Louise Story

As the economy continues to struggle, almost 14 million Americans remain unemployed. More than six million of those have been unemployed for more than half a year. Two weeks ago, we spoke with two small business owners, Frank Goodnight, President of Diversified Graphics in Salisbury, North Carolina, and Marva Allen, owner of the Hue Man Bookstore in Harlem. They weren’t hiring. Carla Emil hopes to change that, with a website she set up in February, OneJobForAmerica.org, which encourages American businesses to sign up to the website and publicly pledge to hire one more person.

Tens of thousands of Greeks are gathering in the streets of Athens today, as part of a 48-hour strike to protest an austerity package that includes deep spending cuts and higher taxes, and would need to pass in order for Greece to obtain a bail-out from the European Union. Parliament will vote on the austerity package tomorrow. Polls show eighty percent of Greeks are apposed to the package. 

The federal agency overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed to act on almost 100 complaints filed from July 2008 to October 2010, pertaining to possible foreclosure abuse and mortgage fraud at the taxpayer-owned mortgage finance agencies. The companies did not refer the complaints to criminal investigators or other law-enforcement authorities, according to a report issued late Tuesday by the inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. 

Greece's financial woes continue to teeter on the brink of collapse as they face the possibility of becoming the first Euro-zone country to default. Finance ministers gave the fledgling nation two weeks to shape up its finances or face not receiving anymore bailout money. On top of this, Prime Minister George Papandreou faces a vote of confidence in Parliament today, and the result of that could have major consequences as to which direction the country will be going.

In discussing the troubled Greek economy's effect on U.S. markets, Standard & Poor's equity market strategist Alec Young told the AP that "There’s no easy answers or they would have found them by now. We’re recommending that clients continue to expect volatility in the U.S. market as a result of the news coming out of Greece." The length and depth of that volatility remains to be seen. In Brussels, European Union leaders scrambled to draft a second bailout on Thursday, coming up with a 12 billion euro plan they hope will avert international disaster. For more on just how big this news is for world financial markets we’re joined by our resident experts Louise Story and Marcus Mabry.  Louise Story is the Wall Street and finance reporter for our partner The New York Times and Marcus Mabry is editor-at-large of the International Herald Tribune.

The banking industry, like basically all commercial industry, is always looking for ways to innovate their products and services. Take ATMs or the kind of innovation that allows customers to view the image of their check right on their banking receipt - those cost money to develop. And the banking industry has been lobbying to change the patent laws tied to these sorts of business innovations.

Earlier this week, we told you that hackers had infiltrated Citibank’s security system and gained the sensitive account information of more than 200,000 of their customers. What we didn’t know then was that Citigroup officials had discovered the security breach three weeks earlier and failed to notify their customers.

More American companies are going public on exchanges outside of the US. The number of IPOs in the US is reaching historically low levels, as more companies choose to sell their shares on exchanges in Hong Kong, Seoul and other foreign markets. This could affect the US's stature as the world's financial capital and possibly cost the country jobs.

It's been almost a year after Congress passed the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory law and many of the legislation’s rules are behind schedule. Regulators have extended the comment periods on the rules under pressure from Wall Street and Congress. "You have a lot of people on Wall Street who are concerned that they need lots of time to put rules in effect," says Louise Story, Wall Street and finance reporter for The New York Times. However, "the longer it takes for the regulations to go into effect, the longer the banks have to make money off of the derivatives." She details the need for the bill and the cause of the delays.

The arrest of former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic has caught the attention of most Europeans, who are waiting to see if he will be extradited to the Hague to face charges of genocide. Marcus Mabry, editor-at-large of the International Herald Tribune, the international edition of The New York Times, believes this is a test for Serbia and their commitment to the International War Crimes Tribunal.

We asked our listeners recently what is the one thing you can't live without. One Takeaway listener, named Mike said, "I absolutely could not live without ice cold beer. God bless America!" Indeed, God bless America, where if you're a beer drinker like Mike, you might find the cost of your pint going up. Is that because of the rice in global food prices? Or an increased supply because of down in the dumps recession times?

It's been a bad year for insurance companies as they could face as much as $10 billion from weather-related losses this year alone from severe tornadoes, hurricanes and floods. But what does this mean for the catastrophe bond market? Louise Story, Wall Street and finance reporter for The New York Times explains.

As Greece’s economic stress continues, the  rifts between the eurozone members are deepening. Persistent worries over Greece's looming debt drove down Europe's stock indexes by two percent and the euro dropped nearly one percent against the dollar, and Wall Street too took a hit. Meanwhile, there are doubts over whether the eurozone can resolve this regional debt crisis. Louise Story, Wall Street and finance reporter for The New York Times, charts the growing rift.

Although the Mississippi flooding is no where near finished, the economic blow to the region is already very high. Besides the loss to personal and commercial properties, over 100,000 acres of farmlands were flooded on the weekend and grain elevators all along the river are knee deep. The trade commerce that uses the river as a main transportation waterway is being slowed and in some places, barges are moored completely. Over 60 percent of the U.S exported grain is transported via the Mississippi - and the already volatile commodity markets are acting accordingly.

LinkedIn, the social networking site for professionals is scheduled to set share prices today, and then start selling Thursday. This event comes as there is great demand by investors for more companies like LinkedIn and Facebook to go public. And while investors are itching to invest in these companies, these same businesses are going to great lengths to try and woo young talent to work for them. Louise Story, Wall Street and finance reporter for The New York Times, has the latest.

It's been four years since the financial crisis submerged the U.S. into a deep recession, that its still trying to recover from, yet many wonder, why no major cases have been brought against any of the banks that were culprits in the collapse. That may all change. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has subpoenaed three major Wall Street banks. Louise Story, Wall Street and finance reporter for The New York Times, has the latest.

The embattled managing director for the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was denied bail yesterday, after being arrested and charged over the weekend with raping a Manhattan hotel maid. His arrest has shocked and angered many in France, where he was considered by many a strong candidate for the presidency. Some of those reacting from Strauss-Kahn's country believe he has been unfairly treated, and find it impossible to believe that he committed such a crime.

In what has amounted to one of the largest and most prominent cases of insider trading, a billionaire hedge fund manager was found guilty Wednesday of fraud and conspiracy by a federal jury in Manhattan. Raj Rajaratnam is the co-founder of the hedge fund Galleon Group — he was also considered one of the savviest traders on Wall Street. But for nine months, the federal government secretly recorded Rajaratnam’s phone conversations with traders and powerful corporate insiders. We get the back story with Louise Story, Wall Street and finance reporter for The New York Times.

Government officials from both countries met this week in Washington for the third U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. China asked the U.S to lead an international economic recovery, but it may have been a hard sell considering that China's trade statistics, also released this week, show the country's exports hitting record levels, but its imports lagging. China's trade surplus from the first quarter of 2011 is at $11.43 billion — fueling concerns by the U.S. and other countries that China is using its weak currency to claim a large share of global job creation. The U.S. pushed China to appreciate its currency, and support the flow of American imports to China.

Insurance companies have traditionally set up subsidiaries in off-shore tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands in part to get around strict state regulations regarding their investment strategies. But according to a report by our partner, The New York Times, a number of states have begun luring insurance giants back by allowing them to establish "captive" subsidiaries — risk management systems that allow companies to invest and reinsure without as much capital backing. Now some state insurance commissioners are warning that captives could put insurance policy holders at risk in the same way that the housing market was endangered by mortgage-backed securities.