All Blog Posts from Econwatch

Nearly a quarter of U.S. mortgage holders owe more on their loans than their houses are worth, according to a report today in the Wall Street Journal.

Data from First American CoreLogic, a Santa Ana, Calif.-based real-estate information company, shows that in the third quarter of 2009 almost 10.7 million households had negative equity in their homes.

Despite good news on the house resales front — it was reported Monday that home sales surged for the second month in a row in October, climbing to the highest level in 2½ years, due in part to a first-time buyers' tax credit — the Journal's Ruth Simon and James R. Hagerty write that this swelling of "underwater mortgages" threatens the prospects of a sustained housing recovery.

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That knock on the door may be Microsoft, wanting to de-index you — that is, if you are a media organization whose news content is being searched and indexed by Google.

The Financial Times reports that Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp. over the possibility of paying the media company to "de-index" its news Web sites from Google.

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The will of Florida businessman Jeffry Picower, an associate of Bernard Madoff who was found dead in Palm Beach swimming pool last month, is expected to be filed today — and is bound to set off a tug of war over his assets, estimated to be far in excess of $1 billion.

As reported by Diana Henriques of The New York Times, Picower's estate (most of which is to go to charity) will be targeted by the trustee charged with reclaiming the estimated $21 billion in losses suffered by investors in Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme.

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With gold prices surging comes a new surge in gold mining in the far north. The Anchorage Daily News is reporting that gold production in Alaska has reached its highest levels since the rush of a century ago, shortly after gold was discovered in the Yukon.

ADN's Elizabeth Bluemink writes that, with gold setting record prices (it hit $1,095 an ounce on Friday), investors are putting more money in to get more money out.

Alaska currently accounts for about 10% of the U.S. gold production, but that could soon change: A new mine near Juneau, set to open next year, will be the state's third largest, and two smaller mines may reopen. And two proposed mega-projects in the state's southwest, if approved, could turn Alaska into one of the world's leading producers of gold.

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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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Climbing the career ladder in today's economy is difficult enough. But young people, from recent college graduates and MBAs to high school dropouts, are finding it harder than ever to even get onto the first rung.

Peter Coy writes in Business Week of "The Lost Generation" — 16- to 24-year-olds for whom unemployment in the U.S. is now more than 18%, up from 13% a year ago. Including fulltime students, less than half of people age 16-24 had jobs in September, the lowest rate since post-WWII,

College graduates and advanced degree holders are suffering as well. Dan Schmitz, 25, a University of Wisconsin graduate with a bachelor's degree in English, told Business Week, "Every morning I wake up thinking today's going to be the day I get a job. I've not had a job for months, and it's getting really frustrating."

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Blink and you'll miss them — or at least you think you will. But researchers have found that not only are subliminal messages capable of getting through to an audience, but that the more negative the subliminal message, the more likely it'll stick.

According to the U.K.'s Independent, an experiment by British researchers shows that not only is the human brain capable of picking up a message or word that has been flashed for a mere split-second, but more importantly that the message's emotional meaning is more likely to be recalled if it is negative.

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After the U.S. government stepped in to loan hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to save sinking financial firms, now it may be the banks' turn to lend a helping hand . . . to Uncle Sam.

The New York Times is reporting that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which protects the accounts of bank depositors, is running rapidly short of funds after having taken over 94 failed banks so far this year.

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Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (pictured left in a file photo) is feeling optimistic — at least in terms of a global financial apocalypse being averted.

Bloomberg's Kati Pohjanpalo reports that, speaking at a seminar in Helsinki today, the Nobel Prize-winner said that "the end of the world appears to have been postponed."

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Uncle Sam is wearing many hats these days, one year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers marked a seismic shift in the economic landscape.

As The New York Times writes today, government spending (which today includes stimulus programs and bailouts) accounts for a bigger share of the nation's economy — 26 percent — than at any time since World War II.

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