Ark. Judge Socks Johnson & Johnson With $1.1 Billion Penalty
A state judge in Arkansas ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay a $1.1 billion fine after a jury found the company had minimized the risks of its antipsychotic drug Risperdal. Judge Tim Fox determined that J&J and its Janssen Pharmaceuticals unit repeatedly broke the state’s Medicaid fraud law, the Associated Press reports. One big issue: [...]
Would The Buffett Rule Help The U.S. Economy?
A tax-the-rich proposal named after Warren Buffett has little chance of passing this year, but that hasn’t stopped the debate over what impact it would have. Some economists are skeptical that a 30 percent minimum tax on people with million-dollar incomes — known as the “Buffett rule” — would do much to reduce the deficit [...]
Fed Won’t Raise Rates Soon, Reserve Bank President Says
The Federal Reserve’s policymakers seem to be reluctant to consider any more efforts to inject a monetary stimulus into the U.S. economy — but that doesn’t mean you should expect the central bank to raise interest rates any time soon. For NPR’s Newscast desk, Steve Beckner of Market News International filed this report: “Atlanta Federal [...]
Fannie, Freddie Weigh Mortgage Write-Downs
Hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure might get help by having the amount they owe reduced by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This is a hot topic in Washington, D.C., with many Democrats pushing for these so-called “principal reductions” to try to help the housing market. On Tuesday, a top federal regulator came a [...]
‘Do Not Track’ Web Browser Option Gains Steam
Government regulators in the U.S. and Europe are putting pressure on the online advertising industry to adopt a new Web browser option called “do not track.” The option is designed to let people request more privacy from the websites they visit. But there’s no consensus yet on how much privacy users should expect. An Internet [...]
Why Matzo Makers Love Regulation
The matzo business may be the most heavily regulated business in the world. The regulators are rabbis, who stand on the factory floor and make sure that everything adheres to kosher law. The rules may sound burdensome, but I learned on a recent visit to a matzo factory that they can also be great for [...]
For Freelancers, Landing A Workspace Gets Harder
The recession brought widespread unemployment across the U.S., but it also prompted a spike in the number of freelance or independent workers. More than 30 percent of the nation’s workers now work on their own, and the research firm IDC projects the number of nontraditional office workers — telecommuters, freelancers and contractors — will reach [...]
Weekly Standard: A Disappointing Jobs Report
Irwin M. Stelzer is a writer for The Weekly Standard. It is no easy thing to peer through the fog of recent economic data. Confidence that the economic recovery would accelerate ran into a not-so-good job report Friday. To the chagrin of the president’s reelection campaign team, only 121,000 workers were added to private sector [...]
The Nation: Treading Dangerous Water With Jobs
George Zornick is a writer for The Nation. The jobs data released this morning is a clear disappointment: only 120,000 jobs were added, which is less than what analysts predicted and barely enough to keep up with population growth. The unemployment rate went down slightly, to 8.2 percent, but only because the labor force shrank [...]
Like The Instagram-Facebook Deal? Depends On Your Filter
Facebook’s decision to acquire Instagram for $1 billion set off strong reactions among Instagram users Monday, when the deal was announced. And if any users of Instagram’s photo-sharing service were in love with the deal, they seemed to be keeping pretty quiet about it. Within a few hours, interest spiked in Instaport, a service that [...]
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