Last night Nouriel Roubini was interviewed on the general interest late-night CBC TV talk program The Hour.  The full video encounter is archived here (runs a bit over 10 minutes).  The following is the explanatory matter CBC put on the video site. About this Video Nouriel Roubini, AKA ‘Dr. Doom’, predicted our current credit crisis way back in 2005 and it’s not the first time. He also called the stock market crash of 1987. A lot of banks made a lot of bad loans, to people who shouldn’t have got them. When the housing market collapsed, those people missed payments…
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From this morning’s Wall Street Journal: Pulte Homes Inc. (PHM) will acquire Centex Corp. (CTX) in a $1.3 billion stock deal that the companies say would form the largest U.S. home builder, as the sector looks to stay afloat amid the still-worsening housing market. Home builders have been struggling to navigate the worst downturn in decades, made worse by rising unemployment and the financial crisis, which has weakened the availability of credit for would-be buyers and hurt consumer confidence. The combined company will be the largest U.S. home builder by market capitalization and volume. Pulte and Centex said Wednesday that…
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As we rebuild our economy, I do hope we keep in mind the value of openness, especially in industries that have rarely had it. Whether it’s in health care reform or energy innovation, the largest payoffs will come not from what the stimulus package pays for directly, but from the huge vistas we open up for others to explore. [1] Monday was the 40th anniversary of the internet. And the text above is from an Op-Ed in that day’s NYT, written by the author of R.F.C.1, the very first permanent record of its development. It was indeed an exercise in…
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In the days of Prohibition, gangs dealt in bootleg liquor.  In more recent years, it’s been drugs. In what is surely a sign of the times though, one gang decided to venture into a less traditional crime- mortgage fraud: [Hat tip T.M.!] Two dozen people have been charged with racketeering in a fraudulent mortgage scheme allegedly run by a street gang member, according to an indictment unsealed in San Diego federal court today. The group allegedly profited from loans arranged for amounts in excess of the price of the housing, among other tactics. The homes quickly went into foreclosure, according to the indictment. The alleged…
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