The moment a large investor doesn't believe a government will pay back its debt when it says it will, a crisis of confidence could develop. Investors have scant patience for the years of good governance - politically fraught fiscal restructuring, austerity and debt rescheduling - it takes to defuse a sovereign-debt crisis.
Since JPMorgan Chase announced its surprise $2 billion-and-growing trading loss, there have been renewed calls from economists, pundits, and politicians to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, a Depression-era law that prevented commercial banks from participating in investment banking activities.
Tiptoeing on a tightrope past insider trading laws may be deft and clever, but it doesn't make it right.
In September 2008 - as Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and AIG, the world's biggest insurance company, accepted a federal bailout - Senator John McCain of Arizona, in what was widely viewed as a political move, suspended his presidential campaign and called on Obama to rush back to Washington for a bipartisan meeting at the White House.
It's the people who have an incentive to find the problem who usually find the problem.
We talk about institutions that are too big to fail - I think the story is as much about people who think they are too big to fail.
The euphoria around economic booms often obscures the possibility for a bust, which explains why leaders typically miss the warning signs.
I would say that my whole career is effectively trying to be a storyteller within the context of financial news.
Some billionaires like cars, yachts and private jets. Others like newspapers.
Bitcoin, in the short or even long term, may turn out be a good investment in the same way that anything that is rare can be considered valuable. Like baseball cards. Or a Picasso.
I started, actually, in journalism when I was - well. I started at the 'New York Times' when I was 18 years old, actually, but really got into journalism when I was 15 years old and had started a sports magazine which was trying to become a national sports magazine.
What keeps me up at night? Waking up to a scoop at another newspaper or on TV. I'm probably competitive, almost too much so. I will stay up till the Web sites at night roll over. And if they don't roll over, I'll stay up until it's done. I'll wake up at the crack of dawn, or in the middle of the night even, just to go and check and see.
Investors are sometimes too busy looking for profits to notice where the truth ends and the deception begins.
What if lawmakers never spoke to their constituents? Oddly enough, that's exactly how corporate America operates. Shareholders vote for directors, but the directors rarely, if ever, communicate with them.
The greatest economic power might in fact remain in the hands of the Federal Reserve. Economists credit the Fed's policy of keeping interest rates at historic lows with helping to pump up the economy and bring unemployment down.
The Saft America plant, a giant 235,000-square-foot mass of concrete, is a modern marvel: its roof covered in row upon row of solar panels, embodying the renewable future that the batteries manufactured within are meant to sustain.
Hard paywalls will never work because, just like at a newsstand, the reader likes to browse the cover and a few articles before choosing to buy. Even if the material is truly unique, a consumer likes to try a little before buying.
Hank Paulson, obviously, had spent his career on Wall Street, had a deep knowledge of the Street, and also was a very forceful personality, had a very good relationship with the president, and was in a very different place, for example, than Ben Bernanke, who is an academic, quiet guy: spent most of his time thinking about monetary policy.
I think you tell the story that has to be told. You tell the story that's the truth. You tell the story that readers will be interested in and should know about.
I was always one of those people who would watch the Super Bowl as much for the sports as I did for the ads. I was always just sort of fascinated by the fact that when you turn on the TV, there was motion, there was moving pictures on it.
