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22 Apr 2009 10:00

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Biz, U.S.: Why it sucks to be Morgan Stanley right now

  • $177 million The amount the financial company lost this quarter, which was unexpectedly large source

21 Apr 2009 23:54

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Biz, U.S.: Great! The bailout program could be a huge target for fraud.

  • The sheer size of the program … is so large and the leverage being provided to the private equity participants so beneficial, that the taxpayer risk is many times that of the private parties, thereby potentially skewing the economic incentives.
  • Inspector General Neil Barofksy • In a massive quarterly report on the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Sound like fun? It totally is. We hope, if the banks defraud us taxpayers, they do it in really cool ways, like buying themselves gold houses and rocket cars. • source

21 Apr 2009 10:48

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Biz, U.S.: Chrysler, GM get a little help from their friends at the White House

  • $500 million Amount Chrysler will get to see through their merger with Fiat source

19 Apr 2009 21:23

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Biz: The Fortune 500 is worth a lot less than they were before

  • 85% decline in the Fortune 500’s profits from 2007 to 2008 source

19 Apr 2009 21:10

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Biz: The Fortune 500’s top five and how they got to the top

  • ExxonMobil: Making money off of the world’s addiction to oil, their massive profits were up 19% in 2008. source
  • Wal-Mart: Making money off of the world’s addiction to cheap crap, their profits were up 7% in 2008. source
  • Chevron: People like putting gas in their cars, and indirectly, money in Chevron’s cash-lined pockets. source
  • ConocoPhillips: see all the stuff we just said about ExxonMobil and Chevron, then apply it here. source
  • General Electric: Nobody watches NBC, so we’ll assume it’s because of all the other stuff they make. source

18 Apr 2009 18:23

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U.S.: Martin Luther King had a dream. His kids had a payday.

  • $120 million the cost of the forthcoming Martin Luther King memorial on the National Mall in D.C., to be paid for with private funds source

17 Apr 2009 18:22

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Politics, U.S.: Five guesses as to who the anonymous university donor was

  • Mark Cuban: Because he likes making points in roundabout, absurd ways.
  • Bill Gates: Because he cares too much about helping out sometimes.
  • Joaquin Guzman: Because Mexican drug lords make pretty great benefactors.
 

17 Apr 2009 18:14

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U.S.: Yo, universities, here’s a bunch of money. No questions, please.

  • $45 million in anonymous donations were given to nine different universities, big and small and seemingly picked at random, in the last few weeks. source

16 Apr 2009 23:05

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Tech: Well, that’s spiffy: Google is still freakin’ profitable

  • 8.9% increase in 1st-quarter profits for the super-geniuses source

16 Apr 2009 09:18

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Biz, U.S.: Initial jobless claims are on the decline. (Whew.)

  • -8% decline in new claims in the week ended April 11th source