Aside from being the most sensational insider trading case of recent years, and the biggest ever to involve a hedge fund, the Galleon case raises questions about what exactly constitutes insider trading at a time when so many market participants, such as hedge funds and other opaque investment pools, live or die on their ability to gather information that competitors don't have. Regulations on insider trading have gradually... More

For many members of Congress, a vote for strict carbon limits will be politically suicidal if constituents continue to believe--correctly--that the vote will propel a massive shift of jobs, wealth and emissions from Peoria to Beijing. So in the coming months watch out for brazenly false claims that China is blazing the green trail.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis recently confirmed what everyone suspected, that real spending and incomes grew again from the second to the third quarters of this year. Yet we also learned on Friday that employment still fell in October, as it had in previous months. Although employment will someday turn upward, I suspect that this divergent pattern for spending and employment will continue for a while.

The chief concern is not with presidents and vice presidents of too-big-to-fail banks and other bailed-out enterprises. As large as they are, they are small potatoes relative to the big generators of systemic risk.

How did Kentucky shoe store owner Buddy Moore save nine jobs with just $889.60 in federal stimulus money? He didn’t, and that’s turning into a big headache for him.

Many economists attribute the rise in GDP in the third quarter to the $787 billion federal stimulus package approved in February. But skeptics say the growth may be short-lived because government efforts to encourage consumer spending like the “cash for clunkers” program are expiring.

We should be sceptical when policymakers claim government-spending multipliers in excess of one and suggests tax cuts may be preferable to spending increases.