Miracle on 34th Street Coming next year to a street near you, Macy’s. When the Federated/May merger is complete, such well-known names as Famous-Barr, Filene’s, Foley’s, Hecht’s, Jones Store, Kaufmann’s, L.S. Ayres, Meier & Frank, Robinsons-May, and Strawbridge’s will, to the unending joy of kids everywhere, take the name of their better-known sibling—what would Christmas and Kris Kringle be with neither a Macy’s nor a Gimbel’s. Sadly, Gimbel’s bit the dust in the late 80’s.
Questions of the Week
1. Is Christopher Cox, SEC chairman in waiting, rather than becoming a trusted regulator, part of the white-collar crime problem? Check the internet for anything you can find on his representation of a slick bandito—well, since he’s doing ten, maybe not so slick—by the name of William Edward Cooper.
2. Do rich countries really give a shit about the world’s starving nations? Oxfam American doesn’t think so and will run a series of magazine ads this fall featuring a handful of little known and splattered celebs by the unlikely names of Driver, Firth, Banderas, Bono, Coldplay’s Martin, R.E.M.’s Stipe, Morrissette, and Radiohead’s Yorke.
3. Who in the White House ordered the EPA to delay its car fuel efficiency report and should we care?
4. What’s really behind the full court press to get CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) passed? You can bet it ain’t bananas and coffee beans.
Weekly Chutzpah Award Altera Corporation for stopping communication with a veteran technical analyst who criticized its share buyback program that the analyst said improperly enriched management and employee option holders at the expense of regular shareholders. ALTERA (NasdaqALTR) last trade $21.95, 52 Wk High/Low $24.26/$17.50. Altera has since apologized to the analyst and investor community at large. For some reason that scares me more than the possible rip-off.
Squawk! A Merrill Lynch compliance officer will have up to ten years to contemplate his navel for encouraging an employee not to squawk about a squawk box scheme that gave day traders access to inside information.
No Yen for You! Mitsubishi is going after seven former execs for 1.15 billion yen (divide by 110 to get approximate US $ equivalent) for hiding complaints leading to a two million vehicle recall, the worst in the company’s history.
Dirty Underwear Thomas M. Coughlin, a former vice chairman at Wal-Mart, has been accused of dipping into corporate funds to the tune of $500,000. Apparently good ole boy Tommy used the money for underwear and other personal goodies like accessories for his truck and Bloody Mary mix. No six packs for this redneck who once said thieving employees “ought to be shot.” Hmmm.
Corporate Crook Update Scott Sullivan, former CFO (Chief Finagling Officer) of WorldCom, sadly had to dump his Florida retirement villa, a little place of 30,000 square feet where he’d hoped to put his feet up and hide behind the Florida Homestead Law. I think he got a sudden case of more dime, less time when the reality of twenty-five years housed with corporate scumbags just like him started to sink in.
Cafe avec Données Besides taking up all the available tables, are hackers with their laptops sitting in a Starbucks tapping into wireless signals from careless merchants and stealing your credit card data? Investigators think so, and the epicenter is Miami south, the data theft capital of the world. And here you and I thought it was the big I-net.
Law & Disorder
1. Merck is trying to prevent experts, a cardiologist and the coroner who performed the autopsy, from testifying in the Vioxx trial . The judge told them to get real.
2. Fidelity Investments might get summoned to the principal’s office to find out if its employees improperly accepted gifts or entertainment from brokers.
3. RenaissanceRE Holdings (you gotta love the name) is doing its part to keep the industry scandal alive. The CEO said he may soon face a civil complaint (‘may soon face’ in corporate speak means that he will). Appropriately named Michael W. Cash, a senior vice president, resigned on 7/11 after refusing to accept a subpoena.
Bitch Blog If you want to kick your employer’s big fat dumb ass every hour or every day or every week or every month, don’t bitch blog or you’ll be starting a lot of conversations with, “I used to work for…”
Irony of the Week The FDA approving a new sleeping pill.
Vista, yet another word from Windows that means Bastards Yep, you guessed it, Vista is the name Microsoft has chosen to call its ’06 attack against sanity.
