In the wake of the financial crisis and the Great Recession it caused, economists and their profession have taken a beating. At first, the main complaint was that economists didn’t see the crash coming. Now the main beef with economists is that they haven’t been able to come up with a solution to pull the economy out of the current …
Subprime mortgage borrowers, it appears, are more creditworthy than Uncle Sam.
Standard & Poor’s, the ratings agency that recently downgraded the credit of the United States, is giving a higher rating to a group of subprime mortgage loans – yup, just like the type that lead to the financial crisis – than the bonds issued by the U.S. …
For the third time in three months, housing prices are up. Don’t expect that to continue.
For the third time in three months, housing prices are up. Don’t expect that to continue.
According to the latest numbers from the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index, which was released on Tuesday morning, house prices in 20 large metro areas around the country rose an average of 1.1% in June. Chicago had the biggest …
In early spring, when the news came out that housing had entered a double dip – prices were falling again – it seemed like an outlier. The jobs market was picking up steam. Corporate profits were up. The stock market was rising. A lot has changed in just a few months. Now the question is whether housing was a leading indicator for the …
If you have been following the headlines now and were three years ago during the financial crisis, it’s hard not to make the comparison. The stock market is swinging wildly. Financial CEOs are taking to the airways to publicly attest that their banks have enough capital. And investors are increasingly worried about a debt crisis. Here …
Will Ben Bernanke ride to the rescue? And how?
In recent months the Federal Reserve Chairman has given the impression that he and the other policy members on the Fed’s board have no plans to launch any new stimulus efforts. But the question now is whether the market gyrations, including a 600 point drop in the Dow Jones industrial …
Standard & Poor’s was heavily criticized for its decision on Friday to downgrade for the first time in its history the credit rating of the debt of the United States. Politicians, and in particular Republicans, came under fire for having let the debt ceiling standoff go on for so long. And it was unlikely that the downgrade would do …
Ignore all the grumbling you will hear in the next few days about Standard & Poor’s. Yes, the ratings agency miscalled tens of billions of dollars of mortgage bonds leading up to the financial crisis. Yes, it’s an organization fraught with conflicts of interest, where debt issuers game the system to get the highest ratings. And yes, even …
Here’s the bad news about today’s jobs report: It proves once and for all that we are in a slow growth economy. And that’s worse news than you think.
Here’s the bad news about today’s jobs report: It proves once and for all that we are in a slow growth economy. And that’s worse news than you think.
Next to recent headlines, of course, most people would take slow growth. For the past few weeks, more and more forecasters have been saying that the economy may start to shrink and we will …
Leading up to the debt ceiling deadline, everyone was talking about how the stock market would crater if Washington couldn’t reach a deal. In fact, just the opposite has happened. When it became clear last week that Washington …
