CNN Money put together a nice slide show of what they think are the dumbest moments of 2008 as they relate to business and the economy. Like most lists, even mine, some were great and others were a stretch. I’ve picked out a few of my favorites but make sure you click through to view the entire slide show.
The Good Ones:
1) Big 3 CEOs take private planes to Washington to beg for money. We might have thrown away $350 billion on the bank bailout, but by the time the Big 3 wanted $25 billion we got smarter-er. Public opinion is vital to success since Congress represents the public. These guys were basically asking us for money. Don’t show up at my door in an S-Class Mercedes and ask me for a $5 spot.
4) Bloated Bailout. So Paulson’s plan to bail out the banks was a whole 3 pages long. I say great job on keeping it short, not so great on his attempt to be a Money Monarch. But once Congress was done many more trees had been wasted. Their version was 451 pages and full of pork, like a tax break for toy arrows. Where was John McCain “Making them famous and you will know their names”?
9) Sex, Drugs, and Light Sweet Crude. The U.S. Department of Interior is charged with allowing the lease of land for oil exploration and drilling. They are not charged with getting drilled by the lobbyists and taking back-door bribes from the companies they are leasing to. This is why I hate government.
10) GM product manager calls global warming a “crock of shit.” Bob Lutz is the most charismatic executive in the car business. Almost every new car from GM in the past few years has come from his influence, and the car blogs love it when Bob talks. Mostly because Bob says stuff like the above quote. Now he was strictly referring to man’s influence on global warming, a stance in which I share his feelings. However I’m an impartial observer who has formed his own educated opinion. Bob is someone who has much to gain by people buying his gas guzzling products. Saying something like that makes the people believe he’s saying it just to sell cars. Bad PR.
16) Yahoo shareholders get shafted by executives. Imagine you started a company, grew it into a billion dollar business and was finally forced out by your board of directors. Now imagine that same board brought you back on the lead the company. You won’t want to let go. Neither did Jerry Yang. Jerry turned down an offer to sell Yahoo to Microsoft for $31 a share. They thought they could get more, despite shareholders saying they wanted the sale. Now Yahoo is trading below $12 and Jerry has been “let go.”
The Bad Ones:
6) The $1,000 iPhone app. iPhone applications are priced most between the free and $10 mark. But because there was no real limit on price, Apple allowed someone to sell an app at $1,000 that did absolutely nothing. The best part is 8 people actually bought it. CNN Money seems to think this was a dumb moment? Why? We pay thousands for alcohol simply because of the name. We spend $80 for a polo shirt with an alligator on it. In this country we thrive on the display of wealth. If someone wants to spend $1k on an iPhone app that does nothing, let them.
12) The ban on short selling. A gentleman by the name of Christopher Cox has been in charge of the SEC lately. In a move to try and show they’re doing their part in preventing the fall of western civilization, the SEC temporarily banned the short sale of certain bank stocks. I have certain beefs with that kind of government intervention, but the media attacked the SEC when there were better things to do.
13) McCain’s “The fundamentals of our economy are strong” moment. This guy had many problems with his campaign, but this was not one of them. You know what he was talking about, I know what he was talking about. But because it was an easy set-up for the Obama campaign to attack, the media ate it up. Give me a break, he was trying to convey a good message that made perfect sense.
14) The SEC misses the Madoff fraud. It’s so easy for us to criticize in hindsight. The SEC did not pursue Madoff fraud because they had better things to do. They’ve arrested many people since this whole mess got started and resources were pretty thin. They probably get thousands of tips a day. Your local police force can’t pursue every potential crime in your community either.
So there you have my picks of the good and bad from the list. Head on over and view the slide show and see everything for yourself.
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