For the fifth week in a row, the number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits has dropped, according to the Labor Department. The number of initial claims came in at 457,000 for the week ending Nov. 28. That’s the lowest level since September 2008. (The data are seasonally adjusted, which tries to account for …
This morning’s happy housing news: homes are now worth what they were in the fall of 2003! Okay, so maybe that’s not the cheeriest way to frame the most-recent S&P/Case-Shiller data, though it does, I think, preserve an important piece of context.
If you want to have a glass-half-full sort of day, then a better way to look at the …
The pace of existing-home sales was 10.1% higher in October than it was in September, according to figures out today from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). That jump puts sales back where they were in February 2007 and is sure to bring renewed optimism about the state of the housing market. In September we had an eight-month …
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein is sorry. Speaking yesterday at a conference sponsored by Directorship magazine (which has named him CEO of the Year), Blankfein expressed remorse for the firm’s role in helping to bring the country to the brink of financial collapse:
“We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to
…
There’s been a lot of chatter recently about whether or not the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is going to need a bailout. The FHA insures—but does not write—home loans, and thanks to the housing bust, the agency has had to dip a little further into its reserves than it probably would have liked to. That means the FHA might …
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports* that $50,000 is quickly becoming the typical cost for a year at one of the nation’s elite colleges:
Fifty-eight private colleges now charge at least that much for tuition, fees, room, and board, a Chronicle analysis of College Board data shows. Last year only five colleges did.
Talk about …
Well, it looks like we could be getting a fresh home-buyer tax credit any day now. What better way to fix a bubble caused by too much home-ownership than to encourage more home-ownership?
This time around, you don’t even have to be a first-time buyer to take the credit. Nor do you have to be what most people would consider middle …
Here’s a little advice for folks pushing health-care reform: sneeze more.
A study due out in the journal Psychological Science finds that when people have just witnessed a sneeze, they’re more likely to want to fund federal health initiatives.
From a Treasury Inspector General’s report to Congress:
Through July 25, 2009, we identified more than 580 taxpayers younger than 18 years of age who claimed almost $4 million in First-Time Homebuyer Credits. The youngest taxpayers receiving the Credit were four years old. Contract law generally exempts children under the age of 18
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I’m getting a number of e-mails and calls about this story on how companies are using Skype to interview job candidates over the web. All the comments so far have been positive—video chatting is a whole lot cheaper than flying out for an in-person interview, and who doesn’t like to save money. The more I sit with this story, though, …
With the economy still somewhat slow, companies probably don’t want to be going hog-wild on the R&D spending. Yet at the same time, with consumer dollars tight, companies likely also want to have flashy new products to dangle in front of people, to tempt them to spend what little cash they are shelling out at said company. What to do? …
James Dyson, the man who brought us the vacuum cleaner of the future, has a new device: the bladeless fan. It’s already getting rave reviews, despite its $300+ price tag. No one sent me one (I guess because all the freebies now go to people who only blog), so I can’t tell you how the thing blows, but I can at least offer up some videos. …
