ProPublica Staff United States (ProPublica) – by Cora Currier According to the Wall Street Journal, the Securities and Exchange Commission has warned a top banker that it may bring civil charges against him for his role in creating a risky collateralized debt obligation, or CDO, that exploded spectacularly as the housing market crashed. It’s the [...]

Vittorio Hernandez – AHN News D.C., Washington, United States (AHN) – News of a Federal Reserve plan, unveiled Thursday, to cut fees collected by credit card companies caused the value of Visa and MasterCard shares to plummet by over 6 percent. Visa’s stocks plunged by 6.1 percent or $4.66 to $72.28 and MasterCard’s shares charged [...]

Linda Young – AHN News Writer New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Commodities prices for precious metals, oil and agricultural raw materials took the hardest fall in 18 months on news that China might take steps to avert inflation. Prices of commodities futures fell by up to 3.8 percent on news that China’s central [...]

Lawrence Mijares – AHN News Contributor Sydney, Australia (AHN) – Singapore’s stock exchange is poised to take over its counterpart, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), forming a US$13.8 billion alliance, through a US$6 billion bid by Singapore to be announced Monday, according to media reports. Commenting on the reported merger, a spokesman for the Australian [...]

Money is one of the man’s greatest inventions, an essential tool of civilization, because every society has a money economy based on coins and paper notes. In primitive society there was a barter system which is the direct exchange of goods and services for goods and services. As the extent of specialization increases, the barter [...]