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13 Apr 2010 20:41

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Biz: Toyota’s streak of good luck keeps rollin’ over, hits Lexus brand

  • bad Toyota gets a rare “do not buy” rating from Consumer Reports for its Lexus GX 460 SUV.
  • worse The company, already weathering the storm of bad publicity, halts sales of the car. Ouch. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Apr 2010 21:28

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Biz: The stock market reached the other end of the inverted bell curve today

  • 11,005 the closing price of the Dow Jones Industrial today, a new peak in a long rebound from the recession
  • 11,143 the closing price on Sept. 26, 2008 – the last time it ended above 11,000 (we blame Lehman Bros.) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Apr 2010 09:43

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Biz: Toyota’s way of handling recalls: Cover up, then come clean

  • I hate to break this to you, but we have a tendency for mechanical failure in accelerator pedals of a certain manufacturer on certain models. … The time to hide on this one is over. We need to come clean.
  • A note from Toyota executive Irving A. Miller • Admitting that they would have to recall millions of vehicles. Over a four-month period, the company had made an active effort to hide the problems with their cars from the government. Unsuccessfully. The New York Times’ document analysis suggests that there was a whole lotta fail going on with the vehicles, and a lot more cover-up. While the company obviously screwed up, some congressmen are suggesting that federal regulators should shoulder some of the blame. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Apr 2010 09:29

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Biz: Is unemployment higher because unemployment’s easier?

  • 44% of unemployed Americans have been jobless for six months or longer
  • 26% of those unemployed in the early ’80s recession could say the same source
  • » What’s the difference?: According to The Daily Beast, the reason for this has a lot to do with the changing nature of unemployment. Among other things, there are more two-income homes than in the early ’80s. On top of that, it’s easier to get unemployment now than it was 30 years ago – per-capita spending for the jobless has increased 77 percent. While it’s no walk in the park, obviously, it’s clearly not the same situation as it used to be.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Apr 2010 08:51

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Biz, Tech: Palm-reading: The phone maker’s putting itself up for sale

  • What a sucky ending for a cool comeback story. A year ago, Palm looked like it had realistic potential to take on the iPhone in the market. Now, it’s a completely different story. The Pre is a good phone. WebOS is a good system. But now the company and its dwindling stock price are going up for sale, according to Bloomberg. The company has been burning through $80 million every three months just to keep up with Apple and Google. It’s not sustainable. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Apr 2010 20:55

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Biz: To: Media General, From: Us – Re: Your consolidation efforts

  • You know, people will notice this stuff eventually. Yesterday, newspaper chain Media General announced that it was combining the design and copy-editing efforts of its papers in Richmond, Va., Winston-Salem, N.C., and Tampa, Fla. – three papers that have nothing to do with one another geographically. They’re not the first papers to get treated this way, but they are the biggest. And it’s completely not fair to the communities. Here’s why:
  • These aren’t production jobs The nature of moves like these seems to assume that copy-editing and design functions aren’t really journalism – at least not in the same way as reporting. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the editorial process that puts distance between the journalism and the community.
  • Quality will suffer greatly The fact of the matter is, some dude copy-editing a story in Tampa will not understand the nature and nuance of a story in Winston-Salem. Nor will a designer in a similar position. While Media General is playing this as a move to maintain local focus, it won’t work. It’s a damn shame. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Apr 2010 15:30

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Biz, U.S.: In Oklahoma City, the mall is technically a federal building

  • You gotta love toxic assets. After the government took on $70 billion in bad assets from AIG and Bear Stearns in the wake of their collective crap-outs, there’s been a lot of confusion as to what those assets were. Well, the feds own loans for hotels worldwide, the Miami airport and Chicago’s Civic Opera House. But after the owners of this mall couldn’t make their payments, the government took over the mall. Which is kinda hilarious. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

09 Apr 2010 15:09

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Biz: We’re gonna use this post to link to the Nikkei’s home page

  • Why? Because they say we can’t. The Japanese business newspaper is following the lead of a lot of newspapers worldwide by adding a paywall, but their paywall is way beyond that of, say, the Wall Street Journal. First, you have to submit a written application to link to the site (which we didn’t do). And second, they’ve gone and disabled the copy function on their site. Why? Because they’ve seen American papers open the floodgates and lose readership as a result. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Apr 2010 22:27

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Biz, Offbeat: Nudists better at public relations than Spirit Airlines

  • bad pr In an attempt to get people to
    stow more of their luggage, Spirit Airlines starts charging as much as $45 for carry-on items. Instead of, you know, not charging extra to stow luggage.
  • good pr Seeing a perfect opportunity,
    the American Association for Nude Recreation leaps on the news as a chance to promote nudism, because, hey, you’ll need less
    luggage! source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Apr 2010 20:32

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Biz, Culture: NBC is trying to subliminally convince you to recycle

  • In this case it fell right into the realm of what we do. We’d have to say no if it hurt the integrity of the show.
  • “The Office” executive producer Paul “Toby the HR guy” Lieberstein • Discussing his network’s push to get his show (and every other on their many networks) to produce one environmentally-themed episode each year. (In the case of “The Office,” Dwight dressed up as a superhero obsessed with recycling.) It’s called “behavior placement,” and like product placement, the goal is to get you to buy stuff. The journalism world has something like this – if a newspaper publishes a weekly section about cars, it’s because they want to sell car ads. But the way NBC handles it is way beyond what most networks do. It’s this sort of innovative thinking that got Jay Leno on the air at 10 p.m. Remember that. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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