Walking away from Fannie and Freddie is hard to do (Kevin Lamarque/REUTERS)
UPDATED Friday 1:36 PM.
First of all, let’s start with what’s clear: The government is not going to exit the housing market. Yes, after the White House’s GSE reform, Uncle Sam may play a more limited role, but that might take as long as 7 years for that …
Psst. How do you say Sell in German? (Brendan McDermid/REUTERS)
Call it the World Stock Exchange. And be afraid.
On Wednesday, news emerged that parent of the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Euronext, is considering merging with the Deutsche Borse, which is the largest stock exchange in Germany. Of course, the New York in the NYSE has …
In Davos, TIME’s Board of Economists grapples with a world split in halves
Car manufacturing is a bright spot in the weak jobs market (Photo: Mike Cassese/REUTERS)
Judging by the unemployment rate alone, the jobs market is the hottest it has been in 50 years. In January, the percentage of people looking for work who couldn’t find jobs dropped to 9%. That was down from 9.4% in December and 9.8% the month …
(Photo: Getty Images)
The Federal Reserve has come under a lot of heat in the past few months for its plan to flood the market with cash by buying $600 billion of US Treasury bonds. The main criticism is that it will cause inflation. And indeed, the United Nations on Thursday said its monthly food price index had reached an all time …
President Obama and several policy wonks think they have come up with a solution to America’s jobs crisis: Exports. Last week, in Obama’s State of the Union he reiterated that he thinks boosting the amount of goods we ship …
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Americans are, once again, no longer letting their meager incomes get in the way of a good trip to the mall. Consumer spending rose 0.7% in the last month of 2010. That was not only a bigger than expected jump in spending, but it was more than double the 0.3% rise in the month before. But here’s the problem: The income of …
Bill Clinton wants to get you a job.
There is a debate about how much government can do to boost employment. If companies are uncertain about the economy, they won’t spend money and hire employees. Worse, if the unemployment …
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, (center) expressed his views about municipal bond on a panel at the World Economic Forum moderated by TIME’s Fareed Zakaria (Vincent Kessler/REUTERS)
There has been a lot of anxiety about Munis recently. Bank analyst Meredith Whitney, who was early in calling problems in the financial markets …
Now that we have the recovery, we will have to pay for it. The question is did we take the appropriate measures or did we overspend.
On Thursday, the CBO estimated that the federal deficit in 2011 will reach nearly $1.5 …
The long and winding housing recovery (photo:Joshua Lott/REUTERS)
Employment is rising again. Consumers spent more in December than they have ever done before. And perhaps most importantly, for the first time in three years there seems to be a broad confidence that the economy will recover in 2011. So why are housing prices still …
Fish will cost you more in India (photo: Danish Siddiqui/REUTERS)
If food costs more, will you buy any less? Surprisingly enough, that simple question may be the key to whether 2011 sees a strong rebound in economic growth, or is, instead, a bust.
The issue is that raw food prices are indeed way up. Corn is at a two and a half year …
