| Depression-era stories offer lessons from the past
The Great Depression of the 1930s may well qualify as the toughest time in U.S. history. The stock market crashed on Oct. 24, 1929. Banks collapsed. Factories closed. Homeowners and farmers faced foreclosure. By 1933, a quarter of workers were unemployed.
Unemployment and foreclosures are eerily familiar themes in Michigan today. But today�s struggle is a blip compared to the tough times in the 1930s, said David Wheelock, economist with the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis.
�Nothing we�ve had since the Great Depression is anywhere close to being as bad,� he said. .
Iowa caucuses
Huckabee, who came from behind in recent weeks with support from evangelical Christians, had been in a tight race with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. He was winning with 34 per cent support, compared with 25 per cent for Romney. Former senator Fred Thompson and Senator John McCain battled for third place. The caucus vote is considered the official kickoff to the November 2008 presidential election. Voters from both parties choose delegates to attend party conventions later this year. The winners in Iowa will likely give the candidate a boost in New Hampshire, where independents can vote in either primary. But it should be clear by Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, when more than 20 states weigh in, who the nominees will be. FULL STORY Share your thoughts on the race for the White House « Previous Topic | Main | Next Topic » This discussion is now Closed.
Anna Schwartz blames Fed for sub-prime crisis
She still works every day at the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York, where she has toiled since 1941. Her fame comes from a joint opus with Nobel laureate Milton Friedman: A Monetary History of the United States. It revolutionised thinking on the causes of the Great Depression when published in 1965. The book blamed the Fed for causing the slump. The bank failed to use its full bag of tricks to stop the implosion of the money stock, and turned a bust into calamity by raising rates. "The book was a bombshell," says British monetarist Tim Congdon. "Until then almost everybody thought the free-market system itself had failed in the 1930s. What Friedman-Schwartz say was that incompetent government bureaucrats at the Fed had caused the Depression." .
Loan Scandal Escalates
When Andrew M. Cuomo started asking questions about the relationships between lenders and colleges, many in higher education scoffed (off the record) that this was a case of an ambitious politician looking for headlines and that there wasn’t much for his inquiry to find. There’s no doubt that Cuomo, New York State’s new attorney general, is an ambitious politician looking for headlines, but he’s finding more and more to investigate. And some experts on aid are increasingly worried that the scandal is going to scare some students and families away from borrowing or from getting advice from financial aid offices. .
Eric Halvorson's Blog
Today, in our 5 o'clock newscast we offered some ideas for enjoying a "green" Christmas. In that case, the Natural Resources Defense Council offered ideas comparable to others I heard earlier in the day from the Sierra Club. A spokesman for the club says, between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, we generate an extra five million tons of garbage - and a lot of it is probably wrapping paper that can't be recycled. That's why the NRDC and the Sierra Club encourage alternatives to wrapping paper. For certain people, old maps would be a great idea. (My dad, for example, would probably enjoy the map as much as the gift inside it.) A member of the Sierra Club says you might try something like butcher paper and have kids draw something on the paper. Club members also suggest making the wrapping part of the gift - such as in a scarf or a decorative box that can be re-used in some way.
Where have you gone, George Bailey?
ANOTHER HOLIDAY season has come and gone with more reruns of Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life." We could sure use banker George Bailey now that the mortgage mess threatens to do what the rapacious Mr. Potter, the town's richest citizen, could not: end the "nonsense" of providing mortgages for the working poor. For some time to come, people in the real world of 21st-century America without a good deal of money in the bank and super-secure jobs will find it difficult to qualify for mortgage loans. George Bailey isn't coming to the rescue. If you are a borrower, you may send your monthly payment to Bailey's bank, but Bailey is long since out of the picture. Shortly after originating your loan, Bailey sold it to a consolidator, very likely a government-sponsored agency such as Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac that packages individual mortgages into a mortgage-backed security.
Polar bears in danger? Is this some kind of joke?
No wonder Greenpeace had trouble getting polar bears placed on the endangered species list. A fivefold population increase isn’t exactly a catastrophic decline. But never let the facts get in the way of a good story. The doom-mongers certainly won’t. Despite evidence from organisations such as the US National Biological Service that in most places polar bear populations are either stable or increasing, Ursus maritimus will continue to top the eco-hysterics’ list of animals in danger because it’s so fluffy and white and photogenic. If you’re really that worried about their demise, I’d book yourself a ticket to Churchill, Manitoba, where the evil buggers (about the only creature, incidentally, that actively preys on humans) are so rife they’re almost vermin.
Darts & Laurels
Speaking of the boss, we offer a glad-you're-back-because-this-spring-may-be-your-only-chance-to-graduate DART to Bernie Machen for suggesting that summer school may have to be taken away to make up for the $16 million deficit due to state budget cuts. Surely, there are other ways to make up for the shortage.However, despite our usual reluctance, we can't help but offer a they-want-us-to-return-to-a-safer-campus-with-a-system-that-actually-works LAUREL to University of Florida officials for their plans to test the emergency text-messaging system for the first time Tuesday.With LSU's recent glitch, UF made the right choice to avoid similar problems and make sure all students have up-to-date information in case of an emergency.In the wake of the tragedy at Virginia Tech in April, college officials can't leave much to chance these days.And since most of us are glued to our cell phones anyway (thanks a lot for that iPhone, Steve Jobs - that didn't help), why not send us a message that we'll actually get?Unfortunately, we have no choice but to give an absolutely-no-cutesy-way-to-say-it DART to the staff of the Hilochee Wildlife Management Area for their dense decision to start a controlled burn near I-4 in Winter Haven this week.Their attempt to clear land for a wildlife habitat in one of the state's driest areas turned into a predictably out-of-control wildfire.The resulting smoke-fog mixture over the interstate led to a 70-car pileup that killed four people and hospitalized 38.We shudder to think what could have happened if they had started the fire when we were making the trek back to Gainesville.Finally, we hand over a get-a-free-set-of-handcuffs-this-semester-if-you-don't-have-a-wristband LAUREL to the Gainesville Police Department for stepping up patrols to combat the common occurrence of underage drinking.While we don't wholeheartedly agree that this will stop the baby boozers, we have high hopes that more arrests will keep more of the amateurs at home.
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