Blog Posts by Morgan Korn

U.S. consumers have seen better days.

The expiration of the payroll tax holiday earlier this year has taken a 2% chunk out of weekly earnings – a big hit for lower and middle income Americans. AAA says the price of a gallon of regular gasoline has jumped 47 cents in one month, adding more downward pressure on consumers. And if Congress and the White House cannot find a way to stave off the $1 trillion in across-the-board spending cuts (also referred to as the “sequester”) that hits military and domestic programs before March 1, hundreds of thousands of workers – especially military contractors – could lose their jobs.

Related: It's Time To Worry That Our Government Will Wreck Our Economy Again

The Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task and Henry Blodget both agree that the sequester would adversely impact the U.S. economy, especially at a time when economic output remains weak. The economy contracted in the fourth-quarter of 2012 mainly because of reduced military spending. If the sequester takes

US Airways (LCC) and American Airlines (AAMRQ) have announced they are merging forces to become the world’s largest airline operator.

The new entity will retain the American name; be based in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; boast a workforce of nearly 100,000 and have a repertoire of 1,000 jets in its fleet. The deal, which has been in the works for at least a year, values the new airline at $11 billion.

US Airways CEO Doug Parker will run the combined company as chief executive and AMR CEO Tom Horton will become nonexecutive board chairman until 2014. If the Justice Department and American’s bankruptcy judge in New York sign off on the merger, the new carrier would be 2% bigger in terms of air traffic (as measured by the number of miles flown by paying passengers worldwide) versus the current No. 1 carrier United Continental Holdings (UAL), Reuters reports.

The merger is expected to be completed in the third-quarter of this year.

Consolidation in the airline industry over the last decade

Mrs. Moneypenny, the internationally read columnist at the Financial Times, has some harsh advice for women: You can’t have it all. Not even Mrs. Moneypenny. The successful commentator, author, TV personality, philanthropist and businesswoman says she’s made big sacrifices to get where she is, sacrifices that include skipping the gym and seeing less of her three children.

“Women find it harder [than men] to accept this,” Mrs. Moneypenny declares in an interview with The Daily Ticker. “Men know if they want to get to the top, they have to make sacrifices along the way. Women on the other hand — we have the children; we want to take care of them; we want to be good mothers. We want all of these different things, but if you try and do too many different things at the same time, all that will happen is you will be average at all of those things.”

In her book Career Advice For Ambitious Women, Mrs. Moneypenny gives various recommendations and instructions for how women can move up the

The Great Recession may have officially ended in June of 2009 (according to the National Bureau of Economic Research), but many Americans are still extremely pessimistic about the economy. That’s the conclusion of a national survey conducted by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.

Nearly 1,100 employed and unemployed Americans participated in the survey from Jan. 9 to Jan. 16. The survey’s lead researcher Mark Szeltner joined The Daily Ticker to discuss the data and what it reveals about the national psyche.

Here are some of the survey’s key findings:

• Eight in 10 Americans are skeptical that career and employment opportunities will be better for the next generation.
• More than half of Americans say the economy will not fully recover from the 2007-2009 recession for another six years; 29% believe the economy will never fully recover.
• 73% of Americans were directly impacted by the recession: individuals surveyed had either lost a job themselves or

Nearly 20% of Americans will give jewelry to loved ones on Feb. 14, spending more than $4.4 billion on diamonds, gold and silver according to the National Retail Federation Valentine's Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey. But gift buyers need to ask certain questions before they splurge on diamonds, rubies and other gemstones says Antoinette Matlins, an internationally recognized jewelry expert and author of many books including Jewelry and Gems: The Buying Guide.

In an interview with The Daily Ticker she discusses the most alarming trends in the jewelry business and how consumers can protect themselves.

Rubies

According to Matlins, rubies and other red-colored stones are popular gifts on Valentine’s Day.

Rubies are one of the most “most durable, beautiful and wonderful” gems but many rubies sold in the marketplace today are not 100% genuine, she says. Many gemstones are enhanced in some way to make them more attractive; it's an industry-wide practice that's been happening for

U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe announced Wednesday morning that mail delivery on Saturdays will be halted beginning in August.

"The Postal Service is advancing an important new approach to delivery that reflects the strong growth of our package business and responds to the financial realities resulting from America's changing mailing habits," Donahoe said in a statement. "We developed this approach by working with our customers to understand their delivery needs and by identifying creative ways to generate significant cost savings."

The struggling U.S. agency loses $25 million a day, according to Donahoe. Last November the agency reported it lost $15.9 billion for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 20, more than triple its loss from the previous year. The U.S. Post Office has also reached its $15 billion borrowing limit with the Treasury.

The proliferation of online banking and email has made the U.S. Post Office less relevant in today's digital age. U.S. mail volume totaled

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) closed above 14,000 last Friday for the first time since October 2007 – an event that had investors feeling both jubilant and circumspect. Raymond James’ Jeff Saut wrote Monday that he favors upside in the interim “with the caveat that this rally is long of tooth.” Last Friday’s close put the Dow within arm’s reach of its all-time record high of 14,165.

Investors have been increasingly rotating out of bonds and into stocks, part of the reason for the upswing in the major averages.

According to Barron’s, the S&P 500 Index (GSPC) is trading at 14 times projected 2013 profits; the Dow is valued at less than 13 times estimated 2013 earnings. Essentially, stocks are cheap.

Whether the bull run continues or stalls depends on the retail investor – a missing actor in the markets over the last few years. Many investors got burned in 2008 when stocks plummeted to unseen levels because of the financial crisis. Even as markets have rebounded in the face of

Thought the “fiscal cliff” fiasco was over? Think again.

The deal to avert the cliff, which was signed into law at 11 p.m. on New Year’s Day, was a “head-fake,” says David Stockman, director of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during the Reagan Administration.

“This is a permanent problem,” Stockman tells The Daily Ticker. “The fiscal cliff is going to occur…over and over again.”

Related: Krugman: Yes, We Have To Fix The Deficit Eventually--But Not Now

The fiscal cliff agreement delayed the sequestration (i.e. more than $500 billion in tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts scheduled to take effect after Jan. 1) to March 1 and made permanent the Bush-era tax cuts for all households except those earning $450,000 or more. The bipartisan compromise also extended unemployment benefits. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the deal will reduce revenues and increase spending by nearly $4 trillion over the next decade.

Stockman opposes the Bush-era tax cuts (they were