Banks' Bogus Bonuses: Is Wall Street pay really bouncing back?

  • Buy a Car—or Else!


    By Matthew DeBord
    Posted Friday, July 3, 2009 - 1:55pm

    TBM contributor Gabriel Bertone’s piece on the liquidity trap we’re possible currently in got me thinking about my own earlier post about sustaining a mild rally in the auto market. It’s no secret that I’ve felt since early this year that the financial sector has been sucking up a disproportionate measure of public funding while carmakers and consumers have been forced to limp along with budget bailouts.

    • Matthew DeBord has written about the auto industry for the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, and Car Design News.

  • No Jobs, Yes Cars?


    By Matthew DeBord
    Posted Friday, July 3, 2009 - 1:17pm

    Depending on whom you believe, the unemployment rate is either just shy of 10 percent or in fact higher when you account for job seekers who’ve given up looking. The economy lost more than 450,000 jobs in June. Ouch. But does that mean the mild recovery in the auto industry will peter out? Or will the mild “rally” in the auto biz stay on track?

    • Matthew DeBord has written about the auto industry for the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, and Car Design News.
  • Explainer: Answers to your questions about the news.

    What is a liquidity trap, and how scared of it should we be?

    By Gabriel Beltrone
    Posted Friday, July 3, 2009 - 12:23pm
    Photograph of an escape artist by Gabriel Bouys/Staff/Getty Images.

    A liquidity trap sounds as if it should look something like the quicksand pit that a group of unwary travelers stumbles into while on safari. I haven't been prancing through any marshes recently, so when I read economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman chant, for the "1.6 trillionth time," that we're all stuck in one, I was a little confused.

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    • Gabriel Beltrone is an intern at The Big Money.
    Photograph of an escape artist by Gabriel Bouys/Staff/Getty Images.

  • Recession Redux


    By Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
    Posted Friday, July 3, 2009 - 4:10am

    Today's business pages are filled with nasty adjectives to describe the recession we can't seem to shake. The latest spate of bleak prognoses for economic recovery follows yesterday's grim jobs data. In June, the economy lost another 467,000 jobs, pushing the unemployment rate up to 9.5 percent.

    • Bernhard Warner is editorial director of Social Media Influence.
    • Matthew Yeomans runs Custom Communication

  • Wonk Watch 7.2.09

    By Amy Tennery and Gabriel Beltrone
    Posted Thursday, July 2, 2009 - 5:06pm

    Brad DeLong posted a fairly ambivalent soliloquy on the state of, well, states. In good news, the "economy appears to be nearing the end of contraction," even as only 10 percent of stimulus funds have been sent out to state and local governments, DeLong said. That being said, it's pretty easy to see that state fiscal budgets are suffering in a bad way, Brad added, and it's difficult to see how the stimulus is helping the situation, particularly in the realm of public works and infrastructure.

    • Amy Tennery is an intern at The Big Money. She can be reached at amy.tennery@thebigmoney.com
    • Gabriel Beltrone is an intern at The Big Money.
  • Portfoli-O: Tracking stocks that define Obama.

    The recession’s favorite retailer has made the president very happy.

    By Caitlin McDevitt and Karim Bardeesy
    Posted Thursday, July 2, 2009 - 4:49pm

    Welcome to our weekly look at the Obama Portfoli-O: if you’re a regular reader, skip directly to the update on Page 3. To play the new TBM exclusive Jim Cramer's Crashteroids game, Single Page

  • Caitlin McDevitt is an editorial assistant at The Big Money.
  • Karim Bardeesy is editorial assistant for The Big Money.
  • Mother's Milk: Examining the interdependence of money and politics.

    Why the oft-marginalized congressman is the greatest threat to Obama’s regulatory plan.

    By Chadwick Matlin
    Posted Thursday, July 2, 2009 - 4:38pm
    Photograph of Ron Paul by Gabriel Bouys/Staff/Getty Images.

    Ron Paul's legislative history is a lesson in principled failure. Among the bills he has co-sponsored: ending U.S. cooperation with the United Nations, a repeal of antitrust law "to restore the inherent benefits of the market economy," and stripping the government of the right to set a minimum wage. Just last week, he again introduced a bill "to repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990," which would presumably make schools less safe but which would reinforce our right to bear arms.

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    Photograph of Ron Paul by Gabriel Bouys/Staff/Getty Images.

  • When Cheaper Fashion Yields Dumber Ads


    By Amy Tennery
    Posted Thursday, July 2, 2009 - 3:06pm

    TBM's Jill Priluck wrote a piece today about Coach's (COH) new line, Poppy. The article raises a timely question: How do you survive a recession when you're a luxury brand that doesn't want to water down your image?

    • Amy Tennery is an intern at The Big Money. She can be reached at amy.tennery@thebigmoney.com
  • Hey, Wait a Minute: The conventional wisdom debunked.

    Is Wall Street pay really bouncing back?

    By Heidi N. Moore
    Posted Thursday, July 2, 2009 - 2:23pm

    Suddenly, big bucks are back on Wall Street. Analysts believe that bank bonuses will hit new records this year, with Goldman Sachs (GS) shelling out $20 billion and Morgan Stanley (MS) due for $10 billion to $14 billion. That easily tops record levels in 2007, a year that was, for its first half at least, the Shangri-La of record profits for many banks.

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    • Heidi N. Moore is a business writer in New York City.
    Photograph of money flying around by Spike Mafford/Getty Images.

  • Angus Makes McD's Look Classy


    By Dan Mitchell
    Posted Thursday, July 2, 2009 - 2:17pm

    Value meals have helped catapult McDonald's (MCD) to megasuccess during this recession, but the company is not content to draw only price-conscious consumers. It wants hungry young men just as badly as Burger King, Taco Bell, and all its other competitors do.

    • Dan Mitchell has written for The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and Wired.