The World Economic Forum just issued the current Global Competitiveness Report (2013-2014). The study is one of the most dense and complex assessments of national economies. It also pretends to rate nations on which…
ThinkstockThe Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released its “Interim Economic Assessment” for 2013. The agency expects modest growth in global gross domestic product (GDP), a point of view held by many economists.…
courtesy of Verizon WirelessVerizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) bought out Vodafone Group PLC’s (NASDAQ: VOD) minority interest in Verizon Wireless for a staggering sum. Vodafone dumped its 45% in the joint venture, and fled…
courtesy of Nokia Corp.Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) has decided to buy the Nokia Inc. (NYSE: NOK) handset business for $7.17 billion, which is not much for a company with its balance sheet. In 2011,…
Wikimedia CommonsFrom CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS): CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS.A and CBS) and Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks have reached an agreement for carriage of CBS owned stations on Time Warner Cable…
courtesy of VerizonNot that anyone should be shocked. The deal has been rumored for days. Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) bought out the minority interest of Verizon Wireless owned by Vodafone Group PLC (NASDAQ:…
ThinkstockNew data from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco about the stubborn presence of part-time workers in the U.S. economy: Part-time work spiked during the recent recession and has stayed stubbornly high, raising…
ThinkstockThe recession may have ended almost three years ago, but many American workers fell it was only yesterday when the jobless rate rose into double digits and the economy was shedding more than 500,000…
ThinkstockOne of the most important shipping lanes in the world may be in jeopardy. According to Bloomberg: Egyptian authorities moved to bolster security along the Suez Canal after a foiled attack on a ship traversing…
ThinkstockIt would make sense that China’s economy might make some modest recovery because it has been such a powerful GDP engine for so long. Not so Europe, where the recession has lingered for a…
Microsoft Sweden, via Wikimedia CommonsMicrosoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) did something it did not have to do (something that no public company would want to do), so why did it do it? The huge software…
thinkstockThe United Kingdom has decided to refrain from an attack on Syria, although the United States may go it alone (or perhaps with France.) Obama has agreed to pass the decision to Congress which…
ThinkstockIf the European economy has improved at all, it has not shown up in unemployment numbers among the region’s weakest nations. According to Eurostat, within the region: Among the Member States, the lowest unemployment…
ThinkstockAs retail and fast-food workers strike across 60 cities as a means to get their employers to raise wages as high as $15 an hour, most Americans support the labor union system, a fact…
ThinkstockFor many industries hurt by slow growth, there is China and there is the rest of the world. As consumer and business activity slows in the old world of Europe and the United States,…
ThinkstockOne more sign appeared that Europe is slowly recovering from its years-long recession, one that outlasted the one in the United States by nearly three years. There already have been data on improved manufacturing, and…
ThinkstockExperts call it negative equity. To the general public, the term is underwater mortgages. Regardless of what it is called, 12.2 million Americans have mortgage balances that are greater than the value of their…
ThinkstockBased on recent national unemployment rates, it would appear that job creation has improved sharply from when the economy was shedding half a million jobs a month and the jobless rate rose to more…
ThinkstockThe Syrian crisis drove oil prices to $111 a barrel. The crisis may well be worse if the U.S. strikes government installations there with drones. If Bashar al-Assad’s government reacts with more actions against…
ThinkstockBuried a bit in the S&P/Case-Shiller report for June was the huge lag in Detroit home prices compared with those in the other 19 cities the research measures. Detroit’s home prices mirror the city’s…