Category Archive

In phase one of the foreclosure crisis, distressed homeowners started to mail in their keys to the bank and walk away from their houses. Apparently we’re now in phase two: homeowners are beginning to set fire to their houses instead. What comes next?

Pew Research has been asking this polling question for over 40 years, and the recent trend line is revealing: That rise and dip in the past year is astonishingly significant. Observations from Kevin Drum: First, as a baseline, you’d expect lots of yes answers to this question because a big part of the population consists of young people who are … Read More

I admit it.  I can be quite gullible at times.  It’s very easy to pull the wool over my eyes, and some people have managed do it with remarkable ease and regularity. So I’m always on my toes on April Fool’s Day.  But nope, I got fooled. Riding to rehearsal, I heard an incredible story on NPR.  It was on … Read More

From The New York Times: At this point, according to a review by Politico.com, the election commission, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board and the National Labor Relations Board do not have enough members to do their jobs. Scores of federal judgeships are vacant. The Council of … Read More

Payroll employment plummeted by 63,000 jobs last month, with the losses spread throughout a wide swath of the economy, not just construction and financial services. From the Washington Post: And in a particularly worrisome sign, temporary help services cut 27,600 jobs. Often, companies cut temporary workers before shedding permanent jobs, making that category a leading indicator for what is to … Read More

I love it when things are explained to me like I’m a six-year-old. (I’m serious.  I actually understand things now)

Nope, not if you’re Big Oil: Shell will be at the centre of a political storm this week when it posts profits of almost $27bn (£13.6bn), the highest earnings ever made by a British company. The record-breaking profits, on the back of soaring oil prices, seem likely to stir fresh allegations of profiteering. The price of petrol has been increasing … Read More

Since today I guess.  The news: House leaders and the White House on Thursday reached a tentative agreement on an economic stimulus package of roughly $150 billion that would pay stipends of $300 to $1,200 per family and provide tax incentives for businesses to encourage spending. Okay.  Well it won’t help the economy and it will add to the deficit.  … Read More

I don’t know as much about economics as I should, but just listening to the radio on the way in to work — with the news about the fed lowering the interest rate, and the world markets taking severe dips — I really am nervous.  I guess everybody is. The U.S. markets just openned and, yikes: January 22 2008: 9:34 … Read More

It’s easy for people to get behind the idea of tax cuts, especially when they aren’t aware of the consequences: TAMPA – The University of South Florida plans to cut more than $52 million from its budget during the next two years, a grim prospect that likely will force layoffs and could further reduce the number of students accepted. Half … Read More

Time-Warner is clearly thinking about a new price structure for Internet usage, based on how much you "download". "Download", I suspect, doesn’t mean actually copying files to your computer.  It really means "bandwidth", because there’s no way for Time-Warner to know whether a stream of video is merely being watched on your monitor, or being saved to your disk. In … Read More