Some economists, like David Rosenberg, think the answer is substantially less—and for years to come. For quite a while now, Rosenberg has been writing about how the American consumer is due for a serious deleveraging, which means less spending, and how this is the real conversation we should be having. Forget about trolling the stock …
Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco put out a research report today raising the prospect of yet another jobless recovery. Here we go again?
Those of you playing along at home will remember that recessions in the 1970s and 1980s came with big spikes in unemployment—but once the economy ticked up, jobs rushed back …
I’ve got a new story up on Time.com about how to find a job using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. It begins:
Brian Ward lost his job on a Friday afternoon. Eleven days later he had a new one. With nearly 1 in 10 people out of work and the typical job search lasting 12 weeks, how did the Cleveland-based software
…
Everyone please extend a warm welcome to Brad Tuttle, our newest Time.com blogger. Over the weekend he started blogging about how to spend less money. Topical, eh? You can follow his thrifty ways on The Cheapskate Blog. And Brad, if you’re ever down Manhattan way, let me know and I’ll take you out to lunch. We can go to Mamoun’s for $3 …
Reading the SEC fraud-and-insider-trading complaint (PDF) against Angelo Mozilo, I was struck by how very much the former Countrywide chairman and CEO understood about the slipping lending standards that eventually led his mortgage firm to collapse in on itself. Inside his company, he was actually quite vocal about making changes to fix …
This morning’s big economic news: pending home sales are up for a third month in a row. That’s an indication that home buyers are coming off the sidelines, deciding that even if the market isn’t at a bottom it’s close enough to wade back in. (My, how my metaphors mix!) This seems to be good news, especially since the increase is 1) …
As you may have read, I was away for a week. Now I am back. Going through the gazillion emails that were waiting for me—but, no, really, technology makes life easier—I came across a very useful note from a reader named Zoltan. Before vacation, I mused on why, if I always pay off my credit-card balance, Citi keeps me around as a …
Well, the President signed those new credit-card regulations into law today. Now we wait and see if card companies start pulling back on credit lines and perks like we’ve been told they might. If that does happen, one option you might consider is borrowing against your 401(k). What 401(k)? you might be asking. Fair enough. But if there …
That question—which I hope doesn’t cause the Curious Capitalist to lose its PG rating—ran as a headline in Asia this past week. TIME Senior Editor Jim Erickson mentioned that to me over email after he saw the story I wrote about the usefulness—and danger—of economic metaphors, such as the ubiquitous “green shoots.” (Not an …
I was listening in on a conference call about this new survey of people’s attitudes towards buying foreclosed houses, when RealtyTrac’s Rick Sharga mentioned that, nationwide, foreclosures are selling at a 31% discount to nominal market value. Every time the National Association of Realtors puts out a release about falling home prices, …
There has been some chatter, nicely summed up on the cover of today’s New York Times, that if Congress legislates new regulations for credit-card companies (the Senate is due to vote on a bill today), conscientious customers who pay their balances off every month will suffer. The idea is that if we deny card companies the ability to …
Having taken some heat for daring to say that consumers are partly responsible for their own credit-card debt, I find it particularly interesting to see that I’m not the only one. We are currently running an entirely unscientific poll on Time.com, asking people: Which is more to blame for Americans’ credit-card problems—card issuers or …
