IBT Staff Reporter

When the return on savings is less than the rate of inflation it doesn't matter that gold doesn't provide you with an income. Tightly supplied and indestructible, it offers a natural and obvious alternative to cash. Inflation expectations are rising as 2011 begins.

The long fight for healthcare and compensation for Ground Zero workers is finally over. The U.S. Senate today passed the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act by unanimous consent.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Jonathan Bristol, a former law firm partner, with aiding and abetting Kenneth Ira Starr's Ponzi scheme by allowing Starr to use his attorney trust accounts as conduits for transferring the funds stolen from Starr's clients to Starr and his two companies for personal use.

The company says it's returning to normal and that the problem was offline supernodes.

A recent survey from Zogby International says the majority of Americans think high-speed internet was the most impactful technological innovation of the last 10 years.

A finger bone found in Siberia shows Neanderthals weren't the only ones we shared the Earth with.

The arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia was approved by the U.S. Senate today, in a 71 to 26 vote.

Bed Bath & Beyond beat quarterly profit estimates and gave a strong outlook for the period covering the holidays as U.S. consumers spent more on their homes, sending its shares up.

Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer, D-NY, have announced that the Senate has reached a deal to pass the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which will provide $6.2 billion for permanent healthcare and compensation for the approximately 20,000 Americans who are suffering from illnesses contracted while working at Ground Zero in the weeks following the terrorist attacks.

Six bank holding companies repaid a total of $2.7 billion in federal bailout funds they received during the financial crisis, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

Bed Bath & Beyond reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit as U.S. consumers spent more on their homes.

TerreStar Networks and its creditors have come to an agreement on the plan to get the company out of bankruptcy, though some obstacles remain.

President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that implementation of a repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy would be a matter of months.

Stronger consumer appetites for clothes, cars and electronics should fuel higher profits among U.S. chemical makers next year, even as executives worry that regulations may hamper long-term growth.

The popular free web based voice service is down for most of its millions of users.

Stronger consumer appetites for clothes, cars and electronics should fuel higher profits among U.S. chemical makers next year, even as executives worry that regulations may hamper long-term growth.

France wants all 16 euro zone governments and any other interested European Union members to coordinate their economic policy more closely in the future, Economy Minister Christine Lagarde told a German newspaper.

Internet phone and video service Skype went down in a global service outage on Wednesday, underscoring a weakness of the free online communication tool.

Six financial firms that received capital injections as part of a broad-based bailout during the 2007-2009 financial crisis have repurchased the investments, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

Internet phone and video service Skype went down in a global service outage on Wednesday, underscoring a weakness of the free online communication tool.

IBM will provide cloud computing software that will consolidate and integrate technology capabilities for critical command and control programs at NATO.

Sales of previously owned homes rose in November, offering the latest sign the economy was ending the year on a more solid footing after a sluggish third-quarter.

Walgreen Co posted higher-than-expected earnings by keeping costs in check and better managing its discounting, and its shares rose as much as 9 percent to their highest level since last year.

The S&P 500 rose on Wednesday to its highest level since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, led by bank stocks that have leapfrogged other sectors in December.

A lawsuit filed against Philip Falcone charges that the investor took advantage of his position in engineering a stock swap between his hedge fund and a small publicly traded company that he also controls.

With the Great Recession continuing to take a toll on America’s middle class, it should come as no surprise that homelessness and hunger remain tough problems for America’s cities, as the annual report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors points out.

Data warehousing company Teradata announced its acquisition of cloud-based integrated marketing software maker Aprimo for $525 million to boost its analytics portfolio to counter Oracle, IBM and Microsoft.

Sales of previously owned U.S. homes rose in November, offering the latest sign the economy was ending the year on a more solid footing after a sluggish third-quarter performance.

(In Dec 17 item, corrects Michael Gault's attribution to Weiser Capital Management in paragraph 9)