By Kiara Withers on 22-03-2012
Good afternoon and thank you for the kind invitation to speak to the Brazil-Canada Chamber of Commerce.
The climates and geographies of Brazil and Canada couldn’t be more different. Yet our countries have much in common.
We are both resource- and land-rich—Canada is the world’s second-largest country, Brazil the fifth largest. We are both among the world’s top 10 oil producers. We share a democratic system of government and market-based economies. And our monetary policies are both anchored by an inflation target with a flexible exchange rate.
In recent years we both faced a global financial crisis that emanated from beyond our borders. We weren’t immune but came through it better than most.
Among G-7 countries, Canada had the shortest recession and one of the strongest recoveries. The recession in Canada lasted three quarters and our GDP is now 3.3 per cent above its pre-recession peak. Even more
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By Riley Evans on 22-03-2012
The increasingly likely prospect of the economy going into reverse in the final quarter of the year is not expected to push Bank of England policymakers into rolling out further emergency measures today. 
The Bank of England has identified the crisis in the eurozone as one of the key threats to the UK recovery.
The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is forecast to hold interest rates at a record low of 0.5pc while its quantitative easing (QE) programme will stay at £275bn after October’s shock increase.
The MPC pumped an extra £75bn into the economy last month amid signs the recovery was heading to the rocks, and while the picture has continued to worsen, economists do not expect further action until early next year.
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By Seth De Rougemont on 20-03-2012
Recently the Supreme Court held in Kawashima v. Holder (Feb. 21, 2012) that filing a false tax return in violation of IRC Section 7206(1) as well as other criminal tax offenses are aggravated felonies which can result in deportation of a resident alien. Just over two years ago we blogged about the 9th Circuit decision in Kawashima which came to the same conclusion. The Supreme Court has now upheld that decision.
To review the background, Mr. and Mrs. Kawashima were legal residents of the United States having moved to Los Angeles from Japan in 1984. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times they opened several sushi restaurants in the West San Fernando Valley area of Southern California. They were accused of violating various criminal tax laws, and in 1997 Mr.
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By Kiara Withers on 10-03-2012
On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve released the results of the long-awaited stress test conducted on major U.S. banks. The results declared that 19 major U.S. banks were strong enough to withstand a future economic crisis. However, four banks, including Citigroup, were deemed too weak to pass the test.
Federal Reserve Puts Top Banks to the Test
In response to the devastating financial crisis that resulted in hundreds of bank failures — with top banks receiving government bailouts — the Federal Reserve created a set of stress tests to gauge big banks’ financial strength moving forward.
The Fed reviewed the balance sheets of 19 holding companies to determine whether they could withstand a severe crisis. A sever
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By Kiara Withers on 08-03-2012
Mindful Money’s daily selection of the most interesting economic features, opinion and analysis articles from around the web.
Greed isn’t good for the government
According to David Sirota, it would be a disastrous idea for presidential candidate Mitt Romney to run America like a business. Salon
Bernanke Needs Some Bounce in His Tail
Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers say Ben Bernanke needs to be more assertive when it comes to announcing the Fed’s longer-term plans or risk dooming the strategy to failure.
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By Riley Evans on 02-03-2012
The greenback gained versus its major rivals on Wednesday in reaction to US Federal Reserve’s Chairman Ben Bernanke comments. Bernanke said that the US economy is sending mixed signals. Bernanke said that despite that fact the oil driven inflation is temporary and market issues around the globe seem less risky still US economic recovery is doubtful.
However the most of the analysts had a different opinion on Bernanke comments as they interpreted less chances of third round of quantitative easing now.
Director of currency research, Kathy Lien from GFT commented, “Although the Fed chairman believes that monetary policy needs to remain extremely accommodative, there is no immediate need for QE3,” on ECB’s loan amounts she added, “this dynamic explains why the euro/dollar fell so steeply on the back of Bernanke’s speech — one central bank will be keeping their balance sheet unchanged while the other takes actions to expand it.”
The euro remained under pressure in the European trading session as the region’s banks availed more loans in ECB’s LTRO than expected. The single currency
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