consumers

Here's an interesting statistic from the OCRegister in California. What are the twenty wealthiest cities in the United States? Pleasanton, CA tops the list with a median household income of $113,345. See the chart below for the other 19. I…

This is a transcript from the Nightly Business Report interview with David Rosenberg last night. He has consistently been one of the best economic commentators on Wall Street during and after the bubble. His comments regarding…

The Escalade Hybrid is here and I want one. It's almost as good as the Prius. It's like conservation without the sacrifice. (Do you sense the sarcasm?)

I've been thinking a lot about unrealized gains and their effect on the global economy. if you remember, I wrote a few weeks ago about a new debit card that lets people tap the money from their 401(k) plan. I think these cards are a bad…

The headline says it all. The U.K. has fallen into its economic downturn with much greater speed than the U.S. Retail sales were down in June3.9% after a rise of 3.6% in May.U.K. retail sales dropped in June by the most since at least 1986…

I just picked up on a MarketWatch article about 401(k) debit cards through Tim Iacono's blog. It marks a pretty astounding trend in financial innovation.Debit cards are straightforward. You use them for purchases and money is deducted from…

You've probably heard the adage that the American consumer just won't quit. And this last month's retail sales numbers seems to follow that saying. However, if you look beneath the surface, American consumers are cutting back indeed.…

As you know, the CPI registered a whopping 5% yesterday. Year-on-year inflation hasn't been this high since the Gulf War. So much for the 'Great Moderation.' But the increase in inflation begs another question: why are interest rates so…

We knew that didn't we? Well, in response to a questionnaire by Nationwide, the building society, consumers basically said savings is not important and that they don't save as a result. I'm willing to bet UK consumers will change their…

One reason many pundits feel this particular downturn will be quite nasty is the level of debt consumers have versus their savings. Since July 1982, when the stock market bottomed, Americans have been dis-saving and leveraging up like…