Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke proposed no new steps on Friday to jumpstart a weakening U.S. economy, but signaled that Congress may need to act to stimulate hiring and growth. Bernanke’s speech followed the release of a Commerce Department report that showed the economy grew at an annual rate of only 1 percent this spring, [...]
Hardly covered in the news has been Obama’s recent decision to execute a case-by-case review of over 300,000 illegal immigrants and grant amnesty to those who appear to be “low-priority offenders.” I add that it was hardly covered by the news because its impact on the United States may become profoundly harmful to the economy [...]
FOX Business: The Power to Prosper Nervous traders darted out of equities and flocked into safe-haven assets on heightened euro zone sovereign debt and global economic tensions, launching the markets deep into negative territory. Today’s Markets The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 420 points, or 3.7%, to 10,991, the S&P 500 slid 53.2 points, or 4.5%, [...]
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The job market strengthened in July, a welcome piece of good news that sharply contrasted other recent data pointing toward an economic slowdown. Employers added 117,000 jobs last month, easily topping the 75,000 gain economists surveyed by CNNMoney had predicted. And the unemployment rate improved slightly to 9.1%. After a shockingly [...]
CONTROVERSIAL when it began a generation ago, China’s one-child policy is stirring yet more contention. Until recently most discussion in China has been confined to academic demographers. Many of them argue that the policy did little good when it began and is increasingly damaging now that the fertility rate is below the replacement level and [...]
Fighting back against Republican calls for greater spending cuts, President Obama said Friday that the government doesn’t need to make major changes to get its budget back on track and called for that solution to include some trims coupled with tax increases. “Here’s the good news: that it turns out we don’t have to do [...]
Athens, Greece (CNN) — Thousands of Greek protesters descended on central Athens Wednesday morning as lawmakers prepared for a vote that could be critical to the future of Europe’s currency, the euro. The mood was calm but apprehensive early Wednesday, hours before a planned demonstration. Riot police clashed with stone-throwing demonstrators Tuesday, firing tear gas [...]
By BOB DAVIS BEIJING—China acknowledged it was falling behind schedule on ambitious plans to build low-income housing, a delay that could add to concerns around its economy. The low-income housing push is crucial, not only as a way to help ordinary Chinese buy homes, but to provide an economic cushion at a time when signs [...]
What businesses most expect their employees to lead, and best prepare their employees to lead? It’s very, very hard to say, of course, but the management consultancy Hay Group tries. It just released its ranking of the world’s 20 “best companies for leadership.” The champion: General Electric. Hay Group polled 3,769 individuals and 1,827 organizations [...]
I KNOW a man who came to America alone as a teenager with no money or contacts. Within ten years he had a PhD and high-paying job. Then the financial crisis hit and he lost his job. He had an H1-B visa at the time which meant that if he did not find another job [...]
ROBOT arms are whirring again. Nissan’s engine factory in Iwaki, which was pummelled by the earthquake that struck Japan in March, returned to full operation on May 17th. Carlos Ghosn, the car firm’s Brazilian-French boss, joined hundreds of workers in a rousing cheer. Yet despite heroic efforts to repair and rebuild, Japan’s car industry is [...]
TOKYO—After spending weeks to resolve a massive Internet security breach, Sony Corp. Chief Executive Howard Stringer said he can’t guarantee the security of the company’s videogame network or any other Web system in the “bad new world” of cybercrime. Mr. Stringer’s comments in a phone interview Tuesday, ahead of a New York roundtable discussion with [...]
THE Wall Street Journal reports that some high-flying commodities have gone into retreat in recent weeks: Cotton has pulled back 17% from the all-time record set in early March, and sugar is down 34% from its multidecade high in February. Lead and zinc have tumbled in recent weeks after shooting up in the second half [...]
WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday called for more lending to people and small businesses in lower-income neighborhoods, saying they’ve been disproportionately hurt by the recession. Many of the nation’s poorest communities were struggling before the downturn, Bernanke said at aFed conference on community development in Arlington, Va. The recession officially ended [...]
A blunt warning Monday from a credit-rating firm about the U.S. government’s mounting debt pushed stock markets lower and intensified political divisions in Washington about how best to tackle growing deficits. Both the Obama administration and House Republicans scrambled to gain leverage from Standard & Poor’s changing its outlook on U.S. Treasury securities to “negative” [...]
By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa STONE MOUNTAIN, Georgia | Wed Apr 6, 2011 11:37am EDT (Reuters) – The U.S. economy remains too fragile for the Federal Reserve to begin raising interest rates, the president of the Atlanta Fed, Dennis Lockhart, said on Wednesday. Lockhart reiterated that the Fed will complete its $600 billion bond-buying plan [...]
WASHINGTON — The United States is out of step with the rest of the world’s richest industrialized nations: Its economy is growing faster than theirs but creating far fewer jobs. The reason is that U.S. workers have become so productive that it’s harder for anyone without a job to get one. Companies are producing and [...]
TO THE many dubious distinctions of Las Vegas, add one more: foreclosure capital of America. According to RealtyTrac, a property-listings firm, one in every ten homes in the city was in some stage of foreclosure last year, almost five times the national rate. In North Las Vegas, a poorer suburb, the figure was one in [...]
FOLLOWING the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11th, survivors scrambled for shelter and sustenance. Investors, meanwhile, scrambled for knowledge. Speaking at a London seminar hosted by GaveKal Research, a consultancy, Jonathan Allum of Mizuho International noted how many of his fellow analysts suddenly purported to be experts on seismology, oceanography and nuclear [...]
Stocks faltered slightly, ending a three-day rally as investors showed signs of looking past recent concerns over unrest in the Middle East and Japan’s earthquake. The small decline, which came on lower-than-average volume, saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average move in a narrow band of just 48 points before finishing down 17.90 points, or 0.15%, [...]