Totaling the Cost of the Recession

It's been more than five years since the onset of the Great Recession, and some economists are still trying to assess the damage that was done to our economy. Three researchers in the Dallas office of the Federal Reserve have estimated that the total cost of the recession to our economy was somewhere between $6 trillion and $14 trillion, or between 40 and 90 percent of a year's GDP.

Boil that down, and it becomes a minimum of $20,000 lost by each man, woman and child in America. And that's just in pure financial costs; when the researchers figure in the toll on our well-being, the cost rises to $120,000 per person.

While those are estimates, there is a fairly concrete figure that points up just how devastating the losses were. Between the third quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2009, aggregate household net worth fell by $16 trillion in the U.S. That means that, by the time the crisis was over, we had all lost 24 percent of our assets.

What the Fed Just Did

Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke's term officially ends tomorrow, but yesterday he made one final move that will resonate in the markets. The Fed announced yesterday that it would slice another $10 billion from its monthly asset purchases, continuing the policy known as the taper. The Fed's bond buying dropped from $85 billion to $75 billion in January, and it will drop further to $65 billion next month.

The Fed cited the increasing stability of the American economy in justifying its decision, although it reiterated that interest rates would stay near zero until unemployment dropped "well past" 6.5 percent. That number is now at 6.7 percent, and has been falling in recent months.

These decisions can always change under the leadership of Janet Yellen, who is scheduled to officially take over as Fed chair on Saturday. But all indications are that Yellen, who has been a protege of Bernanke's, is likely to continue his policies.

Are Stocks Turning a Corner?

The stock markets have gotten off to a very rough start in 2014, but it looks like things might be starting to turn around. In the middle of earnings season, companies ranging from the drugmaker Pfizer to the home builder D.R. Horton came out yesterday with strong, Street-beating reports.

That wasn't the only piece of good news. The benchmark consumer confidence report issued monthly by the Conference Board didn't just rise in January but greatly exceeded expectations. December's figure was revised upward as well. Add it all up, and the S&P index rose after suffering its biggest three-day drop since last June.

And this is the right time for the market to turn. According to research by Bespoke Investment, over the past 20 years, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has, on median, bottomed out on January 24 - then rebounded for the rest of the month.

Super Bowl Tickets Cool Off

If you're thinking about heading up to the Meadowlands next Sunday for the Super Bowl, and you don't have a ticket, there's hope for you yet. According to a couple of ticket brokers handling the resale market, ticket prices for Super Bowl XLVIII have been falling recently, apparently over concerns about frigid weather conditions.

Over the weekend, one ticket aggregator found that the average ticket was selling on the secondary market for $2,056 a pop. That rate would make tickets for New Jersey's Super Bowl the cheapest since the Rams and Patriots faced off in New Orleans in 2002. Face value for the tickets ranges from $500 to $2,600.

One type of ticket is holding up pretty well in price: Club seats that have access to indoor areas and allow fans to go in and warm up during the game. Those tickets are running anywhere between $6000 and $7000 apiece.

Credit Outlook Better Than It Seems

The big ratings agency Standard & Poor's makes news when it downgrades a nation's debt - like last Friday, when it lowered Croatia's creditworthiness down to the BB level, below investment grade. France, which is already below the top-level AAA rating given to countries like the U.S., is now fearing a further downgrade from S&P.

All told, S&P downgraded 568 entities last year, while upgrading just 488. That may sound like S&P is negative on the world economy, but the trend is actually improving. Although downgrades made up the majority of S&P's credit decisions last year, the 54 percent was the lowest that figure has been in four years. Since 1987, downgrades have historically made up 62 percent of S&P's decisions.

And the agency is not expecting any great upheavals in the credit market. Over the next six months to two years, its outlook for 79 percent of the issuers it rates remains stable.

The Housing Market Firms Up

Previously owned home sales finished 2013 at their highest level in six years, with more than 5 million such houses changing hands. That's a 9 percent increase over 2012, and the highest the raw figure has been since 2006, when the housing bubble was in the midst of bursting.

That's the good news. The bad news is that the pace of existing home sales has actually cooled in recent months. Even with seasonal adjustments, housing sales were strongest last year in July and August. By December, they were down to an annual pace of 4.87 million a year.

Prices of existing homes continued to rise in 2013 as well. By December, the median existing-home price in America was $198,000, which is up 9.9 percent from a year earlier.

The Ups and Downs of the Work Week

We're all working a lot these days, with many Americans spending far more time in the office than their counterparts did 20 or 30 years ago. According to a 2008 Harvard Business School study, 94 percent of the business executives in America were working more than 50 hours a week, and more than half were working 65 hours a week.

That's a big difference from a generation ago. According to an article in this week's New Yorker, 30 years ago, the worst-paid workers were much more likely to work longer hours than the best-paid workers. Now that's flipped around: A 2006 study found that the best-paid people were twice as likely to work long hours as the worst paid.

But is the trend reversing? Many big banks are trying to get their employees to cut back on their hours. Bank of America Merrill Lynch has told its analysts they should have at least four weekend days off a month; Credit Suisse told its analysts not to come to the office at all on Saturdays. Goldman Sachs told its analysts they should be working no more than 70 or 75 hours a week; if that still sounds like a lot, consider that one study found such employees often put in 120-hour weeks.