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06 Nov 2010 00:01

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Biz: Fannie Mae’s losses like a depressing slow-motion car crash

  • $3.5billion lost in the most recent quarter; that’s great!
  • 13 number of quarterly losses the government-owned mortgage finance firm has had in a row
  • $19.8B the amount of money it lost in the same ultra-depressing quarter about a year ago
  • $89B the amount of money the government has poured into Fannie Mae during the recession source
  • » Oh yeah, they need more help. We can’t imagine how much fun it is to work at Fannie Mae right now. The company, after all the loans they’ve already gotten from the government, needs another $2.5 billion from the U.S. Treasury. And their buddy Freddie Mac had an even bigger loss last quarter, with $4.1 billion falling in their depressing money pit.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Nov 2010 09:56

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Biz: Unemployment stays put despite genuinely solid job growth

  • 151,000 the increase in hiring in October – mostly on the back of private sector jobs, which is really good
  • 9.6% the current unemployment rate, which didn’t improve even though jobs numbers were strong source
  • » Far better than predicted: Economists were expecting a hiring increase of around 60,000 in October, which was more than doubled. So hey, that’s a positive!
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Nov 2010 20:39

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Biz: Stock market really likes Federal Reserve’s stimulus plan

  • 11,434 the Dow Jones Industrial’s close today, the highest close of the entire year so far
  • 1.96% the leap the Dow made in reaction to the Federal Reserve’s $600 billion money bomb announcement source
  • » The most impressive part: This is the highest that the Dow has closed since September of 2008, just before Lehman Brothers collapsed and turned the stock market into a shell of its former self. Alright, great. Now when are these largely rehabilitated firms going to start hiring some people back so everyone else can feel the economic recovery?
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Nov 2010 11:08

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Biz: Starbucks employees: Coffee company no longer respects us

  • It’s just been cut after cut … The fact is that it’s just gotten harder and harder to survive working this job. If Starbucks is doing what every other company is doing, then what makes it a different kind of company?
  • Minnesota Starbucks barista (and union member) Erik Foreman • Expressing frustration with the company, which may not have paid awesomely for a long time, but offered perks that kept its workers happy. However, when the economic downturn hit, changes in corporate structure hit employees hardest. They got Starbucks back to profitability, yes, but the cost seems to have been the happiness of their employees. “In the last two years, the company has become more dedicated to its shareholders and less to its employees,” said Omaha macchiato maker Tyler Swain. Is Starbucks about to become McDonald’s? Makes sense. McDonald’s is becoming more like Starbucks every single day, so eventually they’ll look exactly the same. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Nov 2010 21:32

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Biz: The Federal Reserve shoves money into the economy’s flagging corpse

  • $600
    billion     the amount of money headed from the Federal Reserve to the U.S. government
  • $75
    billion     the amount that breaks down to between now and June of next year; will it (finally) help? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Nov 2010 10:45

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Biz: Rupert Murdoch’s paywall test doing (slightly) better than expected

  • 105k number of subscribers the Times of London has for its paywall-enforced Web sites
  • 100k number of print subscribers who also get online subscriptions as part of the deal
  • 42% the decline in the paper’s online traffic, which is much less than the 90 percent estimated source
  • » So is it a success? Depends on your definition of success. While the paper certainly is doing better than other strict paywall models (looking at you Newsday, which we did a whole tongue-in-cheek series on a while back), it isn’t exactly killing it. What the 105,000 number doesn’t tell you is that only half of those subscribers are regular readers – which, for a paper of its size, is kinda low. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when the New York Times goes paywall starting next year.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Nov 2010 10:29

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Biz: BP somehow posts profit, despite massive Gulf Oil Spill cost

  • $40
    bilion     the amount BP has set aside for paying for this oil spill (over two separate quarters) – bigger than many countries’ GDP
  • $1.79
    billion     the company’s profit third-quarter profit, despite a $7.7 billion spill-related charge – it’s insanely impressive they have one at all source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

02 Nov 2010 10:08

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Biz: Futurist Ross Dawson: Newspapers dead in the U.S. by 2017

  • Leading futurist Ross Dawson has a message for you print jockeys out there: Find another medium that doesn’t involve dead trees. The dude created a handy-dandy chart explaining how we won’t read newspapers in the U.S. in another seven years. But on the plus side, if you’re a member of the Argentinian press, your papers will still be relevant into 2039. Food for thought. Plus this guy is a futurist which means he can see into the futureeeeeeeeeeee. oooh. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

31 Oct 2010 20:37

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Biz: “Pontiac, 84, Dies of Indifference”: We admit to stealing this headline

The New York Times came up with a better headline than we ever will, so rather than trying to fight it, ta-da! Here it is again – for the first time. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

31 Oct 2010 11:24

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Biz: Tribune Corp. investors suing mad over insanely massive loans

  • $3.7 billion in loans offered prior to Tribune Corp.’s sale source
  • » … and here comes the lawsuit: A bunch of investors in Tribune Corp. have sued JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Citicorp and Bank of America for making those loans possible for the leveraged buyout that Sam Zell did, knowing that it’d be nearly impossible to get those funds back. In the process, the companies received $120 million in fees while Tribune floundered to the point that L.A. Times front pages like these are depressingly commonplace.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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