Planet Business

Compiled by LAURA SLATTERY

THE NUMBERS

$1,000bn- a "collective failure" to understand the dangers of "excessive risk-taking" will cost the world's financial institutions this dizzying sum, give or take the odd €100 billion, by the time the credit squeeze has loosened its grip.

£3.5m- value of the rebate owed to Marks & Spencer after it spent 13 years convincing the UK tax authorities it was owed a refund of VAT paid on its marshmallow teacakes, which had been wrongly classified as biscuits rather than (VAT-free) cakes.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I genuinely think a crash is phenomenally unlikely to happen. People who make property make money in all markets and in all countries." GOOD WEEK Postman Pat BAD WEEK The world economy Tech wars Sweden PLANET BUSINESS Laura Slattery Domestic service

- Property Ladder voice of reason Sarah Beeny reassures all house buyers that her TV show should not be renamed Property Snake. And if you can't trust a guru like "the Beeny", who can you trust?

GOOD WEEK

Postman Pat

Post office accounts in Greendale are flush with new deposits after Entertainment Media, the company that owns the rights to Postman Pat, saw its revenues double in 2007 thanks to its takeover of rival Classic Media. Jess, Postman Pat's black-and-white cat, received an extra saucer of milk as a special performance bonus.

Tech wars

News Corp, which owns MySpace, is in talks with Microsoft, which owns MSN.com, to make a joint bid for Yahoo, which owns Flickr, because Microsoft, which has a stake in Facebook, wants to take on Google, which owns DoubleClick; but Yahoo, which has an alliance with eBay, which owns Skype, had hoped News Corp, which owns Sky, would save it from the clutches of Microsoft, which owns Hotmail, so it (Yahoo) would now prefer to ally itself with AOL, which is owned by Time Warner, but said it would share advertising space with Google, which owns everything else.

Domestic service

Yachts, McMansions and the usual team of stylists, nannies, valets and other flunkies are no longer enough: Russian oligarchs and hedge-fund billionaires are now lining up to enlist the services of a butler. The "gentlemen's gentlemen" are in high demand across Chelsea, Mayfair and Knightsbridge as London's "super-super-rich" go back to the Victorian era for their status symbols, says the Guild of Professional English Butlers.

BAD WEEK

The world economy

Headlines now being typed for next week's news: "Economic collapse will lead to deepest recession since Dark Ages, says IMF" . . . "Stock market collapse worst since bursting of South Sea bubble in 1720" . . . "Monopoly money now worth more than dollar and sterling, currency traders admit".

Sweden

"Tall and strong and blonde and blue-eyed / Pure and healthy, very wealthy / I'll grow wings and fly to Sweden / When my time is come," sang The Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon. But the "safe and clean and green and modern" state has dramatically failed to top another Poll of Good Things this week, with neighbour Denmark coming first in a World Economic Forum study of the most networked economies and the US judged the most "e-ready" nation in a separate list. Sweden had to settle for second and third place in the rankings.