Articles About Economics

The federal government’s program to help homeowners facing foreclosure has reached its target of 500,000 mortgage modifications by November 1.  “There is a lot of work left to do,” said Shaun Donovan, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.  “Today’s announcement is a good step forward, but we are nowhere near the finish line.”  The long-term […]

New accounting standards calling for property to be marked to market,  and changes in lease accounting rules will strongly impact balance sheets, income statements and the general financial outlook of American companies. Unfortunately, many corporations are not ready to deal with the changes, according to a new report from CB Richard Ellis.  The mark-to-market requirement […]

Cleaning up the mess left by Lehman Brothers’ collapse and bankruptcy involves salvaging a national portfolio of 900 properties valued at $16 billion.  What the advisory firm overseeing Lehman’s bankruptcy achieves could be a framework for the strategies that big banks across the country use as they deal with their own troubled assets whose loans […]

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 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 […]

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 […]