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Archive for the 'How Not To Succeed In Business' Category

So let’s get this right – We want to punish the wealth creators but let pro athletes and movie stars off scott free

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009 by Chad

Good Plan!!
Looking at the NY Times this morning and I see an article entitled “Administration Seeks Increase in Oversight of Executive Pay”.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial [...]

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How David X. Li Killed Wall Street

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 by Chad

Back in October I posted about Credit Default Swaps and their role in bringing down the American economy.
Well meet David X. Li whose Gaussian Copula enabled the development of credit default swaps and the collateralized debt obligations that the CDS is supposed to protect.
Here is the story as I understand it.
In 1997 investment banks were [...]

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Good News, Bad News for Print Papers

Thursday, February 26th, 2009 by A Senior Administration Official

5pm on a Thursday finds the Los Angeles Times, Daily Breeze, and USA Today sold out at Coffee Bean. They were stocked this morning!
Have these papers cut back on print runs so far that they’re missing out on newsstand sales? Reading them on my iPhone isn’t quite the same experience … but I am saving [...]

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Stupid + Litigious = Douchebag

Friday, October 12th, 2007 by Insider

An absolutely hilarious exchange between some douchebag named Richard Figueroa at the blog TechCrunch concerning a link from Google (or as Figueroa calls it “The Google”) to Techcrunch. Evidently, Figueroa takes exception to the fact that “the Google” links to Techcrunch instead of his client the photographer. In an exchange the operator of Techcrunch tries [...]

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Top 10 Reasons We Should Join a Labor Union for Blogs

Tuesday, August 7th, 2007 by Insider

“Whadda ya’ mean y’use didn ‘t Digg my post?”
A group of highly-naive bloggers have discussed forming a union for bloggers. On the surface this is a painfully dumb idea. But maybe we should take a second look at it. Some possible benefits…

1. People leaving angry comments on union blogs will receive Teamster visit.
2. Work rules [...]

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It’s being called the worst application of all time; Second Life meets Outlook

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 by Insider

“3D Mailbox”
Here is how they describe themselves:
E-mail is the killer app, but it’s deadly boring. Have fun with 3D Mailbox!
3D Mailbox delivers a fantastic, smarter e-mail experience. Immerse yourself in 3-D as you read and write your mail. Relax to the sounds of the ocean, seagulls, and cool tunes. Hang with your mail poolside, or [...]

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Surprise Surprise 1/5 of Chinese goods substandard

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007 by Chad

Nearly a fifth of goods made and sold in China have been found to be sub-standard, Beijing has revealed.
The worst problems were found in canned fruit, dried fish and fruit drinks, a food inspectors’ report said.
China has pledged to take action to improve its food and drug industry after a series of safety scares aroused [...]

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King/Drew Sequel; Woman Dies on Floor While Janitor Sweeps Around Her

Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 by Insider

King/Drew supporter Maxine Waters

Two years ago we wrote about the fiscal and medical disaster called King/Drew hospital:

In the latest inspection of the hospital, federal officials cited several major medical errors, including a patient who waited to be seen in King/Drew’s emergency room for more than 13 hours without a medical screening. He later died of [...]

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British High Court Rules on Lap Dance Tax

Monday, March 26th, 2007 by Insider

In a decision that could have a chilling effect on the activities of young lap dancing women in the UK, the High Court ruled that the nude and semi-nude women who bump, grind and otherwise gyrate on the laps of paying males are responsible for the VAT (“value added tax”) on the fees that they [...]

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New Nielsen Report: Average U.S. Household is Getting Ripped Off Big Time; Bernard Parks is Helping Them

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 by Insider

According to a news release released by the Nielsen Co. in 2006 the average U.S. home received watched only 15 or 16 channels with any regularity.
Yet in 2006 the average household paid for 104 channels. This means, on average, U.S. households pay for 88 to 89 channels that they do not watch.
Being industry hacks that [...]

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Countdown for Goldman Sachs’ “Charlie” to be Fired

Sunday, March 11th, 2007 by Insider

“Charlie” is one cocky employee. He works for Goldman Sachs and spends approximately four hours a day on Facebook. When he was notified by his IS department that he was violating the firm’s rules about using a social network (let alone for 50% of his workday) he responded by putting it up on his Facebook [...]

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Example of when it’s a good idea to fire the entire marketing department

Thursday, March 8th, 2007 by Insider

On exactly what planet did they think this would be a success?

Amazing that not a single person in marketing thought that this was a bad enough idea to get it killed somewhere along the development process.
Photo: Candy Museum

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Russian Identity Thieves Really Suck at Writing

Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007 by Insider

Is it really that hard for Russian identity theft criminals to find someone with decent English grammar skills? I’m amazed that criminals go to the effort to SPAM millions of people, painstakingly recreate letters from banks and so forth and then blow it with a poorly written letter. Couldn’t they go to Yahoo Answers and [...]

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I h4×0r3d j00: This letter is Phishing or Wells Fargo Needs to Hire Someone Who Can Write

Friday, December 8th, 2006 by Insider

“I h4×0r3d j00″ means “I hacked you” in hacker jargon and you really don’t want to have this pop up on your cell phone screen.
While on the subject of hacking, Insider just received this from someone claiming to be Wells Fargo. Unless Wells has lowered their standards for hiring (which is certainly possible given the [...]

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Blink! How to lose 6 hours listening to one lame-ass book-on-tape

Thursday, December 7th, 2006 by Insider

“The Tipping Point” author Malcolm Gladwell grew his hair long and found himself being hassled by cops, getting more speeding tickets and generally being treated like a second class citizen–all because of his looks. Based on these non-subjective and intensely scientific experiences he wrote one of the most useless business books of all time, “Blink: [...]

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