Consumerist's Top 10 Business Debacles Of The Year 2008
As is our habit, we provided Ad Age with a list of our Top 10 Business Debacles of the Year. Are you ready for the pain?
Choosing only 10 this year was next to impossible, but somehow we managed. Incidentally, we'd like to throw a special shout out to Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide for making this year's list extra debacle-riffic. Thanks!
Clearly, there's no possible way to include all the memorable f-ups that occurred in 2008 — so fill these comments with your personal favorites and help us look back at "the year the investment bank died."
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Comments:
"Suits" ruin everything. Why do we allow them to be in charge?
I think that all the top level executives had a meeting and decided that the best way to rob everyone was to carpet bomb us with incompetence and thievery all at once. They figure a few will go down but we will be so caught up in the ones we do catch that the other 24 million of them will get off scott free.
Watching corporations fail, lie and cheat is the new NFL Sunday.
"We got a top knotch rookie coming out of Harvard Law School that is poised to head a Fortune 50 and bilk inverstors, employees and coffers dry."
And I've got his Topps 3-D card pre-Federal charges!!
When did the US currency get converted to FAIL?
The best part of the article are the tag-lines from the companies at the bottom.
@axiomatic: It's the moral-outraged "Family Values" people. Sure, nudists (and non-lifestyle naked people) would likely run the economy and government far better than the suits we have in charge, but can they? No. Backwards "indecent exposure" laws get in the way of real progress yet again.
The motto for 2008 appears to be
"Why regulate when you can bailout".
I was amused by the slogans after the article, particularly, "No one can do what Countrywide can." Among pure fabrications, it rings with a savory, ironic, and almost saddening truth. Almost.
I have to go with Yahoo not selling out to Microsoft for 45 billion and then going into the tank. I am so glad I do not own Yahoo stock. Yahoo's Board should not allow him to resign, they should shoot him.
I like number 6...forgot to mention that they actually did end up giving the execs bonuses in the form of "retention bonus"
I would say no one, absolutely no one, on Wall Street stepping up and saying these bundles of home loans are a high risk not being accounted for and we are getting out of this nonsense today.
None of this is particularly funny, though.
Is every one of you an idiot? Michael Chertoff is the head of Homeland Security not the head of TSA. Homeland Security places restrictions on security operation conducted for flights from other countries with destination in the USA. So yes he can claim responsibility for the effectiveness of the screening in other countries.
Federal Government Ad Line
Bend over, here it comes.....
Oooh, thanks for reminding me of the melamine story. I just discovered after several years of use that some plates and bowls I own are made from melamine, how worried should I be about using them?
@YourTechSupport: a few months ago. you must have just come out of a coma, or been hiding in the Afghan caves with bin laden. Welcome back.
@B:
Re: 10: The not so Big three CEOS take private jets to Washington to beg for money.
No one cared to look at how the head of the UAW arrived...nor did they point out the lack of the UAW to negotiate on behalf of their members or the industry...nor did anyone mention the golf club they have for their 'executives' which I doubt they would be willing to give up before taking all of OUR money to bail them out!
Jesus, what a year. I think we'd normally see this number and caliber of f**ups over a 10-year period- not one.
@theblackdog: Do not use them in a microwave, and you'll probably be okay. The melamine/milk problem was that certain places (cough*CHINA*cough) were adding melamine powder to milk and other food products to trick the tests that measure the amount of "protein" a food product has.
@Fresh-Fest-1986: "I think that all the top level executives had a meeting and decided that the best way to rob everyone was to carpet bomb us"
Uh oh. The power of the Executive Carpet Bomb has been turned to the dark side.
@axiomatic: It is always a source of amazement to me how many people are running large corporations who really have no idea, nor CARE, what their product is, who their clientele/customer is and HOW the product is even produced and sold to the end-user.
..and then, of course, everyone wonders why the company is in trouble as time goes by...and how it got there to begin with.
THE YEAR ISN'T OVER WITH YET!!!!!! The biggest debacle of 2008 might not have happened yet. Can't you wait until the year is over? The news media does the same thing. They tell of the biggest whatevers of the year before the year is up.
For my money, Countrywide is the absolute worst. They border on evil for looking away from the crash of the economy they help cause.
1 - 9: WaMu and Countrywide destroy the economy
10: The not so Big three CEOS take private jets to Washington to beg for money.