Europe's Top Financial Cop Goes After U.S. On Banker Bonuses
The European Central Bank is acting as if it can dictate terms to Greece, but Greece is a sovereign country. As U.S. banks found out, when someone owes you money and they can't pay it back, you are in as much trouble -- sometimes more -- as they are.
President Obama should note that President Roosevelt's slamming the bankers and financiers -- beginning with his inaugural address and right up through his campaign for a second term -- did not destroy the country's banking system.
"One of the remarkable things about the Age of Greed is that not only did people make enormous money and were able to pursue their self-interest unchecked, but they reversed the history of American reforms."
Many drugs in the U.S. sell for hundreds of dollar per prescription and sometimes several thousand dollars per prescription. There is a simple reason for this: government-granted patent monopolies.
What's more important to world oil demand -- gasoline prices in the U.S. that are nearly $4 a gallon or power rationing in China?
If you want to know what is going to happen next to your investments, the job and housing markets, and more generally to the economy, you may want to follow what is happening to the ideas of British economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes argued that when economies are sputtering, the government must increase deficits, because its increased expenditures will stimulate the economy to better growth. But what happens when our leaders don't realize the economy is sputtering, and uncork the champagne early?
Even in countries where the law clearly states that the public interest must be protected in large mergers, global trade agreements give corporations the upper hand, or at least give government authorities an excuse to ignore their own laws.
With the general "no banker left behind" program pursued by Tim Geithner under both George W. Bush and Obama, the theory was that saving the banks would save the country. The first part worked out brilliantly, but the second act never occurred.
In the interest on not endangering an economy that really doesn't need anything else to worry about, Congress should first raise the debt ceiling, then debate the budget. Right now the priorities are backwards.
The myth of American financial competence is underscored by the latest story of how Goldman Sachs lost 98% of a $1.3 billion investment by Libya's sovereign wealth fund. Wow, in Goldman Sachs We Trust!
There's an unspoken rule in corporate America for dads when it comes to parental leave policy or anything that hints at real work/family balance: use at your own career peril.
Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model.
Despite our smug self-image, the U.S. actually only ranks in the middle of the pack for resources committed to innovation. In truth, our economy is not innovative enough -- and it's costing us, big-time.
Don't fight market forces. Join them and capture market returns with a globally diversified portfolio of low management fee index funds in an asset allocation suitable for you.
Private insurers have had their chance to control costs and expand access and have failed miserably. It is time, more and more people believe, to replace them with a single payer: the government.
Credit scores are becoming more and more important, but who is in charge of these scores and how are they determined? The answer isn't easy to come by.
Friends and family funding is the most common form of startup financing but also the most tricky in many ways.
It's vital that we understand the truth about the American economy. How did we go from the Great Depression to 30 years of Great Prosperity? And from there, to 30 years of stagnant incomes and widening inequality, culminating in the Great Recession?
It is clear to see why investors place so much emphasis on the oil price as a dictator of Russia's financial health. Supplying some 11.4% of the world's oil supply last year, Russia is the "biggest single source outside the OPEC cartel."
Carl Gibson, 2011.06.01
