Economy & Business

Herman Cain, who recently threw his hat into the ring of GOP presidential contenders, likes to say that what he lacks in political experience he makes up for with his background in business. That may not be a plus. Cain's business "experience" includes a stint on the board of Aquila, which pushed its employees to invest their retirement savings in company stocks and then speculated wildly in energy markets, wiping out most of the company's value.

"The California Chamber of Commerce routinely denounces bills that protect workers, consumers and the environment as job killers. But when the bills become law, there's no economic catastrophe."

"The disputed share swap and oil exploration agreement between BP and the Russian state-owned company Rosneft has collapsed, leaving some BP investors questioning the company’s future strategy and freeing Rosneft to look for a new partner in Russia."

"The Senate on Tuesday blocked a Democratic proposal to strip the five leading oil companies of tax breaks that backers of the measure said were unfairly padding industry profits while consumers were struggling with high gas prices."

"U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday directed a special task force to look into whether gasoline prices are falling in the wake of the drop in oil prices and if not, whether it was because of fraud or market manipulation."

"Denmark earns the biggest share of its national revenue from producing windmills and other clean technologies, the United States is rapidly expanding its clean-tech sector, but no country can match China's pace of growth, according to a new report obtained by The Associated Press."

"For the first time in more than 30 years, the construction of new nuclear power plants is under way in the United States despite the ongoing nuclear crisis at Fukushima in Japan." That's according to Standard & Poor's, the profit-driven credit rating agency that painted a rosy picture of Wall St. financial institutions as they were melting down in 2008.