成人小说亚洲一区二区三区,亚洲国产精品一区二区三区,国产精品成人精品久久久,久久综合一区二区三区,精品无码av一区二区,国产一级a毛一级a看免费视频,欧洲uv免费在线区一二区,亚洲国产欧美中日韩成人综合视频,国产熟女一区二区三区五月婷小说,亚洲一区波多野结衣在线

立即打開
Dumbest Moments in Business 2009...midyear edition

Dumbest Moments in Business 2009...midyear edition

2009年07月07日

????GM partners with Segway

????It became clear this spring that General Motors was going to have to get smaller to survive, but this was ridiculous. A week after President Obama gave the company a 60 day deadline to avoid bankruptcy, GM took time out from its turnaround efforts to unveil the PUMA, a two-seat vehicle being developed with Segway that looked more like a rickshaw than a car.

????The vehicle, capable of going only 35 mph and traveling 35 miles between charges, got lots of attention, but did little to change popular opinion about the company that had ridden large SUVs to the cusp of failure. On June 1, GM filed for bankruptcy.

????By Chris Isidore

????Tropicana's botched redesign

????Tropicana drinkers, it turns out, are as passionate about packaging as they are about pulp. That's why they rebelled when parent company PepsiCo and consultancy Arnell overhauled the juice line's packaging in January as part of a $35 million branding campaign called "Squeeze."

????Tropicana fans said the simplicity of the new design reminded them of store-brand generics. And who wants to be mistaken for a generic consumer?

????Within a month, the public's flogging by e-mail, phone, and blogs forced PepsiCo to bring back the old straw-in-an-orange cartons. Other parts of the campaign remain, but PepsiCo will probably think twice before it tries updating this icon again.

????By Maha Atal

????Apple 'shakes the baby'

????On April 22, visitors to Apple's iPhone App Store found a new -- and very twisted -- offering: "Baby Shaker." For 99 cents, you could download the "game," the object of which was to silence an animated baby's cries by shaking the iPhone until two red X's appear over the infant's eyes.

????"See how long you can endure his or her adorable cries before you just have to find a way to quiet the baby down," the instructions read.

????Two days later, and shortly before Apple announced its 1 billionth App Store download, the company took down the app and apologized. No word on any resulting shakeup that may have occurred in Apple's quality control department.

????By David Goldman

????John Thain's $35,000 'commode on legs'

????When Bank of America agreed to buy struggling broker Merrill Lynch, BofA chief Ken Lewis promised to take his customary ax to costs. He soon found targets aplenty, thanks to Merrill CEO John Thain.

????Just weeks after BofA completed the Merrill deal in January, with the help of $138 billion in taxpayer-funded promises, it emerged that Thain had spent $1.2 million on a makeover of his Lower Manhattan office -- including an $87,000 area rug and a $35,000 "commode on legs."

????Thain later said he'd reimburse the company, but by then he was out the mahogany-paneled door.

????By Colin Barr

????SEC bars Madoff...just in time!

????All hail the Securities and Exchange Commission, the newest inductee in the Fat-Lot-of-Good-That-Does-Us Hall of Fame.

????A mere nine years after SEC staffers started getting hit over the head with red flags about Bernard Madoff's fishy finances, the commission finally got around to taking decisive action: In mid-June, the commission barred the Ponzi-schemer from the securities business.

????Of course, this investor protection came only after Madoff stole more than $13 billion, pleaded guilty to multiple felonies and went to jail. With regulators like that, who needs regulators?

????By George Mannes

????Grassley to AIG execs: 'Commit suicide'

????Indignation over AIG bonuses was all the rage in March, but no one took more offense than Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who infamously told an Iowa radio station that AIG executives should consider committing hara-kiri:

????"The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them is if they'd follow the Japanese model and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things -- resign, or go commit suicide."

????A spokesperson for Grassley later said the senator was only speaking "rhetorically."

????By Jia Lynn Yang

????Yankees' $200,000 seats

????The New York Yankees opened a new $1.3 billion ballpark in 2009, and were hoping to cover some of the cost with pricey $2,500 tickets, sold in season packages for $200,000.

????The Yanks didn't get enough takers, and after a month of empty prime seats dominating the television coverage, the team was forced into an unprecedented and embarrassing mid-season cut.

????Now the seats are a bargain...at just $1,250.

????By Chris Isidore

????U.S. debt is 'safe.' Seriously. Stop laughing

????Following a speech at Peking University on his first trip to China as Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner was asked to share his thoughts about the safety of Chinese investments in the United States. They are "VERY safe," he quickly asserted.

????At which point the audience burst out laughing. Apparently, the audience was amused not only by the answer's substance, but by the flat "don't worry your little young heads about it" certainty with which Geithner insisted that China's U.S. debt holdings were A-OK. Because as even a group of Chinese college kids understood, that's just not as clear as the Treasury Secretary insisted it was.

????By Bill Powell

????Geithner gives few details, tanks the market

????In February, President Obama used his first White House press conference to alert the public to a momentous event. "Tomorrow, my Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, will be announcing some very clear and specific plans for how we are going to start loosening up credit once again," he said.

????But when Geithner appeared at Treasury the next day, on Feb. 10, he offered few plans of any sort, let alone clear and specific ones, which helps to explain the stock market's 5% plunge that day. Since then Geithner has loosened up, with the help of a media trainer -- and the market has bounced back. Coincidence?

????By Colin Barr

????Obama's spending cuts...a ways to go

????You're eight months behind on your $500,000 mortgage, your bank is demanding a meeting, and you respond by telling them there's nothing to worry about. Why not? Because you just saved $40 by canceling your newspaper subscription.

????That, essentially, is the kind of fast budget talk President Obama trotted out in April when he made a big to-do out of instructing his cabinet to cut $100 million from their budgets.

????$100 million may sound like a big number, but the cut would only reduce the United States' projected $1.8 trillion budget deficit by 0.005% -- less than what you'd save for your mortgage by giving up the daily paper.

????By Jon Birger

????Credit card crackdown -- and guns

????President Obama signed a bill in May making it more difficult for credit card companies to increase fees and interest rates...and easier for people to bring loaded guns into national parks and wildlife refuges.

????While Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who backed the gun provision, said it wasn't meant to be a "'gotcha' amendment," Democrats in the House and Senate had to push it through in order to pass the high-profile credit card legislation.

????An aide of Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), one of the bill's chief sponsors, summed it up best: "It's just wacky." But don't go waving your firearms at Yellowstone just yet; the bill won't take effect till February 2010.

????By Beth Kowitt

????We don't need your stinkin' stimulus

????Okay, so it's probably only the second-dumbest thing that Mark Sanford has done in 2009: In March, the South Carolina governor boldly announced he was rejecting $700 million of federal stimulus funds for his state, based on his fiscal conservative principles.

????Apparently, South Carolina's issues -- the state has the nation's second-highest unemployment rate, for instance -- were somewhat less of a concern for Sanford, who was considered a 2012 presidential hopeful until his recent vacation adventure.

????GOP governors like Sarah Palin of Alaska joined Sanford in his stand, but most accepted funds in the end, and in South Carolina, the fight went to the state supreme court, which ordered Sanford to take the money (but not to run).

????By Jia Lynn Yang

????Not-so-stressful stress tests

????Phew: On May 8, the government revealed the results of the `stress tests' and we learned that the nation's biggest banks were in okay shape to handle "adverse" scenarios -- like, say, 8.9% unemployment. Thank heavens for that, because just one day later the Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate hit -- you guessed it -- 8.9%.

????Nearly two months later we're at 9.4%...and counting.

????By David Ellis

????British Airways to staff: Wanna work for free?

????Responding to a record $595 million loss in its recently completed financial year, British Airways took the recession-inspired trend of voluntary job furloughs one step further this June and asked its 40,000 employees to work for free.

????"The new unpaid work option means people can contribute to the cash-saving effort by coming to work while effectively volunteering for a small cut in base pay," explained CEO Willie Walsh. Perhaps fearing the possibility of involuntary and permanent cutbacks, about 4,000 workers agreed to take unpaid leave, some 1,400 opted to work part-time, and 800 said they would work for free for up to a month.

????The chief executive himself -- who made more than $1.2 million last year and received a 6% pay hike for 2009 -- plans to work for free in July. BA's unions pointed out it was a luxury he could probably afford.

????By Brian O'Keefe

????KFC runs out of chicken

????KFC, owned by Yum! Brands, angered millions of customers when a free-chicken promotion in May backfired. The chain recruited Oprah Winfrey to help sell a healthier grilled chicken alternative, but when the talk show host told viewers that anyone who downloaded a coupon within a two-day period would be eligible for a complimentary two-piece grilled chicken meal, patrons clamoring for free chicken overwhelmed KFC restaurants.

????The chain gave away 4 million meals before it began refusing coupon-holders, some of whom protested in the blogosphere and staged sit-ins in stores. At least two have sued. KFC, which is trying to shake its fast food image and has even started calling itself KGC -- as in Kentucky Grilled Chicken -- in some commercials, has issued rain checks.

????"We apologize to any customers who were inconvenienced and we remain committed to providing a free Kentucky Grilled Chicken meal plus a medium soft drink to those who submitted valid coupons," said KFC spokesman Rick Maynard.

????By Suzanne Kapner

????Investors selling low and buying high

????It's often said that fear and greed drive the stock market -- they also make poor market timers out of most of us. And the behavior of mutual fund investors over the past several months is just more evidence.

????From September through December of last year, as the S&P 500 plummeted 30%, investors pulled some $99 billion out of domestic equity funds, according to data from the Investment Company Institute. During the first three months of 2009, they withdrew a net total of $23.5 billion more. And in March alone -- when the S&P 500 bottomed at a value of 677 on March 9 and then rallied 18% to finish at 798 -- investors withdrew $16.2 billion.

????Then, just as the market began to rally, they started buying. Since the end of April -- when the S&P 500 closed 29% higher than that March 9 low -- investors have plowed $16 billion back into domestic stock funds. Time to sell?

????By Brian O'Keefe

????Bonusgate

????Hard to know who the award goes to on this one:

????1) AIG, which insisted on sticking with $165 million in retention payments to executives, even after the troubled insurance behemoth landed in the arms of the U.S. government, or

????2) the U.S. House, which tossed political pitchforks at the hapless one-buck-a-year CEO recruited to clean up the mess -- and then passed a confiscatory 90% tax on Wall Street bonuses.

????Fortune's vote goes to No. 2.

????By Nina Easton

掃碼打開財(cái)富Plus App
性色AV一区二区三区无码| 国产亚洲欧洲997久久综合| 双性当众潮喷粗大灌满NP| 国产9麻豆剧果冻传媒白晶晶| 中国国产aa一级毛片| 丝袜美腿精品国产一区| 无码熟妇人妻AV国产精品交换| 中文字幕日本人妻久久久免费| 国产精品另类激情久久久免费| 中文字幕av高清片| 久久久久亚洲AV成人无码| 国产曰批全过程免费视频| 女人站着被舌头伺候| 人妻无码不卡中文字幕系列| 精品韩国亚洲AV无码久久品赏| 超碰97人人做人人爱亚洲| 国产色诱视频在线播放丝袜| 丁香婷婷色综合激情五月| 亚洲天堂丁香五月| JK国产精品一区二区夜夜嗨| 国产精品天干天干在线观看| 日韩乱码人妻无码系列中文字幕| 麻豆国产精品VA在线观看不卡| 国产午夜成人免费看片无遮挡| 久久久久青草线焦综合| 人妻体内射精一区二区三区| 天堂8中文在线最新版官网| 久久国产乱子伦免费无码| 97久久超碰亚洲视觉盛宴| 亚洲精品无码伊人久久| 制服丝袜长腿无码专区第一页| 国产欧美va欧美va在观看| 国产熟女高潮一区二区| 亚洲国产成人片在线观看无码| 成人午夜视频精品一区| 亚洲AV乱码久久精品蜜桃| 内射人妻无码色AV天堂| 强奷乱码中文字幕熟女一| 一区二区三区无码视频在线| 中文字字母乱码在线电影一区二区| 精品久久久久久无码专区不卡|