NEWS
By JAY HANCOCK | February 14, 2009
One benefit of living in a rich country is that we can pay psychologists and professors to explain why wealth doesn't make us very happy. It's true. Researchers have found that, once people can meet basic needs, psychological dividends from additional money steadily decrease. Making $100,000 does not make you twice as happy as $50,000. So why does losing money, and the prospect of losing money, make us so miserable? The short answer is that it doesn't have to. If you think about money in the context of what economics says about true fulfillment, having less of it shouldn't be quite so painful.
NEWS
By THOMAS SOWELL | February 22, 2007
Among the many rationales used to defend the welfare state, the most powerful is that it is necessary in order to take care of the poor and the downtrodden. But the amount of money required to bring every poor person in the country above the official poverty line is a fraction of what is spent by government on the welfare state. Put bluntly, the poor are in effect being used as human shields in the political wars over government spending, which extends far beyond anyone who could plausibly be called poor.
NEWS
By BLOOMBERG NEWS | January 26, 2003
SAN FRANCISCO - In a concrete tower on San Francisco's Market Street, where employees of such Internet companies as IXL Enterprises Inc. once toiled, developers are building the city's latest hot product: apartments. Tishman Speyer Properties LP is converting the top half of the 40-story building at 575 Market to housing from offices left vacant in the dot-com bust. "Housing in San Francisco so far has been a very, very strong performer," said Ezra Mersey, Tishman's managing director. "We're confident it makes sense."
NEWS
By Bill Atkinson and Robert Little | October 25, 2002
John M. Rusnak, the Allfirst Financial Inc. currency trader who lost $691.2 million in one of the biggest banking scandals in history, pleaded guilty yesterday to one count of bank fraud, part of a deal with prosecutors that calls for him to serve 7 1/2 years in prison. Rusnak, 37, won't be formally sentenced until Jan. 17, but his plea agreement calls for a 90- month prison term followed by five years of supervised release. He also will be barred from working at a bank or other federally insured financial institutions, and he might have to make restitution, though that would be based partly on his ability to pay. Rusnak, who appeared in U.S. District Court in Baltimore before Judge William M. Nickerson, did not speak with reporters on the advice of his attorney.
NEWS
By Arthur Hirsch | March 18, 2001
"You seem much better this week." "Better, doctor, yes ..." "Can you talk about why?" "In a word, in one wonderful word, doctor: Schadenfreude." "A good word -""- excellent word, only the Germans - ah, but that's always so hard to say, isn't it? I mean, who else would think to couple Schaden, "to harm," with freude, "joy," and come up with exactly why it is that the more the NASDAQ falls the better I feel. Schadenfreude: glee at another's misfortune." "The dot-coms' demise, you mean ... " "Yes, yes, yes. I can breathe again.
NEWS
By Rona Kobell | September 9, 2000
In another move to clean up its balance sheet, Sylvan Learning Systems Inc. said yesterday that it will sell its money-losing Aspect English-instruction subsidiary for $22 million - one-third of what it paid for it in 1998 - to an unnamed group backed by investment firm Warburg Pincus. Aspect, which Sylvan bought for $65 million from its San Francisco founders in 1998, has been a drag on Sylvan's earnings for the past two quarters. Its revenue for the first half of 2000 was $20 million, a $5.2 million drop from the first half of 1999.
NEWS
By Erika Niedowski | February 18, 2000
The Columbia Council tentatively decided last night to freeze $132,000 in capital funds for the city's horse center -- rather than close it or lease it -- pending a comprehensive, outside review of the facility. The study, which could cost $25,000, would include a determination of the facility's selling price and the feasibility of selling it -- possibly to the county -- as well as an evaluation of how the center might operate more efficiently. The center, an 88-acre site off Gorman Road, has come under the 10-member council's scrutiny in the past year because of financial losses and sparse residential usage.
NEWS
By William Patalon III | February 15, 2000
U.S. Foodservice, the Columbia-based food distributor whose stock price has fallen on concerns about growth, plans to close its San Francisco distribution operation and cut jobs elsewhere as it tries to reinvigorate the price of its shares. The decisions to close the distribution center and cut jobs were both listed in a Feb. 10 filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington and come less than a month after the company's second-quarter earnings disappointed analysts.
NEWS
By Richard O'Mara | September 2, 1998
The big buzz in Baltimore's financial district yesterday, as expected, was of money. Losing it, mainly, on the stock market, and possibly a little on the slugfest between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.As both men try to trump Roger Maris in baseball's hallowed record book, James Loftus reported "friendly bets" being made among the 80 to 90 people who work at his law firm, Friedman and MacFadyen. He made one himself. Not a "real" money bet, you understand.If McGwire racks up more homers than Sosa by season's end, his friend has agreed to pay his way to the Orioles game in Boston on Sept.
NEWS
March 14, 1998
The Heart Center of Towson, a catheterization lab, has closed, Raytel Medical Corp., its owner, announced yesterday.The lab had four employees.Raytel, based in San Mateo, Calif., acquired the Towson facility in September as part of its purchase of Cardiovascular Ventures Inc. of New Orleans for $21.6 million. CVI owned eight centers in four states and an 18-physician practice in Florida."At the time of the CVI acquisition, we identified the Towson facility and one other as candidates for either closing or restructuring," said Richard F. Bader, chairman and chief executive officer of Raytel.