On August 26, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation increased the number of banks it considers in danger of failure from 90 to 117 and responded indirectly to concerns about its ability to insure money on deposit at retail banking institutions. The FDIC is considering increasing the fee it charges retail banks to insure their deposits [...]

On August 25, the U.S and Australian regulators agreed to allow brokers and exchanges to do business in each county while being regulated only by the their home country. This could start as early as January. For the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), this is seen as a step towards its goal of [...]

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act came into force in 2002 and introduced major changes to the regulation of financial practice and corporate governance following scandals like the collapse of Enron. It is mandatory and all organizations - large and small - must comply. It has raised the bar for public companies, and failure to comply can result [...]

I don’t count myself as a visionary, but there is a specter looming over mankind’s collective head, and I’m not sure if I can see how we can avoid it.
In my opinion, creating good artificial intelligence is just a matter of time. Already researchers have created a robot that uses a rat’s brain, and the [...]

Many companies have used tax shelters known as Lease In Lease Out (LILO) and Sale In Lease Out (SILO) to claim deductions. A string of recent court decisions are being seen as a major victory for the Internal Revenue Service in its fight to outlaw the use of such tax shelter. The IRS designated LILOs [...]

One of the surest signs that we’re in a recession is the abundance of “We’re Hiring” signs at low-end service-sector places of employment. You’ve probably seen them around your town: fast food restaurants, video stores, retailers looking for new managers, etc.
How can this be? In a recession, shouldn’t businesses be laying people off?
On first glance, [...]

In 1911, Dr. Miles Medical Co, a maker of relaxants and other medicines, sued a distributor, John D. Park & Sons Co., for selling at cut rate prices. The company lost the case when the Supreme Court held that it was trading too close to cartel-like trading. The judgment in the case Dr. Miles Medical [...]

My last post here at Amateur Economists was all about the crazy run-around I experienced trying to get heating oil delivered to our house this summer for the coming winter. We ordered the tank filled in early June; but it was just last week that I finally got a heating oil company to fill our [...]

A recent study by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development which examined the national tax burdens and their impact on the growth and incomes in member countries concluded that corporate taxes are most harmful for growth. The study also concluded that investment is adversely affected by corporate taxation and that the most profitable [...]

Amateur Economists is still less than 2 months old, but some major sites are beginning to notice.
News aggregators that currently index our content are Google News, Alltop, Healthcare 100, and Wikio.
The only site so far that has syndicated one of our articles is Seeking Alpha. However, we are working with a syndication company to have [...]