A Stern Glance

By John G. Edwards, Las Vegas Review-Journal,
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman figured he lost all of the $50,000 he invested in PurchasePro.com, a Las Vegas-based e-commerce company that has been in bankruptcy since September 2002.
Goodman, however, described himself Monday as the “happiest mayor in the world” when he learned that he will get back some [...]

Data through April 2009, released today by Standard & Poor’s for its S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show that, although still negative, the annual decline of the 10-City and 20-City Composites improved.
The 10-City and 20-City Composites declined 18.0 percent and 18.1 percent, respectively, in April compared with the same [...]

The Congressional Budget Office today released the second of its statutory reports on transactions undertaken as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The assessment discusses the costs of purchases and guarantees of troubled assets taken to date, as well as the information and valuation methods used to calculate those costs.
The TARP’s transactions through June [...]

Households pushed their savings rate to the highest level in more than 15 years in May as a big boost in incomes from the government’s stimulus program was devoted more to bolstering nest eggs than increased spending.
The Commerce Department reported today that consumer spending rose 0.3 percent in May, in line with expectations. But incomes [...]

The economy tumbled at a 5.5 percent pace in the first quarter, according to the estimate of the Gross Domestic Product released by the Commerce Department today. The earlier estimate was a slightly higher 5.7 percent, annualized. The main forces behind the small change: businesses didn’t cut stockpiles of goods as much and imports dropped more sharply [...]

The Commerce Department reported to day that new residential sales fell slightly last month, in another sign that the housing market’s recovery is likely to be gradual and prolonged.
The Department said that sales dropped 0.6 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 342,000, from a downwardly revised April rate of 344,000. Sales were [...]

By Peter K. Ashton and Henry M. Banta
We are once again experiencing wild price fluctuations in the petroleum markets that threaten to repeat the frightful damage that was done last summer. This is coming at a time when the political machinery is in high gear to reform financial market regulation. The return of price speculation [...]

Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods rose sharply for a second straight month in May, and a key indicator of business investment surged by the largest amount in nearly five years.
The Commerce Department reported today that demand for durable goods rose 1.8 percent last month, far better than the 0.6 percent decline that [...]

In May, employers took 2,933 mass layoff actions involving 312,880 workers. Mass layoff events and initial claims rose to their highest levels on record. Over the year, manufacturing layoff events and initial claims more than doubled. Thirty states reached program highs for May average weekly initial claims.

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of previously occupied homes rose modestly from April to May, the third monthly increase this year, but signs of any housing recovery are fragile at best.
The NAR said today that home sales rose 2.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.77 million last month, from [...]