Wal-Mart pledged Wednesday to cut the energy used by many of its products 25 percent, to force the chain’s suppliers to meet stricter ethical standards and to apply its legendary cost-cutting skills to help other companies deliver health care for their employees.

In a lofty address that at times resembled a campaign speech, the chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores, H. Lee Scott Jr., said that “we live in a time when people are losing confidence in the ability of government to solve problems.” But Wal-Mart, he said, “does not wait for someone else to solve problems.”

He then laid out sweeping plans for the company on several health and environmental issues, and he hinted that even more ambitious goals might be on the horizon. Mr. Scott said, for instance, that Wal-Mart is talking to leaders of the automobile industry about selling electric or hybrid cars — and might even install windmills in its parking lots so customers could recharge their cars with renewable electricity.

Ok I can see WM selling low cost electric cars but what to do when you need repair? WM parts department?

Wal-Mart Chief Offers a Social Manifesto

Fears that 2008 will see the looming recession in the US spreading to every other continent triggered a global crash in share prices yesterday, wiping £77bn off the value of the City's blue-chip stocks in the biggest one-day points fall in London's history.

On a day of panic selling, hefty overnight falls on far eastern stock markets prompted a ripple effect through Europe and left the City's FTSE 100 index down 323.5 points at 5578.2 at the close.

Since the start of the year share prices have dropped by 14%, with the near 900-point fall in the FTSE 100 wiping out all the gains of the last 18 months and putting renewed pressure on pension funds. Yesterday's 5.48% fall was the biggest in percentage terms since the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks but less than half as big as the record 12.2% drop in October 1987.

In the City's money markets, traders were betting that the risk of a synchronised global downturn would force the Bank of England to cut interest rates by a full percentage point during the course of 2008 despite its concerns about inflationary pressure. Economists are expecting the toughest year for the UK since the pound was removed from the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992.

In the US, pressure is mounting on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by 0.75 points at its meeting later this month, taking its main policy rate down to 3.5%. Some analysts believe it will be necessary to cut rates to 1% by the end of this year to prevent the contagion from bad loans to subprime mortgage borrowers causing even more damage to the rest of the economy.

Shares in London closed near their lows for the day amid concerns that the market rout would continue today when Wall Street opens after being closed for the Martin Luther King public holiday. Last night, there were indications that the Dow Jones industrial average would open more than 600 points lower.

In other markets, Japan's Nikkei index was down almost 4%, while Germany's Dax and France's CAC index both fell by 7%. With markets in the developing world also suffering, the MSCI gauge of stock markets globally sank 3.3% percent, falling below its 2007 trough to lows last seen in December 2006 and taking it down more than 12% so far this year.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned western countries to expect knock-on effects from the slowdown in the US, the world's biggest economy. "The situation is serious," Strauss-Kahn said after meeting the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. "All countries in the world are suffering from the slowdown in growth in the United States, all countries in the developed world."

After briefly rising above $100 a barrel earlier this month, the cost of oil fell by $2 a barrel to $88.59 yesterday in expectation that weaker demand for energy would push down the price of crude. Mining stocks were among the biggest losers in London amid concern... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

'And in the end the age was handed, The sort of shit that it demanded.'

On December 27, the IRS announced that despite recent changes to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) law, the vast majority of taxpayers can begin filing in mid-January. Unfortunately, as many as 13.5 million may have to wait as the IRS reprograms its systems to account for the new law. The individual AMT laws, intended in 1969 to affect only the wealthy, have not been adjusted to account for inflation. As a result, the AMT potentially affects more taxpayers each year. To remedy this, Congress has passed a patch for the last several years to minimize the effect of the AMT. However, this year's patch was late enough in the season that it will affect the IRS's readiness to process tax returns and pay refunds.

Although the IRS is asking certain taxpayers to wait until February 11th to file, H&R Block customers can file now - depending on your tax situation, we will hold your return securely and file them automatically when the IRS is ready.

Taxpayers who use the following forms will be affected:
Form 8863, Education Credits
Form 5695, Residential Energy Credits
Schedule 2, Form 1040A, Child and Dependent Care Expenses
Form 8396, Mortgage Interest Credit
Form 8859, District of Columbia First-Time Homebuyer Credit

All other e-file and paper returns will be accepted starting as scheduled in January. The IRS urges affected taxpayers to file electronically in order to reduce wait times for their refunds. Taxpayers who e-file and use the direct deposit option get refunds in as little as 10 days, while paper returns take four to six weeks.

Wont hurt me... Does it you?

13.5 million impacted by AMT patch

- Genesco Inc. and United Rentals Inc. plunged in the past week after deals to acquire them faltered, heightening concern that takeovers won't help small U.S. companies overcome a slowing economy and higher borrowing costs.

Genesco, the shoe retailer seeking to be bought by Finish Line Inc., fell the most in five years today after UBS AG asked a judge to let it out of an agreement to finance the $1.5 billion acquisition. United Rentals dropped to the lowest in a year after Cerberus Capital Management LP last week backed out of a $4 billion agreement to buy the largest U.S. construction-equipment rental company.

A jump in borrowing costs sparked by subprime-mortgage defaults is making takeovers more expensive. At the same time, profit growth at the smallest companies may slow as the housing recession spreads to the broader economy, diminishing companies' ability to pay down their debt. The Russell 2000 Index, whose members have a median market value of $589.7 million, has declined 12 percent from its July record.

``With tight credit and the feeling of uneasiness in the market, you're going to see a lot of institutions not willing to loan money for a buyout,'' said Andrew Seibert, who helps manage $400 million at Nextier Wealth Management in Pittsburgh. ``If there is a slowdown in the U.S. economy, that will have a major effect on any company that's leveraged highly.''

Announced U.S. mergers and acquisitions totaled $95.7 billion last month, down 64 percent from this year's peak monthly pace of $267.3 billion in May. Some buyout firms remain unable to finance debt for leveraged buyouts at terms they need to make the acquisitions viable.

Slowing Economy

U.S. gross domestic product will probably grow at an annual rate of 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter, down from a 3.9 percent pace last quarter, according to the median forecast in Bloomberg survey of economists.

A slowdown may hurt earnings at companies in the Russell 2000, which relied on the U.S. for 84 percent of their sales last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compares with 73 percent for companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.

Genesco Inc. and United Rentals Inc. plunged in the past week...

iRobot's soap-opera-esque trade secret and patent lawsuits against rival Robotic FX entered a new phase last night, as the US District Court in Boston handed down a preliminary injunction preventing Robot FX from acting on a $279M contract to build Negotiator robots for the Department of Defense. Saying that Robotic FX CEO Jameel Ahed's admissions that he'd destroyed evidence "profoundly undermined" his credibility, the judge ruled that there was enough of a likelihood that iRobot would win its trade secret case to warrant an injunction -- the idea being to keep Robotic FX from gaining any benefits from a possible theft. The judge didn't make the exact terms of the injunction public, but she did order a trial to begin no later than April 4 -- which means there's still a lot of drama to come.

iRobot wins injunction against Robotic FX ...

What do Martha Stewart and enemy combatant Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri have in common? They were both indicted, under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001, for lying to federal government agents. Ms. Stewart now stands convicted of intentionally misleading SEC and FBI officials who questioned her about insider trading. Mr. Al-Marri was one of several hundred immigrants who voluntarily submitted to FBI interviews in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. He was later charged with lying, during his interview, about the timing of a previous trip to the United States. Here are two criminal defendants from widely divergent backgrounds. Yet both were ensnared by Section 1001, a perennial favorite of federal prosecutors.

Did you know that it is a crime to tell a lie to the federal government? Even if your lie is oral and not under oath? Even if you have received no warnings of any kind? Even if you are not trying to cheat the government out of money? Even if the government is not actually misled by your falsehood? Well it is.

How to Avoid Going to Jail under 18 U.S.C. Section 1001 for Lying to Government Agents

Now another market-leading technology company is under fire in Washington as well. An unlikely combination of onetime antitrust defendants like Microsoft and AT&T and liberal consumer groups that have been their traditional antagonists are taking aim at Google.

Interviews by CNET News.com last week show that Microsoft and its occasional allies have met separately with key congressional committees that deal with consumer protection and antitrust issues--both of which announced last week that they will hold hearings on Google's plan to spend $3.1 billion to buy DoubleClick.

The Federal Trade Commission, which must review the merger on antitrust grounds, has also been meeting with Google, Microsoft and those nonprofit consumer groups, according to sources familiar with the meetings. The European Union, egged on by American consumer groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the pro-regulation Center for Digital Democracy, is reviewing the merger too.

All this amounts to the first serious political threat to a company that has grown to a market capitalization of $162 billion by worrying more about serving customers than catering to the whims of bureaucrats and politicians. Longtime Washington observers believe that even if the DoubleClick acquisition is eventually permitted, federal scrutiny will only increase.

For its part, Google says it's confident that the threat to its business can be contained. "We're finding that the more we meet with policymakers, the more they are realizing that Google and DoubleClick are different types of companies, that we take significant steps to protect users' privacy, and that this acquisition will benefit both consumers and advertisers," said spokesman Adam Kovacevich.

In addition to its full-time staff lobbyists, also involved in Google's efforts to fend off antitrust bureaucrats are four newly hired lobbyists in the Washington office of the law firm Brownstein Hyatt & Farber (including Makan Delrahim, a former top Justice Department antitrust official). Google's earlier hires include the now-renamed PodestaMattoon, which draws its name from longtime Democratic dealmaker Tony Podesta, and King and Spalding, home to former Republican Sens. Connie Mack and Dan Coats.

A Google representative said there had not, however, been any personal visits to Washington in support of the DoubleClick deal by top executives like CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who famously showed up in blue jeans and sneakers when he arrived on Capitol Hill for meetings with politicians last summer.

Citing confidentiality concerns, an FTC representative declined to comment on anything beyond the fact that the investigation is continuing. AT&T, which has made public statements in opposition to the merger before, would not comment. Time Warner, which reportedly has voiced concerns about the deal, also would not comment.

Microsoft spok... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

On antitrust, is Google the next Microsoft?

Under their most recent contract, full-time, port clerical workers earned about $37.50 an hour, or $78,000 a year. They also receive a pension, health care benefits free of premiums, and 20 paid holidays a year.

Berry said Monday that employers' latest offer included raises that over the life of a three-year contract would bump the employees' hourly pay to $39.50; the union is seeking increases that would equal $53 per hour by the last year of the contract.

Go on strike? $37.50 an hour? Damn! I am in the wrong job...

Los Angeles ports facing strike threat

The major goal of the Five Day Weekend is simple: We want to reverse the U.S. workweek so that Americans clock in for two good days of work, followed by five well-earned days off.

Why? Because overwork has become a major problem for Americans, and it's getting worse by the year. The two-day weekend was created in 1930, and despite decades of unparalleled technology growth, our people are actually working more and more each year.

Check out the stats:

* Americans wasted more than 570 million vacation days in 2006(1)
* Unlike 96 other countries, the U.S. has no law governing vacations
* U.S. workers receive an average of 14 vacation days but only use 10 a year(1)
* By comparison, French workers receive 39 vacation days, and Germans get 27(1)
* Americans have increasingly worked more days a year since World War II(2)
* A nine-year university study recently found that not taking vacation can increase the chance of heart attack or coronary disease.(3)
* In 2006, members of the U.S. Congress clocked 104 days in session – which means they worked exactly two days a week.(4)

We want to stop this trend and begin to reverse it. So we're aiming high and going for a Five Day Weekend.

Oh wait... our government spends money like water and taxes the hell out of us.... so we work more for less....

Friends of the Five Day Weekend

A shock-wave went through the corporate world 25 years ago when a couple of bright young management consultants detailed organizational excellence in seven basic qualities.

In Search of Excellence… by Tom Peters and Bob Waterman became a world-wide best seller, a first and only for a book on management.

Peters and Waterman had significant scholarship behind them, coming from the Stanford business school, located in midst of what the world knows as Silicon Valley. They began with the premise that an excellent organization – company, charity, government – rises above the others by serving all its stakeholders – customers, shareholders, employees, civil society. What they attempted was a quantification of excellence.

What Peters and fellow McKinsey consultant Waterman learned from big organizations and small was success came more and more from knowing rather than simply making or doing. They wrote about customer satisfaction, nurturing the creative and managing by wandering around.

Management science – from the days of Edwards Deming – has long trained executives from two similar disciplines: engineering and finance. Peters and Waterman, both from engineering disciplines, foresaw the coming of knowledge organizations where solutions are found inside customers’ heads.

Media has always been in the knowledge trade, though not articulated until the dot com boom. Publishers viewed their success in the number of copies sold or amount of advertising sold. Broadcasters invented audience measurement to convert a quantifiable approximation of audience size into money from advertisers.

Statistical and survey methods perfected more than two generations ago founded the currency of media measurement still, mostly, in use today.

Product managers measure brand strength in many of the same terms Peters and Waterman used to quantify excellence.

In the two decades since Peters’ equally famous article “What gets measured, gets done”, managers have focused on the obvious: measure everything. Measure everything and we’ll figure out later whether or not it means anything. Companies like Oracle make fortunes facilitating the storage and manipulation of vast amounts of data. In the media business, nothing is more frightening than a junior media buyer with a PowerMac and version 12 of SPSS.

There is another side to this popular incitement to measurement: What we measure is what we do.

Holy Grails…hardly.

The long running discussion about passive media measurement provides a superb example of curing a problem by changing the patient.

Good read that rings true....

What Gets Measured, Changes Media