Banking/Finance

During an interview with the stars of the Hollywood’s latest anti-capitalist screed, Money Monster, on Friday’s NBC Today, correspondent Keir Simmons summed up the plot of the film: “In the movie, [George] Clooney is forced to wear an explosive vest by British rising star Jack O'Connell. Who lost his dead mother's money on stocks.” Simmons noted: “This guy is a terrorist, who you end up feeling…

In an analysis for the front page of Wednesday’s New York Times business section, Eduardo Porter trumpeted that the real issue ailing the American economy and impeding on its improvement is the lack of mass government jobs programs similar to its “large and underappreciated role in reshaping” the country during the 19th and 20th centuries. 

In case you didn't get the message the first or second time around, the Washington Post wants you to hear it again: Cool your complaints about the weak U.S. economy, because it's your fault. To be clear, the problem is primarily with the Post's headline — "The economy’s real drag: Us" — than with Robert J. Samuelson's content, which at least gave American consumers credit for having "sobered up…

If you were depending on Telemundo or Univision for your news as Puerto Rico careened toward its largest default yet on May Day 2016, you would have to be forgiven for having absolutely no idea about the real causes behind the territory’s massive default, including a public sector apparatus that has remained pathetically addicted to unsustainable levels of spending at all levels.

In March of 2013, the Republican National Committee issued what soon became known as the “autopsy report,” which discussed how the party might improve its chances of winning presidential elections. Last Thursday in The Atlantic, reform conservative (or former conservative) Frum provided the GOP with a sort of pre-autopsy document that it might consult after Donald Trump’s “almost certain failure…

As his final term wanes, the New York Times is making excuses for the economy’s performance under President Obama, with the president himself guiding the way. Economics reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin’s interview of Obama for the cover of the Times Sunday magazine dug in in defense of Obama. The subhead: “Eight years after the financial crisis, unemployment is at 5 percent, deficits are down and G.D.…

Venezuela's hyperinflationary economic crisis has gotten worse in one very important and apparently unprecedented sense than even the one seen in Weimar Germany in the 1920s. Yet the Associated Press and the New York Times apparently have no interest in telling their readers, listeners or viewers about it. In the post-World War I German Weimar Republic, the situation became so out of control…

George H. W. Bush pooh-poohed “the vision thing.” Bernie Sanders wouldn’t have a presidential campaign without it. True, the Vermont senator is not known for his grasp of policy minutiae, to which Daily Kos founder and publisher Markos Moulitsas says, in effect, so what? Kos implied that Sanders has caught a lot more flak for his vague answers than Republicans do when they routinely “promis[e] …

Kevin Drum thinks he understands Hillary Clinton’s reluctance to release the transcripts of her Goldman Sachs speeches, and it has more to do with attacks she might face during the fall campaign than it does with Bernie Sanders. Drum believes it’s “vanishingly unlikely” that the speeches include “something genuinely damning,” but noted in a Saturday post that “when you give speeches to any…

Hillary and Bernie love to go after “the banks.”  But the real scoundrel of the two on this subject?  Without doubt it’s Hillary and her banking scam.

It's so predictable. Whenever a government or leader follows the left's playbook and the results "uexpectedly" don't turn out to be anywhere near what was desired, it isn't the policies' or the leader's fault. No-no-no. During the Mayor David Dinkins era in New York City, it was because Gotham had become ungovernable by any human being – until Rudy Giuliani took over. During the Carter Era, the…

Score another blow for (allegedly) "unintended consequences." A proposed 33-page rule applying to investment advisers emanating from the Department of Labor would redefine the fiduciary relationship between investment advisers and their clients investing for retirement, which is the predominant objective of most investors. According to the Wall Street Journal, the rule "could be released as soon…

As Bernie Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver appeared as a guest on Wednesday's New Day, CNN co-host Chris Cuomo referred to criticisms of Hillary Clinton as a "hate parade" as he pressed Weaver on whether it was "fair" for his campaign to add to a "drip, drip, drip" of attacks on Clinton by calling for her to release transcripts of her paid speeches.