Here’s a weekly look at the top business, finance and world economy news.
With the US debt ceiling crisis dominating the headlines this week, little attention has been paid to the crisis that still continues to engulf Europe.
McAfee, a cybersecurity company, issued a report on Wednesday saying that it had identified a single perpetrator of cyberattacks that lasted up to five years on 72 organisations that included governments and businesses. The pattern of targets suggests the attacker was a “state actor” either Eastern Europe or East Asia, and not only broke in but remained embedded in computer systems, quietly siphoning secret data for years.
Japan has begun efforts to weaken the ever-growing yen by intervening in currency markets, after the yen rose to its highest level against the US dollar since World War II.
According to Reuters, Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda told the media on Thursday that the Japanese government had decided to act on its own after one-sided rises in the yen threatened to derail the country’s economic recovery from the earthquake and tsunami disaster suffered in March.
The digital advertising ecosystem has evolved in mature markets around the world at an accelerated pace over the last 18 months, both in terms of volume of digital ad spend, as well as complexity of the value chain. Let’s face it, the mature markets have exploded.
There are two proof points to back up this statement.
The US isn’t defaulting, but the stock market has not cheered anyway. US stocks fell hard Tuesday, marking their longest losing streak since the heart of the 2008 credit crisis, on investor worries about upcoming federal spending cuts and a likely stall in the recovery. The eight-day losing stretch was the longest since weeks after the collapse of Lehman Bros. and, by some measures, the peak of the US credit crisis.
As US politicians from both parties continue to pat themselves on the back for successfully reaching a compromised debt deal, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a top nonpartisan think tank, warned on Monday that the deal struck to raise the nation’s debt limit may end up costing the economy 1.8 million jobs by 2012.
The House passed a $2.4 trillion debt-ceiling increase Monday night with the Senate planning to follow on Tuesday, after one of the most ferocious fights ever over government spending. Congressional approval, along with President Barack Obama’s signature, would raise the government’s debt limit just before the U.S. government would begin defaulting on its obligations.
The popularity of daily deal websites have skyrocketed over the years. Yet as EconomyWatch.com has previously pointed out, there is a distinct possibility of shoppers’ or deal fatigue when it come to these sites.
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and a time when Muslims around the world fast for 30 days and devote themselves to prayer. In countries where Islam is the majority religion, daily work schedules are often turned upside down during Ramadan.
Tax breaks and hefty reductions are typically for the rich, right? It seems as though the wealthy benefit the most from when it comes to lightening the burden on tax bills. The reality is; there are plenty of tax breaks for the middle class American to tap into.
People are literally losing money to tax expenditures. Here are 7 middle class tax breaks not to be missed:
