Karabell: Wall Street's Reaction to OWS
Will the Occupy Wall Street protests create any change? Zachary Karabell weighs in on the protesters' effectiveness and Wall Street's reaction.
Read moreZachary Karabell on the European Debt Crisis: Watch Video
Zachary Karabell talks about what Europe’s debt problems mean for us—and why we shouldn’t be scared.
Read moreKarabell: Raising Taxes on Millionaires
Zachary Karabell on whether raising taxes on millionaires will help the economy.
Read moreKarabell: Understanding Europe's Economic Crisis
Zachary Karabell on what Americans don't understand about the crisis in Europe.
Read moreGermany’s Risky Eurozone Bailout a Positive Step in Right Direction
The German government voted in favor of a European bailout fund designed to aid Greece tentatively set at $600 billion. That rivals in size the bailouts the United States passed at the urging of then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in the fall of 2008 and again in February 2009, which prevented a complete implosion of the financial system whose consequences would have made the resulting recession and market plunge look inconsequential by comparison.
Read moreGreece and the Growing Economic Crisis: Why Europe Won’t Implode
Europe will act to prevent Greece from defaulting and triggering a global financial crisis
Read moreObama Embraces Warren Buffett’s Call for Higher Taxes on the Very Rich
At a press briefing at the White House Monday, President Obama formally announced a package revealed over the weekend to trim $3 trillion off the federal deficit over the next several years. Picking up on the theme of his recent jobs speech, Obama demanded that Congress move on the act immediately.
Read moreObama’s Deficit Plan Falls Short
This is becoming like the War of the Roses. President Obama advanced the needle on deficit reduction and budget negotiations by providing a new set of proposals this morning for what the White House calculates will be $3 trillion in reduced spending over the next 10 years. That follows his congressional address last week calling for additional spending and tax breaks to boost economic activity, which in turn followed months of Washington stalemate on the debt ceiling.
Read moreThe End of Wall Street's Big Payday
On Sept. 15, a 31-year-old UBS trader in London was arrested for fraudulently attempting to hide “rogue” trades that led to at least $2 billion in losses for the Swiss bank. How could a large financial institution, Swiss no less, let its risk controls slip so much that a person in a relatively junior position could lose so much of the bank’s capital?
Read moreEurope’s Economic Crisis: Could Default in Greece, Eurozone Sink Us?
As Americans fixate on the battle for the Republican presidential nominationand the continuing travails of the U.S. economy, the real story in financial land is what is happening in Europe. The issues aren’t new: concerns over the contagion of a default of Greek debt, or Irish or Portuguese or Italian, have been percolating for more than a year and a half. But there is a definite sense of late that these issues are potentially spinning out of control.
Read more9/11 Anniversary: Al Qaeda’s Failure on Wall Street
The World Trade Center was never seen as an overly attractive piece of architecture, but as a symbol of American economic might, it was undeniably powerful. Never mind that it was built just as New York was imploding financially in the mid-1970s; it still stood as a set of dual icons representing the economic primacy not just of the United States, but of Wall Street and the entire financial industry.
Read moreObama’s Job Speech Not to Blame for Economic Market Turmoil
It was another rough day for global markets. The major indices in the United States were down nearly three percent, and European markets fared even worse. That much is undebatable. The reasons, however, are. And the reasons initially given were, today at least, totally wrong.
Read moreObama Jobs Speech: Nothing New, Is Incidental to Creating Jobs
President Obama’s speech to Congress hewed closely to the details that had already been leaked, save for the dollar amounts, which were considerably larger. Even so, the $450 billion price tag is somewhat misleading in that much of that is not new spending or new tax breaks but rather an extension of breaks and unemployment benefits that are already in place. Given that payroll tax cuts have not generated employment in the past two years, it’s is a stretch to see how they will suddenly do so now.
Read moreThe Carlyle Group Goes Public: Why the Stocks Won’t Thrive
The Carlyle Group, a Washington-based private-equity firm that manages in excess of $150 billion, is going public. That, at least, is the intent of the company, which has filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission to set the process in motion.
Read moreJobs Report and Fixing the Crumbling Market
Another month, another sign that the job market remains unchangingly, distressingly stuck. The official unemployment rate according to just-released figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is at 9.1%, but that fails to capture the weakness of the overall employment picture. The headline number has been essentially unchanged since April – and indeed there has been almost no net job creation for the past year.
Read moreAlan Krueger Appointed Economic Advisers Chair: Don’t Expect a Miracle
After months of bleeding economic advisers, President Obama just nominated Princeton economics professor Alan Krueger to be the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Krueger is no stranger to the Obama administration, having served as assistant secretary of the Treasury until late last year, when he returned to Princeton in order to retain his tenured status.
Read moreBen Bernanke's August 26 Speech Shows Out-of-Touch Economic Worldview
No Ben to the rescue. The hugely anticipated speech by the Fed chairman proved to be remarkably vanilla, which should have surprised no one. Bernanke reiterated a series of themes that have been well iterated in recent weeks: that growth has stalled but is poised to rebound in the second half, that housing remains a drag on the slow economic recovery, that unemployment is disturbingly and dangerously high, and that better government fiscal policy to address short-term economic weakness and long-term deficits is essential.
Read moreApple After Steve Jobs’s Resignation: Is the Company Doomed?
Let it be acknowledged that Apple, from which Steve Jobs has finally resigned as CEO after years of battling pancreatic cancer, is no ordinary company. It is the most powerful, successful, and innovative consumer technology company of our age.
Read moreObama Economic Strategy Targets Jobs & Growth, but Aims at 2012 Reelection
Yet another day in the yo-yo chronicles. The markets tanked once again, reverting to their extreme behavior of last week; European banks groaned under the presumed weight of unresolved debt burdens; and American economic data, ranging from the Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing survey to jobless claims, suggested that, yes, Virginia, there may be a Santa Claus, but his bag this year is shaping up as decidedly thin.
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