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Business

148-155
431-439
800
475-479
378-381
815-825
264-267
Oct 2006 Portion of U.S. banking assets in 1996 that were controlled by the ten largest U.S. banks: 1/4



Portion today: 1/2
Source:

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (Washington)

Oct 2006 Average salary package last year among all full-time employees of Goldman Sachs, including support staff: $521,000
Source:

Goldman, Sachs & Co. (N.Y.C.)

Oct 2006 Chances of a recession in 2007, according to a chief economist of Merrill Lynch: 2 in 5
Source:

David Rosenberg, Merrill Lynch (N.Y.C.)

Oct 2006 Percentage change since 1999 in the number of consumer complaints about harassment by U.S. debt-collection agencies: +564
Source:

Federal Trade Commission (Washington)

Oct 2006 Minimum value of “small business” contracts given out by the U.S. last year that went to Fortune 500 firms: $1,200,000,000
Source:

Eagle Eye Publishers, Inc. (Fairfax, Va.)

Jul 2006Estimated change since 2001 in the total number of U.S. private-sector jobs: +1,900,000
Source:

Economic Policy Institute (Washington)

Jul 2006Percentage of U.S. workers who say they are confident that they will be able to live comfortably after retirement: 68
Source:

Employee Benefit Research Institute (Washington)

Jan 2006Chances that a U.S. company settling a corporate crime case will illegally deduct some or all of the settlement to the IRS: 3 in 5
Source:

U.S. Government Accountability Office

Jan 2006Percentage of U.S. CEO vacancies that are filled from outside the company: 40
Source:

RHR International Company (Wood Dale, Ill.)

Jan 2006Average amount it costs U.S. companies to process a query through a call center: $6.62
Source:

The Center for Customer Driven Quality (West Lafayette, Ind.)

Jan 2006Percentage change since 1996 in the amount that drug companies spend on direct-to-consumer advertising: +420
Source:

TNS Media Intelligence (N.Y.C.)/Harvard School of Public Health (Boston)

Dec 2005Minimum number of U.S. generals in Iraq using private security companies for their personal security: 4
Source:

U.S. Central Command (Baghdad)

Oct 2005Chance that a U.S. MBA obtained since 1980 was awarded to a woman: 1 in 3
Source:

U.S. Department of Education

Sep 2005Percentage markup that Abbott Laboratories charged in 2001 on solutions of sodium chloride, i.e., salt water : 20,735
Source:

U.S. Department of Justice

Aug 2005Number of corpses shipped on Delta Air Lines last year : 42,175
Source:

Delta Air Lines (Atlanta)

Mar 2005Ratio of active workers at General Motors to retirees on its pension rolls: 2:5
Source:

General Motors Corporation (Detroit)

Feb 2005 Percentage change since March 2002 in total U.S. corporate profits, as valued in dollars: +39
Source:

Silvercrest Asset Management Group (N.Y.C.)

Jan 2005Rank of Wal-Mart among Mexico's largest private employers : 1
Source:

Wal-Mart (Teotihuacan, Mexico)

Dec 2004Estimated revenue generated by Halliburton last year through subsidiaries in Iran : $63,506,000
Source:

Halliburton (Houston, Tex.)

Dec 2004Percentage salary cut that Delta's CEO announced this fall that he would take through the end of the year : 100
Source:

Delta Air Lines (Atlanta)

Nov 2004Minimum number of customers trampled to death in September at the opening of a Saudi Arabian Ikea : 2
Source:

Ghasson A. Al-Sulaiman Co. Ltd. (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)

Nov 2004Percentage of Britons over the age of 50 who have hurt themselves attempting to open product packaging : 71
Source:

De Vere Media (Hampshire, England)

Nov 2004Number of U.S. McDonald’s franchises whose drive-through order taking has been outsourced to another state : 2
Source:

McDonald's Corporation (Chicago)

Nov 2004Price paid on eBay last November for two bottles of turkey-and-gravy soda : $63
Source:

eBay Inc. (San Jose, Calif.)

Sep 2004Number of HealthSouth executives charged with conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, or lying since March 2003 : 20
Source:

U.S. Attorney's Office (Birmingham, Ala.)

Aug 2004Minimum amount that Wal-Mart has received in subsidies from state and local governments since 1980 : $625,000,000
Source:

Good Jobs First (Washington)

Jul 2004Ratio of deaths of U.S. contractors worldwide in the last three months to those between April and September last year : 2:1
Source:

U.S. Department of Labor

Jul 2004Value of the "political risk insurance" that the U.S. government is providing two private investors in Iraq : $30,000,000
Source:

Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Washington)

Jul 2004Number of U.S. companies whose applications for such insurance are pending : 34
Source:

Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Washington)

Jul 2004Number of days this year that the Small Business Administration's largest loan program shut down for lack of funds : 8
Source:

U.S. Small Business Administration

Jun 2004Number of the ten missile-defense components to be deployed this fall that have been field-tested as a system : 0
Source:

General Accounting Office (Washington)/Council for a Livable World (Washington)

May 2004Percentage of senior management positions in medium-size Russian companies that are held by women : 42
Source:

Grant Thornton International (London)

May 2004Percentage of senior management positions at equivalent U.S. companies that are : 20
Source:

Grant Thornton International (London)

May 2004Total overruns at Boston's "Big Dig" attributed to mistakes and mismanagement by the Bechtel Corporation : $1,100,000,000
Source:

Boston Globe

Apr 2004Percentage change in Mexico's inflation-adjusted minimum wage since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994 : -21
Source:

Carlos Salas, Universidad AutUnoma Metropolitana (Iztapalapa, Mexico)

Apr 2004Year in which Citigroup formed a company called Buconero, Italian for "black hole," to help Parmalat conceal debt : 1999
Source:

Division of Corporations (Dover, Del.)

Apr 2004Factor by which a blimp being developed for the U.S. government by Lockheed Martin exceeds the size of Goodyear's : 25
Source:

Lockheed Martin (Bethesda, Md.)

Mar 2004Years of insurance that the money lost annually to health-care fraud and overbilling could buy every uninsured U.S. child : 3
Source:

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/General Accounting Office (Washington)

Mar 2004Year in which then-congressman Donald Rumsfeld gave a speech criticizing war profiteering by Brown & Root : 1966
Source:

Congressional Record, Vol. 112

Mar 2004Ratio of the number of privately contracted military workers in Iraq to the number of British troops there : 5:4
Source:

Coalition Provisional Authority (Baghdad)

Mar 2004Days after Italian magistrates began investigating food conglomerate Parmalat last December that its former CEO was jailed : 8
Source:

Il Sole 24 ORE (Milan)

Mar 2004Ratio of 2004 Bush campaign donations from Merrill Lynch employees to those from Bechtel employees : 60:1
Source:

Center for Responsive Politics (Washington)

Mar 2004Minimum price a Russian company charges to provide an alibi for an adulterer's absence : $34
Source:

Dmitry Petrov (Moscow)

Mar 2004Price a British company charges for its Purring Kitty software, which converts a mobile phone into a "discreet massager" : $2.65
Source:

Vibelet (London)

Mar 2004Percentage of Chinese exports to the U.S. accounted for by merchandise sold at Wal-Mart : 10
Source:

Wal-Mart (Bentonville, Ark.)/Department of Commerce (Washington)

Mar 2004Estimated value of Senate majority leader Bill Frist's household's stake in HCA, his family's hospital chain : $26,000,000
Source:

Physicians for a National Health Program (Chicago)

Mar 2004 Settlement Philip Morris paid the girl's family last May : $2,000,000
Source:

Philip Morris USA (Richmond)

Jan 2004Amount such a weapon can reportedly fetch on the international black market : $5,000
Source:

Independent (London)

Jan 2004Months after a data firm was hired to run MATRIX that its CEO resigned, admitting to past drug smuggling : 18
Source:

Seisint, Inc. (Boca Raton, Fla.)/Qorvis Communications (McLean, Va.)

Jun 2003Days after the U.S. invaded Iraq that Sony trademarked "Shock & Awe" for video games: 1
Source:

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Feb 2003Minimum amount S&P 500 corporations owe in retirement benefits for which they have set aside no funds: $458,000,000,000
Source:

Merrill Lynch (N.Y.C.)

Oct 2002Percentage of Americans who blame Bill Clinton's "moral failings" for the current business scandals: 51
Source:

The Gallup Organization (Princeton, N.J.)

Oct 2002Percentage who blame President Bush's "close ties to big corporations" for the current business scandals: 46
Source:

The Gallup Organization (Princeton, N.J.)

Sep 2002Number of appearances made by corporate representatives on U.S. network nightly newscasts last year: 955
Source:

Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (N.Y.C.)

Sep 2002Percentage of U.S. corporate executives who admit to having cheated at golf: 82
Source:

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (White Plains, N.Y.)

Sep 2002Number of square feet of retail space per American: 27
Source:

Retail MAXIM (N.Y.C.)

Aug 2002Number of students at Illinois's Aurora University who have earned academic credit for a course in "business golf": 29
Source:

Aurora University (Aurora, Ill.)

Jun 2002Total public financing for which Enron has received approval since 1992: $7,219,000,000
Source:

Institute for Policy Studies (Washington)

Jun 2002Date on which the first CD of the Brooklyn rock band I Am the World Trade Center was released: 5/8/01
Source:

Kindercore Records (Boulder, Colo.)

May 2002Estimated percentage by which British arms sales to African countries next year will exceed such sales in 1999: 400
Source:

Campaign Against Arms Trade (London)

May 2002Percentage of Enron's 3,100 subsidiaries at the time of its bankruptcy that were located in other countries: 64
Source:

Enron 2000 Annual Report/Harper's research

May 2002Percentage of writers of U.S. clinical-practice guidelines who have financial ties to pharmaceutical companies: 58
Source:

Allan Detsky, University of Toronto

Apr 2002Minimum number of Israeli high school students who wrote Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last fall to refuse in advance: 62
Source:

Jewish Peace Fellowship (Nyack, N.Y.)

Apr 2002Minutes before the President spoke at a jobs program last winter that protesters heard the event had been canceled: 10
Source:

Portland Peaceful Response Coalition (Portland, Oreg.)

Mar 2002Number of U.S. professional-sports stadiums whose corporate namesakes have filed for bankruptcy since December 1999: 5
Source:

Warsaw Sports Marketing Center, University of Oregon (Eugene)

Mar 2002Percentage change since January 2001 in the share price of the largest private prison-management company: +440
Source:

Corrections Corporation of America (Nashville)

Dec 2001Page on which the New York Times reported the EPA's 7-year extension of genetically modified corn sales last fall: C6
Source:

Harper's research

Dec 2001Total number of bids placed on Bidforsurgery.com since last year: 12,600
Source:

Medicine Online Inc. (Huntington Beach, Calif.)

Sep 2001Percentage change since 1999 in U.S. sales of hardcover books for adults and children, respectively: -12, +13
Source:

Association of American Publishers (N.Y.C.)

Jul 2001Number of Coca-Cola commercials that the company contributed to the Library of Congress last November: 20,000
Source:

Library of Congress

Apr 2001Percentage change between 1999 and 2000 in the number of audits of U.S. corporations: –28
Source:

Internal Revenue Service (Washington)

Mar 2001Percentage of global economic activity accounted for by the world's 200 largest corporations: 27.5
Source:

Institute for Policy Studies (Washington)

Mar 2001Percentage of the world's population that the world's largestcorporations employ: 0.8
Source:

Institute for Policy Studies (Washington)

Dec 2000Price for which an eight-year-old Colorado girl was offered for sale by her mother over the Internet last year: $4,000
Source:

Arapahoe District Court (Englewood, Colo.)

Sep 2000Ratio of Lockheed Martin's 1999 sales to the $13 million fine it will pay for giving secret technology to China: 1,962:1
Source:

Lockheed Martin Corporation (Bethesda, Md.)/U.S. Department of State

Sep 2000Ratio of the number of copies of The Great Gatsby sold each month in the U.S. to the number sold in the author's lifetime: 5:3
Source:

Simon &Schuster (N.Y.C.)/Harold Ober Associates (N.Y.C.)

Aug 2000 Bounty placed on the head of any U.S. DEA agent last January by Mexico's Juárez drug cartel: $200,000
Source:

Drug Enforcement Administration (El Paso, Tex.)

Aug 2000Ratio of the number of corporate mergers signed under the Clinton Administration to those signed under Reagan: 3:1
Source:

Thomson Financial Securities Data (Newark, N.J.)

Jun 2000Estimated minimum value of the diamonds sold to De Beers by Angolan rebels since 1992: $1,000,000,000
Source:

Human Rights Watch (London)

Apr 2000Factor by which combined U.S. individual charitable donations in 1998 exceeded those of foundations and corporations: 6
Source:

Ann E. Kaplan, Ed., Giving USA, American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel Trust for Philanthropy (Sewickley, Pa.)

Feb 2000Number of the 65 international trade disputes settled through the WTO that led to a change in national policy or law: 59
Source:

Global Trade Watch (Washington)

Feb 2000Number of the 10 international trade disputes settled through the WTO involving environmental or public heath issues that led to a weakening of national laws: 10
Source:

Global Trade Watch (Washington)

Feb 2000Ratio of eToys' 1999 net sales through last September to what it spent on marketing and advertising: 2:3
Source:

eToys, Inc. (Santa Monica, Calif.)

Jan 2000Months after publishing The Communist Manifesto that Karl Marx became editor of a newspaper funded by industrialists: 2
Source:

The Marx-Engels Correspondence, Wiedenfeld &Nicolson (London)

Jan 2000Months' worth of salary lost by Groucho Marx in 1929's stock market crash: 28
Source:

Groucho Marx, Groucho and Me, B. Geis Associates (N.Y.C.)

Jan 2000Number of the ten largest multinational corporations that produce automobiles or gasoline: 9
Source:

Multinational Monitor (Washington)

Nov 1999Average percentage of revenue of a Fortune 500 company last year that was profit: 5.3
Source:

Fortune (N.Y.C.)

Oct 1999Portion of resulting from -18% change in domestic discretionary spending required to fund Congress's proposed tax cuts that will go to corporations: 9/10
Source:

Citizens for Tax Justice (Washington)

Oct 1999Value of Pentagon-brokered U.S. arms sales last year to Taiwan, expressed as a percentage of such sales to Israel: 92
Source:

U.S. Department of Defense

Oct 1999Amount of corporate funding or advertising accepted by the Pacifica Radio Network's five stations since 1949: 0
Source:

KPFA (Berkeley, Calif.)

Sep 1999Percentage of the proceeds of an AIDS fund-raising bike ride across Texas last fall used to cover “production costs”: 85
Source:

Pallotta Teamworks (Los Angeles)

Sep 1999Portion of all U.S. arms sales abroad between 1993 and 1997 that were brokered by the Pentagon: 1/2
Source:

Federation of American Scientists (Washington)

Aug 1999Tons of uranium from Russia's nuclear arsenal that the country will sell to a U.S. company over the next twenty years: 500
Source:

U.S. Department of Energy

Jul 1999Fee that Nike offered Ralph Nader to say “another shameless attempt by Nike to sell shoes” in a TV ad: $25,000
Source:

Ralph Nader (Washington)

Jul 1999Chance that a pair of women's shoes sold in the U.S. is sold by Nine West: 1 in 5
Source:

Nine West Group Inc. (White Plains, NY)

May 1999Portion of the domestic market that the proposed merger between Exxon and Mobil will control: 1/7
Source:

American Petroleum Institute (Washington)/Exxon Corp. (Irving, Tex.)

May 1999Percentage change since 1997 in the number of antitrust investigations opened by the Federal Trade Commission: +234
Source:

Federal Trade Commission (Washington)

Apr 1999Settlement paid 3 female federal inmates last year after guards sold them as sex slaves to male prisoners: $500,000
Source:

Rosen, Bien &Asaro (San Francisco)

Apr 1999Number of the 9 prison employees named in the women's lawsuit, charged with selling the women as sex slaves to male prisoners, who were charged with a crime: 0
Source:

Federal Bureau of Prisons (Dublin, Calif.)

Apr 1999Number of U.S. companies and groups licensed to sell merchandise bearing the Vatican's Jubilee 2000 logo: 31
Source:

National Conference of Catholic Bishops (Washington)

Apr 1999Percentage of Iceland's gene pool to which Decode Genetics plans to acquire exclusive commercial rights this year: 100
Source:

Mannvernd, Icelanders for Ethics in Science and Medicine (Reykjavík, Iceland)

Mar 1999Percentage change in Iraq's oil sales since 1997: +45
Source:

U.S. Energy Information Administration

Mar 1999Estimated percentage of Indonesian businesses that are in bankruptcy: 70
Source:

The World Bank (Washington)/International Labor Organization (N.Y.C.)

Mar 1999Size of the business loan given Amazon.com last April after 11 consecutive months without a profit: $275,000,000
Source:

Amazon.com (Seattle)

Mar 1999Severance pay Biondi received last year after he was fired by Universal Pictures: $30,000,000
Source:

Viacom Inc. (N.Y.C.)/Harper's research

Feb 1999Estimated chances that a U.S. corporate merger will result in short- and long-term shareholder losses: 2 in 3
Source:

Professor Mark Sirower, The Wharton School (Philadelphia)

Feb 1999Average profit U.S. businesses earn per worker for every $1 spent on salary and benefits: $2.15
Source:

Saratoga Institute (Santa Clara, Calif.)

Feb 1999Number of products licensed last year by the New York entrepreneur who trademarked the sequence 01-01-00: 1,000
Source:

Walker Group/Designs (N.Y.C.)

Jan 1999Ratio of total U.S. disaster aid to Honduras last year to average annual U.S. military aid to Honduras in the 1980s: 6:7
Source:

Latin America Working Group (Washington)

Jan 1999Months after boxing promoter Don King was acquitted of fraud last year that he took his jurors to the Bahamas: 2
Source:

Don King Productions (Deerfield Beach, Fla.)

Dec 1998Number of U.S. corporations that have signed up as Adopt-a-Minefield sponsors since the program began last December: 5
Source:

The United Nations Association of the USA (N.Y.C.)

Nov 1998Number of “I Slept with Kenneth Starr” bumper stickers sold by a Little Rock gift shop since last April: 990
Source:

The Design Center (Little Rock, Ark.)

Nov 1998Number of heart attacks on Wall Street the day the market dropped 513 points last August: 2
Source:

Dr. Ira Schulman, NYU Downtown Hospital (N.Y.C.)

Nov 1998Number of heart attacks on Wall Street when the market rose 288 points: 3
Source:

Dr. Ira Schulman, NYU Downtown Hospital (N.Y.C.)

Oct 1998Number of “Assault Recovery” insurance policies sold to school employees in the last year: 207
Source:

Horace Mann Life Insurance Company (Springfield, Ill.)

Oct 1998Estimated U.S. taxes that multinational corporations legally avoided this year by using foreign accounts: $10,100,000,000
Source:

Joint Committee on Taxation (Washington)

Sep 1998Percentage change since 1995 in U.S. sales of merchandise featuring The Three Stooges: +300
Source:

Comedy III Productions (Glendale, Calif.)

Aug 1998Number of bids received by the Russian government last May when it put its remaining national oil company up for sale: 0
Source:

Emerging Market Services (N.Y.C.)

Aug 1998Number of $530 monogrammed Louis Vuitton World Cup soccer balls sold in the U.S. since last April: 87
Source:

Louis Vuitton North America, Inc. (N.Y.C.)

Jul 1998Number of corporate spies in the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals: 6,600
Source:

Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (Alexandria, Va.)

Jul 1998Months before the 1929 stock market crash that Forbes magazine noted the “heroic scale” of U.S. economic growth: 4
Source:

Forbes (N.Y.C.)

Jul 1998Maximum business deduction allowed U.S. employers per employee parking space they provide: $175
Source:

Internal Revenue Service

Jun 1998Percentage change since 1993 in U.S. sales of manual push mowers: +150
Source:

American Lawn Mower (Shelbyville, Ind.)

Jun 1998Ratio of California prison jobs created between 1984 and 1994 to state jobs in higher education cut during that time: 3:1
Source:

Justice Policy Institute (Washington)

Jun 1998Number of jars of Exxon Valdez oil sludge sold by the state of Alaska since last November to help pay cleanup costs: 850
Source:

Department of Environmental Conservation (Juneau)

Jun 1998Percentage change since 1996 in Amway sales in China: +183
Source:

Amway Corporation (Ada, Mich.)

Jun 1998Total value of all Japanese capital held in no-interest savings accounts or cash: $5,544,889,025,400
Source:

Merrill Lynch (N.Y.C.)

May 1998Ratio of the estimated cost of Kenneth Starr's investigation to projected ad sales for the last episode of Seinfeld : 1:1
Source:

Harper's research/Advertising Age (Chicago)

May 1998Length, in pages, of the Senate's new report on the financing of the 1996 Democratic campaigns: 1,112
Source:

Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs

May 1998Number of the Senate's report on the financing of the 1996 Democratic campaigns 33 chapters that are devoted to the issue of campaign-finance reform: 1
Source:

Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs

May 1998Number of House votes that Representative Jay Kim's 1997 campaign-finance-fraud conviction will cause him to miss: 0
Source:

Office of Representative Jay Kim (Washington)

May 1998Number of countries that have received U.S. military aid since 1995 in preparation for NATO expansion: 19
Source:

World Policy Institute (N.Y.C.)

May 1998Chance that a U.S. high school student owns a promotional item from a cigarette company: 1 in 3
Source:

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (Lebanon, N.H.)

May 1998Amount for which a Missouri inmate offered to sell one of his organs last winter to pay legal fees: $50,000
Source:

H. Andrew Chastain, Crossroads Correctional Center (Cameron, Mo.)

May 1998Number of minutes that Mir's Russian cosmonauts spent this year advertising a “space pen” live on QVC: 15
Source:

QVC (West Chester, Pa.)

May 1998Number of weeks after the Monica Lewinsky story broke that a Denver company began selling “presidential kneepads”: 3
Source:

Simple Products (Denver)

Apr 1998Portion of IRS audits that are conducted on large corporations: 1/500
Source:

IRS

Apr 1998Portion of fines levied and underpayments cited by the IRS each year for which large corporations are responsible: 1/2
Source:

IRS

September 18, 2008After many years of increasing borrowing and at least thirteen months of evidence of an impending catastrophe, American financial institutions faced the worst credit crisis since the Great Depression. “The world,” explained Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “no longer has the capacity to absorb fake U.S. dollars.”
Source 1:

Economist

Source 2:

The Wall Street Journal

Source 3:

Bloomberg

September 18, 2008Global stock markets lost $3.1 trillion in four days, and American International Group (AIG), the world's biggest insurance company and a leader in the $62 trillion credit-default swap market, was nearly bankrupted. “The private market has screwed itself up,” said Representative Barney Frank (D., Mass.), “and they need the government to come help them unscrew it.” The Federal Reserve loaned AIG $85 billion at 11 percent interest and took control of the company, which was founded in China in 1919 and driven out thirty years later by Mao. AIG was replaced in the Dow Jones Industrial Average by Kraft, the makers of Cheez Whiz.
Source 1:

Der Spiegel

Source 2:

The New York Times

Source 3:

The New York Times

Source 4:

Der Spiegel

Source 5:

Boston Globe

Source 6:

CNN

Source 7:

Bloomberg

September 15, 2008Stocks on Wall Street and other exchanges throughout the world dropped as brokerage Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America, insurance giant AIG sought tens of billions of dollars in government loans, and investment bank Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy.
Source:

The New York Times

August 26, 2008 Citibank, facing huge losses, asked its bankers to stop making color photocopies and to start printing internal presentations on both sides of the page.
Source:

New York Times

July 13, 2008The U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision seized the IndyMac Bank of California, worth an estimated 32 billion dollars, after the bank's closure in the wake of mortgage industry collapse.
Source:

AFP

June 26, 2008The Supreme Court determined that Exxon need pay only $507.5 million (about four days' worth of recent profits) of the $5 billion in punitive damages initially awarded to victims of the 1989 “Valdez” oil spill.
Source 1:

CNN Money

Source 2:

AP via Yahoo! News

March 30, 2008 McCain asked mortgage lenders to provide voluntary aid to homeowners, recalling that General Motors had offered no-interest car financing after September 11. Senator Hillary Clinton suggested consulting former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. While Clinton conceded that Greenspan helped cause the current crisis, she claimed that he has a “calming influence” on Wall Street. “Don't ask me why,” she said, “because I never understand what he's saying.” Senator Barack Obama gave a stirring speech, invoking the history of American finance from Hamilton and Jefferson to the present day, and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr. proposed the largest reform of the American financial system since the Great Depression.
Source 1:

LAT

Source 2:

LAT

Source 3:

NYT

Source 4:

WP

Source 5:

Attytood

Source 6:

NYT

Source 7:

Boston Globe

Source 8:

WP

Source 9:

WSJ

Source 10:

Businessweek via Der Spiegel

Source 11:

NYT

Source 12:

WP

March 14, 2008The cubicle turned 40, Viagra turned 10, and Hotel Luxor, the oldest whorehouse in Germany's red light district, announced that it would close for lack of business.
Source 1:

Time

Source 2:

Yahoo News

Source 3:

Associated Press

January 8, 2008 Merrill Lynch reported that the United States had already entered a recession.
Source:

BBCnews.com

October 29, 2007 General Motors announced it would open a new research center into alternative fuels and vehicles in Shanghai.
Source:

Forbes.com

October 14, 2007Two thirds of American CEOs, a study found, think that American CEOs are overpaid.
Source:

Financial Times

September 25, 2007 Nike unveiled the Air Native, a sneaker that has a larger fit for the distinct foot shape of American Indians and features several “heritage callouts,” including sunrise patterns, feather designs, and stars representing the night sky.
Source:

Associated Press

September 22, 2007A University of Florida student was Tasered after his question for Senator John Kerry went on too long. An Ocala, Florida, man accused police of Tasering him after he refused to drop his Koran; police in Tustin, California, Tasered a 15-year-old autistic boy; and a Taser dart fired at a Vancouver, Washington, man ignited the cigarette lighter in his pocket, setting his pants on fire. Sales at Taser International were expected to reach $90 million this year.
Source 1:

The Boston Globe

Source 2:

WRAL.com

Source 3:

OC Register

Source 4:

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Source 5:

Times Online

September 17, 2007 Raytheon unveiled Silent Guardian, a device that radiates unbearable pain. “You don't have time to think about it,” said an executive. “You just run.” The ray gun, Raytheon promised, will not be sold to countries with questionable human rights records, although it will be used by the United States in Iraq.
Source:

Daily Mail

August 13, 2007Losses among lenders to American debtors led to a one-day plunge of 387 points in the Dow Industrial Average. The Federal Reserve injected $62 billion into the market--its largest intervention since September 19, 2001--and its international counterparts followed suit. Hedge funds were in the red. “You have a better chance at making money on the craps table than in this market,” remarked one analyst.
Source 1:

New York Times

Source 2:

New York Times

August 12, 2007 China Public Security, a U.S.-financed company contracted by the People's Republic, was outfitting the city of Shenzen with 20,000 surveillance cameras and issuing identity cards to record each citizen's name, address, employment status, education, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical-insurance status, reproductive history, and landlord's phone number. “If they do not get the permanent card,” said a China Public Security executive, “they cannot live here, they cannot get government benefits, and that is a way for the government to control the population in the future.”
Source:

New York Times

July 16, 2007IHOP, which serves more than 700 million pancakes each year, announced that it would buy Applebee's for $1.9 billion.
Source 1:

IHOP

Source 2:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

May 21, 2007 Microsoft announced that it would acquire online media and advertising firm aQuantive for $6 billion.
Source:

MediaWeek

February 13, 2007 Bank of America was offering a new credit card aimed at illegal immigrants.
Source:

Reuters

January 26, 2007 North Korea demanded 44 million euros from the insurance company Lloyd's of London as compensation for damages in an alleged catastrophic helicopter accident in April 2005. According to their filed claim, a helicopter owned by the state airline was flying from Pyongyang to a remote island to save a woman who was in labor with triplets when it crashed into a warehouse full of humanitarian-relief supplies, causing a fire. “All this business about spending their money on their nuclear program,” said a source close to the North Koreans, “is complete tosh.”
Source:

London Times

January 26, 2007 Ford posted a loss of $12.7 billion for 2006, the largest in its 103-year history, and equivalent to the GDP of Jordan. Asked about his plans for the company, CEO Alan R. Mulally said, “At the top of the list, I would put dealing with reality.”
Source 1:

USA Today

Source 2:

NYT

January 26, 2007 Profits at Tokyo-based Nintendo Co. were up 43 percent in the nine months ending in December, largely on sales of its new Wii video-game system.
Source:

AP via LA Times

December 17, 2006The pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly was found to have downplayed the health risks of Zyprexa, its best-selling medication for schizophrenia.
Source:

NYT

November 27, 2006Barry Diller, at one time the highest paid CEO in the world, said corporate compensation consultants should be “flushed into the East River.”
Source:

Reuters via Gawker

October 25, 2006 Daimler Chrysler also lost $1.5 billion during the same time period.
Source:

New York Times

October 24, 2006 Ford Motor Company announced $7.6 billion in third quarter losses.
Source:

Sydney Morning Herald

October 12, 2006 Coca-Cola announced plans to market a new calorie-burning green tea beverage called Enviga.
Source:

NBC

October 7, 2006 Tower Records, which is bankrupt, announced that it had been sold and that its assets would be liquidated.
Source:

The Hollywood Reporter

October 6, 2006Dog-feces-cleanup franchises were opening across the United States. It's the “best job in the world,” said Matt Boswell, the Chief Excrement Officer of Texas-based Pet Butler, which operates in 14 states.