A couple of stories surrounding corporate sponsorship caught our attention this week, casting doubt over its benefits. This should be encouraging to small businesses who cannot afford this sort of promotion, but even you need to trade on your relationships with other businesses.

The Business Lounge looks at various attempts being made to increase the financial literacy of the UK’s children, and at some of the more light-hearted consequences of the credit crunch.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has released a study discussing what amount of money is needed to maintain a basic, but acceptable, standard of living.

While working alone can be very rewarding, The Business Lounge knows that you can miss out on idle chat with colleagues about interesting items in the news, and we want to plug that gap. Read on for some valuable time out.