Easy money is about to get a little less easy. Emphasis on the little.
Today the Federal Reserve announced that it would raise the interest rate it charges banks on emergency loans from 0.5% to 0.75%, effective tomorrow. In addition, on March 18, the Fed will shorten the length of time banks can borrow from the discount window back down …
Housing starts in January hit their highest level in half a year, the Commerce Department reported (PDF) this morning—seemingly good news for those banking on a real-estate rebound. More specifically:
Privately-owned housing starts in January were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 591,000. This is 2.8 percent (±11.5%)* above
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Debate is heating up about whether stock brokers and insurance salesman should have a fiduciary duty to their clients—that is, whether they should be required to always act in a client’s best interest or whether they must simply recommend investments that are “suitable” (the current, lower threshold).
The financial regulatory reform …
I sat down to do my taxes over the weekend and I realized I was missing a 1099 from a bank where I have an interest savings account. I called up the bank and after some rooting around, the phone rep realized I didn’t get a form because the bank doesn’t mail one out if interest earned over the course of the year is less than $10. Turns …
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is already catching heat for saying:
We feel the American people need a message. The message that they need is that we’re doing something about jobs.
This comment comes on the heels of news that a bi-partisan jobs bills has fallen through, and Reid is now plowing ahead with a slimmed-down four-point …
Back in August, I wondered if the credit card companies might be getting their groove back because it seemed like after a precipitous fall-off, the number of solicitations they send to our mailboxes was beginning to level off. Well, I was wrong, and credit card mail volume, as tracked by the research firm Synovate, resumed its slide. …
Bob Herbert’s column in yesterday’s New York Times pointed out that the unemployment crisis is not hitting all parts of the income spectrum equally. I was pretty stunned by the numbers, which go like this:
| Range of incomes (by decile) | Unemployment rate |
| $12,160 or less | 30.8% |
| $12,160-$20,725 | 19.1% |
| $20,725-$29,680 | 19.7% |
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I recently spoke to the owner of a small company who is buying a new building. He is in an industry—energy-related—that happens to be doing quite well right now. Banks, he said, are tripping over themselves to loan him money. Three different lenders are competing for his business, which means that he’s been able to go to back to them …
The conversation about where to draw the line between privacy and security is as old as society itself. I didn’t mean to so forcefully insert myself into the middle of that debate when I wrote about a Microsoft executive ruminating on the possibility of driver’s licenses for the Internet. Alas, here I am. That original blog post is …
The stock market got very jittery in advance of this morning’s unemployment report, lining up with many economists’ expectations that the jobless rate would hold steady at 10% or tick upwards. Then it didn’t.
The unemployment rate, which has been hovering around 10% for the past three months, instead ticked down in January, to 9.7%. …
While I was out of town I missed this new paper (PDF) from MIT economist David Autor, which shows that people who are out of work and take a temporary gig until a full-time position comes along might be doing damage to their long-term earnings power.
Autor and Susan Houseman of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research studied a …
