Gold prices surged to a record high Tuesday after the International Monetary Fund said it had sold 200 metric tons of the precious metal to India's central bank.
Now that we're officially (if barely) out of the Great Recession, it's time for our nation's elected officials to get down to serious business -- that of taking credit, assigning blame, and calling each other liars.
The economy is growing again. So when are the jobs that go with growth going to get here?
The U.S. economy grew at a 3.5% annual rate in the third quarter, ending a string of declines over four quarters that resulted in the most severe slide since the Great Depression. But some economists raised doubts about how long such strong growth can last.
Profits are down at Hillenbrand, America's largest maker of caskets. Admittedly, this fact sounds like the setup for a punch line, but the cause of the shortage in stiffs contains lessons for politicians and business leaders alike.
As an American of African descent, I swelled with pride when I heard that the Norwegian Nobel Committee selected President Obama to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The award further validates what the 2008 presidential election demonstrated: The United States is the most mature and fully functioning multi-ethnic democracy in the world.
The Federal Reserve threw a lot of money at the crisis to get the gears of the economy turning again -- but it may soon be time to collect on the bill.
With its ever-increasing pockets of barren land and abandoned housing, Detroit may be the most financially devastated city in the country. Who would take on the task of trying to revive neighborhoods mired in economic blight? Try an institution built on faith and hope: Detroit's churches.
Police clashed with protesters for a second day outside a meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, CNN's sister network, CNN Turk, reported Wednesday.
Australia's raising interest rates! The global recession is over! The only question now is how strong and fast the economic rebound will be. Hip hip hooray!
Gold prices surged to a record high Tuesday after the International Monetary Fund said it had sold 200 metric tons of the precious metal to India's central bank.
Now that we're officially (if barely) out of the Great Recession, it's time for our nation's elected officials to get down to serious business -- that of taking credit, assigning blame, and calling each other liars.
The economy is growing again. So when are the jobs that go with growth going to get here?
The U.S. economy grew at a 3.5% annual rate in the third quarter, ending a string of declines over four quarters that resulted in the most severe slide since the Great Depression. But some economists raised doubts about how long such strong growth can last.
Profits are down at Hillenbrand, America's largest maker of caskets. Admittedly, this fact sounds like the setup for a punch line, but the cause of the shortage in stiffs contains lessons for politicians and business leaders alike.
As an American of African descent, I swelled with pride when I heard that the Norwegian Nobel Committee selected President Obama to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The award further validates what the 2008 presidential election demonstrated: The United States is the most mature and fully functioning multi-ethnic democracy in the world.
The Federal Reserve threw a lot of money at the crisis to get the gears of the economy turning again -- but it may soon be time to collect on the bill.
With its ever-increasing pockets of barren land and abandoned housing, Detroit may be the most financially devastated city in the country. Who would take on the task of trying to revive neighborhoods mired in economic blight? Try an institution built on faith and hope: Detroit's churches.
Police clashed with protesters for a second day outside a meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, CNN's sister network, CNN Turk, reported Wednesday.
Australia's raising interest rates! The global recession is over! The only question now is how strong and fast the economic rebound will be. Hip hip hooray!
I recently accompanied Margaret Chan, Director General of the WHO, and Ray Chambers, U.N. Special Envoy for Malaria, on a trip to Africa to see firsthand the region's fight against malaria.
In the financial crisis, Europe's banking sector has been the shoe that wouldn't drop.
A protester threw a shoe at the IMF director at the end of a question-and-answer session Thursday at a university in Istanbul.
Americans appear to actually thrive on adversity, according to a study published this week that reached the conclusion after researching the nation's biggest economic downturn.
The last 50 years have borne witness to a spate of climate-related disasters across the world causing over 800,000 fatalities and $1 trillion in economic losses.
Are you finally ready for some good news about the recession? As it turns out, a shaky economy might actually be good for your health.
The odds are against Brenda T. Buck, and she knows it. So she counts on what she calls the Sandwich Philosophy: "Take it one bite at a time."
This week the international community is converging on my chosen hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as heads of state gather for the G20 summit.
While the recession has affected the entire nation, members of minority groups have suffered more pain than their white counterparts, according to a report released Wednesday by a liberal think tank.
The world's tropical forests are disappearing, and one reason is simple economics: People, companies and governments earn more by logging, mining or farming places such as the Amazon jungle than by conserving them.
Anderson Cooper, Ali Velshi and the CNN Money Team hosted a special "CNN Money Summit: Money & Main St." Thursday night, September 17. Here's a transcript of the show:
In the developing world millions of people struggle to operate machinery, read from a blackboard, or just see the world around them, because they don't have access to the eyeglasses they need.
With apologies to the Beatles, the list of the best-performing Fortune 500 stocks in the year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers reads like a stroll down Penny Lane.
Americans are not nearly as optimistic about the economy as the chairman of the Federal Reserve seems to be, a national poll released Thursday shows.
For an academic from Dillon, S.C., Ben Bernanke is an unlikely gunslinger.
The mood regarding the U.S. economy may be inching, ever so slowly, toward optimism. But don't expect to see much improvement on the jobs front anytime soon. The economy's following a script for a jobless recovery, and unemployment is likely to stay high, if not get slightly worse.
The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it appears that the U.S. economy has halted the longest period of decline since the Great Depression, although it cautioned that economic activity is likely to remain weak in the near term.
There is a growing belief that the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression is over.
Fannie Mae, the government-controlled mortgage insurer, said Thursday that it needs another $10.7 billion from the Treasury Department to stay afloat.
When economist Dennis Gartman told subscribers of his newsletter in the fall of 2007 that the U.S. was entering a recession, the Dow was at 13,500, and the official government call wouldn't come for another full year.
The U.S. Postal Service is losing money so quickly you'd think it somehow got mixed up in the subprime mortgage business. It's on track this year for an operating loss of between $6 billion and $12 billion, debt surpassing $10 billion, and a $1 billion cash shortfall. For any business, those are some ugly numbers.
Brad Baugh lives in Savannah, Georgia, where he buys and renovates houses. He told me two things the other day that exposed a great opportunity in this treacherous recession -- and that may even shine a light on our way out of it.
The pace of economic decline slowed substantially in the second quarter, as the U.S. economy shrank at an annual rate of 1% -- far less than it did in the first quarter, according to a government report released Friday.
The pace of economic decline slowed substantially in the second quarter, as the U.S. economy shrank at an annual rate of 1 percent, far less than it did in the first quarter, according to a government report released Friday.
Cleaning up after bank failures is one chore you won't hear bankers complaining about.
The government's economic recovery efforts have brought many new and unfamiliar financial terms into the conversation. Here's a list of some we think are vital to understanding the recession and the government's attempts to fix it:
The first big government bailout of the financial crisis -- the takeover of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- is poised to be the most expensive and complicated to complete.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Sunday that lessons learned from the recession and the financial crisis will help make the economy stronger than it was before the crisis.
Pay raises are expected to rebound next year after being severely stunted by the recession, a new survey showed Wednesday.
The independent overseer of the $700 billion bailout has caused a ruckus over an important question: How much do taxpayers have on the line?
Amid ominous economic forecasts and repeated bleak reports about America's financial future, messages of hope can be hard to come by.
Leaders of both industrialized powers and emerging economies have agreed to work together on setting a goal to limit global warming to levels recommended by scientists, U.S. President Barack Obama said at the G-8 summit.
It's noon in New Haven, and Yale economist Robert Shiller and I are leaving his office to walk down the block for pizza. It was a damp morning, but now the sun is breaking through the clouds. "Do we need an umbrella?" he asks. I say I don't think so. But a few steps outside his office, he turns around to get one. "It's better to be safe," he says.
Researchers in the U.S. have proposed a new way of allocating responsibility for carbon emissions they say could solve the impasse between developed and developing countries.
Shweta Gupta knows exactly what kind of groom she wants: he should be educated, well settled and live in a good location --- one that must be in India.
Should the Federal Reserve be more worried about the threat of inflation on the long-term horizon, or deflation in the short-term?
Worldwide trade will plummet by nearly 10% this year, and output will fall by 2.9%, the World Bank predicted in a report released Monday.
The recession began in December 2007. Did it end sometime this spring?
China can expect 7.2% growth in 2009, according to the World Bank, which says the country's fiscal policies in the face of a global financial slowdown have kept the Chinese economy "growing respectably."
For the first time, Brazil, Russia, India, and China -- dubbed the BRIC nations -- held a summit this week to discuss the global economy and their role in it.
Cell phone technology is helping developing nations prepare for disease threats such as a new strain of swine flu, an outbreak of measles or the increased spread of HIV.
The stock market's rally serves as "broad validation" of the Obama administration's financial rescue efforts, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Monday.
Billionaire Bill Gates has urged industrialized nations to honor aid pledges to developing nations despite the recession.
The first comprehensive report into the human cost of climate change warns the world is in the throes of a "silent crisis" that is killing 300,000 people each year.
The government bailout of banks, lenders, Bear Stearns and AIG brought in billions of dollars to the Federal Reserve in the first quarter of 2009.
States are poised to pass as much as $24 billion in tax and fee hikes in coming weeks, as they struggle to balance their budgets amid the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, a report released Thursday found.
Question: I believe that along with a recession comes a great opportunity to invest and make significant long-term gains. I'm under 30, I contribute to my 401(k) plan and I'm willing to take risks. What are my best options in today's market? --Lyle, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
The nation has a 'flation problem. But it is deflation or inflation? Or maybe it's disinflation, stagflation or hyperinflation?
We're about to mark the second anniversary of the financial meltdown. But don't expect to see any clinking of champagne glasses, because except for a handful of prescient (or lucky) speculators, it's been a ghastly two years. The nightmare started June 12, 2007, when news broke that two Bear Stearns hedge funds speculating in mortgage-backed securities were melting down. That was the precursor to the panics and collapses that have led to a worldwide recession and the fall of mighty institutions like Bear, AIG, Lehman Brothers, and Royal Bank of Scotland.
Stocks were finally taking a bit of a breather Thursday.
The U.S. economy shrank at an annual pace of 6.1% in the first quarter -- almost as much as it did in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to a government report Wednesday.
The severe decay in the global economy is easing but serious problems still loom, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Friday.
Big tech firms from IBM to Microsoft reported less-than-stellar financial results this week -- but there were pockets of optimism and most companies expect the end of 2009 to look much brighter.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, speaking Wednesday ahead of a meeting of international finance officials, said economies around the world need to work together to lay the ground work for a sound future.
The Obama administration must break up the biggest financial firms if the nation is to return to economic health, three prominent bailout skeptics told a congressional panel Tuesday.
The International Monetary Fund has raised its estimate of the amount of toxic assets that banks and financial institutions will have to dispose of or write down to $4 trillion.
The world has seen banks and businesses fail spectacularly since the recession began, but other vulnerable organizations in the developing world face devastation.
If there is one thing that Africa can learn from the global financial crisis it's that the West doesn't always get it right, Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai told CNN.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will host a meeting of international finance ministers next week, the Treasury Department said Monday.
As Barack Obama headed back from his first diplomatic venture, two distinct views of his performance are emerging in Washington.
Unemployment at a 25-year high. Housing prices continuing to fall. Corporate titans such as General Motors on the brink of bankruptcy. There's no lack of bad economic news.
Leaders of the world's largest economies agreed on Thursday to a package worth more than $1 trillion to tackle the global economic crisis.
World leaders agreed Thursday to tighter regulation of the global financial system and pledged more than $1 trillion to bolster lending by the International Monetary Fund to nations in need.
Stocks rallied Thursday morning as the G-20 meeting of the world's largest economies got underway and regulators reportedly eased rules that determine how banks value bad debt.
A great age of protest should be dawning. The global mismanagement of the financial system has led to a deep recession. Intellectual paralysis has gripped the authorities and their policy response has been risky.
India's prime minister, in a speech ahead of the G-20 economic summit, called for added funding to developing nations as a way to maintain demand in a troubled global economy.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is threatening to walk if there's no agreement on new and more stringent international financial regulation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel may throw a fit of her own if other countries keep insisting that the Germans have room for a bigger economic stimulus package. The Russians and Chinese want to get some control over the International Monetary Fund, and if there's one issue on which there is a wide consensus, it's that American corporate greed and negligent financial oversight is to blame for all the mess.
Barack Obama announced new arms negotiations with Russia's president, discussed North Korea with China's president, talked about the global economy with Britain's prime minister and had tea with Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday -- a busy day for any leader.
As President Obama brings a proposed wish list for fixing financial markets and the global economy to the world stage, he's likely to have a tough sell.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy insisted Wednesday that new financial regulation is a "non-negotiable" aim of the G-20 Summit in London, as world leaders gathered for the event.
Security at the G-20 summit in London, England, is tight as protesters fill the streets. CNN anchor Kiran Chetry spoke Wednesday with Frances Townsend, who was Homeland Security adviser under the Bush administration, about the security. Townsend now is a national security contributor on CNN.
The world faces crisis of finance, not a crisis of capitalism.
President Obama said Wednesday world leaders meeting at the G-20 summit "cannot afford half-measures" as they try to hammer out ways to address the global financial crisis.
Headlines proclaiming that G-20 activists and police are following each others' activities on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites may give one the impression that a new age of surveillance and political activism has dawned.
Leaders at this week's Group of 20 summit must reshape the world's economic system to reflect global values, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Tuesday.
This week's London Summit brings together the leaders of the world's 20 largest economic powers, known as the Group of 20, to discuss the global financial crisis and decide new measures to set the world on a more stable economic footing.
On the wall of his office overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Bill Gross has hung a poster of Jesse Livermore. In the early decades of the last century Livermore made and lost several fortunes on Wall Street before killing himself in 1940. Alongside the picture is an adaptation of a quote from the deceased: "An investor has to guard against many things and most of all against himself."
This week's London Summit brings together the leaders of the world's 20 largest economic powers, known as the Group of 20, to discuss the global financial crisis and decide new measures to set the world on a more stable economic footing.
Social networking Web sites are set to play a crucial role in protests ahead of next week's G-20 meeting of world leaders in London as demonstration organizers and police use Twitter and Facebook as key sources of real-time information and intelligence.
Is this the worst economy since the Great Depression? And what are the chances of the economy falling into another depression?
Zimbabwe will get no financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund until it moves ahead with sound policies and settles its outstanding debt, the IMF said Wednesday.
The money that foreign workers send home will shrink by $15 billion this year, as the global economy limps along, the World Bank projects.
President Barack Obama reached out to citizens of the world Tuesday, saying in an op-ed piece that ran in 31 newspapers around the globe that there is an urgent need for worldwide economic cooperation.
President Obama reached out to citizens of the world Tuesday, saying in an op-ed piece that ran in 31 newspapers around the globe that there is an urgent need for worldwide economic cooperation.
The Treasury Department unveiled its long-awaited plan to remove many of the troubled assets from banks' books Monday, representing one of the biggest efforts by the U.S. government so far aimed at tackling the ongoing financial crisis.
When the economic downturn took hold last autumn, the management team at non-profit Kiva.org made a calculated bet to curb investment, anticipating that donors would slow the volume of small loans they make to entrepreneurs in the developing world. That slowdown never came. Now, the non-profit site is racing to keep up with user demand even while planning to bring its unique form of charity to the U.S.
The G-20 meeting in London, England, on April 2 will be watched by the entire world with urgency and with a yearning for hope, vision and programmatic clarity.
The global economic slowdown is so severe that the worldwide economy will contract for the first time in 60 years, the International Monetary Fund says.
Is the current downturn merely a severe slump, or are we facing a second coming of the Great Depression? That's the question everyone is asking these days. But Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates and manager of what is now the world's biggest hedge fund, has been preparing to answer it for eight years.
As we mark International Women's Month in March, it is encouraging to see that the movement to recognize the vital role that women play in families, nations and economies has been building for more than a decade and that developments in the past few years have shown that real progress has begun to take hold.
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