As Google defies China's censorship and risks being blocked, its troubles send a chilling message to other foreign firms there
Facing abolition, Britain’s financial regulator gets tough
The motion is: This house believes that innovation works best when government does least. Join the debate and cast your vote
Senator Chris Dodd has staked his legacy on passing a financial-reform bill. His place in history hangs in the balance
A region that a year ago looked as bad as Greece does now has averted catastrophe—but is not yet completely safe
A derivatives farce makes its way to court in Milan. Others are sure to follow
Mediobanca’s grip on Generali shows the effects of cross-shareholdings
Ron Dennis of McLaren, which launches itself as a carmaker this week, is driven by the pursuit of perfection
Inflation figures fuel a debate over when the Fed should tighten
Google stopped censoring searches on its Chinese portal, redirecting users to Google.com.hk, an uncensored portal in Hong Kong. The company said it realised China might block access to its site. It also said it intended to continue research and development work in China.
Four employees—three Chinese and one Australian—of Rio Tinto, a mining giant, pleaded guilty in a court in Shanghai to charges of taking bribes. Separate accusations of commercial spying are expected to be heard on Tuesday.
Argentina said America’s Securities and Exchange Commission had approved its plan to swap up to $20 billion-worth of bonds on which Argentina defaulted in 2001, and that it hoped to launch the debt swap in the next 15 days.
Buttonwood's notebook
America's national income is up $200 billion since March 2009, corporate profits are up $280 billion but wages are down $90 billion
Charlemagne's notebook
Why are financial lobbyists so rude?
Their arrogance is doing them no favours among European regulators
Gulliver
Ways to avoid hotels' scandalously high internet charges
World economy recovers but challenges loom
The EIU's new forecast is that the world economy will grow by 3.8% at PPP this year before slowing slightly in 2011. Interest rates will have to stay low
Economist Intelligence Unit
Russia is struggling to contain a surging currency. If the IMF can re-think its opposition to capital controls, might Vladimir Putin?
Economist Intelligence Unit
The world may soon achieve something long dreamed of: economic growth without rising oil use
Reuters
Private equity's egregious tax break
New Yorker
For all its stolid reputation, Germany has become surprisingly flexible. But it needs to keep working at it More»
Information has gone from scarce to superabundant. That brings huge new benefits—but also big headaches More»
Financial risk got ahead of the world’s ability to manage it. Can it be tamed again? More»
Online social networks are changing the way people communicate, work and play, and mostly for the better More»
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When will people stop seeing this as entirely political and realise that China is blocking these sites in order to cement domestic businesses in the market? More»
A bold and laudable move, and overdue. It was always hard to square "We are not evil" with wholesale state censorship inflicted on an entire population. More»
As I recall this very same Guinea iron ore project went sour not too long ago. Maybe Rio Tinto is unloading a lemon on the Chinese and saving the plums for itself? More»
China must understand that to be able to invest in other countries it must open its market to foreign investors, political interference must be kept to a minimum, and legal and property rights respected More»
I'm all for treating corporations just like people. We have corporations that have injured and even killed people and the only penalty they can receive is what amounts to a modest fine. More»
Why is some degree of regulatory overlap ridiculous? It may be sensible. It is easy to capture a single agency. And given the tendency to groupthink evident in the crisis it could be sensible to have more than one regulator. More»
It always shocks me how the politicians who are the architects of historic failures are then trusted to provide the solution. More»
I'm not sure the situation (accounting gimmicks, breaching of risk limits) was significantly different at Lehman's competitors. It would be interesting to have a report on everyone's practices, not just on the one bank that happened to fail. More»