Goldman’s CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s best profits may be behind him (Larry Downing/REUTERS) Goldman Sachs, it appears, is no longer the finely honed money-making machine that is has long been. On Wednesday, the most envied, and hated, firm on Wall Street confirmed that its profits fell 52% in the fourth quarter of 2010, from a year [...]
I’ve written in the past that India’s economy emerged from the Great Recession in better shape than China’s, despite its slightly lower growth rate. But now India looks like it’s running into choppy times as well, with frighteningly high inflation, big budget and trade deficits and weakening competitiveness versus China and other rivals. Here’s what [...]
Zuckerberg and famed private market investor John Doerr (left) (Hector Amezcua/REUTERS) UPATED 3:34 PM Much of the analysis of the debacle that has become of Facebook’s $2 billion private offering is this: Goldman royally messed up. The latest sign came on Monday when the investment bank, which is leading the Facebook deal, decided to bar [...]
Malls will be more crowded in 2011 (Mike Segar/REUTERS) Congratulations. We are now consuming more each month than we did before the start of the recession. Collectively, Americans spent nearly $381 billion last month, according to a report on Friday from US Department of Commerce. That was up 0.6% from November, and nearly 8% more [...]
Moody’s CEO Ray McDaniel (right) testifying about the Financial Crisis, along with Warren Buffett (Shannon Stapleton/REUTERS) It’s not often that I burst out laughing when I open up the business section, but I couldn’t help myself after cracking the Times to a see a big cartoon and the scarifying story that Moody’s and Standard and [...]
(Getty Images) Workers expecting a raise in the next year, might get something very different–a pay cut. Wages have already been growing very slowly during the recession, up just 1.5%. That’s down from 3.5% at the beginning of the recession. And when you factor in inflation, real wages, which is the measure of whether you [...]
President Obama signs the Small Business Jobs Act (Jason Reed/REUTERS) By Kate Pickert The U.S. economy will not recover without a dramatic turnaround in the small business sector. That’s just a fact. According to the Small Business Administration, companies with fewer than 500 employees account for 44% all private payroll and created 64% of net [...]
Just as the valuation of Facebook crossed the $50 billion mark, its once great rival MySpace was revealing a different set of numbers: MySpace axed half its work force, some 500 jobs. MySpace’s owner, News Corp. may have had enough the social networking business. At Time’s parent, Time Warner, we know all about what happens [...]
It will be cash (Photo: Sarah Conard/REUTERS) Stay-at-home moms may soon have a harder time saying, “Charge it.” That’s the claim from banks, retailers and critics of new regulations that were supposed to stop the most abusive practices of credit card companies. The credit regulations, which were passed last year as part of the CARD Act, [...]
Burning Innovation (Bobby Yip/REUTERS) I’ve always assumed that the future of the American economy relies on its continued edge in innovation. Well-designed, high-tech products from smart, creative companies, like the iPhone from Apple, would ensure that the U.S. could compete with and stay ahead of China and India. Of course, that’s still true. But a [...]
