Dec 15 What Investment Products Help Protect Against Market Bumps? Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news here on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Thursday's query: Name: Don Kruger Question: I lost half of my 401k savings in the last… Continue reading
Dec 12 What’s a ‘Top Marginal Tax Rate’? By Elizabeth Shell This blog has been updated to clarify that the top table refers to single household incomes in 2012, and the interactive tax calculator below reflects 2010 data for most countries. The amount taxpayers owe Uncle Sam every… Continue reading
Dec 12 Do Policies that Slash Spending Drag the Economy Down? Photo by Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images. Paul Solman answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic news here on his Making Sen$e page. Here's Monday's query: Name: Roy Pettis Question: Aren't these steps of cutting… Continue reading
Dec 09 Weather’s Dozen: 2011 Breaks U.S. Billion-Dollar Disaster Record 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… Continue reading
Dec 08 What Happens To China if the U.S. Defaults on Its Debt? 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 answers questions from NewsHour viewers and web users on business and economic… Continue reading
Dec 06 Economic Comedian Compares China-U.S. Relations to Teen…Romance By Paul Solman 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:… Continue reading
Dec 02 Unemployment Falls To 8.6 Percent 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… Continue reading
Dec 01 An SEC ‘Smackdown’ 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… Continue reading
Nov 30 Occupy DC’s ‘Roving Kabaret’ Photo and post by Elizabeth Shell. Recently, Puppet Underground and Occupy DC hosted a 'Roving Kabaret' ('K' as in K St., which is one of the locations where the organization has set up tent) of various theatrical troupes that… Continue reading
Nov 29 Falling U.S. House Prices Not a Good Sign 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… Continue reading