"The scale of the net figure was something unheard of before the recession, " she added.

BBC: High Street chain store closures soar, says research

For soya, some places saw improvements, some saw damage, with no real net effect on the global scale.

ECONOMIST: Climate change and crops

Wholesale storage providers like Amazon S3, or value-added providers of content storage, like Box.net, have proven they can offer scale and elasticity unmatched by on-premise infrastructure.

FORBES: With Apple's Endorsement, Cloud Storage Finally Comes Of Age

They can achieve tremendous economies of scale and, by harnessing the power of the Net, eliminate huge investments in inventories.

FORBES: Perspectives

The model works on a sliding scale, assuming that poorer Americans need to increase their net worth while the richest merely want to keep it stable, after allowing for inflation and their spending.

ECONOMIST: Philanthropy

Demand for 3G-capable smartphones continued to scale up as the carrier saw more than 90% of its net adds come from 3G.

FORBES: Move up http://i.forbesimg.com t Move down

Sinovel Wind Group Co ( SHA: 601558), another leading Chinese manufacturer in large-scale onshore, offshore and inter-tidal wind turbines, reported a net loss of 280.3 million yuan during the same period.

FORBES: First Solar, Now China Wind Power In Washington's Crosshairs

Given the immense scale of the immigration we receive, it seems incredible that immigration yields so small a net benefit.

CNN: What's the value of immigration?

Current major oil exporters, such as Russia and the Middle East, could be "significant net losers in the long term unless they can develop their own shale oil resources on a large scale", it said.

BBC: Shale oil 'to boost world economy by up to $2.7tn'