Obama, Keep Filling Administration with RIAA Insiders |
The content industry, including the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, are applauding President Barack Obama’s appointments of at least five RIAA lawyers to the Justice Department. |
I love how articles say that places are losing top talent..but I’m more interested in wondering where they’re going! |
Offices Go Vacant at Fannie and Freddie
|
WASHINGTON — Until a year ago, two of the most coveted workplaces in this city were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giants at the intersection of Washington and Wall Street. The companies offered a lucrative perch for former top administration officials and Congressional aides interested in continuing to shape policy. Read more at www.nytimes.com |
Interesting outcry of trade protectionism. While steel production domestically is important to keep for defense purposes, are outcries like these from furloughed plants going to create another trade war? |
Pipe From India Incenses Illinois Town
|
“I was very mad when I saw they were imported; I wondered why this pipe had not been made in the United States,” said Mr. Rains, who is 61. Once the train passed, Mr. Rains, still active in union affairs, hastened to the union hall to spread the word. Read more at www.nytimes.com |
If “domestic rightwing* terrorists” are “not currently planning acts of violence”, then what exactly makes them terrorists?
Who’s more ignorant: Right wingers or the goverment they’re afraid of?
Homeland Security document targets most conservatives and libertarians in the country
|
This commentary from NPR makes a pretty good case of the fine line Obama is riding between populist and apologist for the culture of greed. One year ago this month, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was in mortal danger following the eruption of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor. Wright’s incendiary sermons about race and America burst on the world via videotape, threatening to derail the candidate at the moment he had gained real momentum. |
“Every day, keen eyes in the markets will search the administration’s every move for threats to their way of life, the corporate compensation system with its fabulous bonuses. Yet if this president becomes an apologist for that bonus culture, it could destroy the fragile new voting coalition that carried him in November.” Read more at www.npr.org |
I saw Paul Krugman on the cover of Newsweek in the checkout aisle at the grocery store. I’m waiting for Bad Touch’s response. Paul Krugman has emerged as Obama’s toughest liberal critic. He’s deeply skeptical of the bank bailout and pessimistic about the economy. Why the establishment worries he may be right. Read more at www.newsweek.com |
“
Mr. Chinitz argued that the abundance of small, independent companies in New York created a culture of entrepreneurship. Banks came to specialize in financing start-ups. There were lots of independent suppliers that catered to new firms. A poor kid, like the great Abraham E. Lefcourt, could start out shining shoes, then rise in a small clothing company, take it over, and then become Manhattan’s greatest skyscraper builder in the years before the Great Depression.
By contrast, Pittsburgh had large, fully integrated steel companies that sucked up the financing, labor and practically the air itself in the city. Who, in those days, would want to compete with U.S. Steel?” How Competition Saved New York |
Only two of the nation’s 10 largest cities have more people today than they have in 1950: New York and Los Angeles. The growth of Los Angeles is no puzzle. The city practically defines sun and sprawl, which are two of the biggest correlates of population growth in the postwar era. The puzzle is New York City, which — alone among the country’s older, colder cities — has managed to grow. Read more at economix.blogs.nytimes.com |
“But, it turns out, just about every assumption the Army had about its future was wrong. America’s wars wound up being against terrorists and insurgents, not other big armies. The enemy weapons of choice in those fights — metal-shredding roadside bombs — made a priority of more armor, not less. The U.S. military-industrial complex’s attempts to make the combat vehicles electric floundered.” Pentagon Chief Rips Heart Out of Army’s ‘Future’ |
| As one Capitol Hill source put it, “They wanted to make it too
big to fail, and in the process, made it a failure.”Read more at blog.wired.com |
Shockingly, many people inside Detroit and GM still like Rick Wagoner. I’ve noticed it as a bit of an undercurrent, but this article does a great job of explaining the Detroit v. Wall Street v. DC battle. Wagoner Didn’t Deserve It
GM’s ex-CEO is a scapegoat. The problems with the auto industry aren’t one man’s fault. Why should he pay when so many Wall Street CEOs remain?
|
| In reality, Detroit is actually one of the victims of the financial mess. Terminating Wagoner with extreme prejudice makes exactly as much sense as shooting the witness to a murder and saying the crime has been avenged.
Read more at www.businessweek.com |
Oh, what I’d give to be back in B-School right about now. My MBA already feels dated, given how much we fawned over Jack Welch’s time at GE. This article goes over the troubles of his hand-picked successor, Jeffrey Immelt, as he struggles to steer GE through the depression. Of course, his old rivals for the job, James McNerney and Robert Nardelli aren’t doing that well at Chrysler and Boeing, respectively. GE’s Jeffrey Immelt: All Boxed In |
No matter what the CEO does to try to save his company, it has lost its aura of greatness
|
On the day before President Barack Obama’s inauguration, Jeffrey R. Immelt tried to give General Electric (GE) investors his own brand of hope. With the world going through a fundamental reset, the GE chairman and CEO told MSNBC viewers: “We’ve got to come out of this a brand-new company.”
That vision has since gotten lost amid the day-to-day concerns that have come to haunt GE. In recent months Immelt has been buffeted by complaints over the company’s struggling GE Capital unit and by slowing growth in some of its industrial operations, leaving him with little choice but to play defense. Instead of rolling out radical new solutions to GE’s problems, Immelt has been bogged down in dealing with finance issues. Instead of announcing bold new acquisitions, he has cut the dividend to help preserve cash. Instead of selling off underperforming units to strengthen operations, Immelt has had to hold on to things he doesn’t want.
Read more at www.businessweek.com |
|
