Timothy Geithner may take the second half of the summer off. Bloomberg is reporting that the Treasury Secretary is considering leaving his post after the debt ceiling debate is resolved. The deadline for that is August 2nd. After that, the government can’t pay its bills. That puts Geithner out the door sometime in the next [...]
There’s a lot of finger wagging going on in the world about America’s profligate ways. And a lot of comparisons between the budget troubles of the U.S. and the horrors facing Greece. The West, the story goes, stupidly spent beyond its means while emerging markets wisely saved their pennies for rainy days like these. But [...]
The Federal Reserve decided to cut the amount banks could charge on debit card transactions in half. The Fed, which was required under the financial reform bill Dodd-Frank to set a limit for what banks could charge retailers to process debit card transactions, capped the so-called swipe fees at $0.21 to $0.24 – depending on [...]
Monetary utopia will have to wait. In mid-June, Bitcoin, a virtual currency many lauded as a model for the future of money, plunged in value after a hacker nearly stole $9 million of the digital dollars. The exchange rate had reached $30 per Bitcoin, up from $5 as recently as April. After the hack, the [...]
Eight months ago, when approached by investors to repay a portion of their losses in mortgage bonds, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said no way. He said that his firm had followed the rules and that he was going to fight this one to the end. The outcome of that “fight” may indicate that [...]
The chummy pow wow between Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany this week seemed like all peas and gravy. Fourteen economic deals? Great. Twenty-two cooperation agreements? Even better. Any business is good business in a fragile global economy, right? Not so much. Growing ties between Beijing and Berlin don’t [...]
The world economy dodged a bullet today. Parliamentarians in Greece voted in favor of a painful package of austerity measures aimed at reducing the government’s yawning budget deficit, controlling its ballooning debt and convincing the rest of the euro zone to continue to support the country with rescue funds. The vote paves the way for a second EU-led [...]
New Jersey, one of the richest states in the nation, is nearly broke. Starting next week the Garden State could be unable to pay its bills unless it secures a short-term loan of $2.25 billion, which it is reportedly close to doing with JPMorgan Chase. New Jersey’s fiscal year starts July 1st. Usually it has [...]
Should the U.S. sell off its gold reserves to pay down debt? That’s the latest idea being tossed around by gold bug Ron Paul. Not only would selling Old Yeller help the U.S. pay its bills, says libertarian Paul, but it would put more gold in the hands of the American people and pull back [...]
The French today came out with a proposal to save Greece and the eurozone. French banks, which hold roughly $21 billion in Greek sovereign debt, have agreed to roll over a big chunk of their Greek government bond holdings for 30 years to keep markets happy and avoid a Greek default. But the key to [...]
