Without trust, without confidence that your counterparty financing institutions can deliver or be trusted to execute the obligations they undertake, commerce as we know it will come to a standstill.
The Roman republic fell into ruin when the unwritten rules and checks and balances failed. Now, people have been developing tools that might confront the challenges of international governance.
Nationalization does not mean "government-run banks." It means temporary seizure and restructuring. Customers are protected. Depositors are protected. Jobs are protected.
For years, America has told other countries how to deal with financial crises -- cut your losses. Clean up your balance sheets. Get on with it. This week, the stock market said the same thing.
Slumdog does something that a lot of Bollywood has stopped doing. It tells a story, no matter how unbelievably fantastic, that's set in the slums. Slums and village India have long disappeared from six-pack Bollywood.
I've been getting calls and emails from around the globe, at work and at home, all days of the week, all hours of the day. All I know is that Bernard L. (no relation) has really screwed up the family name for this Madoff.
Clearly Michelle Obama's inaugural night confection by Jason Wu set Hollywood stars into envious copycat mode. White, frothy, tiered and layered full-length poofs have been the biggest trend and misstep of the night.
CBS News named Jeff Ballabon, a New York Republican activist, to serve as the Senior Vice President of Communications. What are they thinking?
Eyebrows are raised as high as golden arches at the colossal cold-heartedness that McDonald's has shown in regards to the treatment of its employee, Nigel Haskett.
What the Bush policy on terrorism ignored was that more than anything else people want a sense of meaning and identity -- and their corollary: respect.
For US-Cuba policy junkies, Lugar's report is pretty breathtaking in its indictment of decades of American failure in trying to adjust Cuba's national government's behavior via sanctions and an embargo.
My fellow Americans, wake up and smell the new Starbuck's instant coffee. We are all in over our heads. We all have a part in this.
Slumdog might be a shining example of how to package a transglobal blockbuster. But its fatal flaw is that it often treats globalization, the lingua franca of today's world, as unassailable gospel.
In order not to spook markets, Obama and a small team of financial commandos needs to orchestrate a sneak attack on the Zombie Banks.
Senator-elect Al Franken hasn't spoken to the national media since November -- until now.
If Obama is truly committed to change, being more optimistic may not help him in that effort. Americans voted for Obama because they were acutely aware of the problems the country faces.
Nationalizing failed banks will not be an easy sell. The country has had a long romance with markets and the residue of that infatuation persists among significant segments of the population.
It seems like our government has finally evolved into a phenomenon about as reliable and controllable as the weather.
For months until the morning the Twin Towers were hit, it was Gary Condit -- not bin Laden -- who was the most despised man in America.
