Akkam’s Razor

• 5 Web 2.0 Businesses That Will Thrive in a Down Economy - Mashable - [One] of the key factors that separates the wheat from the chaff (in tough times particularly) is perseverance. And as Lee said, in a time where less capitalization may be available, those that do more with less will come out ahead on the other side (and as he and I agree, it’s never been easier to do more with less).

  Necessity is the mother of invention, though, and the need to streamline budgets during a lean time will spell increased demand for certain types of businesses. A few immediately spring to mind, though I’m sure there are many others.

• Market Free Fall: 10 Depressing Facts | Epicenter from Wired.com - The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 678.91 points (-7.33%) Thursday, its seventh consecutive loss.

  Here are 10 less-than-fun facts about to put today's carnage in perspective[...]

• Investing Wiki with Research about Companies, Investment Concepts, and more… -

Popularity: 2% [?]

• Reflecting on the Mirror - Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog - It seems that seeing one’s image causes one to think about one’s behavior and ultimately behave in a more socially desirable way. According to Cialdini, other actions can have a similar effect. Asking people their names can have a similar effect, and one experiment showed that a picture of eyes dramatically reduced “theft” in a break area where employees were supposed to drop money in a jar when they were supposed to pay for coffee or tea.

I’m sure the nativist and xenophobes are quite upset at the loss of American icon Anheuser-Busch to InBev, but fail to notice the contribution of Conservative monetary and fiscal policy - the Belgians were able to purchase AB for 52 billion EUR.  Based on current exchange rates and the weakened dollar, the 52 billion EUR equates to purchasing power equivalent to $82 billion USD.  That’s the equivalent of a 37% discount.  After accounting for the share premium paid to AB (22%), that is still a currency advantage of 15%.

Popularity: 2% [?]

It goes without saying that given the stream of news through this weekend through Monday (Fannie Mae, Fannie Mac, IndyMac, and National City), the most popular post on Akkam’s Razor is this one, detailing my findings in search for the FDIC’s bad bank list.

Popularity: 3% [?]

A couple of semesters ago, I read a Businessweek article on Home Depot then-CEO Bob Nardelli’s plan to turn around Home Depot.  BW glowingly reported on Nardelli’s personnel changes and differing style, with his strong preference for hiring former-military persons in key rolls.  Anecdotally speaking, a masters program classmate who was also a Naval Academy graduate mentioned that Home Depot had indeed made a push for hiring employees who were formerly Officer Grade to run their stores, casting the opportunity as entrepreneurial.  Businessweek gave several hints as to what was coming in their description of Nardelli’s style: