Companies now routinely lose billions of dollars...a quarter. And to the U.S. government, $1 billion is chump change. Yet, it's rarely the bosses that take the losses.http://www.newser.com/2008 - Newseren-usNewser Feed GeneratorThu, 20 Nov 2008 1:48:29 CSThttp://www.newser.com/story/42425/detroit-needs-green-deal-or-no-deal.html?refid=rss_all_defaultIf we’re going to bail out the auto industry, writes Joseph Romm in Salon, let’s do it right. Detroit’s Big Three have spent years fighting tooth and nail against the very innovations that could save them: higher fuel efficiency and hybrid-electric cars. Detroit has “been suicidally lobbying against its own inescapable future,” as well as against everyone’s shared interest in cars running on clean and renewable energy.http://www.newser.com/story/42425/detroit-needs-green-deal-or-no-deal.html?refid=rss_all_defaultWed, 12 Nov 2008 7:37:55 CSThttp://www.newser.com/story/40961/robin-hood-beware-the-rich-get-poorer.html?refid=rss_all_defaultBarack Obama and John McCain have sparred over the country’s income gap, but that gap is shrinking rapidly, Robert Frank writes in the Wall Street Journal . Financial crises always knock the rich down a peg, and this one is no different. One economist predicts the top 1%’s share of all income will fall to 18-19% during the next year, down from 23-24% last year.http://www.newser.com/story/40961/robin-hood-beware-the-rich-get-poorer.html?refid=rss_all_defaultMon, 27 Oct 2008 11:13:27 CDThttp://www.newser.com/story/40291/bankers-to-reap-70b-despite-crash.html?refid=rss_all_defaultWall Street’s top banks are set to pay their financial workers more than $70 billion in salary and bonuses this year—a tenth of the $700 billion in taxpayer money committed to the bailout—despite the huge drops in share price and cash shortages they are experiencing, the Guardian reports. Morgan Stanley, for example, will dole out $10.7 billion, which at one point last week was more than the bank’s market value.http://www.newser.com/story/40291/bankers-to-reap-70b-despite-crash.html?refid=rss_all_defaultSat, 18 Oct 2008 11:10:54 CDThttp://www.newser.com/story/40111/swiss-offer-ubs-60b-bailout.html?refid=rss_all_defaultSwitzerland became the latest nation to shore up struggling banks, reports the Telegraph , as it bailed out UBS to the tune of $60 billion today. The Swiss central bank will offer UBS a capital injection of $6 billion in exchange for 9% of the company, and it will allow UBS to offload billions in illiquid assets into a specially created fund. Another top Swiss bank, Credit Suisse, also received a lifeline after raising $10 billion from Mideast investors.http://www.newser.com/story/40111/swiss-offer-ubs-60b-bailout.html?refid=rss_all_defaultThu, 16 Oct 2008 6:39:37 CDThttp://www.newser.com/story/39944/academics-laud-bank-plan.html?refid=rss_all_defaultThe Treasury gets gold stars for finally recapitalizing collapsing banks, with the Wall Street Journal reporting on reactions from economics professors: Barry Eichengreen, UC Berkeley: "I would give it an A- for quality but lower the final grade to a C for lateness." Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard: "Thank goodness they didn’t dally for another week."http://www.newser.com/story/39944/academics-laud-bank-plan.html?refid=rss_all_defaultTue, 14 Oct 2008 14:42:18 CDThttp://www.newser.com/story/39509/times-square-debt-ticker-runs-out-of-numbers.html?refid=rss_all_defaultAmerica's national debt has outgrown the ticker designed to draw attention to it, the BBC reports. The Times Square counter, set up in 1989 when the debt was a mere $2.7 trillion, ran out of space for digits recently when the debt ballooned to more than $10 trillion. Its owners have temporarily removed the dollar sign to make space for an extra number—and plan to add enough room to record up to a quadrillion dollars in debt.http://www.newser.com/story/39509/times-square-debt-ticker-runs-out-of-numbers.html?refid=rss_all_defaultThu, 09 Oct 2008 5:16:32 CDThttp://www.newser.com/story/39337/how-much-will-wall-street-pay-itself-now.html?refid=rss_all_defaultRichard Fuld has made roughly $480 million since 2000 as he piloted Lehman Brothers to total ruin, according to one congressman at his testimony yesterday. “I have a very basic question,” he said. “Is this fair?” Many shareholders are wondering the same thing, writes Andrew Ross Sorkin in the New York Times. The sacred executive bonus is being questioned, not just by the hoi polloi, but by “a more austere Wall Street itself.”http://www.newser.com/story/39337/how-much-will-wall-street-pay-itself-now.html?refid=rss_all_defaultTue, 07 Oct 2008 7:45:08 CDThttp://www.newser.com/story/39281/congress-gets-ugly-portrait-of-lehmans-last-days.html?refid=rss_all_defaultLehman Brothers’ departing executives were negotiating millions in bonuses while the bank begged for taxpayer money to avoid bankruptcy, a House committee finds after reviewing documents. At a hearing today on Capitol Hill—the first on the financial crisis—the investment firm was painted as one run by irresponsible leaders who poured money into risky projects even though internal documents predicted a liquidity crunch, the New York Times reports.http://www.newser.com/story/39281/congress-gets-ugly-portrait-of-lehmans-last-days.html?refid=rss_all_defaultMon, 06 Oct 2008 14:04:20 CDThttp://www.newser.com/story/38601/wolfe-stars-went-to-hedge-funds-long-ago.html?refid=rss_all_defaultTom Wolfe has been fielding a lot of questions about where the Wall Street crisis leaves the Masters of the Universe now, writes the author of the seminal book about the excesses of 1980s traders in the New York Times . But, he notes, the real investment banking superstars left for hedge funds 6 years ago, long before the banks failed. And they've been comfortably ensconced in hedge funds ever since as the New York Stock Exchange emptied out.http://www.newser.com/story/38601/wolfe-stars-went-to-hedge-funds-long-ago.html?refid=rss_all_defaultSun, 28 Sep 2008 10:22:40 CDT