STAN Lee rose from humble beginnings to become the legendary driving force behind Marvel Comics. His life was “extraordinary as the characters he created”, said Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger, paying tribute to Lee after he died this week at the age of 95. Lee was born in 1922 in New York City to Romanian-born Jewish immigrants. His father was a dress cutter and the family struggled in the Great Depression. They lived in an apartment in which his parents slept in the living room while he shared a room with his brother. He was originally called Stan Lieber, but changed his surname name to 'Lee' at the start of his career. Lee developed a love for the fantastic early on, voraciously consuming adventure novels and the swashbuckling films of Errol Flynn as well as the works of William Shakespeare. After graduating from high school he had dreams of becoming a serious novelist. But he began on the path that won his global fame and adulation when a relative, Martin Goodman, … [Read more...] about Stan Lee’s incredible journey from son of Romanian immigrants in Great Depression New York to £54million comic book king
The great depression
ConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightDid the end of the Great War come too soon?
And so, in the fifth year of the Great War, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the guns at last fell silent. That is how Britain will probably think of the centenary of 11 November 1918. As a clean, crisp end to the costliest war in this country’s history. As an opportunity to remember the suffering of those who died and the pain of those who were bereaved. And a chance to tell poignant stories of the moment when the Great Silence finally descended. At Malplaquet in Belgium, the 11th battalion of the Manchester Regiment had formed up at first light and marched to the front, ready to go over the top yet again. Suddenly the commander and senior officers ran up and down the line, talking to the men. Cheers rang out; caps were thrown in the air. As the Tommies returned to the village, firing off signal rockets, a squadron of British planes swooped over, looping the loop. At other places on the front line, the mood was often one of anti-climax. … [Read more...] about ConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightConsumerBusinessSpotlightDid the end of the Great War come too soon?
The Telegraph: The next downturn could rival the Great Depression and wipe $10 trillion off US household assets
Picture: AFP Washington. The world’s major economies are skating on dangerously thin ice and lack the fiscal, monetary, and emergency tools to fight the next downturn, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes in an article for The Telegraph. A roster of top crisis veterans fear an even more intractable slump than the Lehman recession when the current ageing expansion rolls over. The implications for liberal democracy are sobering. “We have no ability to turn the economy around,” said Martin Feldstein, President of the US National Bureau of Economic Research. “When the next recession comes, it is going to be deeper and last longer than in the past. We don’t have any strategy to deal with it,” he told The Daily Telegraph. Professor Feldstein, a former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, described a bleak scenario more akin to the depressions of the 1870s or the 1930s than anything experienced in the post-War era. He warned that a … [Read more...] about The Telegraph: The next downturn could rival the Great Depression and wipe $10 trillion off US household assets
The next downturn could rival the Great Depression and wipe $10 trillion off US household assets
The world’s major economies are skating on dangerously thin ice and lack the fiscal, monetary, and emergency tools to fight the next downturn. A roster of top crisis veterans fear an even more intractable slump than the Lehman recession when the current ageing expansion rolls over. The implications for liberal democracy are sobering. “We have no ability to turn the economy around,” said Martin Feldstein, President of the US National Bureau of Economic Research. “When the next recession comes, it is going to be deeper and last longer than in the past. We don’t have any strategy to deal with it,” he told The Daily Telegraph. Professor Feldstein, a former chairman of the White House Council of Economic... To continue reading this article Start your free trial of Premium Access all Premium articles Subscriber-only events Cancel any time Free for 30 days then only £2 per week Try Premium Access one Premium article … [Read more...] about The next downturn could rival the Great Depression and wipe $10 trillion off US household assets
Workers’ rights as bad as 1930s Great Depression, warns Labour’s John McDonnell
Workers rights are as bad as they were during the Great Depression, John McDonnell warns today. The Tories have caused the worst levels of insecurity in the workplace since the 1930s, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor will say. In his speech to the TUC congress on Tuesday, Mr McDonnell will say the Tories have stripped back employment rights to a level not seen since the economic depression 80 years ago. He will use his keynote address to delegates to set out Labour’s plans to forge a new workplace environment. The Shadow Chancellor will pledge that Labour will “restore the balance of power in the workplace”. In his speech to the TUC, John McDonnell is expected to say: “The massive growth in zero hours contracts and the gig economy have produced a workplace environment of insecurity not seen since the 1930s. "The decline of collective bargaining has meant that workers also now have little say over the key decisions taken by their employers over the future of … [Read more...] about Workers’ rights as bad as 1930s Great Depression, warns Labour’s John McDonnell