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Why is everyone getting so outraged about JPMorgan Chase losing two billion bucks? It’s a bank. Isn’t losing money what modern banking is all about—you take in deposits from normal folk and then invest those hard earned funds in completely ludicrous schemes: subprime mortgage companies, credit card loans for people who aren’t creditworthy, Greece.
What would you call the combination of US Airways with American Air? US American Airways? It’s redundant, in the same way that airline service is a contradiction in terms. But a merger between the two is slightly more likely than, say, you finding a frequent flier award seat to Europe this summer. American’s union workers [...]
Members of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) were scheduled to vote on a new contract with American Airlines, or AA, this December that would have lowered the airline’s cost and outsourced hundreds of jobs that weren’t directly related to aircraft maintenance. They never got the chance because American instead filed for bankruptcy. On Wednesday AA [...]
Vada a bordo. Get on board. Those now famous words—less the slangy expletive—spoken by Italian Coast Guard captain Gregorio De Falco to captain Francesco Schettino, the rat who left the sinking Costa Concordia, are good advice to everyone contemplating a cruise trip thisyear. Pack your bags and go.
So Rajat K. Gupta, the ex boss of McKinsey & Co. and a former Goldman Sachs board member, was arrested today, and charged with being a friend of hedge fund bigshot Raj Rajaratnam. Well, that’s not how the indictment read exactly. Officially, the allegations are conspiracy to commit securities fraud, plus five counts of securities [...]
The horror. Halloween is under threat this year because of a paucity of pumpkins. There’ll be nothing to carve by October 31 if you don’t run to the store now to purchase your pumpkin. Your children will curse you. Vampires will stalk you. Yes, a wet summer on the East Coast, topped off by the [...]
The media advisory advised that U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue would be offering ideas to immediately create jobs and spur the economy. And that the Chamber will be bringing these ideas to Congress and the President this month. Excellent, we’re all for jobs. And what ideas might those be? The usual suspects: [...]
The thermostats in office buildings in Tokyo these days are set to 28° C —or a balmy 82.4°F . You walk into a building and get hit with heat—a little bit unsettling given the blast of cold air I expect in a New York City skyscraper. But in the aftermath of a tragic earthquake, tsunami, [...]
Just got word from Standard & Poors. I’ve been downgraded. So have you. The firm has blamed bickering politicians in Washington for forcing it to lower the rating on U.S. Treasury bonds to AA —U-S-A-A! U-S-A-A!— from the highest, triple A ranking, but in neighborhoods all over America, people are getting along just fine. And [...]
Having Standard & Poor’s downgrade the creditworthiness of the U.S., and warn the country about further downgrades, is a little like having the Catholic Church lecture Scout leaders on the proper behavior toward boys. The moral authority seems to be wanting. S&P, you may recall, is one of the ratings agencies (the others being Moody’s [...]
