money

Videos of white nationalists chanting “Jews will not replace us” surely startled anyone who thought anti-Semitism long dead in the America of 2017. But for others it simply confirmed that old prejudices die hard.

Let’s say your city needs cash to build a new school or sewer system. The budget lacks funds and the state government is only willing to pay a small share. What does your city do? Most likely, it issues a municipal bond.

Immigrants, politicians across the spectrum regularly declare, help make America a success. The United States was founded by immigrants and their children on the idea that anyone, regardless of birth, can achieve anything.

But some groups — that is, American immigrants from certain countries — appear more successful than others. Why? The answer, a new paper explains, depends largely on the proportion of an immigrant’s home country population that moves to the U.S.

In the 1987 movie “Suspect,” Dennis Quaid plays a lobbyist so desperate to get votes for a bill supporting milk producers in his home state that he sleeps with a congresswoman.

That was just a movie. But special interests in Washington D.C., still buy access and influence to broker deals behind closed doors. They leave journalists a few crumbs to follow, but we need to know where to look.

No matter the direction, up or down, when the Federal Reserve adjusts its headline interest rate, the global economy moves. Eight times a year, journalists, analysts and investors around the world carefully monitor the Fed’s arcane statements for hints of where the economy is heading.

What’s the Fed?