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Google's Secret Realtime Search
As search geeks have known for months, techies with Google (GOOG), Bing, Twitter, and other engines have long been chasing realtime search as the ultimate brass ring in online search capacity. Some months back, Google introduced a feature that ...
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Stocks
What's Your Question for Rosabeth Moss Kanter?
Later this month, The Big Money Editor James Ledbetter will conduct an exclusive one-on-one interview with Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School professor and author of the just-released book SuperCorp: How Vanguard ...
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Government
American Express
Social Democrats
Harvard University
Meltdown Anniversary Watch, Part 5
Over the weekend, two remarkably similar articles argued that Lehman's collapse was a sacrificial lamb . That is, the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States had to go into bankruptcy in order to create a sense of crisis strong enough ...
Lehman One Year On
One year ago, the house of Lehman fell , threatening to take the entire global financial system with it. On the anniversary President Barack Obama will travel to Wall Street today to "argue for sweeping regulatory changes," reports Reuters that ...
The Year of Living Hopelessly
The failure of Lehman Bros. on Sept. 15, 2008, was an epic calamity, but it may have been more important overseas—where September 2008 is referred to as "Lehman Shock"—than it was here.
In the United States, the sudden bankruptcy of America's ...
The New Financial District
Is the nation’s capital a new financial center? According to today’s Washington Post , for better or for worse, it is. “As financial firms navigate a life more closely connected to government aid and oversight than ever before, they increasingly ...
What's Your Question For Zipcar's Founder?
Later this month, The Big Money Editor James Ledbetter will conduct an exclusive one-on-one interview with Robin Chase, founder and former CEO of the pioneering car-sharing service Zipcar, and currently the CEO of the ride-sharing ...
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Stocks
American Express
Dick Fuld Carries His Own Golf Clubs
Financial crisis anniversary stories continue to pour out of newspapers as the New York Times leads by saying “A Year After a Cataclysm, Little Change on Wall St.” The story details how regulatory reform is stalled, pay is returning to ...
Algae-Power Car Doesn’t Use Much Algae
I’m a little baffled by this PR move, although I support the technology behind it. A plug-in Prius is being driven from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., with a mixture of gas and algae in its tank for liquid fuel . An outfit named Veggie Van is ...
TBM Readers Respond: Save College As We Know It!
Earlier this week, Zephyr Teachout argued that just like newspapers, universities will be dismembered by the Web . Reader responses ranged—some agreed while others remained quite skeptical. Here are a few choice highlights:
“I'm a freelancer, and ...
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Other
Harvard University
Word of the Week
A front-page story in Sunday’s New York Times discussed what the paper describes as Wall Street’s next big money-making scheme: buying “life settlements.” What’s a life settlement? Basically, it’s the selling of your life insurance policy to ...
Soup Sales as Economic Barometer
Bob O'Brien of Barron's gazed into a bowl of Campbell's Tomato Soup and divined the future of the American consumer economy : This "isn't the kind of consumption-driven recovery that previous bounces from economic distress [have] seen," the soup ...
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Commodities
Recession
Barron's
What Not to Do with YouTube
If there's an unquestionable moral lesson for our era, it's this: Don't film yourself committing crimes and post them on YouTube. Los Angeles resident Cyrus Yazdani did just that, and yesterday, he learned that he will have more than three years to ...
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Stocks
The Private Option
Americans who have health insurance, we are told, are largely satisfied with it and terrified of losing it. Many of them assume that employment-based insurance—for all its flaws—is preferable to any other system. And last night President Obama ...
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Stocks
The iPod Is Dead
The iPod revolutionalized digital music. But these days, people want devices that offer more than just tunes:
The new Nano signals an inevitable, though still remarkable, transition: The iPod is dead. I don't mean the name won't stick ...
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Stocks
Apple Inc.
Gap Inc.
Steve Jobs
Trimming Waste
If you had to devise a product designed to succeed in this unique climate, it might be one that makes an eco-friendly, alternative-energy-powered, carbon-reducing, American-made, public-space-beautifying commodity that saves municipalities money ...
The Deal Behind the New Good Housekeeping Seal
This March, Good Housekeeping announced it would be getting in on the ongoing greenwashing of the American marketplace. The magazine is launching a “Green Seal” to coincide with the 100 th anniversary of its eponymous endorsement, which ...
A New Path for Morgan Stanley?
Morgan Stanley has a new boss in the shape of James Gorman - an appointment that ushers "out a tumultuous boom-and-bust period under its current CEO, John Mack," the Wall Street Journal writes. Gorman, a 51-year old Australian is the " the quiet ...
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Stocks
Morgan Stanley
The Economist Breaks Down Electric Cars
Last week, the Economist ran an excellent briefing on electric cars. And now you can read it for free here . It’s a good piece that ends on an odd note:
“[P]ropelling modern transport by means of serial explosions in an array of tin can does ...
Aging White Car Execs Insist You Must Buy Their Cars
It’s a little hard to believe that General Motors (MTLQQ) is dipping this far back in the well, but reportedly this weekend its 67-year-old Chairman, Ed Whitacre—who prior to assuming his position, said he knew next to nothing about the car ...
Google Beats Retreat on Book Search
Google (GOOG) took a beating at today's Judiciary Committee hearing, and it looks like it's decided to give its critics most of what they want. In a statement at the hearing, the company's main counsel David Drummond announced that Google Book ...
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Stocks
Microsoft
Bud Light's Lame Sodomy Joke Ad
The latest puerile advertisement returns American beer marketing to its place at the bottom of the branding food chain. Sadly, it's a transparent and rather lame attempt to replicate the lowbrow stuff that agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky has been ...
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Stocks
Anheuser-Busch
InBev
Is the Family Sedan Over?
I was down in Irvine, Calif., yesterday for a technical forum at Ford 's (F) California design center. The car was the new Ford Taurus, which has drawn some criticism for its latest redesign. Personally, I think it looks pretty cool, more like ...
GM Finally Has an Opel Deal
After a summer of discontent, it now looks as if General Motors has finally decided to sell its main European division, Opel, to a Canadain parts supplier, Magna. GM’s announced yesterday that its board has OKed the deal. Magna will purchase 55 ...
Halo Mans the Trenches
This trailer for a new war-themed Halo video game is fast-moving and violent. Does the trailer make the game seem disturbing or does it make you want to play along?
Title: Halo ODST—Live Action Trailer
What effect will this ...
Down With Megahertz!
When a new computer product comes out, its name is often accompanied by a series of numbers—like Intel 's (INTC) new Core i5 and the Core i7. To make things less confusing, tech companies should scrap the numbers in the name and tell consumers ...
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Stocks
Intel Corporation
Meet the New York Judges in Charge of Smacking Down Wall Street
Since the White House and Congress are still working out how to regulate financial firms to avoid another economic crisis, the punishing of Wall Street criminals has fallen largely to federal judges, Bloomberg observes. Not surprisingly, the ...
How Foreclosures Breed Mosquitoes
Filmmakers Andrew and Leslie Cockburn discuss a scene from their new documentary American Casino . The scene shows how a sea of abandoned swimming pools in California has become a mosquito Club Med.
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Other
Steve Jobs Is Back
Sporting “his characteristic outfit of jeans and a black turtleneck,” a “thin but energetic” Steve Jobs appeared onstage yesterday at an Apple (AAPL) event for the first time in the five months since he received a liver transplant, says the New ...
The Case For Goliath
When it comes to Google Book Search, you've probably heard the basic plot repeated in half a dozen ways. On one side is Goliath—that's Google (GOOG)—that hopes to open the doors to the most massive digital library in history. On the other is a ...
A New Kind of Google Monopoly
Who knew everyone wanted to play Monopoly? Apparently, the smart fellers at Google (GOOG) and Hasbro (HAS) did. The two companies have been steadily working to create a new online version of Monopoly, re-envisioned as a massively multi-player ...
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Stocks
Hasbro
The Trouble with "Food Science"
The food business is under examination like never before, with books by Michael Pollan , David Kessler , and others; films like Food Inc. ; and any number of blogs, including this one, monitoring the industry.
But, asks Food Navigator ...
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Government
Michael Bloomberg
Travelers Group Inc
Can The French Rescue Wall Street?
Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Far from being a threat to Wall Street, bonus-bashing French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde may end up being its savior.
Sure, it might not seem that way at the moment: Lagarde has led the charge to curtail banker ...
Volvo and Saab: Swedes to China?
Why are the Chinese suddenly so interested in foreign auto brands? Reportedly, Geely wants to buy Volvo from Ford . (Volvo is the last remaining brand in what Ford (F) once referred to as its “Premium Automotive Group.”) Another Chinese carmaker, ...
Lehman Lessons Not Learned
As the media counts down the days to the first anniversary of Lehman Brothers' demise and the financial meltdown that followed the Wall Street Journal surveys the transformed global scene and concludes that, "surprising degree, there are some big ...
Don't Let Me Down
“Roll up for the Magical Mystery Tour. Step right this way,” cried Paul McCartney during the catchy song’s introduction. But for the video game business, Beatles Rock Band isn’t simply about magic and mystery. It’s about massive money spent in a ...
Announcement: Dan Rather Reports
Tonight at 8 p.m. ET on HDNet ( check local listings for other times, as well as for cable/satellite carriers), my periodic debate partner Jim Motavalli and I will appear on an episode of “ Dan Rather Reports .” The episode will also be available ...
Former Lehman CEO Happy Visitors Don't Have Guns
NEW YORK/KETCHUM, Idaho (Reuters) - "You don't have a gun; that's good."
That was how Richard Fuld greeted a Reuters reporter who had tracked him down to his country house in a bucolic setting beside a river and amid tree-covered slopes in ...
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Stocks
Schmooze on First
The players of the Missoula Osprey, our local Pioneer League baseball team, are not always the most elegant performers on the field. Mostly kids in their teens or early 20s, many of them from the Dominican Republic, the Osprey players are on the ...
Cadbury Stands Alone, Sort Of
As Katherine Glover notes on Bnet today, Cadbury is sending out mixed signals in the wake of its rejection of Kraft Foods ' (KFT) acquisition bid.
Here's the mixed signal itself , captured in one short paragraph in the Chicago Tribune :
...
Van Jones’ Unsurprising Fall From Grace
It is not hard to imagine Van Jones signing a piece of paper he did not read. Back in April, I wrote a profile of Jones for TBM just as he was starting to work for the White House. When I visited, he was juggling two BlackBerrys and a briefing ...
Did the Prius Violate Patents?
The news broke last week that Toyota is once again being assailed by a company called Paice LLC. Paice has asked the International Trade Commission to do something about what it alleges is patent infringement of its hybrid drivetrain technology by ...
Google Retreats on Book Search
As opposition mounts against Google Book Search, the plan to digitize and archive virtually every book ever written by humanity, Google (GOOG) has been squirming under the microscope lately. The Justice Department is scrutinizing the deal Google ...
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Stocks
Securities and Exchange Commission
Microsoft
Amazon.com
The Skyscraper That Ate a Billion Dollars
For most of its 34-year life, the Hancock Tower , which looms above its brick neighbors in Boston's Back Bay, has been the sort of place where money comes to be managed and protected. Its tenants include Ernst & Young and the investment firm ...
Meltdown Anniversary Watch, Part 4
As we approach the anniversary of Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy, new meltdown memes are entering the media stream. Over the weekend, Richard Beales of Breakingviews.com assessed the state of the prime brokerage business (that is, helping hedge funds ...
Kraft Seeks Sweet Deal with Cadbury
Kraft Foods (KFT) said yesterday that it would pursue a $16.7 billion takeover of Cadbury, the British chocolate maker, “ even after Cadbury rejected that offer as too low ,” the New York Times reports. The article says that some analysts assess ...
Welcome to Yahoo! U
Students starting school this year may be part of the last generation for which “going to college” means packing up, getting a dorm room, and listening to tenured professors. Undergraduate education is on the verge of a radical reordering. Colleges, ...
Wall Street’s Latest Money Maker
According to the lead story of today's New York Times , Wall Street banks have found a new way to make lots of money. This time, it’s though bundles of life insurance. “The bankers plan to buy ‘life settlements,’ life insurance policies that ill ...
Another Jobless Recovery
216,000 jobs disappeared last month according to yesterday’s Labor Department report. The New York Times therefore calls the ongoing economic recovery a jobless one. Nevertheless, the paper says the Obama Administration believes its stimulus ...
