Developing the vast resources of the Canadian oil sands is a dirty business. The deposits are either strip-mined, leaving huge piles of waste and scarring the landscape, or wells use steam to heat the…
Lost in the optimistic talk about the economic recovery around the world are the things that brought the recession on and the new challenges which may appear next year. The US stock market is…
Facebook, Twitter, and Skype face an unusual challenge if they are to keep the dominance in their respective markets. It may be difficult to keep each of the services online all of the time.…
Securities analysts and research firms which cover the sales of e-readers and tablet computers continue to upgrade holiday shipment figures for most of the large brands. That means the purchase of the devices has…
The head of the FCC said he supports the Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) plan to take a majority position in GE’s (NYSE: GE) NBCU. (Reuters) SpendingPulse reports online retail sales are up 15.4% (Reuters) Global…
As the year comes to a close, consumers are not just quietly confident that better times lie ahead. They are getting downright giddy. Household purchases rose 0.4% gain in November, its fifth straight increase. …
Updated throughout the day. Ruentex is the leader in a bid of AIG’s Taiwan operations (Reuters) China will tighten rules and regulations for financial firms that handle IPOs (Reuters) VW may launch a brand…
More than 1 in 10 Americans faced times in the past year when they could not afford adequate housing, according to a Gallup Poll which documents how access to affordable housing remains a worldwide…
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has released its list of the safest cars for 2011. The “TOP SAFETY PICK” award for 2011, included 40 cars, 25 SUVs, and a minivan. The number of American…
Americans do not care much about the price of gas, at least for now. Ninety million people will take to the roads between December 23 and January 2. The AAA measures people who plan…
It is official now, or as official as anything gets. The last week of the holiday shopping season salvaged what might have been mediocre results and turned them into something just short of spectacular.…
China said it will help nations in the eurozone to return to financial stability. (Reuters) Riversdale will be bought by Rio Tinto (NYSE: RTP) for $3.8 billion. (Reuters) Oil moved higher on concerns about…
Existing home sales rose 5.6% in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.68 million. But “are 27.9 percent below the cyclical peak of 6.49 million in November 2009, which was the initial…
Most of the comScore commentary about its November review of the largest US websites and their traffic was devoted to the increase in activity at the large e-commerce destinations due to the start of…
Senior Chinese officials have said they will buy more sovereign debt from European nations. The remarks helped spur global markets briefly. The effect did not last long. The euro dropped back down below $1.31.…
The National Retail Federation predicts retail sales will rise 3.3% this holiday season. MasterCard SpendingPulse, a research operation, says that store activity has accelerated sharply in the last week. The NRF figure may turn…
Amazon Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) doesn’t charge sales tax to most of its customers. The company does not expect that to last. The largest Internet retailer supports the Streamlined Sales Tax Initiative, an effort backed by…
‘Tis the season for loss leaders. Maybe retailers were scared by the ho-ho horrible recent holiday seasons or maybe they were concerned that consumers remained as worried as ever about the economy though it…
Bonuses for bankers around the world will drop 7%. (Reuters) FCC commissioners voted along party lines to approve new internet access rules. (Reuters) Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) will launch a version of Windows for tablet…
Just as it appeared that Greece could not be downgraded any further, Fitch warned that it may take down the debt of the nearly dead sovereign paper another notch. “Fitch Ratings has today placed…