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NEW YORK — The stock market ended its worst August since 2001 with meager gains Tuesday after minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting showed officials’ increasing concern about the economy.

Stock indexes gave up most of their gains in mid-afternoon after the release of minutes from the Fed’s Aug. 10 meeting. Fed officials said during their discussions that they recognized that the economy might need further stimulus beyond the purchases of government debt the central bank announced that day. Some of the officials acknowledged that economy had softened more than they had anticipated.

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Does handing out unemployment benefits to out-of-work Americans discourage them from finding a job?

In an op-ed article in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Harvard economist Robert Barro argues that the current unemployment rate would be 6.8 percent rather than 9.5 percent if the Obama administration hadn’t extended unemployment-insurance eligibility to up to 99 weeks from the standard 26 weeks.

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MUMBAI, India – Indian authorities are scheduled to meet Monday evening to decide whether to ban some BlackBerry services in India, one day ahead of a government-imposed deadline for the device’s maker Research In Motion Ltd. to give security agencies access to encrypted data.

Home Secretary G.K. Pillai will meet officials from the Department of Telecommunications, the Intelligence Bureau and the National Technical Research Organization — a cyber intelligence organization — to discuss BlackBerry security issues, Home Ministry spokesman Onkar Kedia said by phone from New Delhi.

He declined to discuss details of the talks, which will determine whether some one million BlackBerry users in India will be able to use their corporate e-mail and instant messaging services after Tuesday.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — A new law requiring oil companies to disclose all payments made to governments has sparked a sharp debate, with Big Oil saying it will put it at a big competitive disadvantage.

The law, attached at the last minute to the financial reform bill last month, applies to extractive industries – basically all U.S.-listed oil, gas and mining companies.

These companies pay hundreds of billions of dollars each year to governments in the form of royalties, taxes, and other fees. The problem, say some, is that these payments are often not transparent. Now firms must disclose these payments.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The president’s signature foreclosure rescue plan is losing its punch, according to a federal report released Friday.

Only 36,695 troubled homeowners received long-term mortgage modifications in July under the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, known as HAMP. This brings the total to 434,717 borrowers who have successfully made it out of the trial phase.

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A month ago, 51,205 delinquent borrowers were given long-term assistance.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — First it was Greenspan. Now one by one, other elders of the economy are speaking out against deficits, and they’re making the surprising argument for higher taxes.

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan was first and has taken the most extreme position, arguing that all of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 should be allowed to expire.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — As mom-and-pop businesses struggle to make ends meet, the latest attempt to help them has gotten mired in Washington politics.

The debate began in October, when President Obama started pushing ways to get cheap capital to small businesses. It continued after his State of the Union address, in which he touted the proposal.

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WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) — Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner made a case Wednesday for letting tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans lapse as a step toward getting the nation’s fiscal house in order.

“Borrowing to finance tax cuts for the top 2% would be a $700 billion fiscal mistake,” Geithner said before the Center for American Progress in Washington, alongside deficit hawk Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum. “It’s not the prescription the economy needs right now, and the country can’t afford it.”

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — California’s state workers just can’t catch a break.

For the past year and a half, 200,000 of them have been forced to take three unpaid furlough days a month — losing as much as 14% of their pay.

The furlough order expired July 1, when workweeks and full salaries were restored.

But the reprieve was short: The state’s workers are getting slapped back down.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Lawmakers come back to work Monday facing a tough decision: Whether it’s more important to spend money to keep the economic recovery going or to watch their pennies.

One camp, made up mostly of Democrats, is arguing that Congress must spend to help cash-strapped states and people who are hurting from the downturn.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — A year ago, California dealt with its budget crisis by handing out hundreds of thousands of IOUs to contractors and taxpayers. This year, it’s threatening to cut state workers’ wages to the bone.

Most of California’s 240,000 state employees could see their salaries temporarily cut to the federal minimum wage because government officials can’t reach agreement on a new fiscal-year budget for the financially troubled state.

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WASHINGTON — Buy those Forever stamps now. The cost of mailing a letter is going up again.

Fighting to survive a deepening financial crisis, the Postal Service said Tuesday it wants to increase the price of first-class stamps by 2 cents — to 46 cents — starting in January. Other postage costs would rise as well.

The agency’s persisting problem: ever-declining mail volume as people and businesses shift to the Internet and the declining economy reduces advertising mail.

“The Postal Service faces a serious risk of financial insolvency,” postal vice president Stephen M. Kearney said, an indication that without significant changes a time could come when the agency would be unable to pay its bills.