Energy companies dog & pony shows

Michelle Leder over at footnoted.org  has a great post about the sudden flurry of energy company slide shows filed as the SEC 8-Ks.  She points in particular to this slideshowby Alliance Holdings which lists the positives and negatives about the coming (40 days or so!  yippee!) Obama administration.  In particular she mentions “something called new MSHA.”

Well, that would the Mine Safety Health Administration http://www.msha.gov/ and I’m guessing that under the Bush administration it was more like the unMSHA and that the energy companies kinda liked it that way.  But maybe I’m just projecting!

Blockbuster Belly-up?

According to this posting in footnoted.org, Blockbuster’s most recent 10-Q suggests that the credit crunch has hit them hard.   I’ve never been found of them.  I dislike the way they focus on really popular movies and discriminate against NC-17 films.  And the stores!  Oy vay.

Link to blog posting

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and the Economics of Doom

Dreamworks provides a gloomy assessment of economic conditions leading Sonya Hubbard of footnoted.org to remark,

“In other words, if people are scrambling to cobble the mortgage payment together, don’t be surprised if the box office receipts (and subsequent DVD sales) for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa fall a bit flat.”

Dear Jim Letter

The new President & CEO of Costco got an employment letter (thanks footnoted.org) that has all the personality of the ones any of us could have received from a new employer except for some extra zeros.  And even those weren’t that impressive; $350,000 annual salary?  Yes, possible bonus of $200,000 and stock deals to boot but still, it doesn’t seem that impressive.  I hope this starts a trend.  Transparency and relative parity.  We need to get back to a place where people are well-rewarded for risks but not extravagantly so.  There has to be more incentive to a job well-done than the money to buy third or fourth homes and the rest.  CEOs should be part of the team not above it.  I think everone benefits from that approach.