Facebook will begin the process of becoming a publicly-listed company this week, valuing the social networking site at between $75bn and $100bn, reports suggest.

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Facebook ‘prepares to go public’

Kit LaCroix credits two things with her recovery from a psychological breakdown that became the bleakest chapter of her life: the steady love of Bennett Mace and the rise of the Occupy movement. LaCroix had been happy in Chicago, where she failed to finish art school but found work waiting tables in a pub. She tamed the social anxiety that first appeared during college and relished the banter with customers as much as the solitude of her studio apartment. Then the recession hit, her tips dried up and for two months in a row she couldn’t make rent. Read full article > >

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On Love: ‘I see in you the fire of life’

The Koobface gang, a Russian-based group, has grown wealthy by apparently spreading a computer worm on Facebook and other social networks and cashing in on various schemes.

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Koobface Gang That Spread Worm on Facebook Operates in the Open

In each of the last three years, 1 in 5 Americans suffered a decline in household income of at least 20%, says Jacob Hacker, author of “ Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer–and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class ”(2010). Sometimes, these declines overlap – the same household losing 20% one year and an additional 20% another year. More often, they do not. And, according to a recent Census Bureau report, nearly half of all Americans – 48% – have either fallen into poverty or are low income, scraping by on less than $45,000 for a family of four. It is bad out there. Hacker, who is also Director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale, measures income instability via an Economic Security Index he devised in 2010. This index takes into account wages, pensions, and the like, minus out-of-pocket health costs and debt service for credits cards and other unsecured credit. The results are eye popping. Twenty-nine urban mayors told the AP that 1 in 4 individuals needing emergency food assistance instead go hungry. What’s more, Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan Public Policy professor, told the AP , “If Congress and the states make further cuts, we can expect the number of poor and low-income families to rise for the next several years.” In two phone interviews with me, Hacker analogized American wealth distribution with a system of canals locks. Although rising and declining tides may raise or lower all ships, America’s economic engine – chiefly its banking and corporate governance systems – have transformed the economy into a series of locks which raise a few, select yachts higher, while the rest of us remain in dinghies at sea level. This – the 1% getting richer while keeping out the 99% – has been the primary fuel energizing both the Occupy and Tea Party movements.

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So, What is the Economic Conflagration Spurring the Occupy Movement?

As a flood of family photos, videos and holiday greetings hits the Internet this time of year, online users will be swarming the social networking and photo-sharing sites that have become the personal scrapbooks of our time. But in the shaky and often promiscuous business of the Web, where companies fold and merge at astonishing speed, you can’t always trust that those sites will take long-term care of your digital treasures. Read full article > >

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As Web sites come and go, so too could the information you entrust them with

The Saudi Prince Walid bin Talal and his investment company, Kingdom Holding, said Monday they had bought a “strategic stake” in the social media site Twitter for $300 million.

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DealBook: Saudi Prince Invests $300 Million in Twitter

Along with the two-month extension of a cut to the Social Security payroll tax, the bill includes a short-term extension of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed.

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Extension of Payroll Tax Cut Passes Senate

The Minister for Social Development has said he is “appalled” at Westminster’s decision to cut the winter fuel payment.

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McCausland ‘appalled’ by fuel cut

From tribesmen to billionaire philanthropists, the social value of generosity is already well known. But new research suggests it also matters much more intimately than we imagined, even down to our most personal relationships.

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Well: The Generous Marriage

This is America under President Gingrich: There are two Social Security systems — one old, one new, running side by side. There are two tax systems and two versions of Medicare. Immigration decisions are handled by citizen councils spread across the country. And in the White House is a president who is eager to do battle with the judicial branch. Read full article > >

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Newt Gingrich as president could turn the White House into an ideas factory

The social network is embroiled in a legal row after a German drugmaker claimed its page on the social network was given to a US rival.

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Drugs giant challenges Facebook

The social network is embroiled in a legal row after a German drugmaker claimed its page on the social network was given to a US rival.

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Drugs giant challenges Facebook

How watching television has evolved in the social age.

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VIDEO: The phenomenon of two screen viewing

Author Salman Rushdie says he has won his battle with Facebook over what to call himself on his profile page on the social network.

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Rushdie claims Facebook name win

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on Friday that he would lower the federal debt by transforming Medicare and Social Security and reshaping or eliminating other costly government programs. Romney unveiled a blueprint to overhaul entitlement programs popular with seniors, saying he would gradually raise the retirement age for Medicare and Social Security. Under his plan, future retirees would have the option of staying on traditional Medicare or purchasing health insurance from private companies through “premium supports,” or vouchers. Read full article > >

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Romney: Overhaul Medicare and Social Security to reduce debt