Stocks were down sharply in trading in reaction to S&P's downgrading of the nation's credit rating Friday. more ›

Well, it's official, readers. Local gas prices have now passed the record levels set in 2008. Chicagogasprices.com lists the average at $4.51 per gallon. The AAA Fuel Gauge Reports lists unleaded gas at $4.39 per gallon. Both numbers are above the July 2008 rates of $4.34-$4.35 per gallon. more ›

Gas prices in the Chicago area are officially the highest in the nation, and we aren't surprised in the slightest. According to the Lundberg Survey, the average price for a gallon of gas in the Chicago area is $4.27, but Chicagogasprices.com is listing the average two cents higher and holding steady. more ›

Leave it to a University of Chicago economist to lend credence to the belief that Wrigley Field is a background to being the World's Largest Beer Garden 81 times a year. Booth School of Business Finance Professor Tobias "Toby" Moskowitz is one of the co-authors of the new book Scorecasting. Moskowitz and Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertham analyzed economic data related to baseball at Wrigley Field in relation to attendance and found that, more often than not. the one factor that tended to lead to decreases in attendance was increases in beer prices, even as tickets to Cubs games became more expensive. more ›

(Cue the jokes about lawyers in 3,2...) Attorney General Lisa Madigan siad her office raised nearly $1 billion for the state's coffers last year through litigation and collection of estate-tax revenues. more ›

ComEd isn't the only utility looking to increase its rates. Both Peoples Energy and North Shore Gas are looking for rate hikes to account for rising costs in natural gas delivery. Delivery accounts for 40 percent of a Peoples Energy bill and, at a time when natural gas sales and the customer base for both Peoples Energy and North Shore Gas are declining, the costs of delivering natural gas to customers has hit the utilities where it hurts the most: their respective bottom lines. more ›

Now that he has the endorsements of Chicago policemen and firefighters who don't want to live in the city, and found a slogan he can beat Rahm Emanuel over the head with, Gery Chico's next stop in his late push for second place in next month's election is to pander to football fans. The Chico campaign responded to an article by the Tribune's David Haugh in which Haugh laid out the chances of Soldier Field hosting a future Super Bowl with a press release that said, if elected Mayor, Chico would work to bring a Super Bowl to the Windy City. more ›

The Bulls are on the cusp of something special. As the NBA All-Star break approaches, they're far and away the class of the Central Division, winning games despite injuries that have sidelined Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah for long stretches, and Derrick Rose has emerged as a serious candidate for NBA MVP. It all leads to big business at the turnstiles and with merchandise. Forbes released its list of the most valuable NBA teams and the Bulls are valued as the third-most valuable franchise in the league, behind the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers. Forbes Mike Ozanian values the Bulls at $511 million. Ozanian also notes the Cleveland Cavaliers value dropped 26 percent to $355 million, nearly all of that loss in value was attributed to the loss of LeBron James. more ›

Just one day after mayoral candidate Carol Mosely Braun released a portion of her 2008 and 2009 federal income tax returns, her meltdown as the city's "consensus" black candidate continued. more ›

Since Danny Davis and James Meeks dropped out of the mayoral race to back Carol Moseley braun, the former senator has had one misstep after another. more ›

Barring a sudden and steep decrease in the average price of a gallon of gas, the city will start adding a $1 fuel surcharge as of midnight Monday. Happy New Year! more ›

A new survey by the Federal Reserve Bank says that economic growth has picked up in 10 of the central bank's 12 regions. Five regions, including Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis, New York and Richmond, experienced economic activity at a "somewhat stronger" pace, while five other regions, including Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Dallas and San Francisco experienced a "slight to modest" pace of economic activity. Only Philadelphia and St. Louis showed mixed business conditions. more ›

Daley's budget plan doesn't raise taxes, fees or fines. "I do not believe it is right to raise taxes with the economy as bad as it is," he said. The press release also highlights freezes on non-safety hiring, job cuts, department consolidations and the use of furlough days to help balance the budget. Daley also called his decision to raid the parking meter funds, which leave only $78 million from the one-time $1.18 billion payment, "controversial" while emphasizing he did not touch the reserves from the Chicago Skyway privatization. more ›

Almost a third of Chicago homeowners are “underwater,” according to a report real estate company Zillow.com. Progress Illinois reports that Zillow released data suggesting that one in three single family homes in Chicago are worth less than the price of their current mortgage. The current median value on a single family home in the Chicago area is $189,000, slightly above the national average of $181,000. more ›

The editorial board at the Southern Illinoisian is quite dismayed at Bill Brady’s loss to Pat Quinn this election. So much so, they penned some scathing commentary calling for an end to Chicago’s “choke hold” on state politics by developing an electoral college. As Rich Miller from Capitol Fax points out, the Southern Illinoisian’s editoral board has lost its collective mind. They’re not the only ones either. On a Champaign radio station, a Brady supporter called in to say “I wish Cook County would just secede from Illinois” and Brady also said in a debate that voters should want Illinois to look more like Indiana or Tennessee. more ›

The widow of former Metra Chief Phil Pagano, who committed suicide in May walking in front of a train as the Metra board of directors were set to fire him for embezzling $475,000 in unearned pay, was awarded an $80,000-a-year pension as a survivor benefit. more ›

Dale L. Mortensen, the Ida C. Cook Professor of Economics at Northwestern University, was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics. Professor Mortensen will share the $1.5 million prize with MIT professor and Federal Reserve Board nominee Peter Diamond and Christopher Pissarides of London School of Economics and Political Science. more ›

Omron Automotive Electrics Inc., is shifting production from its Toronto, Ontario plant to its St. Charles, Illinois plant, taking advantage of both the weaker U.S. dollar and the Illinois plant's proximity to GM and Ford plants. “Both our Canadian and St. Charles facilities have been operating at low capacity, so consolidation into just one made sense,” Omron’s Canada-based human resources director Dawn Hoffman told Crain's. “With the strong dollar here [in Canada], we’ve lost a ton of manufacturing in Canada. It makes it very difficult to produce here for export.” Omron will add 250 jobs to the 300 jobs already at the St. Charles plant. The semi-skilled positions, which are non-union, will pay between $12 and $15 an hour, plus benefits, and Omron plans to use temporary hires to fill the initial gaps in the local workforce. The Japanese-owned auto-parts company makes switches for electric seats and windows for GM and Ford vehicles. more ›

The Associated Press is reporting that Chicago-area single-family home prices saw the biggest drop among 20 cities in January, according to The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index. Chicago-area prices dropped just over four percent compared to last year, and a bigger dip than the 0.7 percent year-over-year drop for the 20 cities combined. more ›

While it's unlikely this Nobel Prize win will bring the attention of that other Nobel winner, it's still worth noting Indiana Univ. professor Elinor Ostrom was named the co-recipient of this year's Nobel Prize in Economics. Ostrom is the first woman to win the award since it's inception over 40 years ago and she shares the award with Oliver Williamson, a professor at the University of California. According to the New York Times, "Ms. Ostrom’s work focuses on the commons, such as how pools of users manage natural resources as common property." [NYT, WBEZ] more ›

There's plenty going on in Chicago's bid to claim the 2016 Summer Olympics. Here's a few of the stories that caught our eye. more ›

After a trip to China to meet with senior Chinese government officials, Illinois 10th District Congressman Mark Kirk took time to discuss his meeting at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, DC think-tank. "We heard across the board - in private - substantial, continuing and rising concern," Kirk said. "It's clear that China would like to diversify from its dollar investments." His trip included discussions with Chinese Central Bank cheif central bank chief Dr Zhou Xiaochuan. That statement differed from what Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said after meeting with Chinese officials on a separate visit. Geithner indicated that Chinese leaders expressed "justifiable confidence" in the U.S. economy. with some 700 billion dollars invested in Treasury bonds, China is the largest holder of U.S. debt. Earlier this year Dr Zhou proposed eliminating the U.S. dollar as the global financial benchmark. more ›

As you might have noticed, the 1980s hard rock scene produced very few great scholars. There is no Kip Winger, Ph.D., or Mark Slaughter, M.Ed. Vince Neil implored us to call Dr. Feelgood, but never himself M.D.'ed. (Nikki Sixx OD'ed, though.) Blackie Lawless is not an Esq. more ›

Watching the Dow rise and fall in recent weeks has been like riding a roller coaster with a bad case of stomach flu. It sank like a stone last week after Congress approved a $850 billion bailout and the credit markets remained frozen. This week, upon news that the Federal government will be partially nationalizing the nation's major banks, the Dow saw its biggest one-day increase ever. In a year in which we've seen skyrocketing grocery prices in relation to increased oil costs, the thought of paying even more for provisions crossed us more than once. more ›

After months of buildup and debate, the inaugural Chicago Gourmet festival of food and wine kicks off this evening with a gala reception at the Harris Theatre in Millennium Park. You just know that Mayor Daley is eager to showcase the rarefied air of the Chicago restaurant industry mere months before the IOC makes its final decision on the host city for the 2016 Summer Games. He tried to sell the sizzle in this week's edition of Time Out Chicago: more ›