Economy

General Electric released its earnings report, posting net income in line with analyst estimates. And the world had a big sigh of relief. In posting its earnings, GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt defended his company's dividend and AAA rating.

Merrill Lynch is looking like a real dog these days -- much more than I realized back in September. As bearish/cautious as I have been on the economy and the financial sector, obviously I was not cautious enough. When the deal got done I…

As this deepest of recessions takes hold, an increasing number of countries are seeing outbreaks of civil unrest. First it was Greece. Later, we saw unrest in the Baltics in Riga and Vilnius. Now, Iceland is experiencing the same. These…

This article is from special guest contributor Steve Sildon, Senior Editor for CreditCardAssist.com, where he provides tips and advice for business owners on the strategic use of short-term debt and credit cards for small business…

This past week, jobless claims settled in at a level near 600,000 after a few weeks of decline due largely to seasonal adjustments. Jobless claims were 589,000 while continuing claims were 4,607,000.

This post from January 2009 explains why banks do not increase lending capacity when uncertainty about the level of existing loan losses already on their balance sheet makes them worry about future loan losses. Credit wariness will be the…

As the financial industry further unraveled yesterday, Mathieu Robbins of the Irish Indendent asked a worthwhile question: Was RBS the idiot company of all-time in buying ABN Amro at the top of the market? Robbins says no and offers up…

Here is the inaugural address of the new President, Barack Obama, from earlier today.

This just in from the German daily Der Spiegel: German banks are still loaded with risky U.S. assets, only a fraction of which has been written down. If this report is true, it suggests that the entire German banking sector is extremely…

Now that the government has bailed out Bank of America, I want to remind you that this Bank is a serial acquirer and that the Merrill acquisition is not the only boneheaded move by Bank of America.