November 2008

Despite dire predictions from many analysts and much of the media, Americans actually went shopping this weekend.   In fact, we went shopping over the past three days more than we did as a nation last year.   Remarkable considering last "Black Friday" weekend we had (at least on the surface) a much better economy. Here is the headline for this weekend according to the read more

Is the real estate market in the Northeast dying?   Not according to my weird little study. In 2005 I began to get concerned about inflated real estate prices and decided to do some rudimentary tracking of the market to try and spot trends.   It merely involved searching the same real estate website for homes in two towns in a set price range.  High tech stuff.   I kept up with the ... read more

One of the paragraphs in a Wall Street Journal story today says it all: Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages dropped by roughly half a percentage point to about 5.5%, for borrowers with good credit scores and substantial equity in their homes, say mortgage brokers and lenders. The Fed's actions in the mortgage markets should help housing, at least on the refinancing side.   This is ... read more

I have completely lost track of the government bailout programs. Whew.  Okay, I said it and now I finally feel better. We in this odd industry called the media hate to admit that we don't know something.   Yet sometimes the most powerful thing for us to say is that we are confused as much as anyone else.   The key for us is to use this curiosity to have guests on the program who do ... read more

Note to reader: if you don't want to hear more lousy housing data scroll to the bottom of this post for a little bit of good news.   Other brave souls, read on.  The October existing home sales numbers showed continued weakness in the American housing market.   The National Association of Realtors data indicated that sales of non-new homes fell 3.1% from the September annualized ... read more

Fascinating - and somewhat sad - story on Bloomberg.com today.   My former colleague Mark Pittman has done the math on government bailout pledges so far.    How does $7.4 trillion dollars sound?  That's more than half the total output of the entire country and comes to more than $24,000 for every man, woman and child in this country. Here's his conclusion: The money that’s been ... read more

Tomorrow I will be live at the Los Angeles Auto Show. We have a live interview with the CEO of Nissan at 7:45am PT / 10:45am ET followed by interviews with auto execs from Audi, Volkswagen, Ferrari and more.   We should be showing you the new Chevrolet Volt, the electric car that GM has big hopes for. In addition to discussing the state of the auto industry with the executives we are ... read more

The U.S. auto industry (via GM) is going straight to the people in the form of a new video on YouTube.   It's designed to lay out a case for a government-sponsored cash infusion.    Conclusions are in the eye of the beholder, but there are two main takeways in my mind: 1. The extent of the health care/benefits/pension problem is greater than previously thought.   Together GM, Ford ... read more

The New York Times cover story today is about how some states are facing big budget deficits and are looking at a variety of ways to cut costs and fill gaps in spending.  Those include reducing social services, freezing hiring and, of course, raising taxes.   Michigan is even discussing salting roads less in the winter, a potentially dangerous misstep. As states try to ... read more

This press release just crossed.   Given stock market decline this year the drop in pension assets may not be a surprise, but the magnitude of the drop is.   This should only accentuate the funding issues at pension funds both in the private and public sectors. ----------------------------------------------------- One-hundred largest corporate pensions lose $59 billion in ... read more