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Online holiday shopping for November and December of 2010 hit a record $32.6 billion,  representing a 12 percent increase over the previous year.  This is a finding by comScore,  a global leader in measuring the digital world and a source of digital marketing intelligence.  For the sake of comparison, consider that between November 1 and […]

President Barack Obama’s crackdown on Wall Street excesses could be hampered if the incoming Republican-controlled Congress refuses to fund two crucial regulatory agencies.  The Dodd-Frank financial reform law – passed with heavy Democratic support – promised a generous budget to regulate the $600 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market.  Now, the law’s implementation may be derailed by […]

As urban farms and winter greenhouses sprout in vacant lots throughout Chicago, Mayor Richard M. Daley has proposed an ordinance aimed at “nourishing urban agriculture.”  Unfortunately, some urban farmers believe the ordinance – if passed by the Chicago City Council – might negatively impact the expansion of worthwhile projects that provide healthy food to many […]

“The life you live trains you for the life you’re going to lead.”  This is the opinion of Michael Lee Stallard and Jason Pankau, partners in E Pluribus Partners, the world’s leading experts on how rational and emotional connections can boost productivity, innovation and organizational performance in the workplace. In a recent interview for the […]

Treasuries were little changed after the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s last meeting confirmed that policymakers believe that economic growth is gaining traction.   Fed officials, however, believe that the economic gains were “not sufficient” to curtail their plans to buy $600 billion in U.S. debt to encourage employment in a stimulus strategy called quantitative […]

Although the Washington, D.C., residential market has held up surprisingly well over the past few years in an environment hammered by unemployment and foreclosures,  there is a question of whether the nation’s capital will spur recovery or if the rest of the country will drag down the local market.  Washington’s relatively low unemployment rate and […]

As Chicago’s longest serving mayor leaves his post in May of 2011, Richard M. Daley leaves a legacy that includes the iconic Bean in Millennium Park to the flower-filled planters that ornament 85 miles of the city’s streets.  Whoever fills his post will find that budget shortfalls resulting from the Great Recession will collide with […]

With the stock market ending its best December since 1987, there is hope that 2011 will see a strong Wall Street recovery.  One source of hope is the fact that the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has returned to its pre-Lehman Brothers level.  It joins the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq Composite Index and […]

Distressed commercial real estate volumes seem to have reached a plateau of $186.9 billion in October,  according to a report prepared by Delta Associates that crunched numbers provided by Real Capital Analytics.  The trend has been apparent for several months, according to Delta’s CEO Greg Leisch. Even as the industry breathes a collective sigh of […]

Now that the long-awaited data from the 2010 Census has been published, the states are learning which places will gain congressional seats and precious electoral votes — a circumstance that could impact the outcome of the 2012 presidential election.  The U.S. Constitution requires a census count every 10 years to accurately reflect population shifts in […]