US-EU
Americans often fret about the price of gasoline, which has surged dramatically in recent days, fueled by turmoil in oil-producing nations in the Middle East and North Africa.
But the price of gas in America lags far behind its European counterparts. While Americans tear their hair out at the pump, Europeans watch them enviously from across the Atlantic.
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The text of the European Central Bank statement last week ran to more than one thousand words but only two of them were significant: “Strong Vigilance.”
When we saw these two words we knew: European interest rates are going up. Sooner rather than later.
() -- European inflation risks have mounted as a result of turmoil in the Middle East, the European Commission has warned as a fall in eurozone unemployment highlighted the robust pace of economic growth across the continent at the start of the year.
Surging energy and commodity prices mean inflation this year will be "markedly" stronger than thought with risks to forecasts "somewhat tilted to the upside" because of recent geo-political tensions, the European Union's executive arm warned in its latest update on the region's economy.
The U.S. economy grew at a 2.8 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, slower than previously calculated and less than forecast as state and local governments made deeper cuts in spending.
The revised increase in gross domestic product compares with a 3.2 percent estimate issued last month and a 2.6 percent gain in the third quarter, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. The economy, excluding inventories, grew at a 6.7 percent pace, the most since 1998.
Lloyds Banking Group Plc, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, tumbled in London trading as the bank said rising funding costs will squeeze profit margins in 2011.
The net interest margin, the difference between what the bank pays for funds and what it charges for loans, will be unchanged in 2011, Lloyds said in a statement today. The lender is replacing government support with costlier wholesale funding.
The number of Americans filing first-time claims to collect jobless benefits fell more than forecast last week, pointing to fewer firings that indicate growing optimism among companies about the economy.
Applications for unemployment insurance decreased 22,000 in the week ended Feb. 19 to 391,000, the Labor Department said today. Claims have fallen in three of the past four weeks, pushing down the monthly average to the lowest level since July 2008. Reflecting an improving jobs picture, the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index rose last week to the highest since April 2008.
Nokia has joined forces with Microsoft in an attempt to regain ground lost to the iPhone and Android-based devices.
The deal will see Nokia use the Windows phone operating system for its smartphones, the company said.
Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, the U.K.’s biggest government-owned bank, will be the lender worst hit by yesterday’s agreement with the Treasury to curb bonuses and boost lending, analysts said. British taxpayers may end up bearing the cost.
RBS cut the bonus pool for investment bankers by 27 percent to less than 950 million pounds ($1.5 billion), the lender said yesterday.
The US unemployment rate will not return to pre-financial crisis levels for "several years", Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has said.
Until the economy sees sustained and strong job creation, "we cannot consider the recovery to be truly established", he added.
US unemployment fell in January to 9% from 9.4% a month earlier, the Department of Labor said.
The New Start nuclear arms treaty limiting the number of atomic warheads the US and Russia are allowed to possess, has come into effect.
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