Here’s a compendium of interesting, sometimes weird, sometimes surprising factoids about consumer spending, housing, modern family life, and more.
More Greek Drama: Who’s Paying the Price?
The rumors about Greece’s second bailout, worth €60 billion ($86 billion), won’t go down easy in Germany, where taxpayers are particularly outraged at the idea of shelling out more hard-earned cash for the sake of Greek salvation. So German officials are pushing for something a bit more politically palatable: getting Greece’s …
Why Greece’s debt crisis matters (again)
If you’re watching recent developments in Europe with an uneasy feeling of déjà vu, you have good reason. It was almost exactly a year ago that the European Union stepped in with a 110 billion euro ($158 billion) bailout for debt-plagued Greece. Yet here we are, a year later, and Greece’s debt is again the primary focus of …
Microsoft’s Call on Skype: Profits, $0; Value, $8.5 billion
A million years ago, Microsoft was a late arrival to this thing called the Internet. And it seems that the company has never ceased trying to play catch up in the various business segments the web has spawned. Search, games, email, commerce, news, advertising, social networks—you name it and the warriors of Redmond have been chasing …
Does Biking to Work Inspire You to Write Poetry?
May is National Bike Month, and May 16-20 is Bike to Work Week. So if the money-saving, environmentally-friendly concept of pedaling to work will ever move you to write poetry, it’s probably now.
More Housing Market Blues?
There’s more bad news out about housing today. The prices of homes fell in more than 75% of U.S. cities in the first quarter, according to the National Association of Realtors. The data is stoking a new wave of bearishness on when the housing market will bottom. But as Stephen Gandel points out in yesterday’s blog, odds of a …
Report: After Credit Card Reform, Interest Rates and Fees Finally Plateau
When the first of several credit card reforms began taking place two years ago, the response from more than a few consumers amounted to: “thanks, but no thanks.” Soon after the legislation passed, millions of credit card accounts were summarily closed, and interest rates and fees soared. For a while there, the post-reform credit card …
It’s a Deal: Extra 20% Off Clearance Ski Gear
Use the coupon code 20OFFSO to get an extra 20% off skis, ski boots, winter clothing, and other snow sport merchandise at Skis.com. With all the discounts accounted for, items are priced as much as 80% off original retail.
Groupon-O-Rama: 10 Rising Trends in the Daily Deals Market
In the last year, some 23 million Americans bought daily deals. That’s a lot of people. And because of all that money being spent, the daily deals market continues to attract new players, new innovations, and new ways to convince consumers they’re getting a deal.
Gas Prices: Get Comfy with $5, not $3
Gas prices still haven’t reached the ominous $4 a gallon expected in the weekly gas price report out yesterday. In fact, the painful rise in gas prices seems to be slowing (from $3.963 last week to $3.965 today).
But if gas prices do start to drop, don’t get too comfortable. As noted in last week’s blog, at $4 a barrel consumers …
Will Home Prices Continue to Fall?
The news today is that the value of your most valuable asset is in trouble again. A report from website Zillow, which lets you look up what your house is worth, says that home prices in the US fell 3% in the first quarter. Worse, Zillow says housing prices could fall as much as 9% more by the end of 2011. And this was the year that …
With the McDonald’s Makeover, Yuppies Are Welcomed
It wasn’t pretty when Walmart underwent an identity crisis. Take that back. Actually, it was pretty—neat, orderly, attractive—in terms of the consumer shopping experience when Walmart began emptying overflowing store shelves and pushed more upscale merchandise. What wasn’t pretty was the backlash among blue-collar shoppers who felt …