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Recession Briefing: Wall Street Bigwigs Get Grilled

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

Comparing Wall Street titans to shady car salesmen, a committee investigating the financial crisis grilled the nation’s top bankers Wednesday in the latest example of Washington’s smoldering anger at an industry many there feel hasn’t atoned for its role in the slump. (Wall Street Journal)

President Obama plans to call on Thursday for taxing about 50 big banks and major financial institutions for at least the next decade to recoup all taxpayer losses from the bailout of Wall Street. (New York Times)

The last time the nation’s debt was this big compared with gross domestic product — 70.4% of GDP — was immediately following World War II. How did the Greatest Generation pare it down? It didn’t. It grew the economy faster than the debt, pushing down the debt-to-GDP ratio and making debt payments easier to manage. (USA Today)

Almost 3 million homeowners received at least one foreclosure filing during 2009, setting a new record for the number of people falling behind on their mortgage payments. (CNN/Money)

A new study attempts to debunk the common notion that recessions lead to fewer new start-ups while economic booms encourage them. Recessions, expansions, tax changes, population growth, technological advances — it would appear that none of these factors greatly influence entrepreneurs’ decisions to form new companies overall. (Wall Street Journal)

Some people think we will revert to our free-spending ways once we have quit worrying about losing our jobs, but not Dan Ariely. The professor of behavioral science thinks Americans have changed their habits as a result of the recession. (Chicago Tribune)

The main U.S. tally of employment undercounted the number of jobs lost in the second quarter of 2009, a government report suggested. (Reuters)

The economic downturn is busting wallets and bursting waistlines as consumers shift their eating habits to help their budgets.  Experts say unemployment and economic hardship are making more Americans chubbier and prone to obesity-related illnesses such as diabetes in what has been dubbed “recession fat.” (McClatchy)

The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance rose more than expected last week. There were 444,000 initial job claims filed in the week ended Jan. 9, up 11,000 from a revised 433,000 the previous week. (CNN/Money)

The economy’s modest recovery broadened during the last months of 2009 with the help of an uptick in home sales and improvements in the manufacturing sector, according to a Federal Reserve report issued Wednesday. (Washington Post)

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