Eubie's notes

Wall Street Journal began today the series “Open Secrets”, practices that raise eyebrows but persist on Wall Street. It began with corporate minutes and how they are rewritten later, arbitration awards against brokers and brokerages that are never paid, municipal bond pricing and annuities. The series is for those not in on the secrets.

Washington Post will seek more information about its online readers than date of birth and Zip Code. Now it asks for job, size of company, email address and password. Washingtonpost.com story. That may mean more business for registration dodger sites like bugmenot.com.

From Dallas Business Journal — Sell a warehouse, get free use of a Porsche for three years.

Editor and Publisher: Survey by Consumers Union and the Consumer Federation of America finds newspapers were the primary source of local news. Does falling newspaper readership mean people feel less connected to their local community?

Wall Street Journal article Jan. 26 reports we’re running out of spare time.

Chart shows how people spend their spare time since 1996. The amount of time people spend on cable and satellite TV increased 7 hours a week to 18, while broadcast TV has dropped 4 hours to 15. Radio had a slight growth from 19 to 20 hours and recorded music fell almost in half to 3 hours and Internet has risen to from nowhere to 3.5 hours.

Newspapers (4 to 3 hours), magazines (flat at 2.5 hours) and books (slight decline to 2 hours).

One thing we’re doing less is sleep (down to 6.8 hours).

Best quote of the article: “In 1965, 80% of 18- to 49-year-olds in the U.S. could be reached with three 60-second TV spots. In 2002, it required 117 prime-time commercials to produce the same results” — Jim Stengel, Procter & Gamble’s global marketing officer.

In spring, students beg their teachers to hold class outdoors. British Telecom recently asked people where they would be most productive. Results: 37% said the beach, followed by park benches, mountain tops or their own back garden. Four percent said they would be happy working from their bed. From the BBC

If you misspell (mispell?) words on Ebay, you lose business. Nobody can find your items. Some have picked up bargains, because misspellings meant fewer bids. From Seattle Post-Intelligencier.

Business 2.0: The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business — 2004 edition

Edmunds.com: Journalist works undercover selling cars. Learns some of the tactics to encourage people to buy or feel that they’re getting a good deal. At the same time, sales people are caught in a struggle between sales managers and customers. Knowledgable is buyers best defense.

From CBS MarketWatch: Value Line projects the Dow will finish 2004 at 9,400 — about 1,200 points lower than where it is now.

Articles says Value Line is being too cautious. ValueLine turned negative on the stock market in December, because the P/E ratio is historically high and earnings are not expected to grow that fast over the next five years.