Michael Hirsh

Wall Street's biggest banks aren't just back to handing out fat bonuses. They're also engaged in a stealth lobbying effort to keep one of their main sources of profits—derivatives—free of government control.

'Too Big to Fail' is one problem. But Barney Frank's loophole-filled derivatives bill has created another.

The Nobel shows Obama is still popular abroad. But it doesn't help much if the U.S. is seen as a banana republic.

Much was made of the meeting between U.S. diplomat Bill Burns and Iran's nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, in Geneva on Thursday. The 45-minute one-on-one was a breakthrough for the Obama administration, which has been trying to "engage" with Tehran for nine months.

Why Wall Street's big ratings agencies should go the way of Arthur Andersen after Enron.

The new Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission may be the only opportunity to nail Wall Street.

An entire regulatory system was indicted by the Madoff report.

Hedge funds took the blame for much of last year's financial havoc, but the fact is that they have played a much more benign role than is commonly thought.

The real story behind President Clinton's surprise mission to North Korea dates back to the 1990s.

It's been about four months since President Obama announced looser restrictions on travel and sending money to Cuba. But they haven't gone into effect yet, the Treasury Department confirms to NEWSWEEK.

Obama's approval numbers early in his term are closing in on his predecessor's. Are his policies too?

President Obama is expected to decide by autumn whether to give Ben Bernanke a second four-year term as Federal Reserve chairman. Obama's chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, has long been said to covet the job, while Bernanke has pushed back at the Obama administration on a couple of proposals, risking the president's displeasure.

Markets are recovering. But the systemic risk problem that nearly ate New York is still out there.

The Ben Bernanke sweepstakes is heating up. Sometime over the next few months, President Obama will decide whether to reappoint the Federal Reserve chairman to a second four-year term.

Joseph Stiglitz predicted the global financial meltdown. So why can't he get any respect here at home?

The great free-market economist isn't around, but his coauthor is. And Anna Schwartz is not happy.

Why prosecutors won't hit Wall Street hard in the subprime scandal.

Now that they've had their bloody crackdown, the next step for Iran's mullahs is economic reform. That, after all, is the "China model" they've been talking about in Tehran for years.

All the clerics can do is crush the protests, then introduce reforms. But it may be too late.

Maria Cantwell sat aghast in front of the TV in her Senate office last fall, watching Wall Street crash. Not long after her arrival in D.C. in 2001, Enron imploded.

Obama's speech was great. But one day's effort means little against a century of enmity.

Obama is a pro-engagement president with nobody to engage.

Should the Fed be Wall Street's watchdog?

Bring the rocket scientists back. We're headed for a whole new round of 'regulatory arbitrage'

  The resurrection of Wall Street is at hand. That isn't quite the intended message of the results of today's stress tests, but it's pretty likely to be the bottom line.

Why the U.S. and Israel may be headed for a collision.

Foreign policy is set to move center stage

Where are the protesters when you need them? What's most notable in Washington this weekend, as the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank commence, is the calm in the streets.

Long demonized, they may be the model firms of the future.