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Greece’s political turmoil entered its fourth day, with coalition talks deadlocked, raising the possibility that another election will have to be held as early as next month. Evangelos Venizelos, the socialist Pasok leader and former finance minister, is trying to form a government after receiving a three-day mandate from President Karolos Papoulias today. Pasok yesterday [...]

The new Spanish government will present its first budget Friday, with austerity expected to be the overriding theme. The problems facing the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy have not dissipated since the government, led by Mariano Rajoy of the center-right People’s Party, took office last year, and there are now worries that the Spanish population is [...]

Unemployment should drop below 8 percent this year as part of an improving economic climate that could take more monetary easing off the table, Fed President James Bullard told CNBC. The head of the Federal Reserve’s St. Louis branch said 2011 featured a number of unexpected shocks to the economy — Japan’s tsunami and Europe’s [...]

Consumer confidence in the U.S. increased last week to the highest level since April 2008 as more Americans had a favorable view of their finances. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort (COMFCOMF) Index rose to minus 38.4 in the period ended Feb. 19, its fifth consecutive gain, from minus 39.8 the previous week. It marked the second [...]

New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits were unchanged last week, holding at the lowest level since the early days of the 2007-2009 recession and giving a fresh sign the battered labor market is healing. Workers filed 351,000 initial claims for state unemployment benefits, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week’s figure was revised [...]

Eurozone finance ministers have made a series of demands for Greece to get a 130bn euro ($170bn; £110bn) bailout. They said the Greek parliament would have to approve the terms of a package of cuts and reforms agreed with the EU and the International Monetary Fund. In addition, Athens must find a further 325m euros [...]

European finance ministers held back a rescue package for Greece in a rebuff that left lawmakers in Athens under government pressure to endorse a newly minted austerity plan or exit the euro. “In short: no disbursement without implementation,” Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said in Brussels late yesterday after chairing emergency talks of euro-area policy [...]

U.S. state tax collections rose 6.1 percent from July to September, the seventh straight quarter of growth, and now exceed pre-recession levels, according to a report from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. The increase was relative to the same period of 2010, the Albany, New York-based group said today. Preliminary figures from 44 [...]

On the official second day of the World Economic Forum here in Davos, I have just interviewed Baudouin Prot, the chairman of BNP Paribas, the huge French bank which is seen as one of Europe’s stronger banks. He had two or three pretty interesting claims to make – though I should say at the outset [...]