Business

A Common Enemy

Corporations and the government should work together to combat hackers.

Bipartisan Blues

This is what bipartisanship on the jobs bill will look like.

Drugs For Growth?

Would legalizing mind-altering substances help the U.S. economy or hurt it?

Joe Shlabotnik / flickr

Feb 9 2010, 5:30PM

Disney's Great Quarter

by Daniel Indiviglio

Disney reported a healthy quarter ending January 2nd, beating forecasts. The entertainment conglomerate earned 47 cents per share, much better than the 38 cents per share expected by a poll of analysts by Thompson Reuters. Entertainment is typically an industry that suffers greatly in a recession. So how did Disney manage to defy that logic with a net income of $844 million at the end of 2009?

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Finsec / flickr

Feb 9 2010, 4:45PM

Is Banking About Trust?

by Daniel Indiviglio

Today, TARP Congressional Oversight Panel Chair and Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal urging Washington not to abandon the consumer financial protection agency. It's an interesting piece. I agree with some aspects and disagree with others. But I was kind of shaken right from the start, when I realized I had trouble accepting her very first assertion: that banking is based on trust.

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WikimediaCommons

Feb 9 2010, 4:10PM

The Scariest Employment Graph I've Seen This Year

by Derek Thompson

The good news from January's jobs report was that official unemployment unexpectedly fell from 10% to 9.7%. The bad news was ... just about everything else. Catherine Rampell from the New York Times' Economix blog spots a particularly glaring statistic: The average length of unemployment in this recession is 31 weeks, the longest on record. In fact it's 50% longer than the previous record from the early 1980s. This graph is scary:

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Feb 9 2010, 4:00PM

Google Buzz Threatens Facebook, Gets Along with Twitter

by Niraj Chokshi

This afternoon Google unveiled a new social feature called Buzz. Some predicted it would be a Twitter-killer, but Facebook seems to be the company Google is gunning for.

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Feb 9 2010, 3:36PM

Gains From Trade, Metropolitan Edition

by Megan McArdle

Here's a serious question:  why don't more cities rent out their snow services?  Upstate New York is apparently blissfully free of snow, and short of money.  Washington DC is one of the flushest metro areas in the country, and in need of snow removal.  Why not get some of the snow removal equipment--and talent--from Rochester and Syracuse and Buffalo on the road?  They could be here in twelve hours at the outside, and have this place cleaned up in a jiffy.

It seems like this would be a win-win combination.  But as far as I know, no one's even suggested it.
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824,000 Jobs Will Disappear On February 5th

Bloomberg
by Bloomberg Multimedia

AnalysisWhen the government releases Friday's unemployment report, nearly a million jobs could be erased. The change won't show up in the monthly report. Rather, the expected job will show up in the government's revised job losses from April 2008 to

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Paulson Claims Russia Tried To Foment Fannie-Freddie Crisis

The Financial Times
by Krishna Guha

News Russia proposed to China that the two nations should sell Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds in 2008 to force the US government to bail out the giant mortgage-finance companies, former US Treasury secretary Hank Paulson has claimed. The allegation is

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Big Banks Cutting Loans to Employees With "Hardship"

Slate's The Big Money
by Paul Smalera

AnalysisThe big banks are inventing creative ways around the executive compensation limits, reports the Wall Street Journal today. "Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. are doling out shares that employees can sell within months--much sooner than normally allowed. Other giant banks, including Goldman

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Wide Fallout In Failed Deal For Stuyvesant Town

New York Times
by Charles V. Bagli and Christine Haughney

AnalysisIn the beginning, investors and lenders could not get enough of the record-breaking $5.4 billion deal to buy the largest apartment complexes in Manhattan: Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. Now, three years later, they cannot get away from it

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AndyRob / flickr

Feb 9 2010, 3:10PM

A Private-Public Partnership Needed For Cyber Security

by Daniel Indiviglio

This morning, I attended the Internet Security Alliance's presentation of a recognition award to former Obama Administration acting cyber security chief Melissa Hathaway. During the event, she gave a speech mostly consisting of her view of the state of cyber security, and where it should go from here. Given the recent Google-China incident, I found the speech to be quite timely. One interesting theme she spoke of was the idea of a private-public partnership in tackling cyber security.

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Wikipedia Commons

Feb 9 2010, 2:05PM

To Whom Does The Fed Intend To Sell Its MBS?

by Daniel Indiviglio

By the end of March, the Federal Reserve is set to end its mortgage-backed securities purchase program. This program was created to help alleviate the credit crunch for residential mortgages during the financial crisis. It has worked pretty well. Once the program ends next month the Fed will have approximately $1.25 trillion in MBS on its balance sheet. The Wall Street Journal's Real Time Economics blog reports that St. Louis Fed President James Bullard favors beginning to sell this MBS soon. My question for him would be: to whom?

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Feb 9 2010, 1:41PM

How Information is Actually Getting More Expensive

by Derek Thompson

If information wants to be free, it's failing.

Every year the average American spends $1000 a year on services like cable, Internet and video games. Add another $1000 for cell phone services, writes NYT's Jenna Wortham, and "the average family is spending as much on entertainment over devices as they are on dining out or buying gasoline." Actually, $2000 a year to carry the world in your laptop and your phone could be the low end for real tech junkies.*

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WikimediaCommons

Feb 9 2010, 12:25PM

Obama's Bipartisan Dream for Jobs Bill Will Fail

by Derek Thompson

President Obama wants to work with Republicans to craft a jobs bill that rewards employers for adding workers to their payrolls. Bipartisanship on the jobs act is a noble effort -- maybe even good politics -- but it's not a realistic goal. Republicans have made it pretty clear they won't support tax incentives for employers, which is the most politically palatable part of the White House's job creation strategy. Other measures like state aid, infrastructure spending and unemployment insurance extensions were the heart of the House jobs bill which every single Republican voted against.

But really, what's the game plan here?

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WikimediaCommons

Feb 9 2010, 11:40AM

The Worst Argument About the Dow I've Ever Read

by Derek Thompson

The stock market is mysterious. Myriad data points and projections go into investors' decisions to bet on the future earnings potential of the 30 companies that make up the Dow Jones Indust... oh no, wait. I'm sorry. That's all wrong. Predicting the stock market is very easy. Did liberals just do something? OK then, the market is going down.

The Wall Street Journal op-ed section has a lot of bad habits, but one of the worst is blaming the White House for every stock market crash. I'm serious. Every. Single. One. And adjusting for typical WSJ nonsense, this is the worst paragraphs I've read in a long time:

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