The US budget deficit will hit $1 trillion in 2020, the Congressional Budget Office announced — a big round number that has both Democrats and Republicans worried that the US is on the road to fiscal ruin. They shouldn’t be. In the current global environment, trillion-dollar deficits may actually decrease the odds of a major economic crisis. In fact, one ...

Since getting burned in the financial crisis, HSBC Holdings Plc has been in sell rather than buy mode. But now that it’s out shopping, the bank is looking to splurge. HSBC is eyeing the Asian assets of struggling British insurer Aviva Plc, which could be worth between $3 billion and $4 billion, Bloomberg reporters Dinesh Nair, Manuel Baigorri and Stefania ...

When legendary physicist Richard Feynman was called in to help solve the mystery of the Challenger space shuttle explosion in 1986, he didn’t use advanced math. Instead, according to his own account of the incident, he went and talked to the engineers. The workers who actually built the space shuttle, he found, had a good idea of which parts were ...