Blog Posts by Rick Newman

Source: ThinkstockWho are “the American people?”

If you ask politicians (on the record), they’ll tell you the American people are the greatest font of collective wisdom in the history of wisdom. Yet even Americans have growing doubts about their own sensibilities.

A recent Gallup poll found that Americans’ trust in “the American people” has fallen to a record low. Just 61% of respondents said they have a great deal or a fair amount of trust and confidence in their fellow Americans when it comes to making judgments about important issues facing the country. That number peaked at 86% in 1976. In 2005 it was 78%. Even during the 2007 – 2009 recession, the number stayed in the 70s. It began to plunge in 2010.

That was the year, of course, that Congress passed the highly divisive Affordable Care Act, which has been rolling out slowly and is now about to launch the state-by-state exchanges where Americans can purchase health insurance. This three-year ramp-up has left plenty of time for the American people to

The U.S. Postal Service wants to raise the price of a stamp by three cents, to $0.49. That’s not enough. We should hike the price of a stamp to $1, fix the U.S. Postal Service for good, and end the sorry spectacle of Congress forever toying with an institution it’s too inept to govern.

The Postal Service has become a poster child for incompetence thanks to an astonishing $41 billion in losses since 2006. Any normal company that lost that much money would either be bankrupt or thoroughly thrashed by irate shareholders. Yet the Postal Service bumbles on, with even bigger troubles on the way. It predicts annual losses could exceed $18 billion by 2015.

Blame Congress

Don’t blame the Postal Service, however. Though it’s technically a “self-supporting government enterprise,” the USPS suffers from the worst problem any business could ever imagine: Congressional meddling. In essence, Congress must approve every big change to the USPS business model. As every American knows, Congress is about

2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray

Click to see a slideshow of the Corvette Stingray and its competitors.

To catch a glimpse of the new Chevrolet Corvette Stingray whizzing by, you might have to reel around pretty quickly. And if you’re a typical Corvette fan, you might find yourself laid up at the chiropractor.

The Corvette is perhaps the most storied sports car in the history of American motoring, which is why the debut of the latest model — the seventh generation of the car, known as the C7 — is a Big Automotive Deal. GM (GM) might sell only 20,000 Corvettes in a good year, a tiny fraction of the pickups, SUVs or sedans it sells. Yet the Corvette, like other “halo” cars, reveals GM’s peak capabilities as a car builder and gives the company’s biggest division, Chevrolet, an object of desire it can show off next to boring Malibus and thrifty Sparks.

As an ambassador of excitement, however, the Corvette has grown gray and paunchy, like an aging rocker strumming the same old tunes. The median age of a Corvette owner has

It might turn out better than critics expect. It might even be modestly successful. But you’ll probably never know it, because the sweeping new healthcare program known as Obamacare will have a PR problem for generations.

With the first big phase of the program due to begin October 1, when state-level exchanges offering healthcare insurance open up, we’re finally getting some details of how Obamacare will actually work, which have been sorely lacking since the scheme became law in 2010. The government says the typical monthly premium for a mid-range insurance plan under Obamacare will average about $328, depending on what state you live in. People with incomes close to the poverty line will get the best deal, as intended. Americans between 19 and 25 already seem to be taking advantage of a provision allowing them to remain on their parents’ health insurance, which has been in effect for two years and has led to a big drop in the uninsured rate for that age group.

Related: Grading

When General Motors (GM) conducted an initial public offering in 2010, it was a triumphant return to financial markets for a wounded giant humbled by bankruptcy proceedings.

If Chrysler ever goes public, there will be less to celebrate. The No. 3 U.S. automaker recently filed for an IPO, but that’s not the preferred path to success for this company. The filing stems from a dispute over the convoluted ownership structure Chrysler ended up with following its own 2009 bankruptcy and federal bailout, and could actually threaten to sink the company if it occurs. Meanwhile, Chrysler’s recovery from bankruptcy hasn’t been as robust as GM’s, and its product lineup is still behind the competition. Here are four things Chrysler must do to survive:

Get its ownership straightened out. Italy’s Fiat, which has purchased a majority stake in Chrysler as part of the 2009 bailout, wants to own the automaker outright and fully merge the European and U.S. operations. Given the global scale of big

How terrible. Home Depot (HD) and Trader Joe’s have decided to stop offering health insurance for part-time employees, moving them over to Obamacare instead. More companies seem sure to follow. And more wailing about greedy, heartless corporations is sure to follow that. Some workers may start to drop dead from sheer anxiety before Obamacare even goes into effect on January 1.

Once the new health law has been in place for a few months, however, Part-Time America may issue a collective sigh of relief. Nobody ever held up today’s part-time "mini-med" plans as model coverage. The majority of part-time workers don’t even get health insurance, and those who do typically get diluted plans with limited benefits they still have to pay something for. “You have to question whether that’s really insurance,” says Paul Fronstin, director of the health research program at the Employee Benefits Research institute. “They may not cover prescription drugs, and if you get cancer or end up in the

For all the chatter about what’s happening in the underwhelming U.S. job market, the real question involves haves and have-nots and the rising wall between them. Yet a surprising character seems to be on the ascent: the American underdog.

The prevailing storyline describing the new Darwinian economy goes something like this: The rich have got theirs and you can’t have it. The middle class is dying. Young people are screwed, and the whole republic is crumbling like the late Roman Empire. Well, maybe. Prosperity is certainly harder to attain, for now, but there are also signs that America may rejuvenate itself from the bottom up—as it has many times before.

The results of a recent Gallup poll, for instance, challenge some of the conventional gloom about The End of Work in America. Gallup asked people whether they think now is a good time or bad time to find a job, as it has routinely for 15 years. Overall, the outlook is weak: Just 27% said it’s a good time to look for a job, while 70%

You don’t usually find clearance sales on real estate. But the last two years are beginning to look like the deal of a lifetime for anybody who bought a home.

That dynamic may now be changing as home prices surge by double-digits, interest rates rise and the whole housing bust recedes into the past. The latest sign that the buyer’s market is ending is a convincing improvement in foreclosures. Sales of foreclosed homes now account for about 12% of home sales, according to research firm FNC. That’s down from 17% a year ago and 37% in 2009, the low point of the housing bust. At the current pace, foreclosures will fall back to typical pre-recession levels within a year or so, signaling something like a return to a normal housing market.

That’s an important economic indicator that also has a tangible effect on buyers and sellers in the real world. An epidemic of foreclosures has been one of the factors pushing prices down to depressed levels and keeping sellers on the sidelines. With