As the recession ends, consumer confidence is widespread. For some, however, there was never a recession. In China and India, optimism remains at an all time high. The effects of globalization that were expected early last decade, that of outsourcing these growing countries to even cheaper labor, has produced the opposite effect. Companies like Brazil’s [...]
With the annual collection of world leaders for Washington’s Spring Business Conference looming next month, and recent numbers for the first quarter already in, the recession is over and recovery has officially begun. China’s economy has grown by over 11% since a year ago, Singapore’s grew an astounding 32% last quarter, the U.S. had 3% [...]
On April 7th, British Airlines and Iberia inked a merger deal to become the world’s sixth largest airline in revenue. A day later, United Airlines and US Airways resumed talks that failed in 2000 and 2008. If these two were to merge, they would become the world’s 4th largest airline behind Lufthansa, Air France, and [...]
In March, residual signs of a market turnaround continued as unemployment held steady at 9.7%. The total number of jobs gained was 162,000, a dramatic raise since the market began shedding jobs almost two years ago. About a third of the added jobs come from the U.S. census, which has taken many employees under its [...]
Google has redirected its Chinese users to a Honk Kong search engine to avoid the censorship of mainland China in a move that underscores the Internet giant’s volatility in the Communist country. Google has accused China of blocking users access to Google.cn, the search engine’s Chinese website. Although Google has a relatively large presence in [...]
On Sunday the vote for Health Care Reform will be decided. The bill is expected to pass, but while Democrats try to herd the remaining fence-sitters to vote ‘ay,’ Republicans will vote no, believing that it will cost more money and lessen jobs. Needless to say, there remains a large partisan divide. On one hand, [...]
In the Senate, a jobs bill passed 68-29 with 11 votes from Republicans. This new bill will increase tax breaks for small businesses by providing them with incentives to hire the long term unemployed (those who have been out of work for more than 60 days). Business tax breaks add up to about $15 billion. It [...]
Christopher Dodd, a Democrat of Connecticut, will show his financial regulation proposal on Monday without presenting it to any members of the G.O.P. This financial revamp is the largest since the Great Depression, and as such, Republican Congressman are up in arms about Dodd’s unilateral action. At present, there are four departments that oversee banking [...]
Bank of America has proposed to end overdraft fees on debit cards beginning this summer. For existing customers this change will occur in August and for new customers it begins in late June. This move comes as a response to growing outrage against banks for charging fees on overdrafts, the recession’s impact on customers, and [...]
(bars indicate rate of job loss) In February only 36,000 jobs were lost keeping the unemployment rate at 9.7%. This news has caused mild relief on the part of many economists who were foreseeing a larger molt in the job market due to heavy snowstorms that swept across the Northeast and Midwest this past month. [...]
