One issue that should warrant more attention in the wake of the Enron scandal is the role played by auditors, observers note. American’s well-policed stock markets, fearsome regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), rigid accounting procedures in the form of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and the perceived
Some years back, the United Nations (U.N.) predicted a massive increase in world population. But its latest medium projections conclude that in this century we can expect a “slowing of population growth rates” followed by “slow reductions in the size of world populations.”
But American Enterprise Institute demographer Ben J. Wattenberg
Environmental alarmists fail to appreciate a fundamental truth: richer nations, such as the U.S., have the resources to avoid or clean up environmental pollution. Poorer nations such as China and Ghana, that must devote a much larger portion of their resources just to subsistence, don’t have that luxury.
Imposing expensive environmental
As it has for decades, the shrinking U.S. steel industry is seeking restrictions on imports, says Bruce Bartlett. They hope that if tariffs were imposed on foreign steel, prices would rise enough to make domestically-produced steel competitive again.
But since there are many more businesses that use steel than produce it,
Some economic theorists contend that to shorten a recession, government must spend more money. Another school advises that stimulation comes from government surpluses that create savings and reduce interest rates.
But the problem with the first is that for the government to spend, it must withdraw money from the private sector
Lending booms when the amount of private credit increases rapidly relative to a country’s gross domestic product have been blamed for banking crises in many countries, including Chile (1982), Mexico (1994), and Thailand (1997). But are they really so bad?
Lending booms in developing countries involve the extension of
Wal-Mart’s impact on the overall U.S. economy goes farther than most people ever imagine, according to the McKinsey Global Institute. Wal-Mart’s managerial innovations contributed mightily to the big increase in American productivity in the late 1990s an increase most observers attributed to high-technology companies.
“Rather, managerial and technological innovations in
The problems of financing university education remain the same everywhere. And the difficulties facing South Africa do not differ substantially from those experienced by any other country.
Typically, governments attempt to mitigate the rising costs of education through subsidies, bursaries or loans. The idea is to make education more affordable. But
Commenting on U.S. federal tax cuts enacted last year, a report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says, “the average tax burden does influence the growth rate of the economy and so these cuts should boost the medium-term growth rate of the economy by a small yet
Corporate executives aren’t blind to the handwriting on the wall: investors want to know what’s really going on behind the balance sheets. They want the financial details. Financial reporting that is technically correct but does not clearly reflect a company’s operating health is no longer acceptable.
And in the USA companies
