When the stock market broke the 10,000 point barrier a few weeks ago, many investors celebrated. Economists have started to talk about the end of the "Great Recession." But many Americans can't see what all the enthusiasm is about.
It was a moment vividly depicted in the movie about her life: 7-year-old Helen Keller, holding one hand under a water pump as her teacher spelled "W-A-T-E-R" into her other hand.
One of the themes of the Sunday talk shows this week -- ironically, as they nearly all featured President Obama -- was whether the president is "overexposed," particularly on health care.
With his appointment of Sonia Sotomayor and a fiery speech in Nevada, President Obama bought himself a little breathing space with congressional Democrats after taking a big political hit from them last week.
When President Obama moved into the White House, press speculation immediately began about what his first 100 days would look like.
Senior White House adviser David Axelrod has called the 100-day benchmark an "odd custom, the journalistic equivalent of the Hallmark holiday.'' But where did the notion of a president's "First 100 Days" originate?
Companies today are slashing jobs with a meat ax. Recession looms or is already here, depending on whom you ask. Some predict unemployment rising into double figures.
It's that time of year again, when the last snow storm has become a distant memory and the weather starts to turn a little warmer. Spring is in the air and that means one thing for Washington: cherry blossoms.
During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt reassured anxious Americans through his famous fireside chats over the radio.
In the explosion of outrage over the AIG executive bonus scandal, each party has hurled charges at the other. Both parties are blaming each other for rejecting measures that would have limited executive bonuses.
When the stock market broke the 10,000 point barrier a few weeks ago, many investors celebrated. Economists have started to talk about the end of the "Great Recession." But many Americans can't see what all the enthusiasm is about.
It was a moment vividly depicted in the movie about her life: 7-year-old Helen Keller, holding one hand under a water pump as her teacher spelled "W-A-T-E-R" into her other hand.
One of the themes of the Sunday talk shows this week -- ironically, as they nearly all featured President Obama -- was whether the president is "overexposed," particularly on health care.
With his appointment of Sonia Sotomayor and a fiery speech in Nevada, President Obama bought himself a little breathing space with congressional Democrats after taking a big political hit from them last week.
When President Obama moved into the White House, press speculation immediately began about what his first 100 days would look like.
Senior White House adviser David Axelrod has called the 100-day benchmark an "odd custom, the journalistic equivalent of the Hallmark holiday.'' But where did the notion of a president's "First 100 Days" originate?
Companies today are slashing jobs with a meat ax. Recession looms or is already here, depending on whom you ask. Some predict unemployment rising into double figures.
It's that time of year again, when the last snow storm has become a distant memory and the weather starts to turn a little warmer. Spring is in the air and that means one thing for Washington: cherry blossoms.
During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt reassured anxious Americans through his famous fireside chats over the radio.
In the explosion of outrage over the AIG executive bonus scandal, each party has hurled charges at the other. Both parties are blaming each other for rejecting measures that would have limited executive bonuses.
Use this explainer to help students understand the reasons for and history of daylight-saving time.
The honorary distinction will recognize his services to U.K.-U.S. relations
The clash between Democrats and Republicans over the nation's economic crisis isn't just fueled by politics. It's also being driven, in part, by two competing views of history.
You often hear President Obama's stimulus plan referred to as the new New Deal. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that some critics of the stimulus aren't big fans of Franklin Roosevelt either. In fact, if you've been following the debate, you may have heard a surprising number of people put forth the notion that the New Deal actually prolonged the Great Depression.
The White House may be the official residence of the U.S. president, but it's only a temporary address. The former homes and libraries of presidents offer an inside look into the lives of the select few who served as the nation's leader.
Tomorrow marks the end of the third week of President Barack Obama's Hundred Days. After what can only be described as a euphoric inauguration, Obama has encountered some trouble.
Every now and then my natural talent for the evasion of unpleasant duties fails me. So it was that recently I found myself in a hotel chair, to my right some guy with dandruff and a Bluetooth in his ear, to my left his clone, listening to an analyst who works for a failing financial institution grill a variety of senior officers about the state of their businesses in this pesky economy of ours.
The new president has been in office one week and already the clock is ticking as to whether or not he can get a lot accomplished in the first 100 days of his presidency.
After a call for "bold and swift" action on the economy in his first moments as president on Tuesday, President Barack Obama got right to work, maneuvering to reach a bipartisan agreement on his sweeping economic recovery plan.
The scope and intensity of problems facing President Obama are similar only to those that Franklin D. Roosevelt faced in 1933.
When presidents enter the White House, they have approximately 100 days to show what they are made of.
While President-elect Barack Obama will certainly be making history when he takes the oath of office on January 20, he'll also be repeating it -- by placing his hand on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used during the inauguration of 1861.
As a candidate, Barack Obama promoted hybrid cars.
The factory occupation by 200 workers at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago, Illinois, recalls one of the most storied moments in American history, when thousands of Depression-era workers took over their own workplaces, seeking union recognition and better wages.
Tens of millions of people are expecting great things from President-elect Barack Obama.
Millions of people are expected to go to Washington to celebrate Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20, but with a troubled economy and pocketbook issues on the mind, the president-elect must be careful to set the right tone.
America loves its heroes and Barack Obama has already become one. In fact, he's become several.
Students here in Cambridge watched in horror in September 2005 as they saw lines of desperate people snaked round the convention center and the Superdome in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The ten weeks from a President's election to his inauguration are arguably more crucial a period than any during his time in office. And one that history has shown can easily be mishandled
When presidents enter the White House, they have approximately 100 days to show what they are made of.
The next United States president won't have long to savor victory after Election Day.
The reset button has been pushed on the global financial system - and that changes everything for the next president.
March 30, 1981. Arguably the most powerful man in the world is shot.
Every time the economy and stock market turn down, financial historians get predictable calls from reporters.
The reset button has been pushed on the global financial system - and that changes everything for the next president.
To borrow the title of a classic modern novel, "Things Fall Apart." In just decades, Americans have gone from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal to George W. Bush's Rash Deal.
If Barack Obama had consulted 100 wise Democrats about selecting Joe Biden as his running mate, asking them, "What would be your biggest concern?," he would have received 100 identical responses.
My family doesn't use credit much. We pay off our charge cards every month. We drive used cars. We paid off our house mortgage early and have not refinanced. We carefully live well within our means. In fact, until very recently, my "apartment" in Washington has been my office.
Key events for the week of September 19 - 25, 2008
Your paycheck is shrinking, gas costs $4 a gallon, and your house is losing value. Here's what can be done
In the words of Vice President John Nance Garner, the vice presidency "isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss."
Use this information to understand how polls are conducted.
Thirty-five years ago today, Nixon was the first President to use the term "God bless America" in an official speech. A look at how the phrase has become de rigueur in American politics ever since.
Hillary Clinton and John McCain are arguing that Barack Obama is too green for the job. But history shows that when it comes to the presidency, experience doesn't guarantee success
Some historians credit Republican President Warren G. Harding with running the first campaign that made use of celebrity endorsement.
Christmas walks into Colonial Williamsburg on boots, battle-dress soft soles padding across cobblestones in the dusk of December's first Sunday.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., had a message for Wall Street on Monday while speaking from the NASDAQ MarketSite in Times Square.
1. Dumb as a limestone brick: Indiana's misguided bid for tourists
Currently, most of us reach our physical peak between twenty and thirty and begin a steady decline after that. By seventy, we have lost 40 percent of our maximum breathing capacity, muscle and bone mass have declined, body fat has increased, and sight and hearing have gotten worse. We may want to chase life and live longer, but not at the expense of function, both of mind and body.
Use this explainer to help students understand the reasons for and history of daylight-saving time.
In 1933, the U.S. Senate passed a bill mandating a 30-hour workweek. Alabama Senator Hugo Black, still a few years from the Supreme Court, was the sponsor.
At home and abroad, he was the locomotive president, the man who drew his flourishing nation into the future.
Awash as we are in the cranky appraisals of our war in Iraq and the congressional projects to end it summarily, we have every reason to conclude that for some Americans a real war is not nearly as amusing as one produced in Hollywood. A real war is a lot more difficult to script than a war headed for the silver screen. Inopportune events take place. Even uncovenanted happenings occur. During World War II more than 14,000 American POWs died in German and Japanese hands. President Franklin Roosevelt had not anticipated such brutal treatment. Other unanticipated enormities took place, for instance, the dithering in the hedgerows of France after the D-Day landings. Still, no congressional investigations were convened to distract our leaders from bringing the war to a diplomatically viable conclusion.
Presidents, in wartime, tend to think they're above the law; commanders-in-chief who rule absolutely.
High oil prices. Inflation fears. Ballooning deficits. Guerrilla war. Bad news? Not for gold. The asset that shines in bad times has been on a tear recently, surpassing $500 an ounce, a level not s...
In the months after our invasion of Iraq -- our liberation of Iraq -- there was a neat little peace movement. It was composed of the likes of linguist Noam Chomsky, Ramsey Clark and various lesser patheticoes who all looked like they belonged on the streets of Berkeley, California, some with begging pots in their hands.
Ever been stumped by a question when you're on the road? The answer could now be in the palm of your hand.
It was a U.S. President -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- who campaigned on the slogan "Don't change horses in the middle of the stream."
In what the White House promoted as "a major speech," President George W. Bush compared the struggle against terrorism to the Cold War, "Islamo-fascism" to communism and the fugitive cave-dweller Osama bin Laden to Adolf Hitler.
LETTERS TO FORTUNE
In the enduring American tragedy of New Orleans, President George W. Bush has been libeled.
When polio was a scourge, it most frequently struck very young children, and today the vast majority of polio survivors are middle-aged or older. That's the direct result of a breakthrough announced 50 years ago Tuesday.
Buttons and stickers and signs, oh my!
Reaction to President Bush's speech Wednesday night was sharply divided along partisan lines.
Members of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee Friday assembled an array of witnesses to air concerns over what is publicly known about the Bush plan to change the Social Security System by including individual investment in the stock market.
Years ago, before I began writing a column, one of the nation's great columnists gave me some wise advice.
With two weeks to go until Americans go to the polls, President Bush and Sen. John Kerry concentrated their efforts on the campaign trail Tuesday in the showdown states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The following is a partial transcript of the debate between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry held Thursday night at the University of Miami. The topic of the debate is foreign affairs, and the moderator is Jim Lehrer of PBS:
Vice President Dick Cheney addressed Republican National Convention delegates Wednesday. This is a transcript of his remarks.
Sen. Zell Miller, of Georgia, was the keynote speaker Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention. Miller, a Democrat, has broken with his party and sided with President Bush on such issues his handling of the war against terror. Here is a transcript of his remarks:
U.S. presidents have guided us to wartime victory and plunged us into economic depression. All of their triumphs and failures can teach us a thing or two about our own careers.
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former Democratic presidential candidate, gave a prime time speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday. This is a transcript of his remarks.
Of all the ways being considered to honor Ronald Reagan, the push to put his face on the dime -- replacing that of Franklin Roosevelt -- is unlikely to happen.
The following is a transcript of the eulogy given Friday by former President George H.W. Bush at Ronald Reagan's funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington:
Ronald Reagan's face could one day adorn the $10 bill or half the dimes minted in the country, if fans of the late president get their way.
In dedicating the World War II Memorial, President Bush addressed more than 140,000 people who had gathered on Washington's National Mall.
President Bush is a man of tremendous resolve. In a test of wills, he usually prevails. When someone else prevails, it's not just a surprise -- it's also the political Play of the Week.
If there are not more lawyers working in Washington, DC than any other city in the world, on a per capita basis, it's a surprise to me. The nation's capital has a disproportionate number of civil and criminal courts (from the D.C. Superior court to the U.S. Supreme Court). And of course, it is home to Congress along with a remarkable array of administrative agencies. All this legal apparatus, needless to say, results in a surfeit of lawyers, both inside and outside of the government.
To be an inventor can be a glorious calling. But how do you make a living? The difficulty of turning a brilliant idea into a brilliant fortune is what led Mac Woodward, 68, and his wife Cecile Wen...
The federal budget may be close to balanced, but the U.S. government's fiscal problems are far from over. Looming on the horizon is the Social Security system. That problem stems from a sad but una...
Warning: Don't spend your budget surplus before the check clears. True, Congress and the President seem sure to balance the budget either this year or next, but it's the strong economy that's makin...
Unloading valuable assets is common at IBM these days. Nearly half the work force has been dismissed, close to $2 billion in real estate was sold off in 1994, and now the cream of its vast art coll...
You talk about a labor lobby. Well, it is a child compared to this utility lobby . . . ((It is)) the most powerful, dangerous lobby . . . that has ever been created by any organization in this coun...
There's no disputing the final count. Bill Clinton won 43% of the popular vote and 370 electoral votes, while George Bush took 38% of the vote and 168 electoral ballots. Question is, does that marg...
History tells us that the two years leading up to a presidential election are usually the best of times for small investors. And, at least until recently, these past two years were no exception. St...
CONSUMERS ARE UP-TIGHT and worried, their confidence battered by big layoffs. Business executives are equally glum. Says Robert C. Snyder, president of Quanex, a $650-million-a-year specialty-metal...
Just like today's most sophisticated pirates, yesterday's used an underground banking system to hide their loot. This system was literally underground, of course, and spadefuls of doubloons still t...
YOU CAN'T FIND a list of best-sellers these days without a good representation of business books. That is a relatively recent phenomenon. One of the first management books to make the big time was ...
When I was running IBM, I was driven strongly by the fear of failure, fear of being counted out as a son trying to follow a father. Fight in a company comes through fear or competitiveness, wanting...
As we tap out these words on our trusty 101-key enhanced keyboard, the Dow Jones industrial average is around 2700 and also looking enhanced. Approaching the second anniversary of the great thud of...
In a year with so many candidates, choosing which campaign buttons to store in the attic can be even more difficult than predicting the next President. The election will be decided in November, but...
A fellow could get a touch of cognitive dissonance brooding over the material in Trends in Family Income: 1970-1986, the latest unsnappily titled publication of the Congressional Budget Office. The...
We confess to being slow off the mark on the scandal referred to in the headline above and promise that next time we won't dally 47 years when it comes to elaborating articles in the American Journ...
Except for the author's opinions on substantive issues, Tip O'Neill's memoirs make marvelous reading. The former Speaker is a great storyteller, and like Jimmy Durante he has a million of them -- i...
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