Peter Coy

Biggest Drop in Pay Since 1947 Is 'a Zigzag,' Not a Calamity

businessweek.com — The Bureau of Labor Statistics said today that hourly compensation fell in the first quarter by the most since recordkeeping began in 1947. Right away I got an email from a colleague: "Recession redux?" The investing website Zero Hedge said the drop "poured cold water over all recent hypotheses that

Americans Flopped This Personal Finance Quiz. Can You Do Better?

businessweek.com — Only 14 percent of Americans correctly answered all five questions in a survey of financial literacy that was released May 30. Keep reading to the bottom of this article to see if you can do better. The online survey of more than 25,000 adults found that although Americans may not be too smart about finance, they think they are.

Cyprus Bank Deposits Plunge By Most Ever During "Capital Controls" Month

zerohedge.com — Following the improvised and very confused bail-in of the Cypriot banking system in mid/late March, one of the key requirements was to contain the liquidity within continuous Cyprus, and prevent the outflows of critical bank funding liabilities - i.e., deposits - abroad thus causing a waterfall cascade of ever increasing capital needs and bigger and better bailouts.

Fixing Government? That's a Job for the Volcker Alliance

businessweek.com — Shelley Metzenbaum is the president of the new Volcker Alliance, an organization launched today by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker that's devoted to improving the quality of government administration. From 2009 until this year, Metzenbaum was associate director of performance and personnel management in the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Busiest airports are Atlanta, Frankfurt, Sao Paolo, Beijing.

slate.com — The United States and China may be the world's biggest economic engines, but on this gorgeous map of the world's flight paths, Europe glows brighter than either one. The map, designed by a young Canadian GIS consultant named Michael Markieta, traces some 60,000 routes on major and regional airlines around...

Boomers Plan to Delay Retirement. Then Life Intrudes

businessweek.com — Compare the headlines on these two press releases, which hit reporters' e-mail boxes an hour and a half apart this morning: First, from Gallup: Three in Four U.S. Workers Plan to Work Past Retirement Age Then, from MetLife: Oldest Boomers Are Retiring at a Quick Rate The Gallup survey says what Americans intend to do.

The Powerful People Arguing for U.S.-China Free Trade

businessweek.com — Recommending that the U.S. and China work toward a free-trade deal is a bit like stepping into a prize fight and asking the boxers to settle their differences peacefully. But some powerful people on both sides of the Pacific Ocean are doing exactly that.

The Tyranny of College

blogs.the-american-interest.com — College isn't for everyone, and there's data to prove it. During the 2011-12 academic year, the number of students enrolled in American colleges and universities dropped by 1.6 percent, while the number of degrees awarded increased by 5.1 percent, according to a new study.