Monday, January 12, 2009

The "Dumbest Moments in Business 2008"

This is from "Dumbest Moments in Business 2008" (http://www.walletpop.com/specials/fortune/dumbest-moments-in-business-2008). I didn't want to bore you with all the different ones, so here are just some of my favorites.

- "Detroit Pleads Poverty in Style": Like someone arriving at a food bank in a limousine, the chief executives of the three major U.S. automakers spark outrage when they fly their corporate jets to Washington D.C. to beg Congress for a multi-billion dollar bailout...

- "An iPhone App for Just $999.99": The release of the new Apple iPhone in July introduces to the masses the world of mobile video games and other time-sucking applications designed by non-Apple software developers -- most of them available for less than $10. But one application sneaks past Apple's gatekeepers and onto the company's new App Store: "I Am Rich," a $999.99 screen-saver whose sole feature is a glowing red jewel. Apple gets blasted for making the application available for sale and then quietly removing it, but the real losers? The eight suckers who bought it. -- By Michal Lev-Ram, Fortune reporter

- "Sex for Oil": This fall, the division of the Department of Interior responsible for granting leases for energy exploration and production in federal waters is caught with its pants down. The agency's Inspector General finds that staffers were taking gifts, having sex and engaging in illegal drug use with employees of some of the oil companies they oversee...

- "McCain's Economic Denial": At least he warned us: On the morning of Sept. 15, as Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy, Republican presidential candidate John McCain declares "the fundamentals of this economy are strong." By day's end, the Dow falls more than 500 points, the date becomes known as Black Monday, and McCain starts backpedaling fast...

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