Italy’s borrowing costs drop sharply
Italy's borrowing costs dropped sharply as it sold the maximum amount of 5 billion euros at an auction of short-term debt on Thursday, January 26 helping drive down yields on its longer-dated bonds ahead of a crucial sale of five- and 10-year paper on Monday, Reuters reported.
At the first auction since credit rating agency Standard ...
Italian PM pushes to double Europe’s bailout fund
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti is pushing to double the size of Europe's permanent bailout fund to one billion euros ($1.3 billion), a German media report to be published on Monday, Jan 23, said.
According to AFP, news weekly Der Spiegel said Monti wanted the planned 500-billion-euro European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which is scheduled to replace the European ...
Disability administration officials ask to revamp accounting system to cure spending ills
A flawed, outdated and ineffective method of accounting is the reason why the Developmental Disabilities Administration discovered a startling $33 million in unspent funds, and Health and Mental Hygiene Secretary Joshua Sharfstein said that the agency is committed to fixing those problems.
Testifying Tuesday afternoon before the House Appropriations Committee, Sharfstein, whose department oversees the Developmental ...
Fitch warns Greece’s financial troubles will worsen eurozone crisis
Fitch Ratings warns that Greece's financial troubles could still worsen the eurozone crisis if it can't work out a debt reduction deal with creditors.
Fitch's head of sovereign ratings David Riley said Greece "still has lots of potential to plunge Europe into crisis" and that "time is running out."
Greece is in talks with private investors about a ...
The Deficit Commission
President Obama, by executive order, created the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform in February of 2010 with a mission to: propose recommendations designed to balance the budget, excluding interest payments on the debt, by 2015.
The bi-partisan Commission is made up of 18 members—six appointed by the president, six members of the U.S. House of ...
Don’t Forget These Important Dates for Your Finances
If you're planning to contribute to your RRSP and take advantage of the tax benefits it offers, you must do it before this year's deadline. You also need to take the RRSP limit into consideration.
If you want to make an RRSP contribution this year, you will be making what is seen by many financial experts ...
Next year’s revenue estimates reduced slightly
More economic uncertainty – brought on by potential cuts in federal spending, a lack of consumer confidence, and debt issues in Europe – led the Board of Revenue Estimates on Friday to reduce its projected revenues for fiscal year 2013 by $71 million to $14.4 billion in the general fund.
The numbers unanimously approved represent much slower ...
Faced with economic meltdown, only shopping can save us now
Apparently it was heavy losses on his currency trading that prompted John Maynard Keynes to quip that "markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent."
Perhaps one of the root causes of irrationality, particularly in oil markets, remains the human element. The impulsive, sometimes selfish, emotional and -- yes -- ...
America Needs Real Tax Reform
There is a better way for the government to collect revenue while helping create jobs: implement a value-added tax (VAT). Countries that are doing well in the global economy, nations like Canada, Japan and Germany, all have a VAT. Workers in both Japan and Germany earn higher wages than American workers, and their economies are ...
Economic Gloom
America is clearly stuck in an economic funk, thanks to poor economic policies, which have led to a nationwide malaise and gloom that have affected the entire country. However, such a gloom is understandable thanks to all the problems facing the economy right now. These include high oil prices, deflated housing, stagnant wages, high unemployment, ...
