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The Obama administration has announced a new initiative to assist troubled homeowners by helping them refinance with government-backed mortgages that cut monthly payments.  The program would also temporarily reduce payments for unemployed borrowers who are actively job hunting.  The government is encouraging lenders to write down the value of loans for borrowers participating in modification […]

The Congressional Budget Office has determined that the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) will cost the government $109 billion – just 16 percent of the $700 billion set aside to rescue the nation from the great recession.  Insurance giant AIG and the auto industry are TARP’s largest beneficiaries. The federal government bought $40 billion in […]

Despite the Snowmageddon that crippled Washington, D.C. and much of the East Coast during February, the economy continued to grow at a modest rate.  This is the opinion of the Federal Reserve’s newly issued Beige Book report – officially known as the “Summary of Commentary on Current Economics Conditions by Federal Reserve District” — which […]

The Bernard Madoff affair is the scandal that keeps on giving.  In the latest twist, Madoff’s daughter-in-law, Stephanie, is seeking legal approval to change her surname to Morgan to protect herself and her two young children against death threats, embarrassment and humiliation. In legal filings made in Manhattan, Stephanie Madoff says that her father-in-law, who […]

The 8.8 magnitude Chilean earthquake was so strong that it literally knocked the earth off its axis – permanently. Richard Gross, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, calculated that the earth’s rotation changed so that the length of our day is now roughly 1.26 microseconds shorter.  A microsecond is equivalent to one millionth […]

Economic indicators show that the recession is over.  This is the opinion of Rick Mattoon, a senior economist and advisor in the economic research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and a lecturer at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.  Rick’s primary research focuses on issues facing the Midwest regional economy. […]

The long-time bible of the shrinking newspaper industry, Editor & Publisher, has announced that it will cease publication both in print and online at the end of 2009. Announcement of the end of the venerable publication, whose roots extend back to 1884, was met by surprise and outpourings of strong support.  Ironically for a publication […]

Text “HAITI” to 90999  on your cell phone and $10 will be donated to the American Red Cross for earthquake relief in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation.  That $10 donation will appear on your next cell phone bill – a quick and painless way to speed relief to a country reeling in the face of […]

Politics may make strange bedfellows, but it also reveals some interesting family trees. President Barack Obama not only has a supporter in the form of Berkshire Hathaway chairman and investment expert Warren Buffett – the two are also distant cousins. Genealogists at ancestry.com found a family connection dating back to a 17th-century Frenchman named Mareen […]

Tiger Woods’ extramarital escapades are costing shareholders in the companies he sponsors, according to a study by an economics professor at the University of California at Davis.  Victor Stango found that the market value lost to firms that had Woods as a sponsor is already $12 billion.  Woods is believed to earn approximately $100 million […]