This time a year ago, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke headed to an annual gathering of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyo., amid a faltering U.S. economy, a perilous global situation, and rising calls on Wall Street for the Fed to do something to address both. Here we go again. Bernanke is to deliver a speech Friday morning in the same ballroom in the shadow of the Grand Teton mountains where last year he gave a speech that laid the groundwork for a $600 billion program of bond purchases aimed at lifting the economy. The financial world is obsessing over the possibility of another go-round. The thought that Bernanke may offer hints of new steps to boost growth contributed to big gains on Wall Street Tuesday, with the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index up 3.4 percent. Read full article > >

Link:
Ben Bernanke unlikely to announce big new plans at Jackson Hole

The Senate Ethics Committee has referred the findings in its investigation of the Nevada Republican to the Justice Department, laying the groundwork for possible prosecution stemming from his affair with a female aide.

Continue reading here:
Ex-senator could face criminal probe

Before Google could buy DoubleClick and AdMob, the Internet giant needed to get antitrust approval from the Federal Trade Commission. But when Google wanted to buy ITA, a leading maker of travel software, the review was conducted by a different agency: the antitrust division of the Justice Department. It was also Justice that earlier nixed the idea of a merger with Yahoo. Now both agencies appear to be quietly, and separately, laying the groundwork for a much broader investigation to determine whether Google is using anti-competitive practices to protect its dominance in the Internet search business. The leaders of both agencies would like nothing more than to bring a high-profile case that would take its place in history along with the government’s landmark challenges of Standard Oil, IBM, AT&T, Microsoft and Intel. The FTC appears to have won the initial coin toss on this round, but don’t count out the team from Justice just yet. Read full article > >

Read more:
In this antitrust slugfest, consumers always lose