I’ve got a new column online and in the issue of TIME with Less Vegas on the cover. The Vegas story, by Joel Stein, is pretty great, by the way.
My column is an attempt to put the high frequency trading brouhaha in some historical context. And part of my historical context is Bernie Madoff. As so often happens, there were a couple of …
For car owners with automobiles that fit the older-model-bad-gas-mileage profile, Cash for Clunkers is a good deal. That’s not to say it’s a good deal for just anyone trading in any old car.
Humor is a good, albeit tricky way to deal with our stressful times. Another popular (and potentially tricky) stress reliever: sex.
Bloomberg has broken the news that the FDIC is about to take over Alabama-based Colonial Bancgroup and sell its branches and deposits to those objectivists at BB&T. This is the biggest bank failure of the year, although not on the scale of last year’s Wamu takeover—Colonial has $26 billion in assets. But for anybody who has lived in …
Dude, you shoulda been there! People were lined up overnight just to get inside. Some people showed up day after day. It was amazing. Craziest of all—there was no charge to get in.
The July inflation report, released this morning, will likely go down as something of a landmark: the Consumer Price Index fell 2.1% over the previous 12 months, the biggest year-over-year drop since 1950. This was entirely due to a 28.1% drop in energy prices over that period, and as energy prices began falling in August 2008, the …
It’s not all gloom and doom. Businesses are struggling, the housing market may have crashed, and jobs may have disappeared en masse, but today’s consumer is in the driver’s seat. And perhaps as in any crisis, people are being reminded about what’s really important in life.
This Saturday and Sunday (August 15-16) mark the last of this summer’s three weekends when admission is free at more than 100 national parks. More details here.
Some towns are defying the recession, with cranes dutifully piecing together new buildings, new businesses opening, populations showing increases, and average resident income actually growing. How do they do it? Chances are, Uncle Sam has given them a helping hand.
A Chicago writer hit some thrift stores, tossed in a little time, craftwork, and creativity, and put together fashionable duds that resemble something you might see on the runway.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has a new report (pdf) out comparing employment in the Silicon Valley tech sector in 2001 and 2008. The gist: Employment is down by a lot (17%), but wages are up by even more (36%). I’ll let Tom Abate of the SF Chronicle explain:
The report documents a stunning shift in the region’s high-tech workforce, as
…
Shoppers are closely watching what they buy, and supermarkets are watching and quickly reacting to how those shoppers spend. The result is change in grocery store aisles: Nowadays, you’re more likely to find discounted items (even in Whole Foods) and inexpensive store brands, and you’re much less likely to see fancy coffee bars or pricey …
