Initial jobless claims for the past week were 505,000, tied with last week for the lowest since January. This brings the 4-week average down to 514,000, the lowest since November of last year and the 11th consecutive week of declines. 
Clearly, fewer people are losing their jobs.  But, 505,000 is still a large number – [...]

This is a crucial question because Devon Energy, the Oklahoma-based independent oil and natural gas producer has just decided to put billion of dollars in Deep sea Gulf of Mexico assets on the market.
Canada’s National Post reported:
Devon Energy Corp. hopes to raise up to US$7.5-billion from the sale of its Gulf of Mexico and international [...]

An article in the National Post suggests General Motors may look to divert some of its bailout money to Europe in the wake of a chill in German government support for subsidies. Talk of using taxpayer money to benefit workers in other countries is sure to raise ire, especially in the United States where the [...]

On the eve of U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to China, a major Chinese official has criticized U.S. monetary policy in unusually harsh language. Liu Mingkang, China Banking Regulatory Commission chairman said the zero interest rate policy of the U.S. Federal Reserve posed a “new systemic risk.”
Liu, using language reminiscent of warnings by NYU economist [...]

Hong Kong’s leader Donald Tsang has come out with a scathing criticism of U.S. monetary policy, comparing it to Japan’s which he believes contributed to 1997’s Asian crisis. This is the most direct and strident criticism of the U.S. Federal reserve’s monetary policy from a major international politician yet.
Bloomberg reports:
The Federal Reserve’s policy of keeping [...]

In the video below, Marshall Auerback gives a even-handed analysis of the parallels between the US and Japan on Fox Business with Brian Sullivan.
Demographic trends, GDP trends and deleveraging trends are all similar. But, Marshall goes further by pointing to the misallocation of fiscal resources, the emergence of crony capitalism and the likelihood of [...]

Is it just me or did Secretary Geithner just talk out of other side of his mouth? Today he wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal with two Asian leaders to mark a big meeting of APEC (Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation) in Singapore.
The WSJ article started out with a bunch of diplomatic niceties about [...]

The latest number on unemployment claims shows a seasonally-adjusted 502,000 people applied for unemployment insurance last week, bringing the more meaningful 4-week average down to 519,750, the lowest since late November 2008. That is a good thing because it shows the labor market is improving.
Nevertheless, 500,000 initial claims in an environment of reduced hiring is [...]

Tim Geithner has issued a Code Red on the U.S. dollar, but he doesn’t think Americans can handle it.
I believe deeply that it’s very important to the United States, to the economic health of the United States, that we maintain a strong dollar.

Secretary, I have just one more question. If you gave an order that [...]

Andy Xie thinks the Fed is on an inflationary path.  Last month, he wrote an article in Caijing which says that ‘stagflation lite’ is the Federal Reserve’s preferred outcome. What’s interesting is his recent article about the need for China and Japan to join forces under an ASEAN umbrella, rejecting the APEC umbrella shared with [...]