Archive for the ‘Coffee Talk’ Category

It’s not shocking that Wal-Mart would do this, but the judge didn’t really say what they did was wrong either. He just said the rent transactions didn’t have any real economic substance, whatever the hell that means.

A North Carolina state judge ruled against Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) in a tax shelter case where the retailer paid itself rent and later counted that amount as a tax deduction.

Wal-Mart had transferred ownership of its stores to various in-house real-estate investment trusts (REITS), and then cut its tax obligation by taking deductions for rent payments that never left the company.

In a judgment signed on December 31, Emergency Special Judge of Superior Court Clarence Horton Jr. ruled “there is no evidence that the rent transaction, taken as a whole, has any real economic substance,” other than for cutting Wal-Mart’s taxes.

On a side note, Wal-Mart also announced they will be bringing in in-house shoppers to increase their sales this quarter to cover the tax bill.

And they go on, and on, and on…

Negotiations between General Motors Corp (GM.N) and its major union ran through a fifth day of overtime on Wednesday, with the automaker suggesting a trust fund that would take over nearly $5 billion in annual health-care costs, according to a person familiar with the proposal.

Negotiations broke off for the night on Wednesday and were set to resume in Detroit on Thursday morning, a week after the UAW named GM as its strike target and shifted talks with the top U.S. automaker into high gear.

For GM, key issues in high-stakes talks include cutting health-care costs and establishing a “two-tier” wage system that would allow the top U.S. automaker to cut wage and pension costs as its aging work force retires, other people familiar with the talks have said.

To offset those concessions, the UAW has sought job security guarantees and a substantial signing bonus for the 73,000 GM workers it represents, according to these people, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to discuss the private talks.

A signing bonus? For signing the new contract? What the hell? Does the UAW actually think GM should pay a signing bonus to all 73,000 GM workers just for agreeing to the new contract? How much do they want?

Hell, at my job, I am lucky. I haven’t had a paycut since 2002. Forget about raises or other “bonuses”, I’m grateful just to have a job! No wonder my truck cost me so much.

And the housing bubble officially pops. The first decline in the median home price, since records have been kept, is expected within the next couple of months.

Forecasters expect the median price of U.S. homes to fall between 1 percent and 2 percent this year in what would be the first such decline since 1950, when federal agencies began tracking such statistics, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight is scheduled to release the home-price index on Thursday, and research firm Global Insight expects it to show a decline of about 1 percent between the first and second quarter, according to the newspaper.

Global Insight also expects the decline of U.S. home prices to peak at 4 percent between their highest point in 2007 and the projected low point in 2009, the New York Times said.

How many mortgage companies will fall before the prices start to balance out again? Any guesses?

The US home loan crisis looks set to continue gripping world markets but the effect could be diluted because the risk is spread among investors around the globe, analysts say.

The European Central Bank pumped 155.85 billion euros (212.98 billion dollars) into the eurozone banking market on Thursday and Friday as central banks across the globe rushed to ward off a global credit crunch linked to the US subprime loan market.

…

“There are strong parallels with the crisis in the mid-90s so you have to be a brave investor to buy shares at the moment,” he said.

“But history shows that everything will be forgotten in six months and the market will recover.”

The US Federal Reserve and Japanese central bank had made similar interventions to ensure that the markets continued to function normally, with the Fed injecting 62 billion dollars into the market.

Diluted or not, the whole situation sucks for a lot of people, and I think it’s going to get a bit worse than the “forgotten in six months mid-90s event”.

It’s all still at the rumor level, but Ford might be dumping Volvo. Although, with this speculation, shares in Volvo went up by five percent, so who knows, right?

Ford Motor Co. is considering selling its Volvo Cars business as it assesses the future of its European operations, a source familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

The review of Volvo was still at a very early stage and may not result in a sale, the source told Reuters, adding that Ford had so far not hired financial advisers for the operation.

“Ford is not in discussions with any company to sell Volvo, however we are continuing to assess options for all our operations,” a London-based spokesman for Ford said, while declining to comment further.

It sounds like Ford is pretty confident with their future. Remember, it was less than a year ago that Ford was offering buyouts to all of their hourly employees.

The mobile marketing world is about to explode. With cell-phones in every pocket, there won’t be a time, night or day, when marketers cannot reach you.

According to the New York Times, 94% of promotional text messages are opened on cell-phones but only 3% of promotional e-mails are viewed on computers, and that is a goldmine for marketing and media companies. Advanced Telecom Services, a leading provider of text message solutions, is prepared to help those companies make the most of their text messaging promotions.

They offer a wide range of services, including PromoText, a mobile messaging platform specifically for media companies, and Spark Network Services, which provides personals to radio stations across North America.

I’m not sure I am ready for this explosion, but as will all technology, you have to take the good with the bad, so you may as well make the most of it while you’re here.

Stuffr 0.8.3 was released the other day. Additional features include pinging update services and posting to multiple categories.

Version 0.84 will allow you to ping multiple update services.

Did you know that Stuffr 0.7.6 will include support for multiple categories and trackbacks?

Stuffr 0.7.5 has been released. I know it’s not a “suit” issue, but it could be.

Imagine the time your employees will save if they start blogging with Stuffr.