Economy

In 2008, the FDIC successfully shut down 25 banks. This year it has already been six. To date, the FDIC had generally been able to find a buyer of one of the failed banks' deposits. After all, outside of IndyMac, the large majority of…

This is pretty funny actually (Hat tip Michael Turk).

Evidence that companies think that much of the downdraft in the economy represents a structural shift to a lower revenue base instead of a cyclical shift comes from the enormous goodwill writedowns companies are taking.  Case and point is…

I have been out the entire morning and haven't been able to read any news reports on the GDP numbers. However, I have just now had a chance to look at the data and wanted to share my thoughts with you, unfiltered by the media reports. I…

Seasonal adjustments for jobless claims are wearing off, but the uptick in claims remains. U.S. Jobless claims for the week ended January 24th came in at 588,000, up slightly from the previous week. Meanwhile, continuing claims reached a…

Bloomberg has a good interview from the World Economic Forum at Davos with Nouriel Roubini and Robert Shiller on the credit crisis and banking industry. The video is below. Enjoy.

A few months ago, the Germans were very resistant to the notion that Germany would also suffer greatly in this global downturn. Yet, as the months have past, it has become increasingly apparent that exports from Germany and retail spending…

In case you missed it, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have cost taxpayers tens of billions to date. The bill is still rising, however, as the two companies are looking for $50 billion more to avoid technical insolvency. Then there is…

There seems to be a blame game making the rounds in policy circles these days in which Asia is at fault for the credit crisis and economic downturn. The meme goes like this: Everything was fine until the Asians started manipulating their…

Marshall Auerback here. Now that Barack Obama has been inaugurated, we should actually look back to 1933 to get a sense of perspective. How did Americans see the economy at the Inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt? The short answer is…