“I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank...

There are two sides to every story as evidenced by the various opinions across the Web about the recent release of hacked emails and documents from the top climate research organization in the...

Credit unions exist to help its members. Commercial banks exist to enrich their shareholders. You read that right. Credit unions are unions that exist to help its members. That’s why they often...

Never let it be said that Citigroup doesn’t listen to detractors. The poster child for too-big-to-fail has named Willem Buiter, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee...

Is cheap the future? At $2000, the Tata Nano is the world's cheapest car, and soon the Nano might become the world's cheapest hybrid car. Without providing many details, Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group confirmed that a hybrid version...

You might've seen the Volt make a guest appearance on the futuristic Surrogates movie already, but now Chevy's taking the opposite approach by looking toward the past to promote its PHEV. Bob's Big Boy fast food restaurant in California g...

Yesterday, the United Arab Emirates barred sales and distribution of the News Corp.–owned Sunday Times, which carried a story about the Dubai debt crisis. According to Bloomberg, it wasn't so much the coverage of the crisis that offended the country's National Media Council, but the accompanying...

The Financial Times recently learned that the Financial Stability Board, a global regulator focused on the G-20, has created a list of 30 financial institutions considered systemically important in case of a future financial crisis. The companies on...

Platts' new 100-year anniversary global branding ad for oil rolled out in February issue of UK's Energy Risk Magazine; first in a series of Platts' 2009 ads to highlight the commodities it covers: Oil, Petrochemicals, Electricity...

The good news, according to the National Retail Federation, is that 195 million U.S. shoppers visited stores and websites this past weekend, an impressive 13% jump over last year. The bad news: average spending fell nearly 8% to $343.31 per person, the lowest level in four years, while overall sales were up only 0.5% versus last year’s total. In sum, it looks like a lot more people came out to cherry pick the biggest bargains — but not much else. That doesn’t seem to be a particularly encouraging sign, especially for retailers’ margins...

It’s the day after the Saab-bomb exploded in Sweden, and the media are pouring all over it. Of course, all kinds of “car experts” and “auto analysts” are having their say. Saab workers are unexpectedly sad and disappoint...

Toyota Motor Corp. said today that it had received about 14,000 orders for the new SAI hybrid sedan to go on sale in Japan on Dec. 7, or roughly five times its monthly sales target of 3,000 of the cars. The world's biggest automaker said in...

As Congress struggles with whether and how to craft a new job creation package, it’s worth revisiting how little information the unemployment rate (currently at 10.2 percent) actually gives us. For instance, the underemployment rate (the U-6)...

Unemployment for 16-24-year-old black men was 34.5 percent in October, as high as it was during the Great Depression, the Washington Post reports. Young black women face similarly bleak employment numbers: 24.5 percent of them currently do not have j...

Toyota's announced this morning they will eschew replacement for reshaping of accelerator pedals and/or floor surface on Toyota or Lexus vehicles involved in the "floor mat fiery death" non-recall safety advisory. In the meantime, here...

On ABC's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos asked Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist, about the argument that the nation's rising debt level may lead to "a major weakening of American power...

It's a classic "When Growth Stalls" scenario: start with a fast-growing and profitable company; add an aggressive new competitor that begins to successfully woo the same customers;...

I'm generally not tracking the "post ads to your social networks" movement, be it sponsored blog posts or tweeting ads to your followers on Twitter. There is one aspect to it...

In the midst of the merry, merry, because I think of Thanksgiving week as ushering in the late fall and winter holidays, I received an instant message from a friend. He has found a new job...

Dubai World said Uncle on Nov 25 asking for an extension on debt payments totaling some $80 B. Dubai does not have any oil in particular, the oil is in the neighboring countries. So who's...