MATHEW INGRAM
Globe and Mail Update Published on Thursday, Oct. 14, 2004 10:55AM EDT Last updated on Wednesday, Apr. 08, 2009 11:54PM EDT
Mathew Ingram's "blog" is a collection of brief items - from the interesting to the unusual, and occasionally the outright laughable. Think of them as bite-sized column chunks - all the taste, but not as filling. Feel free to e-mail your suggestions and/or comments.
Can pudding convince the NFL?: Although they don't like to admit it, sometimes public campaigns and boycotts can have an effect on companies and institutions. But can a disgruntled lawyer living in the U.S. Virgin Islands have an effect on the National Football League by eating nothing but pudding? That's the question Clay Travis is trying to answer, by going on a pudding-only diet for the past month (that's about 219 puddings). Clay, who was born in Nashville and is married to a former Tennessee Titans cheerleader, is incensed that NFL weekend games are not available in the Virgin Islands, something he claims is "essentially a fundamental right of Americans." He is trying to pressure the NFL and/or satellite provider DirecTV to give the Virgin Islands access to NFL broadcasts.
E-mail Mathew Ingram at mingram@globeandmail.ca
Posted Thursday, October 14 at 10:54 a.m.
They'd like another option: One of the longest-running accounting fights in the U.S. just got pushed into extra innings. The Financial Accounting Standards Board or FASB, which sets rules for public companies, has been trying for almost a decade to bring in a new standard requiring companies to expense the cost of issuing stock options. But it keeps caving in to pressure from technology companies such as Intel, who argue that expensing options would cost them money and make it harder to attract staff. In 1996 the FASB got close to enacting the rule, but changed its mind at the last minute. In the latest go-round, the board planned to start requiring option expensing in January, but has now said it will postpone the issue until June - giving the anti-expense lobby time to push Congress even harder for some kind of exemption.
E-mail Mathew Ingram at mingram@globeandmail.ca
Posted Wednesday, October 13 at 2:53 p.m.
Too many Yahooligans: Investors who don't pay attention are often to blame for spikes in a particular stock, but headline writers deserve some blame too. On Tuesday, when Yahoo reported its latest quarter, several wire service reports and news stories screamed that the on-line company's profit had "almost quadrupled" due to a stronger advertising environment, and revenue also soared. Not surprisingly, the stock price jumped. Not mentioned until lower down was the fact that more than half of the profit increase came from a one-time windfall - the sale of a stake in Google. Also left out of many stories was the fact that Yahoo's revenue actually declined, if you exclude the money it has to pay to its ad-search partners, which falls under the heading of "subscriber acquisition costs."
E-mail Mathew Ingram at mingram@globeandmail.ca
Posted Wednesday, October 13 at 10:42 p.m.
Flu and the economy: Everyone knows the kind of impact high oil prices have on the economy, but what about the flu? Some experts say they're concerned about the impact the flu could have on the U.S. economy, now that Chiron - one of the world's largest makers of flu inoculations - can't supply any because of problems at its Liverpool lab. That will leave the U.S. with only half the supply it usually has. "What if you had 20 or 30 per cent of your population not able to go to work or to school? It would affect the economy," said Dr. Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic. The problem is that there are only two large producers, and no one else is interested in getting into the game. Not only are there all the regulatory costs, but anything you don't use during flu season - sometimes millions of doses - has to be destroyed. Sounds like a great business, doesn't it? On the other hand, you could be like Meds-Stat, the other big flu vaccine distributor: It's being sued by the state of Kansas for allegedly boosting the price of its vaccine this week by 1,000 per cent.
E-mail Mathew Ingram at mingram@globeandmail.ca
Posted Tuesday, October 12 at 3:08 p.m.
Sir Short-Attention-Span: Sir Richard Branson always seems to be the happiest guy in the room - and why shouldn't he be? Not only is the Virgin Group founder and chairman a billionaire, but he's rakishly handsome to boot. He has also never met a market he didn't want to enter, it seems. Virgin is already an airline (Virgin Blue), a phone company, an operator of high-speed trains, a wedding retailer and has plans to offer consumers trips into outer space - and Sir Richard even has his own Apprentice-style TV show. On Tuesday, Virgin said it will compete with Apple in the MP3 player game, with a newly-announced 5-gigabyte music device that also has a built-in FM radio - and two earphone jacks (so you can share with a friend).
E-mail Mathew Ingram at mingram@globeandmail.ca
Posted Tuesday, October 12 at 12:09 p.m.
Oracle speaks in riddles: Aren't you supposed to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth when you take the stand? It's hard to believe that Oracle Corp. executives are doing that when they say the price of their company's takeover bid for competitor PeopleSoft may be lowered rather than raised. Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison hinted at the possibility last week during a hearing into the long-running takeover offer, and on Tuesday co-president Safra Catz also said the bid may drop, due to unspecified "liabilities" at PeopleSoft. Are there real issues at Oracle's takeover target? Perhaps. Or the recent pronouncements may be a clever way of trying to push the company's share price down so Larry doesn't have to pay as much. But Oracle wouldn't do that, would they? Of course they wouldn't.
E-mail Mathew Ingram at mingram@globeandmail.ca
Posted Tuesday, October 12 at 11:41 a.m.
Don't bet on this pony: The racetrack just doesn't seem to be the hand-over-fist kind of money-maker it used to be in the good old days, when businessmen could be relied upon to blow every last dime chasing some nag they heard about at the local pub. Churchill Downs, operator of the legendary Kentucky Derby horse race, said it will post a substantial loss instead of the profit it was expected to make for the latest quarter. It seems the good, old-fashioned ponies are being replaced too quickly by slot machines and on-line gambling, and Churchill is taking it in the neck as a result. The biggest factor in the latest loss? The cost of spending on lobbying efforts in various states in an attempt to turn the company's tracks into what the gambling cognoscenti call "racinos." So far, Churchill is throwing snake eyes.
E-mail Mathew Ingram at mingram@globeandmail.ca
Posted Tuesday, October 12 at 10:37 a.m.
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