Articles About Recession

When President Bill Clinton signed legislation to repeal the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, he handed Wall Street  a victory that likely contributed to the recent financial meltdown. Glass-Steagall’s repeal eliminated barriers between normal banking activities – deposits and lending – and riskier areas such as derivatives trading. “The capital-market rules are going to change,” […]

Because the United States is producing an increasing number of high school graduates who go on to attend college, student housing apparently is recession-proof  real estate.  This is the finding of a recently released report from the National Multi Housing Council (NMHC) that studied the recession’s impact on college enrollment and on-campus dormitory vacancy rates. […]

Jason Sadler, a 26-year-old former marketing professional from Florida has resolved his unemployment woes  by founding his own company – I Wear Your Shirt.  The entrepreneurial concept is simple.  Sadler wears a T-shirt provided by any company for a day and uses social media tools to promote the firm.  And it’s earning Sadler nearly $85,000 […]

The recession has thwarted real estate billionaire Sam Zell’s plans to raze the art deco, 80-year-old, 26-story 2 North Riverside Plaza building that housed the Chicago Daily News until 1960 and replace it with an office tower.  Instead, Zell’s Equity Group Investments is beginning a multi-million dollar renovation of the building, which the advocacy group […]

Senior citizens are heading back to the workforce, thanks to the worst recession in seven decades and the global financial crisis.  According to a private study by Experience Works, 46 percent of the 2,000 low-income people 55 years and older surveyed had to work to avoid homelessness.  Approximately half had been looking for work for […]

The long recession has dramatically impacted the lives of all Americans, according to demographic data released by the U.S. Census Bureau.  Commutes are lengthier; people are not moving; immigration is down; and couples are delaying marriage.  The annual American Community Survey report, based on information gleaned from three million households, highlights how deeply the recession […]

Commercial real estate investors are taking a wait-and-see attitude before jumping in and buying distressed assets, according to an Ernst & Young study.  “We haven’t seen many portfolio transactions so far,” says the study’s author, Chris Seyfarth, who is national director of E&Y’s non-performing loans.  “Given the size and the magnitude of the problem with […]

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has started selling insurance coverage on foreclosed homes occupied by distressed borrowers with the goal of making money from banks hurt by the mortgage market collapse.  These policies are riskier than usual home coverage because the properties may be neglected or vandalized. “It’s part of the standard practice of Berkshire, which […]

Eleven of the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks showed signs of a stabilizing or improving economy during July and August, according to the Fed’s latest Beige Book report.  The Beige Book’s anecdotal evidence found that the nation’s worst recession in 70 years is coming to an end.  The Fed expects the economy to grow by […]

When times are really tough, people within an organization look to leadership for direction.  This is the opinion of Gail Golden, Ph.D. MBA, Principal at Gail Golden Consulting in Chicago and previously a professor at the University of Western Ontario.  Dr. Golden believes that there are two kinds of change:  change that I initiate and […]