Blog Posts by Stacy Curtin

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There is a consensus forming that the U.S. housing market may finally be on the rebound. Home prices are up 4-straight months, according to the latest S&P Case-Shiller index and Zillow's U.S. home value index increased for the first time since 2007 in the second quarter.

But Gary Shilling of A. Gary Shilling is not convinced home prices have turned to the upside for good.

"The fundamental reason is there is a huge excess of inventory out there," he tells The Daily Ticker's Henry Blodget. "Some of it is listed but a lot of it is a so-called shadow inventory."

Shadow inventory refers to homes in foreclosure and waiting to be sold or properties that homeowners have delayed selling, likely to get a better price.

In his latest Insights investment note, Shilling writes "excess housing inventories, the mortal enemy of prices, measure about 2 million over and above normal working levels. That's huge considering that housing completions averaged about 1.5

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The U.S. presidential election is just three months away and the race is on to keep the campaign coffers full in what is expected to be the most expensive election ever.

In July, Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee raised $101 million, roughly $25 million more than President Obama and the Democratic National Committee. For three-straight months the Obama reelection team has trailed the Romney campaign's fundraising efforts.

At the end of last month Romney and the GOP had roughly $186 million on hand. Obama's campaign has yet to release its latest balance, but started July with $144 million compared to Romney's $170 million.

And then there are the Super PACs. Priorities USA Action has raised $20.7 million and spent $17.3 million to support President Obama's 2012 reelection as of Aug. 5, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Restore Our Future, which supports the former Massachusetts Governor's presidential aspirations, has

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If you thought your income taxes were high, you may want to think again.

The newly elected Socialist Party in France is poised to institute a major tax hike on the nation's wealthiest. To help pay down the country's debt, French President Francois Hollande wants to raise the tax rate on income over 1 million euros (or $1.23 million) from 48 percent to 75 percent. This tax hike would affect about 30,000 French citizens - or .046 percent of the population. The French Parliament will take up the issue in September.

Hollande's tax hike on the rich was part of his presidential campaign platform. There are a number of experts - in France and the U.S. - who are skeptical that raising taxes on the wealthy will reduce the country's fiscal burden.

"France is headed into a recession, if it is not in one already," says former Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes in the accompanying interview. "Piling on new taxes when you have a contracting economy,

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Every month The Daily Ticker brings you some of the most outrageous acts in corporate America thanks to Michelle Leder and her team at Footnoted.com who tirelessly comb through pages and pages of corporate SEC filings.

Leder joins Aaron Task in the accompanying interview to discuss what were July's highlights (or lowlights) in executive pay.

#1 Ralph Lauren Really Is King

Fashion designer Ralph Lauren, king of high-end apparel and housewares, has been granted a $500,000 pay raise, bringing his total salary to $1.75 million a year. That's a big increase especially since Ralph Lauren (RL) stock is down 7 percent in the last six months.

Lauren got more than just a pay increase. He's also now "entitled to an annual stock award" of up to $14 million, depending on his performance through the end of his contract in 2017. One-third of the grant will be in stock options and the other two-thirds will be in restricted stock units.

On top of all that, his

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In July The Trump Organization opened a luxury 18-hole gulf course off the Northeastern coast of Scotland on land once protected for its rare and disappearing sand dunes. The championship course was slated to be one of two courses and one small part of a larger $1.5 billion luxury project, including 500 million-dollar homes, 950 holiday apartments, a 450-room hotel, 36 golf villas, a 400-bed workers' hostel, a conference center and a clubhouse.

A documentary by a pair of local Scottish filmmakers about Trump's quest to build on the environmentally endangered land hits theaters this week in New York and Los Angeles. The film details how Donald Trump and Co. failed to deliver on all but one of his proposals, pushed life-time locals from their land and destroyed one of Europe's most cherished coasts — which has been described by one leading scientist as "Scotland's Amazon rain forest."

The award-winning film by Anthony Baxter is "You've Been Trumped."

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The next big event that economists and markets are watching is Friday's nonfarm payrolls report. The majority of economists say the U.S. economy added 100,000 jobs in July and that the national unemployment rate remained steady at 8.2 percent.

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, is a bit more optimistic and estimates that employers hired at least 160,000 new workers last month.

In order to keep up with population growth, employers need to add at least 100,000 jobs a month, says Baker. While 160,000 payrolls is not a spectacular figure, it would be higher than previous job reports.

Baker's forecast rests largely on the following two things:

1) Job growth is back on trend after an unseasonably warm winter. Due to an unseasonably warm winter, people were out shopping and spending more than usual, he notes, which led to unusually high jobs growth during that period. Warm weather was good for the winter months "but

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U.S. auto sales have been a bright spot in an otherwise grim economy in recent months. But that trend could be turning if July auto sales are any indication.

General Motors (GM) reported a 6 percent decline in July sales, selling more than 201,000 vehicles last month, while Ford (F) posted a 4 percent drop versus a year ago, selling 173,966 vehicles. Chrysler, which Italy's Fiat holds a majority stake, sold more cars than any time during the last five years, but the automaker still fell short of some analysts' expectations.

Nissan North America said it sold almost 100,000 cars in July, or 16 percent more than a year ago. Toyota (TM) sold almost 165,000 cars in July, up 25 percent from July last year but down 7 percent from June. Honda's (HMC) July sales are expected late Wednesday. Last year Japanese automakers faced strong headwinds after a deadly earthquake and tsunami rocked the country. Strong sales from the three automakers this year have

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U.S. home prices were up for the fourth straight month in May and came in better than most economists expected.

According to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index, the price of single-family homes rose a seasonally adjusted 0.9 percent from April to May, versus forecasts for a 0.5 percent increase. But home prices did fall 0.66 percent year-over -year.

"The housing market seems to be stabilizing, but we are definitely in a wait-and-see mode for the next few months," said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor's, in a statement.

More than half the 20 cities followed by the index experienced gains in home values on a yearly basis. Phoenix, Arizona, one of the cities hit hardest by the housing bubble, led these gains with a 11.5 percent rise in prices. On the flip side, Atlanta, Georgia saw prices decline by the largest margin of 14.5 percent.

"I think it is pretty clear that the housing market has bottomed and