BCE

Even an atheist like me would rather live in the year of the Lord.

BCE and now CTV boss George Cope

How CEOs became obscenely overpaid, and what can be done about it

Via Paul Kedrosky’s blog, I came across this column by Nouriel Roubini, whose predictions about this financial crisis so far have come true with astonishing precision. He address where he sees the contagion spreading next. In short, first the hedge funds will fall, then private equity firms will crumble:

In the money: Who wins when President Bush doles out $168 billion to stimulate the American economy? Pornographers, it turns out. AIMRCo, a market research company focused on the adult online industry, says many porn websites have aroused interest from new customers since the checks first went out in mid-May. Some sites have experienced a 20-30 per cent growth in membership rates. A spokeswoman for one site said they polled new customers and found one-third were using Bush bucks to buy smut. “Getting more people to buy porn was probably the last thing Bush had on his mind when he came up with his ‘stimulus package,’ but we’ll take it.”

In the money: Google’s stock price may not have hit anywhere near the $1,000 a share many analysts were predicting last year. (In fact, it’s been slogging along in the $550 range). But the company is still dreaming up ways to try and boost its online ad revenue. The latest is a deal with Seth MacFarlane, creator of  the television cartoon The Family Guy.  MacFarlane, the New York Times reports, is working on an Internet animation series (called “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy”) that will appear on thousands of web sites using Google’s advertising system, AdSense. The short, two-minute episodes will appear with ads, facilitated by Google, attached to the beginning, or somehow worked into the videos. Google seems intent on setting up its own little online television network, not just selling ads but distributing the content.  “We feel that we have recreated the mass media,” Google tells the Times. Unlikely. But Google, to its credit, continues to defy its critics by luring ad dollars that once would have gone to television over to the Internet.