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Disney, NRA Fight Over Allowing Guns At Work

Posted By: The Huffington Post News Team on Business on HuffingtonPost.com on Friday, July 4th, 2008

Walt Disney World employees won't be packing any heat in the company parking lots anytime soon.

The giant resort has declared that much of its sprawling property is exempt from a new state law that allows Floridians with concealed-weapons permits to keep firearms locked in their cars at work.

Disney, which has 60,000 employees and a long-standing policy against allowing guns on its land, cites an arcane -- and late-added -- loophole in the new law, which took effect Tuesday.

04 Jul 08 | Huffington Post, seriouslywallstreet | Read on | Comments (0)

“Oil Rigs Are Pretty”: Senator McConnell

Posted By: The Huffington Post News Team on Business on HuffingtonPost.com on Friday, July 4th, 2008

A proponent of expanded drilling in both the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, incumbent U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville) trotted out a unique defense while speaking to a meeting of Lexington area business and civic leaders.

"As you all probably know in Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and Texas, they think oil rigs are pretty," McConnell said, according to Lexington television station WTVQ.

Those states - all with borders touching the Gulf of Mexico - are most likely to be home to offshore oil exploration, should a federal moratorium on the practice be lifted.

04 Jul 08 | Huffington Post, seriouslywallstreet | Read on | Comments (0)

Lehman Brothers Collapse Could Be Imminent

Posted By: The Huffington Post News Team on Business on HuffingtonPost.com on Friday, July 4th, 2008

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- To understand what went wrong at Lehman Brothers, leave the canyons of Wall Street and head to the flatlands of Bakersfield, 120 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

That's where you'll find McAllister Ranch, envisioned as a 6,000-home, multibillion-dollar recreational community built around a Greg Norman-designed golf course, boating and fishing waters and a beach club. Now McAllister is three-square miles of fenced-off, almost lunar landscape punctuated by a half-finished clubhouse and a golf course gone to weeds.

So far Lehman's bets on McAllister and other real estate plays in Southern California's Inland Empire have cost Lehman at least $350 million.

04 Jul 08 | Huffington Post, seriouslywallstreet | Read on | Comments (0)

Finance Camp: Parents Investing In Young Investors

Posted By: The Huffington Post News Team on Business on HuffingtonPost.com on Friday, July 4th, 2008

This summer, droves of school-age children will attend summer camp, where they will paddle canoes, play tennis and make crafts from paste and yarn. Others, will go to finance camp, where they will take excursions to a local bank or delve into budgeting and investing simulations. Rather than singing around the campfire, they will chant personal-finance mantras like these sung at Camp Millionaire in Santa Barbara, Calif.: "Financial freedom is your choice" and "Assets feed you, liabilities eat you."

In the past, business and finance camps attracted high-achieving high-school students. Now, with the country's uncertain economy, financial education is expanding to an unlikely audience -- younger kids, even grade-school students. They are also reaching out to those from diverse economic backgrounds. And the lessons are surprisingly sophisticated, teaching campers how to rebalance portfolios, invest in real estate and use credit cards without getting dinged on fees.

04 Jul 08 | Huffington Post, seriouslywallstreet | Read on | Comments (0)

Concorde Crash: Continental To Be Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter

Posted By: The Huffington Post News Team on Business on HuffingtonPost.com on Friday, July 4th, 2008

PARIS -- A prosecutor said Thursday that Continental Airlines and two of its employees had been ordered to stand trial on involuntary manslaughter charges related to the crash of a Concorde supersonic airliner in 2000 near Paris in which 113 people died.

In addition to Continental, the prosecutor also filed involuntary manslaughter charges against two employees of the Concorde program and an employee of the French civil aviation authority.

Continental responded angrily to the French action. "These indictments are outrageous and completely unjustified," Nick Britton, a spokesman for the airline, said in London. "Continental remains firmly convinced that neither it nor its employees were the cause of the Concorde tragedy, and we will defend ourselves vigorously against these charges."

04 Jul 08 | Huffington Post, seriouslywallstreet | Read on | Comments (0)

Lax Real Estate Decisions Hurt Starbucks

Posted By: The Huffington Post News Team on Business on HuffingtonPost.com on Friday, July 4th, 2008

Starbucks wants to get back to its roots to help turn around its ailing fortunes. It brought back the pioneering chief executive Howard Schultz to run the coffee chain day to day, and it has introduced a new blend, Pike Place Roast, that harks back to the location of its first Seattle store.

Yet for all the new marketing efforts, Starbucks's biggest mistakes and greatest challenges boil down to three words: location, location and location.

This week, in an announcement that surprised even analysts who have grown accustomed to bad news from Starbucks, the company said it would shutter 600 "underperforming stores," and significantly scale back plans to open new outlets.

04 Jul 08 | Huffington Post, seriouslywallstreet | Read on | Comments (0)

“Dark Knight” Woos Comic-Con Crowd With Web Series

Posted By: Michael Learmonth on Silicon Alley Insider on Friday, July 4th, 2008

Warner Bros. (TWX) hardly needs to do any marketing to get comic book geeks to show up for "Dark Knight," the new Batman movie. But aside from sponsoring MySpace's redesign and all the viral marketing it's done with movie trailers, Warner Bros. is also spending a little bit of its massive promotional budget on a little Web series aimed directly at the Comic-Con crowd: "Kyle Piccolo: Comic Shop Therapist."

Warner Bros. paid the entire production budget -- $36,000 -- for the first five episodes of the series, set in Manhattan's Midtown Comics, and made by NYC-based Web video production house For Your Imagination. (Warner will also attach the "Dark Knight" trailer to the videos, which are distributed on YouTube, blip.tv, MySpace, DailyMotion and iTunes.)

Why? The show has a good bit of built-in street cred with comic book nerds. The co-creator and director happens to be John Cassaday, an X-Men illustrator and the kind of guy comic book fans will wait for hours to meet. Key to "Dark Knight's" success will be the kind of repeat business that the hardcore fans tend to shower on favored comic-derived films -- so sponsoring "Piccolo" could be a good bet.

04 Jul 08 | Silicon Alley Insider, seriouslywallstreet | Read on | Comments (0)

Book Review: Barbara Ehrenreich’s ‘This Land is Their Land’

Posted By: Zac Bissonnette on BloggingStocks on Friday, July 4th, 2008

Filed under: Books

Barbara Ehrenreich is one of the best, decidedly liberal, journalists going today. However you felt about her support of big government solutions to problems of poverty, Nickel & Dimed was a captivating account of what it's like to live on minimum wage. Going undercover, Ehrenreich worked as a waitress, Wal-Mart employee, maid and more, in an effort to show the indignities of the underclass.

With her latest book This Land is Your Land: Reports From a Divided Nation, she seems to have gotten a bit lazy. First of all, it's not really an original book at all; much of the material is pulled from columns she's written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, The Progressive and The Nation. You wouldn't know that unless you read the acknowledgments on page 237.

Onto the content itself: the book is a series of more than 60 "rants" on various political issues including health care, education, social issues, the war in Iraq and corporate greed. I find myself agreeing with her on most of these issues, and her snark is nice, but this is not the brilliant journalism that I've come to associate with her. These read like blog posts, and the research often appears to be shoddy: she criticizes Stan O'Neal for presiding over "$8.4 million" in mortgage-related losses. She was too kind: it was actually about 1,000 times that amount.

If you're a hardcore liberal and like to read Molly Ivins and watch Michael Moore, you'll like this. If you're looking for the trenchant social commentary of some of her earlier books, look elsewhere.

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04 Jul 08 | Blogging Stocks, seriouslywallstreet | Read on | Comments (0)

What’s going on with the Corel buyout?

Posted By: Tom Taulli on BloggingStocks on Friday, July 4th, 2008

Filed under: Earnings reports, Private equity

Back in late March, Corel Corporation (NASDAQ: CREL), a provider of productivity software, received a buyout offer from its largest investor, Vector Capital, which owns 69%.

What has happened since then? Well, on Corel's Q2 conference call, the company talked about the outstanding offer. The board has formed a special committee and is evaluating matters. Unfortunately, there was no more information on the matter (and no indication when there might be some more details).

Yet, in the meantime, Corel continues to focus on the business. Revenues in the quarter increased from $65 million to $67 million. Net income was $930,000, or $0.04 per share. What's more, adjusted EBITDA was $14.9 million.

Corel has been successful with a variety of drivers. For example, the company has been savvy with its M&A, such as with its deals for JASC, WinZip and InterVideo. What's more, Corel is getting lots of traction in emerging markets. There is also growth in the company's new Blu-Ray graphics offerings.

As for fiscal 2008, Corel expects revenues of $263-$275 million, with net income of $8.5-$13.5 million.

On news of the quarterly results, there was a nice rally in the stock as it spiked 15% to $10.75.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

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04 Jul 08 | Blogging Stocks, seriouslywallstreet | Read on | Comments (0)

Relationship expert Donald Trump slams Anne Hathaway

Posted By: Zac Bissonnette on BloggingStocks on Friday, July 4th, 2008

Filed under: Trump Entertainment Resorts (TRMP)

Publicity whore Donald Trump -- who has been married three times and is now married to a woman more than 20 years his junior -- is criticizing Anne Hathaway for breaking up with Raffaelo Follieri amid allegations that he is a con artist.

Trump opined that "She hasn't remained very loyal to him, has she? So when he had plenty of money, she liked him, but then after that, not as good, right?"

Right: women should stand by their men when they're exposed as liars and con artists. I guess that the reason he feels that way is that if women didn't stay in relationships with phonies, he wouldn't be able to keep a lady! Here's the thing Donald: do you honestly think that your latest wife, Melania, is with you for reasons that have nothing to do with money? Is she in it for the hair? Or your rapidly expanding gut? Everyone's entitled to their delusions, Donald, but do you really think your wife would stay by your side if you were arrested on charges of fraud? I doubt it.

Here's the personal finance advice: integrity is generally not compartmentalized. If you're in a relationship with someone who lies to other people to get their money, or lies to you about money, that's a serious form of infidelity, and likely indicative of other problems: liars lie because they're liars.

The idea of Donald Trump giving relationship advice is almost as ridiculous as the idea of him giving business advice, given how poorly so many of his ventures have done. I leave you with this video of Rosie O'Donnell explaining everything that is wrong with him.

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