From a CNNMoney story describing how the real estate bust has finally hit Manhattan: The Manhattan market’s recovery will be driven by first-time buyers and low- to mid-level buyers, those paying $1.5 million or less, according to Diane Ramirez, president of Halstead Property. Hmm, something about this makes me think Manhattan prices have not hit [...]
Here, updated with this morning’s non-farm payroll data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is the latest edition of my comparing-the-recessions chart: Update: Now I’ve got a piece up on TIME.com about the employment data. Update 2: Here’s a new version of my Great Recession vs. Great Depression job loss chart.
While looking for my very first magazine article online (because a fourth grader had asked me about it), I came across this remarkable utterance by Sandy Weill in a 1997 piece I wrote about the Morgan Stanley-Dean Witter merger: “I think we found out in the 1980s that you really can’t be all things to [...]
The last time the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) came out with a report on mortgage servicers changing the terms of loans to try to keep people in their homes, the headline was, You can try to help folks out, but chances are, they’re just going [...]
I spent 90 100 minutes this morning being interrogated by Curious Capitalist Jr.’s fourth grade class. He didn’t ask any questions, but his classmates sure did. This was partly because they knew they had to take a math test as soon as I left, and thus had ample incentive to prolong my visit, but it [...]
The final communique of the G-20 summit is out. Here’s my favorite part: 4. We have today therefore pledged to do whatever is necessary to: * restore confidence, growth, and jobs; * repair the financial system to restore lending; * strengthen financial regulation to rebuild trust; * fund and reform our international financial institutions to [...]
The Financial Accounting Standards Board decided today to go ahead with its previously announced plans (albeit with some tweaks) to make it easier for banks to say the assets on their books are worth whatever they want to say they’re worth. The stock market reacted with seeming approval, with the S&P 500 up almost more [...]
I had a talk two years ago with Kenneth Rogoff, the Harvard professor and former IMF chief economist, about the future of the IMF. The IMF in its present form, he argued, made no sense. “If you look today at the IMF’s total lendable resources, they’re $150 to $200 billion,” he said. “China has more [...]
I’ve been flipping through the images of the NYTimes.com’s Picturing the Recession project. Folks from around the world are sending in photographs that show how the recession is playing out in their neck of the woods. I got to a shot of people waiting in line for a Philadelphia check-cashing shop to open up for [...]
Felix Salmon, at his new home over at Reuters, wonders what’s up with Steve Forbes’s decision to cut the pay of Forbes staffers making more than $100,000: This is taxing the rich! It’s class warfare! Why should those employees earning a six-figure salary be singled out for pay cuts? If you cut their pay, don’t [...]
