Albert Gonzalez is calling it quits. Accused of masterminding the largest identity theft in the United States ever, he has agreed to plead guilty in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. Separate charges filed in New Jersey, however, remain.

The 28 year-old faces 15 to 25 years in prison and will forfeit $1.65 million and a Miami condo (in addition to $1.1 million already seized). If the judge accepts the terms, this would be the longest sentence ever recorded for a hacking case.

So, how would I fix ESPN? There is a reason I am talking about this topic today. My idea was sparked by an interview conducted by Darren Rovell with ESPN The Magazine's general manager Gary Hoenig. The interview focused on a new promotion that offers the magazine and ESPN.com's pay site (Insider) for a year for $1. The offer is for current subscribers only, requires you to sign up for auto pay on credit card, and is one heck of a deal. This is actually a good move, because the customers should realize how nice both of these subscriptions are (I have had the magazine, and it is decent) and pony up the money for subscriptions when the time comes. I have never used the Insider, but it boasts extra knowledge for subscribers, and the subscription wall has cost me some valuable fantasy football knowledge in the past.

Everyone knew that the government's "cash for clunkers" program would be enticing to potential auto buyers, but no one, including the U.S. government could have predicted just how popular the program would be.

Auto makers and dealers have seen a vast response to the program, but now some dealers are starting to wonder when the government is going to keep its end of the deal, and have decided to remove themselves from the popular program.

Damien Hirst has gotten to the point where the sound of his own voice isn't good enough – now he needs a record of his thoughts for the ages. He and fellow artist Richard Prince (who actually has some talent) discuss the pains of the art market in Requiem II, which is scheduled to be published by Other Criteria this fall. Of course, Hirst is one of the publishing house's founders, making one wonder if this is the only most effective way for him to get a book published.

If a recent interview with ArtNews is any indication, Requiem II will contain the insights you'd come to expect from an artist of Hirst's caliber. My personal favorite: "Yeah, we ain't gonna sell as much art, art shows are gonna get better now the focus shifts away from money."

Brilliant.

Both the U.S. Commerce Department (new home sales, starts) and the National Association of Realtors (existing home sales) publish housing data, and it behooves investors, buyers and sellers to stay abreast of real estate developments, nationally, and regionally, via reports published by these organizations.

Then there are those other "metrics of significance" that further flesh-out real estate market conditions.

This is not an abstraction: buildings large and small are showing gaping vacancies. Storefronts are empty. Entire buildings sit waiting to be occupied. In Manhattan, retail vacancies have reached their highest rates since 2001. For the second quarter of this year, vacancies hit the absurd height of 12.4%, thanks to unemployment trends that won't quit and consumers reluctant to pry open their wallets.

Retailers are being hit just like the residential market.

Looking for new digs? Well if you're a person or a couple of means, you could snare film producer Bob Weinstein's place on Central Park West in Manhattan, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday (Subscription required).

The 6,500-square-foot, 14-room duplex is in the glamorous Beresford Building and features six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a family room, formal dining room, two balconies, three fireplaces, and a library, the Real Estalker notes.

As the unemployment rate continues to creep toward the 10% threshold, some companies are exploring more creative ways to cut down on labor costs without handing out pink slips.

Case in point, as reviewed by The New York Times: the Vera Institute of Justice, which has reduced some employees' workweeks to 24 hours (or three days out of five). In this example, workers take a 40% reduction in salary as well, but no loss in benefits. Other companies require 32 hours of work in order to retain health care and other benefits.

The rumor mill announced yesterday that Playboy Enterprises (NYSE: PLA) is going to suck it up, pull out, and move its entire operation to its home port of Chicago. According to a blurb in The New York Post, "Playboy is combining its Web site and magazine staff into one editorial organization." Evidently, the company is feeling the squeeze from 1.5 million free internet porn sites, give or take several million.

In the matter of nudity as entertainment, has the adage "sex sells" been supplanted by the new phase of "sex is free for the taking?" In the world of high gloss paper media, such would seem to be the case. So, what is a gnarly old, skin peddling millionaire to do? Whatever shall become of our most familiar white bunny head?

Hugh Hefner is still smiling, and it seems obvious that he still has some faith in his production staff. However, getting a continuing rise out of the public, and getting them to continue opening their wallets, is quite another matter. The company is doing fairly well in it's non-media operations, but in the world of cheesecake, it looks pretty much all down hill.

I'm guessing that in the halls of Playboy there have been some extremely hot and sweaty brain storming sessions going on. There is one thing in this situation that I'm almost absolutely certain of: If the gang at Playboy Enterprises can't continue to do something to stimulate some growth, we're sure to see some serious bunny fur fly.

This post is part of our feature on Money Losers of 2008. See all 20.

Back in the early 2000s, Spitzer was the champion of investors battling evil on Wall Street, and he was much more aggressive than the SEC. The SEC finally got mad and asked that Spitzer coordinate his efforts with them. I doubt many of the investigations that Spitzer led in the early 2000s would ever have happened if he waited around for the SEC to act. He was even named "Crusader of the Year" in 2002 by Time magazine.

Spitzer used the points he won as a popular New York State Attorney General to win the governor's race, but things quickly went downhill. First there was the scandal involving his aides who attempted to embarrass Republican state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno because of the use of state aircraft. Then Spitzer lost more popularity when he made it easier for illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses.

But being named as Client 9 in a prostitution ring took him down. Investigators found out about the ring when they followed the money after seeing funds moving from his accounts in a suspicious manner. In the end it was reported that Spitzer spent $80,000 on prostitutes. A measly sum when you consider the other money losers in this year's nominations. But for Spitzer it's more about losing power than losing money.

Sadly, he proved his own words to the BBC is 2006, "Everyone is susceptible to the notion that when you begin to do well, you begin to see no boundary lines and forget the rules apply."

Be sure to check out more Money Losers of 2008.

Many investors know about the key metrics that provide clues about the U.S. economy's health, and where it's likely to head in the near term. Retail sales, housing starts, UPS (NYSE: UPS) and Fed Ex (NYSE: FDX) deliveries and, of course, those infamous corrugated box orders, all provide clues about demand at the retail and wholesale levels, and are positively correlated with increases in U.S. GDP.

What's another metric worth monitoring? Office rents -- and here, like the recent statistics reported for the above metrics, the numbers are not good.

Office rent charges per square foot in Midtown Manhattan, London's West End, and Central Tokyo fell in Q3 for the first time since 2002, a report from CB Richard Ellis indicated Tuesday (pdf).

In New York, Midtown Manhattan office rents fell 2.7% to $98.08 per square foot. Midtown Manhattan includes the headquarters of many of the world's multinational corporations and the Broadway theater district, but does not include the Wall Street financial district, which is located in Lower Manhattan.

In London's West End, occupancy costs declined 5.1% to $248.66 per square foot. In Central Tokyo, costs dropped 5.3% to $184.26 per square foot.

Economist Richard Felson told BloggingStocks Tuesday the fact that rents are declining the world's top three financial centers for the time since 2002 is not a good sign. "It's further evidence of the spread of the recession," Felson said. "Very rarely do you see rates in all three cities declining at the same time. Then again, very rarely do you see all three regional economies in recession at the same time, either, which shows you the fix we're in."

Who knew that the fate of world beer would one day be in the hands of the beer faithful in Rochester, New York? The tastes of this blue-collar town, along with neighbors Syracuse and Buffalo, are key in the pending acquisition of Anheuser-Busch (NYSE: BUD) by Belgian giant InBev, SA. The three cities make up half of the U.S. consumption of Labatt Blue and Labatt Blue Light. Due to the popularity of Labatt brews and Budweiser brands in upstate New York, the U.S. Justice Department worries that beer prices might rise in Rochester.

So, if the acquisition is to be approved, giving Europeans control over America's iconic beer brands, InBev is being asked to sell the Labatt USA subsidiary. Other major InBev brands, including Stella Artois, Becks, and Bass, are not considered competitive enough in any markets to reduce competition between beers and provide upward pressure on prices.

Nope, it all comes down to Rochester and its surprisingly European tastes. Who would have thought?

This June, Houston was the most economically attractive place in the country. That was when oil was climbing to its peak of $147 a barrel. Back in those glory days for the offshore oil patch, 81% of oil trading was conducted by speculators who were long oil and short the dollar. But that trade has lost its appeal and now Houston is suffering the effects of a 56% drop in price as the dollar booms 25%.

With the 40% decline in stocks this year and a financial crisis upon us, it looks like New York and Houston -- two cities which are culturally apart -- will both be suffering but for different reasons. Houston is going to suffer due to an expected oil demand slowdown. Despite OPEC's decision to cut its production quotas by 1.5 million barrels a day, crude still dropped $3.39 to close at $64.15 on Friday. Since oil trades in dollars and the world is buying up our Treasury bills due to a belief that the U.S. is a safe haven, the dollar is rising which means it takes fewer of them to buy a barrel of oil.

But despite an apparent slowdown driven by the economic crunch, official forecasts still forecast growth in demand -- albeit at a slower rate. For example, Paris's International Energy Agency (IEA) now predicts global oil demand will average 86.5 million barrels a day this year, up about 440,000 barrels a day from 2007 -- it previously forecast 940,000 barrels a day. This is making Houston's energy sector nervous. Why? The IEA reported that some analysts expect a big proportion of "global drilling rig orders will be canceled."

In the wake of Wall Street's recent tumble, several cities have started vying for New York's position as the center of worldwide finance. In Shanghai, for example, some investors have noted that, in spite of the city's relative inexperience in the world of high finance, it is swimming in cash. Tokyo, meanwhile, is working on rearranging its regulatory structure in an attempt to make its markets more attractive to international investors.

Perhaps the most interesting competitor for the throne of worldwide financial center is Dubai. Currently in the middle of a massive construction boom, the city has taken a variety of steps to make itself attractive to foreign workers, including relaxing Islamic law and creating so-called "free zones," where taxes are greatly reduced. On the other hand, Dubai has a mean humidity of over 60% and several months where the average temperatures top 100° F. Of course, if everything was based on climate, the worldwide financial center would probably be in the South of France!

While it's hard to imagine New York ceding its position at the heart of worldwide finance, the same could once have been said of Venice or London. The one constant in world history is that nothing lasts forever, and countries that fail to remain competitive do so at their peril. While we wait to see the future of New York, I'm going to try to imagine Jim Cramer in a keffiyah!

Amid the reports and cacophony of (seemingly) one bad economic news story after another, it's important -- perhaps essential -- to take time out to notice the good economic news stories out there.

And there are good news stories about business models, products, and services out there, because despite this period of extraordinary economic problems, the United States remains the most resilient, adaptable, and technology-advanced economy in the world.

An intelligent parking space system/service

One such good news story: smart parking technology, currently being tested in San Francisco.

This fall, San Francisco will test 6,000 of its 24,000 metered parking spaces in the nation's first large trial of wireless sensor network that will communicate which spaces are free at any moment, The New York Times reported.