Photograph of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke (left) testifying before the Senate Banking Committee by Susan Walsh/AP New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geither told lawmakers today, "What we were observing in U.S. and global financial markets was similar to the classic pattern in financial crises," as Federal Reserve officials defended why they helped JP Morgan rescue Bear Stearns from collapse. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee, "Given the exceptional......

Photograph of Bear Stearns' headquarters (center) and JP Morgan (right) by Mark Lennihan/AP With JP Morgan now offering $1.2 billion for troubled Bear Stearns, it's expected the deal will close on April 8. JP Morgan needed 50% of Bear Stearns shareholder approval, and the new $10/share price would give them 45% yes votes (5% is expected from bondholders); an analyst told USA Today the revised deal "virtually guarantees a yes vote at $10 per......

Photograph of Bear Stearns by Mark Lennihan/AP The NY Times reports "JPMorgan Chase was in talks on Sunday night for a deal that would quintuple its offer for Bear Stearns...in an effort to pacify angry Bear shareholders." Over a week ago, JP Morgan had agreed to pay $2/share for Bear Stearns stock, for a total payout of $236 million, but the new talks would raise the price to $10/share, making it a billion-dollar deal.......

Photograph of newspaper distributor in London by Sang Tan/AP This is going to be a tough morning on Wall Street. World financial markets fell and are falling after yesterday's news that JP Morgan had purchased Bear Stearns for $2 a share, a grand price of $236 million for a company valued at $3.54 billion on Friday. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index fell 3.7%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 5.25%. Currnetly, London's FTSE 100 has......

According to The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the 11233 zip code that encompasses Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights had the highest foreclosure rates for subprime mortgages in the entire nation in October. More than one in four people, or 25.2%, with subprime loans in the zip code lost their homes to foreclosure. That's almost four times the national average of 6.9%. It's a stark example of the toll that the lending meltdown is taking......

The Federal Reserve's interest rate cut helped the stave off a huge drop the stock market yesterday. Though the Dow Jones did fall 465 points at one point, it ended 128 points down. Another feature of the rate cut: Home loan applications jumped. The global markets had tumbled on Monday (during the U.S. Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday) because of U.S. recession fears, but Asian markets gained a little today after news of the......

Photograph of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke pausing during testimony last week by Dennis Cook/AP After an ugly Monday in global financial markets while the U.S. markets were closed and Asian stock markets plunging today, the Federal Reserve lowered the interest rate by 0.75% in an "emergency move for the first time since 2001." From the Fed's press release:The Committee took this action in view of a weakening of the economic outlook and increasing......

Some of the really reassuring quotes about today's bad Thursday on Wall Street: "The problems seem to be intensifying. I can't remember a worse start to a year. We're in for some rough months.'' - John Carey, who helps oversee about $13 billion at Pioneer Investment Management in Boston, to Bloomberg “Basically every day now, you have more and more investors leaning toward the camp that yes, this is going to be a recession, and......

Whoa-- apparently the 0.5% interest rate cut the Federal Reserve announced a couple of hours ago wasn't entirely anticipated by the market! Currently the Dow Jones index is up more than 330 points, or more than 2.5%! The rate reduction was the first in four years, and was unusually steep by the Fed standards. The Times reports: While an interest rate cut was widely expected, there had been profound uncertainty about whether the Fed would......

With the economy acting as though it's on a roller coaster given concerns about credit and mortgage markets, NYC real estate brokers are feeling the pains. Some potential buyers who would have qualified before issues with the mortgage markets now find themselves struggling to get the loans they need and being asked to put more of their money down. However, we will say it's hard to be sympathetic to someone looking for a $3.3......

Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 300 points by mid-day as worldwide financial markets worry about the U.S. credit market. The Dow Jones, as well as the Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq, have lost 10% since July, and a strategist at Absolute Strategy Research tells the Times, "The psychology is shifting notably today. When a market drops by 10 percent, people start to feel it in their portfolios. People are used to......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A Large Sink Hole at 187th Pl. and Jamaica Ave. in Queens, a Serious Multi-Vehicle Accident on 125th and Lenox Ave. in Manhattan, and Bank Robbery at 178th St. and Hillside Ave. in Queens. Podpeople are invading the city! 800 podcasters to descend upon Manhattan for PodCampNYC. Queens DA Richard Brown is leading the charge to bring the death penalty back to New York State. The Federal Reserve Bank......

It's not surprising news, but it's a reminder why people don't live in New York City. A report from the Independent Budget Office showed that New York City has the biggest tax burden than eight other big cities. In fact, NYC's tax burden is practically 50% higher than the average of cities like Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Houston, Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix and San Diego. (We don't know where San Francisco, Boston, or Seattle......

Thank you, New York Federal Reserve Bank! Your Urban Dynamic in New York City conference produced a wealth of wonderful papers about our fair city, and thanks to the December issue of your Economic Policy Review magazine, many of them are online! Our favorite was the sexily titled "Geography of Entrepreneurship in the NYC Metrpolitan Area" [PDF here], which contained this wonderful map of factory density in the city-- as well as maps of......

Today we stumbled across this interesting article at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York regarding commuting patterns into and out of Manhattan. Turns out that more people are commuting into the city, and people are generally travelling further to get here than they did ten or twenty years ago: Has the migration of jobs to the suburbs changed the commuting patterns in the New York City metro area? An analysis of current commuting trends......

Separating your glass, plastic, newspaper and metal from your trash will be even more important as the city will sign a 20 year recycling contract and build a new recycling plant in Brooklyn. The NY Times calls it a "move that assures the city's broad recommitment to recycling," and Gothamist applauds this. We realize that Mayor Bloomberg needed to cut recycling early in his term for cost reasons, but it seemed demoralizing and, yes, decadent......

If you were all set to flash the new peach-imbued twenty dollar bill, be warned that many NY shop owners are dubious of it and don't believe it's real. Riaz Mohammed, the manager of Gramercy Park Photo on Park Avenue South, tells the Post, "There's no way I would accept this. Have you got anything else?" but the Federal Reserve feels everyone will be used the newer and uglier bills in a few weeks.......

From both the "hee-hee" and "ew!" lobes of the brain, Gothamist brings you Lloyd Grove's piece about the mis-captioning on ABC News: We initially refused to believe an alert ABC News fan who told us that the closed captions for the 6:30 p.m. Tuesday feed of Peter Jennings's "World News Tonight" informed viewers that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was "in the hospital for an enlarged prostitute." But yesterday a network spokeswoman confirmed the wording......