S&P settles suits over crisis-era mortgage ratings … Credit-rating firm Standard & Poor's will pay $1.5 billion to resolve a collection of lawsuits over its ratings on mortgage securities that soured in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, concluding one of the U.S. government's most ambitious cases tied to the housing collapse. The settlement comes after more than two...Read More
Pot Is Making Colorado So Much Money They Literally Have To Give Some Back To Residents … The state constitution limits how much tax money the state can take in before it has to give some back. That means Coloradans may each get their own cut of the $50 million in recreational pot taxes collected in the first year of legal weed. It's a situation so bizarre that it's gotten Republican...Read More
Economy grows, incomes shrink … Americans continue to lose money while corporate profits soar … The first data on 2013 incomes show continuing bad news for Americans, my analysis of a new Internal Revenue Service report shows. … This is the latest sign of a disturbing trend. An ever-shrinking share of national income flows to individuals while corporate profits expand. – Al...Read More
Greek debt: growing acknowledgment that it is simply unsustainable and some accommodation will be necessary … Approach has much to commend it and deserves a hearing in EU capitals … The whistlestop tour of European capitals by Greece's new leaders is finding doors if not wide open, at least ajar. The mood music is still that Greece must honour its debts, that forgiveness is out, bu...Read More
Economy grows, incomes shrink … Americans continue to lose money while corporate profits soar … The first data on 2013 incomes show continuing bad news for Americans, my analysis of a new Internal Revenue Service report shows. … This is the latest sign of a disturbing trend. An ever-shrinking share of national income flows to individuals while corporate profits expand. – Al...Read More
Greek debt: growing acknowledgment that it is simply unsustainable and some accommodation will be necessary … Approach has much to commend it and deserves a hearing in EU capitals … The whistlestop tour of European capitals by Greece's new leaders is finding doors if not wide open, at least ajar. The mood music is still that Greece must honour its debts, that forgiveness is out, bu...Read More
Republicans gutting Dodd-Frank as Wall St. goes subprime again … It is not mortgages but subprime car loans that U.S. banks are repackaging now for foreign investors … Teams of bank lobbyists [are] rewriting laws up on Capitol Hill these days … Little by little, these influence-buyers are gutting and filleting the Dodd-Frank Act, the package of bank regulations that was among the...Read More
Jeb Bush is a hypocrite about marijuana, Rand Paul says … Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, accused Jeb Bush of "hypocrisy" Friday after a report in the Boston Globe chronicled Bush's marijuana use during high school. Bush, a former Florida governor and potential 2016 presidential candidate, opposes the use of marijuana for medical or recreational purposes. "This is a guy who no...Read More
Republicans gutting Dodd-Frank as Wall St. goes subprime again … It is not mortgages but subprime car loans that U.S. banks are repackaging now for foreign investors … Teams of bank lobbyists [are] rewriting laws up on Capitol Hill these days … Little by little, these influence-buyers are gutting and filleting the Dodd-Frank Act, the package of bank regulations that was among the...Read More
Jeb Bush is a hypocrite about marijuana, Rand Paul says … Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, accused Jeb Bush of "hypocrisy" Friday after a report in the Boston Globe chronicled Bush's marijuana use during high school. Bush, a former Florida governor and potential 2016 presidential candidate, opposes the use of marijuana for medical or recreational purposes. "This is a guy who no...Read More
Oil prices have plummeted since June, 2014. Other commodity prices have declined. This has hurt the share prices of the producers. Oil companies are a lot cheaper than they were. The same is true of many mining companies that we review.Even so, we continue to rate some of the larger and more diversified producers as buys. This is true of Key stocks Imperial Oil, Suncor Energy and Teck Resources as...Read More
Europe's creditors play with 'political fire' in pushing Greece to the brink. "The creation of the euro was a terrible mistake but breaking it up would be an even bigger mistake. Anything could happen," warns former IMF bail-out chief … The North European power structure has issued stern and inflexible warnings to Greece. Syriza's triumphant radicals must pay the co...Read More
John McCain doesn't regret calling anti-war protesters "low-life scum" … Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, offered no apologies on Sunday for his scolding of anti-war protesters during a Senate hearing this week, calling the demonstrators "terrible people" who deserved what they got. The protesters disrupted a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thurs...Read More
Europe's creditors play with 'political fire' in pushing Greece to the brink. "The creation of the euro was a terrible mistake but breaking it up would be an even bigger mistake. Anything could happen," warns former IMF bail-out chief … The North European power structure has issued stern and inflexible warnings to Greece. Syriza's triumphant radicals must pay the co...Read More
John McCain doesn't regret calling anti-war protesters "low-life scum" … Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, offered no apologies on Sunday for his scolding of anti-war protesters during a Senate hearing this week, calling the demonstrators "terrible people" who deserved what they got. The protesters disrupted a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thurs...Read More
The case for liberal optimism … John Micklethwait, who has edited this newspaper since 2006, leaves today. These are his parting thoughts … THIS newspaper churlishly deprives its editors of the egocentric adornments of our trade. Tragically, these pages include no weekly "editor's letter" to readers, underneath a beaming, air-brushed picture. Online, there is a weekly e-m...Read More
First Native American tribe to start growing and manufacturing medical marijuana on their tribal land … The Pinoleville Pomo Nation is the first Native American tribe to announce that they will start growing and manufacturing medical marijuana on their tribal land. The tribe signed a deal to develop an indoor grow facility in Northern California. "We anticipate construction to begin in...Read More
The case for liberal optimism … John Micklethwait, who has edited this newspaper since 2006, leaves today. These are his parting thoughts … THIS newspaper churlishly deprives its editors of the egocentric adornments of our trade. Tragically, these pages include no weekly "editor's letter" to readers, underneath a beaming, air-brushed picture. Online, there is a weekly e-m...Read More
First Native American tribe to start growing and manufacturing medical marijuana on their tribal land … The Pinoleville Pomo Nation is the first Native American tribe to announce that they will start growing and manufacturing medical marijuana on their tribal land. The tribe signed a deal to develop an indoor grow facility in Northern California. "We anticipate construction to begin in...Read More
'Timidity' is responsible for eurozone stagnation, says Mark Carney … An unfinished euro area explains why the currency bloc has performed so poorly since the financial crisis, Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, says. "Timidity" on the part of policymakers has cost the eurozone in the aftermath of the financial crisis, Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Eng...Read More