On a hill high above Cleveland, Tennessee, stands a manor modeled after George Vanderbilt’s Biltmore. A stone-and-stucco pile topped by a copper dome, the house is perched on a 650-acre (263-hectare) estate that features two artificial lakes, a regulation-sized football field and a three- story tree house, plus stables, a greenhouse and an aviary. If this sounds [...]

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There is nothing like an inquisitive child to make you realize just how complicated the topic of money is. That’s what I ended up thinking after my 4-year-old daughter a few weeks ago stomped her feet, turned red and demanded to know why we did not own a summer house. It might have been funny [...]

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The U.S. House of Representatives approved the financial-overhaul bill, moving a step closer to enacting the broadest rewrite of Wall Street rules since the Great Depression. The House voted 237-192 in favor of the bill. It also will have to be approved by the Senate, which delayed action until after the weeklong July 4 recess, [...]

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Greek demonstrations against government austerity measures turned deadly when three people were killed after protesters set fire to a bank in central Athens. Fire officials at the scene said they discovered three bodies in the building, according to a fire-department statement sent by text message today. The building, located near the Greek parliament, housed a branch [...]

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Former Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Charles O. “Chuck” Prince said he wasn’t aware of the mortgage-related securities that caused the bank’s biggest losses until the financial crisis struck. Neither was Robert Rubin, the former U.S. Treasury secretary who headed the bank’s executive committee in the decade leading up to the crisis, he said at a hearing today [...]

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March 29 (Bloomberg) — China’s banking regulator ordered lenders to take more care when making real-estate loans, widening efforts to prevent property speculators from causing asset bubbles and bad debt. Banks should not lend to developers found by state agencies to have held land without building houses, the government said in a statement posted online late on [...]

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BRUSSELS: The European Union, shaken by Greece’s fiscal crisis and struggling to get its new institutions into gear, hopes to relaunch itself this week as leaders mull improved, coordinated economic governance. Europe’s post-recession economic woes, highlighted by the swelling deficits of Greece and others, will be the focus of a European Union summit on Thursday. [...]

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You first start learning about teaching your kids about money on that special trip to Wal-Mart when your child first throws a tantrum because you won’t buy her a Barbie doll. Some people will grab the child from the shopping cart and leave the store fuming and red in the face. Other parents might opt [...]

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HONG KONG : Hong Kong stocks have come under pressure amid worries over further credit tightening measures by China. The Hang Seng is down by some 8 per cent for the year, and 13 per cent lower than its peak in mid-November 2009. Market watchers have said they expect further weakness in the coming sessions [...]

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DAVOS, Switzerland : Global leaders and bankers will be looking for firm signs at the Davos forum this week of China’s determination to control the hot money pouring into its economy. A year after China’s Premier Wen Jiabao sternly lectured the United States and other western nations at the World Economic Forum for causing the [...]

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