Web start-up companies at this year’s Tech Crunch conference face a financial climate that has dried up venture capital, forcing them to turn to friends, family and foundations.
 

Read it and weep…

Scathing and right-on visual commentary on the lotto from Cracked.com — it’s not just a tax on innumeracy, it’s a finely tuned psychological weapon used to exploit cognitive blind-spots and profit from human misery.
The recession has seen a rise in lotto sales as people streamline their financial idiocy from “paying for money [...]

Nothing succeeds like failure, as the saying goes. And nowhere is this dismal truth more evident than in our financial regulatory system, one year after the bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers.
 

One year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Americans are still feeling the effects of the credit crisis that roiled the financial system and crashed the stock market. Many are searching for jobs, recalibrating their investments or quietly licking their wounds. In many cases, their story comes down to a number. And, in many cases, [...]

Mollie Bell has a plan the next time a real estate infomercial flashes on her TV: She’s “flipping to the cartoon channel.”
After being burned by a negative-amortization loan that left her owing more on her Compton home than it was worth, Bell, 62, has soured on the home-refinancing craze. Never a big spender anyway, she [...]

Too many people bought too much house for too many years.  Yes, the financial system almost collapsed because mortgage bankers and brokers told lies about loan terms and loosened standards in dangerous ways, and investment bankers packaged those loans into bonds that were far more toxic than ratings agencies predicted.
 

Google chief economist Hal Varian is pretty confident the national economy is recovering, and he’s not just basing that on government data.  He says he can tell from Americans’ search habits.

The message coming from the radio industry is clear: Terrestrial radio is in trouble financially and things will get worse before they get any better. Many of the country’s largest national broadcasters are on the verge of bankruptcy, and the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) announced that Q1 2009 was the industry’s worst quarter ever in [...]

Tough figures for this big state!

Out of a job? If you live in the Great State of California, you’re in good company: two out of five working-age Californians do not have a job!
“The current recession stands apart from prior downturns for both the depth and breadth of destruction in the job market,” the report says. [...]

Solar panels point to the Nevada sky as they generate electricity for use on Nellis Air Force Base
Fair competition or Save the Planet?   That could ultimately be at play as China and the West, long at odds over trade in steel, textiles and auto parts, risk being sucked into a row over protectionism in renewable [...]

Work vs. leisure time for older adults
Do we laugh or do we cry?
The latest report from Pew Research Center says the recession is impacting two age groups: young and old adults.
 

Consumer trends around the world
It’s not going to be all work and no play for today’s consumers, even as the economy drags people down financially and emotionally, Mintel sees a continued focus on enjoyment and life fulfillment. While people around the world still feel pessimistic, Mintel sees them discovering ways to transform their lifestyles and [...]

China has become world’s largest car market

The growth and development of the China automotive market changes the automotive business model for the global auto industry. While it is obvious that China already has become the world’s factory for “everyday low price” merchandise, the ramifications of the rapid development of the Chinese automotive base on the [...]

Flexible work force
The American work force is headed in ways unimagined just a decade ago.  Careers are out and skill sets are in. Workers should think in terms of being contractors instead of employees, academics and futurists say.
 

When economists fail
It’s hard to believe now, but not long ago economists were congratulating themselves over the success of their field. Those successes — or so they believed — were both theoretical and practical, leading to a golden era for the profession. On the theoretical side, they thought that they had resolved their internal disputes. [...]

A life-sized installation by Austrian artist Ronald Kodritsch is standing on the edge of a building cornice in central Vienna
A small crowd of people wonder if the smart businessman clutching a briefcase will jump off the edge of a four-storey building in central Vienna — but he won’t. He can’t.
 

Hey Baby, Let Me Suck Your Pool!

Debra Mitchell is a lead code compliance officer for the Village of Wellington. During the collapse of the housing market, the community was left with a large number of foreclosed homes.
Pointing out one example Mitchell said, “It has an unsanitary, abandoned swimming pool, stagnant swimming pool. There’s no electricity [...]

Peer-to-peer lending booming
When 73-year-old Bill Smith and his wife, Ginger hit simultaneous jackpots on a recent cruise-ship vacation, they knew exactly what to do with the $3,300: put it on the street. Smith had wanted to try peer-to-peer lending since reading “At Last, a Bank of Your Own” in Barron’s in January of 2008.

The federal government needs to hire more than 270,000 workers for “mission-critical” jobs over the next three years, a surge prompted in part by the large number of baby-boomer federal workers reaching retirement age, according to the results of a government-wide survey being released Thursday.
 

The smiling couple barreling ahead on the cover of Liberty magazine in 1926 knew exactly where to go. “Florida or Bust,” said the white paint on the car doors. “Four wheels, no brakes.”  So it has been for a century, as Florida welcomed thousands of newcomers every week, year after year, becoming the nation’s fourth-most-populous [...]

Scarlett Johansson is among the celebrities forced to take dramatic pay cuts
The curtain has come down on guaranteed $20 million pay cheques for A-List Hollywood stars as a series of films starring big name actors failed to deliver at the box office this summer.  Denzel Washington, Jim Carrey, Scarlett Johansson and Mickey Rourke are [...]

More Americans are having their power shut off as the weak economy makes it harder to pay bills.”We see record numbers of households becoming disconnected or in danger of disconnection,” says Mark Bixby, energy director of Rockford, Ill. Five years ago, his office distributed federal funds annually to about 300 households that had their power [...]

Glamping
Europeans love touring churches and museums, but when it comes to vacations, Americans have always loved the great outdoors. Fishing, camping and just driving around are great American pastimes. (Pics)

For the 2nd year running, the winner is Chicago
Sinking property values, high unemployment and prices, and poor environments add to the pressure felt by residents in these metros.
Few enjoy their commute. Just ask Stephen Dinwiddie, M.D., a psychiatrist at the University of Chicago.
“I think anybody who, like I do, commutes on the Kennedy on a [...]

If current plans are implemented as anticipated, the postcrisis world is likely to be one characterized by enhanced multilateralism, greater policy coordination, and a more effectively regulated financial system. In the wake of the April summit of the Group of Twenty (G-20), the IMF is set to play a key role in this new global [...]