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30 Sep 2011 16:52

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Biz: Stock market suckage: A crappy quarter, put to bed by a crappy day

  • bad Today was not a good day for the stock market in general, with all three major indexes down more than two percent amid negative economic data from China, which raised fears that another economic slowdown was coming.
  • worse This is the final day of the quarter on Wall Street, and the results aren’t very good. The S&P, for example, lost more than 14 percent this quarter. Fears of an economic slowdown weighed on investors’ minds after the 2008 crisis. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

29 Sep 2011 10:50

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Biz: Here’s another good-sounding economic story … with a catch

  • 1.3% the increase in U.S. gross domestic product in the second quarter, based on updated final numbers
  • 0.3% the improvement in that number from the initial estimates from the April-to-June quarter source
  • » Such evocative language in the source story: But before you get too excited about those three-tenths of one percent, just keep in mind the text that AFP used here: “The better-than-expected figure is unlikely to have a major impact on confidence in the enfeebled US economy, but tints the backdrop in a slight less gloomy hue.”
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

29 Sep 2011 10:32

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Biz: Jobless claims fall to super-low level … but there’s a catch

  • good news Weekly jobless claims reached their lowest level in nearly six months, which seems like it’s a cause to celebrate, especially since it greatly beat analysts’ estimates. On the surface, it seems like a cause for dancing in the streets, folks.
  • catch However … the Labor Department claims that report is off because of some sort of weird anomaly regarding the calendar, making it harder to seasonally-adjust the numbers. So, things are still crappy for the workforce. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Sep 2011 21:14

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Biz: Reebok’s EasyTone shoes didn’t exactly have a kick-butt day

  • claim In 2009, Reebok launched these shoes called EasyTones, which they said would help you exercise while merely walking around. They also claimed they would make your butt and legs get toned. Kim Kardashian wore them.
  • rebuttal However, consumers saw through these shady claims, as did the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, which led to a settlement for the fairly massive sum of $25 million bucks. Butt-toning never cost so much. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 Sep 2011 20:38

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Biz: Meet the country’s most innovative/sketchy payday loan lender

  • According to the Wall Street Journal, Scott Tucker has a really impressive story. Tucker, a late-blooming race star who scored a third-place finish at the Rolex 24 at Daytona endurance race earlier this year, only picked up auto racing about five years ago, and he’s earned such fame that he had a documentary about his life air on the Discovery Channel. But here’s the part this storyline doesn’t tell us — how he got here. Sure, the WSJ’s story calls him a “private investor,” but the Center for Public Integrity notes he earned his significant fortune — enough to start up his own auto-racing team — by running a payday lending company. This company uses partnerships with Native American tribes as a front to get around laws designed to protect consumers — allowing his company to do incredibly sketchy things, such as hiding its address and shielding itself from lawsuits using shell companies. Somehow, this is legal. And Tucker won’t be talking about it himself. “Due to a confidentiality agreement, I am not permitted to discuss the business of my employer,” he said about his businesses. Read the report at the source link — the first part in a series. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

23 Sep 2011 19:35

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Biz: Groupon restates its 2010 revenues … by more than half

  • $713.4 million the amount Groupon originally stated as its 2010 revenues
  • $312.9 million the amount the company changed that to today … damn source
  • » How does one misstate $400 million in revenues? Good question! Let’s ask the COO, Margo Georgiadis, what she thinks happened. Oh wait, she just resigned after five months and went back to Google. Meanwhile, chief executive Andrew Mason says that her departure offers an opportunity “reorganize in a way that reflects our evolving strategic priorities.” Great answer. We learned so much from that statement. (Edit: To explain what happened, when Groupon sold a coupon, they counted the entire coupon as revenue, despite the fact they only got half of the coupon. The SEC said that was a no-no, so now Groupon looks a lot less valuable.)
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 Sep 2011 12:47

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Biz: Meg Whitman reportedly on track to become HP’s new CEO

Many people compared Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman during the 2010 election, due to their tech executive backgrounds and their high-profile rookie political campaigns. Soon, they’ll have another reason. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

20 Sep 2011 21:00

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Biz, Tech: Amazon faces complaints, scrutiny over factory working conditions

  • I never felt like passing out in a warehouse and I never felt treated like a piece of crap in any other warehouse but this one. They can do that because there aren’t any jobs in the area.
  • Former Amazon factory worker Elmer Goris • Complaining about the conditions at the Allentown, Pa. Amazon warehouse facility, which handles East Coast orders. The problem? It was really freaking hot this summer, and the factory didn’t have air conditioning, turning the working conditions somewhat nightmarish. People reportedly fainted from heat exhaustion. In the wake of the lengthy Morning Call article that brought the allegations to light, Amazon appears to have put up a job posting for on-support medical staff, and now plans to install an air conditioner in the plant. In their defense, average temperatures throughout the year are reasonably cool, so the situation this summer was somewhat unexpected. Still, though. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Sep 2011 11:14

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Biz: Ted Turner: Rupert Murdoch may have to resign from News Corp.

  • From one rich mogul to another: Former Turner Broadcasting owner Ted Turner, who knows a thing or two about running his mouth, says that Murdoch has made tactical errors in his handling of the phone-hacking scandal, including his claim that he didn’t know anything about the hacking. “Well, he should have known,” Turner said. “He was chairman of the board. He’s responsible. I took responsibility when I ran my company. You never heard me say, ‘Well, I didn’t know.’” The two moguls once famously feuded, after Turner claimed Murdoch’s media outlets (including Fox News, a direct rival to the Turner-founded CNN) were largely behind the Iraq war, because it helped his company. Turner says they eventually buried the hatchet, however, after he bought Rupert a bison burger and praised the Wall Street Journal. Well, this may perhaps change that situation once again. Heh. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Sep 2011 17:57

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Biz: Netflix sees shares drop on heels of unpopular Qwikster gamble

  • I have a feeling the apologies are just beginning. They’re catching customers off-guard by making huge changes and not providing a lot of explanation for them. It’s been handled poorly.
  • Mike Gordon, chief executive of the corporate PR firm “Gordon Group” • Issuing his dire analysis of the Netflix/Qwikster fracas, which we spent a bit of time on last night. Basically, the big picture for Netflix of late has not been promising — their price-hikes announced during the summer sparked a non-negligible exodus from their service, with about 1 million of their 25 million U.S. customers said “no thanks.” When the company was then forced to revise their cancellation figures for the worse last week, their share prices tumbled by 25%. Then, already playing pretty fast and loose with the strength of their company, came last night’s unexpected announcement. The result? Another 4% drop in share prices. Whatever your feelings about Netflix’s corporate strategy in a vacuum, it’s clear that with real customers they’ve fouled this up to a striking extent. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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