Blog

Senior citizens are heading back to the workforce, thanks to the worst recession in seven decades and the global financial crisis.  According to a private study by Experience Works, 46 percent of the 2,000 low-income people 55 years and older surveyed had to work to avoid homelessness.  Approximately half had been looking for work for […]

With U.S. unemployment figures approaching 10 percent, it has affected parts of the tech industry with the chip and system design areas among the most affected (unemployment is 8.6 percent among American software engineers although the overall tech sector is faring better with an unemployment rate under five percent).  In response, it has led seasoned […]

The Treasury Department has issued new tax rules that make it easier for commercial real estate owners to restructure loans on distressed properties that were package by Wall Street and sold as CMBS.  The real estate industry, which lobbied hard for the changed rules, were generally happy but wary that it could open a can […]

The long recession has dramatically impacted the lives of all Americans, according to demographic data released by the U.S. Census Bureau.  Commutes are lengthier; people are not moving; immigration is down; and couples are delaying marriage.  The annual American Community Survey report, based on information gleaned from three million households, highlights how deeply the recession […]

The recent upward trend of the stock market has led investment experts to believe that the Dow Jones Industrial Average will soon pass the 10,000 mark  for the first time in a year. Craig Peckham, equity trading strategist at Jeffries & Co., and Michael Cuggino, president and portfolio manager at Permanent Portfolio Funds, believe it […]

Commercial real estate investors are taking a wait-and-see attitude before jumping in and buying distressed assets, according to an Ernst & Young study.  “We haven’t seen many portfolio transactions so far,” says the study’s author, Chris Seyfarth, who is national director of E&Y’s non-performing loans.  “Given the size and the magnitude of the problem with […]

With 28 million people and a $376 billion economy, Saudi Arabia provides its citizens with subsidized goods, services, healthcare, housing and education to assure a stable political system and long-term allegiance to the House of Saud, according to Rochdi Younsi, director in the Middle East and Africa practice at the Eurasia Group.  An expert on […]

After investing $16 billion in wind turbines, the United States has overtaken Germany as the world’s largest wind-power generator.  Wind power accounted for 42 percent of new generating capacity last year, an increase from just two percent four years ago. The American heartland’s sparsely populated states — from Texas to the Dakotas — are the […]

On the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the onset of the global financial crisis,  President Barack Obama used a Wall Street speech to call for stringent new regulation of United States markets.  After Lehman’s collapse, the American government infused billions of dollars into the financial system and took major stakes in […]

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has started selling insurance coverage on foreclosed homes occupied by distressed borrowers with the goal of making money from banks hurt by the mortgage market collapse.  These policies are riskier than usual home coverage because the properties may be neglected or vandalized. “It’s part of the standard practice of Berkshire, which […]