Word: seemly
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...money they're owed from credit cards is money they'll never see. "People were consuming more than their income, and that gave a big boost to the U.S. economy," says Kevin Lansing, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. "It doesn't seem like that's going to happen going forward...
...First of all, although they seem related, historically there has been little correlation between housing prices and interest rates. Some more homeowners may be pushed into foreclosure because they can't refinance, but that is unlikely to affect whether people decide whether now is a good time again to buy a house, which is what really drives real estate prices. A 2006 study of mortgage rates and New York City housing prices going back to 1975 by Lucas Finco of Quadlet Consulting found no correlation between lower mortgage rates and higher housing prices, or vice versa. In fact, some think...
...that raises an interesting question: Why would we think that a debt-to-income ratio of 100% is sustainable? Well, for one thing, the economy has ostensibly evolved since the 1950s, and even since the 1980s. Advancements like securitized lending seem to have created a system in which interest rates are lower and consumers are able to shoulder more debt than they once were. The percentage of income that goes toward paying interest on debt went from 11% at the beginning of 1980 to 14% at the beginning of 2008, a much smaller jump than the increase in gross amount...
...Brown's "case for unity", as he described it during last night's meeting, would seem to bring to an end - for now, at least - the rudderless efforts to unseat the Prime Minister. In light of Labour's collapse in the Euro poll, wavering MPs were probably spooked by the prospect of a general election. (Imposing a second successive unelected P.M., the assumption goes, would be one too many for the electorate to swallow, making a national poll inevitable.) Rebellion was stymied, too, by a failure of the disgruntled to unite behind a policy agenda or a credible successor. When...
...result is almost perverse. At a time when the left's longstanding complaints about the free market and the lack of workers' protection are being widely acknowledged and agreed with, voters are turning their backs on those parties that now seem to have been so prophetic. "There is an existential crisis for the socialists. Voters do not want socialism, they want a market system that works," says Corien Wortmann-Kool, who was re-elected for the Dutch center-right CDA party. "But the socialists are still rooted in the 20th century. They have not yet broken away from their ideological...