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Don’t look now, but stocks are down a whopping 1 percent in Germany and are flat in Britain and France. U.S. markets are poised to open higher. Most Asian stock markets are holding up well too. The Shanghai Composite closed down just 0.2 percent; the Hang Seng closed up 0.8 percent; Bombay’s BSE 30 closed finished the day up 2.1 percent. Flashback: “The US stock market could suffer a devastating crash with shares losing a third of their value this week if Hank Paulson’s financial bailout plan fails, US Treasury officials have warned.”

Today’s stock market drop is a record point drop, but does not even crack the top 10 single-day percentage drops in American history. Let’s stop pounding the panic buttons. *** On FNC right now, Neil Cavuto emphasizes that lending is going on and puts a damper on Heather Nauert’s panic-button heaving about credit-freeze anecdotes. Are there businesses getting turned down for loans? Yes. Here’s a novel thought: Maybe banks are finally learning they shouldn’t fork over money to bad risks. *** Reader Jamie e-mails this link to a history of US stock market crashes and adds: I like that the...

Looking for new and innovative ways to spread the doom-and-gloom news associated with the economic downturn, BusinessWeek magazine launched a recession blog on its Web site back in May to give a personalized glimpse into "recession" hardships. "This blog is one of the places we'll tell these stories," BusinessWeek.com reporter Tim Catts wrote on the blog's first post on May 2. "Here, we'll jump into the conversation about where the economy is and where it's going. Yes, sometimes we'll look at the latest data. Sometimes we'll share observations from the road. The goal is to give readers real stories about...

The avalanche of bankruptcies has begun. Six US companies of substance have defaulted on bonds over the past fortnight, against 17 for the whole of last year. As a "non-believer" in the instant rebound story, I am not easily shocked by gloomy reports. But the latest note by Standard & Poor's - The Bust After The Boom - gave me a fright. The sick list is varied, though most for now are victims of the housing crash: Linens 'n Things, ($650m), Kimball Hill ($703m), Home Interiors ($310m), French Lick Resorts ($142m), Recycled Paper Greetings ($187m), and Tropicana Entertainment ($2.49bn). As...

According to Kathryn Joyce, sneer-and-smear artist for The Nation, those who are concerned about the worldwide decline in birthrates are -- to put it mildly -- racist, neo-Nazis, who have a hidden agenda and (under the guise of demographic winter) are engaged in our age-old quest to control women's bodies. The Nation is this nation's oldest and largest-circulation left-wing journal (outside of The New York Times, of course). Joyce's screed, "Missing: The 'Right' Babies," will appear in the March 3 print edition, but is currently available online. Joyce believes -- with the faith of one immune to facts and logic...

ESCONDIDO, Calif., Oct. 25 — One is the most powerful Republican in the country. The other is among the most popular. But it took an inferno in Southern California to thaw the ice between President Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is no secret in California or Washington that the two have never been buddy-buddy, dating back to when Mr. Schwarzenegger was a top fitness adviser to Mr. Bush’s father. Mr. Bush thought little of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s first bid for governor and did not endorse him. Mr. Schwarzenegger has taken jabs at the president on such issues as climate change,...

European, Asian and Canadian companies are taking advantage of the weaker dollar to buy their U.S. counterparts at a record pace, increasing investment in the United States but also raising fears about a potential loss of jobs and autonomy. "We could be looking at the world's largest tag sale if we continue to see declines in the dollar," said Donald Klepper-Smith, chief economist at DataCore Partners. In the latest large deal aided by a weak dollar, Commerce Bancorp, which is based in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, agreed Tuesday to be acquired by Toronto-Dominion Bank of Canada in a cash-and-shares deal...

ASHINGTON -- Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), the influential former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Thursday urged President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq to send a message that the United States is running out of patience with the government in Baghdad. Warner, who has been critical of the troop buildup ordered by Bush in January, said he was not ready to back a Democratic-led effort in Congress to order withdrawals. However, his blunt assessment of the Iraqi government's performance could lead to an erosion of GOP support for the President's war strategy at a crucial...

Is there any chance of the Republicans catching up to the Democrats online in 2008? From any angle, the picture looks rosy if you're a Democrat and bleak if you're a Republican. -- According to Hitwise.com, which tracks the surfing behavior of 10 million Americans across 1 million sites, online interest in the Democrats is way ahead of the Republicans. For example, for the week ended Aug. 4, the Democrats drew a whopping 66 percent of all the traffic to candidate websites. -- In terms of donations online, the Democratic field reports raising more than $28 million, versus about $9.4...

Turmoil in the U.S. home-mortgage market is starting to pinch even buyers of high-end homes with good credit records, in the latest sign of rising anxiety among lenders and investors. This surge in rates on so-called jumbo loans is particularly notable because rates on 10-year Treasury bonds have been falling. Normally, mortgage rates move in tandem with Treasurys, but market jitters have caused investors to ditch mortgage securities. Meanwhile, American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. finally succumbed yesterday to the mortgage-sector chaos that had crippled it in recent weeks and filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of U.S. bankruptcy...

"If every CDO [manager] was forced to mark to market their subprime holdings, it would be - well, I can't think of a strong enough word to describe what it would be," US policymaker quoted in ft.com June 28, 2007 Thomas Midgley Jr. is not a name well known to those in the world of finance. But Midgley shares a distinction with a name the paper boys do know well-Drexel Burnham Lambert-the US investment bank that sold billions of dollars of junk bonds to investors which turned out to be, after all, junk. Midgley's fame came from inventing leaded gasoline-which...

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. posted its worst monthly same-store sales results in at least 28 years, tallying a 3.5% decline in April due to this year's early Easter as well as generally challenging economic conditions for consumers. Wal-Mart's 3.5% drop in the four-week period ending May 4 at U.S. stores fell below its earlier forecast of "flat" sales to a 2% decline. In a recorded phone message Thursday, Wal-Mart blamed bad weather last month in most U.S. regions and the early Easter on April 8, which pushed many Easter sales into March. [Snip] Aside from scheduling changes, several economic factors likely...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A severe flu pandemic "would almost certainly lead to a major economic recession," according to a new report from a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. The report, titled "Pandemic Flu and the Potential for U.S. Economic Recession," projected that a pandemic would kill 2.25 million people and force 87.75 million people to miss work for three weeks That could cause the U.S. gross domestic product to drop more than 5.5 percent, resulting in an economic loss of $683 billion.

US Corporate Profits At Highest Levels, Too (CBS4) WASHINGTON -- The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty is the highest in thirty years, in which millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line, and the gulf between this country’s ''haves'' and ''have-nots'' gets wider. The McClatchy Company - owners of the Miami Herald – a CBS4 news partner - went through an analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, and found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four, with two children and...

When that winter Tuesday arrives, just 16 days after the Super Bowl and 28 days after the next presidential inauguration, each full-power TV station in the land will need to turn off its traditional analog signal and send all programs over the air as digits. Analog TV sets can’t translate digital signals. Without the proper equipment to convert those digits back into wave-like analog signals, 73 million analog TVs dispersed among 109 million U.S. TV households, including cable and satellite TV homes, are expected to go dark. If millions of consumers find they suddenly can’t watch TV because of this...

Economic storm brewing in America By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 07/12/2006 America's stock markets typically start crumbling four months before each recession, anticipating the crunch in profits. Shares then grind relentlessly down for 10 months or so until they have on average knocked 26 per cent off the S&P 500 index, Wall Street's listing of top companies. So if you think the US property slump is looking scary after October's 9.7 per cent drop in new home prices, it may be time to take a little money off the table. It has been a lucrative autumn rally, but...

AP Stocks Decline in Late Afternoon Trading Thursday November 9, 3:46 pm ET By Joe Bel Bruno, AP Business Writer Dow, Nasdaq Stumble in Late Afternoon Trading As Investors Worry About Policy Shifts in D.C. NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street turned lower Thursday as investors cashed in profits amid disappointing consumer sentiment data, rising oil prices and new worries about policy shifts in Washington. The lackluster session was to be expected after three days of gains, including a new closing high Wednesday for the Dow Jones industrials. Investors had driven stocks broadly higher this week on optimism that Democrats...

Public anxiety over the Iraq war, already reflected in polls and demands from some Democrats to withdraw U.S. troops, is now prompting calls for change from some unlikely quarters: Republican congressional candidates. Across the country, GOP candidates are breaking with the White House over how long troops should remain in Iraq and who should lead the war effort. Even some of President Bush's staunchest allies in solidly Republican states are publicly questioning the administration's war policies, while others are scrambling to find new ways to talk about Iraq in the face of rising voter frustration over management of the war....

Republican Reynolds Faces Strong Challenge in NY26 Rematch:In an election in New York's 26th Congressional District today, 9/28/06, Republican incumbent Tom Reynolds and Democratic challenger Jack Davis are in a fierce fight, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for WGRZ-TV Buffalo. 40 days to the 11/7/06 election, Reynolds gets 45%. Davis gets 43%. Green Party candidate Christine Murphy gets 8%. This contest is a rematch of the 2004 election, when Reynolds, who was first elected to Congress in 1998, defeated Davis 56% to 44%. Reynolds gets 62% of Republican votes. Davis gets 64% of Democrat votes. 31% of Republicans,...

The latest Keystone Poll finds incumbent Republican Congressman Jim Gerlach locked in a tight battle for re-election with challenger Democrat Lois Murphy. The poll of 431-registered voters conducted by the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College finds Gerlach with a 45-to-38 percent edge. When narrowed to likely voters, Gerlach's advantage is down to 44-to-41 percent. Gerlach scored a two point win over Murphy in 2004. Poll respondents list the war in Iraq, the war on terror and healthcare as the top issues. The sixth district covers portions of Berks, Montgomery and Chester counties.

Democrats Call for New Direction From Rubber Stamp Republican Congress In two years, Republican-controlled 109th Congress has done nothing for American people Washington, D.C.—Yesterday’s release of three pages of the National Intelligence Estimate that state plainly that the Bush Administration’s failed strategy in Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism and made America less safe lays bare the need for a Congress that won’t simply rubber stamp failed White House policies. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Democratic leaders from House and Senate today joined to call for a new direction. From Iraq to the...

YOU WOULD think that a consensus report from all 16 U.S. intelligence services concluding that he has blown the "war on terror" would be a really big deal to the president. But that assumes that George W. Bush values intelligence. Clearly, he does not. So the news that a 2006 National Intelligence Estimate concludes the threat of terror against the United States has increased since 9/11, largely thanks to his irrational invasion of Iraq, has not disturbed Bush's branded "what, me worry'' countenance. Instead, predictably, the administration's response to the leaked conclusions of the shared assessments of both civilian and...

In new ads, ski company says global warming could dry up snow during the next century... The Aspen Skiing Co. hopes potential customers are ready for a snow job. On Wednesday, the company unveiled a new advertising campaign for the 2006-07 season that centers around the message that snow — and skiing — will disappear around 2100 if humans don’t take drastic action to slow global warming. Three full-page ads, which show a melting snowflake imposed over Highland Bowl, will run in SKI and Outside magazines in the next few months. One ad portrays a “certificate of death” for snow....

NEW YORK From the newspaper that brought you the first-ever perfume critic comes what appears to be another first -- "futurist-in-residence." The New York Times, apparently seeking to boost its image as a forward-looking paper, announced Tuesday the appointment of Michael Rogers, a former Washington Post Company executive and Newsweek.com general manager to the newly-created title. In a release, the paper described the new position as a one-year consultant appointment to work with The New York Times Company's research and development unit. Spokeswoman Stacy Green compared the appointment to that of the paper's public editor, in that it would be...

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices nudged higher for a second day on Monday, struggling to end their steepest slump in more than a decade amid robust winter fuel stocks and easing geopolitical and weather risks to oil supplies. NYMEX crude for October delivery was up 15 cents at $63.48 a barrel in Globex electronic trading by 2310 GMT, building on Friday's 11-cent gain and again attempting to halt a $9 collapse in prices over the past three weeks and a near 20 percent reversal since mid-July's record high $78.40 a barrel. From peak to trough, oil prices have fallen by...

According to a self-appointed prophet in the holy city of Abilene, Texas, the Great Tribulation begins today. Sorry folks but nuclear war will start today according to Buffalo Bill Hawkins and his devoted followers--all surnamed Hawkins--at the House of Yahweh. Apparently God (excuse me Yahweh and Yeshua) agree with Osama Bin Laden and Iran's President. And though the USA may try as it might to be the shining light upon the hill, the best nation on earth due to its constitutional freedoms, it's too little too late! God is really angry with us, and HE means to prove it this...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Four years into an economic recovery, the number of people living in poverty has finally stopped climbing. Household incomes edged up slightly in 2005, but 37 million people were still living below the poverty line, about the same as the year before, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. It was the first year without an increase in poverty since 2000, just before President Bush took office. The numbers immediately became political fodder, with a little more than two months to go before midterm congressional elections that will determine whether Republicans continue to control the House and the Senate....

What is the United States of America? Is it merely an accident of geography, or a job market for the world, or a multiethnic, multilingual lot of people who agreed (more or less, and probably temporarily) to live under a constitution? Those aren't goals to die for; yet many men for centuries have fought and died for America. Where did they get the courage, the stamina, and the perseverance to create and maintain America as an oasis of freedom and prosperity in a hostile world? Patrick Buchanan believes that America is fundamentally a nation "held together by bonds of history...

The Democrats are determined to make the election of 2006 a referendum on Bush and the war in Iraq. And, as of now, that is how history will likely record it. But beneath the surface of the national election, a different plebiscite is being held, within the conservative movement, on the ideology George Bush imposed on Ronald Reagan's party. What are the elements of Bushite neoconservatism? First, an interventionist foreign policy, using U.S. power to impose democracy and "end tyranny on this earth." Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon are the laboratories and proving ground. Second, "Big Government Conservatism," as seen in...

This past Sunday, Major General William McCoy, the commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region Division/Project and Contracting Office in Iraq, sent a letter to the editor of the Washington Post, a copy of which we obtained, in response to a Washington Post article by Andy Mosher on 2 August 2006.After spending almost three days traveling with and being interviewed by one of the co-writers of a very poorly written article Much Undone in Rebuilding Iraq, Audit says , Washington Post, August 2, 2006), I’m astounded at how distorted a good story can become and what...

WASHINGTON - The economy’s growth slowed sharply in the second quarter, logging just a 2.5 percent pace as consumers tightened their belts and spending on home building dived. Inflation, however, shot up. The latest snapshot of gross domestic product released by the Commerce Department on Friday showed that the overall pace of economic activity in the April-to-June quarter was less than half that of the January-to-March quarter, when the economy zipped along at a 5.6 percent annual rate, the fastest in 2 1/2 years. Gross domestic product measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Starbucks Corp. may be next on the target list of a consumer-health group that this week sued the operator of the KFC fried chicken restaurant chain for frying foods in oils high in harmful trans fat. The Center for Science in the Public Interest said it is planning to campaign against the global cafe chain because of the increased risk of obesity, heart disease and cancer associated with high-calorie, high-fat products it sells. And the possibility of legal action against Starbucks, similar to the case it is taking against KFC owner Yum Brands Inc., has not...

NORTHEAST FLORIDA -- The rise in foreclosures that analysts predicted would follow an easing in lending restrictions, low interest rates and creative mortgage products has emerged in metropolitan Jacksonville. Recently released data from California-based RealtyTrac Inc. showed the five-county metro area experienced a 39 percent increase in foreclosures over last year's first quarter, or 3,579 foreclosures for the first three months of this year compared with 2,570 for the same period in 2005. The increase was just above the national foreclosure increase of 38 percent for the first quarter, which RealtyTrac analysts said could mean foreclosures going above 1.2 million...

OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada reportedly wants the Kyoto climate-change accord scrapped in favor of a separate, voluntary deal and will not support efforts to set stricter emissions targets from 2012. The Globe and Mail newspaper said it had obtained private Foreign Affairs Department instructions to Canadian negotiators in Bonn, Germany, where an international 10-day meeting opened this week to plot the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol. "The private instructions from the Foreign Affairs Department to the Canadian delegation show Canada will also oppose the widely held view that targets in the second phase, which begins after 2012, should be...

Former Vice President Al Gore's whirlwind national campaign hit Denver on Thursday. His mission: promotion, officially as part of a press tour for his upcoming Paramount Classics film "An Inconvenient Truth" and a book of the same title. Unofficially, Gore is evangelizing a long-standing passion. The movie is based on a high-tech "slide show," as Gore calls it, which he estimates to have presented more than 1,000 times over the decades. With stunning animated graphics, Gore deliberately and often mercilessly presents the scientific basis for global warming, its current manifestations and the future risks of what he calls "the climate...

Regime Crisis by Patrick J. Buchanan At this writing, France has capitulated to mass demonstrations and canceled a labor law that would have let employers dismiss workers under 26. For the French, the cave-in is truly bad news. It means the political system is not strong enough to take even modest measures to liberate France from a socialist system that is a freshwater fish in the salt waters of the Global Economy. If despair and gloom are widespread in France, they are justified. With a birthrate below what is needed to continue as a French nation, its 5-8 million Arab...

Illegal immigrants made their point Monday: Without them, Americans would pay higher prices and a lot of work wouldn't get done. As nationwide demonstrations thinned the work force in businesses from meat-packing plants to construction sites to behind the counter at McDonald's, economists said there can be no dispute within the context of the contentious immigration issue that the group wields significant clout in the U.S. economy. "If illegal immigration came to a standstill, it would disrupt the economy," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "It would lead to higher prices for many goods and services, and some...

An October Surprise? by Patrick J. Buchanan President Bush says Iranians are behind the more lethal IEDs, the roadside bombs killing our troops in Iraq. Rumsfeld warns the Iranian Revolutionary Guard may now be in Iraq. Cheney says Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. McCain says, “the military option is on the table.” And Israel is getting impatient. Writes Yaakov Katz in the March 10 Jerusalem Post, “The United States has until now not done enough to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, a senior Defense Ministry official has told the Jerusalem Post ...” Katz quotes...

With new home slaes down 10.5 percent in February, and with home prices declining for the fourth month in a row, it's high time for a sober look at the consequences of a major housing correction. The Federal Reserve, Wall Street economists, and other observers of the U.S. economy are closely watching the housing market because it has been a key driver of economic growth over the past several years. Roughly a quarter of the jobs created since the 2001 recession have been in construction, real estate, and mortgage finance. Even more important, consumers have withdrawn $2.5 trillion in equity...

Dallas resident faces EMC Mortgage Co. Wednesday at start of jury trial over possession of dream home and hundreds of thousands in phantom rent and legal fees that exceed the $86,000 mortgage value of the home. Dallas, TX (PRWEB) March 21, 2006. Lawyers for Robert John “Jack” Wright are due to appear in a Dallas court Wednesday for the start of a jury trial in which Jack Wright is accused of reneging on a one-sided December 2004 settlement agreement in which EMC Mortgage Company (“EMC”) now alleges claims for possession of Wright’s home of over 19 years and hundreds of...

Are foreign countries and companies using the "Wal-Mart model" to undermine American industry? US economic incentives and trade policies encourage foreign producers to invest in this country. While the nation may be experiencing short-term benefits from foreign investment, the long-term harm may far exceed expectations, as is the case when Wal-Mart has invested in some local communities. Undermining American Industry The result of these US economic incentive and trade policies seems to be dramatic erosion of American industry through predatory competition and utilization of cheap overseas suppliers, analogous to the displacement of many local merchants that sometimes follows the introduction...

Part I of this series reviewed our stimulus driven, real estate-reliant, post-bubble economy. Part II looked at the cycles of bull and bear markets, and how history suggests trouble ahead for U.S. stocks -- despite the strong start to 2006. Today we focus on how it could all come together or, as the case may be, come apart. I'll detail how to get to my 2006 target of Dow 6800 -- the lowest (by far) in the Business Week survey -- and lay out a scenario for how the S&P 500 could take a 30% haircut this year. Before the...

Sales of new homes plunged in November by the largest amount in nearly 12 years, providing the most dramatic evidence yet that the red hot housing market over the last five years is starting to cool down. The Commerce Department reported Friday that new single-family homes were sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.245 million units last month, a drop of 11.3 percent from October, when sales had surged to an all-time high. Last month's decline was even bigger than the 8.7 percent drop-off that Wall Street analysts had been expecting. While sales of both new and existing...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US death toll in Iraq reportedly hit 2,000 amid a sharp spike in violence that killed 14 Iraqis as the nation awaited results of a key vote on a charter aimed at curbing sectarian violence. The US network CNN, quoting Pentagon sources, reported Tuesday that the number of soldiers killed since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq had reached 2,000 with the deaths of two more soldiers, a toll likely to add pressure on the US administration over its role in the violence-wracked country. For the first time, a majority of Americans believe the Iraq war...

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 16, 2005 -- The constitution voted on yesterday in Iraq may well constitute an obstacle to securing human rights and individual liberties should it be approved, Freedom House said today. Immediate and comprehensive efforts should be undertaken to ensure that post-referendum amendments and enabling legislation for the constitution address the most problematic provisions. On October 15, Iraqis voted in a national referendum on whether to adopt a constitution that emerged in mid-September after months of negotiation and was expected to be approved. A political agreement reached last week commits Iraq's leaders to consider new amendments to the...

According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, 54 percent of Americans think President Bush values party loyalty and personal friendship over competence. The poll was prompted, as if you didn’t know, by Bush’s habit of appointing friends and retainers to major jobs in his administration. Some of these seem qualified enough: Condi Rice, Alberto Gonzales. Others seem more questionable, none more so than Michael Brown and Harriet Miers. In one sense this is nothing new for Bush. From the start, his administration was marked by a web of family connections, and certain members of the press were quick to cry...

(10/07) A High-Risk Market ...... Even before the twin hurricanes the consumer savings rate had turned negative, household debt was at record highs and home owners were using soaring home prices as huge ATM machines yielding hundreds of billions of dollars in cash. With housing prices starting to soften, energy prices still high and real wages under pressure, consumers’ ability to spend seems severely restricted in the period ahead. These trends have been further exacerbated by the two hurricanes that have created negative domino effects throughout the economy. So far consumers have felt the impact of higher gasoline prices, but...

President Bush had a chance to change history for the better. Instead, he chose a poorly qualified political pal who contributed to Al Gore's 1988 campaign, spent money on Bentsen, and never served as a judge or legal scholar. Bush's presidential career will be summed up as: giving the store away in education to please Ten Kennedy; passing an ill-defined and unlimited-cost Medicare prescription benefit; shoring up the sagging career of Senator Specter; paving the path of Hurricane Katrina with gold -- our gold; and wrecking the U.S. Supreme Court just as effectively as daddy Bush. I trust we can...

If you want to understand the Left, the best place to start is with an understanding of hysteria. Leading leftists either use hysteria as a political tactic or are actually hysterics. Take almost any subject the Left discusses and you will find hysteria. The Patriot Act: According to leftist spokesmen and groups, the Patriot Act is a grave threat to liberty and democracy. It is frequently likened to the tactics of a fascist state. This is pure hysteria. The Los Angeles Times recently published statistics concerning the use of the Act. Through 2004, of the 7,136 complaints to the Justice...

CAN AMERICANS COMPETE?Is America the World's 97-lb. Weakling? In the relentless, global, tech-driven, cost-cutting struggle for business, America isn’t ready—here’s what to do about it. By Geoffrey Colvin It’s a crisis of confidence unlike anything America has felt in a generation. Residents of tiny Newton, Iowa, wake up to the distressing news that a Chinese firm—What’s it called? Haier? That’s Chinese?—wants to buy their biggest employer, the famed but foundering Maytag appliance company. Two days later, out of nowhere, a massive, government-owned Chinese oil company muscles into the bidding for America’s Unocal. The very next day a ship in Xinsha,...