Following months of recession in the United States, a sudden spike in U.S. asset purchases worldwide has occurred. BusinessWeek has some interesting commentary on why this might be happening.

“Reverse diversification” boosted global demand for long-term U.S. financial assets to a record as the European fiscal crisis may be beginning to translate into increased demand for dollar assets.Purchases of equities, notes and bonds totaled $140.5 billion in March, more than double economists’ projections, after net buying of $47.1 billion in February, the Treasury Department said today. Treasury purchases rose by the most since June as China, the largest lender to the U.S., added to its holdings for the first time since September.

This seems as likely an explanation as any.

Most people think of Nascar simple as entertainment, or as a sport. But like all other entertainment, and like all others sports, Nascar is also about money. Tony Stewar was considered the hot-head of the business just a couple of years ago, but he is now being hailed as a genius businessman. This article demonstrates how well his team is doing now.

Stewart won $6.8 million behind the wheel, and teammate Ryan Newman raked in another $5 million, making SHR the second-highest-earning team in Nascar’s chase for the 2009 Cup. Stewart-Haas earned $55 million in sponsorship revenue last season, the most of any two-driver team and seventh most overall. FORBES values the team at $98 million, up 23% since last year, the seventh most valuable one in Nascar.

Not a bad turn-around at all. I guarantee, too, that any driver who is thinking about moving up from a lesser team is going to entertain an offer from Stewart.

Walmart is a company that thrives even, or especially, in recessions. This is because their prices are the rock-bottom of the market, but they turn a profit from sheer volume. A recession drives more and more people to the store with the lowest prices. This is true even in Mexico, apparently.

The company, known as Walmex, reported a 1.5 percent increase in same-store sales — or those recorded at outlets open for at least 12 months — in February 2009.

Walmex said 5.4 percent more people visited its supermarkets, clothing stores and restaurants last month than in February 2009. But the average amount spent on every visit declined by 0.8 percent, reflecting a still tight economy.

Morgan Stanley released information regarding their employee compensation over the past year and the news is going to be a negative publicity storm. The company authorized billions more in compensation for employees over the past year, a 30% increase over the previous year, in fact. To be fair, though, the compensation is less per employee  because of an expanded payroll–thanks to a joint venture with Citigroup.

Morgan Stanley’s compensation pool represents 62 percent of its revenue, the highest in at least a decade. Typically, Wall Street firms have used about 50 percent of revenue to pay employees. On Wednesday, the company said it lost $907 million for all of 2009, compared with a loss of $731 million a year earlier.

Colm Kelleher, a Morgan Stanley executive who was chief financial officer during 2009, said in an interview that the compensation ratio was higher in part because of a brokerage joint venture it introduced this year with Citigroup. “While I do believe compensation for the industry is inflated, there’s a competitive pressure,” he added.

If you want to see the compensation figures for Bank of America–they can be found at the same link.

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