Here in snowy Davos, the topic of job creation has been about as popular as the passed canapés and free champagne. Not surprisingly, President Obama’s latest jobs proposals — a combination of taxing outsourcing corporations …
During this year’s TIME at Davos debate, our international editor Jim Frederick posed some colossal questions: Is 20th century capitalism failing 21st century society? And if so, who’s responsible and what should we do to fix …
A few months ago, it seemed Germany’s ego couldn’t get any bigger. The country’s joblessness rate had fallen to its lowest levels since German reunification in 1990, and its small Mittelstand businesses, the backbone of the …
David Cameron’s decision to wield his cherished veto in Brussels last week added more high drama to the endless euro saga. Cameron’s refusal to sign up for a new EU treaty to save the euro, which gained the support of every …
Standard and Poor’s decision to threaten eurozone countries with ratings downgrades may seem like bad timing. But if it keeps markets on edge, European leaders might be scared enough to crank out some real solutions, rather than …
The latest act in the debt drama unfolding in Europe right now can only be described as operatic. Italian bond yields have risen to euro era highs, markets around the world are roiled (US equities suffered their worst one day drop in three months yesterday), and the infamous Silvio Berlusconi has agreed—finally—to step down as prime …
The lines being drawn between the ultra-right Tea Party and its nearest complement in the realm of public furor, Occupy Wall Street, are curious. My colleague Michael Scherer over at Swampland describes the parallels as follows:
In its broadest outlines, this new outpouring of protest is driven by the same fuel that gave fire to the
…
News of this year’s Nobel prize winners in economics came in today, against the backdrop of a possible second global economic crisis. Two American macro-economists, Thomas Sargent of New York University and Christopher Sims at Princeton, claimed victory for their work on how our expectations and policies actually impact the economy. So …
There’s been a lot of talk this week in China about whether it should swoop in to save the eurozone. Loading up on Italian debt is one possibility, which could keep Europe’s overall bailout tab in check and boost market confidence. Another idea is to create an EU-China bond. Unlike an EU-only bond (a concept that hasn’t gained traction …
Yesterday U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke was in Beijing meeting with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in China. He reiterated longstanding U.S. complaints about doing business in China: that China’s government isn’t doing enough to expand domestic demand and foster Chinese innovation. Foreign investors in China, said Locke, give up …
Designer coats and crystal glasses can be hard sells in a tough economy. But lipstick is another story. At least that’s the thinking behind the “lipstick index,” termed by Leonard Lauder, chairman emeritus of cosmetics company Estée Lauder, in 2001 to explain the surge in lipstick sales during that recession.
Lately, the lipstick …
You know the economy is in a bind when consumers stop spending. But consumer retrenchment can ultimately be a good thing if it allows indebted households to rebuild their wealth. Unfortunately, that’s not how things are playing out for this country’s middle class. The personal savings rate has jumped from near-zero in years past to …
