There was a story this morning on the cover of the New York Times about the mortgage industry fighting back against new regulations coming down the pike from the Federal Reserve. The Fed wants to require lenders to do things like make sure people taking out subprime loans can afford them, and clearly disclose fees [...]

Let’s be honest. A lot of corporate mergers don’t make sense. But chocolate-maker Mars buying gum-maker Wrigley with all-around-smart-guy Warren Buffett helping to finance the deal? Do I get M&Ms thrown at me if I call that delicious? On this morning’s conference call, there was a lot talk about the “strong cultural and strategic fit” [...]

That’s in the Mercado Central in San Jose, Costa Rica, this morning. We’re going to catch a plane to Newark in a few hours, and I’m back at work tomorrow. I’m tempted to post lots of out-of-focus long-distance shots of sloths and monkeys, but I’ll leave it with this cool photo, taken from the car [...]

Hi, That Anonymous Dude. Great to see you in the Comments section again. I rented a Ford Focus, which does, in fact, have pretty decent gas mileage. It also has an E-ZPass transponder on the front windshield. I haven’t seen that in a rental car before, but it makes perfect sense. Apparently, the car rental [...]

This afternoon I’m driving home to Salisbury, which for a Manhattanite like me means renting a car and realizing, suddenly, that gas is expensive. $3.50 a gallon? Dang. When I go for my $40 fill up, though, I will try not to guffaw too loudly in the direction of the person running the gas station, [...]

Earlier this month, Justin told you about Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz popping by our offices and saying, among other things, that the coffee chain was really starting to feel the pinch from sluggish consumer spending. Let’s put that one in the “you heard it here first” column. Today in reporting preliminary Q2 results, Starbucks played [...]

On Monday I got an email from the University of Iowa telling me that Barack Obama had a 75% chance of winning the Democratic nomination; Hillary Clinton was at 21%. I’m guessing I’m not the only business reporter out there who is most comfortable processing the horse race elements of national politics through Iowa’s prediction [...]

Lots of excitement at Citigroup’s annual meeting today, as recounted in Crain’s New York Business. Shouting shareholders, wailing employees, an angry, overflowing crowd. New chief exec Vikram Pandit tried to calm everyone down: We’re now closer to the end of the write-down cycle than we are to the beginning, he said. With more than $40 [...]

Hello! And Hej! to you, Henri. It’s great to be back. So, last week Justin mentioned that Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper is looking to outsource some copy editing to the U.S. Foreigners? Hiring Americans? As my colleague Coco Masters recently reported, they’re after our pilots, too. In a slightly different sort of turn-about, I recently [...]