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The global headlines are gob-smackingly bad.

The IMF's French boss calls this "The Great Recession".

Let's assume Dominique Strauss-Kahn means it's big, because it doesn't feel that great to be in the middle of it.

In Edinburgh this afternoon, the estimate of a £219bn gap in pension funds is being met with a more upbeat message to the National Association of Pension Funds, with an analysis of the way economic cycles have a happy habit of following downswing with growth, and that stock markets are a good predictor of that upswing.

In Glasgow this evening, an academic gathering for the general public, calling itself the Festival of Social Science, is to hear more of a downbeat take on the state we're in.

The advance notice from Professor Catherine Schenk, an expert in the history of financial markets, says the prospects of progress at next month's G20 summit in London are "pretty slim".

She reckons the current use of government interventions in the financial system could actually lead to instability.

Professor Ken Gibb, who specialises in the housing market, is arguing that governments need to re-think the drive towards owner-occupation for people who are ill-equipped to deal with economic and housing market volatility.

He suggests more support for the rental market and a tax on housing capital gains to reduce speculation in the boom times.

Meanwhile, Scottish businesses are struggling to get through the tough times, and today provides some very different tales. It's not all bad - but where it's bad, it's really bad.

Weir Group is doing nicely, having bought big in Texas, with profits comfortably up.

The Glasgow engineering company has a war chest with which it could move into further acquisition mode when the time is right.

Cairn Energy, the Edinburgh-based oil exploration company, has today gone for a rights issue aimed at putting £120m of extra capital into riding out the recession, possibly proving useful to expanding its pipeline network in India and more work in Greenland.

But then there's , also headquartered in Edinburgh.

Its share price, already bumping along at derisory levels, has fallen by a further quarter on the latest results, out this morning.

The group includes The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday, the Yorkshire Post, and hundreds of local titles from Portsmouth to Stornoway via its Falkirk roots.

The entirety is now valued below £50m.

And no wonder. Advertising revenue for the start of this year is down 36%. In property and jobs, it is down by more than half on last year.

Taking £417m in write-downs on the falling value of intangible assets, such as the brand value of its titles, it registered a loss last year of £429m.

And even after that, it still faced a net debt at the end of last year of £476m, which it hopes to refinance by summer.

The company has sharply cut costs (mainly the salary bill) and will continue to do so, centralising where it can.

Inviting offers for its Irish titles, new chief executive John Fry is interested in further sell-off of assets, hoping the UK Government will relax the rules on media ownership to boost the number of potential buyers.

That leaves uncertainty about The Scotsman and many other titles.

Not everyone shares Mr Fry's confidence that the upswing will apply to newspapers.

They include those suffering the ferocious scything announced today at Guardian Media Group's local titles in England.