or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
June 02, 2009
Business, As Usual
By: John Caruso
Bloomberg explains the true significance of the loss of hundreds of human lives:
The following companies may have unusual price changes in European trading. Stock symbols are in parentheses, and share prices are from the previous close. [...]
Air France-KLM Group (AF FP): An Airbus A330-200 flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people aboard went missing after reporting an electrical-circuit breakdown and encountering turbulence, the company said. The shares gained 3.5 cents, or 0.3 percent, to 11.26 euros.
— John Caruso
Posted at June 2, 2009 08:00 PMOn Monday Katie Couric said that the US market was up on positive news. She didn't say what news. I'm guessing Wall Street was celebrating breaking the back of the UAW as symbolized by GM's bankruptcy, and CBS and Couric decided it was uncouth to be specific.
(And who knows, maybe some will decide the air disaster is good news for Boeing stock.)
Posted by: Jonathan Versen at June 3, 2009 01:39 PMi guess the point of the post is that killing lots of people doesn't necessarily hurt a company's value, since the air france stock price went up
i'm shocked
Posted by: Not Exactly at June 3, 2009 01:53 PMActually the point is the focus on the share price itself, not which direction it went.
Finally, some honesty in reporting.
Posted by: Michael Hughes at June 3, 2009 07:37 PMAmerica Blog has an interesting article about alleged bomb threats to Air France a few days ago.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at June 3, 2009 08:05 PM"Actually the point is the focus on the share price itself, not which direction it went."
-I don't think they fly those finance flags at half mast too often. This makes me kind of curious when they do.
I had a friend who used to be a trader on the Chicago Stock Exchange, and he said that right after 9/11 his stock broker friends were laughing their asses off when Bush said it would be unpatriotic to buy or sell stocks based on the attacks, and just praying there'd be someone out there stupid enough to listen to him—and the second the market opened again they immediately shorted airline stocks.
That certainly doesn't surprise me. Bush probably got a laugh out of saying that too.
Do you know if the markets shut down after hiroshima or nagasaki? I'd be surprised.
Posted by: Not Exactly at June 4, 2009 11:18 AMWow. And I thought I'd seen some blatant sacrifices to Mammon before. Just wow.
Posted by: grendelkhan at June 5, 2009 09:40 AMwhat's that? are you trying to indicate that the flagship airline of one of the most developed European nation is going through such a financial crisis that made them take such a brutal step. i am shocked. however, the analysis is interesting, i must admit
Posted by: debanjan mukherjee at June 8, 2009 02:25 AM
