This next story is for people who go for old-school technology. If you're the kind of person who owns a tube television - not one of those flat screens - nothing wrong with that. Or maybe you're the kind of person who has an old Walkman with cassette tapes hiding in a drawer somewhere. Maybe you even still use it. And if you're holding on to technology that others have deemed obsolete, you are not alone.
Reporter Tracey Samuelson found some dated devices in a place that might surprise you.
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
And I'm Renee Montagne.
We begin our program with two very different views of the economy. Two observers of the economy think the long-term looks very good, as we'll hear in a moment.
Steve Inskeep talks to David Wessel of The Wall Street Journal and Zanny Minton Beddoes of The Economist, about the U.S. economy. What kind of a recovery are we looking at, and where is the growth coming from?
The city of San Bernardino, Calif., is expected to declare a fiscal emergency, and officially file for bankruptcy on Wednesday. The declaration would be the third by a California city in recent weeks. Some analysts believe San Bernardino's problems may be more about its dysfunctional local politics.
One big reason Canadians have pulled ahead, is the U.S. housing bust destroyed a lot of wealth. Home values in Canada have remained steady, and lately, they've even enjoyed a housing boom.
And the nation's homebuilders are feeling more optimistic than they have since March, 2007, just before the beginning of the Great Recession. What's more, the National Association of Home Builders' Housing Market Index has posted its largest one month gain in roughly a decade.
NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports.
WENDY KAUFMAN, BYLINE: David Crowe, the chief economist at the Home Builders Association says things are definitely looking up. It's a trend that began last September.
Marissa Mayer left Google to become the CEO of Yahoo. She was Google's 20th hire and is responsible for the look and feel of many of Google's major products.
David Bagley, HSBC's head of group compliance, resigned in the middle of a Senate hearing today that was looking into charges that the bank had been lax in meeting government requirements, allowing Mexican cartels to launder money and giving terrorists access to the American banking system.
Marissa Mayer started work today at Yahoo. The fact that Yahoo's new CEO is a woman - and a young woman, just 37, has generated attention, but then came more unusual news. Marissa Mayer is pregnant. She's due to have her first baby in early October.
She told Fortune magazine: My maternity leave will be a few weeks long and I'll work throughout it. That, as you can imagine, has amplified this moment as a significant one in the history of women leaders in Silicon Valley.
Originally published on Tue July 17, 2012 12:30 pm
Over half of U.S. states will have to close a combined budget gap of 55 billion dollars, according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in the 2013 fiscal year. To avoid raising taxes, most states are implementing continued cuts to deal with budget shortfalls.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney continued Tuesday to push back on calls to release more years of tax returns and defended keeping investments in offshore accounts — both issues that have been dogging his run for the White House.
Originally published on Tue July 17, 2012 11:03 am
High-profile experts are staging two separate Washington press conferences Tuesday to demand action on public-debt problems. One group is targeting state budget crises; the other, the federal budget mess.
If the ancient Greek philosopher Plato were still alive, he might hold a third press conference to declare: "It's hopeless. I told you so. Democracy will always degenerate into chaos because people will vote for their immediate self interests, not the long-term good."
Originally published on Tue July 17, 2012 12:10 pm
"The U.S. economy has continued to recover, but economic activity appears to have decelerated somewhat during the first half of this year," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke tells Congress this morning in testimony prepared for his semiannual report on economic conditions and monetary policy.
