The Ten Dumbest Moments in Business -
Revealed Death Connections!!!Detroit Pleads Poverty - In Style
Like someone arriving at a food bank in a limousine, the chief executives of the three major U.S. automakers spark outrage when they fly their corporate jets to Washington D.C. to beg Congress for a multi-billion dollar bailout.
Yes, we know that corporate jets are often a cost-effective way for the heads of far-flung corporations to get around. But someone should have known this wasn't going to look good (and, sure enough, Congress sent the auto chiefs away empty-handed). At the very least, couldn't they have shared a ride? -- By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Lamest Road Trip Ever
Let's see...corporate jets are a no-no...the subway doesn't go that far...A bike ride might just kill us...I know! Let's drive the 10 hours from Detroit to D.C. - in one of our cool hybrid cars!
Given a second chance after the private-jet fiasco to plead their case before Congress, the Detroit 3 take to the road (separately, of course) in a company fuel-sipper.
In the case of Chrysler's Robert Nardelli, the exercise in overkill is particularly awkward: The Dodge Aspen Hybrid he drove will soon be discontinued. -- By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Paulson's 3-Page Plea for $700B
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson learns how not to reach for $700 billion. In September, days after Lehman Brothers collapses and two other giants teeter on the abyss, Paulson submits his "break the glass" plan for saving the U.S. financial system.
All of three pages, the proposal seeks carte-blanche access to $700 billion in government funding to buy up troubled mortgage assets at the root of the financial crisis - with scant details on how or where the money will be spent.
Just as galling, Paulson includes a provision in the bill that will exempt his spending from court challenges. Congress axes the legal cloak, prompting Rep. Barney Frank to quip, "We have disexempted him."
But the damage is done, and the proposal fails in the House Sept. 29 - triggering another massive market sell-off. -- By Colin Barr, Fortune senior writer
Bloating Up the Bailout
Maybe three pages wasn't such a bad idea after all...When Congress is done with it, Paulson's proposal for saving the U.S. financial system balloons to 451 pages and is loaded with pork barrel spending - including, unbelievably, a cut in taxes on toy arrows and an extended tax break on "wool products."
Backers of the arrow tax exemption - section 503, for the record - say it reverses a wrongheaded 2004 law that sharply increased tax rates on cheap kids' arrows. -- By Colin Barr, Fortune senior writer
Courtesy: Countrywide Financial
Former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo.
Mozilo's 'Disgusting' Reply-All
If you thought the former Countrywide CEO couldn't sink any lower, think again. Already under attack as the overpaid, over-tanned and over-zealous pioneer of subprime mortgages, Angelo Mozilo doesn't do himself any favors in May after reading a customer's e-mailed plea for help with his home loan.
Intending to forward the missive to a colleague, Mozilo instead hits "reply all" and sends a response calling the beleaguered homeowner's request "unbelievable" and "disgusting." "Most of letters now have the same wording," grouses Mozilo. "Obviously they are being counseled by some other person or by the internet."
Mozilo's heartfelt reply makes its way onto the Internet - and the onetime real estate king finds himself out of a job after Bank of America acquires Countrywide in July. -- By Penelope Patsuris, CNNMoney.com senior producer
An iPhone App for Just $999.99
The release of the new Apple iPhone in July introduces to the masses the world of mobile video games and other time-sucking applications designed by non-Apple software developers - most of them available for less than $10.
But one application sneaks past Apple's gatekeepers and onto the company's new App Store: "I Am Rich," a $999.99 screen-saver whose sole feature is a glowing red jewel. Apple gets blasted for making the application available for sale and then quietly removing it, but the real losers? The eight suckers who bought it. -- By Michal Lev-Ram, Fortune reporter
Fannie's Delusions of Grandeur
Fannie Mae CEO Dan Mudd proves once again that his crystal ball is malfunctioning. In May, Mudd predicts that the government-sponsored mortgage lender will "feast" on weakened competition in the mortgage market - even as its own prospects dim amid mounting credit losses and asset writedowns.
By September, on the brink of collapse, Fannie gets a new owner - Uncle Sam - and Mudd loses a job. -- By Colin Barr, Fortune senior writer
SEC's Madoff Miss
Leave it to the markets to do the SEC's job for it. It took plunging stocks to bring to light the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history - an estimated $50 billion fraud orchestrated by Bernard L. Madoff, one of Wall Street's best-known money managers.
The scheme - in which money from new investors is disguised as market returns for early investors - allegedly goes on for decades before Madoff effectively turns himself in in early December.
As news reports reveal that the Securities and Exchange Commission had probed Madoff and his New York City investment firm over the years, chief Christopher Cox cops to the embarrassing screw-up: "I am gravely concerned by the apparent multiple failures over at least a decade to thoroughly investigate these allegations." -- By Colin Barr, Fortune senior writer
From: Congress.gov
Global Warming? What a 'Crock'
The General Motors exec behind the Chevrolet Volt electric car hands environmentalists another twig to beat GM with when he reportedly calls global warming "a crock of sh-t."
Bob Lutz, GM's vice chairman for product development, later addresses the uproar on his own blog: "General Motors is dedicated to the removal of cars and trucks from the environmental equation, period. And, believe it or don't: So am I!" -- By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Courtesy: Apple
Jobs' 'Greatly Exaggerated' Death
Newspapers prepare obituaries of famous people before they die, but few publish them while the subjects are still alive. In August, Bloomberg News accidentally releases an obit for Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who - despite a well-publicized brush with pancreatic cancer - is still alive and kicking.
As if that wasn't enough, in October a post on CNN's user-generated site, iReport, claims that Jobs has suffered a heart attack. The erroneous report sends Apple's stock down 10% in just 10 minutes.
At his next media appearance, Jobs appears in front of a giant screen with the message, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." -- By Michal Lev-Ram, Fortune reporter
One-by-One Analysis To Find Out The TruthNumber One:
The chief executives of the three major U.S. automakers...fly their corporate jets...blah blah blah. Did this report mean three major automakers? Three?...or FOUR! Thats right - there weren't only three executives of the automakers on that jet: there were four. Four executives had started that journey. But only three arrived and came out of the jet. How? Why? Where did the fourth go?
Suicide is not a thing that can be done easily. The best form of self-Death can be said to die naturally in sleep. But not many middle-aged chief executives of major automakers die naturally in their sleep. Plus it wouldn't be too controversial. The more the public interest, the better.
Jumping out of airplanes is the best way, really. You die instantly, plus there's the added thrill of two minutes of out-of-this-world bungee-jumping. Nice!
So this is the way the fourth executive went. He probably knew his company had become bankrupt and he would die in the gutter, so he took the exciting way out.
This is why they had to take a jet. Modern airlines don't allow this sort of thing, so we shouldn't blame the other three.
Number Two:
Detroit to D.C. - the same route. Think for yourself. They fly over it with a plane, someone commits suicide, and now they drive through! Obviously something had gone wrong with the suicide attempt. The executive probably landed on a bale of hay or a giant cotton mattress of something. Either way, he called up his partners to finish the job. So they drove to him on the pretense of going there again. If you carefully check their itenary, it had a scheduled stopover in a field of corn. That was were the dying suicidal executive probably landed. They made up some excuse of going again to see congress etc.
And by the way, the Dogde Aspen Hybrid is one of the few cars capable of turning human flesh into corn.
Number Three:
The 700-billion-dollar proposal has failed - but the truth is not that simple.
Let us examine the root cause of the crisis - it is the average low-IQ homeowner Joe who took bank loans for blah blah blah sub-prime babble babble Death yak yak. So who is responsible? Them. The fools who deserve pure Death and nothing else. The damn common country-house duffers. How to get rid of them?
The 700-billion-dollars will not be used to "mortgage properties" and "bail-out banks" and "thingummy" they will be used to hire an army of suicide bombers who will kill two million rural American citizens by blowing up themselves in crowded places. They come cheap and are eveready to die for their money.Hopefully, this will have a positive effect on the economy; there will be less people to screw while getting rich.
The advantages are numerous - America can invade Iran, population will reduce, global warming postponed a few years, spending at festivals like small-town barn dances will reduce etc etc. Overall, it will be a better world to live in.
This is why the report was only 3 pages. Not because it was only three pages. It was actually two hundred and fifty-seven pages long but most of them were concealed and never reported to prevent national outrage. Only the Legislature can view confidential documents like these.
Its not as if this is the first time Death is being utilized in its various morbid forms, and personally, the Grim Reaper was looking forward to getting the bill passed.
Number Four:
What is wrong with Countrywide Financial? Criticizing perfectly sound bugdet cuts in high-risk Death-filled areas like the assassins' market for wool suffocators and child mercenaries who use arrows to make it seem like accidents? Congress makes a smart move, and they laugh at such serious issues? Next time the neighbor's boy shows a little skill with the bow-and-arrow set he's just bought and makes your child die an horrible and excruciatingly painful Death, just remember your laughter.
And Death of course.
Number Five:
Grim Reaper is quick, you have to admit it. In times of crisis he really acts quickly.
Actually this one was GR's own fault. While sending a top-secret e-mail which contained plans to exterminate the entire human race by religious genocide to a superhuman colleage using Gmail, he also accidently hit the 'reply-all' button(Note from GR-Damn that option! May it face the wrath of the God of Death and Master of the Afterlife and face an eternity rotting in the deepest darkest recesses of hell)! Anyway, he discovered that his sending list contained only one contact, Mr. Mozillo.
Now, he knew Mozillo was no Albert Einstein. He thought right: Mozillo was sending an alert through Gmail to the entire world(or his list of contacts) to warn them. Thinking quickly, GR hacked the outgoing mail server of Gmail(it wasn't easy, but being Master of Death helps) and overwrote Mozillo's warning. Instead of it he typed some damaging stuff which would publically humiliate him, turn anything he says into a joke on his personal family, and make mankind hate him. It didn't work exactly, but now people don't believe what he says now. GR is still secret.
Number Six:
Sole feature? Is that what they think? Didn't GR warn them? Didn't DeathConnects warn everyone about the iPhone? Yes we did. See this post-
iPhone Unleashes Dogs Of WarAs you can see after reading that post, we did say that iPhone would be the doom of mankind.
And it would also start because of the iPhone apps. Now what is this?!?
Now everyone can't turn their iPhone into a Death-unleashing whirlwind of cyborgic machinery. It would be boring. Only a few can do it. Thats why this special app was for a thousand dollars. Only the rich can unleash Death on mankind.
The eight overlords who bought it will soon find that the glowing red jewel transforms its 2D structural application software to 3D space-time to meta-morph the entire iPhone to the Apocalypse-bringer. The end has begun. Try to form some sort of friendships with the eight, because very soon their Death-reign will begin.
Number Seven:
Everyone gets scared once in a while. So was Dan Mudd when he gazed into his crystal ball and saw a terrible paralysis-causing gore-filled torture-induced inhumanly painful Death in a freak accident involving a freight train, a mad dog, a deranged swarm of bees, concrete leg shackles, a three-hundred-feet deep pond, and a nerve sensory perception-enhancing electrode third-world interrogation machine.
So he bought another one of Taiwanese manufacture. It was cheap and told all false stuff. Not his fault.
Just tell him to stay someplace safe on January 29th.
Number Eight:
Madoff may have been smart, but in the end it had to fall. Obviously. Anyone who not only frauds people but frauds the Master of Death has to go!
Thats right, even the Grim Reaper makes some mistakes. He had invested some money into Madoff's scheme and was hoping for some returns so he could buy a new Ps3. But the fool Madoff actually signed him on and hoped to get away with it. After GR found out, he had a long heart-to-heart chat with Madoff which was totally devoid of any intimidation and/or violence.
Thus, Madoff turned himself in due to his own conscience.(and pigs can sing like Elvis Presley). Of course, he thinks GR has forgiven him. The fool. He will be dealt with. His end is near.
Number Nine:
We shouldn'y be too harsh of Bob Lutz. Yes, he hates global warming. No, not because of the usual reasons.
To fully understand, we must delve back into his childhood days. He was a happy-go-lucky boy who lived in the woods. On New Year's eve, a giant sign saying 'Stop Global Warming' fell on his country cabin where his entire family lived. Everyone had fallen into the dark pit that is Death Itself. He cried for twelve days, then on the thirteenth, went on a mad murdering spree. It was coincidentally a friday. He was punished by being sent ot live in a circus. There, he lost one eye in a brawl with a lion. He grew up in theme parks and swamplands. But these, swamplands were being cleared away of human inhabitants to 'save' the 'environment'. Thats how he aqcuired his ingrained grudge against global warming.(and also his ingrained grudge against endangered species)
Number Ten:
What does it say? Jobs appeared on a giant screen. Not live. And if anyone tries to get a personal non-telephone interview, he will be refused. When he's standing on a platform far away, if you use binoculars you can see faint cracklings in his image. Yes, its a 3D hologram. Thats right. Apple planned for this. In the event of their famous CEO's disappearance, plan FB-9 will kick in.
Some months ago, Jobs had every syllable of his voice recorded and analysed with a big 'ol machine so that sum dang e' tech wizzes 'er do sum hoodie doodie crackmagic! so they can successfully imitate his voice during non-visual appearances. He also taped a video of himself denying his Death in case of a leak.
Well, the leak happened, but it was successfully contained to only one newspaper thanks to Apple's merceneries. Soon reports came coming up, but the people were silenced or bribed. It was a, is a, successful operation. We are all still under the impression that Jobs is alive and on this earth.
But is he? No, of course not. Not at least on this earth. He had strapped himself into a self-powered space shuttle and had blasted off towards Sirius B in search of extra-terrestrial life forms in a faster-than-light shuttle. Of course, it isn't actually faster than light and of course, there's no such thing as a self-powered shuttle but the engineers didn't tell him. He is probably dying a excruciatingly horrible slow yet painfully aware Death due to lack of oxygen.
Say a prayer for the departed.
Posts
