Emac's Stock Watch | Fox Business

  • November 20, 2009 10:13 AM EST

    Health Reform Lifeline for Unions

    The House health-care bill has tossed a lifeline to union health-care plans, a lifeline that comes fast on the heels of another victory for the unions in health-care reform. Unions have successfully beaten back a Congressional effort to level a 40% excise tax on "Cadillac plans," the insurance plans that cover more medical costs and which are mostly won by unions in exchange for lower wages. The unions forced Congress to back down on the excise tax by using this line of argument: taxing Cadillac plans would effectively be a tax on the middle class, forcing President Obama to break his campaign pledge to not ... read more

  • November 17, 2009

    The BofA Head Fake

    Last April we broke the news that Bank of America had no legal basis to threaten to the US government that it would walk away from buying Merrill Lynch, a story we followed up on since based on internal bank documents we obtained from BofA. And now Congress plans to grill Bank of America executives over whether BofA wrongfully used that threat to get $20 billion in taxpayer money to buy the damaged brokerage.   Specifically, House Democrats Ed Towns and Dennis Kucinich are holding another hearing into the ... read more

    Bubble 8 Comments

  • November 10, 2009

    Walking with the Lloyd at Goldman Sachs

    It used to be that when law enforcement found the bad guys, the bad guys would find the Lord. But now when Wall Streeters find taxpayers' money, they suddenly find God. Goldman Sachs' chief executive Lloyd Blankfein tells the Sunday Times of London that bankers are doing "God's work" and they do have a social purpose, statements that come fast on the heels of Barclays Capital CEO John Varley telling a London church congregation that "profit is not satanic." Doing God's work sure does take a hell of a lot of taxpayer ... read more

    Bubble 20 Comments

  • November 6, 2009

    A Weak $ Does Not Create Jobs

    Unemployment hits 10.2%, the highest in more than 26 years. Job losses are now approaching a two-year stretch of back-to-back quarterly losses. So are government officials right to believe that a weak-dollar can stop rising unemployment? This is an issue that is as vital as oxygen to the future of the US economy, to your jobs, and to your money. The debate is picking up speed as the dollar continues to lose value in the $3.5 trillion currency market, and as central banks rotate away from the dollar towards euros and ... read more

    Bubble 23 Comments

  • November 5, 2009

    Is a Bailout for the FHA In the Works?

    Americans now own Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the combined $5.2 trillion, heavily politicized housing finance companies nationalized in the fall of 2008, bringing to taxpayers large sums of subprime, no doc, alt-A loans and securitizations that no one wants, backed by abandoned houses. U.S. taxpayers also own their cousin, the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae), the government cheese program of mortgages, as it also is fast becoming a trillion-dollar purveyor of loans and securitizations. And U.S. ... read more

    Bubble 15 Comments

about this blog

  • Elizabeth MacDonald is the stocks editor for Fox Business Network. She is recognized as one of the top prize-winning business journalists in the country, and has received 14 awards, including the top prize in business journalism, the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business Journalism, and the Newswomen's Club of New York Front Page Award for Excellence in Investigative Journalism.

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