"The world must act to contain the risk of another devastating housing crash." -- Zhu Min, deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund In the space of a few days, June 11-12, a [...]
The extraction in the U.S. of oil and natural gas from shale rock remains controversial. On the one hand, the benefits from this domestic power source are so great that they have changed the [...]
Pfizer Inc. is trying to acquire AstraZeneca for both tax and strategic reasons. First, the tax reasons: Internal Revenue Service regulations have made it difficult for companies to leave the U.S. to go to [...]
David Kertzer, a finalist for the National Book Award and professor of history at Brown University, provided a groundbreaking work on the relationship between Pope Pius XI and the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini. It gave [...]
Recently, activist investors have performed alchemy, burnishing their base image into one with a golden tint. It is beneficial and informative when these hedge-fund managers -- notably David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, Dan Loeb [...]
The popularity of dividend-paying equities has grown tremendously as investors looking for ways to generate meaningful income in today's low-interest world. But Mebane Faber, a portfolio manager at Cambria Investment Management, argues that dividend [...]
"There cannot be a single currency without economic convergence, or the euro zone will explode." - Mario Draghi, European Central Bank president, Dec. 1 Last week, Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, [...]
We Need to Heed Warnings of power grid's vulnerability "The power grid now faces a range of threats it was never designed to survive." - Paul Stockton, former assistant secretary of defense We can [...]
Some six years after the 2008 financial meltdown, we are still learning important information about the mindset of policymakers during that anguished era. Recently released transcripts of the central banks' policy meetings in 2008 [...]
"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana To put in perspective the importance of the Keystone Pipeline, we need to remember the shock the U.S. suffered [...]
"The future ain't what it used to be."- Yogi Berra It has always been difficult for the retail industry to keep its customer base because of constantly changing consumer preferences, rapid commoditization and low [...]
"J. P. Morgan as an institution failed, and failed miserably." - Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara J.P. Morgan, fraudster Bernard Madoff's primary banker, agreed to pay more than $2 billion to avoid criminal charges [...]
Summary: The Galveston Movement operated between 1907 and 1914. Its intent was to divert Jews fleeing Russia and Eastern Europe away from crowded East Coast cities to America’s West. Faced with poverty and death, millions [...]
The first landmark moment will arrive May 17, with the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision striking down "separate but equal" segregation in public education. The second watershed will [...]
Ernest Werlin's column appears today instead of Thursday because we won't have a business section Thursday. As an investment, gold lost its glitter in 2013. Year-to date, gold is down 28 percent, to around [...]
Last Friday, I met with a few friends to celebrate the holidays and discuss our thoughts about economic policy decisions made by the Federal Reserve and our Congress. My friends expressed their concerns about [...]
Philadelphia Federal Reserve president Charles Plosser thinks the Fed has gone too far. Plosser, in a Nov. 23 speech before the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, proposed four limits on the central bank [...]
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with a $39 billion payment to the U.S. Treasury by the end of the year, will be close to repaying the government almost the entire amount that was injected [...]
The media attention on the upcoming initial public offering of Twitter obscures a much bigger and possibly worrisome economic phenomenon: junk bonds. Global high-yield-bond issuance dwarfs new equity offerings. The Twitter initial public offering [...]
"More needs to be done to strengthen the recovery. Too many Americans still can't find a job and worry how they'll pay their bills and provide for their family." - Janet Yellen, nominee to [...]
"I should state that at all times the idea of doing only first-class business and that in a first-class way, has been foremost in our minds." - J.P. Morgan Jr., 1933 Mr. Morgan's comments truly [...]
Five years after the Sept. 15, 2008, collapse of Lehman Brothers and the paralysis of the global financial system, it is important to recognize that some of the causes of that calamity remain unsolved. [...]
We now have a classic case of being careful about what you wish for. When the Federal Reserve was ramping up its purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds to support the American economy, many overseas [...]
I was as surprised as the companies and everyone else seemed to be when the U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit Aug. 13 seeking to block the proposed $11 billion merger between US Airways [...]
Recently, when visiting our public library, I checked out a book devoted to Lincoln’s Second Inaugural. This speech along with the Gettysburg Address are considered to be two of the finest speeches in English ever [...]
One of the benefits of my column for the Herald- Tribune has been dramatically increasing my friendships. When I first started writing for our newspaper in 2008, I was a newcomer to Sarasota. The [...]
My story of the financial crisis and recovery might sound familiar to you. According to the Federal Reserve, the net worth of Americans is now the highest in history. We have rebuilt much of [...]
As a child growing up in Texas, I was terrified of polio's dangers and personally knew several people who were paralyzed by this insidious disease. That's probably the main reason I applaud the philanthropic [...]
After reading Peggy Noonan’s editorial “A Battering Ram becomes a Stonewall” I agree with her assessment we need an independent counsel to get to the bottom of this controversy regarding the Internal Revenue Service [...]
On Friday, the Obama administration cleared the way for broader natural gas exports by approving a $10 billion facility near Freeport, Texas. The Department of Energy said it had given conditional authorization to the [...]
On Monday, after a building collapse that killed at least 1,127 workers in what is being called the deadliest accident in the industry's history, some of Europe's largest retailers agreed to improve the safety [...]
In recent months, sexual violence against women in India has received significant global media attention. The coverage has shown that assaults against Indian women are frequently trivialized and few offenders are convicted. This shows [...]
After 40 years as an investment banker, an incident on Tuesday brought into focus many of my basic beliefs in what makes for a sound investment strategy. On Tuesday, the Dow briefly plunged more [...]
"May you live in interesting times." Living in interesting times is a curse. Uninteresting times of tranquility are more life-enhancing than are interesting chaos. Amid sluggish global growth, many central banks, such as the [...]
On Nov. 3, 2009, legendary investor Warren Buffett made his biggest bet yet. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, agreed to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., one of seven major American railroads, for $44 billion. [...]
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana On March 14, a 301-page, bipartisan U.S. Senate report provided damning evidence of breakdowns at the nation's largest bank, JP [...]
