Blog Posts by Peter Gorenstein

Think pineapple and Hawaii probably comes to mind. Which is why it might be surprising to learn that though the 50th state led pineapple production in the 1960's, Hawaii doesn't even rank in the top ten global producers now. But Lisa and Craig Bowden have a plan to change all that.

They have a tiny company, less than 20 employees and their business Hawaiian Crown is the last and only family-owned commercial pineapple farm in the state. But what Hawaiian Crown lacks in size, it more than makes up for in spirit. Even though Lisa and Craig may be outgunned by produce giants, they have still managed to invest more than $3 million and 20 years of research and development.

"Pineapple has a very special place in Hawaii as a symbol of hospitality," says Craig Bowden. Yet, quality and quantity has "declined relative to cheaper, lower cost sources around the world."

Disappointed in the fruit they found in supermarkets, which they say is a product of outsourcing and mass farming methods, the

Five years after the market peaked, the housing market remains depressed. October new home sales, released this morning, totaled 307,000, slightly below estimates. Meanwhile, prices rose slightly.

But, as your real estate broker will happily mention - 'Now is a great time to buy!' Unlike 2007, when that obviously was not the case for most, now it might actually be true. Ironically, the reluctance for many to buy a home is what makes it a good (relatively) time to purchase.

As Aaron and Henry discuss in the accompanying clip, owning a home is now more affordable than any time in the last 15 years, based on a new Wall Street Journal survey. In fact -- with the average price of a home $242,300 -- it is now cheaper to own than rent in 12 metro areas including Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, Miami, Orlando and Phoenix.

As the WSJ article points out, the discrepancy between buying and renting can be extreme in some areas:

"In Atlanta, which had the most favorable values for owning

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Earlier this week "Dr. Doom" Nouriel Roubini and Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis author James Rickards got into a war of words on Twitter over the return of the gold standard. (Read the exchange.)

As Rickards explained last week on The Daily Ticker, he believes a return to the gold standard will do a lot to fixing the current troubles in the global financial system and the U.S. economy.

In the accompanying interview with Aaron Task, Roubini continues to disavow Rickards of his claim.

"That's total nonsense." Roubini then goes even further, calling the gold bugs who support a return to the gold standard a, "bunch of lunatics and hacks."

Why?

Roubini says the gold standard would be dangerous. In fact, he claims, the gold standard was a major reason for the Great Depression.

"One of the major causes of the Great Depression was the existence of the gold standard and the return to the gold standard after World War I -

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Congress is once again at an impasse and running out of time to make a deal to lower the country's debt, according to wide spread reports. The so-called 12-member congressional "super committee" is still split along party lines on how to cut $1.2 trillion from the budget over the next decade. The group has a November 23 deadline to come an agreement.

"I don't read more into the hour-to-hour, day-to-day reports than you should," says Jack Lew the director of the Office of Management and Budget in the accompanying interview with The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task and Daniel Gross.

With Europe in serious crisis over their rising borrowing costs and this summer's debt downgrade, U.S. lawmakers are very well aware of the stakes.

Will it allow for compromise? Lew thinks so.

"It's still premature to say it's not going to get there. The fact that there's discussion and movement leaves me still more optimistic than most," he says. "One way or another, I

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In another sign of America's fiscal mess, Jefferson County, Alabama filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history on Wednesday. The most-populous county - home of Birmingham - defaulted on more than $3 billion of debt related to a sewer system project after negotiations with creditors broke down.

The biggest loser - besides the locals - is JPMorgan Chase, the largest Jefferson County creditor who may lose hundreds of millions. It's not the first time the largest U.S. bank by assets, has had problems with this deal. In 2009, JPMorgan paid a $722 million settlement with the SEC over corruption charges related to the project.

Jefferson County won't be the last municipal bankruptcy says Jeffrey Bell, a former campaign adviser to President Ronald Reagan and currently policy director at the American Principles Project. "It was easy to borrow the money, it was too easy but now it's becoming impossible," Bell tells Aaron Task in the

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Erin Brockovich - the public advocate made famous on the silver screen by Julia Roberts - has a message for the temporary residents of Zuccotti park: Get your act together!

Brockovich stopped by The Daily Ticker set this week to discuss her new book, Hot Water and chat about her recent visit to Occupy Wall Street.

The anger and blame galvanized by the movement is understandable, she says, but without a clear message she's afraid the protest won't yield results. Simply living in a park does not create change.

"We are all frustrated," Brockovich tells Jeff Macke in the accompanying interview. "If you don't get yourself together, collectively with some leadership and message to be conveyed then it just falls on a deaf ear."

Her advice for the Occupy Wall Street protesters: get organized, get a spokesperson and make tangible demands.

Brockovich made history more than a decade ago after spearheading and winning a $333 million lawsuit for the

Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group stopped by the Daily Ticker set today to give us his take on the never ending and ever escalating European debt crisis now centered on Italy.

First, here's the latest out of Italy where the focus is political: It appears Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's days as head of the government are numbered. Berlusconi failed to get enough support in parliament today to keep his job for much longer. Now, there are reports he will resign after the country's austerity vote.

"He's lost all his political capital," says Bremmer of Berlusconi, noting he's also lost the confidence of the markets, as has been witnessed by the rising yields on short term debt.

Bremmer clearly thinks the European crisis will lead to economic hardship and recession on the other side of the Atlantic, but ultimately he's optimistic about the future of the Euro and Eurozone. As he rightly observes, very few if any important parties in Germany, or elsewhere in Europe, are

Might we be nearing the bottom of the housing market? Housing prices in the third quarter were essentially flat compared with the previous quarter, according to the latest zillow.com market report. Unfortunately, home prices do continue to fall, and are 4.4% lower when compared to last year.

While that doesn't seem devastating, the number of underwater mortgages remains a major problem. In fact, the percentage of single-family mortgages with negative equity rose to 28.6% fromm 26.8% in the second quarter. Negative equity has been on the rise since the robosigning controversy, says Stan Humphries, Zillow's chief economist.

"Once that erupted, and the pace of foreclosure slowed down, we saw a notch up in negative equity because essentially foreclosures are a process to clean out negative equity," he says.

Negative equity and unemployment are the biggest factors keeping the housing market depressed, Humphries tells The Daily Ticker in the accompanying video.

When is the carnage going to