My column on and Q&A with John Mackey of Whole Foods and Kip Tindell of the Container Store, who were housemates in college and now both run companies on the principle that employees and customers come before shareholders, has been generating some intriguing responses.

I heard from another of their University of Texas housemates, an …

Among the most remarkable (I know, because I’ve already remarked upon it, and I’m not the only one) of the new rules on home mortgage lending finalized Monday by the Federal Reserve is the one that aims to:

Prohibit a lender from making a loan without regard to borrowers’ ability to repay the loan from income and assets other than the

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Fannie who? Freddie what? I’m on va-ca-tion.

The only potentially work-related thing I did today was try the new we-can-do-healthy-too drinks that launch tomorrow at Starbucks.

The Vivanno–in orange mango banana and banana chocolate–is a $3.95 smoothie made with a whole banana, whey protein and fiber powder, and then some …

Who dominates the U.S. mortgage market? Well, depends when you’re asking. I spent some time today playing with the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds data on home mortgage lending. Here’s what I found. First, the long-term picture:

As you can see, thrifts (savings & loan companies and savings banks) were …

The new Onion article “Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In” is all over the Internets this afternoon. What I haven’t seen mentioned is that Eric Janszen of iTulip already made the same point more or less seriously in the pages of Harper’s in February.

First, the Onion:

WASHINGTON—A panel of top business leaders

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Why didn’t the Fannie-Freddie semi-rescue-plan announced over the weekend reassure the stock market?
It wasn’t really meant to reassure the stock market. It was meant to keep the investors around the world who buy the bonds and mortgage-backed securities issued by the two companies from freaking out, and seems to have succeeded on that …

Here’s a fun fact for the day, derived by Harm Bandholz of Unicredit from the Fed’s latest Flow of Funds data:

Since the beginning of the financial crisis in mid-2007, … 130% of
all newly issued home mortgages were financed by GSEs.

GSEs mean government-sponsored enterprises, which mean Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the explicitly …

The Federal Reserve announced Sunday that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can borrow money from it if they need to. Then the Treasury Department said it’s going to ask Congress for permission both to increase its credit line to the two giant mortgage lenders and to buy stock in them if necessary to shore up their capital base.

You could call …

I’m at work late. Why? I don’t know. I should go.

Anyway, I’m here, so I saw that Starbucks just announced its first round of store closings. Go here to see if your favorite store is set to be axed. They’ve only posted the first 50 (out of about 600), so no one is out of the woods yet.

The first volley hit Mobile and Las Vegas …

I’ve just churned out a quickie Fannie-Freddie analysis for Time.com. Here’s how it starts:

All debt issued by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac comes with a prominent disclaimer: “Not guaranteed by the United States.” But the business model of both companies, not to mention the continued functioning of the U.S. mortgage market,

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Last night I stopped off at the launch party of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation at the Council on Foreign Relations (where Peterson was chairman of the board for 22 years). I was underdressed (no tie), plus Thursday night is date night with Mrs. Curious Capitalist so I didn’t want to stick around long, so I hung back outside the packed …

Justin may have a column in this week’s magazine, but I have a 200-word book review. Here, I’ll give you the whole thing:

When no one owns a resource, we tend to overuse it–winding up with polluted skies, fished-out oceans and battles over access to freshwater. But too much ownership leads to problems too. A pharmaceutical company is

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