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By Alan Wolfe
$17.13
By Nomi Prins
$10.36
$18
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Flickr / SimplySchmoopie (CC-BY-SA)
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Traditionally, the holiday season brings good tidings for the stock market, too. There’s even something called “the Santa rally,” we learned from this Wall Street Journal article. Neat! But this year, with trouble on the European front and the ongoing recession (yes, that reads “recession”) at home, there may be less to look forward to, or so market forecasters fear.
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Wikimedia Commons / Rafy
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On Thursday, 23 people were reported killed and at least 82 wounded in a series of three bombs that detonated in a crowded market in south Baghdad, according to the BBC.
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Flickr / Casey Serin (CC-BY)
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At long last, a little good news from the real estate market: The National Association of Realtors reported a 10 percent rise in existing home sales in September, but buyers are still skittish about foreclosures and the country’s job problems figure into the long-term prognosis as well.
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Flickr / clementine gallot (CC-BY)
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This year’s Nobel Prize in economics goes to a triumvirate of researchers—MIT’s Peter Diamond, Northwestern University’s Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides of the London School of Economics—whose work focuses on a subject that’s all too apropos these days: unemployment.
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Wikimedia Commons / AgnosticPreachersKid
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Remember that crazy time back in May when the Dow Jones unexpectedly dropped by almost 1,000 points in only half an hour? Well, the SEC has finally worked in some protection against such sudden plunges by expanding the number of stocks subject to its current “circuit-breaker rule.”
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AP / Alaa al-Marjani
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Only a few hours after U.S. soldiers transferred combat duties to Iraqi security forces, a series of explosions in Basra on Saturday and in Ramadi and Fallujah on Sunday lit up Iraq, killing at least 55 and wounding many others.
Posted on Aug 8, 2010
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Apple fan-boys and -girls, rejoice. The iCorporation is now worth more than the dreaded Microsoft. But don’t get too excited: Bill Gates’ gang has a few ideas to get back in the game, and some bloggers claim that Google, whose Android is outselling the iPhone, “has leapfrogged” Apple in terms of innovation. (continued)
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Flickr / The City Project
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Culture and history matter, even if it costs money. Someone should tell that to the city of Los Angeles, which is raising rents on the merchant tenants of Olvera Street, a Mexican-heritage historical site downtown that is currently undergoing privatization.
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By Amy Goodman — President Obama’s publicly financed resuscitation of the nuclear power industry in the U.S. is bound to fail, another taxpayer bailout waiting to happen.
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bbc.co.uk
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Two bomb blasts ripped through a busy market in Lahore, Pakistan, on Monday evening, killing at least 36 people and injuring about 100. The bombs were reportedly set off via remote control, and the explosions came on the heels of a suicide bombing in Peshawar that killed at least 10 earlier in the day.
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Other market sectors are another story, and this story may also change in coming months, but let’s have some good news about the residential real estate market, shall we? Right: The Associated Press is reporting that home sales rose more than 10 percent in October from their September levels, largely due to tax incentives, and November may continue along this trend.
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haldimandcountyhydro.ca
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The White House sounded a triumphant note Friday about the success of the economic stimulus in salvaging and creating close to 650,000 jobs in recent months, but some Republicans, along with the AP, are questioning the accuracy of the government’s figures.
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Federal Reserve
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After seemingly endless months of relentlessly distressing financial reports, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Friday that the economic news is looking up on both the national and global economic fronts, and that “prospects for a return to growth in the near term appear good.”
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Jon Stewart interviews Justin Fox, columnist for Time magazine and author of “The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward and Delusion on Wall Street.” He suggests (gasp!) that markets aren’t rational and human behavior cannot always be predicted. Check out this clip from last night’s “Daily Show.”
Posted on Jul 2, 2009
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AP photo / Susan Walsh
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The good news: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke believes the U.S. economy may show signs of bouncing back before 2010—yay! The bad news: Bernanke also believes that aftershocks from the recession may continue to wreak havoc for a good while to come—sigh.
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bloggernews.net
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Not many big hitters from the financial sector have managed to stay afloat, let alone turn a profit, since the economic crisis kicked in, but George Soros has done quite well for himself. Soros made $1.1 billion last year, and he’s not even at the top of the list of hedge fund managers who beat the odds in 2008.
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By Ellen Goodman — Amid the talk of generational conflict in these depressed times, there’s a chance for the boomer generation to make a virtue—or a revolution—out of the necessity of working longer.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Obama speaks disdainfully of “ideology,” but there comes a time when first principles need to be articulated. Conservatives have entered this fight with guns blazing while progressives have hidden behind a Maginot Line armed only with the word pragmatism.
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Flickr / chakote
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The Dow had a big day on Tuesday, leaping 379 points after Citibank reported two months of profits and Fed chief Ben Bernanke indicated the banks could have some wiggle room in the accounting of their junk assets. The day may have ended with high-fives on Wall Street, but there’s good reason to stay gloomy.
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Wikimedia Commons / Paul Sparkes
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The Dow Jones industrial average fell to 6763.29 Monday. In less than a year and a half, the market has lost more than half of its value. More bad news from the financial sector has some analysts worried that rock bottom is still a long way away.
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By Eugene Robinson — It’s reaching the point where desperate measures—brutal honesty and complete transparency—may be the only way to bring the economy out of its kamikaze dive. If so, this won’t be pretty.
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collage: Flickr (epicharmus) / Google
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The Dow hasn’t been this low since “Titanic” won Best Picture, appropriately enough. Investors, apparently convinced the worst is yet to come, sent stocks tumbling to a 12-year low on Monday. The Dow sank to a depth of 7114.78.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — It makes sense to prop up ailing carmakers. Allowing GM and Chrysler to go bankrupt could be a triggering event that might make a very bad economy much worse.
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By Marie Cocco — Remember this, President Obama: There are few Washington traditions as annoying as the cultish worship of bipartisanship, for it ignores the simple fact that sometimes one party gets things disastrously wrong.
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By Ellen Goodman — After the collapse of trust in every sort of expert—after lenders financed houses for people who couldn’t afford them, bankers created systems they couldn’t even describe and, finally, we hear, Bernie Madoff ripped off even his high school friends—there is a residue of resilience.
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Wikimedia Commons
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Want to know where the $350 billion banking bailout went and why it hasn’t done a bit of good? Read, and weep over, this little-noticed report from the congressional panel set up to monitor the Treasury Department’s distribution of our taxpayer funds.
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amazon.com
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There was a time when Russia was an economic power on the rise. Sean McMeekin’s new book, “History’s Greatest Heist: The Looting of Russia by the Bolsheviks,” explains what nipped that growth in the bud.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Social and political epochs rarely end precisely on schedules provided by calendars. The outcome of this year’s election means that 2009 will, finally, mark the beginning of the 21st century.
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The New York Times / Doug Mills
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In an avowed effort to save capitalism from itself, President Bush announced Friday that he would throw the Big Three failing auto companies a $17.4 billion lifesaver, siphoning that money from the initial $700 billion bailout slush fund authorized by Congress in October.
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By Eugene Robinson — Despite the popular myth, lemmings don’t really hurl themselves off a cliff to reduce their numbers. That sort of behavior is seen only among Republicans in the Senate, who gave us a demonstration when they torpedoed legislation to bail out the auto industry.
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Flickr / Ian Muttoo
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Japanese technology giant Sony Corp. announced Tuesday that it is planning to slash 8,000 jobs—or about 4 percent of its global work force— in response to the deepening international economic crisis.
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AP photo / Douglas Healey
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By Chris Hedges — The multiple failures that beset the country can be laid at the feet of our elite universities. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford, along with most other elite schools, do a poor job educating students to think. They focus instead on creating hordes of competent systems managers.
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There’s a revolution underway in Chinese culture as young women flock from villages to factory employment in the cities, leaving traditional values behind.
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Wikimedia Commons / mlb.com
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By Stanley Kutler — The U.S. taxpayer is on the hook for more than $300 billion of Citigroup’s junk investments, so where did the ailing bank find $400 million to put its name on the New York Mets’ new stadium?
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whatpricejusticeblog.com
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While it’s great that it has finally been acknowledged, the National Bureau of Economic Research’s announcement on Monday that the U.S. is officially in a recession is old news—even by the bureau’s own estimation. Updated
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By Joe Conason — Barack Obama’s appointees will implement the Obama program, not only because that is what he tells them to do but because that is what they have come to believe is best for the country.
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publicradio.org
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The mortgage market got a lift following Tuesday’s announcement that the Federal Reserve was throwing in with a $600 billion resuscitation bid, but as Fortune’s Colin Barr points out, history offers at least two examples that the road ahead could be rocky.
Posted on Nov 25, 2008
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White House / Paul Morse (altered)
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By Eugene Robinson — Having two presidents is starting to feel like having no president, and that’s the situation we’ll face until Inauguration Day. Heaven help us.
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AP photo / Carlos Osorio
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By Bill Boyarsky — If jobs weren’t disappearing and a depression threatening, it would be easy and satisfying to send the American auto industry into bankruptcy or liquidation. But this isn’t the time to make Chrysler, General Motors and Ford pay for their years of failure and shortsightedness.
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finance.google.com
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In a little over two weeks, the Dow has tumbled more than 2,000 points as bad economic news continues to pile up. Word on Thursday that jobless claims hit a 16-year high, combined with a dreary outlook for Detroit and a lack of confidence in major financial institutions, helped drive the DJIA down to 7,552.29.
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washingtonpost.com
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Republican Sen. Richard Shelby seems to be one of the only real capitalists left on Capitol Hill. The Alabaman argued Wednesday that U.S. auto firms should be left to the realities of the market, letting companies like Ford, GM and Chrysler go bankrupt and forcing the failing industry to carry out what Shelby believes are much-needed reforms.
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Flickr / Brave New Films
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By Marie Cocco — The giant discounter is the only store where hard-squeezed consumers can afford to buy anything, and so it has kept posting sales gains amid the retail bloodbath.
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tickertapedigest.com
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The Dow shot up 889.35 points on Tuesday, a welcome respite from Wall Street’s month of plunges. Things could still get a lot worse: While some buyers snapped up what looked like bargain stocks, others said they expected a major drop before things get better.
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White House / Shealah Craighead
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The former Fed chair told angry lawmakers on Thursday that after 40 years of buying into free-market ideology he had “found a flaw.” Rep. Henry Waxman told Greenspan “our whole economy is paying the price” because he ignored advice and resisted regulation.
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commons.wikimedia.org
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The Dow gained 401.35 points Thursday but had volatile swings through most of the day. Investors, The Wall Street Journal reports, are still trying to figure out what stage of suck the economy is in.
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commons.wikimedia.org
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It seems like only a couple of days ago that the Dow jumped 936 points. The market went back to freaking everyone out on Wednesday, with a sobering drop of 733.08 points. Stimuli and bailouts aside, it appears that we’re in for a substantial recession.
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By Eugene Robinson — Can any Republican candidate claim with a straight face to represent the party of small government? For that matter, can any Republican candidate plausibly explain what the party is supposed to stand for these days?
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Wikimedia Commons / Asymptote Architecture
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The Dow shot up more than 900 points Monday after nations around the world pitched into the effort to resuscitate the dangerously flagging global marketplace by announcing their own rescue plans.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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After seven straight drops, the Dow landed at 8579.19 on Thursday, a year to the day after hitting a record of more than 14,000 points. The owners of the national debt clock in New York, meanwhile, announced they will add two digits to the board in order to display a quadrillion—because that’s where we’re headed.
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AP photo / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
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By Robert Scheer — I am not a conventionally religious man, or even a very superstitious one, but I do wish George Bush would stop asking God to bless America. Every time he does, we seem to be visited with another plague, suggesting divine wrath over our president’s evil ways. How else to explain the persistent calamity that has marked this administration?
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Guantanamo Prisoner’s Case Demonstrates Unfairness of Military Commissions
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