After taking the weekend off to relax at a few Yankees games we are back, Impatient Sufferers. What better way to return than with news of another example of the trendiest economic phenomenon of them all, the Bush Boom?
Today we look at how contractors are benefiting from the collapse in the housing market. Fuel costs [...]
A rising tide lifts all boats. A falling tide lifts all boats, puts them on the repo man’s trailer and hauls them away to be auctioned off.
As regular readers know, one of my journalistic pet peeves is stories about how great it is to be on the winning side of a tanking economy. It is [...]
Just in case you are getting dizzy over how wonderful things are now that Greenspan has declared the worst of the credit crisis over, remember that unemployment claims are at a four year high. There last count there were three million Americans filing for unemployment benefits. That number doesn’t even count everyone who is currently [...]
I always find something strange and disturbing about articles breathlessly declaring how good a terrible situation is for some tiny segment of the population. We heard tales a few months ago of the brilliance of Goldman Sachs, making a bet that the economy would tank and then profiting to the tune of $4 billion from [...]
Wall Street is abuzz with “positive news”, such as word that the economy has lost fewer jobs than expected. The reality for most Americans is less upbeat. While the stock market rises, falls and rises once again, bringing fortunes to those wealthy enough to be heavily invested, times get tougher and tougher for the rest [...]
The theory is that free markets work to create efficiency as a result of competition. There is a need to produce the best product at the lowest cost because other companies will be doing the same. Some economists posit that regulation of industries harms the markets by limiting the activities a company can undertake to [...]
There are many who would have you believe that we are each purely responsible for ourselves. Perhaps, they believe, we have an extended responsibility for our families, particularly our youth, but certainly not for our neighbors.
Unfortunately, we are all deeply connected in our modern society. The misfortune of my neighbor affects me directly, no matter [...]
With a recession looming, the opportunities for investment are not what they were. With the financial sector dominating the US economy, when the credit market starts to dry up the economy quickly has soured. The recent string of foreclosures has dramatically dried up the credit market. Lenders are nervous about lending their money to a [...]
As I wrote at one of my old blogging homes, one of the biggest causes of the subprime mortgage crisis was not knowing what was being invested in. A system was created where the true nature of investments are hidden from those putting their money on the line. Bond rating agencies are supposed to be [...]
Our economy depends on the swift movement of goods across great distances. Since we’ve largely abandoned our railroad system we’re left highly dependent on large trucks to move our products across the country. Recently the diesel fuel these trucks run on has risen in cost to around $4 per gallon and as so often happens, [...]