The Week: Most Recent Business Posts

The time's not right for Tesla

Marc Ambinder — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:58:00 -0400

I hadn't seen a Tesla Model S electric car up close until this weekend, and when I did, we fell in love. Alas, even if i could afford the sticker price, a hefty $62,400 or so for a base model, I wouldn't be able to leave the lot smugly satisfied that I was doing my part as a good liberal to combat global climate change.

There really isn't anything wrong with the car itself. In some ways, it's perfect. Incredibly roomy. Styled but not styleized. Powerful. Quiet. Hugs the road. Very safe. The dashboard is like a modern glass airline cockpit. The interior is.. well, you get the picture. And the Tesla...

Making money: Shopping for disability insurance, and more

The Week — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:22:00 -0400

Retirement for the self-employed
It isn't as easy for the self-employed to save for retirement, says Farnoosh Torabi at Yahoo, but it's no less important. To amass a nest egg that will carry you through your senior years, consider these three tax-deductible investment tools. The first is an IRA — if you're planning to save less than $5,000 per year, this is the easiest option. If you're putting aside more, consider a Simplified Employee Pension IRA. A SEP IRA allows you to contribute a quarter of your income each year, up to a maximum $51,000 in 2013. And if you want to defer even more, consider...

McDonald's increasingly enormous menu: By the numbers

The Week — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:46:00 -0400

The shifting tastes of American consumers are as hard to pinpoint as the chicken parts of a McNugget. Which may be one reason why McDonald's offers such a wide range of choices — from the specialty McRib to a diet-friendly walnut salad. But while variety is a plus for picky eaters, it has become a headache for America's biggest fast food chain. Since 2007, the size of McDonald's menu has swelled by 70 percent, which has reportedly come at a cost of quality and service, according to emails obtained by Bloomberg.

"It's gotten to the point where the operation has kind of broken down and that...

Party foul: Is PBR making cheap beers more expensive?

The Week — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:00:00 -0400

We've already heard how millenials are so egocentric that they're ruining the nation. And we've seen how cute their Brooklyn-inspired lifestyles are.

But these whippersnappers may have finally crossed the line. A new report finds that the price of cheap beer is rising at a faster clip than that of more expensive, craft beers. The culprit? Pabst Blue Ribbon and its resurgent popularity with young hipsters, say the report's authors.

According to the study from Restaurant Sciences, a research group that tracks changes in the food and beverage industry, the cost of lower-priced beers has gone up...

Today in business: 5 things you need to know

The Week — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:13:00 -0400

1. FACEBOOK FINISHES YEAR ONE AS PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANY
Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of Facebook's IPO. How are things looking for the social network? Shares are down 31 percent to $26, compared to their opening price of $38 on May 18, 2012. Revenue, however, is up: The company made $1.46 billion in revenue first quarter of 2013, compared to $1.06 billion a year earlier. Thirty percent of those funds came from mobile, a relatively new category for Facebook. That's up from 23 percent of revenue the last quarter of 2012. [Wall Street Journal]
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When governments bank on bad behavior: 5 vice taxes

The Week — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:28:00 -0400

1. 'Crack Tax'

(Thinkstock/iStockphoto)

Where: Tennessee

How does it work? Passed in 2005, the "crack tax" requires all drug dealers to pay taxes anonymously to the State Department of Revenue. Rates vary: $3.50 for a gram of marijuana, $50 for a gram of cocaine, $200 for a gram of meth, and $200 for a gram of crack-cocaine. Once paid up, the dealer receives a stamp for each drug, and if arrested for possession, he or she must show the stamp to the officer. If caught without one, the dealer would owe back taxes to the state. It sounds nearly impossible to enforce, but between 2007 and 2009,...

Facebook's first year as a public company: By the numbers

The Week — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:44:00 -0400

On May 18, 2012, Mark Zuckerberg, wearing one of his signature black hoodies, rang the opening bell on the Nasdaq stock market, kicking off trading for Facebook — one of the most highly anticipated IPOs in history.

Immediately, the market went bonkers: Nasdaq's systems couldn’t handle the tsunami of trading volume, and broke down. As Facebook lawyers later suggested in a legal filing, the nail-biting half-hour spooked investors and drove down share prices. After years of buildup, shares of Facebook closed almost flat on the first day of trading.

It turned out to be a fitting omen...

17 surprising stats about oil

The Week — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:45:00 -0400

Oil! That dark, viscous stuff that makes the world go round — or at the very least greases the great wheels of industry. Oil is so ingrained in the modern world — from fueling your trip to the supermarket to powering armies — that it's hard to wrap your mind around its enormous impact. Here, for some useful context, are some stats about the world's leading source of power:

200,000
Miles of oil pipelines the U.S. has within its borders. For comparison, the distance from New York to Los Angeles is about 2,778 miles, and there are 160,000 miles of highways in the National Highway...

Bloomberg's spying scandal: Is stalking part of the company's culture?

The Week — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:38:00 -0400

Move aside, News Corp., says Adam Penenberg at PandoDaily. Now it's media giant Bloomberg's turn to be embroiled in a spying scandal. Last week, we learned that for years Bloomberg reporters have been monitoring how subscribers use their Bloomberg terminals, the ubiquitous computer system financial players rely on to "execute trades with vast sums of money at stake." All the reporters had to do was "hit the 'Z' function" to see which employees of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase — or government officials like Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke — had logged on, and even how often "they checked...

6 career-killing phrases to quit using now

The Week — Thu, 16 May 2013 19:37:00 -0400

Whether making an important presentation to potential clients or trying to motivate a room full of entry-level employees, your words carry weight at work.

Darlene Price, an executive coach in Atlanta and founder of Well Said, a communications training firm, tells The Fiscal Times, "Whether you want to pass a budget, win votes, or seal the deal, effective leaders use language to influence others in order to achieve a certain result. That's one reason they're seen as leaders — their words compel people to follow."

Price, whose latest book is Well Said! Presentations and Conversations That...

Today in business: 5 things you need to know

The Week — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:11:00 -0400

1. WALMART EARNINGS MISS THE MARK
Walmart announced revenue of $114.2 billion for the first quarter, missing analysts' expectations of $116.3 billion. Same-store sales fell 1.4 percent, and visits dropped 1.8 percent, while shares rose 4.6 percent to $1.14 per share, a penny below expectations. Walmart blamed the weaker-than-expected numbers on "challenging weather conditions," the payroll tax increase, and late tax refunds. [New York Times]

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What's crushing Apple's stock?

The Week — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:42:00 -0400

And the roller coaster ride continues. After several weeks of gains, Apple's stock price tanked again this week, sliding to $427 from a recent high of $460.

Chutes and ladders has been the theme for the tech giant: Shares fell to a low of $385 in April, down 45 percent from its record high of $705 in September. Then prices rebounded more than 20 percent in May, after CEO Tim Cook announced $9.5 billion in Q1 profits, along with a $60 billion stock buyback program.

Yet here we go again — Apple's share price is tumbling and analysts are clamoring to figure out why. A look at three theories...

The 7 worst job interview mistakes people make

The Week — Thu, 16 May 2013 09:32:00 -0400

You landed a job interview for a position you really want — but the hiring manager never called you back afterward...

It could be that the chemistry wasn't right, of course, or that the salary didn't align — but chances are you made some foolish and entirely preventable mistakes that derailed your chances.

"Given how competitive it is out there, I'm appalled at some of the interview mistakes people keep making," says Dana Manciagli, a Seattle career expert who spent a decade at Microsoft and today runs her own executive coaching business.

She and other experts say that even job...

The eurozone's longest recession ever: By the numbers

The Week — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:09:00 -0400

The eurozone is officially in its worst recession since the euro was first introduced in 1999, as the currency bloc continues to struggle to break free of a debt crisis that has hampered growth and led to political tensions across the continent.

"The misery continues," Carsten Brzeski, a senior economist at ING in Brussels, told Reuters. "Almost all core countries [but] Germany are in recession and so far nothing has helped in stopping this downward spiral."

Here is a quick look at some of the numbers behind the eurozone's economic malaise:

0.2
Percentage the eurozone's GDP contracted during...

How do fortune cookie messages get written?

The Week — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:30:00 -0400

People often take fortune cookie messages to heart. They crack open the yellow crescent moon cookies that conclude their Chinese restaurant meal, and eagerly hunt for predictions, revelations, and deeper meaning. Many save their favorites, carrying them around in a wallet.

But these often-odd messages are not axioms from the beyond. The epigrams originate in a handful of factories that each churn out upward of 4 million little slips of wisdom a day.

Wonton Food, Inc. is the world's largest manufacturer of fortune cookies and fortune cookie messages. It was established in 1973 and is based...

Today in business: 5 things you need to know

The Week — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:55:00 -0400

1. LARRY PAGE EXPLAINS VOCAL CORD TROUBLES
In a post on his Google+ page last night, Google chief Larry Page revealed why he's been missing company events this past year: He has bilateral vocal cord paralysis, a rare affliction that can cause difficulty in speaking and breathing. Corporate governance experts think it's a "responsible gesture to investors," who criticized Apple for secrecy surrounding Steve Jobs' health. "Sergey says I'm probably a better CEO because I choose my words more carefully," Page wrote in the post. [Wall Street Journal]
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