Archive for the &;business-journalism&; Category

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GM CEO Rick Wagoner&;s nextmove

March 31, 2009

No, not Disneyland.  You&;ll see him driving a

 

  &; armored Mercedes S600

     

 

or a

with a hearty &;Fuck you!&; finger raised high. And a pair of these dragging behind&;

Tags:auto-industry, Barack-Obama, public-relations-disaster, publicity-stunt Posted in business-journalism | Leave a Comment &;

Henry Blodget vs. KenLewis

March 27, 2009

Henry Blodget: Why does Ken Lewis of Bank America still have his job? World: Why are pump-and-dump-style commentators like Cramer or Henry Blodget still making their living from the stock market?  Shouldn&;t Blodget be in jail?

Tags:business-jounalism, Henry-Blodget Posted in business-journalism, pump-and-dump | Leave a Comment &;

WSJ Goes Tabloid onMadoff

March 14, 2009

And it&;s the right way to cover Madoff.  Today&;s (March 13) six column story looked at the victims of the scam and the now-convicted scum&;a reminder that there are real people being hurt, not just numbers thrown around. Murdoch&;s instincts are correct.  Although I hate the potitics of the editorial page, the newspaper is thriving in the most difficult media environment in memory.

Tags:Bernard-Madoff, Murdoch, Wall-Street-Journal, WSJ Posted in business-journalism | Leave a Comment &;

Obama Kneecaps LasVegas

March 11, 2009

Although Las Vegas workers were key to Barack Obama&;s successful campaign to win the &;battleground&; state of Nevada, so far he has repaid them with the back of his hand.  At issue is Obama&;s bluenose comment &;You can&;t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers&; dime. There&;s got to be some accountability and some responsibility.”   It&;s not just banks like Bank America that have cancelled scheduled trips, which are typically eagerly-awaited rewards for top salespeople and marketers. The Las Vegas Review Journal reports: * The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported 340 event cancellations in the past 90 days. * The situation has cost the local economy about $131.6 million in lost spending. * The rampant flaking on Las Vegas business trips and the cancellation of conventions and business meetings has cost LV resorts 111,800 guests and 236,700 room nights Rather than look bad, corporations would rather cancel and pay the cancellation fee.  The fleshpots of Las Vegas may not be professor Obama&;s cup of decaffeinated tea, but a lot of unionized workers depend on the celebration of capitalism there for their income.

Tags:Barack-Obama, Las Vegas, Las-Vegas-conventions, meetings-and-conventions, Oscar-Goodman Posted in Barack-Obama, business-journalism | Leave a Comment &;

Jon Stewart Rips Cramer a NewOne

March 10, 2009

The self-important pump-and-dump crew are finally getting the respect they deserve, from a comedian, no less.  Unfortunately, the only thing that will bring down the crowd of corporate CEO butt-kissers (until the advertising  completely collapses) would be if the clowns turned their cannons at the mismanagement at GE, which has fallen nearly 80% since I bought this &;safe&; company at $39.7 a share in November 2007. Oh wait&;GE owns CNBC?  No worries&;the public will still get the truth from CNBC&;s crew of crack journalists.  &;In Cramer we trust.&;

Tags:CNBC, GE-mismanagement, Jim-Cramer, Jon-Stewart, pump-and-dump Posted in business-journalism, CNBC | 1 Comment &;

Housing and Stocks Meet at theBottom

February 20, 2009

In a little-notified confluence of misery, stock prices and the Southern California housing market each returned to their 2002 levels yesterday.  The median price of a home in Southern California (LA , Ventura, Orange, San Diego, San Bernadino and Riverside Counties) hit $250,000, a 40% decline  from last year.  In LA County,  the drop was &;only&; 35%, but numbers don&;t lie; the current median price is now $300,000, down from $458,000 in January 2008. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones closed yesterday at 7465, its lowest level since&;yes&;2002.  The numbers echo what some wag once said about gambling, &;The guy who invented gambling was smart, but the guy who invented chips was a fucking genius.&;  The point&;like chips, they&;re not just averages, but real money, burning up. So is this return to 2002, itself a recovery from 9-11, the bottom bottom we&;ve been looking (and praying) for?  One can hope&;but the smart guys we trust to run business and the government don&;t seem to have a clue about what to do.  Even CNBC&;s business cheerleaders and pump-and-dump squad have had enough.

Tags:economy, gambling, pump-and-dump, Rick-Santelli Posted in business-journalism | Leave a Comment &;

Say Sayonara to SteveJobs

January 22, 2009

Although I am not an Apple fanatic, I do wish the best for Steve Jobs as a person.  Being sick and focusing on getting better is no picnic. That said, I think he should make a final break with Apple, in the same way that Bill Gates receded from Microsoft.  Lost in the happy news about Apple beating estimates in a shitty market today was this news about an SEC investigation into Apple&;s disclosure policies about his illness.  The investigation and Apple&;s non-disclosures (such as the &;hormone imbalance&; sham)  suggest the company took a  &;Weekend at Bernie&;s&; approach to propping up the great man.  And as usual, the dwindling band of technology &;journalists&;/Apple syncophants didn&;t ask the hard questions. While the Woz is right that Apple can survive with Jobs, the company needs to go cold turkey now.

Tags:Apple-Computers, bill-gates, Steve-Jobs, Steve-Wozniak, technology-journalism Posted in business-journalism, technology, technology-journalism | Leave a Comment &;

The Chutzpah of HenryBlodget

December 8, 2008

What is chutzpah?  The Yiddish expression means, roughly, a lot of nerve.   One example of chutzpah is the man who kills both his parents and throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan. Another is disgraced Wall Street analyst Henry Blodget publishing an article called &;Why Wall Street Never Gets It.&;   He claims wearily &;Our government—at our urging—will go to great lengths to try to make sure such a bust never happens again. We will “fix” the “problems” that we decide caused the debacle; we will create new regulatory requirements and systems; we will throw a lot of people in jail.&; That&;s chutzpah from a man who could have gone to jail himself.  And the esteemed Atlantic Magazine should receive the red badge of dishonor for publishing&;and paying&;Blodget, and for giving him a byline which reads &;Henry Blodget is the editor of Silicon Alley Insider, an online business publication.&;  Omitted is the fact that he was fined $4 million dollars and permanently barred from the securities industries in 2003. As you&;d expect, Blodget goes for self-exoneration. &;By late 1998, I was cautioning clients that “what looks like a bubble probably is,” but this didn’t save me. Fifteen months later, I missed the top and drove my clients right over the cliff. &; And guess whose fault it was?  &;Later, in the smoldering aftermath,  I was accused by Eliot Spitzer, then New York’s attorney general, of having hung on too long in order to curry favor with the companies I was analyzing, some of which were also Merrill banking clients. This allegation led to my banishment from the industry.&;  Blodget may call it an &;allegation&; but the SEC fined him a total of $4 million and as he says, banned him from the industry.  Why he is allowed to comment professionally on Wall Street, and indeed run the Silicon Alley Insider, is beyond me. But hey&;he&;s got chutzpah.

Tags:chutzpah, Henry-Blodget, The-Atlantic, Wall-Street-meltdown Posted in business-journalism | Leave a Comment &;

Henry Blodget Belongs inJail

November 14, 2008

Yes, you can make an arguement that the American car companies should go out of business.  But not if you&;re Henry Blodget, one of a pack of analysts with screaming conflicts of interests who contributed to the last financial meltdown, during the dot-com era.  He was fined $4 million dollars and permanently barred from the securities industries in 2003 for his deceptive practics. Blodget was  the dot-com one.  A former managing director at Merrill Lynch and the senior research analyst and group head for the firm&;s Internet sector,  Blodget was charged by the SEC with issuing &;fraudulent research under Merrill Lynch&;s name, as well as research in which he expressed views that were inconsistent with privately expressed negative views.&; Further, he &;aided and abetted violations of antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws and violated SRO rules by issuing research reports on one internet company (GoTo.com) that were materially misleading because they were contrary to privately expressed negative views.&; Blodget is now the CEO of the financial news site Clusterstock.com, which I have to say is pretty good (and comments on the securities industry from which Blodget was supposedly banned).  Not bad for a pump-and-dumper who belongs with Dennis Kowzlowski&;behind bars.

Tags:Dennis-Kowzlowski, Henry-Blodget, pump-and-dump Posted in business-journalism, Journalism | 2 Comments &;

Pump and Dump DejaVu

July 27, 2007

Yes, once again the supposed &;independent&; analysts from investment banks have been bought off to give buy ratings&;which their sales function makes them inclined to do anyway, regardless of reality. Increasingly a 14,000 DOW is looking like the top as the bad loans come home to roost.   But you won&;t find much analysis on the business channels, between Jim Cramer&;s shilling, Lou Dobbs&; posturing, and the all important search for a younger, hotter &;money honey.&; But no matter how bad it gets we can always count on happy business news from Rupert Murdoch, on his new cable business network and his shiny new prize, the Wall Street Journal.

Posted in business-journalism, Erin-Burnett, Jim-Cramer, Lou-dobbs, money-honey, pump-and-dump, Rupert-Murdoch, Wall-Street-Journal | 2 Comments &;

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