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Are the days of "daily deal" coupons about to expire? Shares of email coupon company Groupon are down nearly 80 percent since going public last year. And its smaller rival, Living Social, plans to lay off as many as 400 employees, after reporting a net loss of more than $560 million in the third quarter.

Those struggles have raised questions about the future of the daily deal strategy, and whether a company like Groupon can stay in business.

"It's ... an evolution of the company that's happening," says Arvind Bhatia, managing director of equity research for the investment firm Sterne Agee, in an interview with NPR's David Greene. "They have a decent balance sheet," Bhatia says of Groupon. "As long as they continue to generate profitability, I think the business can survive." Stern Agee trades in Groupon shares and has an investment banking relationship with Groupon.

Interview Highlights:

On the coupon business model

"I think fundamentally, the model can work. But it needs scale. Keep in mind that Groupon was born out of the recession ... at a time when people wanted to see deals. So they were right in the sweet spot of what people really wanted. And they've grown really fast.

"But ... the daily deal business seems to be peaking. And in some ways, Groupon is a victim of its own success. It's hard for them to continue to grow the daily deal business the way they did before."

On the need for scale

"Both Living Social and Groupon — Groupon, in particular — have spent tons and tons of money in acquiring these customers. They have something like 160 million people whose email list that they have. That is what is attractive to merchants. So, you need scale to succeed."

On complaints about deals

"The deals that merchants offer are deeply discounted deals. And those are meant to be deals that bring customers in. And hopefully, customers like the product and keep coming back.

"Sometimes what happens is, the merchants that are using this product maybe don't know how to use it appropriately. And maybe their service isn't good enough — and they were hoping this would be this one last desperate move to get customers in before they go out of business. So, it depends on the merchant itself."

On the evolving "daily deal" business

"In the beginning, it was all about, let's acquire customers at all costs. Now, particularly for Groupon, it's OK, you've got the customers. Now show us how you can make money with this business model.

"So one thing they have to do is slow down on their spending. And they're doing exactly that."

On moving past email

"What they've talked about is tapping into, perhaps, search engines like Google and Bing to attract more customers. And that's a pretty significant move. Keep in mind that 25 percent of all searches ... are for local products.

"But right now, they're driving very little business from these search engines. So that's an opportunity for them to now go after customers that are looking for deals in general, not just through the emails."

The Labor Department's glad tidings Friday about the uptick in job creation last month might morph into bad news next month for many of the long-term unemployed.

December 7, 2012

Are the days of "daily deal" coupons about to expire? Shares of email coupon company Groupon are down nearly 80 percent since going public last year. And its smaller rival, Living Social, plans to lay off as many as 400 employees, after reporting a net loss of more than $560 million in the third quarter.

Those struggles have raised questions about the future of the daily deal strategy, and whether a company like Groupon can stay in business.

"It's ... an evolution of the company that's happening," says Arvind Bhatia, managing director of equity research for the investment firm Sterne Agee, in an interview with NPR's David Greene. "They have a decent balance sheet," Bhatia says of Groupon. "As long as they continue to generate profitability, I think the business can survive." Stern Agee trades in Groupon shares and has an investment banking relationship with Groupon.

Interview Highlights:

On the coupon business model

"I think fundamentally, the model can work. But it needs scale. Keep in mind that Groupon was born out of the recession ... at a time when people wanted to see deals. So they were right in the sweet spot of what people really wanted. And they've grown really fast.

"But ... the daily deal business seems to be peaking. And in some ways, Groupon is a victim of its own success. It's hard for them to continue to grow the daily deal business the way they did before."

On the need for scale

"Both Living Social and Groupon — Groupon, in particular — have spent tons and tons of money in acquiring these customers. They have something like 160 million people whose email list that they have. That is what is attractive to merchants. So, you need scale to succeed."

On complaints about deals

"The deals that merchants offer are deeply discounted deals. And those are meant to be deals that bring customers in. And hopefully, customers like the product and keep coming back.

"Sometimes what happens is, the merchants that are using this product maybe don't know how to use it appropriately. And maybe their service isn't good enough — and they were hoping this would be this one last desperate move to get customers in before they go out of business. So, it depends on the merchant itself."

On the evolving "daily deal" business

"In the beginning, it was all about, let's acquire customers at all costs. Now, particularly for Groupon, it's OK, you've got the customers. Now show us how you can make money with this business model.

"So one thing they have to do is slow down on their spending. And they're doing exactly that."

On moving past email

"What they've talked about is tapping into, perhaps, search engines like Google and Bing to attract more customers. And that's a pretty significant move. Keep in mind that 25 percent of all searches ... are for local products.

"But right now, they're driving very little business from these search engines. So that's an opportunity for them to now go after customers that are looking for deals in general, not just through the emails."

Antonio, Domingo and Pepe are old friends in their late 40s and 50s. All unemployed, they meet most mornings for coffee and cigarettes in Madrid's Puerta del Sol square and rant about the government.

The nation's civil service is a particularly attractive target. The men grumble about what they imagine is the life of a government worker — long coffee breaks, siestas and lots of paid time off.

"They earn much more than they're worth," Antonio says. "That's something that's got to change. They earn a lot, and they hardly do anything."

Jobs For Life

Spanish civil servants do earn a lot, compared with their private sector counterparts. Virtually all the best and brightest young graduates want to work for the government, and many are willing to stay on waiting lists for years — without pay — in hopes of snagging a position.

Civil servants took a recent hit when the government decided to cut their holiday bonuses this year, but even so, Spanish public workers are still the envy of their countrymen.

When Spain's economic crisis hit, the private sector immediately started shedding jobs and cutting wages. New labor reforms have made it even easier for companies to do so, and unemployment now tops 25 percent.

In contrast, most public employees still have jobs for life, says economist Gayle Allard of Madrid's IE Business School.

"They have had their wages frozen. Hiring has been frozen. But it's not the kind of severe adjustment you're seeing in the private sector," Allard says. "You hear people say, 'Wait a minute! In my company, we've cut all of our costs 30 percent. What's their problem? We're doing this, why can't they do it?' "

Strong Unions, Strong Numbers

One reason is the civil service's strong union contracts; another is the sheer number of civil servants in Spain. Bureaucrats, doctors, teachers and other public workers amount to 2.6 million people, more than 11 percent of the population. That makes politicians think twice about crossing them.

Spaniards also have a different attitude toward the state. The Pew Research Center recently found that while 6 in 10 Americans say they want to be free of interference from the state, more than 6 in 10 Spaniards say the opposite — that it's the government's job to make sure nobody is in need.

"It's a funny thing," says Allard. "I think Americans ... have a hard time understanding it, because we don't assign such a high value to security. But for Spaniards, that's really, really important."

Europe

Spain's Crisis Leads To Rise Of Grass-Roots Groups

Earl Gray is about the closest thing to a celebrity that the small Appalachian town of Magguson has. In Chris Sullivan's debut animated feature, Consuming Spirits, Gray (Robert Levy) hosts a gardening show on the local radio station, and the occasional event around town.

His commentary tends to start practical, morph into poetic reveries, and then become impassioned — sometimes aggressive or despairing rants. His gravelly voice and edge-of-sanity delivery call to mind an alternate-universe Garrison Keillor after a career-long bender of whiskey, cigarettes and disappointment. One caller to his show asks about using the ashes from a trash-burning bonfire as garden fertilizer; Gray recommends against it, calling them the "bitter remains of charred memories."

That phrase might well be applied to Sullivan's emotionally raw, thoroughly original film as well, a labor of painstaking (and, one suspects, pain-exorcising) love 15 years in the making. Sullivan incorporates autobiographical details from a childhood heavily influenced by social services intervention, and from that seed springs a story about the fallout of broken homes, poverty, alcoholism and mental illness in small-town America.

He tells that story in an experimental stew of animation styles, using stop-motion miniatures for establishing shots, multilayered moving cutouts for the primary action, surrealist pencil sketches for dreams and memories, and occasional animated newsprint clippings thrown into the mix as well.

The effect is that of disjointed, haunted reverie, of alternate realities colliding, soundtracked by mumbled asides and an uneasy murmur of background noise. Gray's story intersects with that of Gentian Violet (Nancy Andrews) and Victor Blue (Sullivan), a sad-sack pair of middle-aged lovers who work in the paste-up department of the local newspaper, play together in a traditional Irish music duo, and steal kisses at Violet's house when they can get away from her mother — who suffers from dementia and is prone to wildly inappropriate sexual comments and attending dinner in the nude.

Christopher Sullivan/Film Forum

Earl Gray is a local radio and paper personality, notorious for his program and column, "Gardeners Corners."

Big-hearted Americans always rush to give money after a disaster. Just how much and how fast is often determined by technology. After the earthquake in Haiti, texting small donations, for example, became a new standard practice.

This time around, Hurricane Sandy has shown crowdfunding websites are a simple tool for quick-response giving. Anyone can go on these sites and ask for money to rebuild or to help their neighbors rebuild. Friends, family and strangers chip in.

"You can literally sign up, share your campaign on Facebook, Twitter, email, and begin accepting credit or debit card donations online in under a minute," says Brad Damphousse, the founder of the crowdfunding website GoFundMe.

That's what 32-year-old writer Jenny Adams did. It was simple: she added a gripping picture of a flooded street to her page, and asked for money that she could give out to her neighbors affected by Sandy in the Alphabet City neighborhood of Manhattan.

"There were certainly people who gave me a fair amount of money that I have never met and don't know," Adams says.

People usually use sites like GoFundMe to tactfully ask loved ones for help with medical bills or expensive life events, like buying an engagement ring. Spending disaster donations, however, is trickier than cutting one big check. Adams has no formal training in relief work, so it quickly became a thoughtful scramble to spend the money.

Superstorm Sandy: Before, During And Beyond

White House To Seek Emergency Sandy Funds

House Speaker John Boehner said on Tuesday that he's waiting for President Obama to provide specific spending cuts as part of a deficit-reduction package. Robert Siegel talks to Tamara Keith.

The popular website Intrade allows its users to bet on the odds of almost anything — like whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will get ousted by a certain date, or whether the movie Argo will win best picture at the Oscars.

This week, Ireland-based Intrade announced that U.S. users will have to unwind their bets and shut down their accounts by the end of the year. That's after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Intrade for operating an unregistered exchange.

Transactions on the site have long resided in a gray area in the U.S., with little clarity as to whether they represent gambling, futures trading or something else that should not be regulated — leaving some questioning the legal basis for cracking down on so-called "prediction markets."

'More Accurate Than Pundits'

"Conceptually, to an economist, there's not a difference between betting and trading — apart from the fact that one sounds more polite than the other," says Justin Wolfers, who grew up in Australia working for bookies taking bets.

Now a University of Michigan professor who's studied Intrade, Wolfers says the site is not just a venue for winning and losing money. It also generates news as a byproduct, he says. That is, the odds on Intrade are almost always right.

"It tends to be more accurate than pundits, it tends to be more accurate than polls, and in the past it's even more accurate than very sophisticated poll-watchers like The New York Times' Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com," Wolfers says.

To use Intrade, members place bets on yes-or-no questions. Much like a stock, the price of placing a bet fluctuates based on demand. And when the outcome is determined, the payout is either $10 or nothing. If you win, your profit is that $10, minus the price you paid to place your bet.

According to Thomas Bell, a professor at Chapman Law School in California, the CFTC considers those transactions enough like pork belly futures — which fall under the commission's authority — to be shut down.

It's All Politics

They Call The Election A Horse Race; It Has Real Bettors, Too

The popular website Intrade allows its users to bet on the odds of almost anything — like whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will get ousted by a certain date, or whether the movie Argo will win best picture at the Oscars.

This week, Ireland-based Intrade announced that U.S. users will have to unwind their bets and shut down their accounts by the end of the year. That's after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Intrade for operating an unregistered exchange.

Transactions on the site have long resided in a gray area in the U.S., with little clarity as to whether they represent gambling, futures trading or something else that should not be regulated — leaving some questioning the legal basis for cracking down on so-called "prediction markets."

'More Accurate Than Pundits'

"Conceptually, to an economist, there's not a difference between betting and trading — apart from the fact that one sounds more polite than the other," says Justin Wolfers, who grew up in Australia working for bookies taking bets.

Now a University of Michigan professor who's studied Intrade, Wolfers says the site is not just a venue for winning and losing money. It also generates news as a byproduct, he says. That is, the odds on Intrade are almost always right.

"It tends to be more accurate than pundits, it tends to be more accurate than polls, and in the past it's even more accurate than very sophisticated poll-watchers like The New York Times' Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com," Wolfers says.

To use Intrade, members place bets on yes-or-no questions. Much like a stock, the price of placing a bet fluctuates based on demand. And when the outcome is determined, the payout is either $10 or nothing. If you win, your profit is that $10, minus the price you paid to place your bet.

According to Thomas Bell, a professor at Chapman Law School in California, the CFTC considers those transactions enough like pork belly futures — which fall under the commission's authority — to be shut down.

It's All Politics

They Call The Election A Horse Race; It Has Real Bettors, Too

The United States has added one of Syria's main rebel groups to its list of terrorist organizations. Jabhat al-Nusra has claimed responsibility for several bombings that killed and wounded Syrian civilians since the uprising against the Assad government began in March of 2011. The U.S. describes the group as an outgrowth of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Lines of communication remain open in an effort to avert the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts known as the "fiscal cliff," according to the White House and House Speaker John Boehner.

If no deal is reached between now and the end of the year, would the consequences be that drastic?

To answer that question, let's imagine it's January and the nation has gone off the "fiscal cliff." You don't really feel any different and things don't look different either. That's because, according to Stan Collender, the cliff isn't really a cliff.

"It was a great communications tool but it was a misnomer from the beginning," he says. "The idea of jumping off the cliff and just having the economy go into the tanks immediately is just absolutely, positively, incontrovertibly incorrect."

Collender, a former congressional budget staffer, now works at Qorvis Communications.

"Yes, taxes technically will go up on Jan. 1. And yes, federal spending will be cut on Jan. 2, but you really won't start to see any real effects of that for a couple of weeks at the minimum and maybe not even until the end of the month," Collender adds.

He says the Obama administration would most likely instruct departments to delay the cuts for a little while to see if something can be worked out with Congress.

But what about taxes?

"For most people, it's life goes on," says Bob Meighan, vice president of TurboTax, the program some 25 million people use to prepare their taxes each year.

"We may see take home pay reduced to accommodate the increased tax withholding on your paycheck, as well as the additional payroll taxes. But there is already talk of deferring or delaying that until Congress decides what to do," Meighan says.

Even if higher payroll taxes and income tax rates show up in that very first paycheck, for most it won't arrive until mid-month says Edward Kleinbard a tax law professor at the University of Southern California.

"The first few days of 2013 are not going to radically change his or her life, but as the weeks go by, at some point, take home pay will go down noticeably," Kleinbard says.

The Congressional Budget Office has said that if the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts of the "fiscal cliff" are allowed to happen, the country would fall into recession in 2013. But budget maven Collender says it wouldn't be immediate.

"It's not as if the entire increase in taxes that would be included in the "fiscal cliff" would be taken out of your first paycheck. The real problem economically with the "fiscal cliff" is cumulative. That is, if we hit the cliff, we go over it and it stays in effect for the whole year," Collender says.

He adds the thing to look for immediately would be market reaction, a dive in stock prices.

But, Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank in Chicago, isn't so sure that will happen.

"There's a changing perception that this is no longer a time bomb that will detonate," Ablin says.

He thinks that perception is already baked into stock prices. The image Ablin prefers to the cliff or the bomb is a pot of water. On Jan. 1, the burner is turned on. But the water won't start boiling for a while.

"Put it this way," Ablin says, "I lose sleep at night so my clients don't have to. I'm not losing a ton of sleep over this one — at least not yet. I start losing sleep if we are making no progress by let's say, the end of January."

So, if these guys are right, and there is no deal by the end of December, go ahead and enjoy your New Year's Eve. It would take a while for real consequences to play out.

Detroit officials face a tough vote Tuesday as they try to keep their city from going over its own "fiscal cliff." If the mayor and City Council cannot agree on a plan to reduce the city's budget deficit, state officials are poised to take away their power and assume total control over Detroit's finances.

It's been a continuing vicious cycle: Detroit's population exodus, lost tax revenue and chronic mismanagement has left the city burning through cash to the point where the state of Michigan has to provide funding to help the city meet payroll for the next few months.

At Detroit's Butzel Family Center, the situation has Sean Hendricks shooting a nervous game of pool. He knows the city has to cut costs, and maybe even close this recreation center. But he says he hopes it doesn't.

"A lot of seniors go to these places, especially in the summertime," he says. "When it be hot outside, they can come in the Center and stay for a little while and keep cool. Everything's falling down little by little."

Moody's Investors Service, the rating agency, recently lowered Detroit's rating well below junk status; the city now faces at least a $40 million budget shortfall.

Michigan State Treasurer Andy Dillon says it's likely the only real option is to appoint an emergency financial manager with sweeping powers to gut contracts and sell assets.

"The cash situation is going to be very difficult for the city to reverse," he says. "I think that they've gotten so far down the path that you're just not going to find a big cash solution here quickly."

The state already controls the finances in nearby cities near like Flint and Pontiac.

But Detroit Mayor Dave Bing sees a way out. He wants the City Council to pass a number of proposals, including the elimination of roughly 5 percent of the total workforce. Bing is clearly frustrated with his Council.

"I've taken things to City Council over time and they have not been able to respond as fast as I would like them to so that we can start the implementation plan," he says.

But the Council's second in command, Gary Brown, says the mayor has it all wrong. He says the city is bleeding money because Bing has been reluctant to cut deeply.

"The Council asked the mayor to cut the budget for the last two years — $100 million each year — and he refused to do it," Brown says. "And until we have the political will we're going to be in this situation and have an emergency manager come in – a dictator – where the mayor doesn't have a function, the Council doesn't have a function, there's just one person calling the shots."

With city government essentially gridlocked, and the deficit deepening, residents' frustration continues to mount.

At a recent Council meeting, Marine Corps veteran David Malikun-Muqaribu is among an overflow crowd in the hallway outside chambers, shut out from discussions over privatizing 80 percent of Detroit's water department.

"I spent a year in Iraq and I did tours overseas in other theaters, and I'm genuinely blown away to see that I wasted four years of my life to defend democracy only to come back to the city that I'm from to see democracy totally eviscerated," he says.

No matter who ultimately controls the city's finances, one thing all sides agree on is that massive cuts to Detroit's programs and services are coming – even if the city eventually files for bankruptcy protection.

Russia is in the middle of a blazing tabloid-style scandal that features a bejeweled blonde, a luxury love nest, and an alleged scam worth more than $200 million.

But that's not where some Kremlin watchers are putting their attention. They see the scandal as just the visible fall-out from a vicious back-room fight among Russia's ruling elite.

The real question is whether the struggle may have forced President Vladimir Putin to sack a loyal ally, his former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.

Scandal Rocks Elite

The scandal has been brewing since early fall, with leaked reports about an investigation into the sale of some military real estate to private companies.

Officials of a state-controlled company allegedly sold the land to their cronies at rock-bottom prices, then collected big kickbacks when the property was resold to developers.

It was clear from the leaks that the investigation was rapidly climbing to the very top of the Russian Defense Ministry, until at last, President Putin felt compelled to act. Early in November, he announced he was firing Serdyukov.

As defense minister, Serdyukov was widely believed to have Putin's support, especially since he was carrying out a controversial plan to modernize Russia's hide-bound military.

But it wasn't long before steamy details began to emerge on state-controlled TV. Before dawn one morning, investigators raided the 13-room apartment of Yevgenia Vasilyeva, the former head of the property department at the Defense Ministry. TV channels gleefully pointed out that Serdyukov was at the apartment with Vasilyeva at the time of the raid.

They also pointed out that Vasilyeva is blonde, 33, and fond of sparkly dresses, while Serdyukov, 50, is portly and married to another woman.

It didn't help their cause that investigators also found hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cash, jewelry, and antiques in the apartment.

Questions Over Motives

While this may have been enough to cost an American official his job, Russians tend to be more blase about such matters.

"Mr. Serdyukov conducted the normal life of Russian top official, and everybody in this country knows for sure that it cannot be a reason for firing," says Alexander Golts, an independent military analyst and editor at the Daily Journal in Moscow.

He says mere personal misconduct would not have cost Serdyukov his job, especially when Putin is known for his loyalty to top allies.

Detroit officials face a tough vote Tuesday as they try to keep their city from going over its own "fiscal cliff." If the mayor and City Council cannot agree on a plan to reduce the city's budget deficit, state officials are poised to take away their power and assume total control over Detroit's finances.

It's been a continuing vicious cycle: Detroit's population exodus, lost tax revenue and chronic mismanagement has left the city burning through cash to the point where the state of Michigan has to provide funding to help the city meet payroll for the next few months.

At Detroit's Butzel Family Center, the situation has Sean Hendricks shooting a nervous game of pool. He knows the city has to cut costs, and maybe even close this recreation center. But he says he hopes it doesn't.

"A lot of seniors go to these places, especially in the summertime," he says. "When it be hot outside, they can come in the Center and stay for a little while and keep cool. Everything's falling down little by little."

Moody's Investors Service, the rating agency, recently lowered Detroit's rating well below junk status; the city now faces at least a $40 million budget shortfall.

Michigan State Treasurer Andy Dillon says it's likely the only real option is to appoint an emergency financial manager with sweeping powers to gut contracts and sell assets.

"The cash situation is going to be very difficult for the city to reverse," he says. "I think that they've gotten so far down the path that you're just not going to find a big cash solution here quickly."

The state already controls the finances in nearby cities near like Flint and Pontiac.

But Detroit Mayor Dave Bing sees a way out. He wants the City Council to pass a number of proposals, including the elimination of roughly 5 percent of the total workforce. Bing is clearly frustrated with his Council.

"I've taken things to City Council over time and they have not been able to respond as fast as I would like them to so that we can start the implementation plan," he says.

But the Council's second in command, Gary Brown, says the mayor has it all wrong. He says the city is bleeding money because Bing has been reluctant to cut deeply.

"The Council asked the mayor to cut the budget for the last two years — $100 million each year — and he refused to do it," Brown says. "And until we have the political will we're going to be in this situation and have an emergency manager come in – a dictator – where the mayor doesn't have a function, the Council doesn't have a function, there's just one person calling the shots."

With city government essentially gridlocked, and the deficit deepening, residents' frustration continues to mount.

At a recent Council meeting, Marine Corps veteran David Malikun-Muqaribu is among an overflow crowd in the hallway outside chambers, shut out from discussions over privatizing 80 percent of Detroit's water department.

"I spent a year in Iraq and I did tours overseas in other theaters, and I'm genuinely blown away to see that I wasted four years of my life to defend democracy only to come back to the city that I'm from to see democracy totally eviscerated," he says.

No matter who ultimately controls the city's finances, one thing all sides agree on is that massive cuts to Detroit's programs and services are coming – even if the city eventually files for bankruptcy protection.

A new Tell Me More series, 'Why Not?' takes a closer look at what's on the table during the fiscal cliff negotiations. Host Michel Martin talks to NPR's Scott Horsley and Dorothy Brown of Emory University School of Law. They weigh the pros and cons of cutting tax deductions, including mortgage interest and charitable giving adjustments.

Apple's CEO Tim Cook made news by announcing the company will start manufacturing a line of Mac computers in the U.S. But Cook, like Steve Jobs before him, says the main reason Apple produces most of its products overseas isn't about price. It's about a lack of skilled workers in the U.S.

Robert Siegel talks to Ambassador Martin Indyk, vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institute. They discuss Israel, and the complicated relations it has with the United States and its neighbors. He talks about what needs to come next to keep the tensions between Israel and other state players from spinning out of control.

Apple's CEO Tim Cook made news by announcing the company will start manufacturing a line of Mac computers in the U.S. But Cook, like Steve Jobs before him, says the main reason Apple produces most of its products overseas isn't about price. It's about a lack of skilled workers in the U.S.

Three years of euro-zone recession have badly hurt Spain's media sector, where some 8,500 journalists have lost their jobs. Dozens of newspapers have closed and the remaining publications are sharply cutting back as ads plummet.

That's led to warnings from journalists, who see a threat to press freedom at a time when Spaniards want to understand why their financial stability is unraveling.

Independent newspapers and their owners are increasingly in debt to banks. "After four years of crisis, all the big media — there is no exception — the main capital is from the banks in all the big media conglomerates," media analyst Pere Rusinol says, and it's led to a radical shift in media control.

In a nation where banks have repossessed 50,000 homes for unpaid mortgages, for example, he says newspapers focus mostly on color: "These poor people," "He is not able to pay," "He has no place to sleep."

"But nobody explains this is because this particular bank has forced that situation, and this particular bank is seeking, at the same time, money [from] public finances because [it's] bankrupt," says Rusinol. He believes the banks' influence on media coverage in Spain is widespread.

Crisis Affects Coverage?

Llucia Oliva, ombudsman in the region of Catalonia, says drastic budget cuts have all but ended investigative journalism, preventing in-depth analysis of government-imposed austerity measures and allegations of political corruption.

"That's very bad for democracy and for the citizens who don't have all the information they would need to decide rationally when they go to vote," Oliva says. With broadcasters increasingly seen as mouthpieces of the austerity-wielding government, viewership of both state-run and commercial TV is at an all-time low.

The media crisis has not spared Spain's legendary daily El Pais, the paper identified with the country's transition from Francisco Franco's dictatorship to democracy back in the 1970s.

El Pais' newsroom has many empty desks and there aren't enough journalists to answer phones. Brigido Gomez, secretary of El Pais' reporters union says last month 129 journalists — one-third of the total newsroom — were laid off, and the remaining staff salaries were cut by 13 percent.

Reporters reacted with a three-day strike and what has become a vocal daily protest. Outside the 6 p.m. editorial meeting, reporters hold copies of the paper upside down and count out the number of lay-offs.

"We continue to count. We continue to fight. We don't stop," Gomez says.

The layoffs came as a shock. El Pais has always been one of Europe's most profitable papers. But its parent company Prisa is now $4.5 billion in the red. El Pais management denies the layoffs are meant to offset Prisa's debts.

"We are trying to do a newspaper for the contemporary times, thinking about another model of newspaper, to be the Spanish global newspaper," says Pedro Zuazua, a spokesman for El Pais.

Finding A New Outlet

Ramon Lobo, the paper's veteran war correspondent, is among the 129 journalists laid off. Today, he says, El Pais is doing "cheap journalism" and he fears El Pais will soon join the ranks of discredited media.

"Journalism that we cut-and-paste. We use the wires, but we don't go to see the things by our eyes. Papers become the same papers, the same photos, the same news, the same titles. So, we are losing the quality of information," Lobo says.

The crisis of confidence in the media, he says, is further undermining civic society, already weakened by drastic cuts.

"We are losing freedom of speech, we are losing diversity of opinions, we are becoming more afraid. Don't speak. Don't lose your job. We are making a society of people afraid, and I think we must fight for a society of people that feel free," Lobo says.

Lobo and many other laid-off journalists are now turning to the Web to try to create alternative sources of news and analysis in an effort to fill the widening vacuum of independent information.

In the last three years, some 8,500 Spanish journalists have lost their jobs.

Three years of euro-zone recession have badly hurt Spain's media sector, where some 8,500 journalists have lost their jobs. Dozens of newspapers have closed and the remaining publications are sharply cutting back as ads plummet.

That's led to warnings from journalists, who see a threat to press freedom at a time when Spaniards want to understand why their financial stability is unraveling.

Independent newspapers and their owners are increasingly in debt to banks. "After four years of crisis, all the big media — there is no exception — the main capital is from the banks in all the big media conglomerates," media analyst Pere Rusinol says, and it's led to a radical shift in media control.

In a nation where banks have repossessed 50,000 homes for unpaid mortgages, for example, he says newspapers focus mostly on color: "These poor people," "He is not able to pay," "He has no place to sleep."

"But nobody explains this is because this particular bank has forced that situation, and this particular bank is seeking, at the same time, money [from] public finances because [it's] bankrupt," says Rusinol. He believes the banks' influence on media coverage in Spain is widespread.

Crisis Affects Coverage?

Llucia Oliva, ombudsman in the region of Catalonia, says drastic budget cuts have all but ended investigative journalism, preventing in-depth analysis of government-imposed austerity measures and allegations of political corruption.

"That's very bad for democracy and for the citizens who don't have all the information they would need to decide rationally when they go to vote," Oliva says. With broadcasters increasingly seen as mouthpieces of the austerity-wielding government, viewership of both state-run and commercial TV is at an all-time low.

The media crisis has not spared Spain's legendary daily El Pais, the paper identified with the country's transition from Francisco Franco's dictatorship to democracy back in the 1970s.

El Pais' newsroom has many empty desks and there aren't enough journalists to answer phones. Brigido Gomez, secretary of El Pais' reporters union says last month 129 journalists — one-third of the total newsroom — were laid off, and the remaining staff salaries were cut by 13 percent.

Reporters reacted with a three-day strike and what has become a vocal daily protest. Outside the 6 p.m. editorial meeting, reporters hold copies of the paper upside down and count out the number of lay-offs.

"We continue to count. We continue to fight. We don't stop," Gomez says.

The layoffs came as a shock. El Pais has always been one of Europe's most profitable papers. But its parent company Prisa is now $4.5 billion in the red. El Pais management denies the layoffs are meant to offset Prisa's debts.

"We are trying to do a newspaper for the contemporary times, thinking about another model of newspaper, to be the Spanish global newspaper," says Pedro Zuazua, a spokesman for El Pais.

Finding A New Outlet

Ramon Lobo, the paper's veteran war correspondent, is among the 129 journalists laid off. Today, he says, El Pais is doing "cheap journalism" and he fears El Pais will soon join the ranks of discredited media.

"Journalism that we cut-and-paste. We use the wires, but we don't go to see the things by our eyes. Papers become the same papers, the same photos, the same news, the same titles. So, we are losing the quality of information," Lobo says.

The crisis of confidence in the media, he says, is further undermining civic society, already weakened by drastic cuts.

"We are losing freedom of speech, we are losing diversity of opinions, we are becoming more afraid. Don't speak. Don't lose your job. We are making a society of people afraid, and I think we must fight for a society of people that feel free," Lobo says.

Lobo and many other laid-off journalists are now turning to the Web to try to create alternative sources of news and analysis in an effort to fill the widening vacuum of independent information.

In the last three years, some 8,500 Spanish journalists have lost their jobs.

Robert Siegel talks to Ambassador Martin Indyk, vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institute. They discuss Israel, and the complicated relations it has with the United States and its neighbors. He talks about what needs to come next to keep the tensions between Israel and other state players from spinning out of control.

A year and a half ago, recession-ravaged Spanish society reacted to the economic crisis with the "Indignados," a mass protest that inspired the worldwide "Occupy" movement.

The "angry ones" are long gone from Spanish streets, but they've evolved into many grass-roots associations now filling the gaps left by the eroding welfare state, spawning a new form of anti-austerity resistance that embraces all branches of society, from those who have lost homes to foreclosures, to the entire judiciary.

Hardly a day passes in Spain without a noisy demonstration by one sector of society or another. One day, it's doctors. With drums beating, thousands of white-clad health workers protest government plans to overhaul the country's highly respected public health system.

"What they want to do is privatize the hospital, and we are here to just say we don't want that to happen. We want that to stop because we think it has to be universal; everybody has to be able to go to hospital," says Olwen Leaman, a young oncologist at Madrid's Princesa hospital.

Enlarge Sylvia Poggioli/NPR

Last week in Madrid's Puerta Del Sol square, a professor teaches a lesson outdoors while students take notes, all as a means of protesting education cuts.

A new Tell Me More series, 'Why Not?' takes a closer look at what's on the table during the fiscal cliff negotiations. Host Michel Martin talks to NPR's Scott Horsley and Dorothy Brown of Emory University School of Law. They weigh the pros and cons of cutting tax deductions, including mortgage interest and charitable giving adjustments.

When Andy Marra came out as a transgendered woman, she got lots of support from her adoptive American parents. She wanted to move forward with hormones or surgery, but not until she found her birth parents in South Korea. She shared that journey in an essay titled 'The Beautiful Daughter: How My Korean Mother Gave Me the Courage to Transition.'

David Greene has business news.

David Greene and Renee Montagne have the Last Word in business.

Earlier this summer I looked for Edward Hopper's Morning Sun at its home in the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio. In the painting, a woman sits on a bed with her knees up, gazing out a window. She's bare, but for a short pink slip. The iconic Hopper is a must-see, but on the day I visited, it was on loan to an exhibition in Madrid.

Enlarge Columbus Museum of Art/Howald Fund

Edward and Josephine Hopper met as young students in art school in New York and married in 1924. Josephine was his only female model, and posed for his 1952 work, Morning Sun.

The economic crisis in Greece is strangling the country's hospitals, where budgets have been slashed by more than half. As a result, nearly all doctors in both public and private hospitals have seen their pay cut, delayed or even frozen.

"On top of that, we lack basic supplies to do our jobs," says Vangelis Papamichalis, a neurologist at the Regional Hospital of Serres in northern Greece and a member of the doctors' union here. "We run out of surgical gloves, syringes, vials for blood samples and needles to sew stitches, among other things."

Last week, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said these shortages will contribute to hospital-acquired infections rates in Greece, which are already among the worst in Europe.

The Health Effects Of Unemployment

In Serres, the 100 doctors and 80 residents who work at the regional hospital here often work up to 100 hours a week and see a rising number of uninsured patients for free.

The city is part of a region with the same name that's in the northern province of Macedonia, on the border with Bulgaria. The Regional Hospital of Serres serves the more than 200,000 people who live in the area.

A hand-painted banner decrying the budget cuts is draped on the main entrance. Inside, Charalambos Veliotis, a bespectacled, 42-year-old pediatrician, is examining a young brother and sister in matching track suits. They've been coughing for 10 days now.

Enlarge Joanna Kakissis for NPR

A hand-painted banner decrying drastic cuts to the health care budget is draped on the main entrance of the Regional Hospital of Serres in northern Greece.