Archive for February, 2008

I don’t get it. How exactly are they having trouble keeping their brand in front of customers? They sponsor NASCAR for Pete’s sake.

Sprint Nextel Corp posted a $29.45 billion quarterly loss on Thursday due to a huge goodwill write-off and forecast deepening customer losses, sending its stock down as much as 13 percent to a five-year low.

The No. 3 U.S. mobile service said it would stop paying dividends for the foreseeable future, and Chief Executive Dan Hesse said it would take many quarters to turn the company around and rebuild its brand.

I still don’t get it. Are they having trouble getting their name out there? Do customers just hate their phones? What is it?

Sprint has been losing ground to rivals amid network and customer service problems.

Ahh. See, that explains it. You can spend millions of dollars to get your name out there every week, but if your network has issues and your customer service sucks, you will still have problems. Now that they have stopped paying dividends, how can they justify sponsoring the top level NASCAR cup races with investors?

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Here’s a little fart humor to brighten your day.

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Is anyone keeping a tally on exactly how much money is being lost in the mortgage industry? With foreclosures occurring everyday with homeowners and companies filing for bankruptcy faster than they can plan for them, it makes me wonder exactly how much money has been lost.

American International Group Inc (AIG.N) on Thursday posted its biggest-ever quarterly loss, missing Wall Street expectations after being hurt by a write-down of securities exposed to bad mortgage investments.

The world’s largest insurer posted a $5.29 billion loss – the largest in the company’s 89-year history.

Analysts said AIG’s woes were symptomatic of broader problems in financial services, but that it was still nothing to sneeze at — and there could be more bad news in the pipeline.

“It would be folly to see the write-down as the absolute truth regarding their likely claims, but it would be folly to ignore it,” Morningstar analyst Matt Nellans said.

$5.29 billion. Wow. That’s a huge loss. Anyone know where I can find the numbers I am looking for?

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So, when they decided Pluto wasn’t a real planet, they made it sound like we only had 8 planets now. Kids around the world were excited that they only had to memorize 8 planets. WTF?

Those having trouble remembering the newly assigned 11 planets, including three dwarfs, can thank a Grade 4 student.

Maryn Smith, winner of the National Geographic planetary mnemonic contest, has created a handy way to remember the planets with the phrase: My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.

The 11 recognized planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Eris. Ceres, Pluto and Eris are considered dwarf planets.

Eleven planets? Was this a ploy by the pro-Pluto club to keep Pluto in the memorization schedule or what?

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Big news out of Atlanta today. The Home Depot had it’s first annual sales decline ever! Whoa! Don’t get your panties in a wad. They still made a lot of money.

Despite a year of retooling its business model by going back to retail basics, Home Depot in 2007 suffered its first-ever decline in annual sales.

In a quarterly earnings report Tuesday, Home Depot said annual sales dipped 2.1 percent, from $79 billion to $77.3 billion. Those results included a 53rd week. Excluding that week, sales for the year declined 3.5 percent, to $76.2 billion. Comparable store sales — which excludes revenue from new stores opened during the year — declined 6.7 percent.

Atlanta-based Home Depot, the nation’s largest home improvement retailer, also missed earnings estimates by three pennies for the fourth quarter of 2007.

Analysts, on average, estimated Home Depot would earn 43 cents a share on sales of $18 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

Instead, the company earned 40 cents per share, on sales of $17.7 billion.

Can Home Depot recover from this decline? What will their shareholders think when they are looking for those missing three cents? Oh, if anything screamed “There goes the economy” this report could be it. (cough)

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It’s about time. While I am one of the few people who actually took the time to read through all of the paperwork I was signing, much to the chagrin of the other people at closing, I for one think this is an idea that is well past it’s time.

The papers that U.S. borrowers sign when buying a house are piled so high that few people read them all, and even fewer absorb the information.

While no one blames the subprime crisis on complex documentation, some people now losing their homes as adjustable rate mortgages rise might not be in such dire straits if they had fully understood their loan, experts say.

These critics of the current documents say it is time to require home mortgage lenders to prepare a short, plain-English summary of each loan so consumers actually know what they are signing. Many in the housing industry agree.

Now if they could just get the truth-in-lending statement to be a bit more truthful we’d all be set, wouldn’t we?

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So what’s the deal here? The bank gives $5 million to the wrong guy. The wrong guy tries to tell them they made a mistake, but they insist that the money is his and that he can withdraw it. So he does. Now he’s charged with a crime?

A man was charged with withdrawing $2 million from an account after a bank confused him with a man who has the same name.

Benjamin Lovell was arraigned Tuesday on grand larceny charges. The 48-year-old salesman said he tried to tell officials at Commerce Bank in December that he did not have a $5 million account. He says he was told it was his and he could withdraw the money.

Prosecutors said the bank – which advertises itself as America’s Most Convenient Bank – confused Lovell with a Benjamin Lovell who works for a property management company.

Next thing you know he’ll be walking into Wal-Mart penniless and walking out with new clothes, new shoes and several other electronic items that someone told him he could just walk out with. Right?

So what do you think? Did he commit a crime, or was he simply acting on the advice of his financial advisors (aka the bank).

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Earlier today, Microsoft announce they were going to open some of their code. Wow. If anyone else made this announcement, it wouldn’t be all they exciting, but this was Microsoft, and Microsoft just doesn’t do that.

Microsoft Corp, faced with regulatory concerns in Europe and customers struggling with complex computer systems, said on Thursday it would publish critical information so rival programs can work better with Windows, Office and other major products.

The world’s largest software maker will share the underlying technology that connects its software to other programs, considered a built-in advantage that has been the basis of antitrust scrutiny of the company.

Microsoft’s new policies are seen as a way of heading off future battles with regulators in Europe, Asia and the United States who have long accused it of using its dominant position to move into new businesses and squeeze out competitors.

I don’t think there is any doubt that they are doing it to avoid future legal battles. I will be curious to exactly what they will reveal, and how that will affect development in the future.

CrossPosted at The Alligator Pit

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Talk about hamming it up. These guys are hilarious.

In what they say is a last-ditch attempt to save the country’s pork industry, dozens of pig farmers gathered in London on Thursday aiming for an Internet hit with their song “Stand by your Ham”.

The song — which reworks Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man” with a porcine theme — is intended to alert the public to a sector that farmers say is being pushed to extinction by greedy supermarket chains and rising feed prices.

“Stand by your ham,” runs the chorus. “Sausages, pork and bacon/Help us stay in business/Because our pigs are worth it/Stand by your ham.”

With little singing experience but fuelled by enthusiasm and bacon sandwiches, the 20 to 30 farmers hope to rely on affection for traditional pork products from pies to sausages.

It will be available for download from the weekend from the website www.pigsareworthit.com

It wasn’t on their site when I posted this, but I am going to listen to it over the weekend, while I enjoy my sausage and eggs for breakfast. Support your local pig farmer!

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Doesn’t anyone have anything better to do that fight over the names on a game? Oh sure, the game is not really the issue, it’s the fact that people complained about whether Jerusalem is in Israel or not. Shut up.

Monopoly, the iconic game of capitalism, has been drawn into the dispute over Jerusalem.

Hasbro Inc. issued an apology Thursday after an employee, responding to complaints from pro-Palestinian groups, eliminated the word “Israel” after the city in an online contest to select names for a new Monopoly board game: Monopoly Here and Now: The World Edition.

The company also pulled all country names from other cities on the site when even more people complained, including the Israeli government, because Jerusalem was listed as the only city without a country.

The Pawtucket-based company is asking people to vote at the Monopoly Web site on which cities will be included in the new edition. Until Tuesday, every city on the site listed a country, including Paris, France; Cairo, Egypt and Jerusalem, Israel.

No matter what you believe, or what you think you believe, when people around the world hear “Jerusalem” they think of Israel. So, where exactly is Jerusalem? I guess board games are more important now than many other things. The fact anyone is questioning this makes my head hurt, then again, when I think of Marvin Gardens or Baltic Avenue I get a headache too.

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