The Long-term Costs Of Losing A Job (hint: They're High)
For good reasons, the current downturn is most often compared with the Great Depression, but the magnitude of job losses and lost output will probably turn out to resemble that of the double-dip downturn in the early 1980's. READ MORE >>
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Paulson and Bernanke pushed Merrill deal - And tell BoA's Lewis to keep quiet or else (testimony). Banking sector is passed the crisis stage - Or so says Bair. READ MORE >>
Borrowing From Your 401(k)
It’s often seen as a really, really bad idea, but if you find yourself under a mountain of high-interest debt, typically in the form of credit card debt or auto loans, it might make sense to borrow from your 401(k) to pay off some or all of the loans. READ MORE >>
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Creative solutions to unemployment - Japan's paying foreign workers to go home. Required collateral for derivatives doubles - From $2.1 trillion in '07 to $4 trillion in '08. World's top 50 safest banks - Five of them are in the U.S. READ MORE >>
Should We Give Financial Advice To The Poor?
Yale economist and bubble seer Robert Shiller thinks a number of financial mistakes made by millions of Americans could be avoided if personal financial advice was subsidized for all. For example, recent research has shown that a number of homebuyers who obtained subprime mortgages didn't understand the basic terms of their contracts, such as believing they had acquired a fixed-rate mortgage when it was really an ARM. READ MORE >>
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Can Geithner prevent a Tarp exodus? - The fine print suggests no. Lessons from previous housing busts - Looks like Texas has learned them. (And here's some more on Lone Star housing.) READ MORE >>
Are The Right States Getting Stimulus Funds?
Two key attributes of a well-designed stimulus plan are that money gets into the hands of those who are most likely to spend it and that private investment isn't crowded out by public monies. Does the current $787 billion stimulus, which was passed into law in February, accomplish these goals? READ MORE >>
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Can you run the economy? - Practice questions from the Advanced Placement economics exam. Fed Luminaries Spar Over U.S. Inflation Target - Ex-Fed Chair Volcker badgers current Fed VP Kohn over the Fed's embrace of a long-term inflation target of 2 percent. READ MORE >>
Men, Women, And Test Scores
Dear Reader, We here at The Stash are delighted to introduce Zubin Jelveh, who'll be joining me beginning today to help make sense of the financial crisis and other matters economic. Zubin's most recent blogging gig was at Portfolio, which is how I came across his terrific work. He's now in graduate school studying quantitative methods--a set of skills he'll be bringing to bear on the news of the day. Noam Scheiber READ MORE >>
