Guerrillas in the Boardroom
Shareholder activists are getting smarter—and could soon claim their biggest scalp
It didn’t garner much attention, but earlier this month, the chairman of a Fortune 500 company was kicked out of his job, and it wasn’t by management. Shareholders voted out Ray Irani, the chairman and former CEO of Occidental Petroleum, at the company’s annual meeting, with 76 percent of investors denying Irani the post. READ MORE >>
Newark's Terrible New Foreclosure Fix Idea
Activists in the city think eminent domain can save their neighborhoods
The foreclosure crisis hit hardest in cities like Newark, New Jersey. Lenders preyed on low-income areas and made loans to people who had little ability to pay them back. READ MORE >>
Fannie and Freddie Are Stronger Than Ever
The reviled companies are the only players in the secondary mortgage market
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed guarantors of residential mortgages, hold a particularly reviled place in our political culture. They stand accused of taking a $187.5 billion government bailout (correct) and inciting the housing bubble and financial crisis (largely incorrect). READ MORE >>
If you're among the tiny handful of Americans who wake up early on the first Friday of every month to load the website of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), you got a welcome surprise last Friday. The February jobs numbers showed an increase of 236,000, with big gains in sectors like construction and health care. This certainly could herald an improving job market, with strong growth that can rapidly bring down the unemployment rate. READ MORE >>
Your New Landlord Works on Wall Street
Hedge funds are snatching up rental homes at an alarming rate
Housing analysts have been giddy for the past year about the comeback of their industry, whose collapse led to the Great Recession. Sure, 2012 was actually the third-worst year for housing ever—but it still beat 2010 and 2011. New and existing home sales, housing starts, and prices jumped in 2012, and experts expect an even stronger recovery for 2013. READ MORE >>
Back from the Brink
Progressives have achieved the impossible: They balanced California's books
Earlier this month, California Governor Jerry Brown strode to a podium in Sacramento and said something that, a few years ago, seemed as unlikely as a UFO landing atop the state Capitol: The initial projection for the state budget showed a balance. In fact, for the 2013-2014 fiscal year, there’s a surplus of $851 million. READ MORE >>
