Noonan: Maybe Wall Street Was High on Xanax

Recession isn't over as far as consumers are concerned

(NEWSER) - If the recession is indeed waning, nobody told consumers. Retailers of every kind reported lousy sales for the quarter ended Aug. 1, the Wall Street Journal reports. Target’s same-store sales fell 6.2%, Home Depot’s dropped 9.1% and Saks’ plummeted a whopping 15.5%. And with unemployment, stagnant wages, and tight credit squeezing shoppers, executives don’t expect to see improvement until next spring. More»

(NEWSER) - If you’re the glass-half-full type, recent economic indicators look good: Unemployment fell last month, the savings rate is up, and productivity hit a 6-year high. But that same data proves that ordinary people aren’t likely to feel the good vibrations anytime soon, the Washington Post reports. “It's going to be a recovery only a statistician can love,” said a Wells Fargo economist. More»

It's not the lack of funds, it's the lack of knowing that brings us down

(NEWSER) - Americans are worrying more than they were last year, and happiness is down while sadness is up, writes Daniel Gilbert in the New York Times. But it’s not the lightness of our pocketbooks that’s weighing on us; it’s the uncertainty of the times. While most of us still have more than our grandparents ever did, the possibility of losing it makes us sick. More»

Erstwhile skippers scuttle their craft for the insurance payout

(NEWSER) - Many boaters who bought their vessels during sunnier economic times are now regretting their purchases, and some of them are resorting to desperate measures, reports the New York Times. Facing hefty maintenance costs and docking fees, some skippers are simply cutting their crafts—often fully paid for—loose to drift along America's waterways. Others turn to scuttling and fraud. More»

Obstructionist strategy seems lame

(NEWSER) - The Republican response to the fiscal crisis is “totally misguided,” David Brooks writes in the New York Times. Republicans are opposing everything out of a belated sense of fiscal discipline, “at the one moment in the past 70 years when it is completely inappropriate,” he sighs. “If Republicans wanted to do the country some good, they’d take the economic crisis more seriously than the Democrats.” More»