Friday, June 03, 2005

America Off Line Time Warner should stop playing coy with this loser and send it packing before shareholders get another screwing. Time Warner’s own Road Runner and other cable ISP’s and DSL are knocking AOL out of the box at every turn. In five years, there’ll be fewer phone line hookups to the Internet than there are old dial phones in use today.
RIP AA As in Arthur Anderson, not Accountants Anonymous, though in this case they are the same. A judge tossed out the Enron (remember those guys – some haven’t gone to jail yet) document shredding case for AA, a Pyrrhic victory at best. Maybe it’s fitting that America’s largest garbage collector was the root of the Arthur Anderson demise.
BA, MS, W-M PhD Wal-Mart, that icon of post-graduate employment, that bastion of bloated pay-checks, to shine up its tarnished image, is sponsoring ABC’s The Scholar where five winners will each get a $2,000 Wal-Mart gift certificate to outfit their dorm rooms. Nothing was said about midnight dorm raids to make sure Wal-Mart banned works of those dangerous enemies of the Republic like Jon Stewart and Snoop Dogg aren’t sitting on Wal-Mart supplied shelves or being played on Wal-Mart supplied CD players.
Sweeeeet! To hear that big sugar might finally get its hands slapped for dipping into the Washington cookie jar far too long and far too often is joyous music. It seems our neighbors to the north and south can provide cheaper sugar if the quota system that prevents them from doing so were abolished, ending this multi-billion dollar boondoggle that you and I pay for each time we need a fix.
Prick! No, not an adjective for Alan Greenspan, though some economists and politicos would disagree, but a verb for what he plans to do to the housing market bubble. The Chinese, who buy gazillions in US Treasury debt, hold the bigger pin and don’t suffer from Washington peer pressure.
AIG Agony, A King Maurice P.S. AIG reduced its profits by $4 billion. The new CEO said AIG’s future is very bright. He didn’t say anything about ex CEO, Maurice Greenberg’s future.