All Blog Posts from Econwatch

This post by Jill Schlesinger originally appeared on CBS' MoneyWatch.com.

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10.2% — that's the most important number from the October Employment Report. For the first time since 1983, the over 1 out of every 10 American is out of work. How's that for starting your Friday with some sobering news?


The 190,000 jobs lost in October means that since the start of the recession in December, 2007, 8.2 million people have lost their jobs and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3%. The numbers in and of themselves would by bad enough, but they don't accurately reflect just how hard it is to find a job. For that, you need to drill down to the U-6 measure of employment, or as my friend the economist likes to say, "the true pain threshold." U-6 starts with the total number of unemployed and adds part time employees and those who are "marginally attached," which means all of those folks people who took crappy jobs that are beneath their skill levels. The U-6 was 17.5% last month.

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Senate Banking Committee Chair Chris Dodd is planning to push a financial reform plan that would restructure the government's control of the banking industry, according to today's Wall Street Journal.

Dodd, the Democratic senator from Connecticut, has been praised by President Obama for his financial reform efforts, particularly for his work to establish a consumer protection agency.

His new plan, however, would significantly diverge from efforts by the Obama administration and the House Financial Services committee to overhaul the nation's financial regulation system.

The bill Dodd is proposing would almost completely restructure the federal financial regulation system, taking almost all bank-supervising responsibilities away from the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Journal reports. Bank-supervisory responsibilities would fall to a new agency that would oversee all national financial institutions: one single financial regulator. Currently, America has four federal regulatory agencies.

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Some of New York's largest companies have received the H1N1 vaccine in the last week.

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This post by Jill Schlesinger originally appeared on CBS' MoneyWatch.com.

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We knew that the Fed wouldn't change interest rate policy, but as my favorite teacher Mr. Maloney used to say, "words matter!" The Fed surely gets mired in word-smithing, but as the economy comes to a critical juncture, can't the central bankers speak in plain English?

Just tell us something like this: "the outlook has improved, but we're concerned that the fragile player still needs an injection of steroids to play in the big game." Sorry if you don't like baseball metaphors, but we're in the midst of the Fall Classic, so why not?

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This post by Jill Schlesinger originally appeared on CBS' MoneyWatch.com.

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Time will tell whether Berkshire Hathaway's acquisition of railroad operator Burlington Northern Santa Fe is a money-maker, although I would be the last one to doubt Warren Buffett.


The deal is not just momentous in terms of size, but it also includes the first ever 50-for-1 stock split of its smaller, class B shares (for the record, Class A trades at approximately $100,000 per share.) The B shares fetch over $3,300 each today, which means that after the split, the cost of one share will be around $65. I remember my brother in-law asking me about his holding in Berkshire Hathaway some years ago. My response was that owning the shares was akin to having a fairly inexpensive value fund in your portfolio.

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This post by Jill Schlesinger originally appeared on CBS' MoneyWatch.com.

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Here's the second episode of "Ask the Experts"...please send more questions for the 3rd episode on Thursday morning. Just post your comments below and we'll tackle the questions!

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Today's depressed economy is leading more parents to modeling and talent agencies – not for themselves, but for their kids, in the hopes that their looks can bring in some needed extra cash. Child models make as much as $125 an hour.

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This post by Jill Schlesinger originally appeared on CBS' MoneyWatch.com.

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After telling the world that assuming your personal financial conditions allow for it, the time is ripe for a home purchase, I started to actively look about a month ago. The process has been an excellent way to experience the highs and lows of the real estate market.


We found a smart and savvy agent, whose greatest asset was that she had entered the real estate market during a persistent period of weakness. She started our first outing by asking what we were looking for and then she said, "I'm going to spend the first half of the day showing you where the market is, so you can refine your search."

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This post by Jill Schlesinger originally appeared on CBS' MoneyWatch.com.

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With two months to go in the year, let's take a deep breath and assess where we stand. The economy is in a bottoming process that is neither smooth nor wildly different from previous economic recoveries. The weekend news of CIT's bankruptcy, 9 more bank failures (that makes it 115 closures for 2009) and this morning's better-than-expected earnings from Ford, can sometimes make it seem that recovery from the Great Recession is a fickle as the direction of the wind.

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Last year's outbreaks of H1N1 virus hit schools hard, shutting many as transmission of the virus among students was confirmed or suspected.

Betsy McKay and Dana Mattioli of The Wall Street Journal write today about how businesses are increasingly worried that outbreaks of swine flu among their workforce may stall their operations — and are taking steps to limit or prevent the spread of the virus among employees.

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