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CEOs "cashed out" prior to economic crisis

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:12:34 -0600

CEOs at major US financial and real estate firms converted tens of millions of dollars of overvalued stock into cash prior to the eruption of the current financial crisis, even as many of their corporations approached the precipice. These included Richard Fuld, the CEO of Lehma …

Insurers Are Getting in Line for Piece of Federal Bailout

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 13:59:31 -0500

Even as the Treasury began approving capital injections for about 20 regional banks on Friday, including $7.7 billion for a merger between PNC Financial and National City, carmakers pressed for their financing subsidiaries to be eligible for a part of the bailout fund because t …

401(k)s in the face of disaster - were we all had?

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:21:23 -0500

[A]ccording to global consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide, from 1995 to 2006, defined-benefit plans actually outperformed defined-contribution plans by about 1 percentage point per year, translating into a cumulative difference of nearly 14 percent for money invested at the st …

ORDINARY JOBS - OregonLive.com

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 11:27:48 -0500

Recently, I took my 5-year-old grandson to see the animated movie "Kung Fu Panda." My aim was to spend time with a boy I'm fond of, to hold his hand during the scary parts and to listen to him recount every bit of the main character's bathroom humor on the way home, so I was surp …

Mitsubishi Testing Its Cute EV in California

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 11:14:30 -0500

Mitsubishi is toying with the idea of bringing its jellybean-shaped i MiEV electric car to America and wants two California utilities to put them through their paces and see how they perform in real-world conditions. The automaker has signed deals with Pacific Gas & Electric and …

It's OK to feel guilty about eating fast food, but is it the gov...

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:22:53 -0500

This month, restaurant inspectors from New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, scourge of both smokers and trans-fat lovers, will add a new violation to their checklist: the failure to display, in large type and directly on the menu board, the calorie counts of e …

How Economic Distress Works

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:23:53 -0500

Every city, university, transit agency, school district and local government entity which has promised public union employees (labor and labor overhead is typically about 75% of their budgets) full healthcare insurance and plummy pensions in "good times" is now facing the unhappy …

Earl Eaton, a Founder of the Vail Skiing Resort, Is Dead at 85

Sat, 31 May 2008 14:08:27 -0500

The NYT reports: Earl Eaton, a dreamer who grew up glorying in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado as a hunter, a hiker, a prospector and a skier, then looked anew at a nameless 11,570-foot-high mountain and envisioned what became Vail, one of America's most popular ski resorts, d …

Toughest Summer Job This Year Is Finding One

Sun, 25 May 2008 09:37:34 -0500

The NYT reports: As the forces of economic downturn ripple widely across the United States, the job market of 2008 is shaping up as the weakest in more than half a century for teenagers looking for summer work, according to labor economists, government data and companies that hir …

Grilling Burger King

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:01:22 -0500

One corporation that has refused to pay the extra penny is Burger King, despite the fact that it would cost them only $250,000 annually , its competitors have agreed to do it, and for workers it's the difference between a sub-poverty wage that hasn't been raised in twenty years a …