Articles

  • Campbell's Comfort Stock


    Posted Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - 5:21pm
    (Campbells soup image by jeltovski/morguefile.com)

    Amid Monday's market meltdown, just one stock among the Fortune 500 showed a gain: Campbell's Soup.

    Some news accounts noted that Campbell's also did well during the last big market drop, in the period after the September 11 attacks when, as Reuters put it this week, "consumers' fear of another attack led many to hunker down."

    • Dan Mitchell has written for The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The MInneapolis Star-Tribune and Wired.

  • Posted Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - 4:08pm
    (Photograph of a bear by John Foxx/Getty Creative Images)

    "Neither a borrower nor a lender be," we read in Shakespeare, but, then, nobody ever suggested he was a good mentor on modern economics. A better insight comes from Ben Franklin: "A penny saved is twopence dear"—save your money and you can double it by lending it out at interest.

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  • Google Suck-Up Alert


    Posted Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - 3:46pm

    When you're the biggest search engine in the world and command billions in profit, sycophantic Q&As from business magazines are just part of the scenery, like trays of oven-fired pizza in the GooglePlex cafeteria.

    • Chris Thompson is a writer living in Brooklyn.

  • Posted Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - 3:03pm

    from SlateThe Wall Street bailout is alive again. In an effort to make the $700 billion bailout palatable, the architects of the law have larded it up with all sorts of goodies, such as increasing the levels of deposit insurance, sparing some taxpayers the ravages of the Alternative Minimum Tax, and extending tax breaks for alternative energy. Henry Paulson's three-page sprig has sprouted into a 451-page Christmas tree.

  • Posted Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - 2:58pm
    (Photograph of a bank run from 1929 by AFP/Getty Images)

    from SlateAfter the House rejected a $700 billion bailout of the financial sector on Monday, Lyle Gramley, a former Federal Reserve governor, warned that "we're in a recession now, and the numbe

    • Juliet Lapidos is a Slate assistant editor.

  • Posted Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - 1:35pm

    The Republican-led defeat of President Bush's Wall Street bailout plan caused an immediate financial catastrophe: The stock market fell an unprecedented 777.68 points, wiping out, by one estimate, $1.2 trillion in wealth. But the greater and more lasting damage may be to the Republican Party itself.

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    • Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.

  • Google Stock Snafu Explained


    Posted Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - 10:36am

    If yesterday's radical, last-minute devaluation of Google's stock seemed a little odd, you hit the nail on the head. The company's stock had settled into a fairly tight trading range after Monday's tanking, but starting around 3:57 p.m., Google suddenly starting soaring and dropping erratically, plunging as low as $25.80.

    • Chris Thompson is a writer living in Brooklyn.

  • Posted Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - 9:13am

     

    Maybe we should call it Red Monday. Sept. 29 turned out to be the day that big chunks of Europe's financial industry got taken over by the state.

    The U.K. government stepped in to rescue mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley Plc. In Brussels, Fortis received a lifeline from the governments of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg as investor confidence in the bank evaporated. Iceland bought a 75 percent stake in Glitnir Bank hf.

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    • Matthew Lynn is a Bloomberg News columnist.

  • Senate to the Rescue!


    Posted Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - 5:17am

    "The Senate is next", BusinessWeek blares. In a surprise twist, the Senate is pushing forward with the vote on a newly sweetened $700 billion bailout plan to tonight at 7:30 p.m.

    • Bernhard Warner is editorial director of Social Media Influence.
    • Matthew Yeomans runs Custom Communication

  • New Wendy's Wants To Wisen Up


    Posted Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - 4:34pm

    Under its new owners, the Wendy's fast-food chain is zigging where others are zagging.

    Rivals such as Burger King and Taco Bell are aiming squarely at the young-lunkhead set with advertising messages that, for example, extol the manly virtues of cramming as much greasy, fatty food as possible into one's gullet. But Wendy's will henceforth target older, wiser eaters, according to its new owners at Triarc Cos.

    • Dan Mitchell has written for The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The MInneapolis Star-Tribune and Wired.