Articles About General

This post is another article about Millennials. Like Time Magazine‘s May feature, “The Me, Me, Me Generation” and countless other cover stories, it’s full of assertions and a few accusations. Unlike Time however, my accusations are directed at us older folk. Simply put, we don’t have a clue about the Millennial Generation and it’s liable […]

Employers are faced with many tough bottom-line decisions every day.  Because of healthcare reform, employee health and cost of that health has moved to the forefront. We all know that the growing trend over the past 20 years has showed Americans becoming less active, overly stressed and obese. How does that translate into dollars? Obese […]

In the largest bankruptcy filing by a city ever, Detroit filed Chapter 9. The effect of bankruptcy could be devastating on the public sector. The man at the center emergency manager for the city, Kevyn Orr, who has since been negotiating with Detroit’s many bondholders and other creditors about restructuring the city’s debt. Those negotiations […]

Ever wonder who is buying the new Lamborghini Veneno? That’s the  $3.9 million car. Or the $43,000 Brioni Vanquish II men’s suit? Or the $30 cup of coffee made from Kopi Luwak beans? Despite the recession the luxury good markets continues to thrive. The US gilded class leads the world in luxury goods purchases with […]

The S&P has upped the US.  It has raised the outlook for US debt from “negative” to “stable” which some take as an indication that we are unlikely to see a ratings slide like the one in 2011 that took us from AAA to AA+ anytime soon. The agency cited a lower federal deficit, the […]

We’ve all been inundated with talk about the era of Big Data. But these last few weeks, we felt its impact in dramatic fashion. Just hours after the explosions at the April 15 Boston Marathon, the FBI had amassed10 terabytes of data that four days later led them to the two suspects. Big Data is […]

Economists tell us that the reason the US is doing better than Europe is because of two things: our equity markets and our housing sector.  And now comes the news that housing is posting its best home prices since 2006.  The widely followed Case-Shiller indexes showed the home prices of single-family homes across 20 of […]

For those who have stressed the need for austerity and deficit reduction, who think that fiscal cliffs and sequestration are a good corrective to reckless spending, it may be helpful to consider what the IMF is saying. Lowering the outlook for U.S. growth to 1.9% from 2%, IMF Economic Counselor Olivier Blanchard called the U.S. […]

For those who have stressed the need for austerity and deficit reduction, who think that fiscal cliffs and sequestration are a good corrective to reckless spending, it may be helpful to consider what the IMF is saying. Lowering the outlook for U.S. growth to 1.9% from 2%, IMF Economic Counselor Olivier Blanchard called the U.S. […]

On the latest episode of The Alter Group Podcast on Real Estate, Charles Krawitz used his 25 years of experience in financing of thousands of transactions, and the sale of highly distressed loans and REO assets to give us an inside look at the recovery of the banking sector.  Banks now hold 49% of all […]