financial-crisis

Sarah Hedgecock · 05/01/14 04:31PM

Tourists snap a selfie as demonstrators burn a trash container during a May Day rally in Barcelona on Thursday. Image via Manu Fernandez/AP.

Greek Protesters Set Fire to Notable Buildings, Starbucks

Louis Peitzman · 02/12/12 05:25PM


In order to salvage a tanking economy, Greece is expected to pass a package of severe budget cuts — and many citizens are not taking it well. As Parliament prepared to vote on the new plan, which would cut 3.3 billion euro from people's wages and pensions, protesters began rising up, starting a series of fires using homemade explosives.

The Best Fucking Financial Crisis Books

Adrian Chen · 03/28/10 10:00PM

This is fun: Paul Kedrosky has assembled a list of books about the financial crisis which contain the most instances of the word "fuck." Surprisingly less than we expected, given the topic. Full list, after the jump:

House Demands AIG Emails, Phone Logs

Ravi Somaiya · 01/14/10 05:52AM

A few weeks ago there was an op-ed in the New York Times saying that the key to unravelling any skulduggery that went on during the bailout of AIG is their emails and records. Now they'll get opened!

Auction Houses Try And Fail To Sell Famous Paintings

Alex Carnevale · 10/27/08 03:45PM

An Andy Warhol painting that Sotheby's hoped would auction for over $10 million netted just $7.6 million at auction over the weekend, and the work of several high profile artists including Jeff Koons, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Gerhard Richter went unsold at London's Frieze Art Fair. Auction houses are making brave sounds, but the declining economy has only begun to take its toll, a reality that has forced houses and collectors to look elsewhere.Christie's postwar and contemporary sale at Sunday's Frieze Art Fair managed just $55.5 million, against an expected $100 million to $132 million, with almost half the lots going unsold. Sotheby's sale the Friday before netted $38 million against pre-auction estimates of $54 million to $75 million, reported the WSJ. The featured piece in the Sotheby's auction was the assemblage of Warhol's Skulls series and it netted more than a million less than its lowest estimate. This was probably because it only had one bidder, collector and dealer Jose Mugrabi, who quipped, "I feel safer with Warhol than with U.S. Treasury bonds.'' Mugrabi's son Alberto doesn't agree. He told Bloomberg News why he passed on a different Warhol in the auction:

Strippers! Nose Jobs! Six Easy Ways To Explain Economic Disaster

Moe · 09/22/08 11:15AM

The collapse of capitalism is actually too damn overwhelming for most journalists — much less their readers — to grasp. So how to approach? With a tried-and-true socio-anthropological take on What It Really Means In America As Told To Some Narrow Niche Of Society. Let's start with strippers!

Zing

Pareene · 03/17/08 04:01PM

An editorial comment from an unknown Bear Stearns employee on the venerable securities firm's $2/share buyout by JPMorgan. [Dealbreaker]