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27 Apr 2010 10:45

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Biz: Ford kicking butt, taking names, selling Tauruses this quarter

  • $2.1B the size of Ford’s profit
    in the current quarter; that makes a whole year of profit for them
  • 2005 the last time the bailout-free company
    had four straight quarters of big profits
  • 96% the increase in sales the company’s revamped Ford Taurus has seen this quarter source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

27 Apr 2010 10:21

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Biz: People still getting plastic surgery – just less of it (fortunately)

  • $10 billion spent on plastic surgery procedures last year source
  • » The recession hit, kinda: With spending down and unemployment up, fewer people have been going under the knife for vanity. But not by much. It’s down just three percent from 2008.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 Apr 2010 23:05

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Biz: Craigslist’s “Adult Services” controversial, makes lots of money

  • $122
    million     expected revenues for the no-frills classified site in 2010 alone; at least 70 percent of that is pure profit (and mostly from employment ads)
  • $39
    million     in revenue will come from
    the controversial for-pay “Adult Services” section, made in the wake of the Craigslist Killer source
  • » Printing their own money: The site has a small staff for what it is, but despite that, it’s a total gold mine. For every employee Craigslist has (around 30), the company makes $4 million in revenue and at least $2.9 million in profit, a level so high you simply won’t find it anywhere else in the industry. We wish we made $3 million in profits per employee.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 Apr 2010 21:16

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Biz, U.S.: Our latest AOL News article tackles the SEC’s strange porn habit

  • Did some SEC employees have too much time on their hands? Last week, a lot of the buzz on the ‘net was around revelations that SEC staffers were caught looking at porn. But it’s not as bad as it looks. According to a study we found, 28 percent of people at your average cubicle farm (like this one) look at porn at work (we know, right?!). An internal investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission nailed around one percent of their employees. And we think we know why they were so bored. Read our latest AOL News article for some insight. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 Apr 2010 20:57

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Biz: Wal-Mart’s bracing for a huge sex-discrimination lawsuit

  • one
    million     number of women that could
    sue Wal-Mart in a class action
    trial over unfair pay
  • nine
    years     amount of time this case
    has been winding through the
    federal courts source
  • » Oh, just an FYI: This court case is weeding its way through the Ninth Circuit Federal Appeals Court. Wal-Mart plans to appeal the case. If you remember our article from yesterday, this doesn’t bode well for the result.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 Apr 2010 11:06

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Biz: The car rental business just got a little more consolidated

  • $1.2 billion for Hertz to buy, not rent Dollar-Thrifty source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Apr 2010 22:56

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Biz, U.S.: That offshore oil well under the sunken rig is leaking black stuff

  • 5,000
    feet     the distance the well is leaking below the surface
  • 1,000 barrels the amount of oil being lost each day; no, not the oil! source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

24 Apr 2010 12:00

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Biz: Goldman Sachs e-mails: Yeah, we bet against mortgages

  • Of course we didn’t dodge the mortgage mess. We lost money, then made more than we lost because of shorts.
  • Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein • In an e-mail regarding its role in the mortgage crisis. The e-mail, one of many released by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, suggests that the company was betting against the failing housing market and profiting significantly from it – one of the main claims of the SEC’s lawsuit against the investment firm. This could be bad news for Goldman Sachs. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

23 Apr 2010 11:31

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Biz: Home sales, once looking weak, made a huge March jump

  • 27% increase in new home sales in March
  • four number of months of declines prior to the leap
  • 1963 the last time home sales rose this much source
  • » But why? Credit a tax break that’s about to expire and weather that sucked less than it did in February (when home sales hit a record low). The strange part? The tax break had been in effect each of the four months prior, when home sales weren’t so hot.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

23 Apr 2010 10:50

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Biz, U.S.: Washington hawking over WellPoint’s crappy insurance practices

  • As you know, the practice described in this article will soon be illegal. The Affordable Care Act specifically prohibits insurance companies from rescinding policies, except in cases of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of material fact.
  • Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius • In a letter to health insurer WellPoint regarding a Reuters article that ran yesterday. The article suggested that breast cancer patients were specifically targeted in investigations in an effort to find a way to cancel their insurance. This crappy practice, by the way, is banned in the new health care law, but experts say the bill lacks the teeth to actually stop it. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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