Economy

The suits are piling up. Angelo Mozilo is looking like the new Ken Lay for Washington.California's attorney general has filed a civil lawsuit alleging that Countrywide Financial Corp. engaged in deceptive advertising and unfair…

Today's economic data releases were for durable goods and new home salesDurable GoodsStrong export growth has been keeping U.S. factories busier than they would normally be during a period of falling domestic demand. Orders had fallen for…

The wage-price spiral is now underway in core Europe as German wages are on the rise. The ECB will surely act as it has no other choice with inflation now the dominant economic concern across the Eurozone.Today, German daily Der Spiegel…

Of all the merger decisions in the banking industry of late, BofA's decision to back Countrywide Financial is the most risky. The fallout from Countrywide only gets worse day by day. I am astounded that this deal is on track. BofA…

Barclays was successful in raising the money it needed. It was able to avoid a rights issue with the attendant problems that HBOS has faced by going cap in hand to Asia and the Middle East. In the end, it was the Qatar Investment Authority…

Wachovia has hired Goldman Sachs and UBS has hired Wachovia to help each with a 'strategic review.' For those in the financial services business, strategic review always means 'merger options'.Lazard has almost no business except its…

Last month I looked at the twenty cities in the Case-Shiller composite index to see how far back in time we had to travel to see equivalent prices in all of the twenty cities covered. Some markets saw slight upticks in prices in April,…

As Ireland faces a recession after a fifteen-year property boom, it has come to light that the government have been caught out and doesn't have the enough funds to support the economy now that the boom has gone bust. The Irish Independent…

Morgan Stanley economist Stephen Jen has said that it is the emerging market central banks, not the G-7 central banks who will be most tested by this bout of inflation that we are experiencing. His view of the implications of global…

I have been meaning to address the issue of State and local governments for some time, because during the boom they were flush with cash from property taxes. The obvious parallel is an expected shortfall during this downturn. One can…