Student debt tops $1 trillion
Outstanding student-loan debt surpassed $1 trillion late last year, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Data from the New York Fed suggests that as many as one in four student borrowers who have begun repaying their debts is behind on payments.
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Romney gaffe profits Amazon and Ohio Art
After an adviser to Mitt Romney suggested that the candidate’s general election campaign could start afresh after the primary—“almost like an Etch A Sketch”—Amazon sales for the toy soared more than 2,000 percent and the stock price of its maker, Ohio Art Co., more than doubled.
Politico.com
Apple beats Blackberry in Canada
BlackBerry has been dethroned on its home turf for the first time. Research in Motion, the Waterloo, Ontario-based maker of the BlackBerry, shipped 2.08 million of its smartphones last year in Canada, compared with 2.85 million iPhones for Apple.
Bloomberg.com
Growth abroad sustains film sales
Movie receipts in the U.S. and Canada declined last year, but growth abroad pushed the global tally into positive territory. Movie ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada declined 4 percent, to $10.2 billion, in 2011, but growth elsewhere—particularly in China, where sales increased 35 percent—pushed global film receipts up 3 percent, to $32.6 billion.
The Wall Street Journal
Gains for the top 1 percent in 2010
The top 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers reaped 93 percent of the $288 billion in new income created in the course of 2010. Those wealthier taxpayers saw their average income increase by 11.6 percent that year, while the remaining 99 percent received an average of $80 more in annual pay per person than they had the previous year.
The New York Times
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feature The cost of e-filing; Dipping into nest eggs early; What Americans are drinking; Planning for death; How tax refunds are spent
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feature Building bigger houses; And tuition at OSU is?; Christmas at McDonald's; Self-gifting at Christmas; Lloyd’s prepares for Hurricane Sandy claims; Google's billions
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feature Good results for the third quarter; Compensation at financial firms hits a high; Three cities with recovering economies; Good year for car sales; Broadway's best performance ever; Tax bite is less in 2010 than in 1980
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feature Airlines cut domestic flights; Income up in small cities and rural areas; Bond and Lincoln lift box office earnings; Don't be fooled by Black Friday; The high toll of identity theft
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The bottom line
feature The gender pay gap; U.S. economic growth; Parents who argue about money; Online subscriptions rise
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The bottom line
feature Can the U.S. keep up?; Airlines spend billions on runway taxiing; Americans exaggerate their working hours; The Dow Jones's 67.9 percent gain; Success and summer babies
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The bottom line
feature Consumer confidence jumps; Wall Street cuts jobs, raises pay; Goldman Sachs's muppet hunt; Desktop web searches decline; Pizza Hut scraps debate freebie