Archive for the 'Economy' Category
Green Shoots: 47 Percent of South Florida Homeowners Underwater on Mortgages
August 13th, 2009Via: Miami Herald: As home values continue to show declines compared to a year ago, the percentage of South Florida homeowners underwater in their mortgages grew between the first and second quarter of the year, figures from Zillow.com show. Forty-seven percent of all single-family homeowners with mortgages in Miami-Dade and Broward were in a negative […]
Piracy Off the Coast of Sweden?
August 13th, 2009Via: Bloomberg: Russia is using “all means of detection,” including satellites and naval vessels, to find a Maltese-flagged freighter that disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean after being attacked in Swedish waters. The Russian coast guard ship Ladny is leading the search effort, which also involves navy ships located in the Atlantic, the Defense Ministry said […]
Pay Raises Are the Worst in 33 Years
August 12th, 2009Via: Time: Feel like your company has been particularly stingy on the raises this year? You’re not imagining it. For 2009, the typical non-hourly worker will see a 1.8% bump in salary, according to a survey by the human-resources consultancy Hewitt Associates. That increase, the smallest in at least 33 years, doesn’t even keep up […]
Americans Working Much Harder For Less Pay
August 12th, 2009Via: MSNBC: Feel like you’re working a lot harder these days, putting in longer hours for the same pay — or even less? The latest round of government data on worker productivity indicates that you probably are. The Labor Department said Tuesday that the American work force produced, at an annual rate, 6.4 percent more […]
The Cash “Magically Appeared on Their Electronic Benefit Cards”
August 12th, 2009What’ll it be? A $100 bonus to get the chip implanted early? Via: New York Daily News: A $200 back-to-school giveaway for needy kids sparked a mad rush for money on the streets of New York on Tuesday. “It’s free money!” said Alecia Rumph, 26, who waited in a Morris Park, Bronx, line 300 people […]
Soaring Deficit May Defy Forecasts
August 11th, 2009Via: USA Today: Stagnant unemployment, shrinking tax revenue and a struggling economy threaten to quadruple the size of last year’s federal budget deficit, raising more questions about the timing of costly proposals to overhaul health care. As the White House and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prepare to release new deficit estimates this month, several economists […]
U.S. Treasury Will Attempt to Sell $75 Billion in Debt This Week
August 11th, 2009We learned how this works last week. Via: Financial Times: US bond investors are braced for a testing week, dominated by record $75bn in debt sales by the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting, which concludes on Wednesday. Treasury yields have been rising and are back at levels last seen in early June, […]
“Banks Still Hold Many Risky Loans of Uncertain Value”
August 11th, 2009Via: AP: Despite signs that the financial system has stabilized, banks remain threatened by billions of dollars of bad loans on their balance sheets, and more could fail if the economy worsens, a congressional watchdog reports. In its latest assessment of the $700 billion financial system bailout, the Congressional Oversight Panel warns that banks still […]
Shut Out at Home, Americans Seek Opportunity in China
August 11th, 2009Via: New York Times: Shanghai and Beijing are becoming new lands of opportunity for recent American college graduates who face unemployment nearing double digits at home. Even those with limited or no knowledge of Chinese are heeding the call. They are lured by China’s surging economy, the lower cost of living and a chance to […]
Parents Paying Thousands of Dollars to Firms That Help Their Kids Get Unpaid Internships
August 10th, 2009Via: New York Times: With paying jobs so hard to get in this weak market, a lot of college graduates would gladly settle for a nonpaying internship. But even then, they are competing with laid-off employees with far more experience. So growing numbers of new graduates — or, more often, their parents — are paying […]
