Forums: Business And Economy

'Our company is like many other big ones in this country,” a CEO told me recently. “We expect to create plenty of jobs in coming years, but guess what: They won’t be in the U.S.” Welcome to the “new normal.” For more than five straight decades after World War II, the Great American Job Machine cranked out jobs at a phenomenal pace—22 million in the 1990s alone. But since December 1999, there has been zero net job creation—nada, zippo. Coming out of recession, one in six Americans is now unemployed or can’t find full-time work. Worse still, some economists say...

The IMF says it wants to help Africa handle climate change THE global recession was slow to hit Africa. Its banks and stock exchanges were isolated enough from the wider capital markets to suffer few shocks. Foreign investment remained steady. Oil-rich countries such as Angola continued to boom. But dampened demand for African exports last year, together with the shrinking of many venture-capital funds, has now hit the continent hard after a long period of unusually perky growth. Countries south of the Sahara together grew by less than 2% in 2009. In many places income has fallen and unemployment started...

Belgrade, city of very tumultuous history, one of the oldest in Europe. Its history has lasted for 7000 years. The area around the large rivers was inhabited in the Paleolithic period. From the older stone age, came the remains of human bones and skulls of Neanderthals, found in a quarry near Leštane, in a cave in the vicinity of the Cukarica Bajloni market. Remains of late Stone Age culture were found in Vinca, Zarkovo and Upper Town, above the confluence of the Sava and Danube. This indicates that the area of Belgrade has been continually inhabited and that the intensity...

Fiscal Policy: The latest data show a record number of people with no tax obligation. We also have the highest-earning nontaxpayers ever. With more riding the wagon and fewer pulling, it should soon break down. A record number of the 142 million tax returns filed in 2008 resulted in no taxes owed, according to the Tax Foundation's analysis of the latest IRS data. About 51.6 million returns, or 36.3%, were filed by those whose deductions, exemptions and tax credits wiped out any federal income-tax obligation. These aren't people who have overpaid their taxes or had so much withheld from their...

Polish highstepper, Monica Jac Jagaciak, one of the hottest young faces in fashion presents the Calvin Klein S/S 2010 collection, amidst a gnarled mass of organic pleasantries and environmental themes. It’s woodsy and earthy and literally back to nature for this forest nymph of the glade and the sylvan.

US must play hardball with China By PAUL KRUGMAN TENSIONS are rising over Chinese economic policy, and rightly so: China's policy of keeping its currency, the renminbi or yuan, undervalued has become a significant drag on global economic recovery. Something must be done. Don't sweep it under the carpet: China, by engineering an unwarranted trade surplus, is in effect imposing an anti-stimulus on other economies, which they can't offset To give you a sense of the problem: Widespread complaints that China was manipulating its currency - selling renminbi and buying foreign currencies, so as to keep the renminbi weak and...

Regulation: The New York Times says the EPA should use its authority to regulate our very breath if a Democratic Congress isn't "goaded" into action. Whatever happened to government of the people? It's been a pattern of this administration that if the American people are adamantly opposed to it, ram it through anyway. So it's been with the health care overhaul, offshore drilling restrictions and now the Environmental Protection Agency threatening to become the uber-regulator of the air we breathe. The New York Times says in a Saturday editorial regarding that last item that if Congress fails to enact cap-and-trade...

A December 2009 man on the street interview with high school kids turning to panhandling from a website called the National Inflation Association. These two attractive young girls are asked what's going on with high school jobs in their local area: "I think it's the President....no wait....is it Obama?....You can't even get a job so we usually go around and ask for money....my parents are broke too."

A couple of week's ago, I blogged about Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's charm-blitz through NY, juxtaposing Fox News' Neil Cavuto's sweetheart interview with "the prince" and Charlie Rose's far more revealing conversation -- essentially, it's (everything's) all Israel's fault, and "my" 1.5 billion Muslims are all like the underpants' bomber's father. I kept thinking about Alwaleed -- his stake in News Corp., his stakes in Georgetown and Harvard -- and realized that as a leading scion of the so-called House of Saud (q: how many countries are named for their rulers?), a totalitarian theocracy whose foundational documents -- http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/1261/Should-Fox-News-Register-as-a-Saudi-Agent.aspx

“Tax the rich” has been the inveterate battle cry of liberals from the beginning. The left believes in creating massive entitlement and welfare programs all in the name of fairness. Equal rights, it seems, don’t apply to the wealthy. Ironically, the idea only ends up hurting the very people it’s supposed to help. Early in 2009, Maryland raised its tax rate to 6.25% for income earners of $1 million or more and saw a decline in tax revenue as high-income taxpayers emigrated to tax-friendlier states. While it may seem that few families make an income of a million dollars, sole...