Two members of our Intern Nation helped make the picks this week: Connie is a 24 yr. old interning, for free of course, at Hole Fools, a digital ad agency in Soho. Tim is a 55 yr. old min-wage intern at Great Buns, a donut shop in Lewisboro, ME.
Mileage, What Mileage Award (Connie): To GM/Chevy for their pricey full page ad in the Times today trumpeting their Cash For Clunkers deals on four vehicles. The ad includes all kinds of info on each model, except it leaves out the mileage ratings. It even leaves out the ratings for the Malibu a popular hybrid due to its has high mpg rating. Wasn't that a main point of CFC? Dumb.
Weill You Were Away Recycling Award (Connie): To, well, Sandy Weill. Bank of America's brokerage unit, Merril Lynch, hired former Citi exec Sally The K to run its wealth management area. Reportedly, former Citi Chair Sandy Weill, who hired Sally to fix Citi's analyst mess a while back, paved the way. He called the embattled B of A Chair Ken Lewis to tell him Sally would be a great hire. Voila! Hey, isn't Sandy the one whose poor strategy created unmanageable Citi in the first place? And, didn't he force Jamie Dimon out of Citi, then hand-pick Chuck Prince as his suck-cessor? And, isn't Saint Jamie brilliantly running JPM Chase now. So a former Citi Chair is helping the hapless competition, B of A? Old bank execs don't even fade away; they just start running someone else's bank.
We Doughnut Believe This Award (Tim, naturally): Not to be outdone by GM its nationalized competitor, Ford's CFO Lewis Booth told reporters this week that, "Cars are like doughnuts. The ones you want to buy are the fresh ones, and they don't get any fresher on dealer lots. We're going to have fresh product." Precisely wrongo, points out our Tim. A new car, with no miles on it, is just as fresh after a year on the lot as the "fresh" one with the same miles. Dealers have only been saying this for a gazzilion years. Plus, you don't eat cars. Ford and GM would do much better to stop the insanity of having new models every year. That's a fresh idea, Lewis. Dumber.
PhD in Corruption Award (Connie and Tim): To the "Trustees" of the University of Illinois. Former Gov Rudy B has nothing on these guys. They ran an admissions process that was parallel, but separate from the official U of I process. The Trustees helped cronies and other well-connected types get their children into the U, even if their qualifications were less than required. Well, talk about being shocked! Imagine college and university trustees actually putting forth their own candidates. So hard to imagine. This could never happen in New York's vaunted U system. You'd catch a NY Governor with a prostitute before you'd ever have a trustee secure a spot in SUNY. PhD-ummest.
Clunk Junk Award (Tim): Cash For Clunkers. Despite the increased mileage of the vehicles replacing the Clunkers in this program, we cannot overlook the many flaws and the frightening idea that healthcare might look like this someday soon. 1) Dealers began the program July 1, but the rules weren't written and the app system wasn't available until July 27. 2) Experts predicted the program would handle 200,000 cars in all of '09; during July alone it handled 250,000. 3) Because of #2, the program's $1B funding, "borrowed" from another budgeted item, disappeared fast. Congress "borrowed" another $2B to keep it going. 4) Taxpayers trading a Clunker for a GM vehicle are getting borrowed tax money to help pay for a car they purchase from a taxpayer-owned company. Funny, if it wasn true.
Inhuman Resources Award (Connie and Tim): the Times reports that many employers have increased the use of credit checks in screening job candidates. Banks and government agencies sold houses and pushed credit cards to people without doing proper credit checks, which got us into this mess in the first place. Now businesses are making it nearly impossible for the hardest hit to get jobs. Young Connie has had five non-paying internships. How will she establish a credit rating before she "retires?" Tim's job was eliminated two years ago, when he was 53. His 401K is gone, his health insurance is gone, his Clunker is gone. How will he re-establish his credit rating so he can get another good job (no offense to Great Buns, but c'mon)? While trying to make Iraq like America, have we instead made America like Iraq, an ungovernable mess of warring tribes and factions?
What is the sound of one hand clapping for these Awards?
Clunk.
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