Latest Bailout Podcast Episodes
Financial 411: Weekly Business Roundup
Financial 411 - July 22, 2011 22:17 ★ - 1 ratingMarkets Stocks were mixed Friday. The Dow declined 43 points, ending the week at 12,681. But positive reports from chipmakers pushed the Nasdaq 24 points higher, to 2,859. The S&P 500 gained a single point, settling at 1,345. Reviewing This Week's Business Headlines The big banks released th...
Financial 411: Gauging Reaction to the News Corp. Scandal in New York
Financial 411 - July 21, 2011 21:24 ★ - 1 ratingLatest Unemployment Numbers New York State and New York City both saw their June unemployment rates tick up to 8 percent and 8.7 percent, respectively. In the city, the securities industry shed 2,000 jobs last month. Local government took an even bigger hit, losing 2,700 jobs. Restaurants and p...
Financial 411: The Hudson Yards Project
Financial 411 - July 20, 2011 21:21 ★ - 1 ratingDebt Talks Continue on Capitol Hill President Barack Obama said he's now open to a short-term deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling if it will allow time for a broader plan to be put in place. There are 13 days left before the August 2 deadline, when the U.S. risks defaulting on its financial...
Financial 411: Drawing Tech Companies to NYC
Financial 411 - July 19, 2011 21:10 ★ - 1 ratingCity officials want to attract a major research institution to open a new science and engineering campus in New York City. As an incentive, the city is offering publicly owned land and as much as $100 million in funding. It was the highlight of an event on the future of New York City, hosted b...
Financial 411: Weekly Business Roundup
Financial 411 - July 15, 2011 22:01 ★ - 1 ratingNews Corporation's phone-hacking scandal continues to grow. Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton has announced he's resigning. He was chairman of News International, overseeing the British newspapers that are at the heart of the scandal. Reporters from those papers are accused of hacking into people's voi...
Financial 411: Has London's Phone-Hacking Scandal Jumped Across the Pond?
Financial 411 - July 14, 2011 21:52 ★ - 1 ratingThe scandal may have just jumped the pond. The FBI has opened an investigation into allegations that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. tried to hack the phones of September 11, 2001, victims. The company told WNYC it has no comment. This latest development comes after Murdoch and son James said they...
Financial 411: Managing Your Manager
Financial 411 - July 13, 2011 21:17 ★ - 1 ratingMarkets After three days of losses, markets returned to positive territory on Wednesday, spurred on by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's comment that the Fed is prepared to do more to stimulate the economy if it falters. News Corporation added 58 cents after the beleaguered media giant an...
Financial 411: Reviewing the Business Headlines
Financial 411 - July 12, 2011 22:01 ★ - 1 ratingMarkets fell on Tuesday after the rating agency Moody’s cut Ireland’s credit rating to junk status. The Dow dropped 59 points, closing at 12,447. The S&P 500 was down six points, closing at 1,314. The Nasdaq fell 21 points, closing at 2,782. Taking a Look at Crains New York Business Headlines ...
Financial 411: The Business Week Ahead
Financial 411 - July 11, 2011 21:25 ★ - 1 ratingIt was a rocky start to trading this week, as fears about Europe's debt crisis seized investors. The Dow fell 151 points, to close at 12,506 on Monday. The S&P 500 dropped 24 points, to end at 1,319. And the Nasdaq dropped 57 points, to close at 2,803. It's not just European debt that's worris...
Financial 411: Weekly Business Roundup
Financial 411 - July 08, 2011 21:11 ★ - 1 ratingRental brokers are reporting their second quarter numbers, and they say the market for apartments is tightening. Since Citi Habitats began keeping records in 2002, the vacancy rate for apartments in Manhattan is the lowest it has ever been. Rent is going way up in Manhattan — nearly 10 percent...
Financial 411: China Dominates Fortune 500 Rankings
Financial 411 - July 07, 2011 20:34 ★ - 1 ratingAccording to Fortune magazine's annual ranking of the world's 500 largest companies, Walmart is still the world's largest company by revenue, but now it's joined by three Chinese companies in the top 10. The domination of American companies on the Global rankings has shrunk. Only 133 made the ...
Financial 411: Making the Time to Think
Financial 411 - July 06, 2011 20:44 ★ - 1 ratingAs part of our weekly look at issues in the workplace, we talk with management consultant Peter Bregman, who says that in our driven, fast-paced, productivity-focused lives we are losing our ability to take time out of our day to slow down and just think. Bregman said slowing down for a short ...
Financial 411: The Business Week Ahead
Financial 411 - July 05, 2011 17:18 ★ - 1 ratingMarkets Wall Street was flat on Tuesday, after resuming trading following Monday's holiday and last week's strong finish. The Dow Jones dropped 13 points, to 12,570. The S&P 500 dipped two points, closing at 1,338. The NASDAQ bucked the trend, gaining 10 points, to end the day at 2,826. The W...
Financial 411: Weekly Business Roundup
Financial 411 - July 01, 2011 22:42 ★ - 1 ratingThe ghost of mortgage-backed securities reappeared this week. Bank of America agreed to pay $8.5 billion to settle claims with several major institutional investors who said they had been misled about the poor quality of mortgage-backed securities. These were bonds purchased from Countrywide Fin...
Financial 411: All About Bitcoin
Financial 411 - June 30, 2011 22:26 ★ - 1 ratingTuesday marks the last day of the Federal Reserve's QE2 or quantitative easing, a program to strengthen the U.S. economy through the purchase of $600 billion in bonds. As it comes to a close, QE2 is getting mixed reviews. The economy is growing, but at a lackluster pace. Stock are up, but the do...
Financial 411: Pressure on Local Government
Financial 411 - June 29, 2011 22:03 ★ - 1 ratingThe big worry last summer was the possibility of states across the country defaulting on their debts. Now it appears most states have turned the corner, and are seeing an uptick in their collections of sales and income taxes. This summer, the pressure is on local governments, like New York Cit...
Financial 411: Is it Better to Rent, or Buy?
Financial 411 - June 28, 2011 21:29 ★ - 1 ratingIMF Appoints New Chief French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde has been chosen to lead the International Monetary Fund after receiving the support of the Obama administration. She will become the first female leader of the organization and steps in after the former chief, Dominique Strauss-Ka...
Financial 411: The Week Ahead in Business
Financial 411 - June 27, 2011 21:15 ★ - 1 ratingMarkets A bit of hope returned to Wall Street on Monday, after signs that that the debt crisis in Europe could be avoided. That sent stocks up a percentage point. The Dow Jones gained 109 points, to close at 12,044. The S&P 500 gained 12 points, ending at 1,280. And the NASDAQ added 35 points, ...
Financial 411: Weekly Business Roundup
Financial 411 - June 24, 2011 21:27 ★ - 1 ratingStocks ended another week lower than where they started. Markets fell Friday, after poor earnings from technology companies suggested that big business is investing less, as the economic recovery has slowed. Europe's debt woes continued to weigh on markets as well. Moody's warned that it might...
Financial 411: The Tech Bubble
Financial 411 - June 23, 2011 23:12 ★ - 1 ratingIn trading on Thursday, LinkedIn, the social networking site for career-minded individuals, gained $3.50, or five percent, to $70.32. And, Pandora, the company that lets you design your own internet radio station, added 66 cents, or five percent, closing at $14 a share. Both stocks were highly...
Financial 411: Lobbying Continues in Washington After the Laws are Signed
Financial 411 - June 22, 2011 22:04 ★ - 1 ratingYou might think the lobbying in Washington, D.C., stops on a piece of legislation once it's signed into law. But when it comes to the financial regulatory reform bill, which became law last summer, the lobbying intensified in some areas. Companies shifted focus from members of Congress to the ...
Financial 411: Travel Plans a Go Despite Economy
Financial 411 - June 21, 2011 20:53 ★ - 1 ratingMany Americans appear determined to go on a vacation this summer despite their anxieties about the economy. But they will have to make an extra effort to find savings, with gas prices and air fares both higher than they were last year. Even with high fuel costs, and a weak dollar compared to t...
Financial 411: The Week Ahead in Business
Financial 411 - June 20, 2011 21:18 ★ - 1 ratingInvestors overcame their fears that the financial crisis in Greece could spread throughout Europe, and pushed the market up on Monday. The Dow Jones finished up 76 points to close at 12,080. The S&P 500 gained seven points, to end at 1,278. The NASDAQ added 13 points, to close at 2,630. But wi...
Financial 411: Weekly Business Roundup
Financial 411 - June 17, 2011 21:54 ★ - 1 ratingFor a third straight day, Republican senators in Albany conferenced behind closed doors only to emerge saying they have no agreement on whether to bring a bill legalizing same-sex marriage to the floor for a vote. But lawmakers have a lot of other matters on their plates before the session end...
Financial 411: A Look at the Latest Jobs Numbers
Financial 411 - June 16, 2011 20:50 ★ - 1 ratingNew York City and state's unemployment rates stayed steady last month — at 8.6 and 7.9 percent, respectively. The state's Labor Department reported that in the past year, New York City had some of the fastest growth in jobs at colleges and universities. On the flip side, federal workers in New...
Financial 411: Did the Fed's Quantitative Easing Work?
Financial 411 - June 15, 2011 21:25 ★ - 1 ratingThe Federal Reserve's sometimes-controversial program of quantitative easing, or QE2, comes to an end in 15 days. Under the program, the Fed bought $600 billion in U.S. treasury bonds, in an effort to keep interest rates low and spur economic growth. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave ...
Financial 411: A Year After Dodd-Frank, New Rules Behind Schedule
Financial 411 - June 14, 2011 21:13 ★ - 1 ratingIt's been nearly a year since sweeping changes to the financial regulatory system were signed into law. That law, known as Dodd-Frank, is supposed to create a new set of rules for the banking industry to prevent another so-called Great Recession. But many of the required rules still haven't be...
Financial 411: A Look at the Week Ahead
Financial 411 - June 13, 2011 21:26 ★ - 1 ratingEconomic Concerns Continue What's the cure for an ailing economy? Time. That's the overwhelming response from several leading economists polled by the Associated Press. The survey found that many of them are now lowering their expectations for job growth and economic expansion for the rest of t...
Financial 411: Weekly Business Roundup
Financial 411 - June 10, 2011 22:06 ★ - 1 ratingThis week, talk about a Congressman Anthony Weiner threatened to derail the entire news cycle. Weiner, who admitted on Monday to sending sexually explicit pictures to several women online, is now under pressure to resign. At one time, he was considered a serious contender for the New York City m...
Financial 411: Developers, Workers Spar on Contracts
Financial 411 - June 09, 2011 21:27 ★ - 1 ratingNew York City has been transformed in the past decade by a construction boom, which created not just office buildings but lots of new condos. The recession put an end to the rapid growth. Construction has dropped 22 percent since 2008. But as the industry begins to show signs of life again, th...