Editor’s Choice

Macroblog: Bad by any measure

A few weeks back, The Economist published a story touting the well-known fact that the “American economy just had its worst decade since the 1930s.” Whether looking at gross domestic product (GDP), consumption, income, or nonfarm payrolls, the decade from 2000 to 2010 generally looks bad from an economic perspective. During this decade, of course,… »

Kumba Iron Ore/ArcelorMittal SA standoff

At noon on February 26, from a temporarily set up “war room”, ArcelorMittal SA’s executive team were making frantic phone calls to directors, preparing them for the trading halt in the company’s shares on the JSE.

They had just two hours to do this. Earlier, around 11am, ArcelorMittal SA CEO Nkululeko Nyembezi-Heita and her executive team… »

Half of home loans snubbed

More than 50 percent of home loan applications are still being declined despite many banks relaxing their credit criteria.

The gradual improvement in the residential property market since the second half of last year has been attributed largely to the relaxation by banks of their credit criteria and the reduction in interest rates, enabling consumers to… »

PIMCO: End of mortgage buys form of tightening

(Reuters) - The end of the Federal Reserve’s program of purchasing $1.25 trillion of mortgage-backed securities at the end of March is a form of tightening monetary policy, the chief of the largest U.S. bond fund manager said on Tuesday.

Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive and co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co, or PIMCO, said… »

‘Global recovery could take 15 years’

It will take five to 15 years for the world to recover ground lost during the recession of 2008, according to the World Bank, which says the sharp recovery in the global economy is likely to lose momentum.

However, its Global Economic Prospects (GEP) report, released yesterday, identifies an opportunity for developing countries to make more… »

Is China’s Politburo spoiling for a showdown with America?

The long-simmering clash between the world’s two great powers is coming to a head, with dangerous implications for the international… »

Dotcom celebrates 25th anniversary

On March 15 1985, a Massachusetts-based computer make named Symbolics added dotcom to its name. It was followed by Bbn.com and Think.com.

The market for dotcom would not grow significantly for another few years – that year only six dotcom names were registered, compared to the 100,000 now registered every day. In 2008, Google’s crawler indexed… »

Europe’s banks brace for UK debt crisis

UniCredit has alerted investors in a client note that Britain is at serious risk of a bond market and sterling debacle and faces even more intractable budget woes than… »

JPMorgan, Citigroup helped trigger Lehman collapse, report argues

In what is likely to kick-start a series of costly and long-running court cases, the exhaustive investigation found that the two Wall Street banks demanded significant amounts of capital and extra guarantees in the run-up to Lehman’s downfall – with JP Morgan Chase requesting $5bn (£3.3bn) just three days before Lehman’s bankruptcy filing…. »

Telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim Helu is world’s richest man

The Mexican telecoms magnate Carlos Slim Helu has been named the world’s richest man, with a net worth of $53.5 billion (£36 billion), the first time since 1994 that the No 1 spot has been held by a non-American.

The annual billionaires list published by Forbes magazine shows that the number of billionaires increased from 793… »