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Bargain-hunters seeking a second helping of holiday door-busters get their wish today. Scores of retailers, still reeling from dismal holiday sales, slash rock-bottom prices even further to bait customers during one of the worst shopping season in decades.
Rotten sales and a surplus of inventory led stores like Macy's in New York to open their doors at 6 a.m. today and offer deep discounts on already bargain-basement prices -- J.C. Penney Co. is billing their post-Christmas sale as its biggest ever with twice the number of deals as last year.
"We're shopping, shopping, shopping, getting the sales - at Saks, Macy's," Joy Longhino, 35, of Miami, told the New York Post. "We've never done it before, but we're hoping for some deals with the economy the way it is."
U.S. & World
Sears is offering sales of up to 75 percent off electronics clearance items and buy-one-get-one-half-off of all toys from 7 a.m. until noon, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Thousands of books and calendars are marked 50 to 90 percent off at Barnes and Noble and Neiman Marcus is offering certain styles of Ugg boots for 40 percent off, the paper reported.
Sales plummeted between 5.5 and 8 percent from a year ago due to the weak economy and winter storms that snowed in shoppers across the nation, according to preliminary data from SpendingPulse.
Food sales were strong but clothing sales bottomed out.
Women's clothing purchases dropped 22.7 percent and sales of men's clothes dropped 14.3 percent.Luxury goods -- which is defined as the highest priced tenth of jewelry, clothing and leather goods -- plummeted 34.5 percent, SpendingPulse reported.


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Discovery Communications (DISC.A) (DISCK) took the wraps off its new streaming service Discovery+ this week. But one thing management left out of its presentation was an outlook on how many subscribers it expects to attract and its breakeven timeline. That might make it hard to judge what success looks like for the latest entrant into the streaming wars, especially compared to competitors with massive appeal like Disney's (DIS -0.12%) Disney+ or Netflix (NFLX -1.74%).
What management had to say
There are a few sparse financial and operational details management provided.
The most concrete information Discovery executives shared was an expectation that its investment in streaming marketing, technology, and content would have a negative impact on operating income of between $200 million and $300 million in 2021. The increased expenses will only be partially offset by subscriber and advertising revenue next year.
At scale, however, management expects Discovery+ to produce an operating margin around 20%. To put that in perspective, Netflix's operating margin this year is expected to come in around 18%. And that's with over 200 million global subscribers. Discovery+ won't need that level of scale in order to achieve its margin expectations.
That said, Discovery is expecting a sizable subscriber base. While it didn't provide exact details, the company shared expectations for "tens of millions" of subscribers. It's building on an existing subscriber base of 5.2 million following a launch last month in the U.K. and Ireland, as it seeks to move beyond legacy video-streaming products.
And Discovery expects those subscribers to generate a lot of revenue compared to revenue brought in through pay-TV distribution. Its $7-per-month ad-free subscription is in line with its average monthly distribution revenue for its cable networks in the United States. Management says it's actually three to four times as much as it sees in most international markets. The $5-per-month ad-supported version should generate even more revenue per user when you account for the additional $4 per month per user the company expects from ad sales.
Maximizing long-term potential
Management stressed it's focused primarily on the long-term potential of Discovery+. Early results will dictate its strategy going forward with regard to things like customer acquisition spending and content development.
The company will provide regular updates on its subscriber count, but watching operating margin for the business may be more informative if executives share it. That's to say, if margins remain low in 2022 and 2023, that means Discovery is still seeing opportunities to acquire new customers with very positive lifetime values.
Success doesn't look like a sudden boost to Discovery's bottom line. And that bottom line could suffer considerably next year as cord-cutting continues to hurt its core business while it spends heavily to get Discovery+ off the ground.
That said, Discovery is well positioned to reach breakeven faster than Disney+ or its other big media company competitors. Discovery has a massive back catalog of mostly evergreen content. Additionally, its content costs are significantly lower than Disney or Netflix and the other big-budget scripted content providers. Discovery's content amortization expense through the first nine months of 2020 was $2.1 billion. Netflix amortized $7.8 billion in content during the same period.
CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels said, "We really don't need a crazy number of subscribers to be operating a profitable business here," on Discovery's fourth-quarter 2019 earnings call earlier this year.
Getting off the ground
Discovery's partnering with Verizon in the United States, Sky in the U.K. and Ireland, and Telecom Italia's TIM in Italy. It expects more distribution partners to come, which could be instrumental in building the broad subscriber base Discovery expects.
Disney also partnered with Verizon and Sky. Management said the free year offer from Verizon accounted for about 20% of its early subscribers as of early 2020, about 5.2 million total. To be clear, Verizon is paying Disney for those subscribers, and it'll pay Discovery for any sign-ups in a similar deal.
There's not as much brand affinity for Discovery's networks as for Disney brands, but investors can expect a nice contribution of subscribers from its various partnerships. Combined with the ability to advertise the service across its portfolio of cable networks and digital properties, the company could quickly amass a sizable subscriber base. Management noted it's seen better-than-expected uptake on its offer to Sky customers in the U.K. and Ireland in the first few weeks.
Investors shouldn't expect Discovery+ to be as big as Disney+ or Netflix. But Discovery has a lot more flexibility to make the service a success because it has relatively low content costs. Expanding its addressable market from pay-TV households to broadband households should enable Discovery to succeed in offsetting the negative impact of cord-cutting on its core business and produce a long-term avenue for growth.

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Kylie Jenner also dyed her hair sunshine blonde after Kim Kardashian West called out their hair color competition
Keeping up with the Kardashian-Jenner family is always a lot of fun, especially when it comes to their ever-evolving beauty and style choices. The latest sister to sport a complete beauty switch-up is none other than youngest sister Kylie Jenner. Jenner now has sunshine blonde hair—which was fully inspired by a little friendly competition with her sisters Khloé Kardashian and Kim Kardashian West. Allow us to explain.
Last month, Kardashian West debuted mermaid-length sunny blonde waves on social media, seemingly after Khloé and Kylie declared they wanted to try the color out themselves. She was trying to beat them to it, though they were quick to call her out on the new look being courtesy of a wig.
Based on her Instagram posts, it seems Kardashian West is already back to brunette, because she’s been posting pics with her signature deep brown hair in tow.
Nonetheless, Kylie finally manifested her desire for warm blonde hair, but she really made it her own.
Jenner started out her recent hair color journey with long bronde hair (that’s a mix of blonde and brown) before adding in some buttery blonde highlights toward the ends. The result is a shade we’re already coveting for spring.
It certainly seems like Jenner is loving her new look because she shared several photos of her lightened-up strands on Sunday, March 1st.
As for her sisters, it seems like only Khloé is still twinning with Kylie. On the same day, she shared a selfie of herself looking chic with a mile-long bronde ponytail—although we have no way of knowing just when she snapped the pic.
Kim was spotted with Kourtney in Paris—no blonde hair in sight—taking in a few shows at Paris Fashion Week.
There you have it, folks. Those Kardashian-Jenner sisters always keep us guessing…along with calling our stylists because we’re endlessly inspired by the looks they’re serving.


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When Fair Trade for All moved into the former B'Tween Friends spot on Capitol Drive about four months ago, they didn't do much advertising beyond posting up a sign with their name. But the customers started coming right away, curious about the new addition to the street.
While Fair Trade for All owner Gail Bennett said she and her husband Allen Christian plan to close their Port Washington location where they did not break even, they plan to keep their Shorewood store open at least through May.
"If you can open your business without advertising and have the community rally around it immediately, that is a tell-tale sign," Bennett said.
Though they are still tallying the books, Bennett said sales at the Shorewood store about doubled the sales they were doing in Port Washington every day.
"I think we exceeded what we were anticipating in Shorewood," Bennett said. "That community definitely rallies around its local business, and quickly."
Jim Plaisted, director of the Business Improvement District, said he thinks the store has been successful in Shorewood because of its fair trade mission and ideal location.
"The walkable nature of Shorewood always helps, and it's in a very busy section of Shorewood with the schools and huge traffic generators," Plaisted said. "When people discover the store, it's like finding something they didn't expect when they might have been meeting someone at City Market or going to the Garden Room."
Fair Trade for All, which also has store in Wauwatosa, purchases products from fair trade vendors around the world and also supports local non-profits. This holiday season, they donated a portion of their profits on to Milwaukee BASICS to fight human trafficking in Milwaukee.


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Jan 17, 2017
Sharing information may be a part of strengthening cybersecurity, but it makes payments people a little nervous. That topic was part of the conversation at the recent FS-ISAC Fall Summit. Take On Payments continues the conversation.
Jan 09, 2017
The Year in Review
The U.S. migration to chip cards continued, with chip cards now representing about 70 percent of credit and debit cards. Take On Payments says goodbye to 2016 with a look at this and other payments-related issues that were relevant during the year.


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As reported in Israel21c:
Early detection of skin cancer can save millions of lives and an Israeli company has developed a device that could revolutionize accepted modes of diagnosis. Already the most common form of cancer in the United States, skin cancer is becoming even more widespread as sunlight exposure increases worldwide.
“Early detection is the key to battling the disease. With early detection, almost all forms of skin cancer are curable,” says Col. (ret.) Yossi Biderman, CEO of Skin Cancer Scanning (SCS), an Israeli company that has developed a breakthrough technology using fiber-optic cables to scan for potentially malignant moles.
For the full story click here


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The Number of Unintended Deaths From Car Accidents, Falls and Overdoses in America Grew 40% Between 1999 and 2017
The rate of deaths due to unintentional injuries in the U.S. grew by 40% between 1999 and 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Three mortality line items make up this overall statistic: Deaths from motor vehicle traffic injuries Deaths from unintentional drug overdoses (that is, not including suicides which are defined as “intentional”), and Deaths due to unintentional falls. The line graph illustrates the macro trend on the top-line, with the three specific causes underneath. You see deaths due to falls, motor vehicle accidents, and drug overdoses increased over the eighteen years. Drug overdose death rates began
Of the $401 billion that will flow through retailers for consumer technology products, many of the fastest-emerging categories will play a role as platforms for health and medical care at home and in wearable tech. This is my tea-leaf read from reviewing the projections in the report, U.S. Consumer Technology Sales and Forecasts, July 2019, from the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). [CTA is annual convener of CES, the world’s largest consumer electronics meet-up.] Along with artificial intelligence (AI) and fast 5G networking, the forecast also quantifies growth prospects for smart speakers, home robots, wireless earbuds, smartwatches. and in-vehicle technology —
A “one layered delivery network through which patients can move seamlessly as they age and their needs evolve” will be the new health care platform to meet patients’ demands by 2030, according to a forecast from KPMG’s Healthcare and Life Sciences Institute. In Healthcare 2030: The consumer at the center, the KPMG team explores the demographic shifts and market drivers that will challenge the health care industry in the current U.S. delivery and financing system. The lens on that 2030 future is a consumer-centric delivery model that KPMG believes will be a solution to dealing with a demographic divide between
Today is July 15, and my email in-box is flooded with all flavors of Amazon Prime’d stories in newsletters and product info from ecommerce sites — even those outside of Amazon from beauty retailers, electronics channels, and grocery stores. So I ask on what will probably be among the top ecommerce revenue generating days of all time: “What could health care look like when Amazon Prime’d?” I ask and answer this in my book, HealthConsuming, as chapter 3. For context, this chapter follows two that explain how patients in the U.S. have been morphing into health consumers based on how health
“The Dow Jones Industrial Average was on the brink of claiming a thousand-point milestone for the first time since January 2018, ending the longest period without crossing such a psychologically significant level since the blue-chip benchmark crossed the 19,000 threshold three weeks after Donald Trump was elected president in November 2016,” Mark DeCambre of MarketWatch wrote yesterday morning. He noted that President Trump, “tweeted a simple call-out to the intraday record: ‘Dow just hit 27,000 for first time EVER!'” clipped here from Twitter. Indeed, the U.S. macro-economy has nearly full employment and the stock market hit a high mark this
The health/care ecosystem continues to morph as the stakeholder groups themselves are blurring across and outside of their core businesses. Today’s example of this is Clover Health, which launched Clover Therapeutics this week. This research organization will develop medicines targeting older adults — which makes sense because Clover Health’s target consumer market is Medicare Advantage beneficiaries. “Clover Therapeutics was created to address the significant unmet needs in chronic progressive diseases in the Medicare population,” Cheng Zhang, Head of Clover Therapeutics, is quoted in the press release. The company will first collaborate with Genentech (Roche) to research and develop therapies based
“It’s the prices stupid,” Uwe Reinhardt and Gerard Anderson and colleagues asserted in the title their seminal Health Affairs manifesto on U.S. healthcare spending. Sixteen years later, yesterday on 8th July 2019, a Federal U.S. judge blocked, in the literal last-minute, a DHHS order mandating prescription drug companies to publish “retail prices” of medicines in direct-to-consumer TV ads. I was getting this post on transparency together just before that announcement hit the press, so this post would have had a different nuance yesterday compared with today. And that’s how health care politics and economics in America roll these days. Welcome to
There’s been a “clear lack of progress on health equity during the past 25 years in the United States,” asserts a data-rich analysis of trends conducted by two professors/researchers from UCLA’s School of Public Health. The study was published this week in JAMA Network Open. The research mashed up several measures of health equity covering the 25 years from 1993 through 2017. The data came out of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System looking at trends by race/ethnicity, sex and income across three categories for U.S. adults between 18 and 64 years of age.
“Drugmakers Push Their Prices Higher” is the top story under the Business & Finance banner in today’s Wall Street Journal. That’s in terms of drugs’ list prices, which most patients don’t pay. But drug costs to patients are in the eye of the beholder, who in a high-deductible plan or Medicare Part D donut hole becomes the first-dollar payer. Patients continue to face rising drug costs, pushing them into what I’ve been thinking about as luxury-goods territory. The economic definition of a luxury good is a product for which demand increases more than proportionally as income rises, so that spending
A Matter of Trust, Perception, Risk, and Uncertainty – The Big Issues Raised by the Acquisition of PatientsLikeMe and Other Patient Data Transactions
By Susannah Fox, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn and Lisa Suennen I’ve lived long enough to have learned The closer you get to the fire the more you get burned But that won’t happen to us Cause it’s always been a matter of trust A Matter of Trust, by Billy Joel If you’re in health care and don’t live under a rock, you have probably heard that United Health Group (UHG) has acquired PatientsLikeMe (PLM). After the announcement, there was a lot of sound and fury, some of which signified nothing, as the saying goes, and some which signified a lot.


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Diageo removed from government scheme
Diageo has been removed from a government scheme after failing to pay in line with the Prompt Payment Code.
Four entities owned by the drinks giant have been removed from the code after they failed to meet agreed terms to pay suppliers’ bills within 60 days.
Speaking to db, a Diageo spokesperson said: “While the code has changed, our commitment to ensuring all suppliers are paid on time has not. In our latest report, 97% of our SME suppliers and 93% of all suppliers were paid on time. We will continue to work hard on our payment practices, with an acute focus on SME suppliers, reflecting the original intent of the code.”
According to the small business commissioner Liz Barclay who runs the voluntary scheme, Diageo was reportedly delisted from the programme however could have withdrawn voluntarily had someone from the company chosen to communicate with her.
The code terms require firms to pay 95% of invoices within 30 days to their smallest suppliers and 95% of all invoices within 60 days, however, according to Barclay, Diageo was paying fewer than one in three of its invoices within 60 days.
The small business minister Paul Scully said that big companies missing these payments such as Diageo should “get their acts together” reminding that “as our small businesses recover from the pandemic, the last thing they need is for some big firms to hold back cash owed to them.”
Barclay has reportedly called the payment performance of Diageo “disappointing” and reminded that “the code is there to make sure that suppliers get paid as quickly as possible and when firms leave or are removed there is a risk that payments to suppliers will be slower.”
Diageo is the world’s biggest spirits maker and sells 200 products in about 180 countries.


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Google has partnered with various Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) such as HTC, Samsung, LG to provide a series of mobile devices under the brand name Google Nexus. These devices work on the Android Operating System that has been developed by Google.
Development Process :-
After entering the smart phone market with a series of Nexus phones Google started to focus on developing a tablet to add in the Nexus series and stand in direct competition with Apple’s Ipad. The idea of Nexus was formed at Las Vegas in a meeting between Google and Asus wherein Google asked Asus to develop a tablet which could be marketed under USD 200. Once the idea had been conceptualised Asus engineers were sent to Google headquarters in California and after a hectic four month development period the mass production began in May 2012.
The Nexus 7 was uncovered in San Francisco at annual developer conference on 27th June 2012 and pre-orders were taken the same day. On the same day it was revealed that Android had come up with version 4.1 and had nicknamed it Jellybean. The price for 8 GB was revealed at USD 199 with a credit of USD 25 which could be used at Google Play. The first shipping of the pre-ordered tablets began on 13th July 2012 and the tablets were released in different countries on different day over a period of almost 4 months.
Nexus 7 has Nvidia Tegra 3 SoC with 1.3 Cortex-A9 quad-core CPU, 1 GB RAM and internal storage of 8, 16 or 32 GB. (The 8 GB version has been discontinued). The screen measure 7 inches diagonally and has a scratch resistant glass. The touchscreen has a aspect ratio of 16:10, 1280 x 800 pixels and 10 multi-touching points. It has a 1.2 MP front camera, a microphone, GPS and a magnetometer. In order to improve the grip and comfort of holding the device the back of Nexus 7 has a plastic surface which is dimpled and the texture is rubbery and leathery.
The Nexus 7 is the first device to have the Jelly Bean version of Android. At the time of the launch the version which was installed was Android 4.1 which was upgraded to Android 4.2.2 in November 2012. It has many default applications such as Gmail, You Tube, Google Maps, Google Calendar etc.
The 16 GB version is available in the market at USD 199 while the 32 GB version is priced at USD 249
· T3’s Gadget of the Year in 2012
· T3’s Tablet of Year in 2012
· Best Mobile Tablet at GSMA World Mobile Congress 2013.


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The Office of Management and Budget directed agencies to decrease all travel spending in fiscal 2013 by 30 percent compared with fiscal 2010. (Paul J. Richards / AFP via Getty Images)
The General Services Administration will freeze per diem rates at current levels for 2013, with only a few exceptions.
Freezing the reimbursement rates for lodging, meals and incidentals will avoid an estimated $20 million in costs in 2013 and help agencies meet the Obama administration’s directives to reduce travel costs government-wide, GSA said in a news release last week.
The Office of Management and Budget directed agencies to decrease all travel spending in fiscal 2013 by 30 percent compared with fiscal 2010.
“GSA is undergoing a rigorous review process to find ways in which we can streamline agency operations and save money across the government,” said acting GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini in a statement. “By keeping per diem rates at current levels, we are supporting federal agencies in controlling costs and ensuring that taxpayer dollars are used wisely.”
Industry experts say the freeze is essentially a rate decrease for hotels because the federal per diem rate is not keeping up with commercial rates. “We know that travel demand and hotel room prices are going up, so a freeze is essentially a cut,” said Erik Hansen, director of domestic policy for the U.S. Travel Association.
Commercial rates are up about 5 percent over last year, said Shawn McBurney, senior vice president of governmental affairs at American Hotel and Lodging Association. Since the government’s per diem rate is already 5 percent under commercial rates, the freeze essentially comes to a 10 percent discount for the federal traveler, he said.
There will be a few exceptions to the freeze on per diem rates.
Ten regions now covered by the standard per diem rate of $123 — which provides $77 for lodging and $46 for meals and incidental expenses — will get their own higher rates in Oct. 1. They are:
Bakersfield/Ridgecrest, Calif. — $86 for lodging; $51 for meals.
Stockton, Calif. — $83 for lodging; $56 for meals.
Hancock and Pearl River counties, Miss. — $82 for lodging; $56 for meals.
Sidney/Glendive, Mont. — $90-$96 for lodging; $56 for meals.
Dickinson/Beulah, N.D. — $104-$118 for lodging; $56 for meals.
Minot, N.D. — $100-$112 for lodging; $56 for meals.
Williston, N.D. — $90-$96 for lodging; $56 for meals.
Carlsbad, N.M. — $89 for lodging; $51 for meals.
Watertown, N.Y. — $99 for lodging; $56 for meals.
Pasco, Wash. — $93 for lodging; $46 for meals.
GSA’s decision to freeze all but a handful of per diems rates appears to signal that the agency has dropped, for now, a controversial proposal to adopt a new methodology for calculating per diems that would have resulted in large decreases.
“By their freezing the rates, we’re not thrilled, but it’s a much less harmful option that they took instead of changing the methodology,” McBurney said.
Travel industry sources told Federal Times last month that GSA was looking at removing costly hotels from the sampling of lodging rates it analyzes each year when calculating per diems. The proposed method would have led to per diems as much as 30 percent lower in some places than current rates, sources familiar with the proposal said.
Some hotels may not have accepted lower federal per diem rates, which means federal travelers would have had to either pay out of pocket or pick hotels farther away from urban areas where federal facilities and conference centers are typically located, industry experts said.
“We recognized that this could be devastating to not only the hotel industry, but also to the federal travel system,” McBurney said. “That would just throw things into complete disarray.”


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Italian prosecutor seeks jail for Dolce and Gabbana in tax case
Thursday, May 30, 2013 - 00:30
Italian fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana face possible jail sentences for alleged tax evasion. Edward Baran reports.
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A Milan prosecutor said Wednesday that top Italian fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana should be jailed for two and a half years for alleged tax evasion.
Dolce and Gabbana are accused of not declaring taxes on royalties of about 1 billion euros in one of the few high-profile tax cases to go to court in Italy.
The designers, who count pop singers Kylie Minogue, Madonna and model Naomi Campbell among their clients and draw inspiration from Italy's "sweet life" style of the 1950s, have denied the charges.
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The industry is betting big on denim for back-to-school.
This story first appeared in the July 16, 2009 issue of WWD. Subscribe Today.
In a landscape pockmarked with liquidations, reduced inventories and discounting, retailers and brands are targeting denim as the vehicle to drive sales in the year’s second most important selling season.
Gap Inc. and Guess Inc. are going back to their heritage for fall and stressing denim in their merchandise plans, and Levi Strauss & Co. thinks an uptick in denim interest will help turn around lagging volume. A shift toward more affordable prices in many lines should also prove attractive to shoppers who have pulled back on spending because of the recession.
Early forecasts on the season aren’t upbeat, but denim has shown resilience during the downturn.
The National Retail Federation’s b-t-s survey found the average family with children in kindergarten through high school will spend $548.72, a drop of 7.7 percent from $594.24 last year. Although this figure includes anticipated spending on everything from pencils and Trapper Keepers to computers, it’s certain that consumers will be hunting down sales in almost every spending category.
No less an authority than J. Crew Group Inc. chairman and chief executive officer Millard “Mickey” Drexler has said the jeans market is saturated at cheaper price points and at $125 and above. However, Drexler, who this week launched the Madewell ’37s jeans collection, also thinks there’s an opening in the middle for “cool, well-made, well-designed jeans at $59.50 and up to $100.”
The recession “has clearly changed the spending habits of American families, which will likely create a difficult back-to-school season for retailers,” said Tracy Mullin, president and chief executive officer of the NRF. “As people focus primarily on price, strong promotions and deep discounts will ultimately win over back-to-school shoppers this year.”
College freshmen may present the best opportunity. The NRF survey found freshmen will spend $820.77 on average getting ready for school. Almost $180 of that will be spent on apparel and shoes.
While the overall outlook may be weak, the denim category has proven itself a performer, and brands and retailers are counting on that momentum to carry through the fall.
The women’s denim market managed to grow for the 12 months through March, according to The NPD Group, a market research firm. Women’s jeans sales totaled $8.03 billion during that time, a 4.6 percent increase over the $7.68 billion reported in the same period the previous year. In comparison, overall sportswear sales fell 3.1 percent to $72.51 billion from $74.81 billion. The number of jeans sold also increased, rising 6.4 percent to 342.6 million from 322.1 million.
For fall, brands and retailers are looking to capitalize on a style shift towards vintage and distressed looks to build buzz in the category. Several major retailers are also looking at fall denim collections as a way to reassert themselves as go-to denim authorities.
Gap Inc. will introduce an overhaul of its denim offerings next month as part of the company’s makeover effort. The new 1969 Premium Jeans collection was unveiled in April, and is designed to reflect current trends.
“We’ve been going through every category and asking ourselves, ‘Is it right for today?’” Patrick Robinson, Gap’s executive vice president of design, told WWD in April, noting that revamping denim has been his priority. “Gap is the iconic American brand, so you start with jeans and T-shirts.”
Robinson enlisted a team of premium denim experts from lines in the $150 to $500 range and challenged them to apply their skills within Gap’s price parameters: under $60. The results include a range of styles, including the hallmark women’s always skinny jeans and the now ubiquitous boyfriend jeans, and men’s skinny and straight cuts, as well as some extras, such as denim shoes by Pierre Hardy, hats by Albertus Swanepoel and tops. The major message is bottoms with a focus on fit.
“Across the board, we want it to feel sexy and authentic,” Robinson said.
Glenn Murphy, Gap’s chairman and ceo, made it clear in a conference call with analysts in May that he was counting on a strong denim showing.
“Our heritage category is denim,” he said. “It’s nice to come back every now and then and reclaim your rightful position and make some noise and let people know that not only do you have the fit and the washes and the selection people are looking for, which is obviously critical in this business, but I think there’s also a good value message when it comes to Gap.”
Guess is employing a similar strategy. This spring, the company said it would look to turn consumers’ attention back to Guess’ denim heritage. As part of that effort, management hopes to take advantage of shifting consumer spending habits by tailoring its denim assortment to those shoppers looking for greater value from premium denim.
Guess will increase the percentage of denim in company stores to 40 percent from 30 percent, space that will be freed as Guess replaces tailored jackets, pants and skirts, as well as fancy shirts and dresses. However, dresses will still appear in holiday collections.
The company’s focus is now on a midtier price zone between $108 and $148, which co-founder Paul Marciano believes will enable Guess to grab market share from other labels. The company reopened its SoHo flagship in Manhattan over the July 4 weekend, redesigning the space to help push denim.
“We feel denim is in the roots of our brand and our company, so it is very well represented,” said Carlos Alberini, president and chief operating officer of Guess Inc.
There’s also been a strong move toward washed out and distressed looks. Brean Murray, Carret & Co. retail analyst Eric Beder said the shift is already evident in stores.
“Although overall newness remains limited throughout the premium denim segment, we are seeing increasing evidence that there has been a shift back to destroyed denim, with rips and tears becoming more of the mix at key players,” Beder said in a June 29 mall report.
Beder believes this will benefit one premium player in particular. “Given True Religion’s initial success as a destroyed denim pioneer, we believe this bodes well for the company,” he said.
Beder has also found consumers reacting strongly to distressed denim at teen retailers like Abercrombie & Fitch and American Eagle. Getting consumers to pay full price for it is proving difficult in the summer, which could be a bad sign for fall.
The distressed trend has already worked its way through the denim pricing spectrum. While discussing second-quarter earnings results on Tuesday, Levi Strauss & Co. president and ceo John Anderson said the company was seeing consumers gravitate towards two distinct styles.
“The consumer, depending on the wearing occasion, is either wearing a clean, more polished finish or going to the opposite extreme,” Anderson said.
He added that straight and skinny styles continued to be the dominant trend. Anderson also believes Levi’s stands to benefit in the current environment.
“I think consumers are going back to brands they trust, brands they know, brands they can rely on,” he said. “We clearly align with those consumer expectations.”
However, Robert Hanson, president of Levi Strauss Americas, remained cautious about his outlook for the b-t-s season. While not providing specific guidance, Hanson said retailers were adamant about keeping inventories low, as they have been for some time.
Levi’s is responding by working with its wholesale customers and positioning itself to respond quickly if sales should be stronger than expected.


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Land Rover Frisco is celebrating the Range Rover’s 45th birthday this month, adding just one more reason to give praise and admiration for the world’s most desirable luxury SUV.
So far 2015 has seen quite a many highlights for Land Rover. At the New York International Auto Show in March, Land Rover revealed the exclusive SVAutobiography as well as the landmark six millionth Land Rover, the Range Rover Vogue SE, which rolled off the Solihull production line in April.
Over the last 45 years Range Rover has delivered a series of industry firsts as it has evolved into the unmatched SUV we know today. As well as introducing a plethora of advanced technologies, many of which have since become industry standards, the original Classic model was cited as an “exemplary work of industrial design” when it became the first vehicle to be displayed at the world famous Louvre museum in Paris.
The Range Rover sits at the pinnacle of the Land Rover brand and matches class-leading off-road capability with a range of state-of-the-art gas, diesel and Hybrid powertrains to deliver an unrivalled blend of refinement, comfort and capability.
Nick Rogers, Jaguar Land Rover Director Global Engineering Operations, said: “Range Rover was the first luxury SUV in the world in 1970 and 45 years on it continues to lead the way. The latest model is the most desirable and sophisticated Land Rover ever, mixing peerless comfort with cutting edge technology to provide the ultimate luxury SUV experience.”
Range Rover’s epic journey began in the sixties as Land Rover looked to revolutionize the growing 4×4 leisure market, and now in its 4th generation, it is still crowned as the original luxury all-terrain vehicle and will continue to be a force to be reckoned with in the coming years ahead.
All of us here at Land Rover Frisco are extremely proud to help sponsor the 19th Annual Links Fore Leukemia Golf Tournament and the inaugural Helicopter Golf Ball Drop!
The 19th Annual Links Fore Leukemia Golf Tournament is set to take place on Monday, June 29, 2015 at the Stonebriar Country Club in Frisco, Texas. All proceeds benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), the world’s largest voluntary health agency dedicated to blood cancer.
Drop Golf balls are now available for purchase for the chance to win the $2,000 grand prize! Think of the helicopter golf ball drop like a raffle that falls from the sky. The public will have the opportunity to purchase a golf ball or a set of golf balls leading up to the tournament. Each purchaser will be assigned a number or set of numbers that corresponds to their purchased golf ball(s). On tournament day, a helicopter will hover over the drop site, where the purchased golf balls will be dropped from the helicopter. The purchaser of the golf ball that lands in the cup or closest to the pin, will win the grand prize of $2,000! There will also be a cocktail hour, silent auction, lunch, and awards reception following the tournament.
To purchase drop balls please click here, and if you would like to learn more about Links Fore Leukemia as well as event details, please visit their website at www.linksforeleukemiadallas.org
We look forward to seeing you at the tournament, as well as at Land Rover Frisco in the heart of Frisco, Texas soon!
Now here is something that certainly proves that Land Rover strives to go above and beyond, not only for its customers, but for the ultimate good of the driving world.
Land Rover is now developing a series of sensors that can detect when a car goes over a pothole and then relay that information both to local road authorities, which could go out and repair them, and to other vehicles, which could warn drivers of a pothole’s presence or adjust their suspension to make travel smoother. Land Rover also says the tech will be able to detect broken drain covers and raised manhole covers, and it believes the tech will ultimately reduce damage to vehicles.
This fascinating and highly impressive technology is still in its testing phase, but incorporating it into the Land Rover system should be a cinch. The idea is to add on a forward-facing camera, potentially allowing its car to scan the road ahead, but it’s also relying on information from the car’s suspension and GPS to upload and dish out the data.
Land Rover views detecting potholes as a step toward a more fully autonomous car. “In the future, we are looking to develop systems that could automatically guide a car around potholes without the car leaving its lane and causing a danger to other drivers,” Mike Bell, Jaguar Land Rover’s connected car director, says in a statement. “If the pothole hazard was significant enough, safety systems could slow or even stop the car to minimize the impact.”
The “pothole protector” is currently being tested on the Range Rover Evoque, but Land Rover’s vision is to eventually help all connected cars out there on the open, and war-torn, roads.


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INSOLVENCY FIRM MCR has been sold to US-based financial consultancy business Duff & Phelps.
Top 25 firm MCR will join Duff & Phelps’ network of 28 offices located around the world.
For the 12 months ending 30 June 2011, MCR earned approximately £21m in revenues and had about 150 staff.
“It’s an exciting time to take advantage of the synergies between our two like-minded organisations, as restructuring advisory services are needed across the United States and Europe,” said Andrew Stoneman, managing partner at MCR.
“Acting together, we are also well positioned to assist with cross-border situations and to help clients navigate business environments that span multiple industries, geographies and regulatory systems.”
MCR was formed in April 2001 and has eight partners. The latest acquisition will see the firm offer valuation, transactions and taxation advise to international companies.
We discuss the Accountancy Age Top 50+50 supported by Sage; growth at Menzies; and the provision of value-added services
Insolvency and business recovery firm Gibson Hewitt has recruited a new manager from one of the UK’s top four accountancy practices
Following the merger with Harris Lipman in July 2015 the firm’s 2015-16 financial figures reveal Mezies has hit £40m for the first time, a 20% increase on last year’s results
RSM has announced the appointment of a record 350 trainees across all locations in the UK – expanding the total headcount of the firm by 10%


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the unicorn in captivity iphone case
the unicorn in captivity iphone case
The Justice Department declined to comment for the Wall Street Journal article, and was unable to be reached for comment from CNET News. It would likely be difficult to prove that telecom providers have violated the antitrust Sherman Act, experts say. Newer technology and new competitors like cable companies are now jockeying against traditional phone companies. But the phone companies do wield a great deal of power, in terms of both assets and political clout. One thing seems clear, halfway into President Obama's first year in office--major phone companies may be scrutinized more than they had been during the previous administration.
Apple's iPhone X has faced production problems, One student reportedly assembled up to 1,200 iPhone X cameras a day, Demand for the iPhone X is "off the charts," according to Apple, but supply problems have plagued the launch of the company's new superphone, which went on sale earlier this month, Manufacturers reportedly aren't building the 3D sensors for the phone's facial recognition camera technology fast enough the unicorn in captivity iphone case to keep up with yield, forcing factories to bring on more workers, This is far from the first time Foxconn has come under scrutiny for its labor practices, Back in 2012, reports of riots, suicides and poor working conditions at Foxconn factories came to light, forcing Apple to ask the Fair Labor Association to step in and inspect factory conditions..
It may come as a surprise to most U.S. consumers that HTC and Motorola are not the only makers of Android smartphones. In Europe and Asia, other manufacturers, such as LG, have gotten onboard as well. One of LG's latest Android phones is the GT540. It runs Android 1.6, but it is a quad-band phone with dual-band UMTS and HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, which means it can theoretically run on U.S. 3G bands. It has a nice 3-inch display, plus three physical keys underneath. Read preview from CNET Australia. The Samsung Wave came to light in February 2010 at Mobile World Congress. It is the first phone to carry Samsung's new Bada OS. It has a 3.3-inch AMOLED touch-screen display with TouchWiz 3.0, and a slim design at only 0.42 inch deep.
CNET también está disponible en español, Don't the unicorn in captivity iphone case show this again, Peyerl may have plenty of company, With news of WorldCom's financial shenanigans and its pending 17,000 layoffs sending shockwaves through world markets, thousands of customers and partners are wondering whether it might be best to take their business elsewhere, It's a difficult calculation, A substantial number of WorldCom rivals, in the United States and elsewhere, are also facing bankruptcy or financial investigations, WorldCom, with its international network and respected UUNet data division, has typically provided trustworthy service for many technology and communications customers, despite the last few months of financial turmoil, But now there's no guarantee..
Via specializes in cut-rate processors that are largely sold in developing nations. In China, for instance, many manufacturers bundle Via's chips with computers running Microsoft's ancient DOS operating system. Other chipmakers, such as Intel, have yet to announce their Bluetooth intentions. Via has licensed the networking technology from Ericsson and is deciding whether it will add it to chips for cell phones and computers. The company licensed Bluetooth designs on Tuesday from telecommunications equipment maker Ericsson, which controls most of the technology's patents. Via will spend the next three months deciding what to do next, such as whether or not to embed Bluetooth into its chipsets, said Gaynor de Wit, Via's marketing specialist.
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DjVu Software Pricing Comparision
two years ago and today
An comparison by PlanetDjVu, March 21, 2003
DjVu Encoding and Editing Software today is 4 - 10 times higher than it was two years ago, and unlimited output is a thing of the past.
Basis of this Comparison:
Two years ago, LizardTech published their prices for DjVu products. Today, they do not, but we have learned what the prices are (approximately) from the GSA Schedule, as reported in an earlier news item. The earlier DjVu product prices are still listed on a webpage at Indiana University, and we use this to compare DjVu product prices (and names) with those offered by LizardTech today.
Two years ago Today


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As one of the world's most recognisable video game characters, Sonic is a hot property when it comes to promotional opportunities – as is evidenced by his latest match-up in Sega's smartphone title Sonic Dash.
However, while Sonic has previously rubbed shoulders with Mario (in the Olympic Games series) and Pac-Man (a past Sonic Dash crossover), this latest collaboration might leave some fans scratching their heads.
Say hello to Bongo, the monkey mascot of Danimals, a brand of yoghurt aimed at young kids. He's coming to Sonic Dash thanks to a promotion involving special Danimals products, including yoghurt pouches and smoothies.
By purchasing these products, players can unlock Bongo as a playable character in the game; simply scan the QR code on the back of the packs to download Sonic Dash and then complete the tutorial level, and all kinds of simian-related tomfoolery can be yours.
Even those who have no interest in Bongo can take part; the Sonic Dash-branded Danimals packs also unlock new character customizations, such as 'Pirate Sonic' and 'Captain Shadow'. You access these by collecting all four birthday-themed items on the track, one of which is a Danimals smoothie pack.
Ivo Gerscovich, chief brand officer for Sonic the Hedgehog and senior vice president at Sega of America, had this to say about the news:
Danimals is a household name in the food and beverage industry, and a favorite among kids everywhere, so we're thrilled to partner up with them as part of Sonic's 30th anniversary celebration. By integrating the packaging with Sonic Dash, we're able to offer Sonic fans an exciting new way to collect new characters in the game and experience Danimals unlike they ever have before — in the Sonic universe.
We haven't had a mainline Sonic game since 2017. Just sayin'.


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Managers of Covered California may require individual exchange plan issuers to accept cash payments through neighborhood utility offices or other brick-and-mortar offices.
The managers discuss payment options in a premium payment report in a packet for an upcoming board meeting.
All of the 12 sellers of individual “qualified health plans” (QHPs) will be taking personal checks, cashier’s checks, money orders, Visa, MasterCard, debit cards and electronic fund transfers.
Five issuers will take the Discover card, and two will take American Express payments.
Half will take cash.
In the dental plan market, all six carriers have agreed to take personal checks, cashier’s checks, money orders, Visa, MasterCard, debit card payments and electronic fund transfers, but only half will take Discover or American Express cards. None will take cash.
California exchange officials estimate that about 1 million state residents have no bank accounts.
Officials fear letting QHP issuers choose whether to take cash could lead to antiselection problems.
Eventually, “Covered California and the plans want to implement common payment processes that will foster the enrollment and retention of all individuals, with particular attention to those who are unbanked,” officials said.


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Global ports operator DP World, and the Government of Senegal, have laid the first stone to mark the start of the construction of the new Port of Ndayane.
The stone laying ceremony follows the concession agreement signed in December 2020 between the two sides to build and operate a new port, about 50 km from the existing Port of Dakar.
The ceremony was attended by Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal, and Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Group Chairman and CEO of DP World.
The investment of more than US$1 billion in two phases to develop Port Ndayane, is DP World’s largest port investment in Africa to date, and the largest single private investment in the history of Senegal.
The infrastructure project reflects the growing partnerships between Dubai and African markets aimed at supporting development in the continent.
"With the Port of Ndayane, Senegal will have state-of-the-art port infrastructure that will reinforce our country's position as a major trade hub and gateway in West Africa. It will unlock significant economic opportunities for local businesses, create jobs, and increase Senegal’s attractiveness to foreign investors," said President Sall.
"Today’s laying of the first stone not only marks the start of construction, but also turning the vision of President Sall, into reality," said Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem.
Phase 1 of the development of the port will include a container terminal with 840m of quay and a new 5km marine channel designed to handle two 336m vessels simultaneously, and capable of handling the largest container vessels in the world.
It will increase container handling capacity by 1.2 million Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) a year.
In phase 2, an additional container quay of 410m will be developed.
DP World’s plans also include the development of an economic/industrial zone next to the port and near the Blaise Diagne International Airport, creating an integrated multimodal transportation, logistics and industrial hub.


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If you haven’t been paying attention in the past month, NFT coins or non-tangible coins have rapidly become a focal point for investors due to user demand for transacting digital goods. Blockchain is becoming more intertwined with creating a secure marketplace to transact digital assets such as collectible or digital art pieces. Enjin coin has rallied to a new all-time high of $0.68, rallying over 52%, according to CoinMarketCap.
NFT tokens had first become popular in 2018 when Dapper released CryptoKitties, a popular blockchain game that happened to clog the entire Ethereum Network for the first time in 2018. With the continual emergence of virtual goods and unique collectibles in the blockchain space, Enjin seems to be at the forefront of it. In the past month, Enjin has announced they’ve created over 2.15 billion assets on their network, including assets for the popular game Minecraft as a plug-in.
Enjin Coin and the future of blockchain games
Founded in Singapore in 2009, Enjin owns multiple assets such as Enjin Network, Efinity, and ultimately Enjin Coin, which was released to create one-of-kind tokens that store unique value. Built on the Ethereum blockchain, the ENJ token is an ERC20 token used across multiple online games and websites.
ENJ is used in the gaming ecosystem to create unique in-game economies, and they can be traded, swapped while recording a unique ID for each token released. In short, Enjin provided a safety net for games to prevent fraud when transferring assets and digital goods and was the first tokens to use Ethereum’s Raiden Network.
Enjin is one of the only blockchain companies that bypassed Japan’s strict regulatory system and became the first gaming cryptocurrency used in the nation. With an imminent listing on January 26th on the Japanese Coincheck exchange, being the only gaming cryptocurrency listed on the exchange, users can purchase the token in Japanese Yen and help increase adoption in a country that is well versed in pop culture gaming.
The company has been very active at the start of 2021. They integrated the Enjin token into Minecraft and spawning one-of-a-kind Amazon Azure heroes supported by the Enjin blockchain. Amazon AzureScrolling through their Twitter page, it’s easy to understand why NTF completion with games like Minecraft where users can earn ENJ coins.
The token integrated with the Binance Smart Change, becoming available on the DeFi Swap, and has became part of the Binance NFT education campaign. They’ve recently launched an AMA with Binance teaching users about NFT coins, their usage, and clarity to anyone interested in learning about token security.
Digital goods on the blockchain
In 2018, CryptoKitties was the first blockchain game that highlighted the bottlenecks in the Ethereum network. Blockchains have worked to decrease latency work on increasing transaction speeds. What also happened was that developers and entrepreneurs discovered a new way of using blockchain to aid the growing digitalization.
Gamification and the need to transact unique virtual assets are becoming more appealing to everyday users. The same developers of CryptoKitties, Dapper Labs, partnered up with NBA and published collectible cards in the form of short video clips using NFT tokens.
Collectors and everyday users jump on the NFT bandwagon and crash websites before releasing their virtual collectibles. It shows that digitally secured goods are becoming a necessity, and blockchain solutions such as Enjin can benefit from the growing demand. If you’re still not convinced, a unique piece of Lebron James just sold for $208,000.
On the Flipside
- Digital goods will lose interest once the bull run is over, and people will fear blockchain once more.
- Enjin coin can face backlash if the gas price continues to increase and won’t scale quickly enough.
The Enjin token future
Looking at the price increase and the growing demand for NFT tokens, Enjin has a bright future seeing how it entered a market where games are part of the everyday culture. Their market appreciation is linked to their progress and the growing demand for integrating games with the blockchain.


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Hat tip to BizEngine, where two of the articles in this roundup first found port in the form of Small Business Today.
We’ve got three articles in all for today’s rundown of small business news, so let’s get started:
- The battle between banks and small businesses over debit card swipe fees, which we covered about a month ago, is still ongoing. Many lawmakers want to delay the implementation of legislation that would significantly cut into the fees banks and credit unions collect from debit card swipes, but small businesses and their larger counterparts stand in staunch opposition as they try to put together the capital and revenues needed to get out of the recession. The rules are set to take effect on July 21, but until then, the battles rages on.
- The American service industry grew yet again, though its growth flagged somewhat in March, according to msnbc.com. The manufacturing index also expanded, which experts in the article say means the economy is slowly by steadily growing. Music to my ears!
- Our third item is an interesting take on what social media has become, delivered with grating writing by ZDNet’s Tom Foremski. While I’m not necessarily a fan of the way he approaches the topic, Foremski’s larger point is an excellent one: The idea of a social media marketplace where everyone freely interacts has taken a backseat to worshiping at the altar of the Twitter elite. In fact, Foremski notes, some 20,000 Twitter users account for 50 percent of all Tweets, even though there millions upon millions of users. The fact that the landscape is still dominated by media, social media mavens and celebrities tells Foremski that it isn’t quite as social as originally thought. Hard to argue that point, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be using the technology to help get your company’s message out.
Any tips for future roundups? You know how to tell us.
Photo credit to mcgrath197 at http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=252978


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If you carry around sensitive information on your iPhone, you could soon have one less reason to panic.
This week Business Insider reported that Apple has filed a patent to activate “panic mode” when unlocking your iPhone using a designated finger. Once your iPhone is unlocked using the secret panic mode method, the device would automatically limit access to personal information, reset the device altogether or activate preset actions.
Since Touch ID can register several different fingerprints, the patent suggests that iPhone users could designate a specific fingerprint (let’s say, your left thumb) to unlock the iPhone in “panic mode.” This would then make your left thumb your secret “panic finger.” According to the patent filed in May, using the panic finger would alert your iPhone that you are in distress or in an emergency situation, and your phone would respond accordingly.
Panic mode would give iPhone users a new range of security settings when forced to unlock their devices using Touch ID. For example, an iPhone in panic mode could be set to automatically take photos of the assailant and send them along with your GPS coordinates to the authorities securely over iCloud. Another panic mode scenario could have your iPhone send out distress signals to nearby iPhones. The panic finger could also be used to unlock an iPhone and immediately have it place an emergency call.
Why this matters: Apple’s patent filing suggests that panic mode could be a way for users to keep their private information secure in the case that their iPhone is being stolen. Touch ID is now used not only to unlock an iPhone but also to authorize Apple Pay.
With all the different emergency scenarios presented in the patent, it’s easy to think of other quick actions that can be implemented to improve the safety of iPhone users all over the world. For example, how about activating a panic mode setting to secretly place an emergency call to 911 that instantly provides your name and location without you having to utter a word.
But just because Apple has filed this patent, however, doesn’t mean that this technology will be coming to the iPhone 7. It just means that if another phone-maker implements this technology in the near future, Apple can take them to court and say they thought of it first.


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It’s no secret that the impacts of Philadelphia’s long and tragic history of redlining and disinvestment are still hurting its Black residents today. Neighborhoods where communities of color have lived have lost opportunities to green spaces, clean air, quality education and healthy food retailers. Redlining and disinvestment have been linked to higher rates of crime, violence and policing.
Yet not enough study has been done into the connections between redlining, incarceration and food access. As I found during my own research at Drexel University, examining these interlinked problems shows how marginalized groups are victims of both unjust policing and unhealthy circumstances.
As Dr. Ashante Reese writes, “A contemporary abolitionist practice must create the conditions for healthy communities. To that end, the work of nourishing people and building just food systems is necessary.”
To target redlining and low access to healthy food, policy makers in Philadelphia and nationwide must reduce poverty, create accessible and affordable food production, address the impacts of climate change on food, and reverse the links between food, policing, and incarceration.
How food systems feed into the carceral system
The process of redlining Philadelphia neighborhoods in the 1930s — marking poor, Black and immigrant neighborhoods as hazardous and ineligible for mortgages — has contributed to many of the risk factors for poor health for Black Philadelphians. Redlined neighborhoods are at higher risk for gun violence and food apartheid. With less access to food staples, people are more likely to steal, especially during the pandemic. This predictably leads to more encounters with police and the carceral justice system.
The violence of food apartheid is exactly why the term has replaced “food desert” in recent years. The way apartheid systemically works to oppress people of lower social mobility makes it an apt descriptor for how food access is mapped out in neighborhoods.
Many Philadelphia neighborhoods can also be described as food swamps. A majority of the city’s food stores sell only unhealthy foods, and the density of these stores increases as the neighborhood income decreases. Across Philadelphia, the number of stores selling unhealthy foods outnumbers the number of stores selling healthy foods by nearly 10 to 1.
Neighborhoods that have a history of disinvestment are not just losing access to healthy foods, but also have disproportionate access to foods that can lead to health issues and illnesses. According to experts, adults over 50 who live in food swamps had a higher risk of stroke compared to those who do not.
The corner stores that sell these unhealthy foods also have multiple links to the carceral justice system. Many of them do not accept SNAP and EBT — which eliminates many poor people’s ability to shop there. But not only are such stores often a neighborhood’s only food source, their relative affordability leaves many people with few other options.
Worse, they are also overpoliced because both employees and police tend to assume the worst when dealing with Black, poor and homeless residents. The visibility of corner stores contributes to them being targeted by the police. They become “third places” in neighborhoods that lack parks, community centers and other spaces where residents can congregate. Because it is the only place to gather, criminal activity often ends up occurring there.
Living under food apartheid is made even more difficult for people who are limited to using food stamps to buy food. According to a congressional report on social services, SNAP is subject to the “drug felon ban,” which bars states from aiding persons convicted of drug-related felonies.
Food stamp availability impacts not just individuals but their entire families. SNAP access can play a role in the school-to-prison pipeline for students from low-income families. Students who are more heavily disciplined in schools are 17% more likely to be arrested and 20% more likely to go to jail in their adulthood.
Policy changes for anti-racist food systems
To begin to rectify the long-term impacts of racist policies such as food apartheid, redlining and mass incarceration, no single solution will be able to provide reparations and ensure that these practices cease.
The legacy of redlining must be abolished to address racism in our built environment. Strategies may include expanding mandatory coverage of non-clinician services in Medicaid, providing tax incentives to create employment in historically redlined neighborhoods, broadening SNAP coverage and eliminating state level SNAP asset tests, using incentives such as the Healthy Food Financing Initiative to increase retail outlets in redlined neighborhoods, removing zoning barriers and providing tax incentives for supermarket or healthy retail store placement, and expediting reviews and approval for grocery store placement
To create accessible and affordable food production, Philadelphia leadership must require licensed grocery stores to stock healthy and nutritious foods. This would force the plethora of corner stores and mini marts across the city to supply fresh produce and other healthy foods to customers. In recent years, Philadelphia City Councilman Kenyatta Johnson has introduced zoning bonuses as well as reforms to the bonus to ensure that low-income and marginalized neighborhoods have fresh food retailers. Creating more zoning bonuses like these is crucial to ensuring the development of more fresh food retailers.
The City of Philadelphia records approximately 40,000 vacant lots around the city, which we must rapidly adapt for more productive uses, including grocery store locations. In conjunction with the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative, Philadelphia is a national leader in grocery store zoning laws. The city currently offers a package of zoning incentives and gives residents across the city access to healthier foods by removing zoning barriers that make grocery store development less profitable. By continuing to create accessible zoning laws for grocery store development, the city can ensure that more residents have easy access to fresh foods.
Policy changes can also be made in order to untie food from the carceral justice system. SNAP must be made available to all Americans who need it. Allowing all families equitable access to SNAP benefits and universal free school lunches would be transformative for both children and their entire families.
Food apartheid and incarceration both stem from the same root of targeted racist policies such as redlining, environmental racism and the 13th Amendment. Addressing these problems must be similarly interconnected. These recommendations, I hope, offer a stepping stone into understanding and addressing these links in Philadelphia and beyond.
Farwa Zaidi (she/her/hers) is originally from New York and has lived in Philadelphia for almost five years. She recently graduated with her masters in urban strategy from Drexel University, where she published a thesis titled “Disinvesting in Food: How Philadelphia’s History of Redlining and Food Apartheid has Contributed to Mass Incarceration.” In her free time, Farwa reads and reviews books by authors of color on her Instagram page, @farwareads. She lives in West Philadelphia with her husband and cat.


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Moto Morini’s bankruptcy has been going painfully slow, but it’s all about to come to a head, as the Italian company will be put up on the auction block April 13th. The Super-Saver Moto Morini package includes all the appropriate intellectual property, assets, and equipment (sans motorcycles, which are being sold separately) for the cool sum of €5.5 million. Should no one want the whole kit ‘n kaboodle, a cheaper price of €2.6 million will be set for the production complex with two years use included. These prices are of course the auction’s guide prices.
Yamaha recently announced that it will be closing its factory in northeastern Spain, and consolidating the production into its Saint Quintin plant in France. The move comes as a result of Yamaha feeling the pain from the dwindling global demand for motorcycles, resulting in the Spanish plant having considerable excess capacity in its production.
Located near Barcelona, Yamaha’s Spanish Palau-Solita i Plegamans facility is capable of producing 130,000 units per year, but only managed 96,000 in 2010. The plant’s closure will affect 420 jobs, and Yamaha management has already reportedly confirmed that they will be forgoing any bonuses for the first half of 2011, and will be taking a healthy pay cut (15%-30%) during the same time period.
Our friends at MotoBlog.it continue to have the inside track on the recently debuted Vyrus 986 M2 that was unveiled at the Verona Bike Show this past weekend. The Italian boutique manufacturer confirmed that it wanted to offer the Vyrus 986 M2 to teams competing in the Moto2 World Championship, and hinted that a production version could come father down the line, later revealing that we could expect to see a street bike as early as Sepetember of this year.
Now getting a chance to talk to Ascanio Rodorigo, MotoBlog.it has revealed that Vyrus 986 M2 will come in different variations, a Moto2-ready race bike (Factory), a street bike (SL Replica), and a do-it-yourself self kit (Replica Kit), which sees a rider buying just the rolling chassis and having to source their own motor. There’s a price point for everyone in this launch, as the Factory will cost €55,000, the SL Replica €25,000, and the Replica Kit rounding out things at €16,900.
Six months after US Highland lost three members of its executive team in a tragic small-plane accident, the American company has announced that it will be idling its Tulsa plant while it continues to finish its latest round of funding. Despite this news, US Highland is reportedly close to achieving its fundraising goals, and hopes to have production rolling again once the fundraising is complete.
The Southbridge Advisory Group (SAG) has been brought in to help find a new executive team for US Highland, and is also helping the motorcycle manufacturer find new investors. While any one of these goals would be a large undertaking on its own, having to contend both with raising capital and finding a new executive team is a daunting task.
Get ready to pour some peanut sauce on your spaghetti as Bologna Bullets destined for the Southeast Asian markets will soon be produced in Ducati’s newly planned factory in Thailand.
Being called a “final assembly” plant, the move is similar to the one that Harley-Davidson undertook late last year, where the Bar & Shield brand setup an assembly plant in India in order to side-step the extremely high tariffs the country puts on foreign-made motorcycles.
In addition to Harley-Davidson, Ducati will be joining the likes of Honda, Yamaha, KTM, and Brembo, all of whom have increased their presence in the Asian markets within the past year to capitalize on the growing economies of India, China, and Southeast Asia.
After putting Wisconsin on notice that it was shopping around for other places to build its motorcycles, Harley-Davdison has reached a tentative agreement with local labor unions that would keep the Bar and Shield brand in The Cheese State. Harley and union officials have not disclosed the terms of the deal, but both the Harley-Davidson and International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers are recommending approval of the deal. The terms of the deal are expected to be released next week, so union members can vote on the contract on September 13th.
As expected, Ben Spies and Yamaha have announced that the current World Superbike Champion and MotoGP rookie will move up to the factory Yamaha team (noticeably not called Fiat-Yamaha in the press release) for the 2011 season. Spies’ move to the factory squad has lovingly been referred to as the “second worst-kept secret in MotoGP,” right after Rossi’s departure from the Fiat-Yamaha team to Ducati Corse.
Hinting at his move yesterday, Spies had made good on his promise to announce something during the Indianapolis GP weekend. “We’re delighted that Ben will join the Factory Team for next season,” said Lin Jarvis, Managing Director of Yamaha Motor Racing. “Ben has shown great promise in his first ten MotoGP races. He has learnt rapidly and recorded strong results, including a well-deserved podium finish at Silverstone – impressive for someone in their first full season.”
After getting his first offer to purchase Moto Morini rejected by the local unions, Paolo Berlusconi looks to have overcome the setback, and could finalize the purchase of the other Bologna brand by as early as next week. This news comes after provincial administrators called an emergency meeting, which resulted in some concession by Berlusconi.
At the center of the controversy is the number of workers Berlusconi will keep on at the Bologna-based plant. According to reports, this number has been increased from 20 to 26, out of total of 57 workers who worked at the plant before it entered into receivership. This concession does not come without consequences though.
Honda’s factory in Kumamoto is a high-tech enviormentally friendly facility that might just be as innovative as the new VFR1200F. Churning out a new VFR every 90 seconds, Kumamoto’s wrenches are all digitally linked, and store build information for each individual motorcycle. Did worker X have a habit of over-tightening the connecting rods? If so Honda can track exactly which bikes were affected by his/her mistake, pinpointing the problem. That’s pretty cool in our book.
Check out the video after the jump for more information about the Kumamota plant and watch the VFR1200F get put together.
After we posted yesterday that Moto Morini had shut down its production line, amid the Italian company’s financial problems, other publications began covering the company’s complete closure. This caught the folks at Moto Morini off-guard, who while on an extended day-off, insist they are still keeping the production line functioning, if admittedly at a significantly reduced capacity.


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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — To those who grouse that the economic expansion has failed to deliver good-paying jobs, top forecaster Brian Jones has just one thing to say: Be patient.
“The wage gains are coming,” says Jones, an economist for Société Générale and the winner of the MarketWatch Forecaster of the Month award in October, his second win in a row and his fifth since the beginning of 2013.
The unemployment rate has been fallen rapidly as millions of people obtained jobs in the past year, Jones says. But there’s been something lacking: Higher wages. Plenty of the new jobs are in low-paying sectors. Average hourly wages are rising barely faster than the inflation rate.
“Earnings growth isn’t what you’d like it to be,” Jones acknowledges. But that’s about to change, he figures.
|Trade deficit||-$39.9 bln||-$40.1 bln|
|Consumer price index||0.1%||0.1%|
|Housing starts||1.050 mln||1.017 mln|
|Durable goods orders||0.6%||-1.3%|
|Consumer confidence index||91.5||94.5|
|New home sales||476,000||467,000|
|*Subject to revision|
It happens every time: The unemployment rate comes down, but wage growth lags behind. When labor markets finally begin to tighten and the economy nears full employment, that’s when wage growth accelerates, he says. With an employment rate of 5.8%, we’re “within spitting distance” of full employment.
“It won’t be good enough until we bring down the U-6” unemployment rate, which also counts discouraging workers and those want a full-time job but can only find part-time work, he says.
We don’t have to wait for wages to jump to feel better about the economy. Consumer confidence has been firming. More Americans are working, incomes are rising and gasoline prices are down.
Jones sympathizes with those who complain that too many of the new jobs are in low-paying occupations and that too many people can’t find a full-time job. “But would you rather be sitting on the couch watching TV, or getting out and earning some income?” he says.
Jones has won our monthly contest 11 times, just one short of the record 12 won by Jim O’Sullivan of High Frequency Economics. He’s won five times in the past 20 months.
Competing against 46 other forecasters in October, Jones had the most accurate forecasts on four of the 11 economic indicators we track: Gross domestic product, consumer confidence, retail sales and the consumer price index. His forecasts for payrolls, the trade deficit and industrial production were among the 10 most accurate.
The runners up in the October contest were Jim O’Sullivan of High Frequency Economics, Haseeb Ahmed of White Pine Investment, Ted Wieseman of Morgan Stanley, and Ethan Harris’s team at Merrill Lynch.
The median forecasts that MarketWatch publishes in the economic calendar come from the projections of the 15 forecasters who have scored the highest in our contest over the past 12 months, as well as the forecasts of the most recent winner. See our economic calendar and consensus forecast.
Over the past year, the top forecasters are: Jim O’Sullivan of High Frequency Economics, Brian Wesbury and Robert Stein of First Trust, Stephen Stanley of Amherst Pierpont Securities, Spencer Staples of EconAlpha, Maury Harris’s team at UBS, Avery Shenfeld of CIBC, Ted Wieseman of Morgan Stanley, Lewis Alexander of Nomura Securities, Paul Edelstein of IHS Global Insight, Ryan Sweet and Aaron Smith of Moody’s Analytics, Michael Feroli of J.P. Morgan, Stu Hoffman’s team at PNC Financial, Paul Mortimer-Lee’s team at BNP Paribas, Peter Morici of the University of Maryland, and Brian Jones of Société Générale.


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After 3-D movies and 3-D TVs, it's time for computers to go into the third dimension.
Companies such as MSI and Asus will be showing 3-D PCs at Computex, a huge trade show for manufacturers of PCs and PC components held every year in Taipei, Taiwan. This year, Computex runs from June 1 to 5.
MSI plans to introduce a 24-inch 3-D net-top: a desktop computer with its internals built into the display case, similar to an iMac.
"We can run 3-D movies, games, photos and TV," says Clifford Chun, product manager for all-in-ones and desktops at MSI, "and by just pressing a button you can switch between 2-D and 3-D modes."
MSI's rival Asus will debut a 3-D laptop with a 15.6-inch display and desktop similar in screen size to that from MSI. The 3-D PCs are expected to be available in the third quarter of the year.
"People may choose a 3-D PC because it is a less expensive way to get 3-D content," says Rob Csongor, vice president of marketing for Nvidia, which makes graphics cards that power the 3-D PCs. "Companies are coming out with some beautiful devices that are going to be a higher-end product initially but they will be very attractive to consumers."
With Hollywood's success in films such as Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, the 3-D format has made a big comeback. And it's not confined to just the big screen. The 3-D TV was one of the biggest stars of the Consumer Electronics Show this year. Almost every major TV maker, including Sony, LG, Panasonic and Mitsubishi, plans to offer big-screen 3-D TVs, while broadcasters such as ESPN and Discovery have promised 3-D channels by the end of the year or early next year.
Meanwhile, amateur 3-D content is taking off as consumers use 3-D cameras or homemade 3-D rigs to shoot photos. In a sign that homemade 3-D videos could soon be ready to hit mainstream, YouTube has started offering a 3-D display option.
Makers of 3-D PCs hope to step into this world. "3-D PCs are for consumers who see the 3-D stuff everywhere and wonder, 'How can I get this home?'" says Csongor.
Close to a million 3-D PCs will ship in 2010, predicts Jon Peddie Research, and annual sales could reach 75 million by 2014 as 3-D PCs become ubiquitous.
With a powerful graphics card, most PCs are 3-D capable -- in principle. But critical to the 3-D experience is a 120-Hz monitor and special glasses. PCs with 3-D have stereoscopic displays, which means their screens can present a rapidly alternating set of images for the right and the left eye so the brain can fuse them together into a single image that includes depth.
MSI's 3-D desktop, called 'Ripple,' has an Intel Core i7 860 processor, an ATI Radeon HD 5730 graphics chip, 4 GB of memory, a 1-terabyte disk drive, a Blu-ray player, 1.3-megapixel webcam, and Wi-Fi capability. The 24-inch multitouch display has a refresh rate of 120 Hz and will come with its own pair of active-shutter glasses.


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MIKE TYSON is selling ear-shaped cannabis edibles with a chunk missing - referencing his infamous bite on Evander Holyfield.
The heavyweight boxing icon has has been selling cannabis products since 2016 through his Tyson Holistic label.
And his latest launch are 'Mike Bites' - edibles in the shape of an ear - but importantly missing a chunk.
That is a hilarious nod at Tyson's unforgettable 1997 rematch with Holyfield that ended in disgrace.
Tyson owns a huge weed farm in California which is believed to earn around £500,000-per-month.
Iron Mike is taking advantage of the state's legalisation of recreational marijuana and Tyson Ranch has 20 acres for master growers of weed.
The bags of sweets infused with cannabis are part of his new range of weed-based products - and hard back to June 1997 when he bit a chunk out of Holyfield's ear.
Iron Mike had been beaten the year prior in round 11 - which at the time was considered an shock.
But the upset gets lost in the memory thanks to what happened eight months on.
Tyson, growing frustrated at what he claimed to be headbutts and superior boxing from Holyfield, in the third round bit his arch rival.
It caused havoc in the ring, with the youngest heavyweight champion of all time disqualified, leading to a riot between the opposing camps.
Tyson was suspended for 15 months, fined $3million (£2.3m), and disgraced by the boxing public.
In the recent years since, he formed an unlikely friendship with Holyfield and the pair even starred in a Foot Locker advert in 2013.
Most read in Boxing
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They hugged in the commercial and Tyson bizarrely gave his former opponent a piece of his ear back.
Nevertheless, after Iron Mike, 55, and Holyfield, 59, both made questionable comebacks last year, they were in talks for a mega-money trilogy.
Thankfully for the two - now with a combined age of 114 - negotiations broke down and neither have talked seriously about boxing since.


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The Senate passed an Internet sales tax bill, the Marketplace Fairness Act, last month on a bipartisan basis, but it has yet to pass the House. This legislation would allow states to require online sellers to collect sales taxes, which would go to state and local governments. The legislation would apply to online retailers earning at least $1 million in sales outside of states where they have brick-and-mortar locations. Currently, online retailers do not have to collect sales taxes on Internet purchases unless they have a physical presence in the state.
This legislation faces more opposition in the House than it did in the Senate, with numerous members, including House Speaker John Boehner, criticizing it. The White House has announced that the president supports the legislation.
Check out the Gallup Poll.


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The prevailing model for addressing poor working conditions in the apparel supply chain is failing.
With the growth of truly global supply chains over the past 40 years, multinational brands and retailers such as H&M, Nike or Target have stepped in to serve as labour inspectors when local governments in places such as China, Bangladesh, Vietnam or Honduras have failed to fulfill these functions on their own. Under this "policing" model, brands inspect factories repeatedly, but do little to change the root causes of poor working conditions and face little accountability when workers' rights are violated, or even when workers die.
According to O'Rourke Group Partners, retailers buy polo shirts made in Bangladesh for $5.67 each and sell them for $14 in Canada. To meet these extreme price demands, factories in Bangladesh rely on extensive networks of subcontractors that are invisible to Western brands, where some workers see just 12 cents a shirt.
The indirect sourcing model is not unique to Bangladesh and has allowed explosive growth in the global apparel industry. But dependence on subcontracting firms outside the system of monitoring and inspection operated by Western brands leaves a significant part of the work force vulnerable to poor conditions .
Indirect sourcing models, by their nature, reduce accountability and transparency in the supply chain. Even the most compliant factory will never admit to a client it they cannot meet their demand; it needs the business too much. The extreme competition creates an environment of taking risks, even for factories that may have passed all their inspections. The pressures all around are so great that when garment workers in the Rana Plaza building noticed cracks early on, they were told to return to work in order to meet the demanding targets for that day. These workers, who were threatened with being fired if they left the building, knowingly returned to a situation that eventually cost lives and affected livelihoods.
In Bangladesh, the measure of success of the various inspection programs is how many unsafe factories are shut down. The right yardstick is how many workers are walking into safe factories every day. No matter which brand they happen to be sewing for, workers should expect minimum standards for safety at work.
To be sure, factory owners in Bangladesh and elsewhere have an obligation to improve standards in their industry. Consumers rightfully expect that the brands they wear have taken steps to ensure workers are not exploited. But the evidence is clear: Relying on Western brands to police a subset of the most well-resourced and well-connected factories isn't protecting enough workers. It's time to expand the circle of responsibility for working conditions in the supply chain to focus on establishing and enforcing minimum standards across all factories producing for the export market.
Responsibility for minimum standards should be shared among Western brands and retailers, their primary suppliers, Western governments, financial institutions, labour unions and philanthropic organizations. Undoubtedly, this will take significant resources, but the costs of inaction are tragically high.
Sanchita Saxena is executive director of the Institute for South Asia Studies at UC Berkeley. Sarah Labowitz is co-director for the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.


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ATLANTA, Nov. 18, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX) today announced that Elane B. Stock has been elected to the Board of Directors, effective January 1, 2017. She will also serve on the Board's Technology Committee. Following Ms. Stock's election, the Equifax Board will consist of 12 directors, including 11 independent directors. The election of Ms. Stock is part of the Company's normal succession planning process in connection with the scheduled retirement of three independent directors over the next two years.
Since 2014, Ms. Stock has served as Group President of Kimberly-Clark International, a division of Kimberly-Clark Corporation, a leading global consumer products company. From 2012 to 2014, she was the Group President for Kimberly-Clark Professional, with responsibility for growing the global B2B business. From 2010 to 2012, Ms. Stock was the Chief Strategy Officer of Kimberly-Clark Corporation, responsible for enterprise-wide strategy, implementation and mergers and acquisitions. Ms. Stock intends to leave Kimberly-Clark in the first quarter of 2017 to pursue other interests. Prior to Kimberly-Clark, Ms. Stock was the National Vice President of Strategy for the American Cancer Society from 2008 to 2010 and Regional Manager of Georgia Pacific's (Koch Industries) Color-Box business from 2007 to 2008. She has also held progressive management positions at McKinsey & Company, both in the U.S. and Ireland, where she attained the position of partner and managing director of the Dublin, Ireland office. Ms. Stock currently serves as a director of YUM! Brands, Inc.
"Elane Stock is an outstanding addition to our Board. She brings extensive strategy, diversified operations and multi-national experience in leading global consumer and B2B businesses," said Equifax Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Richard F. Smith. "Her expertise in branding, marketing, sales, strategic planning and international business development will be valuable to Equifax as we develop and market new products and services for consumers and businesses across the world."
Ms. Stock graduated with honors from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. She received a Masters of Business Administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and completed a fellowship in International Economics at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand.
About Equifax Equifax powers the financial future of individuals and organizations around the world. Using the combined strength of unique trusted data, technology and innovative analytics, Equifax has grown from a consumer credit company into a leading provider of insights and knowledge that helps its customers make informed decisions. The company organizes, assimilates and analyzes data on more than 820 million consumers and more than 91 million businesses worldwide, and its databases include employee data contributed from more than 6,600 employers.
Headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., Equifax operates or has investments in 24 countries in North America, Central and South America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. It is a member of Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500® Index, and its common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol EFX. Equifax employs approximately 9,200 employees worldwide.
Some noteworthy achievements for the company include: Ranked 13 on the American Banker FinTech Forward list (2015); named a Top Technology Provider on the FinTech 100 list (2004-2015); named an InformationWeek Elite 100 Winner (2014-2015); named a Top Workplace by Atlanta Journal Constitution (2013-2015); named one of Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies (2011-2015); named one of Forbes' World's 100 Most Innovative Companies (2015). For more information, visit www.equifax.com.


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Every day, Wall Street analysts upgrade some stocks, downgrade others, and "initiate coverage" on a few more. But do these analysts even know what they're talking about? Today, we're taking one high-profile Wall Street pick and putting it under the microscope...
Tesla (TSLA -0.02%) stock slumped after last week's earnings report, which featured a 64% jump in the rate of vehicle production coupled with a much wider-than-expected loss ($1.33 per share, adjusted). A cynic might almost come to the conclusion that the more cars Tesla sells, the more money it loses...
And yet, stockbroker Evercore ISI is anything but a cynic. The opposite, really. After reviewing Tesla's earnings report last week, Evercore returned to the market this morning with a surprising announcement: It's reinstating its coverage of Tesla stock -- and rating it outperform.
Here are three things you need to know about that.
1. What Evercore said
In a note covered on StreetInsider.com this morning, Evercore writes that while it's still hard to stick an accurate valuation on the stock (seeing as Tesla has no profits to hang a P/E ratio on, for example), Evercore is still optimistic.
The analyst sees diminishing risks that the rollout of Tesla's new Model 3 sedan will be a bust. In fact, assuming the rollout goes well, and projecting Tesla's recent "3-year forward market multiples" into the future, Evercore thinks it's reasonable to assume this valuation will hold steady as Tesla ramps production on its newest electro-buggy.
2. Meet the Model 3
So what is it that makes Evercore confident that the Model 3 will be a success? In its fiscal Q1 2017 earnings report last week, Tesla confirmed that "Model 3 vehicle development is nearly complete" and "on plan to start production in July." Tesla expects to achieve production of "5,000 vehicles per week at some point in 2017, and ... 10,000 vehicles per week at some point in 2018."
"[A]t some point" leaves a lot of wiggle room for investors trying to plot the volume of Model 3 sales going forward. A best-case scenario of 5,000 Model 3s produced right out of the gate starting July 1 might yield as many as 135,000 Model 3s sold by year end, for example. Or in the worst case, hitting 5,000 vehicles in the final week of 2017 might imply production of only a few tens of thousands.
Similarly, Elon Musk's 10,000-car production goal "at some point" in 2018 could, in theory, imply production of more than 500,000 Model 3s that year. But even in the worst case, hitting 5,000 cars in 2017 and continuing at that rate through most of 2018 implies well in excess of 250,000 Model 3s rolling off the production line next year -- a massive achievement.
Which way things go won't be known for another couple of months, however. Musk says he expects to give investors "guidance on vehicle deliveries for the second half of this year after we have started Model 3 production in July."
3. What comes after the Model 3
Be that as it may, Evercore is not waiting for the good news to restart its buy rating on Tesla -- it's going ahead and placing its bet today. Here's why:
According to the analyst, once Tesla gets Model 3 production up and running, and Tesla finds its production rhythm, the premium valuation on the company's products will enable Tesla stock to earn "an EBIT margin range of c12 to 15% ... in the long-term, once growth normalizes and [selling, general, and administrative expense] and [research and development expense] ratios approach industry average." That's as compared to operating profit margins of just 2.3% at Ford (F -0.65%) today, 6.1% at General Motors (GM 0.30%), or even 7.8% at Toyota (TM -0.14%).
Simply put, Evercore believes "Tesla has the potential to achieve margins which are double those of US peers today." And in Evercore's view, this means Tesla stock is not only worth a buy rating, but worth a price target of $330 a share.
But does that argument make sense?
The most important thing: Valuing Tesla
Let's consider: Here's how the three other car companies named above look at today's prices, compared to analyst estimates for their earnings "3-year[s] forward" (using data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence).
- GM is projected to earn $6.05 per share in 2020, and costs $34.19 today.
- Ford should earn $1.94 per share in 2020. Ford stock costs $11.16 per share today.
- And Toyota has projected 2020 earnings of $7.51 per share, and a $110.26 stock price today.
Their "3-year forward market multiples," as Evercore might put it, are therefore 5.6, 5.8, and 14.7, respectively. By comparison, Tesla's $311.60 share price today is 64.3 times the $4.84 in per-share profit that most analysts expect Tesla to earn in 2020. At Evercore's $330 target price, Tesla's "3-year forward market multipl[e]" would be 68.2.
So here's the question investors must ask themselves: Assume it turns out to be true, as Evercore argues, that Tesla will one day earn operating profits twice those of what Toyota (for example) churns out. Does it make sense to pay more than four times Toyota's market multiple to own a stock only twice as profitable as Toyota? Does it make sense to pay more than 10 times the valuation of General Motors to own Tesla stock only twice as profitable as GM?
Maybe it does if Tesla is also growing much faster than Toyota or GM. I'm not arguing the contrary. But to justify Tesla's stock price, you have to assume that: 1. that Tesla does grow as fast as Evercore thinks it will, 2. Tesla rolls out its Model 3 on time and in large volume, and 3. Tesla achieves a profit margin not only twice what its rivals produce -- but that it achieves profits, period, which is something Tesla hasn't done in the past.
Like I said, I'm not saying it's not possible Evercore is right. But it does seem to be making an awful lot of assumptions on faith.


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As seen on IOL.
Life | 24 January 2017
Cape Town – Get ready for a day of opulence and glamour at this year’s The Sun Met celebrated with Mumm.
The prestigious equestrian event takes place on January 28 at Kenilworth Racecourse.
Sun International, which has taken over the sponsorship reins of the event, promises to add thrill with an extra dose of elegance, sophistication, glamour and world-class entertainment.
Etienne Cassuto, brand manager of Mumm Champagne, said this year will be different because of new partners, new experiences and a new level of racing and glam.
With an honorary guest list of influential celebrities and designers, and the iconic international champagne Maison Mumm, a memorable experience can be anticipated.
The official theme of The Sun Met celebrated with Mumm is Decades of Glamour. So, get inspired by the last eight decades and dazzle in disco, go all-out in retro or put the glam into grunge.
Fashion label KLUK CGDT advised attendees to use the decade that inspires them as an influence, not a bible. Hats both useful for the sun and for making a statement and block heels and flatforms are a fashionable trend.
Exciting collaborations to expect will be KLUK CGDT and Minnie Dlamini; Warrick Gautier and Cape Town’s Jeannie D; and SA hip hop star Da Les and House of Ole.
KLUK CGDT said the theme is as much about the “now” as it is the past. “It is about making a statement, about a sense of occasion and about appropriate dress.”
Sipping from endless fountains of Mumm’s legendary champagne and mingling with SA’s finest is just a taste of what’s to come. It’s an experience not to be missed.


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HIKMA Pharmaceuticals raised its full-year revenue forecast for the third time in four months yesterday, riding on strong sales of generic antibiotic doxycycline, a drug used to prevent and treat malaria and other infections.
The company, which makes and sells both patented and generic drugs, said it expected total revenue to rise 20 per cent in 2013, up from its previous forecast of 17 per cent.
Group revenue increased by an annualised 19.9 per cent to $638.3m (£407m) in the six months ended 30 June, with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) jumping over 76 per cent from the same time a year earlier, to $182.6m.
There is a shortage of doxycycline in the United States due to manufacturing issues, according to the US Food and Drug Administration. The regulator said demand for the drug has increased due to shortage of substitute drugs. Hikma’s generics arm “is benefiting from exceptional sales of doxycycline”, chief executive Said Darwazah explained.
Hikma’s shares shot up more than three per cent yesterday morning, but deflated along with the rest of the market to end up 0.46 per cent at 1,095p.
City A.M. Reporter


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New Minelab Detector GPZ 7000 soon to be released
There is a high level of excitement as details of the new Minelab GPZ 7000 have been leaked around the country. Minelab has not yet announced a release date however this information is expected to be known shortly. Minelab has not announced the price of the new Minelab GPZ 7000 neither but we are predicting it to be in the $AU7,000 – $10,000 range. Check back soon for more information as it comes to hand.