Stories related to: economy

The recession has begun to nip at the heels of New York's big law firms, reports the Wall Street Journal. S ome firms are beginning to lay off associates, rescind offers to those coming out of law school, and scale back summer associate programs. It's all due to a slowdown in work relating to mortgages, real estate transactions, mergers, and private equity deals. More »

While President Bush touted a "turnaround" in Iraq today, one lawmaker called the war "a leading cause" of America's economic woes, the Swamp blog reports. Test-driving the Democrat’s new anti-war argument, Kentucky Representative John Yarmuth blasted General Petraeus for advocating “more of the same, with U.S. troops and taxpayers paying the price.” More »

Consumer confidence hasn’t been this low since 1982, according to the Reuters/University of Michigan index, which reported a slide to 63.2 from March’s 69.5. That was lower than even the lowest estimates in a Bloomberg analyst poll. “The consumer’s feeling increasingly hemmed in,” said one economist. “The economy is in a recession.” More »

Democratic Rep. Barney Frank has become an unlikely power player in Washington’s “new economic trio” with Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson, writes David Rogers in Politico. His pet plan—a “humongous housing deal” to steady an ailing market—might be a tough sell to the White House, but it’s “moving in our direction,” says the head of the House Financial Services Committee. More »

The International Monetary Fund says world economic growth will slow drastically in the next two years. In its new report, the IMF states that the world downturn will be led by the US, which will slip into a "mild recession" this year, the BBC notes. The report calls the current crisis "the largest financial shock since the Great Depression." More »

Venture capital in Silicon Valley is drying up as angel investors, wary of the fickle stock market and tightening credit markets, become more cautious with their cash, the New York Times reports. Their hesitance has slowed the pace of job growth and expansion at tech start-ups, and has dramatically cut the number of firms going public. More »

John McCain's choice of economic advisers is stirring up controversy, the Washington Post reports. Phil Gramm is vice-chairman of troubled UBS and oversaw widespread deregulation as chair of the Senate Banking Committee in the late 1990s, and Carly Fiorina was publicly ousted as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. In the current economic climate, their aggressive style of capitalism may be a liability. More »

The "transformative" changes Henry Paulson has in mind for the regulation of the US economy will take years to implement, the Treasury Secretary said today. The plan would greatly increase the Fed's oversight powers, regulate the insurance industry for the first time, and add federal oversight of the mortgage business, the Wall Street Journal reports. “We need to begin the serious work of modernizing and reforming the structure,” Paulson said. More »

In an economic indicator that paints a grim future for swaths of the US population, an all-time record 28 million Americans are expected to be close enough to poverty to receive $36 billion in food stamps in the coming fiscal year, reports the New York Times . There is a surge in recipients in 40 states, with 14 already reporting a record count last year. More »

Personal spending—a major force in the health of the economy— rose just 0.1% in February, its smallest increase in 16 months, the Wall Street Journal reports. The increase, which actually beat analysts' estimate of a 0.1% decrease, came despite a bump in personal income and signs that inflation is easing, the Journal notes. More »

Durable goods took an unexpected tumble in February, the Commerce Department announced today, with a 1.7% drop headlining a raft of bad economic news. Analysts expected a 0.8% increase. “Businesses definitely have shown they are beginning to retrench,” one analyst told Bloomberg. “Demand is weakening.” New-home sales, meanwhile, fell 1.8% to a 13-year low, despite a median-price drop to $244,100. More »

The Bear Stearns crisis was bad news for many, but it was good news—or at least good business—for financial analysts at London-based Breaking Views. The credit crunch is increasing demand for the company’s financial insights, offered online and, through various partnerships, in print. Breaking Views is seizing the moment, courting more newspapers and offering free online columns, the Guardian reports. More »

Taiwan’s China-friendly opposition party handily beat the island’s ruling party in today’s presidential election, signaling smoother relations between the feuding governments, Reuters reports. President-elect Ma Ying-jeou, who won the vote over the Democratic Progressive Party 58%-42%, campaigned on a call for stronger economic ties with Beijing. More »

The high-profile economic woes plaguing Wall Street and previously hot housing markets are spreading, raising the possibility of the worst recession Americans have faced in years. The New York Times crisscrosses the country, assembling anecdotal evidence—suddenly thrifty brides, unsold construction equipment, sinking earnings at FedEx—that suggests the slowdown could drag into 2009. More »

PageSix.com, the online version of the New York Post 's celebrity gossip column, is shutting down after just three months, Gawker reports. The Rupert Murdoch project attracted 1 million pageviews last week when it published photos of Eliot Spitzer's escort, but, "given the difficulty in the economy, it was not the right time for this launch," said one manager. More »

The Iraq war and the current economic crisis aren’t unrelated issues in the minds of most Americans, a CNN poll finds. 71% said the war, which began five years ago today, helped cause the economic storm. Just 32% support the mission, with 61% saying the new president should withdraw most troops “within a few months of taking office.” More »

Hank Paulson came closer than ever to conceding that the economy is in recession in a series of interviews yesterday, Reuters reports. Weary after a weekend in which he helped to broker Bear Stearns' fire sale to JPMorgan, the treasury secretary avoided the R-word but admitted: "There's no doubt that the American people know that the economy has turned down sharply. So to me much less important is the label that's placed on it today." More »

Politicians from New York to California are wringing their hands, wondering whether to cut spending or raise taxes. As the economy barrels towards recession, income and sales taxes are coming in well below expectations, and about half the states in the country are facing budget shortfalls, the New York Times reports. In many places, health care and education are on the chopping block. More »

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson vowed today to do “what it takes” to uphold a weak economy, the AP reports. “No one is debating the fact that this economy has slowed way down,” he said on the Sunday show circuit. "We feel it, we know it, the American people know it." He also backed the Federal Reserve move to fund Bear Stearns, calling it necessary to keep “disruption from spilling out into the real economy.” More »

The economy is experiencing difficulties, but President Bush said today he is certain a recovery will come soon, the AP reports. “In a free-market economy there will be good times and bad times” he said in a speech to the Economic Club of New York. “We’re going through a hard time.” Democrats wasted little time in rebutting, dispatching Chuck Schumer to invoke Herbert Hoover. More »