Grave business - my financial world

Are well-intentioned but misguided accounting rules intensifying the financial crisis?
Those who think so will get a chance to make their case Wednesday, when a Securities and Exchange Commission roundtable explores the role of so-called mark-to-market accounting in the market meltdown of the past year.
Mark-to-market, or fair-value, accounting requires firms to value securities they hold […]

The credit markets are showing some tentative signs of defrosting, and shares of several big banks were up Monday morning.
But it’s not all puppies and sunshine in the world of high finance.
Wall Street is turning its gaze to another troubled industry in the financial-services sector: life insurers.
Shares of Prudential Financial (PRU, Fortune 500) […]

Gasoline prices fell more than 4 cents a gallon Thursday, according to a daily survey, as the economic crisis continues to weigh on consumer demand.
The average price of unleaded regular fell to $3.403 a gallon nationwide, down 4.4 cents from $3.447 Wednesday, according to the Daily Fuel Gauge Report issued by motorist group AAA.
The […]

Industrial production in Germany, Europe's largest economy, rose the most in 15 years in August led by demand for construction.
Output gained a seasonally adjusted 3.4 percent from July, when it slipped 1.6 percent, the Economy Ministry in Berlin said today. That's the biggest gain since August 1993. Economists expected a drop of 0.3 […]

The commodities bubble appears to have popped, but keep the champagne on ice.
Food and energy prices are coming down in part because of a global growth slowdown that could also cool the red hot U.S. export sector - the major bright spot in an economy still struggling with a massive housing bust.
The […]

Workers’ compensation insurance rates in New York state will decline again in 2009, according to Gov. David Paterson.
The rates will drop 5 percent from this year’s level. At the same time, the maximum weekly benefit for workers will rise above its current level of $550 a week.
Overall, insurance rates have dropped 25.5 percent since 2007, […]

When it comes to stagnating wages, Barack Obama and John McCain agree on one thing: Americans are suffering. And that’s about all they agree on.
The presidential candidates have starkly different plans on how to reverse the years-long slide in workers’ incomes. Democrat Obama’s proposals of creating jobs through government investments are aimed at helping […]

Shareholders of the battered Legg Mason Value Trust mutual fund won’t find many answers in manager Bill Miller’s second-quarter letter to investors.
In his note this week, Miller, who famously beat the S&P 500 for 15 consecutive years until stumbling in 2006, deplores market conditions that continue to punish value investors, but doesn’t discuss his […]

Starbucks is closing more than two-thirds of its stores in Australia, days after announcing that hundreds of its American coffee outlets are also being shuttered.
The Seattle-based global coffee franchise said Tuesday that it will close 61 of its 84 locations in Australia by the weekend.
The closures will mean that only 23 cafes will remain […]

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said currency markets appear to have ignored a Group of Seven statement expressing concern about the decline in the U.S. dollar.
“It doesn't seem to have affected the market very much, that particular statement of concern,'' Flaherty said in a Bloomberg Television interview from New York today.
The G-7 […]