The world of business this week.

BA cabin crew  Wallet envy      In fire-risk areas, controlled burns or fire-breaks are sometimes used to limit the risks of a large fire.”

GOOD WEEK:

Drug firms

Big Pharma may have preferred to keep the US healthcare system exactly the way it was, but the advent of Obamacare has been hailed as a “best case scenario” for the industry, as the US presidents new Bill excludes the provision of public sector insurance, which would have led to the government becoming a major drugs buyer, forcing much reduced prices. Instead, a possible 32 million people will be brought into the prescription drug net, more than offsetting the more modest downward pressure on prices.

BAD WEEK

BA Cabin crew

In a tactic that would cause national outrage should it be replicated here, Willie Walsh, the former Aer Lingus chief executive and now head honcho at British Airways, has made good on a threat to permanently remove the travel perks of cabin crew who took part in a three-day strike at BA last weekend. BAs union Unite condemned the move as vindictive, but BA simply responded that discounted travel for employees was a non-contractual perk that the company could withdraw at its discretion any time it felt like it.

The Numbers

0.3

Original estimate of economic growth in GDP terms in the third quarter of 2009. When the figure was published in December, it appeared that Ireland had emerged from recession.

-0.1

Revised estimate of third-quarter GDP issued by the CSO yesterday, meaning that this technical exit from recession had never actually happened. (The fourth quarter numbers were also negative.)

MGM

Hollywood studio MGM may be forced into bankruptcy if it cannot find a buyer that will offer enough to satisfy creditors. Interest in the struggling studio has come from Time Warner, Lions Gate and Access Industries, but all three have put up less money than expected, while billionaire investor Carl Icahn, a shareholder in Lions Gate, was furious the company was going anywhere near the debt-laden MGMs dust-gathering library of 4,000 movie classics.

Wallet envy

Its not money itself that buys happiness, instead it’s being relatively better off compared to people your own age, people of the same gender, people of similar educational attainment and people who live nearby, according to a new study by psychologists at the University of Warwick. According to the “rank income hypothesis” of researchers Christopher Boyce and Gordon Brown (not that one), it wasnt the absolute amount of income that made people happy but simply being better off than the guy or girl next door. In other words, its all about not just keeping up with the Joneses, but ahead of them.

"In fire-risk areas, controlled burns or fire-breaks are sometimes used to limit the risks of a large fire."

Bank of England governor Mervyn King resorts to disaster metaphors in his guide to making the financial system fireproof.