Of course, it’s sensible that when making big medical or health decisions, you should take into account how much longer you’re likely to live. If the answer is either decades, or a few years, then you might reasonably make different decisions (e.g., if you’re going to live decades longer, then making lifestyle decisions to make…

Economists were predicting that September would be the sixth straight month to have more than 1 million housing starts — a sign of sustained recovery in the market. However, the numbers even surpassed expectations  The economists polled by Reuters had been expecting 1.15 million units for September, and the actual number came in at 1.206 —…

Bethany McClean, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, recently wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post. Her contention is, that while “everyone” in Washington thinks the taxpayer-backed mortgage giants need to go the way of the dinosaurs, the fact is we need them now (and possibly more than ever). It’s a fairly long piece, and does…

It may be hard to believe, but we’re only two weeks away from the unofficial kick-off of the holiday season, treasured by kids in every neighborhood! Of course, some of you are on top of this. Your yards have become graveyards, your windows are filled with cobwebs, and there’s at least a skeleton or two…

Everyone knows that solar power hasn’t become mainstream. Still, with all the talk of renewable energy and global warming, it’s a little shocking how _really_ not mainstream it’s been: as recently as 2006, there were only 30,000 homes with solar panels. But solar may finally be “crossing the chasm” from a technology perspective. In the…

There are things we think about every day, and some of them are pretty weird. But then there’s a whole other class of things that, weird or not, we almost never think about. Like, how do people in other countries buy houses? It turns out, one way they don’t buy them is with a phenomenally…

The unemployment rate held steady at 5.1% in September, but only because we hit a 38-year low in terms of the total number of people who are either employed or looking for employment (i.e., people not looking for jobs don’t count towards unemployment). That’s not good news for America as a whole — but it’s…

This blog has written a few times over the last months on the influx of foreign capital into the U.S. housing market. This weekend, the major news sources are covering that again, because of the new statistic that almost 50% of these purchases are all cash. But, what is actually happening to the market as…

First, two caveats: with current prices down, probably not many of you are worried about the cost of energy; and consider the source (the North American Insulation Manufacturers Association contributed a lot to the article). That said,, Dr. Jonathan Levy, professor of environmental health at Boston University School of Public Health, believes that nationally we…

First, two caveats: with current prices down, probably not many of you are worried about the cost of energy; and consider the source (the North American Insulation Manufacturers Association contributed a lot to the article). That said,, Dr. Jonathan Levy, professor of environmental health at Boston University School of Public Health, believes that nationally we…