- AOL paid some hefty sums to its former employees – $28.4 million to be exact – to its four top executives it replaced last year. “Want to make money? Become a former AOL executive,” MediaMemo blogger Peter Kafka says.
- Housing starts tumbled 5.9% in February. “This level of starts is both good news and bad news,” Calculated Risk says. “The good news is the excess housing inventory is being absorbed – a necessary step for housing (and the economy to recovery. The bad news is economic growth will probably be sluggish – and unemployment elevated – until residential investment picks up.”
- Bearish stance from Albert Edwards, Societe Generale strategist, isn’t losing steam. He questions recovery’s sustainability in large part because “credit is disappearing at this debilitating dehydrating rate.”
- Google’s (GOOG) Nexus One sales only 135,000 after 74 days at market, according to analytics firm Flurry. “A piddling amount,” Digital Daily blogger John Paczkowski says, especially since Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and Motorola’s (MOT) Droid sold 1M and 1.05M, respectively, after their first 74 days on the market.
- A downgraded US credit rating wouldn’t be pretty. Good thing Tim Geithner says there’s no way that will happen.
- “Don’t kid yourself: the hype currently surrounding short sales and the HAFA program will prove to be short-lived, and REO expertise will be prove to be the key to recovery, as it has been in prior cycles,” Paul Jackson writes at Housing Wire.
- What does corporate America think about financial reform? “It’s actually really hard to say,” Justin Fox says.
- Columbia Journalism Review argues blogs have been doing a better job covering the examiner’s report on Lehman’s collapse when compared to mainstream media’s coverage.
- The worry about the Fed ending its MBS purchase program is it will cause long-term interest rates to rise, which will hinder recovery. But if that happens, the Fed’s capable of restarting the program “very quickly if needed,” Mark Thoma writes.
- NJ Gov Chris Christie proposes steep spending cuts that will hit “the poor, elderly, schoolchildren, college students and inner-city residents hardest, while largely sparing the wealthy and businesses,” NYT says.
