Why there is no real solution for the housing market… There is no quick fix for the housing market for two reasons. First, the investment/speculative demand created over the past decade for homes and mortgage notes caused a massive oversupply of homes which has resulted in their being simply more homes than there are people to live in them. Second, since homes are an extremely durable good, it will be several decades if not generations before the excess supply is worked off. What caused th

Honda's net tumbled 90%, hurt by slowing sales and the yen's strength. Porsche's first-half revenue fell 14%.

What happens to your credit score and ability to buy a home after a foreclosure, bankruptcy or short saleThe post below was stripped from an email I received from Ryan Halldorson, Smart Financial Mortgage, 602-793-7204.One of the questions that I unfortunately get asked a lot these days is what happens to someone that has a Foreclosure, Bankruptcy, or Short Sale.Credit scoring formulas are not disclosed so there is not an exact answer and the impact also depends on the person’s previous credit h

Mizuho fell deep into the red in the April-December period thanks to an impairment loss of $2.28 billion on its stock holdings.

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Dealers of credit-default swaps plan to overhaul the $28 trillion market in March to make the derivatives more like bonds and create a body that will arbitrate disputes.

French-Belgian lender Dexia said it expects a net loss of $2.98 billion for the last three months of 2008.

Laborers in Panama, including Gumercinto Vásquez, are having a hard time finding work as farms revert to forests. (Credit: Tito Herrera for The New York Times)As more people move to Panama City and other urban centers, farmland is reverting to forest. (Credit: Azim Haidaryan for The New York Times)Back in 2002, when I wrote about “The Megalopolis as Eco-Strategy” (part of a special Science Times section), a lot of scientists told me that the mass migration of humans from rural areas to cities wo

Editor’s Note: Our weekly telephone call to answer your questions has been posted. Listen now to hear Teeka answer more reader questions. It seems that not even Tuesday’s historic inauguration could lift the market’s spirits. Overnight news in London of Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBC) $40 billion worth of troubles continues to roil the banks and brokers. The question on Wall Street’s lips right now is “just how deep does this rabbit hole go?” If we strip away the PR and the spin, what we

Econbrowser: A New Meme: Blame It on Beijing (and Seoul, and Riyadh…): Perhaps I’m overstating it, but I think this is the abridged version of the Bush Administration’s perspective on how we got into the financial mess we find ourselves in. You might ask why I focus on the ideas of the outgoing government. Well, it’s because I’m confident that this will be a thesis pushed by some commentators eager to absolve previous policymakers of blame [1]. And indeed (as Mish points out), this view has appa

I attended a great webinar last week that covered some tips on Email Marketing I wanted to share.Consider these tips before sending your next email campaignThink â??above the foldâ?Â (preview pane). You have your email subject + 3 lines of text to get attentionâ?¦..use it wisely.Use a compelling subject lineUse specific, measurable calls-to-action (links)Keep it simple â?? avoid complicated HTML designStart with a good email list and keep it cleanTest, preview, measure and test againPersonal

Bank Bailout Could Cost Up to $4 Trillion: EconomistsTopics:Wall Street | Economy (U.S.) | Economy (Global) | Joe Biden | Barack Obama | Banking Sectors:Financial Services | Banks, By: Reuters | 29 Jan 2009 | 04:35 PM EThttp://www.cnbc.com/id/28918543The cost of restoring confidence in U.S. financial firms may reach $4 trillion if President Barack Obama moves ahead with a “bad bank” that buys up souring assets.The figure far exceeds even the most pessimistic estimates of how great the loan losse

Roche Holding AG went hostile with a .50-a-share bid for Genentech Inc. after six months of talks with the U.S. developer of the cancer drug Avastin failed. The offer will go directly to shareholders, replacing the a share rejected by Genentech in July, the Basel, Switzerland-based company said in a statement today. Roche already owns 55.8 percent of Genentech. Roche wants to gain full control of Avastin, the world’s best-selling cancer treatment, as pharmaceutical companies se