NJN Network

News Corp, bleeding $6 billion in 90 days

News Corp. has reported a loss of $6.42 billion in last quarter

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, February 8th, 2009
with a story from ADWEEK

I don’t know how bad your week was but Robert Murdoch’s News Corp. has a corporate migraine after bleeding $6.42 billion dollars in 3 months. To add insult to injury, the company’s assets officially lost $8.4 billion in value. Hit me once. Hit me twice. Ouch. “Speaking to analysts during News Corp.’s FY Q2 earnings call, chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said the results “are a direct reflection of a recession that’s deeper than anyone could have predicted,” adding that the global economic climate is the worst he’s seen since the company was formed 50 years ago,” reports ADWEEK. The recession is killing ad business but it’s readers that are driving the car away from traditional news sources. People just don’t watch TV like they used to and they don’t read newspapers. News Corp media properties include familiar names like 20th Century Fox, FOX and Star TV, National Geographic cable, Fox Cable, BSkyB, Sky Italia, Wall Street Journal, NY Post and Times of London. The bad news is everywhere in the advertising and media business.

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, February 6, 2009

The CFIB is on TV all the time now as official apologist for cheap business interests and the narrow minded, small business lobby. It’s not impressive. Now they’re complaining about an extra day off on Family Day. The norm in Canada is 5 provincial days and PEI will only have 3 with Family Day. National companies with head offices in Ontario or Quebec usually provide the 5 days across the country. So with the Federal employees, big companies it only leaves the small employers being cheap. When we ran Island Computer, we gave 11 days back in the 80’s, and starting off with 3 weeks vacation with benefits like LTD, tuition for courses and bursaries for your family. It wasn’t bad for business. It was good for business.
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Newspaper closings are an epidemic

Ed: that’s sad news about the Halifax Chronicle Herald. My dad wrote sports there in the 40’s. The reporters drank and played craps against the wall after midnight while the proofs were printed . That was the newspaper business back then, just like in the movies. I wrote a music column for the Halifax Mail Star, the afternoon paper, in the 60’s. I earned $5 a column and all the records I wanted plus free tickets to live shows. Those were great days, long gone now.

AP

A drop in advertising amid tough economic times is exacting a toll on Canada’s newspapers, with the Halifax Chronicle Herald giving layoff notices to almost a quarter of its newsroom staff while the Globe and Mail revealed details of a previously announced plan to cut 10 per cent of its workforce. “It’s a terrible day,” Dan Leger, the Halifax newspaper’s director of news content, said Tuesday. “It’s an absolutely horrible day.
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Sexism will drive you into bankruptcy this recession

Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, Feb. 3 2009

Sexism and other forms of human rights discrimination can drive your sales down faster than high prices. Let’s face it guys, we haven’t always given women equality. Some men are holding onto the “good old boy” thing far too long. Remember intuition? Women can sense a male sexist pig faster than tickety boo. When a woman feels she is being treated with discrimination she is likely to move her business elsewhere. Since women make up more than 50% of the population can you afford to lose her as a customer along with her partner, children and other relatives? This applies to any business in any sector.
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Retailing at the crossroads

Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, Feb. 2 2009

The death of a retailer or any business during the recession / depression will be nature’s way of taking out the weak and stupid. Consumers are always right and they get a chance to inflict mortal wounds on the retailers that serve them least. It happens when they stop shopping at stores they don’t like when they are worried about money. Consumers never stop spending money. It’s an addiction they can’t give up. So they just shop more intensely especially where they feel at home and abandon stores who have been treating them like the enemy. Retailers with bad customer service policies, bad inventory, and bad merchandising die on their own sword, the sword of bad customer service. Customers stand on the sidelines, cheering and waiting for the liquidation sale.

The newest trend goes beyond your worst nightmare – removal of bias and discrimination in retailing. Are you ready? The US election of a minority president will arouse the anti-discrimination bias in boomers next. I see bias and discrimination all around me every time I go shopping. More on that tomorrow.
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By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI Canada, January 27th, 2009

US, British and Canadian banks have been standing in line for bail-outs but Barclays of the UK doesn’t want a bailout. When they said so yesterday, the stock shot up 72%. Seems like some banks have been operating like banks and not gambling casinos. They don’t need bailouts. Why are we bailing out the ones that gambled on bad loans? Barclay’s price closed on Friday at $3.09 and opened Monday at $4.91 (NYSE Barclays PLC ADR), Reuters reported ” U.S.-listed shares of Barclays (BARC.L) (BCS.N) surged in premarket trade on Monday, after the British bank said it wasn’t seeking fresh capital. The bank also forecast 2008 pretax profits of more than 5.3 billion pounds, including the impact of 8 billion pounds of write downs.”

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI Canada, January 27th, 2009

Bailouts are a dime a dozen these days. GM needs one in the US but doesn’t in Canada. Americans generally sneer at Canada for being “socialist”, especially the right wing commentators. The New Hampshire, student paper at University of New Hampshire, reports that France is supporting newspapers by giving 18 year-olds a free newspaper subscription. Read the rest of this entry »

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PE January 26, 2009 2:45 PM, with story from CNN Money

In one day, today, CNN reports the 50,000 jobs have been lost, totally 170,000 in January already. The recession is deepening around the world with Caterpillar cutting 20,000 jobs, Dutch bank ING 7,000, Sprint 8,000, Home Depot 7,000, Pfizer 8,000 and John Deere 700. “It’s all about the consumer, and the consumer’s been hit hard,” said Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact and Opinion Economics. “It’s a vicious circle as weakness begets layoffs, which beget more spending weakness.” 2008 saw 2.6 million jobs lost, the worst since 1945.

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI January 26, 2009, 12:20 PM EST

CNN is reporting US unemployment hit 7.2% and job losses of 524,000 in December. Despite upbeat earnings for the 4th quarter, companies are taking a negative view of 2009 and job cuts in the 10’s of thousands are being announced daily. Home Depot just announced 7,000 layoffs and the bad employment news goes on.
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By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PE Canada, January 26, 2009
with story from IT World Canada

IBM just announced 4th quarter profit of $4.43 billion, bright expectations for 2009 and layoffs of 16,000 employees world wide, or about 4% of its total staff. Toronto was hard hit with 2,900 jobs lost at the venerable Toronto IBM software lab. IBM is trying to remain low-key about the layoffs, which were revealed by “Alliance@IBM” the union blog. Corporate layoffs are classic business response to a downturn and reflect the policy of taking opportunities to economize when the public expects it. IBM joins the rest of the IT sector with Microsoft’s 5,000 cuts and 6,000 at Intel. Unlike the North American auto sector which is in trouble for failure to innovate, the IT sector has learned to regularly prune staff which build during economic booms. IBM, Intel and Microsoft all report large cash reserves and profits in the billions of dollars. However, layoffs are not academic for the people. They need to work quickly to replace the income and stability of employment.

Don't panic, they're OK

GM Canada turned down the Canadian government’s $3 billion bail-out. GM already got enough with $17 billion from the US government or it doesn’t want to fill out the forms for the Canadian money. That’s good news for Canadian taxpayers: we just saved $3 billion. The US Congress can’t find $300 billion it gave the banks a few months ago. Perhaps this panic is just that, a panic created by the ultra wealthy to transfer even more money to their bank accounts. As we reported in Reverse Robin Hood, the ultra rich just want to take our money and have created a phony panic to convince us it’s absolutely necessary. I said on October 1, 2008 The Bail Out is Bunk and I still believe it’s true. The ultra rich got themselves in trouble. Why should we care? Time will tell.

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada January 26, 2009

The potential bail-out of the fisherman (

Whatcha gonna do Mr. Ghiz with another Polar

), banks, car manufacturers and everyone else reminds us why capitalism is a better model than corporate socialism. If a business loses its market then it should change or die. There is no promise in any constitution or Charter that guarantees a business for life. Entrepreneurs train, plan and invest in markets. If they are correct, they get rewarded with profits far beyond what an employee can ever expect. However, nothing is static. What sells today is likely not going to sell tomorrow.
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By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PE, Canada, Janaury 23, 2009 - CBC reports this morning that 2 people have been laid off and others offered a shorter work week at the Guardian. We knew something was coming. We learned a long time ago when people get cranky, money is usually the first problem. The behavior at the Guardian has been bordering on schizoid. We reported in Guardian bans disability advocate, sells newspapers with disabled child , “What is causing the schizoid behaviour at the Transcontinental, Guardian and Journal Pioneer these days? Are they falling on hard times: desperate men do desperate deeds? Read the rest of this entry »

January 21, 2009 – TechRadar Microsoft announced it will cut it’s payroll by 5,000 with 1,400 going immediately. Despite a profit increase of 11% to $4 billion in the quarter, yes three months, this is pure Microsoft. Microsoft is one of the most profitable companies on the planet earth and take any chance they can to cut costs. They have done this going into each and every recession and come out with billions more in the bank account. Smart money hides during a downturn. “Cuts at the Redmond giant have been mooted for some time, but the confirmation has finally been made, with Microsoft’s Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell announcing the news. “Economic activity slowed beyond our expectations in the quarter, and we acted quickly to reduce our cost structure and mitigate its impact,” said Liddell.”
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