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What’s Wrong With Newspapers

23 August 2008

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From Downsizing the News And Pretending to Increase Quality : During the past few years, newspaper owners demanded and were getting at 20–40 percent profit, among the highest for any industry–and that includes Big Oil. Go to any journalism conference, and you’ll see a lot of hand-wringing. Reporters and editors are whining about how bad [...]

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Oldster Seinfeld To Hawk Vista for Microsoft

23 August 2008

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According to the Wall St. Journal , "Microsoft Corp., weary of being cast as a stodgy oldster by Apple Inc.’s advertising, is turning for help to Jerry Seinfeld," a stodgy oldster who appears mainly in reruns of a TV show that began 19 years ago and ended 10 years ago. He will be paid $10 [...]

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Ed McMahon Bailed Out by Donald Trump

18 August 2008

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An update on my post about Ed McMahon’s house going into foreclosure .  Donald Trump has come to McMahon’s rescue as reported by traditional news media here , here and here plus in this unsympathetic post that is more in tune with my thoughts on the issue. Articles note that the 85-year old McMahon has [...]

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Lame Arrogance of Economists

28 July 2008

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I cannot find a single convincing argument that tells me that astrologers won’t do better than economists. The problem is the arrogance of these economists. They’re making people rely on theories that have not worked, do not work, and are really dangerous. Said by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the excellent book The Black Swan [...]

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Picking On Investment Bankers Is Fun

10 July 2008

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Joke of the day via Naked Capitalism: Q: What’s the difference between a pigeon and an investment banker? A: The pigeon can still make a deposit on a BMW.

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Bye Bye From Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide CEO

1 July 2008

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Exceprt from an internal email to Countrywide employees on his last day as CEO as a result of the purchase rescue of Countrywide mortgage by Bank of America, Angelo Mozilo wrote: Beginning in 1968, David Loeb and I labored seven days a week for several years attempting to have our voice heard and our mission [...]

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Long Commutes Hurt Prices of Far-Flung Homes

19 June 2008

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LA Times reports that Rising gas prices may be the latest ailment afflicting the housing market, as figures released Monday showed Southern California home prices plunging 27% in May from a year ago and falling even more precipitously in distant suburbs. People are willing to spend all that time stuck in traffic, but an extra [...]

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Goldman Sachs Invents Lame New Lingo for Firing People

18 June 2008

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Call The big Wall Street firm "Goldman Sacks " rather than "Goldman Sachs ." Despite beating its peers in performance, profits are down at Goldman and layoffs are underway. Many of those who lose their jobs will be junior bankers, called analysts, who typically serve a two year term before going on to business school [...]

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Lame: Two Hundred Billion Hours Wasted Watching TV

9 June 2008

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The title, Gin, Television, and Social Surplus , intrigued me, but the first paragraph of an essay by Clay Shirkey had me hooked and the essay just gets better: I was recently reminded of some reading I did in college, way back in the last century, by a British historian arguing that the critical technology, [...]

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Mortgage Crunch Crunches Ed McMahon

5 June 2008

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Ed McMahon is 85 years old. The longtime pitchman and Johnny Carson’s old sidekick defaulted on $4.8 million in mortgage loans on his Beverly Hills estate with a unit of Countrywide Financial Corp.  His spokesman said: McMahon fell and broke his neck about 18 months ago and has been unable to work since. "The ideal [...]

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