So far, the collapse of the world economy since April 2008 has actually been worse than the rate of collapse in the Great Depression.

The main difference between now and then is that most economists expect the world economy to recover more quickly than it did in the 1930s.

The traditional TV industry -- cable companies, networks, and broadcasters -- is where the newspaper industry was about five years ago:

In denial.

There are murmurings on the edges about how longstanding business models will come under pressure as Internet distribution takes over. But, so far, the revenue and profits...

A lot of moguls have done the Commencement speech thing in recent weeks. Over at The Business Insider, we compiled 10 of the best of recent years.

Here's one of the most inspiring excerpts, from J.K. Rowling:

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure...

Arthur Laffer joins the chorus of economists predicting that the Fed's massive stimulus will eventually lead to hyper-inflation.

Laffer focuses on the huge expansion of the monetary base and predicts that faced with two bad choices -- inflation or crippling the economy -- Bernanke will choose inflation.

I agree. The...

Your favorite money manager has walloped the market by 5% per year for the past 10 years, so he's obviously a genius, right?

Actually, no. He had a one-in-five chance of doing that just by throwing darts.

Here's professor Ken French of Tuck, an advisor to Dimensional Fund Advisors, on...

The government is edging closer to capping Wall Street pay -- and not just at firms that were bailed out with taxpayer money.

The Obama administration wants to limit "compensation" (which presumably may go beyond bonuses) at firms that have received two TARP handouts. It also, however, wants...

Remember the harrowing story of Edmund Andrews, the New York Times economics reporter who got himself into a debt nightmare and defaulted on his mortgage? He has a book out about it and a big excerpt in last week's Magazine. He's also all over radio and TV.

The central...

A conservative economist named Woody Brock has written a long, persuasive analysis that the Obama administration is taking us down a dangerous path on the economy. Brock's primary thesis is this:

The fact that the U.S. is temporarily taking on truckloads of debt to fight this crisis is actually not...

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and no woman is more scorned right now than John Edwards' mistress and likely baby-mommy Rielle Hunter.

In her new book, Elizabeth Edwards blasts Hunter as "pathetic." She slaps her with the famous Clinton diss, "this woman." She delusionally chalks up...

Nick Carlson at Silicon Alley Insider offers one theory on why The Economist is soaring while Time and Newsweek and other similar magazines crater:

Vanity Fair's Matt Pressman says there are four reasons "Time and Newsweek will never be the Economist."

These include:

* There aren't...

The WSJ's Holman Jenkins goes off on the Obama administration's treatment of GM and its bondholders and applauds the bondholders for standing up for themselves.

I'm actually glad that Obama is smacking GM around -- without our money, the company would already be bankrupt. But it's the inconsistency I can't...

Where do things stand in the housing market? After two years of precipitous declines that have taken prices down almost 30% from the peak, house prices are finally approaching fair value -- which is perhaps 10% below today's level.

That doesn't mean that the price of your house will only...

The economy is cratering, so the Fed is printing money. When the Fed prints money, this eventually produces inflation (more dollars, same amount of goods).

Ben Bernanke assured us yesterday that, this time, the Fed's money-printing won't eventually lead to inflation because the moment the economy begins to recover,...

I can't say enough about the joy of having a sharp, articulate, and charming president lead this country through this crisis. Every time I watch Obama speak, my confidence is restored.

That said, I wish Obama didn't spend so much time hanging out with Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, who...

So far, I've laid the Obama administration's decision to keep propping up failed banks at Tim Geithner's feet. Obama, meanwhile, has so far avoided blame. I wonder how long that will last.

• First, it was the administration's ongoing insistence (via Geithner) that this is a liquidity crisis, not...

Analyst Doug Short has created a nice snapshot of 140 years of stock-market history. It's a logarithmic chart, so it shows the impact of percentage rather than absolute price moves, and prices have been adjusted for inflation. Note that the chart is price-only: It does not include the impact of...

Doug Short has taken a detailed look at the 10 bear markets and bear-market-recoveries since 1950. You can click through a slideshow showing each of these periods in detail here >

Importantly, Doug's charts do not include the horrific bear market of 1929-1932, which puts all of the post-war...

In the 1990s, when I was a technology analyst on Wall Street, I often heard economists explain why Japan's economy and stock market were mired in a lost decade.

Japan, the economists said, refused to acknowledge that its banks were insolvent. Japan was allowing the banks to continue to pretend...

The Obama administration has demonstrated admirable cojones in dealing with Detroit. It is taking a hard line that actually has a chance of producing a viable and sustainable U.S. auto industry -- and it is handing the bill for the existing wreckage to those who deserve to pay it: Current...

Tim Geithner did a good job on the Sunday talk-show circuit yesterday. He has survived his near-death experience of two weeks ago, and the betting odds that he'll be ousted by June have fallen back to 10%.

But there's one question he still refuses to answer. Why is he...