August 1, 2012  |   Ron Hillyer, who was a custodian in the D.C. public schools for 32 years before retiring, gets a group hug from students who remember him. Photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images. Boston University economist Larry Kotlikoff's...

July 31, 2012  |   Creative Commons photo courtesy flickr user 401 2012. Monday's post featuring Boston University economist Larry Kotlikoff and his "34 Social Security Secrets" is attracting viewers like a new Lady Gaga video -- at least by Making Sen$e standards. Tens...

July 31, 2012  |   Real estate agent Diane Olson opens the sliding glass door of a model home in Gilbert, Ariz. "[Phoenix] was one of the hardest hit cities in the collapse, and prices are still more than 50 percent below their June...

July 30, 2012  |   Treasury employee Linda Tarkenton of Philadelphia holds a blank U.S. Treasury check before it's run through a printer at the U.S. Treasury printing facility. Photo by William Thomas Cain/Getty Images. Update: July 31, 2:10 p.m. | Laurence Kotlikoff has...

July 30, 2012  |   A TSA agent instructs travelers on traveling through security lines at Pittsburgh International Airport. Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here...

July 27, 2012  |   Paul Solman interviews author Charles Murray about his book "Coming Apart" at a local diner near Murray's hometown of Burkittsville, Md. Within just a few days, more than 2000 of you have responded to the "Do I Live In...

July 27, 2012  |   Registered nurse Susan Eager discusses medication with patient Helen Ricci, 96 during a house call in Denver, Colo. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images. The NewsHour has partnered with NextAvenue, a new PBS website that offers articles, blogs and other...

July 26, 2012  |   Potential customers try various models of smartphones at a mobile telecommunication fair in Bangkok. Photo by Christophe Archambault/AFP/Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here...

July 26, 2012  |   Government employees demonstrate in the center of Madrid after conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced the latest measures to lower Spain's deficit: an $80 billion austerity package involving cuts in unemployment benefits. Photo by Dominique Faget/AFP/GettyImages. Earlier this week...

July 25, 2012  |   Creative Commons photo courtesy flickr user o5com. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Wednesday's query: Name: Manuel Avila Question: This is in response to...

July 24, 2012  |   A photo of the Occupy Wall Street protests in October, 2011 by Jackie Weir. See more. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Tuesday's query:...

July 24, 2012  |   Creative Commons photo by Marceltheshell via Wikimedia Commons. The "Do You Live in a Bubble?" quiz, concocted by Charles Murray and first published here on Making Sen$e back in March, has generated more than 200,000 views thus far, and...

July 23, 2012  |   Photo by John Moore/Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Monday's query: Name: Andrew Mungai Question: As a Kenyan with a business degree...

July 23, 2012  |   The interior of the Madrid Stock Exchange, or Bolsa y Mercado, on Monday, July 23, 2012. Spanish bonds slumped, with 10-year yields climbing to a euro-era high, after the Spainish newspaper El Pais said six regions may ask the...

July 20, 2012  |   Stand-up economist Yoram Bauman spent five months in China recently, studying climate change at a university and sending occasional video dispatches to us at Making Sen$e. I myself spent some time in China in 2005, reporting...

July 20, 2012  |   Photo by Kick Images via Getty Images. The NewsHour has partnered with Next Avenue, a new PBS website that offers information and resources for adults over 50. Friday's question is another from our baby boom finance friends at PBS's...

July 19, 2012  |   President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney were both campaigning in the swing state of Ohio earlier this summer. Both sides are poised to spend $1 billion each in the race to the White House. Paul Solman...

July 18, 2012  |   Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Wednesday's query: Name: Carol Christen Question: Paul, the calculator is great. But it has a serious flaw. Few...

July 17, 2012  |   A flame from a Saudi Aramco oil installation known as 'Pump 3' burns brightly during sunset in the Saudi Arabian desert. According to Forbes, Saudi Aramco generates more than $1 billion a day in revenues...

July 16, 2012  |   A security guard patrols outside the headquarters of the Bank of China in the Xidan shopping area of Beijing. Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images. With all the talk of a Chinese economic slowdown there, I have a suggestion: Read...

July 13, 2012  |   Today we add a new wrinkle to Making Sen$e. The NewsHour has partnered with Next Avenue, a PBS site "that provides in-depth information, perspective and inspiration to help those 50 years old and older navigate their next life stage."...

July 12, 2012  |   We round out "Ray Kurzweil Online" with the third and final installment of our miniseries. Thursday's outtake with Mr. Immortality: Does Kurzweil believe that an avatar of his dead father -- created with artificial intelligence and...

July 11, 2012  |   Wednesday we feature the second of our interview outtakes with inventor/author/futurist Ray Kurzweil. (Tuesday's installment: the melding of man and machine.) In our broadcast story, which debuted on Making Sen$e Monday, Kurzweil explained that his recipe...

July 10, 2012  |   Author, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil has been a key voice in our occasional series on the future of technology. The latest installment on the advent of immortality debuted here on Making Sen$e July 9. As...

July 9, 2012  |   Will we one day be able to live forever? Interesting question, especially for a page where I usually take your financial, rather than science, questions. But what is the goal of economics if not the greatest...

July 9, 2012  |   Peace Corp volunteer Scott Wilhelm, right, worked as an agroforestry volunteer in El Salvador, assisting local farmers in growing fruit trees after a volcanic eruption destroyed their crops. Photo by the Peace Corps via a U.S. Government Work license....

July 6, 2012  |   An applicant speaks with a prospective employer at a New York job fair. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images Distressing. That's our verdict after studying this morning's unemployment data for June. Basic facts from the monthly survey of 60,000 US...

July 5, 2012  |   A euro coin rest on top of a dollar bill. Photo by: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Thursday's query: Name:...

July 4, 2012  |   Gold bars and coins at a gold dealer in London. Photo by Chris Ratcliffe/ Bloomberg/ Getty Images Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Wednesday's...

July 3, 2012  |   A Metropolitan Transit Authority engineer walks through a tunnel at the Long Island Rail Road East Side Access project, which received economic stimulus money. Photo by: Scott Eells/Bloomberg/Getty Images Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on...

July 2, 2012  |   Silver coins and bullion bars sit on display in the window of a bank in Vienna, Austria. Photo by Akos Stiller/Bloomberg/Getty Images Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making...

June 29, 2012  |   Photo of a small marijuana plant in Oakland, Calif. by Tony Avelar/The Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images. Name: Patricia Schwarz Question: Has pre-employment urine screening for marijuana actually helped businesses save money? According to studies done for the...

June 28, 2012  |   Economists Robin Wells and Paul Krugman. Photo by PBS NewsHour. Our web-exclusive interviews with Paul Krugman, accompanied by conservative critiques, and one with his wife, Robin Wells, have garnered so much attention that all five ranked among the nine...

June 27, 2012  |   Wednesday we debut a new song by the superstar of C&E music , Merle Hazard. We have featured Merle, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Nashville money manager Jon Shayne, proudly and often here on Making Sen$e....

June 26, 2012  |   Shuttered and repossessed homes line the streets of a middle class neighborhood on the East side of Detroit. Photo by Charles Ommanney/Getty Images. Only in Detroit. That's the punchline from the monthly S&P/Case-Shiller housing survey, published Tuesday morning with...

June 25, 2012  |   On Friday's show, I interviewed Rory O'Connor, longtime video journalist, blogger and author of the new book, "Friends, Followers and the Future," about the power and perils of social networks. O'Connor has agreed to answer Making...

June 22, 2012  |   In the last installment of our extended profile of Paul Krugman, we turn to his wife Robin Wells. An economist who also co-authors textbooks with him, Wells talked with us at their home on a particularly rainy day --...

June 21, 2012  |   Thursday marks the penultimate installment of our extended profile of economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman here on Making Sen$e. The topic: What happened in the great crash of '08? Are we in danger...

June 20, 2012  |   Continuing our profile of economist Paul Krugman, we turn to a topic in the news today: the Federal Reserve. On Monday, remember, we featured Krugman on European austerity, with a response from Jacob Kirekegaard of the...

June 19, 2012  |   This week we're profiling one of the more prolific, public and controversial economists -- Paul Krugman. We couldn't fit everything of interest into one piece, so over the next few days we're rescuing some of his...

June 18, 2012  |   Welcome to "Paul Krugman Week" here on Making Sen$e. We'll be devoting the next five days to excerpts from our extensive interview with him a few weeks ago at his home in Princeton, N.J., plus parts...

June 15, 2012  |   Photo by Philip Taylor PT via Flickr Creative Commons. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Friday's query: Name: Jason Copping Question: Has the U.S....

June 13, 2012  |   President and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon testifies before a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday. The committee is hearing testimony from Dimon on how JPMorgan Chase lost over $2 billion in stock market trades. Photo...

June 12, 2012  |   Monday night the NewsHour featured my discussion with Harvard professor Michael Sandel about his new book, "What Money Can't Buy," born from his famed, regularly mobbed Harvard course, "Justice," most of which is online and hugely...

June 11, 2012  |   Banco de Espana . Photo by Two Steps Behind via Flickr Creative Commons. Today, in the last of our pain-in-Spain posts, a viral version of the Lord's Prayer, as tweeted by Paul Solman over the weekend. Our...

June 8, 2012  |   Bank of Spain in Madrid. Photo by Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images. It's "Pain in Spain" week here at Making Sen$e. Thus far we've featured a two-part dispatch from former New York Times correspondent Ana Westley. Today, her husband takes center...

June 7, 2012  |   Church of Our Lady of Incarnation in Spain. Photo by SantiMB via Flickr Creative Commons. In the second part of her dispatch from Spain, former New York Times correspondent and friend of Making Sen$e, Ana Westley describes the privileges...

June 6, 2012  |   People take part in a protest in front of a BBVA bank office in Barcelona. Photo by Josep Lago AFP/Getty Images This week here at Making Sen$e, we'll be featuring dispatches from Europe's financial front lines - mainly and...

June 5, 2012  |   JPMorgan Chase world headquarters on Park Avenue in New York City. Photo by Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Tuesday's...

June 4, 2012  |   We first set out to cover the student-debt story last year when we read David Graeber's book, "Debt: The First 5000 Years" and listened to him speak (online). Graeber was pushing a proposal for mass repudiation...

June 1, 2012  |   Unemployed veterans search for work at a job fair in Utica, N.Y., last month. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images. Uh -- not so good. Not so good at all. That's the verdict for Friday's unemployment numbers. Not only did...

May 30, 2012  |   Vassar College Commencement on May 20 in Poughkeepsie, New York. Photo by Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images. In researching the growing amount of college loan debt that students are taking on as academic sticker prices steadily increase, we wondered: Is it...

May 30, 2012  |   James Stewart standing in the cashier cubicle in a bank run scene from the 1946 film "It's a Wonderful Life". Photo by RKO Radio Picture/Getty Images. Monday's Making Sen$e post asked you a question: Would you keep your euro...

May 29, 2012  |   Highrise condominiums line Chicago's Lake Shore Drive. Chicago, along with Atlanta, Las Vegas, New York and Portland, saw average home prices hit new lows according to the May S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices report. Photo by George Rose/Getty Images. The...

May 28, 2012  |   A woman asks for money in Athens next to a newsstand as journalists staged a 24-hour strike to protest cuts to jobs and salaries prompted by the country's financial recession on May 28. Photo by Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images. Paul...

May 25, 2012  |   Registered nurse Susan Eager pays a house call visit to a patient in Denver, Colo. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page....

May 24, 2012  |   A trader works at the New York Stock Exchange. Photo by Scott Eells/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Thursday's query:...

May 23, 2012  |   A Greek flag flies next to a statue of Socrates in Athens. IMF chief Christine Lagarde on Wednesday warned of the risk of "contamination" if Greece quits the euro and said the eurozone might therefore see the value of...

May 22, 2012  |   Creative Commons photo by Flickr user Thomas Hawk. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Tuesday's question comes from an in-house NewsHour staffer who wishes to remain...

May 21, 2012  |   Banner protesting austerity measures in Brussels, Belgium. Photo by Morgan Till/PBS NewsHour. Restricted as this page usually is to questions , its posts can, I realize, seem more than a bit off the news. This is especially true...

May 17, 2012  |   Fannie Mae headquarters in Washington, D.C. Photo by Flickr user futureatlas.com via a Creative Commons license. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Thursday's query:...

May 16, 2012  |   A pile of money from around the world -- currencies of the U.S. , U.K. (pound), and Europe (euro). Creative Commons photo courtesy flickr user Images_of_Money. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic...

May 15, 2012  |   A waitress carries a pizza to customers at Gino's East restaurant in Chicago. Wait staff in Illinois earn $2.13 an hour, before tips. Photo by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience...

May 14, 2012  |   Image of "Curious Behaviors" used with permission of the Financial Security Project at Boston College. A suggestion for those pondering retirement: a new interactive video tool introduced by old friend Alicia Munnell, professor of management, director of the Center...

May 11, 2012  |   Finance professor Zvi Bodie talks to Paul Solman in 2011 about pension woes. In response to our post of May 9 on the benefits of Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, this arrived from the eminent finance guru from Boston University, FoM¢*...

May 10, 2012  |   "The Scream," painted by Edvard Munch in 1895, sold at a record price of $119.9 million on May 2. A few belated thoughts on the economics of art in the wake of the $120 million price fetched by Edvard...

May 9, 2012  |   Photo by Kick Images via Getty Images. Readers of this page regularly ask about Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities , which I've long said are my own preferred investment vehicle. Do TIPS still make up more than half the...

May 8, 2012  |   Photo by Subactive_Photo via Flickr Creative Commons Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Tuesday's query: Name: JJ Question: What's with the inequitable treatment of...

May 7, 2012  |   Baratunde Thurston seemed like something of a wonder: a stand-up comedian via Sidwell Friends and Harvard. I note, however, that there is now something called The Harvard College Stand-Up Comic Society, so perhaps surprise is unwarranted....

May 4, 2012  |   People wait in line at a job fair in the Queens borough of New York City. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images. It's time for the unemployment news, and our monthly U-7, the most inclusive stat on un- and underemployment...

May 3, 2012  |   Photo by Flickr user borman818 Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Thursday's query: Name: Ed Question: Exactly how much is $1 worth today? Paul...

May 2, 2012  |   An International Paper Co. employee works on the floor of the company's factory in Mt. Carmel, Pa. The company was one of 35 big U.S.-based multinational companies to add jobs faster than other U.S. employers in the past two...

May 1, 2012  |   Wells Fargo & Co., the largest U.S. home lender, reported a 13 percent rise in its first-quarter profit in April, setting a record as the bank made more money on new mortgages and curbed losses from old ones. Photo...

April 26, 2012  |   An attendant displays a fuel pump at a gas station in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Photo by Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news...

April 25, 2012  |   Civilian Conservation Corps workers in 1933 construct a road. Public domain photograph from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum via Wikimedia Commons. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his...

April 24, 2012  |   Homes in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The nation's capital saw the highest price index level of all 20 areas the S&P/Case-Shiller report covers. Creative Commons photo courtesy of flickr user NCinDC. If you're one of millions of...

April 20, 2012  |   A bicyclist rides through the plaza on the east side of the U.S. Capitol. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here...

April 19, 2012  |   Larry Bessler purchases gasoline at a Shell station. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Thursday's query: Name: Jim Question:...

April 18, 2012  |   Creative Commons photo courtesy flickr user 401K. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Wednesay's query: Name: Jen Question: Here is my dilemma: I took...

April 17, 2012  |   Watch Arthur Laffer explain the Laffer Curve in "Taxes: How High is Too High?" Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Tuesday's query:...

April 12, 2012  |   A man participates in the Occupy Wall Street protests on Oct. 4, 2011. See more, including a slideshow, with "A Day With the Occupiers of Wall Street." Photo by Jackie Weir. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour...

April 11, 2012  |   Standing with millionaires and their assistants, President Obama made a statement about the 'Buffett Rule' on April 11, 2012. Named after the billionaire investor Warren Buffet, the 'Buffet Rule' would ensure that the wealthiest Americans pay at least 30...

April 10, 2012  |   Students participate in a science lab at the University of Illinois-Springfield. Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr user jeremy.wilburn. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here...

April 6, 2012  |   A job seeker holds a job application during the San Francisco Hirevent job fair last month. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. The online headlines sum up the just-released March unemployment numbers: "Job Growth Loses Steam," announced the Wall Street...

April 5, 2012  |   Jon Stewart interviews Adm. Mike Mullen during a 2010 "Daily Show" taping. Public domain photo via the U.S. Navy In Tuesday's post, which featured viewer emails responding to Charles Murray's bubble quiz, we published one from a 61-year-old "denizen...

April 4, 2012  |   Creative commons image courtesy of flickr user truliavisuals. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Wednesday's query: Name: Tuba Gokcek Question: Strategic defaults are a...

April 3, 2012  |   Creative commons photo courtesy flickr user Smaku. A bevy of emails have inundated our inbox since we first posted Charles Murray's popular quiz, "Do You Live In a Bubble?" and its attempt to ascertain users' socio-economic status and that...

March 30, 2012  |   Tammy Redlen and Sierra Luchien walk into Bluebird liquor store in Hawthorne, Calif., after waiting in line for nearly three hours to purchase their Mega Millions ticket. Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images. When a lottery pot gets as big...

March 29, 2012  |   Unemployed and underemployed workers and supporters at the American Dream Movement Rally in October 2011. Creative Commons photo by David Sachs/SEIU lnternational. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making...

March 28, 2012  |   European flags in front of the Berlaymont building, headquarters of the European Commission -- the executive of the European Union -- in Brussels, Belgium. Creative Commons photo courtesy Flickr user TPCOM. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour...

March 27, 2012  |   San Francisco saw one of the sharpest declines in home sales from December 2011 to January 2012, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. Photo by Chip Chipman/Bloomberg via Getty Images. This post has been updated. From their peak...

March 26, 2012  |   Photo by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Monday's query: Name: Lon Jones Question: My wife and I have...

March 22, 2012  |   Updated March 23 | Since our coverage of Charles Murray and his new book, "Coming Apart," received a strong reception from viewers and online constituents who took Murray's "Do You Live in a Bubble?" quiz, we felt obliged to...

March 21, 2012  |   Recently, the Making Sen$e team traveled to tiny and picturesque Burkittsville, Md., to interview author Charles Murray at home about why he thinks America is coming apart. We interviewed him for hours in the book-lined office shack behind his...

March 20, 2012  |   Last week, we previewed our interview with libertarian author and think-tanker Charles Murray by publishing his quiz: How Thick Is Your Bubble? Featured in "Coming Apart," his new book about class divide in white America, the...

March 19, 2012  |   People are reflected in glass as they walk past Goldman Sachs headquarters in New York City. Photo by Mario Tama via Getty Images. In last week's New York Times, a Goldman Sachs "executive director" named Greg Smith wrote what...

March 14, 2012  |   Paul Solman interviews author Charles Murray about his book "Coming Apart" at a local diner near Murray's hometown of Burkittsville, Md. White America is coming apart at the seams. That's the thesis Charles Murray, a libertarian political scientist at...

March 13, 2012  |   Stacks of $100 bills pass through a circulator machine at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C. Photo by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic...

March 12, 2012  |   A gas station in Brooklyn, N.Y. Photo by Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Linda Crumback...

March 9, 2012  |   Steve Chock cuts metal during a class at Hennepin Technical College in Brooklyn Park, Minn. Photo by Ariana Lindquist/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Healthy job numbers arrived Friday, and, for once, the two surveys -- payroll and household -- more...

March 8, 2012  |   Kim Chauvin and her husband Dave, co-owners of the Mariah Jade Shrimp Company, prepare a small load of shrimp to be delivered to a client at their shrimp processing plant in Chauvin, La. This husband and wife team have...

March 7, 2012  |   Photo by Scott Eells/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Wednesday's query: Name: Taylor Vincent Question: Surprised by the significant change...

March 6, 2012  |   Photo of the inside of the Venetian hotel and casino in Las Vegas by Flickr user kris.hoet. Update | 1:50 p.m. ET This post has been edited to include the reference to the CDS explainer and Jon Stewart. Paul...

March 5, 2012  |   Photo of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke by Peter Larson/Medill News Service. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Monday's query: Name: Enrique G. Palacio...

March 2, 2012  |   Hundreds of Marshmallow Peeps move down the conveyor belt to be boxed up at Just Born, Inc., a family-owned and operated confections business. Photo by Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business...

February 29, 2012  |   Photo by Tobias Helbig via Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Wednesday's query: Alvera Pritchard: I found the Rich/Poor Shopper segment quite...

February 27, 2012  |   U.S. Capitol at night; file photo Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Monday's query: Name: Teri Question: In the event of a total collapse...

February 24, 2012  |   Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Friday's "query": Name: Bob Comment: Ditch the stupid hat -- spoils your serious image! Paul Solman: Tell it...

February 23, 2012  |   A while back we asked you to submit your most pressing personal finance questions so that I could put them to Carl Richards, the electronic-sketching, New York Times-blogging, financial literacy-teaching author of the excellent money manual,...

February 22, 2012  |   Home foreclosure in Greeley, Colo. Photo by Flickr user david_shankbone under a Creative Commons license. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Wednesday's query: Name: Gordon...

February 21, 2012  |   Image by the PBS NewsHour. The boomerang business is booming. Ever since our story on "accordion families" and "boomerang kids" ran last week, personal testimony has been coming in over the transom. We'll share a sample of it with...

February 17, 2012  |   This isn't just a candidate for chart of the day or even chart of the week. Hedge fund manager Boaz Weinstein, founder of Saba Capital and former co-head of credit trading at Deutsche Bank, presented this at a conference...

February 16, 2012  |   From left to right: Paul Solman, Jose Antonio Martinez and Ana Westley in Spain, 2010. Image by the PBS NewsHour. Thursday, an email from old friend Ana Westley, an American ex-pat journalist who has written for The New York...

February 15, 2012  |   Chart via a report from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities based on data from the Congressional Budget Office. The chart above comes to you courtesy of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities -- based on Congressional...

February 13, 2012  |   A euro sign sculpture stands in front of European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. Photo via Getty Images. Follow all of NewsHour's coverage of the eurozone financial crisis here. The 17-country monetary union known as the eurozone...

February 10, 2012  |   Social Security cards. Photo via Wikimedia Commons. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Friday's query: Gwynn Pealer: I thought I understood Social Security, but all...

February 9, 2012  |   Graphic by the PBS NewsHour, based on the cover of "The Spirit Level." Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: John Naghshineh: Mr. Solman,...

February 8, 2012  |   Photo by foreverdigital via Flickr. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Wednesday's query: John Feuille: Most of us have played Monopoly. You set up the...

February 7, 2012  |   The Arsos container ship is unloaded at the Port of Miami in Florida; Photo by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Marc Whitehead sends the follow-up question below after reading Paul's thoughts on tariffs from early January: If we put...

February 6, 2012  |   Standard & Poor's Headquarters in Lower Manhattan. Photo by B64 via Wikimedia Commons. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here are a trio of queries for...

February 3, 2012  |   Recruiter Esther Aranza reviews job seeker Andrew Jack Jr.'s resume during a career fair in Texas. Photo by Aaron M. Sprecher/Bloomberg via Getty Images. The unemployment rate continued to trend downward Friday, reaching 8.3 percent, the lowest rate in...

February 2, 2012  |   Photo by Matthew Staver/Bloomberg via Getty Images. More signs that the U.S. economy may not be headed into a strong recovery just yet: unemployment was at 8.6 percent in January, with underemployment up to 18.7 percent. But wait a...

February 1, 2012  |   NewsHour image by Vanessa Dennis. Sources: State Department, USAID Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience about business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Wednesdays query: John E. Tucker asks: Could reducing U.S foreign...

January 31, 2012  |   Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images. The monthly housing data released Tuesday by Standard and Poor's Case-Shiller Index came with sparse good news. Home prices have declined yet again, continuing their wobbly down-up-down decline after the market bubble burst in...

January 30, 2012  |   Image by Yagi Studio/Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Doug Clymer asks: What is the benefit -- if any -- of...

January 27, 2012  |   Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Friday's query: William Carr: I discovered your page following a reference from the...

January 26, 2012  |   Pedestrians pass an entrance to the Greek finance ministry in Athens. European stocks declined from a five-month high as the region's finance ministers failed to agree on a debt-swap deal for Greece and called for a greater contribution from...

January 25, 2012  |   The European Central Bank's new headquarters, still under construction, right, are seen alongside other buildings within the city, across from the River Main in Frankfurt, Germany. Photo by Hannelore Foerster/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Some might be expecting comment on...

January 24, 2012  |   Photo by flickr user Mike Poresky and used under a Creative Commons / Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Tuesday's...

January 23, 2012  |   Renzo Salazar places a sign in front of a foreclosed home in Miami. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here are...

January 20, 2012  |   In this final edition of our "Man in Beijing", stand-up economist Yoram Bauman ties up his China miniseries with thoughts on the future for the so-called "Communist" country. Five months doesn't make him an expert, Bauman...

January 18, 2012  |   Paul Solman interviews Consumer Financial Protection Bureau head Richard Cordray Wednesday in Washington, D.C. In the spring of 1987, a law clerk from Ohio, having taken a friend's advice, made it onto the TV trivia show, "Jeopardy!" A quarter-century...

January 17, 2012  |   A cardboard poster on display at Occupy D.C. Photo by Elizabeth Shell/PBS NewsHour. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here are Tuesday's queries: A pair of...

January 11, 2012  |   Image by Jon Boyes/Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Wednesday's query: Elke from Roswell, N.M. asks: If tax rate adjustments did...

January 10, 2012  |   Photo of Steve Jobs in 2010 by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Tuesday's query: Name: John Livingston Question: Income...

January 9, 2012  |   German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomes French President Nicolas Sarkozy Monday at the Chancellery in Berlin. The two leaders discussed the ongoing Eurozone debt crisis. Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web...

January 6, 2012  |   A jobs sign hangs above the entrance to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce building in Washington, D.C. Photo by Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images. Friday's unemployment figures are positive all around: The official unemployment number dipped to 8.5 percent, a rate...

January 5, 2012  |   Cargo containers sit stacked on a ship at the Port of New Orleans in Louisiana. Photo by Paul Taggart/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on...

January 4, 2012  |   Unemployment rates, inflation, poverty, exchange rates -- all familiar topics for readers who frequent this page. Normally, these are no laughing matter. But cartoonist Grady Klein and stand-up comedian Yoram Bauman who should also be familiar to those who come...

January 3, 2012  |   Photo by RunPhoto via Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Tuesday's query: Name: Paul Johnson, Ph.D., cardiovascular physiologist and adjunct professor...

January 2, 2012  |   Image by Spark Studio via Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Ben Sands Question: Instead of discussing "fairness"...

December 28, 2011  |   This penultimate post from Our Man in Beijing, standup economist Yoram Bauman, chronicles a true test: doing jokes in front of a Chinese audience. The responses are instructive, as are Yoram's responses during the Q&A. His...

December 27, 2011  |   Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. It's the monthly moment for Case-Shiller/S&P, the most widely followed index of U.S. housing prices, and Tuesday's numbers are a distinct downer, prices dropping at an annual rate of over 1 percent, though only...

December 21, 2011  |   A crowd of depositors gather in the rain outside Bank of United States after its failure in 1931 during the Great Depression. Photo by World Telegram staff photographer from the Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons. Last week's story...

December 20, 2011  |   A Greek 500 drachma banknote sits atop euros. Photo by Peter Phipp via Getty Images. Today's post tries to answer a number of questions that have come in over the past few weeks along the lines of, "What's going...

December 15, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news here on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Name: Don Kruger Question: I lost half of my 401k savings in the last big bump...

December 12, 2011  |   Today we feature a short, simple, surprising inequality video that sums up a lot of recent research from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the 34-member OECD. Take a look. Here's a sampling of our own reporting on inequality...

December 12, 2011  |   Photo by Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Roy Pettis Question: Aren't these steps of cutting spending,...

December 9, 2011  |   An evacuation sign asks residents to leave Eagar, Ariz. as the Wallow Fire swept through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images. Between fires, twisters, hurricanes, droughts and floods, 2011 has been Mother Nature's most continuously...

December 8, 2011  |   A security guard patrols outside the headquarters of the Bank of China in the Xidan shopping area of Beijing. Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images. Paul Solman frequently answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic...

December 6, 2011  |   Getting back to his roots, Standup Economist Yoram Bauman begins his latest dispatch from Beijing by testing just how far you can apply the First Amendment in modern-day China. He's humored audiences twice in China thus far: one, an...

December 2, 2011  |   Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images. Editor's note, 11:22 am EST: all figures have been checked and confirmed against the now-available BLS data. It seems we aren't the only ones hanging on every number from the Bureau of Labor Statistics...

December 1, 2011  |   Peter Steiner is the New Yorker cartoonist best known for his 1993 cartoon of two dogs looking at a computer monitor as one says to the other: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." He sent us an...

November 29, 2011  |   Image by Fusion via Getty Images. Making Sen$e reporter/producer Elizabeth Shell files most of this post on Tuesday's Case-Shiller housing index. The punchline: housing prices declined in September -- not a good sign. Here's her summary of the data...

November 28, 2011  |   Paul Solman frequently answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Godwin Ohiwerei Question: Are we addicted to war? How come we never actually bother...

November 25, 2011  |   Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Friday query: Name: Jack McBroom Question: My first mortgage in 1970 was at a...

November 24, 2011  |   Trader at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in Germany. Photo by Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images. The U.S. markets lie as still today as the birds on America's platters, but the same cannot be said for fluttering Europe, or anywhere else in...

November 22, 2011  |   I've been saying the following to friends and colleagues for months now: In all my many years as a business and economics reporter, I have never seen a greater cognitive dissonance than in the current coverage of the U.S....

November 21, 2011  |   Paul Solman frequently answers questions from NewsHour viewers and readers on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Aime Casavant Question: How does raising or lowering taxes affect the economy? What difference does...

November 18, 2011  |   "Bob Frank and P.J. O'Rourke AGREE," Paul Solman tweeted recently, referring to the political differences of liberal economist Frank and conservative satirist O'Rourke. "Build the damn bridges. Now." Frank and O'Rourke recently partnered to author an opinion piece on...

November 16, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Wednesday's query is answered first by Paul, and further down by Yoram Bauman, our frequent economist contributor from China:...

November 15, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Tuesday's query: Name: Eriks Blaschka Question: My smart colleague told me that he would be happy to "never"...

November 14, 2011  |   Video: Sheila Bair and Paul Solman talk about how simple math and financial education, like the savings lessons in her children's book 'Rock, Brock, and the Savings Shock,' might have helped avert the financial crash. Sheila...

November 10, 2011  |   Photo by Lilli Day / Getty Images. Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Name: Curt Carpenter Question: I would really like to...

November 9, 2011  |   An economic analysis of a local, family-run bread bakery is the topic of the latest dispatch from Yoram Bauman, our temporary economist-in-residence in China. Using his improving (but still a bit limited) language skills and a...

November 8, 2011  |   A national flag of Greece flies outside the Greek stock exchange in Athens. Photo by Kostas Tsironis/Bloomberg via Getty Images. In Greece last summer for the NewsHour, we interviewed a plain-spoken, candid economist named Manos Matsaganis. As the Parthenon...

November 7, 2011  |   A year ago July, we did a story on "private equity" featuring journalist Josh Kosman, who'd written a book, "The Buyout of America." In it, Kosman blamed private equity firms for buying companies with borrowed money,...

November 4, 2011  |   Khalifah Varnado reads a help wanted post card during the Arizona Workforce Connection Career Expo at the Arizona State Fair Grounds in Phoenix, Ariz. Photo by Joshua Lott/Getty Images. As expected, unemployment in the U.S. was little changed in...

November 2, 2011  |   Photo of Occupy Wall Street by Getty Images. While shooting at the end of day recently at Zuccotti Park, I was heckled twice while "re-asking" several questions. That is, with only one camera, it's impossible to create a dialogue...

October 31, 2011  |   Political cartoon satirizing U.S. economic equality and mobility by David Fitzsimmons. Reproduced with permission from Daryl Cagle's PoliticalCartoons.com. It's a welcome moment when we TV reporters get mail, since we usually talk to an invisible, mute audience. It's more...

October 27, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Name: Sue Pruner Question: In this debt crisis, what would the effect be if many citizens bought...

October 26, 2011  |   Join Paul on Twitter using #inequalitychat. Editor's Note: Wednesday night on the NewsHour, libertarian law professor Richard Epstein sits down with Paul Solman for a frank discussion on a topic that's been front-and-center on many of our pages as...

October 25, 2011  |   A construction worker gestures on the roof of a home in Phoenix, Ariz. Home prices inched up in August from the previous month according to the Case-Shiller Index. Photo by Joshua Lott/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Paul Solman answers questions...

October 21, 2011  |   A foreclosure sign stands outside a home in Winchester, Va. Photo by Jay Mallin/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Friday's...

October 20, 2011  |   FDIC offices in Arlington, Va. Photo by Coolcaesar via Wikimedia Commons. Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Name: E.T. Question: If the...

October 19, 2011  |   Our favorite country-western money manager, Harvard-trained Nashville econo-crooner Merle Hazard, has collaborated with brilliant lyricist Marcy Shaffer to produce his slickest video to date: the tuneful tale of a would-be banker who travels to Charlotte, N.C., to meet up...

October 18, 2011  |   A market trader in Kota Bharu, Malaysia. Flickr Creative Commons photo courtesy jamesmellor. Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Tuesday's query: Name: Christian Kontoh Question:...

October 17, 2011  |   Flickr Creative Commons photo courtesy Images_of_Money Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and readers on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Karen Lepere Question: OK, no millions in $20s under the...

October 14, 2011  |   In this latest dispatch from China, stand-up economist Yoram Bauman explores the possibility of a Beijing housing bubble. We first reported on this threat in our "China on the Rise" series back in 2005, when MIT...

October 13, 2011  |   Photo by flickr user CaptPiper. The 40-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has just released the published version of its study of well-being, reported on Making Sen$e some months ago. We thought the OECD's summary of the highlights...

October 12, 2011  |   Editor's Note: On Wednesday's program we examine Georgia Works, a state program that's been touted for helping unemployed residents get back to work by pairing job seekers with employers who are willing to promise on-the-job training. The trainees are...

October 11, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Tuesday's query: Name: Gene H. Question: Do you have a current opinion about the direction of the six-month LIBOR?...

October 10, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Beth D. Question: Stephen Colbert did an excellent job of explaining the marshmallow test of...

October 7, 2011  |   Well, interestingly good news on the jobs front, it would appear. Again, the proviso: Don't take any given month's unemployment numbers too seriously. But that said, according to the "establishment survey" of places that hire, the economy added more...

October 5, 2011  |   We spent Tuesday at the Occupy Wall Street site in lower Manhattan, a stone's throw from ground zero. For those of us old enough to remember such gatherings in the so-called Sixties , the similarities were striking: spontaneity, solidarity,...

October 4, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news here on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Tuesday's query: Name: KR Question: Aren't the regulations removed by the Bush administration on oil commodities the...

October 3, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news here on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Matyas Question: There was no real real estate crisis where I live: Texas. Why...

September 30, 2011  |   Karl 'Chip' Case of the Case-Shiller Housing Index has long been among our most treasured sources. Today, he graces us with more of his music -- the muse of poetry having inspired him to write on the occasion of...

September 29, 2011  |   To accompany our ongoing NewsHour series on economic inequality, we present here an interactive world inequality map based on data from the World Bank. We confess; this isn't exactly "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" But this quiz...

September 28, 2011  |   Editor's note: In our recent program 'Do Social Safety Net Programs Shrink Gap in U.S. Economic Inequality?' - above - Paul Solman interviewed economist Robert Lerman about his take on wealth inequality in the United States. Lerman argued that...

September 27, 2011  |   A home for sale in Tempe, Ariz. Flickr photo by 'Nick Bastian Tempe, AZ.' Moving on up. Or more like "creeping." That's one way of wording the latest Case-Shiller housing price numbers, up 3.6 percent since their 20-city index...

September 26, 2011  |   From "Why Social Security?" . Social Security Administration pamphlet explaining need for the new system in terms of the transition from rural to urban-industrial society. Illustration by Hendrik Willem Van Loon, photo via flickr user Tobias Higbie. Paul Solman...

September 23, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Friday's query: Name: Charles Meyrick Question: What good is gold? In your article on John Williams,...

September 22, 2011  |   Editor's Note: Wednesday's story, featuring economist Robert Lerman's take on the distribution of wealth in the United States, has generated a flood of comments. Lerman has agreed to respond to many of the points made by...

September 21, 2011  |   Editor's Note: We've been looking at inequality quite a bit lately. In the piece 'Land of the Free, Home of the Poor,' we used a trio of pie charts broken down into five quintiles to illustrate...

September 20, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web visitors on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Tuesday's query: 
D. K. Mitchell: HELP!!! My husband and I abruptly retired at 57 and 59...

September 19, 2011  |   Watch "Tracking Inflation: How Fast Are Prices Rising?" Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and Web visitors on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: The email tale below refers...

September 16, 2011  |   Watch 'Can America's Jobless Fill America's Jobs?' Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Friday's query: The flood of responses to our...

September 15, 2011  |   Image of hazard symbols for weapons of mass destruction -- radiation, biological and deadly -- by Wikimedia user Fastfission via Wikimedia Commons. Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days...

September 14, 2011  |   Political cartoon of "Job Creators" by Bob Englehart. Reproduced with permission from Daryl Cagle's PoliticalCartoons.com. Editor's Note: Definitely not. We've been reporting on jobs quite a bit lately -- why technology hasn't created more...

September 13, 2011  |   A woman from Argonne National Laboratory discusses science and technology careers with 350 Chicago-area high schoolers. Photo by Argonne National Laboratory via Flickr Creative Commons. Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic...

September 12, 2011  |   President Obama holds up a copy of the American Jobs Act with Vice President Joseph Biden surrounded by teachers, police officers, construction workers and small business owners in the Rose Garden of the White House on Monday, Sept. 12,...

September 9, 2011  |   President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress Thursday to preview his jobs plan. A day after President Obama's big jobs speech, we checked back in with a group of unemployed Chicago-area workers to get their reaction to his...

September 8, 2011  |   When President Obama outlines his jobs plan Thursday evening before a joint session of Congress, many of America's unemployed will be listening for specifics that will help them out of the unemployment line and into a job. We interviewed...

September 8, 2011  |   A number of viewers were struck by our story last Friday on the question over current U.S. unemployment: is it more nearly structural or cyclical in nature? That is, are we simply in a down cycle, a recession from...

September 7, 2011  |   Photo of Alan Krueger by Ralph Alswang via flickr user Center for American Progress on April 30, 2010. Alan Krueger of Princeton is President Obama's choice for head of the Council of Economic Advisors. That doesn't mean he gets...

September 6, 2011  |   Editor's Note: Friday's story, "Can America's Jobless Fill American Jobs?" looked at the extent to which high unemployment is structural, and the extent to which it is cyclical. Zachary Karabell of economic research and consulting firm...

September 2, 2011  |   Photo by Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Not good. Friday's job numbers, that is. Yes, there was an extenuating event: 48,000 or so Verizon workers walked off the job during August, and they're in the data as job losses,...

September 1, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Thursday's query. Name: Fred McEwan Question: [A] Huffington Post article states that one huge reason for banks not...

August 31, 2011  |   Another vlog today from Our Man in Beijing, Stand-up Economist Yoram Bauman. He's not in China as a comedian, of course, but as an environmental economist, which this post explains. It also explains why he keeps a roll of...

August 30, 2011  |   Click on the cities above to see how housing prices have changed from June, 2003 to June, 2011 according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Housing Index. Data are in Tuesday morning from what may be the one reliable product coming out...

August 29, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Monday's query. Name: David Abramowitz Question: It was recently reported that the U.S. has the largest economy...

August 26, 2011  |   Photo of Ben Bernanke Feb. 9, 2011 by Peter Larson/Medill News Service via Flickr user Medill DC via Creative Commons. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's breathlessly anticipated speech in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Friday morning was, in essence, a rehash of...

August 25, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query. Name: Betty Sue Carroll Question: I'd like to know the source of the money...

August 24, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here are Wednesday's queries. Name: Ava Stanton Question: The rating agencies that sold us down the river and...

August 23, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here are Tuesday's queries. Name: Dale Myers Question: Given the free-fall in home prices, what do your experts think...

August 22, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here are Monday's queries. Our recent stories on Bard Behind Bars, the prison BA...

August 19, 2011  |   With our inequality coverage (watch Land of the Free, Home of the Poor and Americans Facing More Inequality, More Debt and Now More Trouble?) topping the "Most Watched" chart here at the Online NewsHour, we thought...

August 18, 2011  |   Black tar heroin. Photo via the City of Wichita police department. Note: We've been exploring economic inequality in America this week, and thought it an opportune moment to share something we had hoped to post the last time we...

August 17, 2011  |   Update: Thanks for all your questions! We'll post some of the answers here soon. Editor's Note: Our story on Tuesday's program has certainly struck a chord. In the first in a series on economic inequality in the United States the...

August 17, 2011  |   Update: Watch Land of the Free, Home of the Poor and Americans Facing More Inequality, More Debt and Now More Trouble? to see the first two parts of Paul Solman's ongoing series of reports on U.S....

August 16, 2011  |   With the eurozone in such obvious economic turmoil, we turn to former chief IMF economist and longtime friend and favorite of Making Sen$e, Simon Johnson . We asked him a series of pressing questions: Paul Solman: Is...

August 15, 2011  |   We were curious: is flogging -- beating someone solidly on the behind with a wooden cane -- a reasonable, effective alternative to sending that person to jail for two, five, 10 years? That's exactly what Peter...

August 12, 2011  |   Update: Watch Land of the Free, Home of the Poor and Americans Facing More Inequality, More Debt and Now More Trouble? to see the first two parts of Paul Solman's ongoing series of reports on U.S. economic inequality. Editor's...

August 10, 2011  |   Financial professionals work the phones on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York City. Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images. Sorry I didn't post Tuesday, amidst all the turmoil. I was giving a speech at Chautauqua,...

August 8, 2011  |   We recently reported on the prison initiative of Bard College, a selective school currently running degree programs in five New York prisons. Skeptics of prison reform should take note of one Anthony Cardenales, a former inmate...

August 5, 2011  |   "Employment Report Damned with Faint Praise: It Could Have Been Worse." Thus does Nigel Gault, Chief U.S. Economist of IHS Global Insight, sum up the consensus view of Friday's unemployment numbers. Jobs added in July; upward revision for June....

August 4, 2011  |   A trader bows his head on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange after the closing bell Thursday; photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images. Just back from lunch, at which Brandeis classicists Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow and Cheryl Walker schooled...

August 3, 2011  |   Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during afternoon trading on August 3, 2011 in New York City. The Dow closed 29 points up after a late afternoon rally, recovering from an eight day slump....

August 1, 2011  |   Editor's Note: On Monday's NewsHour Paul Solman reports from the trading floor of Natixis CIB Americas to see how the stock market was reacting to news of the debt-ceiling deal. Turns out the market is reacting...

July 29, 2011  |   A fascinating set of graphic debt data, courtesy of the New York Times. Meanwhile, amidst all the scare talk of a bond rate crisis, has anyone noticed that the bond market is rallying mightily today? As of 4 pm,...

July 29, 2011  |   Photo by Flickr user hakaider. Has all the talk about the debt ceiling left you wanting to reach for a cold one? Or several? How likely are they to be drowning their sorrows elsewhere in the world? You might...

July 27, 2011  |   The short third installment of Yoram Bauman's vlog from China is well worth the watching, highlighting the tension between the "official" China and what's really going on there. Communist Party founder Mao AND $300,000 Porsches? Yoram asks. "Do hen...

July 26, 2011  |   Harvard's eminent trade economist, Robert Lawrence, gave a talk in Greece this month. Among his slides was this image with the headline: "The Vigilantes are Asleep!" Slide image courtesy of Robert Lawrence. That would be the so-called "bond vigilantes" --...

July 25, 2011  |   Speaker of the House John Boehner and President Barack Obama wait before a meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House July 10, 2011 in Washington, D.C. to negotiate increasing the debt ceiling in order to avoid...

July 22, 2011  |   Once again, the Making Sen$e audience has spoken. Once again, the results are lopsided. Recently, we polled you on my hat: "great" or "goofy"? You accentuated the positive, latched onto the affirmative, and chose "great" over "goofy" by a...

July 21, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query:...

July 20, 2011  |   German soldiers flog a Russian villager while fellow villagers are forced to watch. This photograph was found on a dead German soldier. Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images. A new book by Peter Moskos is as provocative in name as...

July 18, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here are a few queries: We received a flurry of worried responses to our Lincoln...

July 15, 2011  |   Stand-up economist Yoram Bauman has now made it to China and filed the second of his vlogs for us from Beijing. We found his comparison of China to Ecuador fascinating. For those who crave a heavier...

July 14, 2011  |   Explore a compendium of facts on Americans' shortfalls in retirement savings, presented in graphic form. As should always be your habit with poll data, don't try to take the actual numbers to the bank. But as rough approximations, we...

July 13, 2011  |   Editor's Note: On Wednesday's program, a look at an improbable Rust Belt success story. With a guaranteed no-layoff policy and average pay of almost $70,000 this year, Lincoln Electric is atypical of U.S. companies. We last...

July 12, 2011  |   Daily U.S. Government Income and Expenditures: Use the slide bar to see how Treasury's cash deficit is projected to grow if the debt ceiling is reached, starting with Aug. 3. Mouse over the red points to see the running...

July 11, 2011  |   Economics was dubbed "the dismal science" by 19th century English intellectual Thomas Carlyle. The reason: the Reverend Thomas Malthus' grim prediction, around 1800, that population would inevitably outstrip food supply, since the former grows geometrically , the latter, arithmetically...

July 8, 2011  |   Goodness! U-7, our own measure of under-and unemployment, shot up to 18.6 percent Friday morning, a rise that gets us back near the number when we first inaugurated the Solman Scale last December. Friday morning's job numbers: only 18,000...

July 7, 2011  |   Video edited by Elizabeth Shell. As a follow-up to Tuesday's story on abandoned housing demolition in Cleveland, we're posting a short video: A show-and-tell about one vacant property, it covers all the bases - from the...

July 5, 2011  |   'Protecting Its Fannie: How Mortgage Giant Primed the Bubble, Covered Its Assets.' Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Tuesday's...

July 1, 2011  |   Friday on the NewsHour, New York Times finance specialist Gretchen Morgenson and co-author Josh Rosner, a longtime housing analyst, talk about their new bestseller, "Reckless Endangerment" . The book is a sustained...

June 30, 2011  |   Watch Paul Solman's report, 'Is Your Pension Safe? States Struggle With Pricey Challenges.' Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's...

June 29, 2011  |   Christine Lagarde was nominated Wednesday to head the IMF. Photo by Dominique Charriau/Getty Images. So the synchronized French swim champ with accent-free English whom we interviewed last summer in Paris, Christine Lagarde, will run the IMF. What did we...

June 28, 2011  |   This month's Case-Shiller Home Price Index is out and, rather than paraphrase or plagiarize Phil Izzo's succinct account for The Wall Street Journal's Real Time Economics blog, how about we reproduce it? S&P/Case-Shiller home-price data showed a gain for...

June 24, 2011  |   A welder at Lincoln Electric. Photo by Jared Manders. We shot footage for an upcoming piece recently at arc welding manufacturer Lincoln Electric. The company, which we last visited back in 1992, is an improbable Rust Belt success story....

June 23, 2011  |   Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley and now Yale, and author of the book "The Next Asia," has long been among the most astute and independent of economic forecasters. He has also spent much of the past decade in the...

June 21, 2011  |   ...that Hero of Haberdashery, Champ of Chapeaux, el Senor de Sombreros and Fliest of Fedoras -- my hat! In a poll so scientific Bill Nye might turn green with envy, the Making Sen$e readership has spoken as one. Well, as...

May 27, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Friday's query: Name: Jerrold Jones Question: Hey Paul, Do something useful for once. Prove you're a "real"...

May 26, 2011  |   The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently announced plans to simplify the mortgage paperwork that has long confused potential homebuyers. "The current forms can be complicated and difficult for consumers to use. They are also redundant and can be...

May 25, 2011  |   Editor's Note: President Obama addressed the British Parliament on Wednesday as part of his six-day, four-country tour of Europe. Dubbed as one of the key events of his trip, the president talked about the "essential relationship" between the U.S. and...

May 24, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Tuesday's query: Name: William Bair Question: What, if anything, is be done on the rise of...

May 23, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: We received a fascinating email in response to last week's installment of Tuesday's Tool$, an...

May 18, 2011  |   Paul interviewed Strauss-Kahn in September of 2009. Watch the interview here. Dominique Strauss-Kahn was as urbane and well-mannered an interviewee as ever you'll meet. Sensible and clear, as in a NewsHour interview during the heat of the Crash of...

May 17, 2011  |   Here's an online "game" found for us by one of our most trusted advisers, Boston University Finance Professor Zvi Bodie. "Spent" was created through a collaboration between Urban Ministries of Durham in North Carolina and the advertising firm McKinney....

May 16, 2011  |   A complaint lodged with the PBS Ombudsman that was passed along after Friday's broadcast and seemed worth answering in a public forum. "I do not understand why Paul Solman did not challenge Roberto Rigobon when he said rising prices were...

May 13, 2011  |   John Williams is an economic extremist. He thinks a collapse of the U.S. dollar and hyperinflation are just around the corner and that gold is therefore the best bet around. He thinks the government manipulates the economic data to make...

May 12, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Name: Peter Anderheggen Question: I recently heard that in 2011, the nation, on the whole,...

May 11, 2011  |   Editor's Note: Today we hand over question-and-answer duties to Charles Ferguson, former MIT academic and dot.com entrepreneur who is now a documentary filmmaker, and who created the Academy Award-winning analysis of the Crash of '08, "Inside Job." Last week, we...

May 10, 2011  |   The TreasuryDirect.gov homepage. Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and Web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Tuesday's query: Name: Chris Curry Question: The Bureau of the Public Debt sent...

May 9, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and readers on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Will G. Knox Question: Safety of TIPs? Paul Solman: The shortest question ever received on...

May 6, 2011  |   Once again, the monthly unemployment data give occasion for those who have hair to lose more of it. The Household Survey, from which the much-trumpeted "Unemployment number" comes, brings us a rise in official unemployment to 9 percent, due to...

May 5, 2011  |   Editor's Note: Producer and director Charles Ferguson won an Academy Award this year for "Inside Job," his documentary about the financial crisis. On Wednesday night's broadcast, we spoke with Ferguson about one of the major focuses...

May 4, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Wednesday's query: Name: Hillhopper Question: I just listened to a business executive on TV say that the...

May 2, 2011  |   Late last week the makers of the 2009 rap video "'Fear the Boom and Bust' a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem" came out with a follow-up: "Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two". John Maynard Keynes died in...

April 29, 2011  |   Cut taxes? Hike them? Cut government? Save the safety net? These economic questions are dominating debate in DC. So we thought we'd consult two of the greatest economists of all time: What would YOU do about today's budget deficit? Friedrich...

April 28, 2011  |   "We've been going back and forth for a century." So began an economics rap between two long-dead English economists, interventionist John Maynard Keynes and governmentophobe Friedrich Hayek that went viral. The rap's dress rehearsal debuted on the NewsHour back...

April 27, 2011  |   Photo of President Obama by Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images Editor's Note: The Obama document du jour may be the President's birth certificate, but here on the Business Desk we've been looking into another document: the First Family's tax return. Last...

April 26, 2011  |   Photo by Flickr user CarbonNYC Slate, the online magazine, has a fascinating explainer of an oft-asked question: can individuals help pay down the debt and if so, how? From Slate's Brian Palmer: There are several ways for charitable patriots...

April 25, 2011  |   Photo: Getty Images. Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and readers on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Charles Robertson Question: The media estimate 5 to 8 million houses...

April 22, 2011  |   A graphic chronicle of debt ceiling hikes from Bloomberg Businessweek. For the record, it doesn't seem like either 'political gamesmanship' or a game of chicken, so much as a vivid illustration of how and why the national debt has...

April 21, 2011  |   Editor's Note: This week President Obama has been crisscrossing the country, selling his budget plan to the American people. Meanwhile, Republican Representative Paul Ryan has been pitching his budget proposal to constituents in Wisconsin. We wanted to take a...

April 20, 2011  |   We reported last week on the fear and trembling of bond vigilantism, real or imagined -- that the bond market would punish the country for profligacy by raising the interest it demanded to lend us money, thus making everything...

April 19, 2011  |   Call me a contrarian -- or just your garden-variety journalist/skeptic -- but when I read the much-ballyhooed Standard & Poor's announcement yesterday, I shook my shiny head. "Because the U.S. has, relative to its AAA peers, what we consider...

April 18, 2011  |   Editor's Note: The First Family's 2010 tax return was released today. We've pulled out some of the more interesting numbers in a graphic. Here's the snapshot: the Obamas reported an adjusted gross income of $1,728,096, about $3.78 million less than...

April 15, 2011  |   Financial professionals work the phones on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York City. Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images. Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most...

April 13, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Wednesday's query: Name: George Sacco Question: In these economic reports there never seems to be any...

April 12, 2011  |   Tax day is breathing down our necks: just under one week left to file. And that's including this year's three-day extension; tax day bumped from the traditional April 15th to the 18th, since D.C. government workers have the day off...

April 11, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Michael Cassady Question: As I read deeper into the details about the financial crisis,...

April 7, 2011  |   Alice Rivlin with Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, during a meeting of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform in late 2010. (Photo By...

April 6, 2011  |   A conversation this morning with a centrist Democrat from the Brookings Institution who lived through the shutdown of 1995, economist Martin Baily. "In terms of the economy, it had a surprisingly small effect," he said. "On the other hand,...

April 4, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Paul Menzel Question: I understand that it is more profitable for high-tech companies to...

April 1, 2011  |   Today we initiate "Weekonomics," a Friday roundup of the week's economics news. No fooling. Simon Johnson starts us off with "lightning round" answers to questions on the banks, Europe, Japan and, because the monthly jobs data came out this...

April 1, 2011  |   One brief comment on the jobs numbers. The net addition of 216,000 jobs, from the so-called payroll survey, is respectable. But the "household survey" reports roughly the same number of unemployed Americans: 13.5 million. You can't tell a lot from...

March 31, 2011  |   Editor's Note | If you're one of the millions of Americans who filled out a college basketball national championship bracket this year, odds are you're out of luck. ESPN reports that only two brackets out of over 5.9 million submissions...

March 31, 2011  |   Editor's Note: On Friday's NewsHour: an eye-opening look at the fate of many veterans attempting to transition back into a tough job market. Today, there are over two million veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And despite government...

March 30, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Wednesday's query: Name: Alex Question: Maybe it's my background as a college instructor , but...

March 29, 2011  |   According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the nation grew almost ten percent over the last decade -- from 281.4 million in 2000 to 308.7 million in 2010. The country's racial mix has shifted, too. The number of people that identify...

March 28, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and readers about business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Dr. Gene Audette Question: Every year it's prognostications, prognostications. But seldom do "columns" like yours...

March 25, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Friday's query: Name: Richard R. Palmer, MD Question: I hope that prior to the 25th of March...

March 24, 2011  |   Updated March 25, 2011 at 1:33 p.m. with a fixed link to the Slate interactive. Income inequality has changed over time: today the richest 1 percent of Americans hold about 24 percent of U.S. wealth. But almost a century ago...

March 23, 2011  |   Ever wonder why a gallon of gas will cost $3.21 today, $3.12 yesterday and maybe $3.79 next week? The price of the gas at the pump fluctuates mainly with the price of crude oil, plus a time lag. The price...

March 21, 2011  |   Business correspondent Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and readers on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: From Thursday's NewsHour: "The Japanese yen settled near record highs against the U.S. dollar...

March 18, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Friday's query: Name: Doug Shoaf Question: Given the harm that inflation does to the personal finances of almost every...

March 17, 2011  |   Editor's note: Join us at 3 p.m. ET Thursday for a chat between Paul Solman, Dante Chinni of Patchwork Nation and Derek Thompson of The Atlantic. The discussion will be moderated by PBS NewsHour correspondent Hari Sreenivasan and cover...

March 16, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Wednesday's query: Name: Michael Cassady Question: With the suffering from the financial crisis falling mostly on masses...

March 10, 2011  |   As you've probably heard by now, either on our program or elsewhere, the administration's Home Affordable Modification Program has been a disappointment -- to put it generously. The program, announced back in February 2009, was aimed at...

March 9, 2011  |   With all the strife over public-sector unions, including irate e-mails in response to our pension coverage on the program, we thought we'd lighten the mood by sharing some recent political cartoons....

March 8, 2011  |   You may have noticed that gas prices are up rather dramatically, in tandem with the drama in the Middle East and North Africa. No coincidence, obviously. The fear of supply disruptions, sabotaged wells, and turmoil in general have driven...

March 7, 2011  |   February's 192,000 net new jobs breaks down into 222,000 jobs added in the private sector and 30,000 jobs dropped by government. This provides evidence for one side of the economic policy debate of the moment, you could even say...

March 4, 2011  |   The unemployment numbers for February are in, and though economist Peter Morici advises, "Don't Break Out the Champagne Just Yet," the data are encouraging. There are two separate surveys, remember - of "establishments" and "households" (the...

March 3, 2011  |   EDITOR'S NOTE: Last month, we featured a week-long series of songs by our country crooning friend Merle Hazard about the Euro-debt crisis: Spain, Ireland, Italy and Germany, and an encore of the infamous Greek Debt song. We invited you...

March 2, 2011  |   EDITOR'S NOTE: Paul has spent the past few days responding to some of the many questions and comments we received regarding last week's broadcast story, "In Tiny Rhode Island, a Massive Public Pension Crisis Looms" and the Making Sen$e web...

March 1, 2011  |   EDITOR'S NOTE: We received a number of responses from viewers like you regarding last week's broadcast story, "In Tiny Rhode Island, a Massive Public Pension Crisis Looms" and the Making Sen$e web piece, "Paying For Public Pensions." So, over...

February 28, 2011  |   EDITOR'S NOTE: We received a number of responses from viewers like you regarding last week's broadcast story, "In Tiny Rhode Island, a Massive Public Pension Crisis Looms" and the Making Sen$e web piece, "Paying For Public Pensions." So, over...

February 25, 2011  |   Are there any economic explanations for the world running riot, especially in North Africa? Maybe, says investment adviser Ed Yardeni, an otherwise pretty consistently conservative economist. He cites distinguished Brandeis University historian David Hackett Fischer and Fischer's 1996 book,...

February 24, 2011  |   Editor's Note: As the fire over collective bargaining and public worker benefits burns across the country, on Thursday's broadcast we're looking at perhaps the issue behind it all: public pensions and how to pay for them. Our story takes place...

February 23, 2011  |   The specter of Euro-debt default is again roiling the markets. "Worries Over Europe Pose Risks for Euro," read a headline in Monday's Wall Street Journal. "Spain Pegs Cajas' Possible Problem Debt," warned another. Cajas are the regional Spanish banks,...

February 22, 2011  |   As the President and Congress wrestle over the particulars of a trimmed-down federal budget, the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, funded by longtime budget nudge Pete Peterson, offers this tool for lowering the debt load -- all...

February 21, 2011  |   Having begun my journalism career in college in the '60s, I figure I've been covering the labor movement for nearly half a century - a half century of relative decline. It's easy to understand in retrospect. After World War...

February 18, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's today's query: A long and interesting email arrived recently from one Jean Maier. I've been responding to...

February 18, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's today's query: The epic e-epistle from one Jane Maier comes to an end today with her fourth...

February 16, 2011  |   We have an update on our country-country lyric contest, inspired by the econo-crooner Merle Hazard. Those of you who frequent these pages often will remember our series late last month where Merle lyricized about the financial crises in Spain,...

February 15, 2011  |   In our efforts to maximize your utility in this 'Material World' via behavioral economics, we're unilaterally extending Valentine's Day for 24 hours with a second video tip from Duke's Dan Ariely, who joined us on Making Sen$e as a...

February 14, 2011  |   Our friend Dan Ariely, of behavioral psychology and economics fame, returns to Making Sen$e as a regular presence, starting today. The book that made him famous is called "Predictably Irrational," but we think of Dan as 'positively rational.' That's...

February 11, 2011  |   Today, we inaugurate a new feature here on Making Sen$e: How-to Economics: Living in a Material World. And to explain the good works we're up to, I talked to Duke's Dan Ariely, who'll be one of our prime contributors....

February 10, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Paul Solman: The last post began to answer Jane Maier's epic email by discussing "heterodoxy"...

February 9, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Wednesday's query: Name: Jean Maier Question: Hello Mr. Solman, I enjoy your economic reports on the NewsHour...

February 8, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Tuesday's query: Name: Roland Weiser Question: I would appreciate the name of the site where you can...

February 7, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Kimberly Foster Question: I am scared. My impression of our country's economic situation now...

February 4, 2011  |   Today's unemployment data are a muddle. The two surveys - of individuals and of employers - seem to say very different things. Unemployment dropped - to 9 percent, according to the "household survey." Three cheers. But the "payroll survey"...

February 3, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Name: Merritt Dunn Question: Since the Treasury Department bailed out AIG and AIG had underwritten...

February 2, 2011  |   A warning to those expecting EVs to clog the roadways anytime soon, or even to meet President Obama's stated goal of one million by 2015: It's not likely to happen, despite the fact that the U.S. has as...

February 1, 2011  |   Today's "Tool$ We Use" features three on the carbon emissions you generate by driving, with a bonus global warming video attached for your viewing discomfort. On the broadcast Monday: a story about electric cars, with a focus on GM's Chevy...

January 31, 2011  |   Filmmaker Chris Paine achieved notoriety with his 2006 documentary, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" Now he's back -- with a more sanguine sequel, "The Revenge of the Electric Car." Producing two stories about the electric car myself, the second of...

January 31, 2011  |   As a preview to our Tool$ Tuesday feature , here's a truly surprising "review" of the Chevy Volt, the electric darling of the Detroit Auto Show earlier this month and the...

January 28, 2011  |   All this week we've featured investment advisor Jon Shayne, aka Country-and-Western economist Merle Hazard, warbling his way through the European debt debacle. He started with the pain in Spain and moved on through Erin Go Broke to the tune...

January 27, 2011  |   Today's post introduces the fourth of country singer Merle Hazard's Euro-shanties, this one taking off on the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's 9th. Merle will do anything to educationally amuse. So will we....

January 27, 2011  |   What a relief: a SOTU address without the traditional partisan whack-a-mole standing ovations. "Date night's" civility - or, if you prefer, lack of passion - had the virtue of keeping Democrats and Republicans mostly in their seats. Sitting cheek by...

January 26, 2011  |   By "hits," I mean Merle Hazard's Golden Newbie Euro-crisis Euro-tunes, as well as the Internet views that they've been garnering. Monday's post: The Pain in Spain Falls Plainly from Merle's Brain. Yesterday's: Erin Go Broke. And today, the world debut...

January 25, 2011  |   Today's post puts the economic woes of the Emerald Isle to music. The lyrics are Hazard's, though I confess to have taken crack at them myself and then, at some risk to my ego, sent both sets of lyrics --...

January 24, 2011  |   The first of this week's series of posts from the ever-melodic, ever-economic Merle Hazard debuts today: a ditty on the plight of Spain....

January 21, 2011  |   Friday's post consists of a Web chat with the Elvis of economics, the Ferlin Husky of finance, the Charlie McCoy of micro, the Jimmy Dean of the dismal science -- star of the country-and-western macrocosm, investment adviser Jon Shayne...

January 20, 2011  |   In its heyday, it boasted nearly two million people, the world's premier automobile industry, the world's most popular music , and perhaps the country's most prosperous black middle class. But Detroit's population is down 50 percent, as are wages in...

January 19, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Wednesday's query: Name: Sam Question: I immensely enjoy your segments on PBS. I am intrigued by the...

January 18, 2011  |   The Chinese currency debate has developed a new twist in recent months: Chinese inflation. The argument, made by Columbia University economics professor Geng Xiao in an updated story of ours running on Tuesday's broadcast, is that the rise in Chinese...

January 17, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Sharon McDonnell Question: I am so very sorry we do not have a larger...

January 14, 2011  |   This will not come as news to our Twitter followers , but we spent last weekend at the annual economics convention, held this year in Denver. Every January we buttonhole economists of various stripes and political persuasions to pose a...

January 13, 2011  |   We've devoted a fair portion of our reporting over the past year to home ownership and foreclosure. Some of those stories ran again, with updates, during the last week of the year. Today comes the official tally for 2010: more...

January 12, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's today's query: Name: Charles, San Francisco, Calif. The Fed Chairman and President Obama often complain that the...

January 11, 2011  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's today's query: Name: Paul, El Cerrito, Calif. I have been a dedicated viewer of your segments on...

January 7, 2011  |   I was all set to label our monthly post on the unemployment data "Hold Your Horses" or "Not So Fast," a warning not to overplay the apparently sizable drop in the official unemployment rate from 9.8 percent to 9.4....

January 7, 2011  |   Rounding out our series today, those of you considering strategic default might find particular encouragement from the web chat with law professor Brent White of the University of Arizona, who thinks it is both legally and morally okay. "It's interesting...

January 6, 2011  |   More from the strategic default debate today. Economist Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago, also in our original story, argues there are damaging spillover effects when homeowners strategically default. "By walking away, not only do you damage...

January 5, 2011  |   We've been concentrating on the housing crisis over the past several days here on the Business Desk. For the rest of the week we'll be focusing on the issue of strategic default. If you're an underwater homeowner who can afford...

January 4, 2011  |   The complexities of getting or refinancing a mortgage are many: the broker you can or can't trust, the screening of your income and credit, the appraisal, the fear that rates will rise before approval, the title search, the paperwork at...

January 3, 2011  |   Your mortgage is underwater. Making the payments is both difficult and demoralizing. Is it ethical for you to walk away? As we've reported, there are arguments both ways. Here's a feature to help you make up your mind. Public...

December 31, 2010  |   Mortgage paperwork was a mess. Foreclosures were rampant. Homeowners went through months-long modifications, losing hope when it all fell through. The housing crisis was one of the major stories of the year. And as 2010 draws to a close, we've...

December 31, 2010  |   We last spoke with journalist and author Alyssa Katz back in October 2009. She had just finished writing "Our Lot," a book on the history of America's housing market. "The issue is that the investors and investment banks that finance...

December 29, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's today's query: Name: Jose Question: In Virginia we have a non-judicial foreclosure process. The servicers and their...

December 28, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's today's query: Name: Toby Hanna Question: 
I purchased a house in 2006. A year ago I tried...

December 27, 2010  |   We've devoted a lot of attention to the foreclosure crisis that is threatening the homes of so many Americans, and to various ways they've sought help: non-profit third parties; the government's loan modification program, HAMP. But you may remember that...

December 24, 2010  |   Of the two dozen "Words of the Year" cited by the New York Times the other day, two of them -- "robo-signer" and "put-back" -- were spawned by the foreclosure crisis. ...

December 16, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Name: Sharon McDonnell Question: Paul, I apologize if I missed a step in the unfolding narrative but...

December 15, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Wednesday's query: Name: Bill Turner
 Question: 
Why does the U.S. borrow so much instead of printing as...

December 14, 2010  |   Today's tool concerns the extension of the Bush tax cuts and comes via the Washington Post, which generated the interactive graphic some time ago. But it's as timely a tool as ever, given that the Senate vote Monday night paved...

December 13, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and site visitors on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Michael Cassady Question: Paul, If the U.S. consumer market is the economic driver of...

December 10, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Friday's query: Three questions today, one answer. Name: James Tracey Question: On a recent program, you interviewed...

December 9, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Name: Fred Damato Question: Would this work to jump start the economy? Give all citizens...

December 7, 2010  |   Retirement tools. The questions they ask you to fill in seem designed to scare your pants off: How much do you expect to earn on your assets? When are you planning to retire? When are you going to die? Sadly,...

December 3, 2010  |   The verdict on today's unemployment numbers is unequivocal. Conservative economist Peter Morici writes: "Terrible! Only 39,000 new jobs created is awful. After we back out health care and social services, which are largely government funded, the private sector is not...

December 2, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Name: Ben Roman Question: I am having a problem with trying to get a modification...

December 1, 2010  |   I'm OK, EuroK? Maybe not. Here's an Australian parody video of what you might call "EuroK thinking." It's making the rounds in Europe at the moment. ...

November 30, 2010  |   Today's Tool$ Tuesday is another look at how the tax cuts might be implemented. This Bush Tax Cut tool comes by way of the Tax Policy Center, a much-appreciated think tank in today's hyper-polarized environment....

November 29, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: The following email comes via the PBS Ombudsman: Name: Phyllis Koch Question: I am constantly...

November 24, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Wednesday's query: An amended answer today to a question answered imperfectly last month. The email,...

November 23, 2010  |   Today we present Tool$ Tuesday- the first in a series of online calculators and tools that I or others on the Making Sen$e team have actually used. The primary purpose is to present tools that we have found helpful in...

November 22, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Howard Herbst Question: Republicans say they want to keep the Bush tax cuts for...

November 19, 2010  |   For a speech by a Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke's remarks on "global rebalancing" certainly weren't designed to fly under the radar. "The Fed chairman's message, though scholarly in tone, was unusually blunt," wrote the Wall Street Journal, "laying...

November 19, 2010  |   "We titled the book 'All the Devils are Here'," said Joe Nocera's co-author, Bethany McLean, "because in the wake of the crisis there has been this search for a simplistic answer. Ah! Fannie and Freddie, they must be the villains!...

November 17, 2010  |   The Fed's announcement of another round of so-called "quantitative easing" is all over the news. Basically, it's an announced commitment to create $600 billion dollars or more of new "Federal reserves" - i.e., U.S. dollars - and pump them...

November 15, 2010  |   The Sunday Times recently featured an exercise that it might make sense for all Americans to try, and certainly members of Congress pressing to balance the budget- Budget Puzzle: You Fix the Budget. And, if you prefer to get out...

November 10, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Wednesday's query: Name: Rich Tuloch Question: I learned long, long ago in school that military spending is...

November 8, 2010  |   Forgive me for not answering a question today, but for posting a note about the Fed. Its decision last week: to purchase a further $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011,...

November 5, 2010  |   A flurry of questions today about the October job report from NewsHour's Facebook and Twitter. In response, a flurry of answers. ........................................................................................................................................... Janet Vetter: The economy added 150,000 jobs but the unemployment rate remained the same? What is this telling...

November 4, 2010  |   This entry is cross-posted on the Making Sen$e page, where correspondent Paul Solman answers your economic and business questions. "It's the economy, stupid." "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" (Ronald Reagan, 1980)...

November 1, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Dick Levinson Question: While I admire your intelligence and integrity, your recent piece on...

October 28, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Name: John Magill Question: Regarding your Oct.14 article on foreclosures and specifically the woman who...

October 27, 2010  |   Editor's Note: In Show Me the Mortgage, Paul Solman talked to "the dean of the bankruptcy bar," North Carolina lawyer Max Gardner, about the possibly fraudulent paperwork banks are under investigation for using. Gardner answers viewer and reader mortgage questions....

October 22, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Friday's query: Name: Dr. Morris Weinberger Question: Could unemployment be ameliorated by using the "short" method of...

October 21, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Name: Missy Rodey Question: Paul - I understand that about 50 percent of U.S. revenues...

October 20, 2010  |   _pap_embeddable; We have the third installment of our Making Sen$e foreclosure series on Wednesday's NewsHour. The focus: Boston Community Capital, a privately and publicly funded "community development finance institution." In this web video exclusive, we talk to...

October 15, 2010  |   On the NewsHour Thursday, Paul Solman had the first in a series of reports on the foreclosure debacle. In "Show Me the Mortgage," Solman looked at some of the legal issues being raised about the validity of foreclosure filings,...

October 14, 2010  |   On Thursday's NewsHour, we have the first in a series of stories on foreclosures. A glance at the "Most Popular" list at the Wall St. Journal's online real estate page gives some sense of the shapes these stories are taking:...

October 14, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news most days on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Name: Brian P. City and State: Madison, WI. Question: 
There has been a lot of...

October 13, 2010  |   UPDATE | Oct. 18, 2010 Robert Putnam has answered some of your questions here. On Monday's NewsHour, I interviewed public policy professor Robert Putnam of "Bowling Alone" fame about his massive new study of religion, six years in the...

October 12, 2010  |   A few words about the Nobel Prize in economics and this year's winners. First, the skeptics. They are eager to point out that the prize in economics is actually the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred...

October 8, 2010  |   Disturbing September job numbers out Friday showed a net loss in total employment of 95,000 jobs, as the federal government dropped 76,000 positions, mainly Census workers, and state and local governments lost 83,000. In the private sector, jobs increased slightly....

October 7, 2010  |   The past week's revelations of bank insouciance with regard to the legal niceties of foreclosure and eviction, most notably the robo-signers who admitted they did not read what they signed off on, have led to a national push to freeze...

October 5, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news every day on his Making Sense page. Here's Tuesday's query: Name: John Carter Question: Given current employment, why is there still an H1-B program at...

October 4, 2010  |   Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news every day on his Making Sense page. Here's Monday's query: Question: You recently answered a question about why stimulus spending is the government's responsibility. I...

September 30, 2010  |   Name: Frances Pearson Question: I am a small stockholder. My portfolio is all blue chip. Stockholders in every company are trying to control executive compensation- to no avail. I vote for all stockholder proposals and do not give my proxy...

September 29, 2010  |   The Lehman art auction, part II, took place today at Christie's in London. Several works we covered in our popular slide show sampler of the auction -- Lucian Freud's portrait etching and Gary Hume's "Madonna" -- were...

September 27, 2010  |   As a follow up to Friday's Lehman Brother's art collection video, this video looks at how some of the pieces actually fared on Sotheby's auction block. Overall, the sale went slightly better than expected: while experts were predicting a...

September 24, 2010  |   Two years to the month after the titan of Wall Street declared bankruptcy, Lehman Brothers' extensive and diverse art collection is headed to the titans of the auction block: Sotheby's of New York and Christie's of London. The art was...

September 23, 2010  |   Question: In trying to understand how to read the signs that we might be in a more robust recovery, I hear a lot about business expansion, hiring, product development and other growth-oriented factors that would serve as key indicators. But...

September 22, 2010  |   This entry is cross-posted on the Business Desk, where business and economics correspondent Paul Solman answers your questions on economic news. Follow Paul on Twitter. Question: First of all, thank you for the articles on the 99ers. We need all...

September 17, 2010  |   Today, Elizabeth Warren was put into de facto control of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau she helped conceive. Opposition from America's banks was the widely reported reason she wasn't formally nominated to run it. One might wonder that the U.S....

September 14, 2010  |   There was considerable viewer interest in last week's story on increased U.S. productivity being caused by a reservoir of unemployed workers, allowing firms to pressure workers to toil longer and harder for the same or lower wages. Our case study...

September 3, 2010  |   On a day when new jobs numbers indicate that U.S. unemployment is continuing to edge up, Paul Solman answers a viewer question on the Business Desk about how it's possible to have a jobless recovery. Name: Mohammad Khan Question: I...

August 31, 2010  |   Last week, Paul Solman spoke with Harvard Law School professor Robert Mnookin, an expert on negotiation, about his new book "Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight." Mnookin offered to take some viewer questions. Here are his...

August 27, 2010  |   Years ago, Saturday Night Live's Kevin Nealon debuted a character named "Mr. Subliminal" whom he still reprises. The gimmick: Nealon talks and then occasionally, under his breath, says what he's really thinking. In October, President Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee...

August 26, 2010  |   On Thursday's NewsHour, Paul Solman talks to Harvard Law School professor Robert Mnookin, an expert on negotiation, about his new book "Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight." "My approach is always to see if I can...

August 25, 2010  |   Editor's Note: Last week, Paul Solman talked to "rational optimist" Matt Ridley about why he believes that life on earth for humans is getting better and better. <!-- _pap_embeddable; //--><!]]> Ridley agreed to answer some of your questions --...

August 18, 2010  |   In anticipation of Tuesday's rerun of our report on strategic mortgage defaults, producer Lee Koromvokis checked back in with the characters we interviewed back in April for the story. <!-- _pap_embed_custom; //--><!]]> Fort Myers restaurant manager Josh Bartlett is still...

August 12, 2010  |   Updated 4:19 p.m. Given today's news that foreclosures jumped 9 percent in July, we've posted the last of our 99er interview outtakes, in which Faith Phillips tells a striking story: She'll be paying off condo fees on her foreclosed house...

August 11, 2010  |   There's been quite a bit of reaction to our story last Friday on the extension of unemployment insurance benefits past 99 weeks. You can read some of it here in the comments section on the Making Sen$e post,...

August 6, 2010  |   Editor's Note: Last month, Congress extended federal unemployment benefits for people who had been out of work up to 99 weeks. But for the millions of Americans who have been jobless longer than that -- the "99ers" -- there...

July 22, 2010  |   <!-- _pap_embed_custom; //--><!]]> Editor's Note: Paul Solman is reporting from Greece and Spain this week on Europe's economic woes. This entry is cross-posted on his business desk blog. Jose Antonio Martinez Soler is a distinguished Spanish journalist who was tortured...

July 21, 2010  |   <!-- _pap_embed_custom; //--><!]]> Editor's Note: Paul Solman is reporting from Greece this week about the country's financial crisis. Above, watch the second half of his interview with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou about how Greece is handling the crisis. He...

July 20, 2010  |   <!-- _pap_embed_custom; //--><!]]> Editor's Note: On Tuesday's NewsHour, Paul Solman reports on how the people of Greece are responding to the austerity measures the country has imposed to deal with its debt crisis. "Obviously we have a daunting [...] prospect...

July 19, 2010  |   We here at Making Sen$e have long been fans of Nashville investment adviser Jon Shayne, who became known to us as Merle Hazard, the singer and author of country-and-western songs about economics. We featured snippets of his performances in our...

July 6, 2010  |   Paul Solman is reporting from Europe this week about economic woes abroad and tough choices those problems pose. This entry is cross posted on his Business Desk page. My travels have taken me to France to talk with the...

June 24, 2010  |   We received a very sobering set of viewer responses to the opening sequence of our credit crunch story from Springfield, Mo., the other night, of which a few are excerpted below. I have to confess, I was so caught up...

June 16, 2010  |   Back in 2006, economist Nouriel Roubini and scholar Nassim Taleb shared some words of warning about the state of the financial and housing markets. On Tuesday night's NewsHour, we spoke with both of them again about their pessimistic views about...

June 10, 2010  |   This entry is cross-posted on the Business Desk blog, where economics correspondent Paul Solman answers your questions on economic news. Question: I'm befuddled by the "oil independence" movement that is neatly summarized by the slogan "drill baby drill." This somehow...

June 1, 2010  |   The underwater gusher in the Gulf has critics pointing fingers every which way. British Petroleum is the obvious first choice, but Obama administration officials are another easy target: It happened on their watch. Or you can blame the predecessor Bush...

May 6, 2010  |   For anyone visiting my Making Sen$e page Thursday to find out why markets are quaking, allow me to repeat the phrase that ought to be the motto for this page, so often have I used it: Credit comes from...

April 6, 2010  |   Editor's note: On the NewsHour tonight, leaders of the "Move Your Money" movement explain why they think Americans should move their money from large "too-big-to-fail" banks to small community institutions. "I hope it sends a warning to the big banks...

February 4, 2010  |   We've been interviewing Wellesley economics professor Karl 'Chip' Case since the last housing crash here in Boston in the late '80s, and as recently as a few weeks ago with his well-known collaborator Bob Shiller. He is one of...

January 26, 2010  |   Case and Shiller, the economists of the fabled Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Housing Index, appear together for the first time on the NewsHour tonight, taking us all on a tour of Atlanta, Ga., and its housing woes....

January 8, 2010  |   Given that Friday marked the first unemployment number of the new decade, or technically the last one of the old, we thought we'd contact some of the jobless we've interviewed over the past year and see how they're faring. A...

December 31, 2009  |   It's been an odd year for anyone who, like your correspondent, makes a living in and around economics. Odd because, for me at least, there's a version of survivor guilt: The worse the world has gotten, the more interest there's...

December 23, 2009  |   Today's Wall Street Journal reports that in the heart of unemployment country, Elkhart, Indiana, things are looking up -- or, more accurately perhaps, "less down." Unemployment there now stands at 14.5 percent, reasonably well below its peak of 18 percent...

December 4, 2009  |   Good jobs data dominate the headlines this morning: Unemployment holding pretty much steady at long last; dramatic downward revision in last month's number of lost jobs; average hours up. The NYT on its Web site: U.S. Economy Lost Only 11,000...