Shouldn’t they be protesting at Hooters nationwide?
After all, they are already eating their meal there, so walk outside and picket.
Category: Business
C-Block Bidding: We Have A Winner, Actually TWO Winners
And one is the American wireless user, because whoever won, and the FCC has not announced a winner yet, will pay $4,713,823,000, more than the $4,600,000,000 required by the FCC in order for open access rules to apply.
The FCC has not announced a winner, and the bidders themselves are technically still gagged, but my guess is that it was not Google. They were willing to bid to win, but they were more interested in getting the open access, and why spend $113,823,000 more than the minimum to get that.
Of course, considering my record on predictions…..
Trouble in the Russian Arms Export Business
It appears that there has been a near freeze in weapons sales to China.
According to the report, this is driven by an incoherence in Russian technology transfer policy, which has seen extensive development and production deals with India, and very little with China, which has honked off the Chinese military establishment.
Screen Actors Guild Strike Update
The short version of this letter to the membership of the SAG is that the Directors Guild of America cut a deal that sucked.
This is not surprising, the DGA is a weak and stupid union, and they have gotten too small a cut, and allowed the producers to define their accounting too loosely.
Are Telcos Trying to Sabotage Open Access Spectrum Auction
It appears that bidders on the C-Block spectrum are colluding to keep the bid price low enough to eliminate open access rules.
Though $8.66 billion has been raised in 12 rounds by the auction so far, it still has a long way to run before it loses steam — more than 1000 separate bids were submitted in Tuesday’s closing round. The D block still has plenty of time to attract more bidders, particularly as the price of the C block and other regional licenses escalate. (For complete auction results see the FCC’s Auction 73 page)
Such escalation, though, appears to be exactly what the C-block participants are bent on preventing. The C-block bidders slowed down their pace Tuesday, taking turns bidding on the license every other round. That not only prevented the license from crossing the $4.6 billion reserve threshold, it also served to knock down the minimum bids required to take the lead in consecutive rounds. According to the FCC’s rules, the minimum bid falls each round a license fails to attract a new bidder. The strategy has definitely slowed down the momentum of C-block bidding, but even at the rate of one bid every other round, the license will clear the reserve ceiling in the next two days. To secure the top bid in Wednesday’s open Round 13, a participant will have to pony up $4.29 billion.
Also the Block D auction seems to be stalling, my guess is that this is a result of Cyrene Call corruption issues. This block is supposed to be shared with public safety agencies, with said agencies having complete control in an emergency, and to be open access.
France and India Define Special Nuclear Relationship
Not much of a surprise.
Considering the American record on nuclear power, the terms over budget and behind schedule come to mind, the negotiations between France and India on nuclear power should come as no surprise.
They will get the job done right, and given the direct involvement of the French government, if the contractors screw up, they won’t go running to the government to get their money, as a number of US plants built in India have (IIRC one tied to Enron).
So, Bush’s agreement with India probably won’t generate a whole bunch of business for US companies, and it makes us less safe too…lovely.
Spamford Wallace’s Is Back, Like a Cockroach
While I do not ensorse such things as Assassination markets, Wallace’s latest identity theft/spam escapade leads me to believe that I would have a hard time voting to convict on any Jury upon which I sat.
I’d say that this guy is like a cockroach, but I think that he is far hardier.
I don’t think that Polonium 210 would take him out.
I Was Wrong on the Next Gen DVD Wars
El Reg is reporting that Woolworths stores to stop selling HD DVD.
Umm…there are still Woolworths out there?
Lame Even By Republican Standards
One of Freddie Thompson’s former campaign staff is calling for a, “boycott of all shows and products affiliated with martial arts thespian Chuck Norris because of his endorsement of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.”
The lamitude* of this snollygoster†, “Darrel Ng, a former traveling press secretary for Thompson” just boggles the mind.
*I know that lamitude is not not a real word.
†But “snollygoster” is a real word.
People Who Should Have Their Asses Kicked, IBM Edition
This might also be titled, “Management victims who really need to join a union”.
You know, after 10 years of thinking of IBM as the antiChrist, I had finally replaced them with Microsoft, but this story has me reevaluating.
If they are not the antiChrist, they are at least a minor minion of Chtulhu.
As often happens, companies sometimes get spanked for not paying overtime to its workers, usually for being stupid. It happened to IBM, and they had to pay $65 million in back pay, and they reclassified about 7600 workers as “non-exempt”, meaning qualifying for overtime pay.
IBM took another step too, they cut the base pay of these workers by 15%.
If you do the math, they have to work 45 hours to earn what they previously made at 40.
And economists wonder why the average American is not satisfied with our “wonderful” economy.
BTW, I think you could make an argument that this is illegal retaliation. Talk to a class action lawyer.
Microflaccid Accellerating Deployment of Vista Successor
In yet another sign that they jumped the shark with Vista, there are now reports that Microsoft is moving up the release date of Windows 7, Vista’s successor from 2010 to 2009.
This is a lot of additional effort, and a lot of lost revenue, but they realize that they have a pig* on their hands.
*No offense intended towards pigs.
AT&T: The Borg is Back.
AT&T sells you bandwidth, and now they want to charge the people from whom you download a second time for the privilidge of using the wires that you have already paid for.
They are claiming that they want to help crack down on copyright infringement, but let’s be clear, this is a lie.
They want the RIAA and MPAA to support their efforts, so that later, they can charge the RIAA’s and MPAA’s clients for selling AT&T customers online music and movies.
We don’t care. We don’t have to. (snort) We’re the Phone Company!”
Norway Requests Bid From Sweden for F-16 Replacement
Honestly, I think that this is a sham bid, and Norway intends to use this request to Sweden as leverage to get a better deal on the JSF.
That is what Eurofighter decided, when they withdrew from the competition.
Norway is arguably as hip deep in the JSF as any countries except for the UK, and (possibly) Italy.
Then again, if they are serious, Norway saves a lot of money, both on the initial purchase,the Gripen is the cheapest of the current generation, and over the life of the aircraft, since costs are roughly proportional to weight.
More on the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD wars
Sony is now offering a $400 rebate on the purchase of a LCD TV/Blu-ray player package, which makes the Blu-Ray player essentially free, and El Reg is reporting that US HD DVD sales are falling off a cliff.
I’d still wait, to see if the new DVD standards catch on, or if it all loses out to downloads, but I think that HD-DVD is done.
Democrats Pass Mine Safety Bill, Bush ThreDemocrats Pass Mine Safety Bill, Bush Threatens Veto, Pratens Veto, Profits More Importaht than Miners Lives
I am no not surprised at the veto threat.
Disgraceful.
Russian Fighters Integrate Western System
Russia has licensed the Thales Damocles targeting pods with Su-27 class fighters. It’s flown on Malaysia’s Su-30MKM, and the Russian air force will be adopting the pod, which was chosen after a competition with the Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant (UOMZ) Sapsan and Solux targeting pods.
This is fairly significant, for a number of reasons.
I believe that this is the first time that Russia has license produced a western weapons system of this sophistication, and it is the first time that the manufacturer has incorporated sophisticated western electronics into one of their aircraft.
This may make it much easier for operators of western equipment to integrate fleets of Russian aircraft in the future.
FCC Investigates Comcast Packet Blocking
For what it’s worth, if Comcast finds it necessary to throttle some applications, they should be open about it to customers and prospective customers.
What happened here was that they were forging TCP reset packets to throttle the traffic, and then lying about it.
The problem is threefold, first, it interferes with non-Bit Torrent applications, I’ve read about it interfering with Lotus Notes, second, it makes troubleshooting problems with other applications very difficult, and third, the customer is being defrauded.
FWIW, traffic management, if necessary, should be based on bandwidth, which is what the ISPs sell, not application. It, or so I’ve been told, a trivial operation.
To quote Wetmachine: Harold Feld’s Tales of the Sausage Factory:
1) The FCC issued a public notice asking for comment on our Petition for Declaratory Ruling that Comcast’s “network management practice” of messing with BitTorrent uploads violated the FCC’s “Broadband Policy Statement,” which includes a principle that network operators may not block or degrade content or applications. In a separate public notice (but as part of the same proceeding), the FCC also seeks comment on the Vuze Petition for Rulemaking on how broadband access providers handle and shape IP traffic generally. (Copy of Vuze Petition here, copy of our Petition here).
2) Separately, the FCC issued a separate public notice seeking comment on a Petition filed by Public Knowledge and the usual suspects asking the FCC to declare that wireless carriers cannot deny short codes or block text messaging. This goes after Verizon’s high profile “oopsie” of denying a request by NARAL for a short code. Although, as we pointed out in the Petition, the more likely and pernicious problem is with plain old anticompetitive blocking, such as denying a short code to VOIP provider Rebtel.com and denying applications to major banks offering competing services.
3) Comcast confirmed that the FCC has lanched a formal inquiry into whether it violated the FCC’s broadband policy statement. Comcast reiterated that it will fully cooperate with the FCC, and expects any investigation to show that Comcast did not block content and has engaged in legitimate network management practices.
I think that the problem here is largely cultural. To paraphrase Lilly Tomlin from Laugh-In, who originally said this about the phone company, “We’re the cable company, we don’t have to care.”
That said, for the complex minutiae of how this is proceeding, and what it all means, go to the link. The process is confusing.
In particular, look at his, “How Do I File Comments?” section. If you want your voice heard.
Bank of America to Cutting Back on Investment Unit
BofA is aggressively shringing its corporate investment division to focus on its “core competencies”.
My analysis, this is Indiana Jones outrunning the boulder. Unlike Citi, for example, they were not so tied up in the big sh%& pile that they could not extract themselves without collapsing.
Miama Herald Eschews Outsourcing Editorial to India — For Now
They were looking at using it on the Broward County editions, but decided, would not be an appropriate use of this service“.
Bah!!! Let the “free trade mantra” press experience free trade.
Don’t start with Broward County though, start with your business section.
Why It’s Good to Have Democrats Running Congress: Part 867-5309
From Nancy Pelosi’s blog“
As part of its ongoing investigation into executive pay, the Oversight Committee has invited three CEOs implicated in the subprime mortgage crisis to testify on February 7, 2008, about their severance and compensation packages.
Read letters to Charles Prince, the former CEO of Citigroup (pdf) and E. Stanley O’Neal, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch (pdf).
Full letter to Angelo R. Mozilo, the CEO of Countrywide Financial (pdf):
January 14, 2008 Mr. Angelo R. Mozilo
Chairman and CEO
Countrywide Financial Corporation
4500 Park Granada
Calabasas, CA 91302Dear Mr. Mozilo:
I am writing to request your testimony at a hearing on February 7, 2008, before the Committee on Oversight and Govemment Reform. The hearing will address executive compensation and severance arrangements for CEOs involved in the ongoing mortgage crisis.
According to recent press reports, if Bank of America completes its proposed purchase of Countrywide Financial, you stand to collect tens of millions of dollars in severance payments and other compensation. I request that you be prepared to provide your perspective on this reported pay package. You should plan to address how it aligns with the interests of Countrywide’s shareholders and whether this level of compensation is justified in light of your company’s recent performance and its role in the national mortgage crisis.
The Committee on Oversight and Govemment Reform is the principal oversight committee in the House of Representatives and has broad oversight jurisdiction as set forth in House Rule X. An attachment to this letter provides additional information about testifying before the Committee.
If you have any questions regarding this letter, please contact Roger Sherman or David Leviss of the Committee staff at (202) 225-5051.
Sincerely,
Henry A. Waxman
ChairmanEnclosure
cc: Tom Davis
Ranking Minority Member
Countrywide’s Mozilo To Leave In Luxury
Andrew Farrell, Forbes – January 14, 2007
Angelo Mozilo made nearly $150 million selling Countrywide shares before they tanked. The mortgage lender’s chief executive can nearly double that windfall and also earn some luxurious perks if he leaves his post following the struggling company’s acquisition by Back of America.
Mozilo will reportedly receive up to $115 million in severance in cash and stock if he resigns or is fired. Mozilo’s future at the company he founded is in doubt after its sale.
On Friday, Bank of America confirmed it will buy Countrywide Financial for $4.1 billion. Bank of America Chief Executive Ken Lewis has said only that he would like Mozilo to stay at Countrywide until the acquisition closes. Then, “I would guess that he’ll want to go have some fun.”
Mozilo, the son of a Bronx butcher, would be able to have some fun in style thanks to some perks in his severance package. In addition to the huge payout, Mozilo can take free rides on the company jet and have his country-club bills paid for, according to a Friday report in the Los Angeles Times.