Dec. 1, 2010 at 4:19 p.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
Government,
Updated
By Reuters
Debt Commission co-chairmen Erskine Bowles, right, and former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson at a news conference on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
A presidential commission trying to balance the budget on Wednesday softened a proposed tax overhaul to win broader support for its bold plan to slash the $1.3 trillion federal deficit.
The plan faced an uphill struggle to win sufficient backing to trigger a congressional vote. Even if that happens, analysts predict Congress won’t take substantive steps to reduce the deficit this year.
Changes made to the plan included dropping a proposal to kill the popular mortgage interest tax deduction, as had been recommended on November 10. The revised version proposed a limited, 12 percent mortgage interest tax credit. Get the full story »
Dec. 1, 2010 at 2:20 p.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
Food,
Investing
By Reuters
Starbucks Corp. Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz decried the commodity market on Wednesday, saying financial speculators, not product shortages, were to blame for recent price spikes in coffee.
“I think it’s tragic…that coffee prices are at these levels,” Schultz told analysts and investors gathered in New York. “There is no evidence whatsoever that we can see that there’s any supply or demand (issue).” Get the full story »
Dec. 1, 2010 at 10:49 a.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
Jobs/employment
By Reuters
U.S. private sector payrolls rose by the biggest amount in three years in November, lifting optimism about the job market ahead of Friday’s key employment report, while manufacturing data showed growth was intact.
U.S. private employers added a stronger-than-forecast 93,000 jobs in November, the biggest rise since November 2007, after an upwardly revised gain of 82,000 the month before, data by ADP Employer Services, which jointly developed the report with Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, showed Wednesday. Get the full story »
Nov. 30, 2010 at 11:23 a.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
Manufacturing
By Reuters
The U.S. government debt market trimmed gains on Tuesday after data signaled faster-than-expected manufacturing growth in the U.S. Midwest region. Get the full story »
Nov. 30, 2010 at 9:48 a.m.
Filed under:
Economy
By Reuters
Business activity in the U.S. Midwest grew faster than expected in November, helped in part by stronger employment, a report showed Tuesday. Get the full story »
Nov. 30, 2010 at 9:38 a.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
Jobs/employment,
Policy
By Kathy Bergen
A view of Istanbul, Turkey at night. Cities like Istanbul are rebounding from the recession faster than U.S. ones. (Steve Brandt/Minneapolis Star Tribune/MCT)
Major American and European cities, from New York and Chicago to London and Paris, are pulling out of the Great Recession at slower rates than cities in Asia and Latin America, according to a study released this morning by the Brookings Institution and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
In fact, the recession served to accelerate a shift in economic growth to emerging metro areas that has gone on for many years, the report found.
The first Global MetroMonitor study ranked 150 metro areas on their growth in employment and economic output per person, before, during and after the global downturn. Twenty-nine of the 30 top performers post-recession were outside the U.S. and Europe, while 28 of the 30 weakest performers were in those two global regions. Get the full story »
Nov. 29, 2010 at 11:09 a.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
Investing
By Kathy Bergen
The sour economy’s dampening effect on philanthropy may be lessening, according to a survey of 2,300 public charities and 160 private foundations released today.
Thirty-seven percent of the organizations reported decreased contributions in the first nine months of 2010, compared with 51 percent who reported declines in the first three quarters of 2009.
And 36 percent reported increased donations, up from 23 percent in the same period last year. Get the full story »
Nov. 29, 2010 at 6:21 a.m.
Filed under:
Banking,
Economy
By Dow Jones Newswires-Wall Street Journal
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is likely to face some new dissenting votes when the make-up of the Federal Open Market Committee, the central bank’s policy-making committee, changes in January.
Four presidents of regional Fed banks will step into the rotation at the Fed’s policy meeting in late January: Charles Evans of Chicago, Charles Plosser of Philadelphia, Richard Fisher of Dallas and Narayana Kocherlakota of Minneapolis. They’ll join the eight permanent voters on the FOMC: seven Fed governors (one position is now vacant) and the New York Fed president. Get the full story »
Nov. 26, 2010 at 6:54 a.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
International
By Dow Jones Newswires
A bailout package for Ireland is still under discussion and it isn’t clear whether it will be OKd Sunday, a spokesman for the European Commission said Friday.
“It’s not decided … We are not there yet … We’re making good progress,” Amadeu Altafaj Tardio, spokesman for Economic and Monetary Affairs, told journalists.
An EU source told Dow Jones Newswires earlier Friday that European Union finance ministers will hold a teleconference Sunday to discuss the economic situation in Europe. The call is likely to involve finance ministers from all 27 EU member states, the person said.
Nov. 24, 2010 at 11:34 a.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
Stock activity
By Associated Press
Stocks are sharply higher after a batch of economic reports offered some hope that the U.S. economy was improving.
Investors seized on encouraging readings of the labor market and Americans’ incomes on Wednesday, while shrugging off a steep fall in new home sales and manufacturing orders. Get the full story »
Nov. 24, 2010 at 8:17 a.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
Jobs/employment,
Layoffs
By Associated Press
The number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell sharply last week to the lowest level since July 2008, a hopeful sign that improvement in the job market is accelerating.
The Labor Department said Wednesday that weekly unemployment claims dropped by 34,000 to a seasonally adjusted 407,000 in the week ending Nov. 20. Wall Street analysts expected a much smaller drop. Get the full story>>
Nov. 24, 2010 at 8:08 a.m.
Filed under:
Economy
By Associated Press
Americans earned more and spent more last month, a hopeful sign for the economy ahead of the holiday buying season.
The government says consumers boosted their spending 0.4 percent in October. People showed a slightly bigger appetite to spend because their incomes rose 0.5 percent, reflecting a slowly healing jobs market. Get the full story »
Nov. 23, 2010 at 5:37 p.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
Government,
Housing,
Mortgages,
Real estate
By Reuters
Freddie Mac, the second-largest provider of funding for U.S. home mortgages, will raise some loan fees, a sign it sees greater risks even for borrowers making regular payments.
The company, struggling to recover from the worst housing slump since the 1930s, will raise some so-called “delivery fees” in March to cover increased risks on loans for large portions of a property’s value, according to a bulletin dated Monday on its Web site. Get the full story »
Nov. 23, 2010 at 2:42 p.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
Government
By Associated Press
Federal Reserve policymakers clashed over the benefits and risks of launching a $600 billion program to rejuvenate the economy, but voted for it anyway, according to minutes of their closed-door deliberations released Tuesday.
Despite a 10-1 vote for the program, the minutes from the Nov. 2-3 meeting show that some Fed officials had concerns about embarking on a second round of stimulus. Get the full story »
Nov. 23, 2010 at 11:06 a.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
Jobs/employment,
Labor
By Associated Press
Businesses and other employers added jobs in 41 states in October, the best showing in five months, the Labor Department said Tuesday.
The figures indicate the job market is picking up a bit in most parts of the country. Even the nation’s hardest hit states – Nevada and Michigan — showed declines in their unemployment rates. Get the full story »
