Insurers’ losses from natural disasters rose by about 50 percent in 2008, with Caribbean hurricanes Ike and Gustav powering the increase and climate change increasingly a factor, a leading reinsurer said Monday.
Munich Re AG said in an annual review that insured losses came in at $45 billion this year, up from nearly $30 billion in [...]

Dec. 5 - U.S. employers eliminated jobs in November at the fastest pace in 34 years and the unemployment rate jumped as the yearlong recession engulfing the world’s largest economy deepened.
Payrolls plunged by 533,000 last month, the biggest loss since December 1974, after shrinking a revised 320,000 the prior month, the Labor Department said today [...]