Share repurchases are getting a bipartisan pounding in Congress, where critics argue that such buybacks are bad for the overall economy. But the critics may have it backwards, because there’s evidence in the academic literature that corporate profits grow fastest when companies give more money back to shareholders, not less. In the Senate, progressives Chuck…
Former Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen gave a harsh critique of President Donald Trump's economic knowledge in an interview published on Monday. Yellen, who left the Fed in 2018, told "Marketplace" host Kai Ryssdal that the president doesn't understand the basics of the Fed or macroeconomics. "Do you think the president has a grasp…
AT THE post-Oscars press conference, having drunk six glasses of champagne, Spike Lee commented on the night’s big award. “Green Book” had just been named Best Picture (pictured), beating his film, “BlacKkKlansman”; “Every time somebody’s driving somebody,” Mr Lee quipped, “I lose.” His point was that “Green Book” was comparable to “Driving Miss Daisy”, a…
LONDON — Britain’s opposition Labour Party said on Monday that it was prepared to support a second referendum on withdrawal from the European Union, a shift that could have significant ramifications for the fate of Brexit and for the country’s future. After the resignations of nine Labour Party members last week, and amid the prospect…
The audience for Sunday’s Academy Awards telecast improved from a year ago, according to the early ratings, as more people tuned in for a shorter ceremony without a host. The overnight ratings on Walt Disney Co.’s ABC were up between 6 percent and 14 percent from a year ago, according to reports. The early ratings…
President Donald Trump announced that the US would delay the increase of tariffs on Chinese goods as talks to end the trade war between the world's two largest economies continue. "I am pleased to report that the U.S. has made substantial progress in our trade talks with China on important structural issues including intellectual property…
BY ABOUT 11am on February 23rd, four lorries, each loaded with 20 tons of food, medical supplies and toiletries, had arrived at the Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Paula Santander bridges, which link the Colombian border town of Cúcuta with Venezuela. At the Simón Bolívar crossing south of the city, used by thousands of people…
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis ended a landmark Vatican meeting on clerical sexual abuse with an appeal “for an all-out battle against the abuse of minors,” which he compared to human sacrifice, but his speech did not offer concrete policy remedies demanded by many of the faithful. In the speech at the end of a…
As the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences girded itself for the unknown of a host-less Oscars telecast, and the final chapter of a season marred by ongoing gender inequity and campaign craziness, the 34th annual Independent Spirit Awards seemed to go off Saturday, as they always do, without too much drama. And they…
The special counsel Robert Mueller's team called Paul Manafort a "bold" and "hardened" criminal in a new sentencing memo unsealed on Saturday. Manafort's conduct, even after he pleaded guilty to two federal crimes, "reflects a hardened adherence to committing crimes and lack of remorse," prosecutors wrote, adding that he "repeatedly and brazenly violated the law."…
