History is littered with flawed forecasts on economic trends. And where some have proven to have been surprisingly accurate in their glimpse into the financial and economic future, these projections have usually been scorned, until too late. Our current global economic crisis is a case in point.

Nouriel Roubini, the...

On November 22, 1963, as a fateful motorcade headed into downtown Dallas, leaflets were circulated throughout the city featuring profiles of President John F. Kennedy and headlined, "Wanted for Treason." On the day JFK was assassinated, there were factions from within the extreme right wing of the American political spectrum...

When President Barack Obama, flanked by his leadership colleagues attending the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, made his dramatic announcement regarding Iran's covert second site for uranium processing, he did so with a high degree of credibility. Not wishing to follow the fanciful nuclear allegations made by the Bush administration to...

Yukio Hatoyama, whose Democratic Party won a landslide election over the long-serving Liberal Democratic Party, has been officially elected by the Japanese Diet as the nation's new Prime Minister. His number one priority is the ailing Japanese economy. Accordingly, his selection for the pivotal post of Finance Minister was clearly...

On September 15, 2008 the supposedly safe, perpetually prosperous world of post-industrial capitalism blew itself up when Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The iconic Wall Street investment bank was forced into this act of extremis when the collapse of the subprime mortgage market in the United States turned...

In the wake of last fall's $700 billion taxpayer-funded bailout of the financial and banking sector, the so-called TARP program, the decision makers in Washington have been engaging in a fiscal masquerade. The objective: convince the public that America's banks, with balance sheets choking on toxic assets, are actually well-capitalized...

At a time of severe global and economic crisis, America is even more dependent than in the past on its traditional open-door policy towards foreigners and their intellectual capital. During the height of the Cold War, artists and intellectuals from across the globe flocked to the United States, not the...

At its peak level of GDP, the U.S. economy depended on the American consumer for more than 70% of its output of goods and services. It has been the deleveraging of the American consumer, and to a growing extent, his/her unemployment, that has been the catalyst of the U.S. recession....

Having lived in both the United States and Canada, I have been watching the ongoing debate over a public health option in America with amazement at the level of disinformation that is freely flowing. For one thing, there are claims that Canada has a vast national bureaucracy running the health...

The world's third largest economy is sending worrying signals to those whose best hopes for an end to the Global Economic Crisis reside with China. Though Chinese growth projections seems spectacular in a recessionary world, with estimates ranging from 8% to above 9%, there is both more and less to...

The year might be 2009, but it might as well be 1984 in America, with an Orwellian paradox defining its perception of virtue. Thus, wife cheating Republican politicos are the defenders of marriage, corrupt judges who send innocent children to privately run prisons for a bribe are held up as...

In confronting a crisis of epic proportions, one can do the heavy work of crafting a well conceived, comprehensive strategy. But why bother, when short-term gimmicks are politically more feasible. Thus we have this absurd counter-cyclical gimmick, the so-called "cash for clunkers" boondoggle, being offered by the Washington establishment as...

There is an old adage which says there exist three types of lies; lies, damn lies and statistics. With that caveat in mind, how should one approach the government's claim that the U.S. economy contracted by "only" 1% last quarter? The question is of great importance, since this statistical marker...

A Treasury auction earlier in the week for two-year debt drew a lacklustre response, setting the stage for what followed a couple of days later, when an auction for five-year debt was conducted. To say that the results were below expectation would be a severe understatement. To convey the importance...

Amid the surreal and boastful bonuses the Wall Street tycoons have been paying themselves after being rescued by the American taxpayer from their own reckless follies, there is an eerie silence from the Obama administration. That this "they can eat cake" mentality flourishes among the financial elites while the economic...

Alan Grayson is a Democratic Congressman representing Florida's 8th congressional district. He was elected in 2008, having beaten the 4-term Republican incumbent. Despite his freshman status, Grayson is already developing a reputation as a fierce advocate for taxpayer interests in the wake of massive bailouts of the financial sector that...

When media reports surfaced last week claiming that the prophet of doom of the Global Economic Crisis, NYU economics professor Nouriel Roubini, had "improved" upon his previously gloomy economic forecast and predicted the recession would end by the close of 2009, a stock market rally was ignited. It seems it...

The speculation after the November presidential election was that Barack Obama originally wanted Bill Clinton's former Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers, to serve in the same capacity in his administration. When criticism arose within his own party due to Summers' strong ties to Wall Street, Obama selected Timothy Geithner as Treasury...

Hank Paulson is deeply empathetic about the American people's plight; absorbing intergenerational levels of debt to cover the costs of unbridled greed and recklessness on the part of Wall Street. Thus, while being raked over the coals at a congressional hearing for his role in the near destruction of the...

"Commercial real estate is the next shoe to drop."

James Helsel, Treasurer of the U.S. National Association of Realtors

Pennsylvania realtor and U.S. National Association of Realtors official James Helsel joined with other concerned parties in meeting with a congressional committee last week, conveying a collective message...