The Big Money

Fed: Write-Off 2009

matthew.yeomans — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:44:17 +0000

No relief in sight. That's the prognosis from the December Fed meeting, revealed just yesterday, showing we're in for a longer and nastier recession than first feared. The bleak economic outlook appeared to take even some Fed officials by surprise.

Bail Yourself Out

chadwick.matlin — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:24:02 +0000

Imagine you're an elderly parent with a couple of deadbeat, middle-aged children. Your kids—who we'll call Germane and Chrys—have their own auto-repair shop, which has recently fallen on hard times of its own making. Their methods were outdated, their service and products were lackluster, and they got pushed out by the competition. But they're too integral personally and financially to your family to let them become poor louts. So you float them a loan and hope they can get back on their feet.

Lio Olive Oil Slick Pickin’

matthew.yeomans — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:31:41 +0000

From the groves of Italy to the sounds of the Appalachia, The Big Money asks whether this video of a homemade banjo affects Lio Olive Oil’s brand.

Pricey Tuna Stinks

dan.mitchell — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:12:41 +0000

A Japanese bluefin tuna was sold at auction Monday for more than $100,000, which drew predictable "wacky story of the day" treatment in the media.

Late in some (but not all) news accounts of the sale, we learn that bluefin tuna is an endangered species because it is, as the Monterrey Bay Aquarium puts it "severely overfished" and hence "should be avoided."

Google Wins One in China

chris.thompson — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:01:30 +0000

Google's China unit may be facing some bigger problems, but at least it gets to keep its name. According to Bloomberg, Google named itself Gu Ge, or "harvesting song," when set up operations in the country. This prompted a lawsuit from the firm Guge Science and Technology, which claimed that Google swiped its name.

Savings and Moan

mark.gimein — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:12:59 +0000

A good three years before the current financial crisis, some of the smartest thinkers on the economy—people like NYU economist Nouriel Roubini, Morgan Stanley's Stephen Roach, and billionaire and all-around economic oracle Warren Buffett—started pointing out to everyone who would listen that things were going very wrong. There were three major things that worried them: the unprecedented housing bubble, the fragility of ever-more-complex Wall Street relationships, and the savings crisis. In 2007, the housing bubble decompressed. In 2008, Wall Street unraveled.

Bill Gates Discusses the Future of the PC

win.rosenfeld — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:24:07 +0000

Bill Gates sits down with Charlie Rose to discuss humanity's rapidly evolving relationship with technology and the future of Microsoft.

Gated Communities

matthew.lynn — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:02:43 +0000

Looking for a new definition of a hedge fund? How about an organization that takes 20 percent of the profits on your money in the good times, then refuses to let you have it back when the weather turns rough?

Robots, Not Roads

Eliot Spitzer — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:21:40 +0000

The incoming Obama administration and Congress are planning a huge fiscal stimulus package. They hope that such a stimulus will catalyze an economic turnaround and be a cornerstone of a "New New Deal." If the early reports are reliable, the stimulus will include a huge tax cut and will fund projects like road-building and bridge repair, laying the infrastructure foundation for the economy of the future.

How Newspapers Tried to Invent the Web

jack.shafer — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:17:10 +0000

A moment of sympathy, please, for newspapers, whose readers and advertisers have been fleeing at a frightening rate.

It would be easy to accuse editors and publishers of being clueless about the coming Internet disruption and to insist that the industry's proper reward for decades of haughty attitude, bad planning, and incompetence is bankruptcy.

chadwick.matlin — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:06:08 +0000

Auto Industry Growth at Dead End

matthew.yeomans — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:46:12 +0000

The U.S. car market ended 2008 on a dire note, according to new data released yesterday. Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times report that GM, Ford, and Toyota saw U.S. sales drop more than 30 percent last month, "capping one of the worst years for the industry in decades and solidifying the view that more turmoil lies ahead in 2009," writes the WSJ.

Pump It Up

matthew.debord — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:00:56 +0000

"Drill, baby, drill!" was the glibly rapacious chant that came to dominate the oil debate during the presidential race. Now "Tax, baby, tax!" is beginning to define our post-electoral national-energy-policy mood. That tax would be a gas tax, which has gathered major steam since the Detroit bailout was settled.

Google Blog Outs New Product

chris.thompson — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:55:02 +0000

Given Google's notorious secrecy, this doesn't happen too often: Over at Google's rarely noticed student blog, where the company hypes its internship programs, a blog editor accidentally divulged that Google was developing a major new enterprise search product for companies. Former intern Sam Slee wrote a short post about how terrific Google is, yadda yadda yadda, and an editor noticed that Slee had misidentified the department he worked in.

The GOOG-Obama Lovefest

chris.thompson — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:38:03 +0000

Google may have a big headache in China right now, but it's only too happy to see Barack Obama set up shop over here. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, CEO Eric Schmidt, co-founder Larry Page, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley, and three other execs have contributed $150,000 to Barack Obama's inauguration, and the company is planning to co-host one of the sideline inaugural balls in Washington.

Tyson CEO Takes Wing

dan.mitchell — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:42:21 +0000

Did Tyson Foods' lenders force the company's chairman and CEO, Richard Bond, to resign in return for renegotiating the company's debt?

It's a good bet, though nobody's saying so. Tyson, which announced Bond's departure on Monday morning, didn't comment on the question when asked by the Wall Street Journal.

chadwick.matlin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:35:54 +0000

China's Google Crackdown

chris.thompson — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:30:12 +0000

When Google set up shop in China, it drew the wrath of critics far and wide for collaborating with the government's censorship policies; the move has done more than anything to undermine its "Don't Be Evil" image. But seeing as how some 250 million Chinese use the Internet, Google just couldn't resist such a market. Now it seems China's still not satisfied with Google's efforts to restrict Internet content and is moving to crack down on the company.

Steve Jobs Cat Sez

trevor.felix — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:25:58 +0000

Recommended reading: "Apple's Jobs discusses health problem"--New York Times.

Photo cred: Amanda Benham

Spit When You Say, "Madoff"

chadwick.matlin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:33:05 +0000

Palm beach is ground zero of the Madoff affair. The posh sliver of land is home to a high concentration of those bilked by the brazen, alleged Ponzi artist. Bernard Madoff maintained a 8,700-square-foot mansion north of town and prospected for marks at the exclusive Palm Beach Country Club, where he was a member.