Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on Twitter • Be a Facebook Fan • Tumble us!

17 Jun 2010 10:42

tags

Biz: Housing market, meet crapper: The market takes a huge hit

  • 17.2% dip in new home builds between April and May
  • 10% dip in future home construction contracts source
  • » What the heck happened? Simply put, home sales were artificially inflated by an $8,000 homebuyer tax credit. As soon as the tax credit went away, the bottom completely fell out. In some areas of the country, home sales are down 20 percent from May 2009, when the worst of the financial crisis had ended.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 Jun 2010 10:47

tags

Biz: Ah crap: After a solid streak of retail increases, sales go down

  • +0.6% the increase in retail sales in April; that’s pretty good
  • -1.2% the decrease in retail sales in May; that’s really bad
  • sevennumber of months of increases before May’s decrease source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 May 2010 12:19

tags

Biz, U.S.: BP’s stock is in free-fall right now; we wonder why

  • 25% decline in BP’s stock since the oil saga began source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 May 2010 11:07

tags

Biz: Private businesses less responsible for people’s income than ever

  • 41.9% of personal income comes from private wages and salaries
  • 17.9%of personal income comes from government programs source

 

  • » What this means: Simply put, it’s an unsustainable trend. The government raises money through taxes on wages and salaries, and with many people out of work and benefits making up a larger share of personal income, the government is on the hook for more of people’s collective personal incomes. Part of this, yes, is due to the stimulus. Once the economy gets back in tip-top shape, will the numbers go up? Maybe. But the numbers were going down even before the recession due to the increase in benefits.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 May 2010 21:45

tags

Biz: Stock market: All the gains this year, gone, and then some

  • 7.4% the Dow’s decline from its peak this year
  • 8.7% the S&P 500’s decline from its April peak
  • 10.5% the Nasdaq’s decline; it’s in a correction source
  • » Today’s action: It wasn’t much better than yesterday, honestly. The market bounced back and forth all morning before staying firmly in the down column. The Dow lost 140 points today, or 1.3 percent of its value. Sucks to own stocks, doesn’t it? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 4 Comments • Permalink

07 May 2010 11:13

tags

Culture: “Iron Man 2” can’t keep up the luster of the original

  • 57 the second film’s disappointing Metacritic score source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 May 2010 20:22

tags

Biz: While we were out: The stock market has a huge buttcrack, guys

What the heck happened, stock market’s butt? Falling nearly a thousand points in a five-minute period is just sad. And we KNOW you’re gonna blame it on Greece, too. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

04 May 2010 22:52

tags

Biz: The Dow lost a big chunk of its recent winning streak today

  • 15% amount the Dow gained over an eight-week period until last week
  • 2% amount the Dow lost over an eight-hour period earlier today source
  • » Why the slide? Investors are looking at Greece’s massive debt problems and seeing the possibility that this could happen in the U.S. and other countries. Dudes are getting nervous.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 Apr 2010 08:43

tags

Tech: Study: Cable TV starting to lose eyeballs to the Internet

  • 12.5% are gonna scale back cable this year source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Apr 2010 10:23

tags

Biz: AOL’s profit picture looks a lot worse than it did a year ago

  • $48
    million     decrease in AOL’s profit
    between this quarter and the
    same quarter a year ago
  • 4.6
    million     number of people who STILL subscribe to AOL’s legacy service after all these years source
  • » Why the cruddy profits? It’s worth keeping in mind that AOL is a different company than it was a year ago. The company, fresh after leaving the disastrous merger with Time Warner which hurt both companies, is in the midst of making a big push into content, away from its core subscription business. (Disclosure: We freelance for AOL News occasionally.) Even considering that, their profit picture is significantly lower than expected – instead of the analyst-expected 70 cents per share, they could only muster 39 cents per share. Part of this is due to the quickly-falling legacy subscriber base and part of it is due to continuing advertising declines.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
<< newer 
top tags
older >>