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...bond interest rates, which are what local governments have to pay to borrow, have fallen dramatically. The typical municipality is now paying 3.7% when they issue a bond, down from as high as 4.5% in January, before the BABs program was announced, according to Barclays Capital. Some of the drop in yields reflects the improvement in the economy in general, and the easing of the credit crunch. But muni-bond-market observers say BABs have played an important role as well...
Thanks in part to these forecasted cuts in spouse-to-spouse gifting, Beemer is predicting a 2.9% drop in holiday retail sales, compared with a 2.7% drop a year ago. "I know some analysts are predicting positive numbers, but I just don't see it working out as well," he says. Given his track record - Beemer's sales predictions have been accurate within a half of 1% over the past 17 of 18 holiday seasons - the economy shouldn't expect a Christmas gift. "It's a heck of a challenging time," says Mark Israel, president of Hearts on Fire...
Indeed, while annual international travel has increased, from 124 million global travelers in 2000 to 173 million last year, annual overseas visits by foreigners to the United States have ticked down, from 26 million in 2000 to 25.3 million in 2008. The absolute drop-off seems small, until you consider that it has cost the country an estimated $27 billion in lost tax revenue over the past decade. With unemployment levels now topping 10% in the U.S., the economic benefits of foreign travel have never been more urgent, yet visitors have never been scarcer. "We're welcoming fewer and fewer...
...Berkeley, Calif., to village volunteers in Battambang, Cambodia - is racing to eliminate the increasingly resistant parasite before it's too late. This week, the Global Fund signed off on a $220 million-plus project called the Affordable Medicines Facility for malaria (AMFm), a controversial two-year program that will drop the price of the recommended malaria treatment in nine malarial countries. In Cambodia, the only country in Asia participating in the program, the price of malaria medication will fall to only $0.05 per dose for distributors. Even with markups down the supply chain, the best malaria medicine will...
That's what happens when you're the world's biggest creditor: you get to drop hints like that, which would be enough by themselves to create international economic havoc if they were ever leaked. (Every time any official in Beijing muses publicly about seeking an alternative to the U.S. dollar for the $2.1 trillion China holds in reserve, currency traders have a heart attack.) If Americans became a bit more like the Chinese - if they saved more and spent less, consistently over time - they wouldn't have to worry about all that...