Boston Fed President is surprised that housing isn’t recovering.

clipped from krugman.blogs.nytimes.com Barry Ritholtz tells us that the president of the Boston Fed is surprised that housing isn’t recovering. This is truly bizarre Like Calculated Risk, my working assumption throughout the housing boom and bust has been that history, if it doesn’t repeat itself, at least rhymes: the rise in housing prices looked a lot like bubbles past, and we should expect the bubble’s deflation to follow past patterns too that tells us that we should expect a prolonged, grinding decline in home prices, back to more or less their pre-bubble inflation-adjusted levels. Those who refuse to learn from history …

Food for thought...

If you invest this is worthwhile reading. Follow the link for the complete story.

clipped from www.nytimes.com These days you hear a lot about the world financial crisis. But there’s another world crisis under way — and it’s hurting a lot more people. I’m talking about the food crisis. There have already been food riots around the world Paul Krugman Food-supplying countries, from Ukraine to Argentina, have been limiting exports in an attempt to protect domestic consumers First, there’s the march of the meat-eating Chinese Second, there’s the price of oil Third, there has been a run of bad weather in key growing areas. Governments and private grain dealers used to hold large inventories in normal times, just in case a bad harvest created a sudden shortage. Over the years, however, these precautionary inventories were allowed to shrink, mainly because everyone came to believe that countries suffering crop failures could always import the food they needed. Cheap food, like cheap oil, may be a thing of the past.

EF Hutton: Labor market deterioration

clipped from krugman.blogs.nytimes.com I’ve argued on many occasions that the official unemployment rate has been a poor guide to the reality of the labor market in recent years. One alternative is “U6″, which the BLS lists under “alternative measures of labor underutilization.” It’s defined as Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of all civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers This measure shows what most people sense: the labor market has gotten a lot worse over the past year, not just in the last few months.

Kleiner Perkins, GoogleAmazon, Netscape back Electric Car

clipped from online.wsj.com The race to develop an electric car is heating up and drawing increasing interest from the same venture-capital investors who helped build Silicon Valley. The latest entrant is expected to be announced today at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit when Fisker Automotive Inc. unveils an $80,000 battery-powered luxury car it aims to begin delivering in late 2009. The Fisker Karma, a so-called plug-in hybrid, can go 50 miles on electricity before a small gasoline engine kicks in to generate electricity The company has backing from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, perhaps Silicon Valley's best-known venture-capital firm and a backer of household tech names such as Netscape Communications, Amazon.com Inc. and Google Inc. Mr. Fisker's vision is to sell 15,000 electric cars a year. Mr. Fisker believes his company is a couple of years ahead of bigger rivals because the design of the car has been finalized. The Karma, Mr. Fisker said, will use lithium-ion batteries

What’s Wrong With Subprime-Relief Proposals

clipped from blogs.wsj.com Proposals to aid borrowers affected by the subprime crisis are based on a flawed presumption: that consumers would have behaved differently if they had a deeper understanding of their mortgages. Economist and Nobel laureate Gary Becker says that in the atmosphere of low interest rates that has pervaded the economy in recent years, it is unlikely that more information would have stopped either borrowers or lenders from signing on to risky loans. Richard Posner. recent proposals to prevent consumers from obtaining mortgages unless they meet minimum income or asset standards smack of paternalism by denying “the rights of both borrowers and lenders to make their own decisions.” Mr. Becker is suspicious of the prospect of federal intervention in the housing market, saying the best role for government is to use monetary and tax policy to sustain economic growth. In the long run, he says, a recession would do less harm to society than restrictions on lending practices

Ohio Begs Lawyers: Help With Foreclosure Crisis

Does the Chief Justice’s call to action resonate with you? Is the mortgage crisis, as Ohio’s state treasurer says, the defining issue of our time?

clipped from blogs.wsj.com How bad is the housing crisis in Ohio? So bad that the state’s chief justice is begging lawyers for help, and the state treasurer urges, “To anyone who wants to make a difference in the world, this is a defining issue of our time.” Foreclosures have spiked in the Buckeye State, clogging the court system. And yesterday, Chief Justice Thomas Moyer urged lawyers to offer pro bono services to distressed homeowners, according to this NLJ story. “This is more than a legal issue; this is a social issue,” Moyer said, according to a news release. “People’s lives are being seriously affected and the legal community must respond with action.” Ohio has among the highest foreclosure rates in the country. In 2007, foreclosure filings are up nearly 68% from last year, according to RealtyTrac. But does the Chief Justice’s call to action resonate with you? Is the mortgage crisis, as Ohio’s state treasurer says, the defining issue of our time?

Medicare May Help Snoring Seniors Rest Easier

clipped from blogs.wsj.com The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has in mind to extend coverage of continuous positive airway pressure devices (that’s the mask plus a pump that pushes air into the lungs) to more people suffering from sleep apnea. The expansion would make coverage available to Medicare recipients who’ve tested positive for sleep apnea in home tests. The existing policy applies only to people whose disorder was diagnosed in sleep labs. Sleep apnea is a common problem characterized by frequent, brief interruptions of breathing during sleep. Some people think it’s just harmless snoring, but sleep apnea can raise blood pressure and the risk of cardiovascular disease. Some 12 million people in this country suffer from sleep apnea, according to the American Sleep Apnea Association. Because home testing will now be an option, scores of patients who may have otherwise gone undiagnosed will be able to seek the best treatment,

Epix Soars 50% On Alzheimer's Data

clipped from blogs.forbes.com EPIX Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: EPIX - News), today announced compelling top-line results from a Phase 2a two-week clinical trial of its novel 5-HT4 agonist, PRX-03140, in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. The results show that patients receiving 150 mg of PRX-03140 orally once daily as monotherapy achieved a mean 5.7 point improvement on the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale cognitive subscale (ADAS-cog) versus a 0.2 point worsening in patients on placebo (p= 0.005). Patients on a 50 mg dose of PRX-03140 showed a 1.1 point improvement on the ADAS-cog. After reviewing these data, Serge Gauthier, M.D., Director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Unit at McGill University, stated, “There is such an urgent and undeniable need for additional safe and effective treatments for Alzheimer’s patients. Findings like these data are not only encouraging and compelling – they appear to represent a step forward in our ability to understand and combat the effects of Alzheimer’s.

Start-Up Sells Solar Panels at Lower-Than-Usual Cost

Write this name down and keep in mind when the IPO rolls around.

clipped from www.nytimes.com

Nanosolar, a heavily financed Silicon Valley start-up whose backers include Google’s co-founders, plans to announce Tuesday that it has begun selling its innovative solar panels, which are made using a technique that is being held out as the future of solar power manufacturing.

The company, which has raised $150 million and built a 200,000-square-foot factory here, is developing a new manufacturing process that “prints” photovoltaic material on aluminum backing, a process the company says will reduce the manufacturing cost of the basic photovoltaic module by more than 80 percent.

Nanosolar, which recently hired a top manufacturing executive from I.B.M., said that it had orders for its first 18 months of manufacturing capacity. The photovoltaic panels will be made in Silicon Valley and in a second plant in Germany.

Nanosolar has focused on lowering the manufacturing cost

Nanosolar

claims to be the first solar panel manufacturer to be able to

sell solar panels for less than $1 a watt

Eight-Figure Property Hits the Foreclosure Auction Block

clipped from blogs.wsj.com It’s rare to see an eight-figure property hit the foreclosure auction block, but it’s happening. In Australia, a 30,000 square-foot waterfront mansion will be for sale at a Dec. 1 receiver’s auction. Located on Hope Island, an affluent gated community in the Gold Coast, a resort area about 530 miles north of Sydney, the recently built sprawling estate with marina views is one of the largest homes and lots in the area, The house was listed for a few months at AU$25 million or about U.S.$23.5 million. The three-level home has multiple balconies and roof terraces, as well as seven bedroom suites, four bars, a movie theater, an elevator, a cigar room and gold-plated bathroom taps. A photo of the property from the Christie’s brochure The brochure cover shows a photograph of the home with a yacht parked in back. (Here’s the listing.) The auction will have a reserve price, Mr. Jacobs says. Furnishings are not included. Michael Vettoretto, of Knight Frank, is also handling the sale.