Blog Posts by Morgan Korn

Niall Ferguson has two words for Paul Krugman: you’re wrong.

The Harvard University history professor and author of “Civilization: The West and the Rest” says Krugman’s pro-government spending thesis not only fails to address the core problems facing the U.S. and Europe today but also has dire consequences for individuals living in these economies.

“You can’t borrow trillions of dollars a year for the rest of time,” Ferguson says in an interview with The Daily Ticker at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2013. “Once a government gets to a very very high level of debt, the risk is very small increases in borrowing costs which create a vast ocean of red ink. So that risk is not negligible. Very large debts do not simply disappear by magic.”

Related: The Economic Argument Is Over — And Paul Krugman Won

Ferguson argues that Carmen Reinhart’s and Ken Rogoff’s conclusions about the relationship between high debt and low growth are still true. The two Harvard economists had to defend

Few Americans were aware of the dangers of industrial farming and processed food before Michael Pollan published his best-selling books “In Defense of Food” and the “Omnivore’s Dilemma.”

A hero to the locavore and organic movements, Pollan has never shied away from expressing his opinions on what to eat, where to eat and the proper way to raise and harvest what we eat.

In his new book “Cooked," Pollan urges more Americans to home-cook their meals. Cooking, he says, will lower obesity rates and re-connect individuals with “the material world.”

Related: Michael Pollan: Home Cooking Will Solve America's Obesity Epidemic

Eating the right foods are as important as eating foods that are not genetically modified, Pollan argues in the accompanying clip. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are “plants or animals created through the gene splicing techniques of biotechnology, or genetic engineering,” according to The Non-GMO Project, a nonprofit organization that tests food products for GMOs.

Reports of the cupcake’s demise are premature. The popularity of the cupcake – an all-American sugary treat that comes in various (and delicious) fillings, frostings, and decorations – exploded in recent years with gourmet and artisanal shops popping up across the country.

Cupcakes soon became a “trendy” and stylish dessert to indulge in and cable networks aired shows like Cupcake Wars and DC Cupcakes that helped fuel more demand for cupcakes.

Must all good things come to end? According to The Wall Street Journal, the cupcake bubble has burst and the phenomenon that took Americans by storm and shattered people’s diets may be officially over. The paper cites the downfall of Crumbs Bake Shop (CRMB) – a husband and wife owned cupcake chain that opened its doors in March of 2003 on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Crumbs cupcakes -- exalted for their enormous size (they’re about 4 inches tall) -- quickly became a fan favorite and the leader in the cupcake craze. But the company’s rapid growth

Best-selling author and Food Network personality Sandra Lee is the exemplar of the ‘American Dream’: she grew up in poverty, helped raise her four younger siblings and now manages a lifestyle empire that includes 25 books, a magazine that bears her name, four highly-rated culinary TV programs and a housewares line that’s sold in Kmart/Sears. She says unequivocally that her meager upbringing was the reason why she’s so successful today.

“My childhood was a complete blessing,” she says in an interview with The Daily Ticker. “It was a challenging way to live, a challenging way to grow up… but it benefitted me so much.”

Related: The 'American Dream' Is a Myth: Joseph Stiglitz

By age 12 Lee was cooking, cleaning and checking her siblings’ homework assignments after her stepfather moved out of the family’s Washington home and her mother became bedridden. Welfare and food stamps paid the bills.

In Made From Scratch, Lee’s 2007 memoir, she writes, “If we had extra expenses, or even if we were

The U.S. housing market – once seen as the savior of the economic recovery – has now come under intense scrutiny. Some experts are ringing the alarm bells that ultra low interest rates championed by the Fed could result in the next housing bubble. David Stockman, President Reagan’s OMB director, believes the U.S. is already in the middle of a new housing crisis due to artificially low rates and speculation. Former FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair told The Daily Ticker earlier this month that low rates were actually discouraging banks from lending and, in turn, hindering economic growth.

Related: The Recovery in Housing Is Behind Us: David Rosenberg

Now government regulators are expressing apprehension over the meteoric rise in mortgage REITs. According to The Wall Street Journal, mortgage real-estate investment trusts “have been selling shares to the public at a rapid clip over the past three years” and “assets held by mortgage REITs are increasing from $159 billion in 2009 to $450 billion

Sales of existing homes unexpectedly fell 0.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.92 million in March, the National Association of Realtors reported Monday. Analysts had been expecting an increase of 5.03 million homes. February existing home sales were revised down to 4.95 million from an original estimate of 4.98 million.

The numbers in March continue to point to a healthy housing recovery: existing home sales are up 10.3% compared to a year ago and the median home price in March ($184,300) is nearly 12% higher than it was in March 2012. Last month also marks the largest year-over-year price growth since November 2005.

Related: Toll Brothers CEO: ‘Housing Recovery Is the Real Deal This Time’

David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff, says growth in the housing market could be slowing. He notes that first-time buyers are still hesitant about taking on mortgage debt and their absence from the market is the “missing link” in the recovery.

“Most of this

Apple’s (AAPL) stock has been in free-fall over the last few months, shedding 42% of its value after reaching an all-time high of $705.07 last September. Shares were falling hard again Thursday and could end the trading day below $400 a share -- the first time since December 2011. (Update: Apple shares closed down 2.6% at $392.18 after breaking $390 intraday. Nearly 23 million shares traded vs. the average of 17.4 million in the prior three months).

Wall Street analysts have also changed their tune on the iPhone maker. When the stock was exploding to new highs last year, analysts were clamoring to declare new price targets. One would be forgiven to assume a “who is the biggest Apple bull?" competition was taking place during this heady time.

Now, estimates have been reconfigured and reevaluated to reflect a grim reality: the company’s rapid hot growth is cooling, new product announcements are ebbing and Apple’s celebrated “cool” factor may be over. Some people are even comparing Apple

Historically low interest rates have helped the U.S. housing market recover by attracting new buyers into the market and allowing current homeowners to refinance their mortgages at a lower rate and save money. The Federal Reserve has kept short-term overnight lending rates near zero since 2008 to encourage consumer and business spending.

Economic growth has yet to return to its pre-recession levels and the latest GDP report showed that the economy grew at an annual rate of 0.4% in the fourth quarter of last year. The Commerce Department will release its first reading of Q1 GDP on April 26.

Related: Bernanke Is One of the Most Consequential Central Bankers of All Time: Neil Irwin

Homeowners are not the only group that have benefited from the mortgage-refinancing trend. The nation’s largest banks have seen their mortgage businesses skyrocket as more Americans took advantage of super low interest rates. But recent reports by JPMorgan (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) indicate that the rush to