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Been down so long, just about anything looks like up. That's my economic forecast for 2010: It won't feel very good, but it won't hurt nearly as much as last [...]

During this year of rising unemployment and foreclosures, the one bright spot has been the stock market. If the value of our homes continued to take a beating, at least [...]

Even as the unemployment rate dropped, concern has heightened over the 26 million Americans out of work or underemployed. That's because the recession may have ended but hiring has yet [...]

Thomas J. Stanley doesn't believe we've learned our lesson. The Atlanta author, former Georgia State professor and expert on the wealthy writes in his new book that once the fear [...]

To understand why Georgia has lost more banks than any other state during this recession, you need to understand why we had so many to begin with. And why so [...]

You want to believe that things are getting better. That the partial restoration of your 401 (k) was based on reality and not just another bubble. You aren't sure you [...]

When the newly named executive director of the Georgia Ports Authority looks out on the Savannah River as two tugboats dock a ship from Asia, he imagines a line from [...]

The Senate Finance Committee must be participating in a prison rehabilitation program. It obviously has a former Enron accountant dummying up the Baucus health care bill, which has enough phony [...]

Foreclosures are bad for the economy. A weak economy means layoffs, which lead to more foreclosures. Which further damage the economy. That classic spiral started with a wave of foreclosures [...]

A jpeg of a poster resides on my computer's desktop. The poster is of firm handshake. The caption reads, 'Consulting: If you aren't part of the solution, there's good money [...]

As a unique way of noting the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Wall Street, a grand fight has broken out among economists, with fingers wagging in pointed essays, scholarly [...]

I don't like this anymore than you do. But here goes: Despite our first positive report on housing prices in forever, the slide isn't over. When the latest Case-Shiller Index [...]

As consensus builds that the recession is over, some are crediting Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's stewardship and all but re-nominating him by acclamation. But others worry that declaring the [...]

We may have reached the bottom of our economic descent, but certain segments remain more like black holes that threaten what is likely to be at best an anemic recovery. [...]

What we believe to be true motivates our actions far more than any official proclamation of reality. It's the old 'perception is reality' maxim. We want to believe this is [...]

Let's take a quick glimpse backward at a couple of recessions to see what might lie ahead in the way of recovery, as everyone seems to agree we have reached [...]

The last time we were here, when we just had to do something, immediately, we passed a $787 billion spending bill that promised to stimulate the economy. We know better [...]

Mike Sullivan is typical of our small businessmen and women. He built a business, Southeast Sealing Inc., over the last 37 years that now employs 25. He's brought his son, [...]

Who knew we needed another missile treaty with the Russians? Was it on your top 10 list of things needing top-level attention? Wasn't on mine. A pattern is emerging of [...]

'You've got to be kidding' is the howl being heard from mortgage brokers responding to the new underwriting rules. The corresponding expletive from their customers underscores how far the pendulum [...]

Incoming college freshmen beware: Credit card companies have until February to sign you up. After that, the new credit card law goes into effect and parents will have to co-sign [...]

My Opinion The new credit card law can't protect us from ourselves. Congress has created law where the Federal Reserve had created policy. The Fed's rules are to take effect [...]

We've been down so long, it looks like up to some folks. So they grasp at hints the worst might be over, squint to see green shoots among the weeds [...]

It's the jobs, stupid. No matter where you go, what you hear about is jobs. Jobs lost to the recession. Jobs needed for recovery. How jobs are related to the [...]

You know times are tough when you are a successful 72-year-old businessman sleeping on a blowup mattress in an empty house. But for 46 long days and longer nights, John [...]

Disclosure is as basic to a functioning market as freedom of the press is to a functioning republic. People go to jail for acting on information that hasn't been divulged [...]

The refinancing frenzy reminds Brooks Campbell of 2003. 'If you could spell mortgage or get close, you could make money,' recalled the senior vice president of Vanguard Mortgage Corp. in [...]

Brace yourselves. The gang with 'too big to fail' emblazoned on its T-shirts has smartly scheduled a week of hide and seek with bankers, shareholders, investors and the financial press. [...]

The 70 percent gorilla of our economy --- the consumer --- has changed. Most businesses now are trying to envision what a recovery will be like, assuming they survive that [...]

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has his 'green shoots,' and President Barack Obama is seeing 'glimmers of hope.' From a different vantage, it seems like we're still facing downhill, not [...]

If this doesn't give you pause, have someone check your pulse: We will pay more in taxes in this second year of the Great Recession than we'll spend on food, [...]

You aren't losing your mind. This stuff is confusing. As we continue struggling to get out of here, some attention is being paid to what brought us to this place. [...]

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. That about describes why many Atlanta businessmen and women are so angry about the debacle that just ended [...]

When it was announced last week that Home Depot chief Frank Blake would forgo his $1.2 million cash bonus for 2008, many in Atlanta's business community couldn't help but reflect [...]

Forget the slippery slope. When the president of the United States fires the chief executive of one of the country's largest corporations, we have dropped into a strange and distant [...]

Finally. A plan. Two plans actually. Six months after the secretary of Treasury and the chairman of the Federal Reserve scared Congress out of $700 billion to buy up toxic [...]

Credit is tight. Banks are failing. Wall Street and Washington are feuding as illicit lovers often do, and real people are losing their jobs every day. It sounds like the [...]

We need to get a grip. The AIG bonuses were wrong, but they're a blip on the heart-monitor screen that's showing great distress. We should know by now that the [...]

We have lost our minds. When the history of the Great Recession is written, what better illustration of our collective mental breakdown could there be than the AIG saga. We [...]

Are we there yet, are we there yet? That annoying back-seat whine may be more vocalized by adults this year as we anxiously await the end of our long day's [...]

'The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.' --- F.A. Hayek Far from demonstrating the demise [...]

Take a Sunday drive. Up Piedmont toward Buckhead. Turn left or right at Peachtree. Along the way, notice all the new buildings. The offices, condos and retail shops. Vacant new [...]

In the hunt for good news amid the horror, you can find businessmen and women who have one thing in common: an uncommon but healthy appreciation of debt. As the [...]

We are never going to get out of this mess if we don't let banks fail. So says Allan Meltzer, one of the world's foremost experts on monetary policy. He [...]

It seems like a broken record. The stories you hear wherever you go. You hear the story of a partner in a large law firm, which has had to lay [...]

Lunching with a longtime Atlanta banker turned consultant and the conversation turns toward guns. His family gave each other guns for Christmas. Just in case. If things turn a lot [...]

It has to happen. As painful as it is. And there is no magic wand or legislative action or Federal Reserve printing press that can make it all right. The [...]

More than 75 years later, debate continues and best-sellers are written about the Great Depression. What caused it, what helped, what didn't? Some economists and historians make a good case [...]

'Do something, even if it's wrong,' is a funny old saying. Usually, it's used to urge a befuddled acquaintance, family member or colleague to finally act. It's a tad more [...]

Finally. Someone is addressing the housing crisis. Remember that? It's what brought us here. It's what continues to make ugly out of our banks' balance sheets. It's what wrecked our [...]