[T]he federal government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of
the company. It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break
even on the bailout, but the stock closed at only $20.21/share on
Tuesday. This left the government holding $10.1 billion worth of stock,
and sitting on an unrealized loss of $16.4 billion.
Right now, the government’s GM stock is worth about 39% less than it was
on November 17, 2010, when the company went public at
$33.00/share. However, during the intervening time, the Dow Jones
Industrial Average has risen by almost 20%, so GM shares have lost 49%
of their value relative to the Dow.
So it could be said that GM stock has lost over half their value since the government took over.
Related: "Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry." [emphasis mine]
Halliburton Co. said Monday that it has been contracted by Exxon Mobil Corp. to use three drilling rigs to provide oil drilling services at a large field under development in southern Iraq.
The contract from ExxonMobil Iraq Ltd. covers services for 15 wells at the 8.6 billion-barrel West Qurna Phase I oil field, one of Iraq's largest. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Exxon's partners in the Qurna project include two Iraqi state-owned companies and an affiliate of Royal Dutch Shell PLC. ExxonMobil Iraq is the lead contractor on the field, with a 60 percent stake. It said last month that initial field production at the Qurna I field increased 17 percent to 285,000 barrels per day, exceeding its 10 percent improvement target. Under an agreement between Iraq and the companies, production from the West Qurna I field should reach 2.825 million barrels a day after 6 to 7 years.
Shares of Houston-based Halliburton rose 8 cents to $48.21 in morning trading.
I missed a couple of things the other day about Rob Lewis the service industry worker, which was graciously linked by Bob Belvedere over at The Camp Of The Saints.
So yeah, I'll be wearing a 'Captain Obvious' cap. Much like before.
Noodles & Company is a franchise. Chances are, Rob's boss isn't even the boss of the company. The franchise location where Rob works under control of the corporation *gasp* of Noodles & Company. Which is done so if someone walks into one franchise store and buys a dish they like, they can walk into any other Noodles & Company and get the same dish, made the same way.
Sure there isn't much of a chance to do variations and custom dishes but the chain stores are helped out in the way of name recognition, a set menu and advertising.
I also forgot to mention risk. Rob's boss had to have put up a substantial sum to get his restaurant running. The franchise fee, lease on the building, deposits on utilities, with money on loan from the bank. He needed all of these done even before he can open the doors to the public. Couple that with the chance his place has a 23% chance of failure within the first year. There's bound to be a few sleepless nights when starting out.
And Johnny Come Lately Rob Lewis wants an equal share of the profits because he can flop a spoonful of stir fry on a plate after watching a ten minute instructional video about the importance of food safety? The level of risk by his boss (lots) isn't exactly the same as the level of risk done by Rob (slim to none).
In one of the biggest digital publishing deals in recent memory, AOL has agreed to pay $315 million for the Huffington Post, the pioneering web-only newspaper co-founded by Arianna Huffington.
The deal is AOL CEO Tim Armstrong's latest and boldest attempt to transform the declining company from one that helped millions of people get onto the internet through dial-up connections to one that informs and entertains them in a broadband world, or as he called it, a "new American media company."
[. . .]
AOL's Patch unit, a series of hyper-local news sites, will be folded into Huffington Post, which has long sought to expand its local-content strategy. Local advertising has become a closely watched sector given the growth of locally focused startups such as Foursquare and Groupon. AOL made new investments in Patch this past year, expanding into 775 towns across the U.S. Each town has its own website with typically one editor and a handful of freelancers, a content-production model similar to the Huffington Post, which runs on an army of more than 6,000 unpaid bloggers and a paid staff of 88 editors and writers, all posing more than 600 articles a day. [Bold mine]
Those 6000 unpaid bloggers won't see a penny for that 300 million either. No word if David Epstein-- noted practitioner of incest-- would still be welcome at the AOL/Huffington Post.
The New York-based company posted a net loss of $782.5 million, or $7.42 per diluted share, for 2010, compared with a profit of $248.8 million the year before. Total revenue slid 26 percent from $3.2 billion in 2009 to $2.4 billion last year.
Financial results for the fourth quarter painted a brighter picture, with a profit of $66.2 million, or 60 cents per diluted share. That bested Thomson Reuters analysts' estimates of 46 cents per diluted share.
During a conference call Wednesday morning, AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong reiterated his position that "2011 is the year we stop working on the turnaround and start working on the comeback."[Bold mine]
There is one side thought that instantly comes to mind however. When you are buying something like the HuffPo you are not only buying the structure and the “writers” so to speak, you are also buying the commentators.
Fast food being fast food, most people don't go to Chick-Fil-A for the 5 star atmosphere. They go for a tasty sandwich for lunch or dinner, fast. Chick-Fil-A offers that. And a hand dipped shake, made the old fashioned way.
What keeps drawing me back is the customer service. When the person behind the counter hands you your food and you say, "Thank you", you'll hear something back that you would never hear at 95% of other fast food restaurants. "It was my pleasure."
The employees there seem more cheerful than at, say, a Taco Bell. Where the chalupa is carelessly tossed on a tray and someone shouts, "Number 87!" and walks away.
It's a small touch but it makes a difference. I know it’s their store policy but it's the same policy that many sit down restaurants have as well. Why limit it to those? It's a welcome change in the world of fast food.
If someone doesn't like Chick-Fil-A, don't go to Chick-Fil-A. Kentucky Fried Chicken is open on Sundays. That's the beauty of a free market. Choices.
All of this goes to illustrate the totalitarian spirit of gay-rights radicalism, which aims toward the extirpation of dissent.
The radicals will not be satisfied so long as anyone is permitted to disagree with, disapprove of, or criticize homosexuality.
As I've said on here before, liberals have a "If I don't like 'A', you can't like 'A' either" attitude. Astounding the lack of tolerance that exists among those who claim to be the tolerant ones.
Besides, it's food. Most people go because of food. I don't shun Panera Bread because their CEO is a "No Labels" advocate. They have an amazing French Onion Soup and incredible sandwiches. And the food keeps you feeling full long after you have finished eating.
As for me and my house and Chick-Fil-A? I will eat there 9 times out of ten (the tenth time being a Sunday).
This was on 60 Minutes last night. Basically, unemployment is really bad*. And really, really high.
And much higher than what is being reported. And all of it started when the Democrats took control of the purse strings in Congress after the 06 election.
Now Whitacre is not a dumb guy, nor are there any ethics scandals in his previous record as a very successful CEO at AT&T. He was even the national head of the Boy Scouts of America, so why all of a sudden is he making a transparently false statement in a GM TV spot?
Three Republican members of Congress are asking the same question and they are also demanding some answers from Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, who oversees the TARP program and who issued a statement endorsing the GM claim and citing the repayment as evidence that the government's bailout effort is working.
The Atlanta-based "breast-aurant" chain -- famous for the scantily clad waitresses who serve up its burgers and spicy wings -- is beckoning prospective buyers, sources told The Post.
Hooters has recently shopped itself to a number of private-equity firms as sales have sagged with the recession, sources said. The closely held company, meanwhile, is in advanced talks with a Connecticut-based investor that has been granted certain rights of refusal on any potential transaction, according to one source.
I don't it's a matter of the general public developing good taste overnight. After all, The Bachelor is still on ABC.
Close the state controlled ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) stores and open it up for the free market? About time. More liquor locations with better hours without the overhead that Virginia provides. Sounds win/win to me.
I've always liked Circuit City. Bought my first CD player from them way back when they first started to become popular.
Circuit City, the second-largest retailer of consumer electronics, has announced it is forced to close all its remaining 567 U.S. stores and sell all its merchandise. The closing also leaves 34,000 Circuit City employees out of a job.
Businesses like Circuit City are among the first hit in a recession. As disposable income levels go down, so do levels of toys that people buy. People make due with the old digital camera instead of giving in and buying the newer, cooler camera. The old TV still works with the converter, there isn't any room in the budget for the a new flatscreen. No economic stimulus package will fix the pocket income that helps drive today's market short of getting out of the way of employers and their businesses.
