Ben Bernanke will take your questions (Matt Sullivan/REUTERS) Nearly a year ago, TIME magazine named Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke our Man of the Year. Even if you didn’t like the pick, you have to agree that Bernanke was a big player in both the government bailout of the US economy last year and in [...]
Should German Prime Minister Angela Merkel, right, be pointing in the mirror? (Photo: Francois Lenoir/REUTERS) The financial turmoil in the Eurozone is fostering another potentially scary problem that could hamper the resolution of Europe’s debt crisis – smoldering anger towards Germany, the dominant member of the monetary union. Take a look at the venom spewed [...]
A worker at Best Buy helps shoppers get carts on Black Friday (photo: Shannon Stapleton/REUTERS) We might need a jobs recount. The employment numbers came out on Friday morning for November and they were far lower than people were hoping for. But here’s the problem: The employment picture might not be as disappointing as the [...]
Los Angeles job fair has applicants (Lucy Nicholson/REUTERS) The monthly report on employment, given out by the Labor Department, is the most important statistic of the month for the White House, the American household and the financial industry. The report released on Friday morning at 8:30 am didn’t disappoint–it is already a big event around the world’s markets–but [...]
An AARP volunteer helps a man fill out his taxes (photo: Jonathan Ernst/REUTERS) If you are a minority, you might want to take extra care filling out your taxes this April. Apparently, the Internal Revenue Service is gunning for you. According to a study released on Thursday, African-Americans and Hispanics are twice as likely to [...]
Tomorrow the government will announce the jobs number for November. Companies are expected to have added nearly 150,000 jobs last month. That’s not a lot compared to the millions people who are out of work. Indeed, the unemployment rate is not expect to fall from its current 9.6%. But if the jobs number is even [...]
As contagion spreads in Europe, political and economic leaders continue to struggle to find a real solution. There is hope that the European Central Bank will announce Thursday that it will expand its purchases of government debt to appease jittery markets. And Spain’s government announced a wide-ranging privatization plan to raise fresh funds. Perhaps such [...]
