NewsTrust - All Rated Stories

The crisis of middle-class America

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Edward Luce - Jul. 30 (Special Report) - Once upon a time this was called the American Dream. Nowadays it might be called America’s Fitful Reverie. Indeed, Mark spends large monthly sums renting a machine to treat his sleep apnea, which gives him insomnia. “If we lost our jobs, we would have about three weeks of savings to draw on before we hit the bone,” says Mark, who is sitting on his patio keeping an eye on the street and swigging from a bottle of Miller Lite. “We work day and night and try to save for our retirement. But we are never more than a pay check or two from the streets.”

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The political genius of supply-side economics

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Martin Wolf - Jul. 26 (Opinion) - My reading of contemporary Republican thinking is that there is no chance of any attempt to arrest adverse long-term fiscal trends should they return to power. Moreover, since the Republicans have no interest in doing anything sensible, the Democrats will gain nothing from trying to do much either. That is the lesson Democrats have to draw from the Clinton era’s successful frugality, which merely gave George W. Bush the opportunity to make massive (irresponsible and unsustainable) tax cuts. In practice, then, nothing will be done.

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Furore on nuclear liability stalls India bill

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - Mar. 16 (News Report) - India's Congress party-led administration has balked at submitting controversial legislation limiting the liability of foreign nuclear reactor suppliers in case of a...

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South-east Asia: A wider radius

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Financial Times - By Tim Johnston - Jan. 28 (News Report) - It is not just within the region that there are worries. For years, south-east Asia has provided a cheap and dependable reservoir of labour for international manufacturers. While western investors struggle to make a profit in China, the fat margins on Vietnamese T-shirts or Malaysian hard drives have boosted many a multinational’s balance sheet.

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How Lehman collapsed

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Francesco Guerrera - Sep. 14 (Special Report) - A year on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Francesco Guerrera examines how and why the bank failed, providing the inside story from John Thain, Bob Diamond, et al.

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Fox News host sparks outrage

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Edward Luce - Sep. 02 (News Analysis) - If the White House is trying to figure how it lost control of the debate over healthcare in August, it could take a look at Glenn Beck’s television and radio ratings. The conservative talk radio host, who also has an hourly slot on Fox News every day, has seen his viewer numbers soar even as opponents have pressed companies to withdraw advertising from the show.

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We must face reality in Afghanistan

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Gilles Dorronsoro - Aug. 18 (Opinion) - America still has a limited and achievable objective in Afghanistan: securing a viable state and preventing al-Qaeda from regaining its lost base. But US planners must recognise that the public will not countenance an endless demand for more troops, says Gilles Dorronsoro

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Leaders meet as recession bites deep in Mexico

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Ronald Buchanan - Aug. 10 (News Report) - Before heading off to Guadalajara for talks today with his two "amigos" from Canada and Mexico, US president Barack Obama blamed the weakened states of their economies as the reason for his promised reworking of the North American Free Trade Agreement being taken off the table.

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Swat refugees begin to take long road home

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Farhan Bokhari - Jul. 29 (News Report) - Siraj Khan and his family began making their way back by bus to Pakistan’s Swat valley last week, just three months after being uprooted along with 2m others by fighting between the military and Taliban.

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US seeks closer China ties

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Daniel Dombey, Sarah O'Connor - Jul. 28 (News Report) - Barack Obama sought to recast the US's relationship with China, urging Asia's rising superpower to forge deeper ties with Washington on the economy, climate change and nuclear proliferation.

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Short View: Obama's first 100 days

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By John Authers - Apr. 29 (Special Report) - A comparison with FDR's first 100 days

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Obama’s first 100 days

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Cleve Jones, Jeremy Lemer - Apr. 24 (Special Report) - On January 20, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. Few presidents have taken office facing such high expectations and daunting challenges. In this interactive graphic we chart Mr Obama’s first 100 days in office, the honeymoon period where he was expected to spend some of the political capital his historic electoral victory had amassed. We look at the key policy decisions, appointments and early political crisis as they unfolded. Click on the calendar to see the events in detail.

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For America, the problem is Pakistan

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Anatol Lieven - Apr. 08 (Opinion) - On Afghanistan itself, the administration’s new strategy, set out last week, strikes most of the right notes. In particular, it is correct to emphasise the critical importance of building up the Afghan National Army, without which nothing can be achieved in Afghanistan in the long term; and on the need for the US to work towards an exit strategy rather than engage in empty rhetoric about “staying the course”. Talk of creating a modern, western-style democracy in Afghanistan has been drastically scaled back.

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Welch denounces corporate obsessions

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Francesco Guerrera - Mar. 13 (Interview) - "On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world," he said. "Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy . . . Your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products."

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China’s silenced citizens in search of justice

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Jamil Anderlini - Mar. 10 (Special Report) - China's economy is slowing and worries are growing about the threat of social unrest. In the absence of democracy and an independent legal system, the last hope left for China's desperate and distraught is the petitioning system.

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Google and Nasa back new school for futurists

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Financial Times - By David Gelles - Feb. 03 (News Report) - Google and Nasa are throwing their weight behind a new school for futurists in Silicon Valley to prepare scientists for an era when machines become cleverer than people. The new institution, known as “Singularity University”, is to be headed by Ray Kurzweil, whose predictions about the exponential pace of technological change have made him a controversial figure in technology circles.

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Fed weighs options on credit markets support

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Financial Times - By Krishna Guha - Jan. 26 (News Report) - The Federal Reserve is likely to signal further efforts to revitalise securitised markets for credit at its policy meeting this week, which will see interest rates maintained at virtually zero.

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US economy chiefs say policies bear fruit

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Financial Times - By Michael Mackenzie in New York, Krishna Guha - Nov. 19 (News Report) - The cost of insuring top quality US companies against default hit a record high on Tuesday even as Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke told Congress that their radical policy actions to ease the credit crisis were starting to bear fruit.

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Perilous transition

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - Nov. 01 (Editorial) - Compounding the challenges facing the next US president is the transition from the old administration to the new. This is no small matter. American handover arrangements would strike politicians and civil servants in many other countries, especially Britain, as odd at the best of times. Under present conditions they are downright hazardous.

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US faces worst recession in 26 years

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Krishna Guha - Oct. 20 (News Report) - The US economy appears to be plunging into what many experts believe will be its worst recession since 1982. Senior officials at the Treasury and Federal Reserve are confident that the rescue plan for US banks will succeed in preventing a financial system meltdown and ensure there will not be a repeat of the Great Depression. But they know that a sharp economic downturn is already baked in the cake. They do not,however, know how deep or protracted it will be. The focus of concern is shifting from the markets – although these remain dangerously stressed – to the wider economy, where the consumer finally appears to be cracking. The Fed and Treasury were expecting the economy to weaken but not as rapidly as it has, with collapsing consumer confidence, falling home starts, slumping retail sales and falling industrial production. “The actual deterioration in the data in the last few weeks has been much more severe than anyone was expecting,” said Frederic Mishkin, a professor at Columbia university and former Fed governor.

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Silicon Valley start-ups wield the axe as storm clouds gather

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Richard Waters, Chris Nuttall - Oct. 20 (News Report) - A wave of job losses has started to spread across California's Silicon Valley as the trademark optimism of the region's technology start-ups has turned to pessimism amid the financial market rout.

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New banking rules: tread carefully

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Howard Davies - Oct. 01 (Opinion) - There is a strong populist strain of anti-banking sentiment in the US (vividly demonstrated in Congress this week) and in the UK. Banks are especially unpopular in two circumstances: first, when they are very profitable; and second, when they are very unprofitable.

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The shadow banking system is unravelling

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Nouriel Roubini - Sep. 24 (Opinion) - Last week saw the demise of the shadow banking system that has been created over the past 20 years. Because of a greater regulation of banks, most financial intermediation in the past two decades has grown within this shadow system whose members are broker-dealers, hedge funds, private equity groups, structured investment vehicles and conduits, money market funds and non-bank mortgage lenders.

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Welcome to the nuclear club, India

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Gideon Rachman - Sep. 23 (Opinion) - The US-India nuclear deal is simply a recognition of reality. First, that India has nuclear weapons and is not going to give them up. Second, that India is going to be one of the great powers of the 21st century - and that it makes sense for the US and the west as a whole to move beyond a futile effort to sanction the country into renouncing the bomb.

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Russia fails to secure regional backing

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Geoff Dyer - Aug. 28 (News Report) - China has so far adopted a cautious public position towards the events in Georgia and said it was "concerned" about Russia's decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia. "China expresses its concerns about the latest changes in South Ossetia and Abkhazia," said Qin Gang, a spokesman at the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, in a statement issued on Wednesday night. "We understand the complex history and realities of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. At the same time, reflecting China's consistent stance on such issues, we hope all the parties can appropriately resolve the issue through dialogue and consultation."

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