Tell It To Al

Maybe I should just be myself. Photo by Michael Casey, Dow Jones Newswires.

I can’t decide what to be for Halloween.

Bernie Madoff? Allen Stanford? Or Hank Paulson?

How about dressing up as Goldman Sachs?

Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi called Goldman Sachs, “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”

I could do that for one night.

I could also stick mortgage paper to myself with some of that glowing green slime and be toxic debt.

Billy Mays, the TV pitchman who died at 50 in June, is trying to make a comeback this Halloween. His son is offering a prize this year to the best Billy Mays costume. Click here for the details.

“It is one of the easiest costumers of all time to put together. (Beard, blue, button-down, khakis, prop product, etc.),” writes Billy Mays III on his website. “There will no doubt be a multitude of people dressed as Billy Mays (or zombie Billy Mays).”

First Prize: “One of the final autographed Billy Mays pictures, Pitchmen Season 1 DVD, tub of Oxi-Clean, pack of Mighty Putty, and a whole bunch of stickers.”

I think I’d rather be a Zombie Bank.

Have you ever had a boss who complained about your attitude?

Who suggested that maybe you were a troublemaker because you asked too many questions?

Meet Charles Satterfield, who used to work for Allen Stanford. He was fired because he was “unable to meet expectations.” But who wants to meet expectations at one of history’s largest alleged Ponzi schemes.

Click here to read my column on Satterfield.

Two things that may never die: The Public option for health care, and rising CEO pay.

I used to have to study astronomy to  hear a number like 12,000,000,000,000.

This morning I heard it from guy with a cardboard sign in the street.

On my way into my mid-town Manhattan office this morning, I found this tattered Uncle Sam,  asking passersby for $1 trillion at a time to help pay off the national debt.

What better place for this high-level panhandling than the Avenue of Americas?

The guy in the clown suit was Justin Wilson, a 29-year-old analyst with the Employment Policies Institute in Washington D.C.  He was one of 17 “homeless Uncle Sams” that the organization stationed across New York City as part of a multimillion-dollar campain that says, gee, $12 trillion is a lot of money. (For more details on this position see  DefeatTheDebt.com)

Wilson said most passersby in New York pay him no mind. “It’s New York,” he said.

In Washington D.C., where he’s done the same street theatrics, he gets a different response.

“In D.C., people would say ‘Maybe tomorrow.’ … That’s what they’ve been saying about the debt for a long time.”

Starbucks has slowed one of its former executive’s plans to join Dunkin’ Donuts.

Paul Twohig will not start working for the competition until Jan. 2010 under a settlement agreement, the coffee giant announced in a press release.

Starbucks sued Twohig for violating a non-compete agreement. Click here to read my column on the lawsuit and key defections from Starbucks to Dunkin Donuts.

In settling the suit, Twohig also agreed to pay Starbucks $500,000.

He must really want to work at Dunkin Donuts.

“Mr. Twohig also reconfirmed his commitments not to share Starbucks secrets and other confidential information with Dunkin’ at any time,” Starbucks said. “We are pleased that the settlement allows both parties to move forward without protracted litigation.”

How many secrets could Starbucks really have? It’s just coffee.

Is Obamanomics working? Why does the public option for health care keep coming back? I weigh in on these topics The Wall Street Journal’s online show, The News Hub.

RadioShack’s earnings fell 24% in the third quarter, mostly attributable to declines in television-signal converter boxes and laptops.

But the Fort Worth, Texas, electronics retailer also recorded expenses from the rollout of a nickname, “The Shack,” in August.

“The launch of the ‘The Shack’ brand platform was a success, and we will continue to refine and invest in this positioning,” said Shack CEO Julian Day.

The Shack, however, is only a nickname.

“When a brand becomes a friend, it often gets a nickname – take FedEx or Coke, for example. Our customers, associates and even the investor community have long referred to RadioShack as ‘The Shack,’ so we decided to embrace that fact and share it with the world,” ,” said Lee Applbaum, RadioShack’s Chief Marketing Officer in an August press release.

“This … is not about changing our name. Rather, we’re contemporizing the way we want people to think about our brand. The Shack speaks to consumers in a fresh, new voice and distinctive creative look that reinforces RadioShack’s authority in innovative products, leading brands and knowledgeable, helpful associates.”

By using only half its name, RadioShack hopes to distance itself from cheap radio parts from bygone eras. But apparently it’s stuck with shacks.

Small businesses have long been responsible for two-thirds of the job creation in this country, but it appears President Barack Obama is only now thinking maybe they should be getting some loans.

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I read about Boomer, billed as possibly the world’s biggest dog, and decided to drop in on him during my recent trip to North Dakota. Click here to read my column. And scroll on for more photos.

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Fargo, N.D., despite it’s reputation as a cold, desolate and quirky place, is a actually happening hamlet. It’s got a great downtown, all the cool features of a college town, and boasts one of Microsoft’s largest campuses. 

It’s sometimes a challenge to recruit people to Fargo, but Microsoft Fargo site leader Don Morton got his start as a former college football coach.

Click here to read my column on my visit to Microsoft Fargo, and scroll down to see the photos I snapped at the campus.

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