Almost half of all mortgage holders in Nevada now owe more than their house is worth. Mindboggling to think about. Basically what that means is if you want to sell your house, you’ve got to write a check to the bank on the day you close. Nationwide, the percentage of homeowners with mortgages underwater is [...]
General Motors would like some taxpayer cash—a bit more than $10 billion should do—to help it buy Chrysler. As a company spokesman told TIME: “We believe the Federal government should consider all of the tools available to it—some recently enacted—to support industries that are in distress and that are essential to the U.S. economy.” (Update: [...]
Andrew Samwick (inspired by today’s Krugman column) says he told us so: What we should have done back in January is to start planning for a future in which the consumers, finally, would sensibly retreat (not capitulate) from their debt-laced consumption rampage. Some people [Samwick, that is] were suggesting the following in January: “[W]e can plan [...]
My new column is up online and in the magazine with McCain and Obama on the cover, together for perhaps one last time. It begins: In 2002 the inimitably audacious editorial writers at the Wall Street Journal brought to the nation’s attention the existence of a vast and allegedly pernicious class of “lucky duckies” who [...]
