recession depression

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Commode for 35K? Ousted CEO Thain Had Lavish Taste

Details emerge on $1.2M office work

(Newser) - Recently-axed Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain may have steered his company to a $15.4 billion fourth-quarter loss, but he did so from a really nice office. Details are emerging about Thain's $1.2 million redecoration, Bloomberg reports. Among the purchases noted by CNBC: $87,000 for area rugs, $68,...

Male-Dominated Industries Bear Brunt of Job Losses

Construction, manufacturing cuts disproportionately hit men

(Newser) - The gap between men's and women’s unemployment is at a 25-year high because job cuts have hit especially hard in male-dominated industries like construction and manufacturing, reports Reuters. Some 80% of the nearly 3 million workers who lost jobs between November 2007 and November 2008 were men. Women hold...

Sony Swings to First Annual Loss in 14 Years

Global downturn, strong yen reverse earlier expectations

(Newser) - Sony announced today that it would go down to its first annual loss in 14 years, after having forecast just months ago that it would turn a profit. The Japanese electronics giant said it expected to lose $1.7 billion, the result of declining demand from the global recession. The...

Tea Bubble Bursts, Leaving Chinese Broke

Boom and bust results in a bitter fate for tea-growing heartland

(Newser) - Thousands of people in China's Yunnan province were left in the cold when the country's red-hot tea market collapsed last year, the New York Times reports. The newly affluent nation went wild for the Pu'er region's distinctive fermented tea—said to reduce cholesterol and cure hangovers—during its decade-long boom....

Florida 'Mini-Madoff' Missing With $350M

Police searching for fund manager after clients complain of missing millions

(Newser) - A Florida hedge fund manager is missing along with hundreds of millions of dollars of his clients' money, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports. Art Nadel, 75, was reported missing Wednesday after his wife found a suicide note. Stunned investors have been told that Nadel's funds, thought to have totaled $350 million,...

Hollywood Reeling From DVD Slump

Disappearing profits threaten movies, star deals

(Newser) - Hollywood studios are faced with huge losses because of a 21% slump in DVD sales and the fallout from the crisis on Wall Street, reports the Financial Times. Studio heads have been forced to cut back on the number of new movies in production and are preparing to trim the...

Even Microsoft Is Weighing Layoffs

Need to trim costs in weak economy has software firm looking at rare cuts

(Newser) - Microsoft could be considering the first large-scale layoff in its history, as it looks for ways to trim costs, reports the Wall Street Journal. Up to 15,000 positions are rumored to be at risk—6% of its workforce—but insiders say the cuts, across all divisions, are likely to...

Scamsters Cash In on Foreclosure Crisis

Phony rescuers collect big upfront fees from desperate homeowners

(Newser) - A new breed of crook is getting rich preying on homeowners desperate to fend off foreclosure, the New York Times reports. Scamsters set themselves up as "foreclosure rescue companies,” collect big upfront fees for the promise to modify loans, then do little or nothing to help. Some people...

Christie's Cuts Jobs as Art Sales Slump

250-year-old auction house downsizes to stay afloat

(Newser) - Following months of bad results in America and Europe, Christie's is reorganizing to cut costs, including "significant staff reductions," the auction house said yesterday. While at the start of 2008 the art world seemed immune to the economic downturn, the decade-long boom in art prices busted this fall....

Nutritionists Fear We'll Pack On 'Recession Pounds'

Obesity rate linked to poverty

(Newser) - Health professionals fear that Americans' lighter wallets will lead to bigger bellies. During tight times, consumers tend to pick cheap, high-calorie foods over healthy items such as lean meats and fresh produce, Reuters reports. "Obesity is a toxic result of a failing economic environment," said one nutritionist. When...

Porn Kings Want Federal Bailout

$5B sought to 'rejuvenate sexual appetite'

(Newser) - Recession depression has hampered America's sex drive, claim Larry Flynt (of Hustler fame) and Joe Francis (Girls Gone Wild). The adult-entertainment kings want a federal bailout for slumping DVD sales, down 22% in the past year. Placing themselves alongside Detroit’s automakers in national importance, the duo says Congress should...

Billionaire Merckle Kills Self
 Billionaire Merckle Kills Self 
Jan 6, 2009 1:31 PM CST

Billionaire Merckle Kills Self

(Newser) - German businessman Adolf Merckle, 74, killed himself yesterday in the face of mounting debt and a crumbling multibillion dollar empire, Bloomberg reports. Merckle’s personal fortune of $9.2 billion put him 94th on Forbes' list of the world’s richest people, but his holding company, which owned stake in...

Rainbow Room Grill to Close
Rainbow Room Grill to Close 
Jan 4, 2009 4:54 PM CST

Rainbow Room Grill to Close

In throes of recession, rent dispute, the Big Apple landmark will shutter its dining hall

(Newser) - New York’s vaunted Rainbow Room will shut down its dining hall next week amid the recession and a rent conflict, the New York Daily News reports. With the Rainbow Grill’s closure, the tourist hotspot at 30 Rockefeller Plaza will—temporarily or otherwise—be 40 employees lighter and limited...

Madoff Got $10M Investment Days Before Arrest: Suit

Funds were businessman's first Madoff deal

(Newser) - A New York businessman is suing to recover $10 million he handed over to Bernard Madoff 6 days before the alleged Ponzi schemer was arrested, the Wall Street Journal reports. Martin Rosenman wired the funds to a JP Morgan Chase account controlled by Madoff, who told the first-time investor that...

Suicides Up in National Parks
 Suicides Up in National Parks 
Jan 2, 2009 12:51 PM CST

Suicides Up in National Parks

'08 a big year for people offing themselves in pretty places

(Newser) - A newly unemployed businessman shot himself in the chest in Glacier National Park. A 46-year-old carpenter with cancer climbed into a canoe in the Everglades and never returned. A 49-year-old builder left a note blaming the economy before killing himself in Georgia’s Kennesaw Mountains. They were just some of...

Dumbest Gaffes on the Economy

Instead of predicting financial crisis, they hid it

(Newser) - The men who should have been warning us about the impending financial crisis were a wee bit off the mark at times. MSNBC rounds up some of the dumbest things said:
  • "Subprime market problems seem likely to be contained."—Ben Bernanke, March 28, 2007
  • "The fundamentals
...

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Lead to Madoff

Actor, wife Kyra Sedgwick lost money in Ponzi scheme

(Newser) - It turns out Kevin Bacon didn’t put enough degrees between himself and Bernie Madoff. Bacon and wife Kyra Sedgwick join Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg on the list of Hollywood denizens duped by the Ponzi schemer, Bacon’s rep confirmed to New York magazine. Rumor has it the couple...

Recession Shutters Famed Yale Club

Mory's has closed until further notice

(Newser) - Mory's, a legendary Yale University eating and drinking club that traces its roots to the Civil War—and whose membership includes two presidents named Bush—is the latest victim of the recession. A list of patrons that has included the likes of Al Pacino, Tom Hanks, and Jodie Foster hasn't...

Madoff Investor Kills Himself
 Madoff Investor Kills Himself 
Dec 23, 2008 1:44 PM CST

Madoff Investor Kills Himself

Hedge fund head who lost $1.4B committed suicide

(Newser) - A hedge fund founder whose firm lost $1.4 billion in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme was found dead in his Manhattan office today, an apparent suicide, reports the New York Times. Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, 65, had been trying to recover money for European clients of Access International Advisors,...

Chrysler Idling US Plants for 30 Days

Supply to be slowed so it meets lowered demand, company says

(Newser) - Ominous news on the auto front: Chrysler will idle all its North American plants for at least 30 days beginning Friday, a move meant to realign the company's supply with plummeting demand, the Detroit News reports. Ford, meanwhile, will close 10 assembly plants for an extra week in January, the...

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