Crash Survival Zone

A conversation about the economy with Bill Ackman, major investor and hedge fund manager of Pershing Square Capital Management LP, Kate Kelly of The Wall Street Journal, Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times and Joseph Stiglitz, economist and a member of Columbia University faculty (Video)

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Charlie Rose

Can the epidemic take down global markets?
The media has been hyper-focused this weekend on the news that more than 1,000 people in Mexico have become infected with Swine flu, also known as Influenza A H1N1. Nearly 90 people have died from the outbreak. The strain appears to have spread to several countries including the United [...]

At its core, the financial crisis is about uncertainty; who’s holding what, how much it’s worth, when it will blow up.

If you take the headlines at face value, it has been a good month for banks. Wells Fargo announced $3 billion in first-quarter profits, Goldman Sachs racked up $1.8 billion, JPMorgan Chase had $2.1 billion, [...]

A new Gallup Poll finds that about a third of Americans, 32%, say they have been spending less in recent months, and that they intend to solidify this behavior as their “new, normal” pattern in the years ahead. Twenty-seven percent say they are saving more now and intend to make this their new, normal pattern [...]

The leaks about who failed the stress tests are already starting. Who got a big fat ‘F’? Apparently, Citi and BofA for starters. But is that any surprise?

Regulators have told Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. that the banks may need to raise more capital based on early results of the government’s so-called stress [...]

Consumer confidence jumped more than forecast in April as stocks rallied, mortgage rates dropped and Americans thought more jobs will become available, adding to signs the recession may be easing.

The Conference Board’s sentiment index climbed to 39.2, the highest level since November, from 26.9 in March, the New York- based research group said today. The [...]

Research has pinpointed ways to feel good even in the worst of times

By Deborah Kotz

How can we truly feel happy right now, in this moment when our 401(k)’s and house values are tanking? When our jobs are threatened or already lost? U . S . News posed this question to leading happiness researchers to find [...]

By  Mortimer Zuckerman

Of all the bubbles that have burst recently—the wealth bubble, the housing bubble, the credit bubble—the one whose bursting hurts the most is the bubble of confidence. The confidence of Americans is shaken not only in their own economic futures but in their business and financial leaders who once seemed to be bringing [...]

By Paul Krugman

On July 15, 2007, The New York Times published an article with the headline “The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age.” The most prominently featured of the “new titans” was Sanford Weill, the former chairman of Citigroup, who insisted that he and his peers in the financial sector had [...]

The conflagration’s likely big winner? The arsonist who started the fire.
By Michael Lind

What will the world look like when the present emergency has passed? The safest prediction is that the post-crisis financial sector will be downsized and more heavily regulated, nationally and internationally. The financial sector as a whole, which peaked at 40 percent of [...]