by cactus Voting Your Bedfellows In a few months it will be time to go to the polls. Remember, there are people who told you eight years ago, and then four years ago, about the wonderful things GW’s policies were going to do for the economy. Most of them also told you how bad things […]
Joseph Stilgitz asks tough questions at The Nation: The champagne bottle corks were popping as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced his trillion-dollar bailout for the banks, buying up their toxic mortgages. To a skeptic, Paulson’s proposal looks like another of those shell games that Wall Street has honed to a fine art. Wall Street has […]
The Center for Policy and Research sent us a note on a new report about whether we are better off now than eight years ago.
by cactus Rent Control and the Current Financial Mess – A Look at an Incredibly Silly Story There’s a trope going around among libertarians and many Republicans– I’ve seen it in a few places – that the mess on Wall Street is due to excessive regulation. This tripe by Richard Epstein in Forbes.com is a […]
Mark Thomawrites a reminder that there is more to news than the bailout, and makes connections.
by Rdan Calculated Risk and many others note that a tentative agreement might be done, details to follow to day perhaps, ‘before the opening of the Asian markets’. Barney Frank, a hometown citizen wants a clearer explanation than it is a compromise on a compromise agreement needing to be passed by tomorrow. Please convince me […]
Bloomberg carries this bit of news for us to chew on: Wall Street’s five biggest firms paid more than $3 billion in the last five years to their top executives, while they presided over the packaging and sale of loans that helped bring down the investment-banking system. Merrill Lynch & Co. paid its chief executives […]
Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Congress gave final approval to legislation providing the auto industry with $25 billion in loans, lifting an offshore oil-drilling ban and funding the government until the next president takes office.The legislation, approved by the Senate 78-12, spends $602 billion for the departments of defense, homeland security and veterans affairs. […]
Current Inflation RateYear Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Ave2008 4.28% 4.03% 3.98% 3.94% 4.18% 5.02% 5.60% 5.37% NA NA NA NA NA2007 2.08% 2.42% 2.78% 2.57% 2.69% 2.69% 2.36% 1.97% 2.76% 3.54% 4.31% 4.08% 2.85%2006 3.99% 3.60% 3.36% 3.55% 4.17% 4.32% 4.15% 3.82% 2.06% 1.31% 1.97% 2.54% 3.24%2005 […]
by rdan WSJ reports: Who needs markups? Customers who shop at Eli’s Manhattan, a posh grocery store in Manhattan’s tony Upper East Side, aren’t paying more for individual items — they’re just paying 1.8% more on their bill at the checkout. Grocery stores find ways to pass higher energy prices onto customers. Eli Zabar, who owns […]