Hao Li

The US dollar has traditionally been a safe-haven asset, meaning whenever people are afraid, they sell ‘risky’ assets and flee to the safety of the US dollar. However, starting the week of February 21, 2011, this pattern has been broken.

It’s no secret that speculators are buying up long contracts of commodities futures. However, the crowding of speculators in into one trade (in this case, long all kinds of commodities) usually spells an imminent reversal, especially if commercial users are on the other side of their trades.

Toyota is recalling another 2.17 million vehicles due to troubles with floor mats interfering with the functions of accelerator pedals.

Full text of Toyota's announcement of new voluntary safety recalls.

Jeffrey Gundlach of DoubleLine Capital, dubbed 'King of Bonds' by Barron's, sees a major collapse in the municipal-bond market. After the carnage happens, he plans to scoop up the bargains left behind.

There is now more evidence that speculators are pushing up the prices of food commodities.

In urban China, poor people (and there are many of them) still have tough, despite the country’s stellar headline economic growth.

Inflation did not immediately follow because of the severity of the economic recession. However, as some economists correctly predicted, it was only a matter of time. In Europe, it's starting to heat up.

US “austerity is really foolish,” said famed economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz in his office at Columbia University, in an interview with IBTimes.

Two visitors to Stewart Island, New Zealand, found 107 pilot whales stranded at a remote beach, reported the Department of Conservation. These whales were euthanized.

Buju Banton, the Grammy-winning Jamaican-born reggae artist, has just been found guilty of cocaine conspiracy charges.

On Tuesday, US-traded crude oil futures initially jumped to trade as high as $98.50 per barrel, or an increase of 14 percent from last Friday’s closing levels, on escalating tensions in Libya.

Two Iranian warships, bound for Syria, have entered Egypt’s Suez Canal, amidst alarm from Israel.

The specter of civil war looms in Libya, according Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

Khamis Gaddafi, a son of Libya ruler Moammar Gaddafi, recruited French-speaking Sub-Saharan African mercenaries to shoot live rounds at pro-democracy protesters, reported Al Arabiya, citing sources in the city of Benghazi.

Two Libyan Air Force pilots have defected to the Mediterranean island of Malta.

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, and Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series are the most popular works of fiction in recent years. However, their popularity and sales still pale compared to the bestselling novels of all time.

Since the financial crisis, laws have changed to better regulate financial institutions. However, they don’t go far enough and there are still unresolved issues, said Professor Joseph Stiglitz in an interview with IBTimes.

Rich people love their art, especially the rare and historic ones, like an original van Gogh, for example.

The G20 Meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Communiqué, released on February 19 from France, doesn’t contain the word inflation. Not even once.

Full text of G20 Meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Communiqué, from the G20 France 2011 website.

It’s not exactly groundbreaking research, but PIMCO’s Mark Taborsky and Sebastien Page just released a well-constructed chart illustrating the outperformance of the carry trade versus the S&P 500 in the last decade.

Cash is a “dead asset,” which earns nothing, and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is in, said Gary Parr, vice chairman of investment bank Lazard and one of the leading authorities in the world on M&A.

Advancements in technology have allowed many things to become smaller. One of them is flying robots.

The consensus is that the upcoming G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers will address the issue of food inflation, the hot button issue of the day.

The combination of population growth, advancement in technology, and bigger governments has produced the need and ability to construct ridiculously expensive infrastructure objects that cost tens of billions of dollars.

Mortgage foreclosures “have clearly turned the corner,” said the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) chief economist Jay Brinkmann.

Core inflation, considered the key measure of US inflation, remains tame. However, it is the incorrect measure to look at in this time period and doesn't tell the whole story.

"The government can pick winners," said Professor Ha-Joon Chang of Cambridge, in an interview with IBTimes.