When times are good in financial markets, we're willing to convince ourselves that they're good for a reason. The fundamentals are great, the experts tell us. Innovation is creating new opportunities and new wealth. We've gotten better at managing risk. After a few years of market trouble, though, the tone changes. "When the trend is sideways to down, they think the machine is broken," says Robert Prechter. "Jeez, it can't be us." Wanna bet Prechter does. He has ...

Among the many hands that Barack Obama will likely shake on his inaugural trip to Asia as U.S. President will be that of a soft-spoken general who happens to represent one of the world's most repressive regimes. Obama's planned joint appearance on Nov. 15 with Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein, at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations' confab on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Singapore, will mark the first time since the era of Lyndon ...

The journalist Hu Shuli has often been called "the most dangerous woman in China." And she may become even more so. As the pioneering editor of China's most influential business magazine, she managed to publish groundbreaking stories on official ineptitude and financial malfeasance despite China's tight control of the media. She may be on the verge of even greater freedom after cutting her ties with the owners of her magazine. On Monday, Hu announced that she was resigning ...

What reform could dramatically remake America and become law by Christmas? Not health care. While a health care bill crawls through the Senate, bills of equal significance are speeding through the Banking and Finance Committees of both chambers of Congress and will share the spotlight this week on Capitol Hill. And because of the odd politics of finance, and an aggressive behind the scenes push by the Administration, real financial reforms have a better chance of becoming law by ...

Are you furious? If not, you should be. The giant financial institutions that make up Wall Street have been bailed out, thanks to trillions of dollars of our money, and are on track to hand out record-breaking multibillion-dollar bonuses while millions of regular folks are hurting. Even outside the gilded halls of Wall Street, there's no shortage of good cheer: many economists say the Great Recession has ended, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke keeps seeing "green shoots" in ...

Global philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates are launching a major push to convince the United States to maintain government spending on worldwide health initiatives, despite the financial crisis and a soaring U.S. budget deficit.The Gates Foundation said it cannot solve all these problems alone, despite having a budget that is bigger than the economies of many countries, and it says it needs the help of the United States and other governments. In an interview, Melinda Gates said, "Our money is ...

Authorities on Sunday released the name of a woman who turned up in New York this month saying she had no memory of her name or family.The economic story of burgeoning economies such as China is also the story of "factory girls," young women who have found new spending power as a result of new economic opportunities. Despite the financial crisis, domestic spending in the first nine months of this year was up 15 percent, driven in large part by ...

Gunmen opened fire on a military vehicle in Islamabad on Thursday, killing an army brigadier and a soldier, officials said. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in New York's State Supreme Court, was brought on behalf of former investors and seeks unspecified punitive damages and compensation. Beyond that, it offers a look at what the plaintiffs' attorneys say was once Madoff's multimillion-dollar empire and what is now his world in a federal prison in North Carolina. Among the allegations in the 264-page ...

China needs an "urgent" tightening of monetary policy to prevent the huge stimulus measures introduced this year from inflating stock and property bubbles, one of the country's leading bankers has warned. Qin Xiao -- chairman of China Merchants Bank, the country's sixth-biggest -- says in Thursday's Financial Times that the government should not be afraid of a "moderate slowdown" in the economy. "Monetary policy must not neglect asset-price movements," he writes. "Therefore it is urgent that China shifts from a ...

King says Britain's Main Street banks should be separated from their risky investment arms to dissolve a culture in which some banks can fall back on the knowledge that they are "too important to fail" and thus can keep gambling with vast amounts of public cash. The governor's comments come as leading financial houses -- including recipients of taxpayer-funded bailouts -- prepare to pay out large bonuses, angering many who fear this signals a return to pre-economic crisis rewards ...