March 26, 2010 at 11:24 am
The Obama administration announced a new strategy to fight home foreclosure, including requiring lenders to cut or eliminate monthly mortgage payments for many jobless homeowners. School of Management Finance & Economics Department chair Professor Jack Aber says some borrowers may unfairly benefit at the expense of others, but breaking the impass still makes sense. “Purging […]
March 25, 2010 at 2:15 pm
French President Nicolas Sarkozy (r.) is being challenged from within his own party by former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin (l.). The challenge could split Sarkozy’s ruling conservative party in the 2012 elections. International relations Professor William Keylor reminds that Villepin was the aristocratic French foreign minister who scolded U.S. Secretary of State Powell during the U.N. debate […]
March 24, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Reports say North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is indeed ill, suffering from kidney failure requiring dialysis. International Relations Professor William Keylor, an authority on U.S. foreign policy, says the absence of a system of succession could become a critical obstacle to the resumption of the six-party nuclear disarmament talks. “Reports of discontent within the […]
March 24, 2010 at 10:21 am
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu got a cool reception from the Obama White House, as a dispute over new housing settlements in East Jerusalem continues to roil U.S.-Israeli relations. International Relations Professor Augustus Richard Norton, a Middle-East authority, says in his blog that Netanyahu operates within an ideology that basically rejects a two-state solution with the Palestinians […]
March 23, 2010 at 10:22 am
U.S. “Pay Czar” Ken Feinberg is writing all 419 firms that took taxpayer bailout money — not just the big seven taking TARP bucks — seeking to review their executive compensation, and maybe asking for some bucks back. Law Professor Cornelius Hurley, director of the Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law, says the deep review is appropriate and […]
March 23, 2010 at 8:53 am
After Internet search giant Google redirected millions of Chinese users too its uncensored Web site in Hong Kong, the Chinese government countered by blocking access to the alternate site. Political science and international relations Professor Joseph Fewsmith, a China expert, says move by the government that insists on censorship wasn’t a surprise. “I’m surprised Google […]
March 22, 2010 at 11:17 am
President Obama said it was answering “the call to history” when the House passed the Senate’s version of healthcare reform and sent the bill to his desk for signing. Political Science Professor Graham Wilson, author of “Only in America? American Politics in Comparative Perspective,” says GOP unity in opposition shows how far right the party has moved on […]
March 19, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Ex-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has acknowledged the Fed’s failure to grasp the magnitude of the housing bubble, but offered some policy prescriptions to avoid another crash. Economics Professor Laurence Kotlikoff, whose new book “Jimmy Stewart is Dead” is about bankings’s future, applauds Greenspan for saying banks should have to hold bonds that automatically covert to equity […]
March 19, 2010 at 11:46 am
The Washington Post reports the U.S. military cyberattacked and shut down a joint Saudi-CIA Web site which had been set up to uncover terror plots in Saudi Arabia. The military said it was putting Americans at risk. International relations Professor Joseph Wippl, a 30-year CIA operations officer, says the shutdown could have been more tactful […]
March 18, 2010 at 3:54 pm
While most of the huge banks which got taxpayer bailouts last year have paid back their TARP loans, hundreds of community banks haven’t. Robert Bench, a former deputy Comptroller of the Currency and now a senior fellow at BU Law’s Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law, says it’s no surprise. Too many real estate […]
