Business and Finance news

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the U.S. will have to both tighten credit and raise taxes as the economy pulls out of the worst recession since the 1930s.
“The presumption that we’re going to be able to resolve this without significant increases in taxes is unrealistic,” Greenspan, 83, said in an interview […]

Hong Kong’s central bank warned lenders in the city that their “intense price competition” on mortgages isn’t sustainable and may erode industry profit margins and increase risks.
Banks have cut home loan rates “to such an extent that they might not have given due regard to the reputation risk, interest rate risk and liquidity […]

Singapore’s industrial production unexpectedly surged the most in 16 months in July as pharmaceuticals output jumped and the electronics slump eased, heralding a sustained economic recovery.
Manufacturing, which accounts for about a quarter of Singapore’s economy, rose 12.4 percent from a year earlier following a revised 9 percent decline in June, the Economic Development […]

Texas unemployment climbed to a 21- year high in July, even as the nationwide jobless rate declined, after a plunge in natural-gas prices undermined a state economy that was spared the brunt of the recession before this year.
The July unemployment rate rose to 7.9 percent in the second-biggest U.S. state by population, the […]

The Philippine central bank, which has cut its benchmark interest rate six times in the past seven months, said it’s on a “cautious easing bias” as it awaits clearer signs of an economic recovery.
“The inflation outlook continues to be benign while inflation expectations remain well-anchored,” Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo said in a mobile-phone […]

The worst recession in half a century may be prolonged because consumers see few signs job losses and declines in home prices are ending, economists Nouriel Roubini and Robert Shiller said.
“The fundamental problem, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in 1933, is fear,” Shiller, a Yale University professor, said yesterday on Bloomberg Radio’s “Surveillance.” […]

Leaving behind TARP will likely mean a return to the status quo for many banks — except for those hefty dividends of yesteryear.
Earlier this month, 10 of the nation’s biggest financial firms won their freedom from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program. In theory, that should allow these banks to begin raising their […]

Europe’s unemployment rate rose to the highest in almost 10 years in April as the worst global economic slump in more than six decades forced companies to cut jobs and spending.
Unemployment in the 16-member euro region increased to 9.2 percent from 8.9 percent in March, the European Union statistics office in Luxembourg said […]

NEW YORK — Chrysler tried to fend off hundreds of objections Wednesday to its plan to sell most of its assets to Italian automaker Fiat, hoping in a marathon court session to save itself from liquidation.
If Judge Arthur Gonzalez approves the sale, Chrysler could emerge from bankruptcy within weeks. Gonzalez adjourned the hearing […]

International Monetary Fund First Deputy Managing Director John Lipsky said rising oil prices reflect expectations that the recession may be easing and that demand is poised to recover.
The increase reflects “a general improvement in sentiment on signs that the sharpest period of decline in the global economy is over,” Lipsky said in the […]