Finance / the Economy

May 26, 2011 at 20:39 | Post Carbon

The 2008 crude oil price, $147 per barrel, shattered the global economy. The “invisible hand” of economics became the invisible fist, pounding down world economic growth to match the limitations…

May 22, 2011 at 22:34 | Mad Hedge Fund Trader

Hedge fund titan, Jim Chanos, is well known for his extremely bearish views on China. He says that the cracks are spreading on the façade, real estate sales are falling,…

May 04, 2011 at 08:37 | Mad Hedge Fund Trader

No one can explain the most complex economic and monetary issues in a simpler, more homespun fashion than former governor of the Federal Reserve, Bob McTeer. He is known for…

Mar 29, 2011 at 14:28 | Mad Hedge Fund Trader

I received a call from a friend in Osaka last night. It was scratchy, kept cutting in and out, and was barely comprehensible. There are so many companies attempting to…

Mar 29, 2011 at 04:39 | David Caploe PhD

Radiation fears have begun to play havoc with the global shipping industry, in which Japan is a key player on several levels. Fearing the potential impact on crews, cargo and…

Mar 29, 2011 at 04:30 | RFE/RL staff

The highly publicized cases of Sergei Magnitsky -- a 37-year-old lawyer who died in pretrial detention in November 2009 after exposing a multimillion-dollar fraud against the Russian taxpayer -- and…

Mar 28, 2011 at 03:18 | Mad Hedge Fund Trader

As destructive as the Japanese tsunami has been, it may have left some investment pearls in its wake. It has suddenly made available some of the country’s best of breed,…

Mar 21, 2011 at 16:47 | Mad Hedge Fund Trader

I am not in the habit of regularly lifting data out of the Wall Street Journal, but even a blind squirrel occasionally finds an acorn. I was tempted by the…

Mar 17, 2011 at 10:16 | Ronald Stoeferle

The performance of the US dollar constitutes a central determining factor for the development of the oil price. The criticism of the US dollar hegemony is getting louder on a…

Mar 17, 2011 at 10:07 | Jess McCabe

As Japan reels from the human catastrophe of the earthquake and tsunami that struck on Friday, the insurance industry said it is too early to estimate the economic losses. On…

Mar 15, 2011 at 20:01 | Mad Hedge Fund Trader

I rely on hundreds of “moles” around the world whose job it is to watch a single, but important indicator for the world economy. One of them checks for me…

Mar 10, 2011 at 20:41 | Ronald Stoeferle

According to an old saying on the stock exchange, “if the USA sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold”. But in the meantime it would seem as if…

Feb 17, 2011 at 07:46 | James Hamilton

I wanted to offer some clarification on stories about all the money that the Federal Reserve is supposedly printing. It depends, I guess, on your definition of "money." And your…

Feb 16, 2011 at 08:45 | 4xp

4XP foresees much on the financial front of 2011. The previous financial year really did witness a lot of ground-breaking events from the global economy. Oil prices rose from right…

Feb 08, 2011 at 07:30 | Mad Hedge Fund Trader

Lifetime followers of the monthly nonfarm payroll report were more than a little amused by the Friday numbers, which could not have been more contradictory, conflicting, and confusing. The headline…

Feb 07, 2011 at 07:47 | David Caploe PhD

In booming South America, oil-rich Venezuela is the exception: the continent's only shrinking economy in 2010. Officials are rationing hard currency. Government takeovers of private businesses are increasing. One prominent…

Feb 02, 2011 at 09:35 | Gail Tverberg

We have all been reading about Egypt in the newspapers, and wonder what is behind their problems. Let me offer a few insights. At least part of Egypt’s problem is…

Jan 28, 2011 at 09:30 | Ed Dolan

In a recent White House meeting with President Asif Ali Zadari of Pakistan, US President Barack Obama underscored the importance of the US-Pakistani relationship and emphasized continued US support for…

Jan 25, 2011 at 06:58 | Gail Tverberg

The question of whether a person should pay down debts comes up often, when there are forecasts that suggest unemployment rates and consequently debt defaults will rise dramatically in future…

Jan 21, 2011 at 07:13 | David Caploe PhD

As China President Hu Jintao visits President Obama and the rest of the US, most of the attention will be focused -- in our view, wrongly -- on the dollar…