The economy, the stock market and even the November elections will largely be determined by a group of people who are almost invisible to forecasters.
Economy
Euro Banks Swap Cash for Trash
Cheap loans being offered by the European Central Bank to help reflate the Eurozone are encouraging some banks to boost their profits by loading up on risky bonds.
My Top Five Takeaways from Davos
One of the challenges of covering the World Economic Forum at Davos as a journalist is making sense of the whole thing. The forum is days and days of wandering conversations and endless debates on just about every subject you can …
Why the Eurozone Can’t Just Muddle Through
There’s a growing optimism that the common European currency can be saved, but the numbers argue that this is unrealistic.
Couldn’t Make Davos This Year? Here Are the 5 Things Everyone’s Talking About
The topics and tropes fall faster than snowflakes here in Davos, where several thousand of the world’s leading business people, politicians and policy makers gather once a year for an annual think-fest. And with literally …
Why Manufacturing Can’t Solve The Jobs Problem
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 …
Smack Down at Davos: Merkel and Soros Spar on the Euro’s Future
The weather in Davos has offered a perfect setting for this year’s World Economic Forum. Heavy snowfall has made simply keeping your footing a difficult challenge; one ill-timed misstep on the ice could easily send you head …
The Challenge at Davos: A Crisis of Global Politics, Not Just the Economy
Despite its rugged alpine beauty, there are few places where the world seems more flat than Davos, Switzerland. The World Economic Forum’s grand annual conclave, set to kick off this Wednesday, draws myriad heads of state, …
The Limitations of Looking at the Big Picture
On Wednesday, the World Economic Forum will gather on a pretty mountain in the Swiss village of Davos. Immortalized as the Magic Mountain in Thomas Mann’s classic novel about a tuberculosis sanatorium, Davos today attracts those
…
Why This Stock Rally Can’t Be Trusted
This may be one of those rare moments when market strength is a signal of growing danger, rather than a sign of better times to come.
Is U.S. Manufacturing Really Back?
Is America in the middle of a manufacturing job revival? The latest numbers would make it seem so. The U.S. has added more net manufacturing jobs since the start of 2010 than the rest of the G7 nations put together, with only two …
The Big Winner of the Great Recession Is …
The recent recession has been the most brutal since the Great Depression and has caused enormous hardship for many American families, as well as immense financial problems for governments around the world. As a result, it’s hard …