We are living in a remarkable time when leaders of the world face problems of immense scale and pundits have a diversity of opinion regarding the appropriate course of action to take. When the present becomes past we will likely forget this debate and simply accept the present as it is with its own [...]
I have no training in economics so please take my statements about the economy with a grain of salt. The market is re-testing its lows with the DOW nearing the 7300 mark. The big banks saw ~20% losses during trading on Friday as investors seemed to acknoweldge that these banks are likely to be [...]
So much of what I read about the “housing crisis” indicates that the problem is rooted in the “marketization” of the mortgage industry. Mortgages were turned securities that were then traded in a market where the underlying risk of the securities was hidden. In this explanation, the problem is that the free market [...]
Forbes has compiled a list of the most expensive places to rent in the US. Here are the top 15:
RankLocation$/sq foot Class A$/sq foot Class B 1New York, NY27.84 18.31 2San Francisco, CA27.1719.91 3Los Angeles, CA25.1218.39 4Boston, MA25.0817.49 5Honolulu, HI24.9117.69 6Northern NJ23.3515.80 7Stamford-South CI23.2214.30 8Nassau-Suffolk, NY22.4016.66 9Orange County, CA21.7117.94 10San Jose, CA21.4717.51 11San Diego, CA20.3714.96 12Oakland-East Bay, CA19.0116.99 13Washington, DC18.8515.15 14Central NJ17.2414.01 15Philadelphia, PA16.0911.70
I’m not sure what how Class [...]
I remember roughly 2 years ago, AMD brought the Opteron (and Athlon 64) to market. It was awesome! I still remember being amazed at the power and inexpensiveness of the Athlon 64 I used to use. It was and continues to be a great chip. Meanwhile, Intel was stuck in Pentium [...]
Today’s NY Times has two articles that increased my hunch that the country is headed for a recession. First, the new bankruptcy law takes effect on Monday and many people are filing for bankruptcy to avoid the consequences of the new law. The increase in bankruptcy filings is staggering:
For the second weekend in a row, I found an article in the New York Times about how the rapid rise of housing prices over the past five years is correlated to a decrease in bankruptcies. The basic idea underlying the phenomenon is that many homeowners have seen a vast increase in home equity [...]