Viewpoint: Stop Calling Student Loans a “Bubble”!
Ever since the financial crisis, Americans have begun to see bubbles everywhere they turn. The damage wrought by the real estate bubble has been so extensive that the nation is rightfully terrified that another asset bubble is inflating beneath our noses, preparing to wreck the American economy at the drop of a hat. Bubble-phobia has now become issue number one for those who reject Ben Bernanke’s aggressive regiment of monetary stimulus, as they think it may be inflating bubbles in everything from real estate to Treasury bonds. But for frothophobes, the most dangerous bubble going today is in higher education. Don’t believe me? A quick Google search will reveal hundreds of stories foretelling of a crisis when the student loan bubble finally bursts. But let’s get a grip. When you take a closer look at higher education, you realize that while we do indeed have some problems to address, a bubble situation it is not. Here’s why: 1. The primary issuer of student loans is the federal ...
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PODCAST: A green thumb and earnings ho-hum
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - 11:16 David McNew/Getty Images A retired couple from the London suburb of Bedford unknowingly tended to a marijuana plant they bought at a flea market. The parade of quarterly earnings announcements begins later today, ceremoniously led as always by aluminum giant Alcoa . Alcoa's expected to show a profit of perhaps just a penny-a-share, compared with 15-cents this time last year. Markets are down this morning on earnings mood, and on a very gloomy report from the IMF forecasting slower global growth ahead. The U.S. is the lone bright spot where the IMF thinks there will be decent growth, but that's no comfort on Wall Street. There are rumors of trouble this morning with a major aerospace merger in Europe. British defense company BAE is declining to comment on reports that merger talks with EADS -- the parent company of Airbus -- have collapsed. The boards of both companies are meeting today, trying to figure out how they can put the two together in a way that ...
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PODCAST: Bank of America shells out, Nickelodean half-shells out and there are no clams for the junk-store Renoir
Friday, September 28, 2012 - 10:34 Spencer Platt/Getty Images People walk by a Bank of America branch in Times Square on September 20, 2012 in New York City. Bank of America will pay $2.4 billion to shareholders as part of a settlement announced this morning. The bank admits no wrongdoing, but the settlement is compensation for maybe not telling shareholders the whole story when BofA bought the struggling brokerage Merrill Lynch back in 2008. And Apple takes time out of its morning to tell us "I'm sorry." CEO Tim Cook posted an online letter to iPhone customers, saying that with its Apple Maps application the company fell short of its commitment to making best-in-class products. People who bought the new iPhone5 or upgraded the software on their old iPhones have been forced to use Apple Maps instead of Google Maps, which used to be the standard. Cook says Apple will be working non-stop until Apple Maps is up to snuff. That's not the only Apple product dying on the vine -- users of Apple's ...
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PODCAST: A light at the end of the housing tunnel
As American Airlines winds its way through bankruptcy, some of its union workers are voting on new contract offers. Next week, a judge will decide if the company can throw out its old labor contracts and impose even more severe cuts on the workers. In the housing market, the credit rating agency Trans Union said late payments on mortgages have reached the lowest level in three years. And Apple and Google are expected to be major bidders at an auction today over patents from Eastman Kodak. Patent law is one of the most lucrative fields in the industry these days, and bilingual lawyers are in high demand because of it.
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Bond Report: Treasurys slip before 2-year auction
Treasury yields nudged up from record lows as traders derived little new information from the ratings watch put on several European countries nor from China and Europe manufacturing data.
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