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Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor – the Hollywood legend known for her beauty, unusual violet eyes, Academy Award-winning film career, eight marriages to seven men, four (by her count) brushes with death, her love of jewelry, and her tireless efforts that raised more than $100 million for AIDS research – passed away at age 79 after […]

The Federal Reserve made some serious money in 2010. The central bank’s profit soared to $81.7 billion, a record high, primarily from growing interest earnings on federal agency and government-sponsored enterprise mortgage-backed securities.  The Fed’s balance sheet — which also can be monitored monthly — ballooned to $2.43 trillion, up $193 billion from 2009, as […]

March Madness is so popular among American sports fans that even President Barack Obama was featured on ESPN filling out his brackets. The President, who predicted a Men’s Final Four of Duke, Kansas, Ohio State and Pittsburgh, said “One thing I wanted to make sure is that viewers who are filling out their brackets — […]

The Federal Reserve’s second round of stress tests requires the 19 largest U.S. banks to examine their capital levels against a worst-possible-case scenario of another recession with the unemployment rate hovering above 8.9 percent. The banks were instructed to test how their loans, securities, earnings, and capital performed when compared with at least three possible […]

While the nation’s attention was riveted on Wisconsin legislators on the lam and massive protests in the state capital, Michigan legislators enacted a law that – in effect – gives the state the unprecedented authority to control cities and school districts in financial distress. The new law, which had the support of Governor Rick Snyder, […]

A top Treasury official defended the federal government’s $700 billion bank bailout financial crisis-response program at a hearing where the effort was criticized by members of a watchdog panel insisting that it did more for Wall Street than Main Street. “The cost of TARP is likely to be no greater than the amount spent on […]

January’s big snowstorms on the East Coast contributed to the creation of just 63,000 jobs nationally in that month.  In February, however, businesses started to hire workers. The economy added 192,000 jobs, the best showing since May of last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.  The unemployment rate – which is politically important […]

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s war on public-sector unions is being brought to the national stage by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK). Coburn challenged members of Congress following the release of an exhaustive study by the Government Accountability Office that found many overlapping and duplicate programs from education to defense that cost taxpayers billions of dollars each […]

America is obsessed with the issue of trade unions again.  Labor unions have gained new prominence as Democratic legislators from Wisconsin and Indiana have left their states for the greener pastures of Illinois to avoid participating in votes to cut back or eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees.  Thousands of protestors have taken up […]

Republican congressmen searching for sizeable spending cuts are targeting Wall Street’s regulators over a plan to slash millions from the budgets of several vital agencies. They are setting their sights on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).  The workload of both agencies is expected to increase significantly as […]