This weekend, The New York Times Co. sold the Boston Globe to John W. Henry, the owner of the Boston Red Sox. Henry paid $70 million. (Or negative $40 million, by more realistic calculations.) Oddly, several other bidders made higher bids than Henry. Why did the NYT Co. leave that money on the table?

If you are a grown adult with a 401K and adult financial things of that nature, you may remember 2006 as "the year when the economy was booming, before I had to move into the box." M&A deals were everywhere! Companies were being bought and sold left and right! Bankers and consultants and assorted other finance industry hangers-on were getting rich! And so was everyone else, until it all came crashing down in a massive global disaster just a short time later.

The slow death of Genuine New York continues apace: Ubiquitous NYC drug store Duane Reade, with over 1 million locations in your neighborhood alone, is being bought by boring corporate drug store Walgreen. Man. Remember when purchasing gum was real?

Hello friend, my name is Ade Ogunjobi. I received your contact information in good faith from our mutual friend, Mr. Bernie Madoff, and my corporation, Toks Inc, is prepared to offer the sum of $100 trillion ($100,000,000,000,000) for Mr. Madoff's business. Please respond quickly.

Today in poorhouse news: The big banks were restored to profitability last week, and now the M&A market is booming again! The profits will "trickle down" to the homeless squatters outside the bankers' Hamptons estates.