Europe’s Drought Risks Inflation Deluge

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By ANDREW PEAPLE It will take more than a washed-out holiday weekend to put a smile back on the faces of European farmers—and policy makers. Dry weather in the continent’s northern regions has seriously harmed potential crops, with the U.K. the latest country to declare drought conditions in some parts of the country. England and…

‘The EU Has Finally Opened the Door to Economic Union’

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It happened back in the spring, but memories are painfully fresh for finance ministers across Europe. For a while it looked like Greece’s debt crisis might end up bankrupting the country and could even endanger the common currency, the euro. Now, the European Commission has suggested a series of tools to avoid a re-enactment of…

Turtles pose problem for Arkansas rice farmers

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By Suzi Parker – Sun Jun 12, 9:11 pm ET LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) – After facing a spring of harsh weather, rice farmers in Arkansas, the nation’s top rice-producing state, have a new worry — turtles. Recent flooding in southern and eastern Arkansas has displaced turtles from their normal habitat in the canals, swamps and low-lying areas near…

America vs. China: Who does economic policy better?

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By Fareed Zakaria, CNN The U.S. Treasury and the U.S. Federal Reserve have got a pretty good job responding to the financial crisis. It’s always easy to do Monday morning quarterbacking, but what they were concerned about was a situation that looked very much like the Great Depression. The drop in global GDP was actually as…

The American Middle-class: The Sobering Facts

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Two recessions, a couple of market crashes, and stubbornly high unemployment are all wreaking havoc on America’s middle class. In the accompanying interview, The Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task discusses the state of the middle class with Sherle Schwenninger, director of economic growth and American strategy programs at the New America Foundation. Schwenninger’s recent report “The…

How the U.S. detoured to massive debt

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By Lori Montgomery Sunday, May 1, 2011 The nation’s unnerving descent into debt began a decade ago with a choice, not a crisis. In January 2001, with the budget balanced and clear sailing ahead, the Congressional Budget Office forecast ever-larger annual surpluses indefinitely. The outlook was so rosy, the CBO said, that Washington would have…

IMF Bombshell: Age of America Nears End

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This column has been updated to include a reaction from the IMF. The International Monetary Fund has just dropped a bombshell, and nobody noticed. For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of…

A Looming Disaster: Europe

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As a nation reels from an earthquake’s destruction, an entire continent faces an economic crisis of its own. While the world has been transfixed with Japan, Europe has been struggling to avoid another financial crisis. On any Richter scale of economic threats, this may ultimately count more than Japan’s grim tragedy. One reason is size….