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Por JONATHAN HOUSE

MADRID (EFE Dow Jones)–La economía española se contrajo en el cuarto trimestre, bajo la presión de la crisis de deuda de Europa y la ralentización económica de todo el continente, según los datos publicados el jueves por el Instituto Nacional de Estadística.

En un comunicado, el INE dijo que el Producto Interior Bruto del cuarto trimestre cayó un 0,3% respecto al tercero, aunque creció un 0,3% respecto al mismo período del año anterior. El dato confirma la previsión adelantada por el INE el 30 de enero y se traduce en una caída anualizada del 1,2% en el cuarto trimestre, según los cálculos de JP Morgan.

Esta nueva contracción económica de España se produce después de siete meses seguidos de moderado crecimiento tras la recesión registrada entre 2008 y 2009.

España se está enfrentando al pinchazo de una burbuja inmobiliaria que duró diez años, lo que ha disparado el desempleo y ha dejado un gran agujero en las cuentas públicas del país. A medida que los inversores se han vuelto más temerosos de los países europeos con problemas fiscales, España se ha visto forzada a llevar a cabo duros recortes presupuestarios para mantener el acceso a los mercados financieros internacionales.

Según el INE, el gasto público de España se redujo un 1,1% en el cuarto trimestre respecto a los tres meses anteriores, debido a rebajas en los salarios y a reducciones en las compras de bienes y servicios. Los crecientes costes de financiación y la caída de la confianza conllevaron una reducción de la inversión del 4,3% y del gasto de los consumidores del 1%.

Al mismo tiempo, la ralentización económica de toda Europa en el cuarto trimestre afectó a las exportaciones, que anteriormente habían sido uno de los elementos de apoyo y que en el cuarto trimestre se redujeron un 1,6%.

La mayor parte de analistas esperan que el cuarto trimestre sea el comienzo de una larga recesión en España, ya que el nuevo Gobierno de Mariano Rajoy va a redoblar sus esfuerzos para reducir el déficit público, que en 2011 rondó el 8% del PIB.

Rajoy, que tomó posesión en diciembre, anunció en sus primeros días recortes de gasto y subidas de impuestos por valor de EUR15.000 millones. Se esperan nuevas medidas cuando a finales de marzo se presenten los presupuestos de 2012.

El banco central español prevé que el PIB del país se contraiga un 1,5% este año.

By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

The small-business-for-sale marketplace picked up again last year, for the second year in a row, thanks in part to better business performance.

Sales of businesses with roughly $360,000 in annual revenue rose 3.3% in 2011, according to BizBuySell.com, a San Francisco-based online marketplace for small-business acquisitions. The median revenue for small businesses sold last year rose by 6.7%, its data show.

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But the median sale price inched up only 3.3% to $155,000, suggesting that it’s still largely a buyer’s market. Sellers are still being “a little bit conservative with their sale price to get things done,” says Curtis Kroeker, a BizBuySell general manager.

Slight improvements in small-business lending conditions could be one factor helping to boost transactions, Mr. Kroeker says. But many sellers are continuing to help finance deals for buyers who are unable to secure sufficient funding otherwise, he adds.

“Everyone’s seeing growth in revenue,” says Tom Gottlieb, managing partner at VR Mergers & Acquisitions LLC, an Austin, Texas brokerage. But he believes that “banks are holding things back from really going well,” adding that “even when the banks are involved, you have to do seller financing in many cases.”

The firm, which mostly handles deals in the $1 million range, closed 15% more transactions in 2011 than it did the year prior, and selling prices were up about 10%, he says.

In healthy economies, seller financing typically accounts for about 20% to 30% of a small-business sale, says Joseph L. Caffrey, president and CEO of Worldwide Business Brokers LLC, a brokerage based in Virginia Beach, Va., with locations throughout the East Coast. But in recent years and still today, sellers are finding that they need to put up as much as 50% to 70%.

“Everybody’s beginning to understand the economy is not going to see a fast turnaround,” Mr. Caffrey says. “This recovery is going be a long slog.”

At Sunbelt of Greater Louisiana, a brokerage serving the Baton Rouge area, sales last year included a few that exceeded $1 million, unlike the year before. The firm managed 33 small-business transactions in 2011, up from 22 in 2010, according to Robert Bourgeois, chief executive officer.

“It’s all a matter of confidence, primarily on the buyer’s part,” he says. “We’re getting brisk activity already.”

BizyBuySell’s Mr. Kroeker believes that the business-for-sale market is poised to grow even further in 2012 as the overall economy recovers. “Barring a global economic shock, we expect a continued steady slow path to improvement,” he says.

In 2010, small-business transactions rose 2.9%, according to BizBuySell, but that small increase had followed the whopping 28% decrease in such transactions during 2009.

By ERIC FELTEN

Whenever some third-rate work by a marquee name is unveiled and the public titters, the arbiters of Art intone, “Well, they all laughed at Van Gogh.” Or Picasso. Or Stravinsky. Or Elvis. The hidebound never recognize genius, you see. And so it was when celebrity architect Frank Gehry unveiled last year the preliminary plans for a monument to Dwight D. Eisenhower—a plaza framed by stainless-steel tapestries suggesting the waving grain of the general’s Kansas boyhood. First there was the obligatory critical fawning. But since then, there’s been a growing chorus of hoots and raspberries, and mounting pressure on the National Capital Planning Commission to use a coming review of the project to put the kibosh on the plans. And so Mr. Gehry’s defenders have been playing the They-All-Laughed trump card, harrumphing about know-nothings and their resistance to artistic innovation.

But just because great works have been met with contempt doesn’t mean that all works met with contempt are great.

Consider the first work of monumental statuary commissioned by Congress, Horatio Greenough’s Washington. The artist posed his subject as the Greek sculptor Phidias had seated Zeus at Olympia, and some praised the work’s “colossal grandeur.” But to average folks, something seemed off. They complained about the marble nipples on the bare-chested giant; they were put off by the sight of the general shod in strappy sandals. With his robe-draped arm gesturing to heaven, he looked like he was dancing a seated minuet.

The common opinion was captured by a newspaperman who declared: “It is a ridiculous affair, and instead of demanding admiration, excites only laughter.” And, as it turns out, the rude masses were right. The Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Artists gives a simple explanation for why Greenough’s Washington failed: It was “the triumph of an abstract idea over common sense.”

The affectations that afflict the proposed Eisenhower monument are no less abstract. While Greenough’s conceit was that a hero be idolized in the form of a god, Mr. Gehry hews to an ideology of antiheroism. There is to be a statue of a young, barefoot Ike looking at the tapestries as if reading about his future life. Greenough decorated Washington’s throne with Olympian images of Apollo and Hercules. Mr. Gehry decorates Eisenhower’s mundane plaza with humble images of grain silos. Talk about your triumphs over common sense.

After a short-lived residence in the Capitol rotunda, Greenough’s statue was shuttled off to what one grieved admirer complained was a “shabby little park” near the Capitol. You could say the same about the forlorn few acres that have been assigned to Ike. It’s a forgotten little patch off the Mall, crowded on three sides by featureless federal office buildings. The proposed monument may not have much to do with Eisenhower, but it sure fits the space it’s been given.

And even with the hopeless banality of Mr. Gehry’s design, at least Ike is getting better treatment than his veep, Richard Nixon. Thomas Mallon, in his new “Watergate” novel, invents an affair for Pat Nixon. It is as though old Tricky Dick is such a devil he has to be drawn with cuckold’s horns.

Mr. Mallon’s book is the more common sort of monument these days. There isn’t much marble carved to instruct us anymore, but plenty of books and movies are meant to sway our opinions of historical figures. Some are admiring (“The King’s Speech”); some most decidedly are not (James Ellroy’s portrait of John F. Kennedy). And then there is the “Iron Lady” approach: Present the basic facts of a great life in fairly straightforward fashion but find a way to make the great figure seem pathetic nonetheless, as the film does by lingering and lingering and lingering on Meryl Streep’s portrayal of Margaret Thatcher doddering with dementia.

Whose reputations get polished and whose get tarnished? The reputations of leaders are often in the hands of their followers, which would seem to increase the odds for burnishing. But, as Oscar Wilde put it, “Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography.” For other sorts of celebrities, it can depend on whether they leave heirs and estates for whom it pays to keep up with the pruning in the garden of memory. There is an entire industry of people with a stake in whether Michael Jackson is remembered as a great singer and dancer or a strange recluse whose closest companions ranged from chimp to children.

Should we care how the famous are remembered? The cynical take is that reputation is “got without merit and lost without deserving.” As for Dwight D., it can’t matter much to him at this point whether he’s remembered as a barefoot farm boy or the Supreme Allied Commander. But it does matter to us how we define greatness, what traits and accomplishments we honor in others and thus set in stone for contemplation.

One other reason to spare ourselves the lame Eisenhower monument envisioned by Mr. Gehry: At least the Greenough statue of Washington could be moved—it now resides in the Smithsonian Museum of American History, a historical curiosity given the same pride of place as the flying Dumbo from Disneyland. By contrast, once it’s built, the Ike folly will never go anywhere.

Among the things Eisenhower was known for during World War II was the introduction of the Ike Jacket—a functional and democratic coat that made enlisted men look as snappy as officers. What an odd bit of posthumous identity theft to make Eisenhower’s legacy a monument to bad design.

Corrections & Amplifications: An earlier version of this article said that Dwight D. Eisenhower was born in Kansas, and the caption on the accompanying photograph said it was taken in 1945. Eisenhower was born in Texas, and the photo was taken before 1945.

—Write to me at EricFelten@WSJPostmodern.com

By JOSEPH DE AVILA

Michele Wallace had worked for Medialink Worldwide Inc. for 18 years when the New York video-distribution company laid her off last May. When the company’s information-technology staff quickly shut down her computer and her BlackBerry, the senior vice president of client services lost family photos and every personal and business contact on her cellphone and computer.

“I couldn’t even call my sister because I don’t know her number off the top of my head,” says Ms. Wallace, now a 47-year-old managing director at Mega Media Worldwide and living in Asbury Park, N.J. “I know you shouldn’t even have that stuff on the computer,” she says. But in the course of working 10- to 12-hour days for several years, “you don’t pay as much attention as to how much is personal on your computer.”

She’s still piecing together her contacts on Facebook and LinkedIn. (Medialink did not return calls for comment.)

As layoffs sweep across industries, employees’ personal information is winding up in the dustbin, as well. Most workers know better than to store personal files on their office computer. But employees who spend the majority of their time at the office often treat the company PC as their personal gadget, filling it with music, photos, personal contacts — even using the computer’s calendar to track a child’s soccer schedule. That makes it all the more distressing when a newly laid-off worker learns that his digital belongings are company property.

Most companies today have new hires sign electronic communications policies that generally state they have no rights to privacy or rights of ownership over the content on company computers. It doesn’t matter if those files are wedding photos or family phone numbers. “It still belongs to the company if it’s stored on a company-issued computer,” says Allison Brecher, director of information management and strategy and senior litigation counsel at consultants Marsh & McLennan Cos.

After someone quits or is laid off, a company will typically just delete those files, wiping a computer clean. In professions where communication between clients is important, like in sales or finance, companies might keep email correspondence for their records, says Jonathan Hyman, a partner at law firm Kohrman Jackson & Krantz PLL in Cleveland.

Earlier this year, Katie Morse was caught off-guard when she was laid off from a telecommunications company in Charlotte, N.C., where she worked in the marketing and communication department. After filling out paperwork and being briefed by her supervisors, she was escorted to her desk to collect her things. “Anything that was on my computer I didn’t have access to,” Ms. Morse, now living in Brooklyn, N.Y., says. “I honestly wish I was able to take my contacts with me.”

Companies often lock down computers and restrict access to email as soon as an employee is let go. “That could vary, but I think it’s safer to expect a harsh response,” says Janine Yancey, chief executive for emTRAiN, a human-resource training company.

Whether laid-off workers are allowed to retrieve personal files depends on the industry and the size of the business. “If you go into a bigger organization, they are going to implement a standard across the board,” which tends to be more restrictive, Ms. Yancey says. Smaller organizations may be more lenient. Some professions — brokers or financial advisers, for example — may be constrained by regulatory requirements with regards to the access they can give laid-off workers, Ms. Brecher says.

Companies often go to extreme lengths to protect themselves during layoffs. Some pore over their former employees’ emails, says Mr. Hyman. “If they think an employee has stolen anything, they will look for that,” he says. Companies fearing lawsuits from disgruntled former employees may have their IT department or an outside firm search through the emails, too, Mr. Hyman says.

From a business standpoint, companies that give laid-off workers access to work computers and email risk exposure to data theft, computer viruses and lost contact lists. “You don’t want somebody going in and downloading their whole contact base,” Ms. Yancey says. “That contact base belongs to the employer.”

A recent survey by the Ponemon Institute, a privacy research group in Traverse City, Mich., found that nearly 60% of employees who lost or left jobs in 2008 stole company data. The survey polled 945 adults from several industries who were laid off, fired or changed jobs in 2008. Data that was taken included non-financial business information, customer contact lists and financial information.

While human resource consultants advise businesses to use caution when dealing with laid-off employees, some are more lenient. Michelle Liro had five weeks’ notice that she was being let go as director of marketing at a telecommunications company. This gave her time to hunt for a new job and move email contacts of friends and colleagues to Facebook and LinkedIn. She was also able to take digital copies of banner ad campaigns and Web site graphics she designed.

The company even let Ms. Liro keep her work laptop after they wiped clean all of the files and software. “It only makes sense for companies to work with their employees,” says Ms. Liro, of Holliston, Mass. “You really do want to leave on a positive note.”

At Laughlin Constable, a marketing company in Chicago, laid-off or fired employees have their computer access limited and email restricted as soon as they are notified that they will be let go, says Joyce O’Brien, executive vice president of human resources.

“About 70 percent of our employees ask to have something off of their computer” when they are laid off, Ms. O’Brien says. Requests for personal files are reviewed by the IT department, human resources and the chief financial officer, she says. The company tries to give back personal information to laid-off workers as long as it isn’t a sensitive termination, Ms. O’Brien says. The personal files are retrieved by the company.

Employees are better off assuming that their company will take a conservative approach, says James Bucking, an employment lawyer for Foley Hoag LLP in Boston.

Employees worried about their job security should review the forms they signed when they were hired. They should look at the company’s electronic communications policy, employee guidelines and non-compete agreements to make sure they understand everything properly. When employees sign these agreements, they should also make copies to save at home, too, Ms. Yancey says. Those that break these agreements risk being fired or sued by their employer, she adds.

You should also be aware that the contact information for business associates made during employment and stored on an office computer — or even a Rolodex — usually belongs to the company, Mr. Bucking says.

When Tony Scida was laid off recently from his proofreader position at a small advertising agency in Richmond, Va., he didn’t take any email contacts from his computer because he signed a non-compete agreement. That didn’t much matter. He found most of them on Facebook and LinkedIn, and can contact them there.

Write to Joseph De Avila at joseph.deavila@wsj.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page D1

By KATHERINE ROSMAN

Before there was Facebook, there was the Wednesday 10.

In 1957, as men in their late 20s, they began meeting—initially over breakfast, then over dinners held at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel or at the Harvard Club in midtown Manhattan. Few were born to means. Many were sons of immigrants. Most went on to become luminaries in their fields—presidents of television networks, partners at banks, editors of magazines.

On occasion, they shared their influence with one another. When member Mort Janklow made a career switch from corporate attorney to literary agent, a fellow member, columnist William Safire, offered himself as a famous first client. When Robert Menschel, a senior director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., was considering deals involving large consumer companies such as Procter & Gamble, he would pick the brain of fellow club member Ed Meyer, the former chief executive of Grey Advertising.

In a day when “social network” is a buzz term from colleges to board rooms, the members of Wednesday 10 show the benefits of old-fashioned networking. “We were all young kids starting out, and it is easy when you are so involved in building your career to lose touch with other people who are outside your field,” says Mr. Menschel, who has been at Goldman Sachs for 55 years. “It helped me to understand why other people do what they do—which is important in life and in business. You don’t learn anything from talking to sameness.”

The Wednesday 10 comprised, at various points, more than 20 men; the goal was a number small enough to maintain intimacy yet large enough to ensure that at least 10 members would show up for each of the monthly Wednesday-night meetings. No more than two representatives of any one industry were permitted. The idea was to combat insularity, to keep the men connected to people and events outside their own professions.

Last Wednesday, in a prewar Manhattan duplex, the membership met for the first time since the death of the group’s founder, Mr. Safire. At a sit-down dinner of lobster pot pie, short-ribs stroganoff and fall-vegetable slaw, 16 of the group’s members engaged in spirited discussion about the economy, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the friendship they have cultivated during the past 52 years.

The members bantered like brothers as they greeted one another over cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, handshakes and a few hugs. “How old are you Larry?” Lawrence Grossman, the former president of NBC News and PBS, was asked as he walked into the reception.

“What the hell kind of question is that?” Mr. Grossman replied. Turns out he was born in 1931, making him the youngest member.

“I am the oldest,” said Charles Sigety, 87, a former nursing-home owner whose family has significant real estate holdings. Later, he pointed out another distinction. “I’m probably the only gentile here tonight,” he said.

“We’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” replied Mr. Menschel. (The group is about 75% Jewish.)

By today’s definition, the Wednesday 10′s idea of diversity isn’t expansive. “They’re anti- women,” Barbara Walters says. When she worked in public relations with Mr. Safire in the 1950s, she would rib him about the all-male make-up of the group. “No women!” he would respond, Ms. Walters says.

“In 1957, it didn’t occur to us to include women,” says Mr. Menschel. “If we formed it today, it wouldn’t occur to us not to include women.” When asked about the homogeneity, other members point to the many banquets that included wives and their invitations to Ms. Walters, Gloria Steinem and the late “Feminine Mystique” author Betty Friedan, each of whom addressed a Wednesday 10 meeting as a guest. Ms. Walters says she recalls nothing from the meeting she attended. Nor does Ms. Steinem. “It may not please them to know that I don’t remember,” she says. “But I would urge them to change the name to the Wednesday Men’s 10.”

The advantages to membership were many. Mr. Janklow secured Mr. Safire lucrative contracts and also scored book deals for other members: Edward Bleier, a former top executive at ABC and Warner Bros., wrote “Thanksgiving,” a guide to and history of the holiday; George Lang, who owned restaurants including Café des Artistes, chronicled his journey from a Nazi work camp to the height of New York’s culinary world in “Nobody Knows the Truffles I’ve Seen”; and Mr. Menschel wrote “Markets, Mobs & Mayhem: a Modern Look at the Madness of Crowds.” Mr. Safire wrote the forewords to the books of Messrs. Bleier and Menschel.

Mr. Menschel was the chairman of the board of trustees of the Museum of Modern Art from 2005 to 2007. He encouraged curators to attend the one-man photography exhibits of Wednesday 10er Marvin E. Newman, who shot for Esquire, Sports Illustrated and Life magazine. Mr. Newman’s work is featured in permanent collections at MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. When members get sick, they call member Mortimer Lacher, a pioneer in lymphoma research who has been on the staff of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center since 1961. “I’m the house doctor,” he says.

By almost every account, Mr. Safire founded the group after one of his superiors at public-relations agency Tex McCrary Inc. asked him to round up some of New York City’s most promising young businessmen. The rumor was that Ruder Finn Inc., a competing publicity company, had a connection to the Young Presidents’ Organization, a networking group of business leaders.

‘Our Own Organization’

One of the Tex McCrary executives said, “We need our own organization which has a purpose but might feed business to the firm,” recalls Mr. Bleier, who was also a Tex McCrary employee.

Mr. Safire shared the plan with Mr. Lang after the two men worked together on a 1956 reception hosted at the Waldorf-Astoria (Mr. Lang was assistant banquet manager) for Princess Grace and Prince Rainier by the Overseas Press Club (Mr. Safire handled the PR).

Valeche Studio

The Wednesday 10, shown at a 1960s banquet with their dates, began meeting 52 years ago.

They each invited friends and acquaintances. Over time, Mr. Lang says, the group helped him to understand the motivations and concerns of powerful men who worked in New York City’s core industries—the type of men who were his customers. “Through the Wednesday 10, you begin to understand the world,” says Mr. Lang, 85. “I knew about restaurants but not about Wall Street or show business.”

To begin the meetings, each man gave an update on his life. Impending marriages and expected babies were nodded to, but the thrust of the discussion centered on career development. “It was a professional support system,” says Mr. Meyer, 82. By the end of each meeting, he had a snapshot of what was going on in the realms of law, media, art, finance, real estate, public service and cancer research. “It was like reading a newspaper cover to cover,” he says.

Distinguished Guests

For the first 15 years or so, the men invited one guest per meeting to brief them on the issues of the day and answer questions. As the members’ careers got traction, the profile of the people to whom they had access grew. Over the years, the roster included CBS News’s Mike Wallace, Public Theater founder Joseph Papp, former New York City Mayor John Lindsay, accused Soviet spy Alger Hiss and Roy Cohn, who was a prosecutor during the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and an aide to Senator Joseph McCarthy during his anti-Communism hearings.

On Friday, Nov. 19, 1971, the group traveled to Washington, D.C., for a black-tie dinner at Blair House. The highlights included a speech on domestic policy delivered by Donald Rumsfeld, who was a Cabinet-level counselor to President Richard Nixon. (Mr. Safire was by then a White House speechwriter.) “I rarely got into black tie, but Bill said it was important,” Mr. Rumsfeld says.

Once Mr. Safire moved to Washington, D.C., the group scaled back the frequency of its meetings to twice a year and stopped inviting guests so the members could spend their time together reconnecting. At one gathering last year, though, the group gave special dispensation to a doctor of gerontology.

“I don’t know why someone thought that was appropriate for this group,” says Mr. Bleier, 79.

‘Daddy’s Ideas’

The men had hoped their sons would create an adjunct group that would one day assume the Wednesday 10 mantle but none took the initiative. “Daddy’s ideas are not the ones children tend to take on,” says Mr. Menschel.

Mr. Safire’s is the club’s eighth death, according to Mr. Bleier. A few decades ago, one member dropped out—Bill Adler, a former publishing entrepreneur. “It was getting to be a very self-admiring group, and it lost appeal for me,” says Mr. Adler, who also says that the idea for the club was his, not Mr. Safire’s. The rest of the membership disputes that contention.

At the apartment of Jenifer and George Lang last Wednesday, the men sat around a large rectangular table set with china, flowers and printed menus. (Mrs. Lang cooked the entire meal but disappeared at dinner time.) The formal discussion began when member Robert K. Lifton, the former president of the American Jewish Congress, was asked to address the peace process in the Middle East. “I see nothing changing in the next five years” unless the interested parties change their patterns of conduct, Mr. Lifton said, after giving his impressions on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he has known for 20 years. The situation in Afghanistan? “Quagmire,” Mr. Lifton said.

“I’d like to hear a little about the economy from our financial guru,” said the photographer Mr. Newman, in reference to Mr. Menschel.

“The question is, what is going to get 15 million people back to work,” Mr. Menschel said. “It won’t be big companies. It’s going to be driven by the ‘mom and pop economy’ and that takes a long time.”

During the economic discussion, Mr. Menschel had to weather some Goldman Sachs-bashing. Dr. Lacher called one of Mr. Menschel’s colleagues a “bozo.” Stanley Bartels, a banker who made his career at smaller establishments, called Goldman a “monster,” and Mr. Menschel rolled his eyes.

Most of the meal was spent discussing Mr. Safire and the group he built. James Rosenfield, former president of CBS Television Network, looked around the table and gave in to a moment of wistful congratulations. “Each of us started from zero with a common denominator—we were ambitious and hard-working,” he said. “And I look around and there isn’t a single guy in the group who wasn’t a winner in his own world.”

“This group is amazing in its longevity,” added Dr. Lacher.

The brandy had been served, so Mr. Menschel said, “Let’s drink to that.”

Write to Katherine Rosman at katherine.rosman@wsj.com