Business Pundit

Obama’s State of the Union address tonight mentioned a variety of coming changes for business and economic policy. Here are some of the most important excerpts from the full speech: Small business: …tonight, I’m proposing that we take… Read more

Share Financially speaking, there is a great inequality in the United States. Over the last 30 years, while the rich have been getting richer, the poor have been getting steadily poorer. One reason for the growing disparity between the rich… Read more

What makes the Haiti earthquake so tragic? The fact that it happened in Haiti. The poverty-stricken, resource-stressed, historically potent republic couldn’t be in a worse position to host a major earthquake. I found it hard to wrap my head… Read more

Share   As 2009 winds to a close, time has once again come to make your new year’s resolutions. If personal finance is important to you, you undoubtedly wish to set financial goals for yourself in 2010. Even the most money-conscious among us… Read more

Share In the U.S., our dependence on oil not only makes for wealthy oil companies, it also supports our federal, state and local governments. Gas taxes add up quickly and some areas of the country are taxed more heavily than others. However,… Read more

European researchers have concluded that a big enough shadow economy can protect a country from recession. The Financial Times reports: Unofficial, or “shadow”, economies can help shield European countries during a recession – but… Read more

Who wants to be a millionaire… for under $200? Come on, even your mom could afford that. Might we suggest a trip to the following places… 10. Zambia Exchange Rate: US$1 = 4,669 Kwacha Highest Value Banknote: 50,000 ($10.70) To give you… Read more

Charles Goyette has spent much of his life thinking about money. He has contemplated how it works, how governments manipulate it, and how it stores value. Goyette, a radio show host, precious metals pro, and libertarian, shares his views on… Read more

This is a guest post written by Wall St. Cheat Sheet Editor-in-Chief Damien Hoffman. In 2008, I closely commented on the demise of Lehman Brothers and the hidden cancers on other balance sheets. At the time, the fraudulent real estate bubble… Read more

The Commerce Department today said the economy grew at 3.5% during the third quarter of this year. This is the first time that gross domestic product (GDP) has been positive since Q2 2008. It is also the fastest rate of growth since Q3 2007…. Read more

Image: El Economista Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom both won this year’s Nobel Peace Prizes in Economic Science. The New York Times has more on the research that won the professors their honors: Mr. Williamson’s work focuses on the… Read more

In the spirit of the soon-to-be phased out Cash for Clunkers program, Americans have a new incentive to get rid of inefficient resource-suckers. This time it’s appliances. According to American Public Media’s Alisa Roth, Congress included $300… Read more

The Harvard Business Review’s Umair Haque discovered that a Made-in-USA, “fair labor” iPod would cost only 23% more than its Made in China counterpart: …how much would it cost to produce a “Good iPod”? One not produced in a sweatshop, but… Read more

A month or so ago, inflation as the result of quantitative easing was all the rage. More recently, the Powers that Be claimed that jobs data means inflation won’t happen after all. As someone perched on the hawkish side of the fence, I read… Read more