Atkins Carbs Out Atkins filed for bankruptcy protection, citing a declining interest in low-carb products, the fuel that drove the company’s profit engine about as fast as it peeled inches from America’s waste land. What they don’t tell you about is the strain and drain of $300 million in August ‘03 debt piled on when Goldman Sachs and Parthenon Capital bought majority control for $450 million. If it’s a typical restructuring, the debt holders will end up with a paltry amount of stock, percentage-wise, and if the company manages to stagger from the ropes for a win or even a draw, the majority holders will line their pockets—actually, when you think about it, bankruptcy isn’t a bad exit strategy step on their part. And to the fat people who caused this mess, buy some donut stocks and eat your hearts out.

Questions of the Week
1. Why are world leaders focused on war when they should be focused on humanity? Shouldn’t every starving person on this planet be fed before one single dollar is spent on war? Is this a difficult concept?
2. Why can’t we relocate all U.S. prisons, including corporate country clubs for the white collar gang, to Niger, Sudan, and other locations so desperately in need of help? Wouldn't the be a good way for people who have taken from society to pay something back?

Weekly Wimp Award Bush on Bolton.—a strong leader wouldn’t sidestep the US Senate. Now we have to hope that Bolton, contrary to opposition fears, does a good job both for the UN and for rebuilding the reputation of the US in the international community.

Mega M&M’s: Mars is introducing Mega M&M’s that are 55 percent larger.
1. Q: Does that mean we’ll now get six and two-thirds per bag instead of ten? A: No, because historically M&M’s has been a sharing brand used for big gatherings and Mega M&M’s will be sold in large packages that are intended to be passed around. Hmmm, I wonder which large gatherings those would be.
2. Q: Will kids get 55 percent larger? A: No. Mega M&M’s are aimed at larger-mouthed adults. Hmmm. A 55 percent larger M&M is three-quarters of an inch wide—what kids will this deter?

King Maurice Declares War Maurice Greenberg’s legal army shoots a wad of paper at the AIG investigation. For ammunition: a challenge to the rationale for the $4 billion income restatement that led to King M’s dethronement. This promises to be a long conflict.

Can The Chrysler S-D Model Be Far Behind? S-D, as in Snoop Dogg, Chrysler’s new pitch man who partners with retired Chrysler Top Dog Lee Iacoccoa (or Mocha Cocca in Snoop lingo). Now if Iacoccoa can learn to say Fo shizzle, I kazzizle with the same aplomb as Snoop, they’ll truly be a dynamic Dodge duo.

Corporate Crook Update
1. Kirk Shelton, former vice chairman of Cendant, gets ten years at Club Crook for his role in a $19 billion fraud discovered in 1998. Now get this: he was ordered to pay back $3.3 billion, $15 million in October and the balance at $2,000 per month for 125,000 years, and that’s without interest. Where is the logic in this nonsense? On top of everything else, Shelton pleaded for leniency and had a parade of witnesses testify as to his generosity and sterling character (for $3.3 billion who couldn’t get a parade of adulating testifiers) prompting the judge to say Shelton had lived an exemplary life a great majority of the time. Hello Judge, are we putting these people on trial for what they did right, or for what they did wrong.
2. Martha, Martha, Martha! In what surely must be a ‘more free PR’ gambit, Martha’s ankle bracelet will remain three weeks longer than originally adjudicated. It seems she’s been seen doing the nasty, endangering shareholder values and the morals of America’s youth by riding around her estate on a 4WD and worst of all, dropping in on a yoga class.
3. Kozlowski and Schwartz will remain free on bail pending their September 19th sentencing. Prosecutors tried to ball and chain them for fear they might flee the country. Why should this even be arguable? Throw them in the slammer and knock the requisite number of days off at the end. How much more are we going to let these people’s legal shenanigans drain from society?

Money First, Grieve Later One of Merck’s legal hit men (in this case a woman) pointed out that plaintiff contacted a lawyer about a possible law suit against Merck three months after her husband’s death but didn’t visit a grief counselor for nine months after. A better question might have been: What took the lawyers so long?

1+1+1+3+1+2-1=4 No, you’re not crazy, it’s Murdoch as in News Corp math. Now, pay attention! Rupert and his first wife have one child (1+1), his second, three (1+3), his third, two (1+2) and one of the three from the second has just quit the business (-1). The four oldest don’t want the two youngest to have a voting or active role in the $6.1 billion trust (=4). There you have it. P.S. Wives 2 and 3 are reportedly friendly, they often see each other at family gatherings, and 2’s grandchildren play with 3’s children. Now isn’t that special.

You’ve Got @#%*&%@$# Mail Time Warner coughs up a $3 billion hairball to settle shareholder and employee lawsuits, thanks to the You’ve Got Mail people who duped them big time way back in 2000. Small potatoes when you consider that $220 billion in market cap vanished between merger day and now. Why didn’t someone go to jail? Because, dear taxpaying friend, you and I are paying the freight, and we can’t seem to find anyone who’ll admit to any wrongdoing. Of course, we were the only constituency not represented at the trial, but what else is new?

Just Do It – To Them Adidas and Reebok tied a $3.8 billion sneaker knot in an attempt to stay in the same race as arch-rival Nike that continues to surge ahead of all comers like a runner on steroids. Q: Can the merged company come up with a good name?

Then There’s The one About These Three Canadians Who Went Into A Texas Bar CIBC, one of Canada’s largest banks—they only have two or three, admitted no wrong when it ponied up $2.4 billion to settle its part in the Enron debacle. It looks to me like the Molson’s Canadian boys from the north gulped way too much longhorn lager, and doesn’t $2.4 billion seem a high price to pay for doing no wrong?