Here’s a question that might be worth asking. With both the House and the Senate zeroing in on passing a bill to overhaul the financial industry, why are we still so deeply enmeshed in debating the causes of the financial crisis in the first place? I ask because as Congress enters what appears to be [...]
If you took even a glance at CNBC or yahoo finance or CNNMoney.com or where ever you go to check up on the market, you probably know that today was a bad day for stocks. The S&P 500 hit an 8-month low, and the Dow was down as much as 326 points at one point. [...]
We are in what one of my co-workers calls a perfect negative loop, where anemic jobs numbers feed bearish stock market sentiment which loops back and drives consumer confidence lower. The Conference Board provided the latest loop in the chain on Tuesday with the new report on Consumer Confidence numbers for June, which were down [...]
You think you’ve got it rough. Consider the poor hedge fund manager, who has an awful lot riding on the percentage gains he or she is able to post for clients. The reason is that hedge fund skippers pocket about 20% of the fund’s gains in addition to their annual fee. Of course, it’s a [...]
So they’ve gone and done it. Even though the G-20 called the recovery “uneven and fragile” in the final declaration from its weekend confab in Toronto, the advanced economies also pledged to at least halve fiscal deficits by 2013 and stabilize or reduce government debt-to-GDP ratios by 2016. The statement read: Recent events highlight the [...]
Jean Hoffman’s aging pet inspired her to found a generic drug company for animals, where growth potential is the cat’s meow
Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve had its regularly scheduled meeting and Bernanke & Co. decided to keep short-term interest rates at near zero, as they have been for a while. Low interest rates are supposed to spur growth by encourage borrowing, giving people more money to spend and invest. But interest rates have been [...]
Many people are already commenting on how good or bad a deal financial reform is for Wall Street. Some are saying it will crush profits in the banking sector. Others are saying Wall Street dodged a bullet and it will be business as usual. The answer is we really don’t know. That’s because a key [...]
There are a few, special criteria a country needs to meet to become a member of the illustrious PIIGS – that collection of beleaguered Eurozone economies made up of Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. Does Japan qualify for the honor? Let’s see: High government debt? Check. Low growth prospects? Check. Desperate need for reform? [...]
As if the lives of central bankers haven’t been hard enough. First they had to ride cavalry-like to the rescue as financial markets went into full-fledged meltdown and economies sank into the Great Recession. Ever since, they’ve been faced with that tricky game of figuring out when to start reversing the super easy monetary policy [...]
