Uncategorized Archives - Page 4 of 10

26 Mar 2009

Commercial Real Estate Loan Delinquencies: The Role of ‘Maturity Defaults’

Today's Wall Street Journal reports significant increases in commercial real estate loan defaults and delinquencies. Here's data through the fourth quarter on bank loans: It paints a useful picture, but keep in mind that many …

28 Feb 2009

How Does This Recession Compare to Other?

The Minneapolis Fed has a nifty interactive web page that helps answer this question–for the recession so far, of course. (Hat tip to Alex at Marginal Revolution).

18 Feb 2009

The Great Depression: A Good Summary

Lots of folks are asking if we're having another depression. I very much think not. But it's worth reviewing just what happened in the 1930s. An excellent summary is the article in the Concise Encyclopedia …

31 Dec 2008

Small Business Advocate Interview

Find interviews with Small Business experts on the Small Business Advocate show

26 Dec 2008

Bank Regulators Sending Mixed Messages

The newspapers report that the chief banking regulators are urging banks to lend money. But the front-line bank examiners, the men and women who work face to face with actual bankers, are giving different orders. …

14 Nov 2008

General Motors Job Loss: Don’t Believe It

If General Motors is allowed to fail, won’t we lose three million jobs? That multi-million job loss comes from both GM’s own employees, plus the suppliers and dealers. However, the economics behind that idea is …

4 Nov 2008

Credit Default Swaps: What Went Wrong with CDS

Yesterday I explained the basics of a credit default swap. Now let's explain how they sunk AIG. The obvious risk of the CDS is that the original bond issuer (Barb in the simple explanation) cannot …

3 Nov 2008

Auto Sales Down, But Not Completely Out

October 2008 auto sales were really weak. BUT, notice that in the month of financial crisis, when doom and gloom reigned supreme, we sold cars at the (seasonally adjusted) annual rate of 10.56 million units. …

29 Oct 2008

The Economic Crisis and Us Bloggers: a PBS Story

My web traffic is way up in the past couple of months (partly thanks to the crisis, partly thanks to Google raising my Page Rank up to 6). Simon Owens has an article here on …

28 Oct 2008

College Rankings Based on Results

In the latest issue of the Businomics Audio Magazine I interview economist Rich Vedder, who has just completed a new set of college rankings based on performance, rather than inputs into the educational system. The …

8 Oct 2008

TED Spread: How High Is Financial Risk Today?

The market's fear is reflected in the TED spread, a cute, cuddly name given to the difference in interest rates between inter-bank loans (LIBOR) and U.S. treasury bills. We use 3 month maturities on both …

15 Aug 2008

Recession? Different Method, Same Answer

Ed Leamer of UCLA has a very interesting discussion that relates directly to my recent post asserting that we probably weren't in a recession. Here's the abstract of his paper: Monthly US data on payroll …