refinancing, and a thaw in some credit markets.

You read that right. Bloomberg.com has reported that The bank of England has lowered it's benchmark interest rate to it's lowest point since the bank was founded in 1694. How much more proof is needed to make obvious the fact that people and businesses just aren't borrowing money any more?

Even if some stalwart soul had the inclination to borrow some money, are there banks out there which are lending it? In the face of unemployment levels which some say honest calculations put up as high as 16%, banks are becoming adverse to lending money to anyone who might actually need it. Of course I can get you credit card applications all day long, if you're willing to pay upwards of 19% interest on new money.

So you have to wonder, when is it all going to break loose. Honestly folks, if the promise of increased revenue reserves was in any way going to help us, don't you think the contraction would have slowed by now? The only way additional cash will correct anything is if that cash is put directly into the hands of the people who pay the bills. Of course, we all know that will never happen. Our government will continue to drop wads of our yet unpaid tax dollars into the laps of their corporate sponsors. That, for now, is where the buck now stops.

The banks are still not lending and I hear every excuse in the book. I accept the fact that lending practices are much more restrictive than they have been in the recent past. I also understand that banks are trying to conserve capital against volatile and unpredictable market gyrations. However, the pendulum has swung too far to the conservative side.

Here is a recent example from a deal I was able to get done but it took three times as long as it should have. First the appraisal by my estimation was 10% to 15% low -- no one is sticking their neck out. I know this because I am seeing weekly transactions in the neighborhood. Then the maximum loan to value has gone from the ridiculous 100%, which no sane person should have done, to 70%, the bank in this case Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC), said it was because it wanted to maintain its AAA rating.

Another bit of pain. After I had everything in place, in the case of a home loan, subordination became an issue! Things are so specialized and compartmentalized that the lender has different underwriters and standards for its First Trust Deeds and its Home Equity loans and since I had both, the HELOC (a form of second mortgage) had to be subordinated to the First.

Some more bad news regarding the real estate market today, as we get the numbers for foreclosures in the third quarter, and see that the foreclosure rate actually jumped by a massive 71% during the quarter.

During the period of July through September, the number of households that received at least one foreclosure notice was 766,000. This marks a huge increase of 71% when compared to the same period last year. This data came available today from the foreclosure listing agency RealtyTrac Inc.

Just how bad has the situation gotten? Well, according to RealtyTrac Inc., before the end of this year, nearly one-third of all the houses listed for sale in the country will be foreclosures, which they are now estimating will reach the one million mark. Pretty scary figures.

If overnight interest rates do not fall as a result of the Fed's guarantee for commercial paper and related efforts to create incentives for banks to lend, the leaders of world's central banks and treasury departments may have to try a more creative approach to end the financial crisis: a global distressed asset summit.

As economist David H. Wang told BloggingStocks Wednesday, the major economies may have to hold a global 'out & price' summit to get distressed and bad assets -- the source of so many of the defaults and resultant fear among banks -- out of the financial system.

The problem, Wang said, is not just that the subprime and Alt-A mortgage backed securities represent distressed and bad debt, it's that "banks and other financial institutions can't determine the value or price of many of these securities."

Unknowns about toxic assets driving fear

Wang believes that "lack of certainty about price is the biggest factor in banks' unwillingness to lend."

"Banks can't determine the price of these assets, it represents a big uncertainty, therefore because they're uncertain regarding what their competitor banks hold, they aren't lending, and they're charging higher rates for short-term loans," Wang said. "Both are restricting commerce and will continue to slow economies all over the world if the problem is not addressed."