Free Republic

Back in August, during the panic over mortgages, Alan Greenspan offered reassurance to an anxious public. The current turmoil, the former Federal Reserve Board chairman said, strongly resembled brief financial scares such as the Russian debt crisis of 1998 or the U.S. stock market crash of 1987. Not to worry. But in the background, one could hear the groans and feel the tremors as larger political and economic tectonic plates collided. Nine months later, Greenspan's soothing analogies no longer wash. The U.S. economy faces unprecedented debt levels, soaring commodity prices and sliding home prices, to say nothing of a weak...

March 30, 2008 Manufacturing’s comeback chance Economic Outlook David Smith WITH apologies to any of them who might be reading this, is it time we dumped the investment bankers, accountants and consultants and concentrated on the people who make things, Britain’s manufacturers? Does the credit crunch - a term Mervyn King has now taken to using - mark the point at which we should go back to basics, by rediscovering the things that made Britain great? A week in which Jaguar and Land Rover have been sold to India’s Tata may seem a curious time to be asking such a...

No Fidelity to Hub: Up to 1,500 employees to exitBy Scott Van Voorhis and Jay Fitzgerald Friday, January 6, 2006 - Updated: 12:14 AM EST The Hub’s battered job base buckled yesterday, with Fidelity Investments confirming plans to export jobs to Rhode Island in a move that could pull as many as 1,500 workers out of downtown Boston.       The move by one of Boston’s oldest and largest employers, first reported in yesterday’s Herald, will eventually send 800 workers to a new building in the works on Fidelity’s growing, Smithfield, R.I., campus. In the meantime, 400 of those workers...

CHICAGO -- Consumer confidence in the security of online financial services has declined considerably, in response to continual reports of identity theft and phishing scams, experts told UPI's The Web. "There's been a loss of trust in the channel, but not in specific brands," said Bruce Cundiff, a research analyst with Javelin Strategy & Research in Pleasanton, Calif., producer of a new report called "Phishing: Consumer Awareness and Behavior." By Gene Koprowski