The U.S. Federal Reserve appears to be paying more attention to how its policies affect black Americans. This is a wise move, because blacks stand to gain a lot more than others from the Fed’s efforts to support economic growth. The minutes of the Fed’s July policy-making meeting noted that officials had discussed unemployment rates and other measures of ...

  An escalation of tension between Russia and Ukraine augurs bad for both. The two countries are going through throes of deplorable financial crisis and the diplomatic flareup will only worsen the already dismal situation. The hostilities have badly hit their economies and it is in the interest of both that the conflict is not allowed to intensify further. The ...

  Hillary Clinton thinks corporate taxes are too low. Donald Trump thinks corporate taxes are way too high. They’re both wrong, and the economic consequences could be huge if either nominee’s tax proposal becomes law. Trump would slash the rate to 15 percent and allow millions of partnerships and single-owner firms set up by hedge fund managers, lawyers and other ...

  Megan McArdle Since I last wrote about it, Aetna’s withdrawal from the Obamacare exchanges has ginned up even more drama. Jeff Young and Jonathan Cohn of the Huffington Post published a letter in which Aetna told the Justice Department that it would reduce its exchange participation unless Justice allowed the merger with Humana to go through. This has naturally ...

  justin fox Children and teenagers in the world’s developed countries have a more than 50 percent chance of living past 100. By the early 2100s, in other words, “being a centenarian will no longer be a rarity. In fact, it will be the norm.” That’s from Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott’s book, “The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in ...

  Bloomberg Consumers think smartphone makers are releasing too many new models each year, a survey showed. The survey conducted in six countries, commissioned by the environmental group Greenpeace, showed that more than half of those who responded would prefer to change their phones less frequently. Handset devices are one of the most frequently replaced electronics products. The top cellphone ...

  AFP Facebook took direct aim at video-loving adolescents, and Snapchat, with the release of a new iPhone app that allows teens to watch clips about the lives of their classmates. The app, called Lifestage, was released with no fanfare, and is available for anyone to download on iPhone, although seeing profiles of other users is reserved for those 21 ...

  AP Casey Cooper is one of the most famous drummers on the planet right now. He has a million followers on YouTube, and his flaming-sticks drumming cover of Ellie Goulding’s “Burn” is insane. But he’d just prefer you skip his recorded performances and instead catch him live — on streaming video, that is — because he can make more ...

  Bloomberg Saudi Arabia raised its combined crude oil and refined-product exports to 8.83 million barrels a day in June, the highest on record for that month and the latest sign of the expansion of the kingdom’s share of global markets. The world’s largest crude exporter typically ships less oil overseas from June to September as it burns more crude ...

Reuters Iran’s crude oil exports were flat in June at just over 2 million barrels per day and production at 3.610 million bpd was steady from the previous month, official data showed. Tallies for both exports and production show a rise since January, when Tehran set about recouping market share lost under international sanctions that were mostly lifted at the ...