Cult Status? Secretive Culture Led Toyota Astray

Toyota Motor's President Akio Toyoda, second from left, and Vice President Shinichi Sasaki, left, bow following a news conference Tuesday.

Details from the crisis enveloping Toyota reveal a growing rift between the auto maker and U.S. regulators, as a secretive corporate culture clashed with disclosure requirements.

Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance

Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money..

Rate worries dent Wall Street recovery hopes

U.S. stocks fell on Wednesday on worries that rising interest rates could put a damper on consumer and business spending, but stocks pared losses late in the session to finish off the day's lows.

Microsoft moves forward on plan to ax 5,000

Microsoft Corp. is pulling the trigger on thousands of the 5,000 job cuts it announced in January.

When Microsoft announced its first-ever companywide layoffs, the software maker cut 1,400 of the jobs it said it would slash, with the rest coming over an 18-month period..

www.msnbc.com

Meltdown losses Total '$4 trillion'

News.bbc.co.uk
One year ago, the IMF estimated that total losses from the credit crunch would be $1 trillion, which has been exceeded, showing how rapidly the financial meltdown has escalated.

Stocks slide as investors dump financials

Bank of America's earnings surpassed analyst expectations by more than tripling to $4.2 billion.

But investors were unnerved that the company wrote off almost $7 billion in bad debt -- more than twice the amount of a year ago -- and poured an additional $6.4 billion into its reserve to cover future loan losses.

Bulls and Bears Both Point to Lending

Online.wsj.com: The bulls are finding more evidence that this rally is the start of something lasting. The bears warn that the higher the market goes, the more pain will be suffered on the other side.

Strangely, both are pointing to the same part of the economy to make their opposing cases: the lending system.

Filthy rich: the 10 highest paid hedge fund managers of 2008

Timesbusiness.typepad.com: Stock markets across the world may have tanked last year but that didn’t stop the top performing hedge fund managers from making themselves a huge pile of cash.