Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Over the course of his life, Alejo Lopez de Armentia has played video games for a variety of reasons. There was the thrill of competition, the desire for companionship, and, at base, the need to pass the time. In his 20s, feeling isolated while working for a solar panel company in Florida, he spent his…
The president thinks the balancing of the nation’s books is going to, ultimately, be a future president’s problem. Since the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s aides and advisers have tried to convince him of the importance of tackling the national debt. Sources close to the president say he has repeatedly shrugged it off, implying…
Debt market is booming even as building purchases plunge Many owners are eager to collect on value gains, broker says At a time when commercial-property purchases have slowed to a trickle, Manhattan landlords who can’t sell are still getting money out of their buildings — by turning to lenders. A growing chasm between what buyers…
close dealbook-branding close story-meta Photo Unable to recover the balance of loans by repossessing and reselling the cars of owners who default, some subprime lenders are aggressively suing the borrowers to collect what remains. Credit Spencer Platt/Getty Images More than a decade after Yvette Harris’s 1997 Mitsubishi was repossessed, she is still paying off her…
Los Angeles — Samuel Talavera Jr. did everything his bosses asked. Most days, the trucker would drive more than 16 hours straight hauling LG dishwashers and Kumho tires to warehouses around Los Angeles, on their way to retail stores nationwide. He rarely went home to his family. At night, he crawled into the back of…
A real-estate startup called Compass Inc. has hired hundreds of sales agents away from older rivals, collected $225 million from marquee investors and amassed a valuation of over $1 billion, all with the pitch that its software can make brokers more efficient. Real-estate veterans say they’re baffled by how the four-year-old firm, active in only…
Equities are near record highs, the VIX is low, and US real rates are still pretty close to their mid-November levels. Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts are saying it’s too good to last: Tactical considerations aside, history offers a compelling reason to be cautious on duration after recent market moves. We look at the…
Through years of weak economic growth, up-and-down stock markets and miserable returns on cash savings, the housing market has delivered for Canadians by making them wealthier. House prices used to more or less track the inflation rate, which was a feeble 1.5 per cent between 2008 and 2015 because of stunted economic growth. But in cities…
Debt is an unwelcome guest at the table in many American households. The average U.S. household with debt carries $15,310 in credit card debt and $132,086 in total debt. It’s easy to say we should simply pay off our balances and free ourselves of the burdens — financial and emotional — that come with…
Citibank reported holding $175.6 billion in consumer credit in its 2016 Q2 earnings. – Justin Sullivan/Getty Images U.S. banks are lending to consumers at the fastest rate since 2007 and the increasing debt is causing concern given the slowing economy, the Financial Times (subscription required) reported this week. Lenders issued $18 billion in debt debt for card loans…