It now appears that Greece will once again be bailed out of its financial morass. A year ago at this time, the world was roiled by the prospect of Greece defaulting on its considerable debts, and only the reluctant decision of …
If the economic news wasn’t bad enough after the release of yet another anemic jobs report, the highly influential global ratings agency Moody’s just announced that it was contemplating a downgrade of the U.S.’s credit rating.
Another day, another market plunge. Yesterday was notably sharp, with all major indices declining more than 2% and getting worse as the day wore on. The story du jour – and it is an axiom of market declines that there must be a …
More than two years after the near-meltdown of the global financial system, “the economy” remains the story of our day.
The just-released monthly inflation report showed that prices for most goods eased a bit. The exception of course is oil, and even though oil prices globally have declined in recent weeks, most Americans are paying ever more for gasoline even as inflation overall remains statistically tame.
The way we calculate inflation is fraught with …
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 be …
Yesterday, Ben Bernanke departed from the silent, opaque tradition of the Federal Reserve and held a press conference. The event attracted considerable attention, for its novelty as much as for its substance. But those hoping that Bernanke would do his best imitation of Willy Wonka and reveal hidden facets of humor, complexity and …
It’s more than just what on the floor (Photo: Mike Segar/REUTERS)
For the second day in the row, the US stock market plunged, and then bounced back. Hurt, yes, but shares were not beaten, even as investors had to worry about the double whammy of concerns of nuclear contamination in Japan and a housing report that showed new home …
China’s latest export: Bank Accounts (Photo: Stringer/REUTERS)
In the middle of last month, the Bank of China quietly announced a startling new bank account available to America citizens. At one of three Bank of China branches in the United States–two in New York and one in Los Angeles–an American can walk in, open an account and …
Over the next two weeks, Cancun will be in the spotlight for something other than spring break madness. As host of the annual climate summit that once saw such promise in Kyoto in 1997, Cancun in 2010 is framed by the spectacular failure of last year’s Copenhagen talks and by the stark realization that nearly 200 nations simply cannot …
Last week’s G-20 economic summit in South Korea was widely depicted as a failure for the Obama administration and a rebuff for the United States. In many respects, it was. Obama remarked that if the U.S. hadn’t tried to set the agenda, it would have had an easier time. “Part of the reason that sometimes it seems that the United …
