The arrest in New York of International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn on sexual-assault charges (to which he is expected to plead not guilty) will probably end his career at the Washington-based organization. But what will it mean for the global economy and the IMF’s future? The biggest short-term impact of Strauss-Kahn’s arrest will [...]
The mass cheering over Osama Bin Laden’s death was, well, kind of weird. But even weirder (for Wall Street watchers that is) was that the stock market didn’t bounce on the news, especially since, as noted earlier on this blog, “Bin Laden has been a major contributor to the booming federal deficit, much more so [...]
Foreclosures are down. Time to celebrate? Not really. Realtytrac, which monitors foreclosures, says the number of people losing their homes is dropping not because people are having fewer financial problems but because banks are taking longer to process foreclosures. And that’s not because they are modifying loans and helping people stay in their houses for good. [...]
You can practically set your watch by it. As petroleum prices soar—and with them, oil company profits and pain at the gas pump—sooner or later members of Congress will haul Big Oil executives into a hearing and Demand That Something Be Done. It happened in 2008, the last time oil prices breached the $100 a [...]
So the Feds got their big fish. The takedown of Raj Rajaratnam for insider trading is going to give U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara plenty of momentum in using an old prosecutorial weapon to go after a new set of miscreants. Rajaratnam was fried by his own words, obtained by the kind of wiretap that the [...]
Wang Qishan, China’s vice-premier, caused a bit of a stir this week when he accused Americans of having “simple” ideas about his nation during an interview on “The Charlie Rose Show.” According to a transcript, Wang said: It is not easy to really know China because China is an ancient civilization and we are of [...]
The U.S. trade deficit climbed 6% in March, according to numbers out from the Commerce Department. But the widening trade gap, the highest since June 2010, may not be as worrisome as it seems. Much of the jump has to do with the recent uptick in oil prices, which makes the U.S. bill for oil [...]
In the words of fashion designer Zac Posen: “The media is constantly redefining what luxury is. Luxury can be a dirty sock if dressed up in the right way.” Such is the secret behind Gilt Groupe, the discount luxury flash-sales site that hasn’t yet turned a profit but just convinced investors to throw another $138 [...]
The monthly jobs report released last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics proved to be a pleasant surprise. Nearly 250,000 more people were employed, for a total of more than 750,000 more jobs between February and April. While these numbers are the product of complicated formulas that are never quite accurate and will eventually [...]
The rumors about Greece’s second bailout, worth €60 billion ($86 billion), won’t go down easy in Germany, where taxpayers are particularly outraged at the idea of shelling out more hard-earned cash for the sake of Greek salvation. So German officials are pushing for something a bit more politically palatable: getting Greece’s creditors to postpone the [...]
