No, you haven’t found Atlantis (or even a good joke…), I’m talking about houses in which mortgage holders owe more money on the home than the debt they are paying in their mortgage(s). Enter this post from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. John Krainer and Stephen LeRoy have calculated the number of mortgages underwater in Q4 2000 and Q4 2009 and conveniently mapped it so you can visually assess the damage.
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for October, 2010
Matching Jobs to Skills?
On October - 16 - 2010
Sorry it took a while to pick this one up, but here’s an interesting bit of data for your consumption: ‘Middle Educated’ workers, or those who list some college or degrees less than a bachelor’s degree, were unemployed at a higher rate in September than ever before in the 20-year history of the statistic. Yes, even more than last year when the overall unemployment rate was even higher.
Read the rest of this entry »Fantasy Football Scheduling Luck
On October - 5 - 2010
It’s October and fantasy football is in full swing. Fantasy football, for the neophytes out there, is a game played by fans of the NFL who select players to fill a simulated team and then are awarded points based off of their real life performance. It has left an indelible mark on the viewing patterns and marketing techniques of NFL firms. Over 27 million people play today, leading Jake Plummer to claim that “it has ruined the game”.
Read the rest of this entry »Your Receipt, Sir.
On October - 5 - 2010
… or Madam! What exactly did your tax money go to when you paid your taxes last year? How much went to Social Security, Medicare, even Congressional Salaries? The think tank The Third Way came up with an idea of the IRS reporting where taxpayer funds end up as a part of taxpaying. Megan McArdle hosts one such taxpayer “receipt” in one of her articles, and also makes a few poignant comments about income tax withholding. So, how does the receipt look?
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