Best Business Commentary

A good crisis for the rest of us

Nothing like a good crisis to make us “take a closer look at ourselves,” says Jennifer Openshaw in MarketWatch. And the subprime crisis is “getting us to review our financial habits,” even though few of us are subprime borrowers. A third of U.S. adults “plan to cut back on spending in the coming months,” to get their debt in hand. To head off debt, trim the unnecessary expenses. “Don’t get too focused on the three-dollar stuff”—the lattes and magazines— but rethink the big items, too: “housing, car, food, medical bills.” Pay your bills early, and try renegotiating your debt. In this crisis, lenders “don’t want any more bad debt on their books,” either.

A-Rod is paid peanuts (by Wall Street standards)

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Wall Street thinks new free agent Alex Rodriguez should earn more than $30 million a year, says Ken Belson in The New York Times. Although some Yankees fans—for whom “that kind of money could buy a lot of hot dogs, peanuts, and beer”—are “smarting,” New Yorkers “in some corners of the city are applauding Rodriguez’s goal of adding millions of dollars to his paycheck” by testing his worth on the open market. After all, A-Rod is the one of baseballs most successful players. And on Wall Street, where the 100th top trader earns $50 million, “even those who fail at their jobs can make more than Rodriguez.”