Investors, from big pension funds to IRA and 401K owners, look confused, which tells me that it’s either data (and data extrapolation) overload or we may be at an inflection point in the stock market.
China is the Michael Jordan of emerging markets (Wilson Chu/REUTERS) China is the Michael Jordan of emerging economies. Just as every up-and-coming basketball hopeful wanted to “be like Mike,” every up-and-coming poor nation wants to “be like China.” And why not? China has boasted an incredible record of alleviating poverty, building industry, creating jobs, and [...]
Who Me? America’s efforts to restart the US economy is one of the reasons other countries are contemplating more capital controls (Nicky Loh/REUTERS) I remember well when Malaysia’s renegade Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad imposed capital controls in 1998 to protect his emerging nation from the ravages of the Asian financial crisis. You could almost hear [...]
Has Economic theory failed Bernanke? (Jim Young/REUTERS) Now that I know the answer to what Juan Williams meant by “Muslim garb,” I can focus on the other question that has been bugging me recently: Why haven’t low-interest rates boosted the economy? Economists have long believed that lowering interest rates is one of the most forceful [...]
The economy is in slow growth mode, consumers are paying down debt, jobless numbers remain high and trade frictions are mounting. That’s enough to keep anyone in the U.S. from feeling too good. Except for, perhaps, Ray Dalio, the founder and CEO of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund firm.
A new smart-grid idea was born when two firms found they had common interests
More bad paperwork (Lucy Nicholson/REUTERS) Michael and Pamela Negrea, of Cleveland suburb Eastlake, Ohio, have never missed a mortgage payment. Yet their mortgage company, GMAC, has tried to foreclose on their house, not once, but three times. And GMAC is still trying to haul the couple out of their house. It’s one of the incredible [...]
Next to Mao, Ben looks sad (Petar Kujundzic/REUTERS) The chorus of voices criticizing China’s stubborn resistance to reforming its controversial currency regime and allowing the yuan to appreciate keeps getting louder. Outrage in Washington has been growing, the European Union recently called on China to let the yuan rise, and even officials in usually polite [...]
Foreclosure-gate is getting uglier by the day (Carlos Barria/REUTERS) More and more, Foreclosure-gate is looking like the housing bust’s Enron. One of the amazing developments of the unraveling of the financial crisis has been the fact that there have been so few people we can actually point to and say without a doubt that guy [...]
Bernanke critics are on the attack (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) What is the most likely cause of civil unrest today? Immigration. Gay marriage. Abortion. The results of Election Day. The mosque at Ground Zero. Nope. Try the Federal Reserve. Nov. 3 is when the Federal Reserve’s next policy committee meeting ends, and if you thought this [...]
