Sprint labeled one of the "9 Great American Companies That Will Never Recover"

There's an article out right now, showing the companies that won't likely come back from the 2008 financial crush.

One of them is, as the title says, our own Sprint company is one of them:

"24/7 Wall St. has compiled a list of these companies that won't be making comebacks -- names that you know well, but that will never be leaders again."

What they have to say about them:

Sprint finally posted some reasonably good results recently. However, these could not mask the fact that the No. 3 wireless carrier is too small to ever really compete with AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

Sprint's $35 billion Nextel purchase in 2004 can be seen in retrospect as a key blunder. Their networks ran on different platforms, and integration issues drove customers away from the combined company. Sprint made the MSN "Customer Service Hall of Shame" several times, most recently in 2010. Its customer service has improved significantly since then, but the damage had been done.

Sprint's revenue has fallen from $41.1 billion in 2007 to $33.7 billion last year. It now has about 50 million subscribers to Verizon's 104 million and AT&T's 95 million. As a Morningstar researcher recently noted, "While Sprint has struggled, Verizon Wireless and AT&T have benefited at its expense. Fending off these much larger rivals will be increasingly difficult as data services become more important to the industry."

Not good. Not good at all.

Some of the other companies: Band of America, Dell Computer, Barnes & Noble and The New York Times.

Link: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/08/01/9-great-american-companies-that-will-never-recover/?icid=maing-grid7%7Chp-laptop%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D188353#photo-6

Quote of the day

“You have to ask the question: Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of people and walk off with the money, or is that in fact a little bit of a flawed system?” --Newt Gingrich. (God, I love irony).

Big, big questions for 2012

They are big, indeed, the questions we can pose now, for this coming new year. So many people are predicting collapses of different kinds. So here goes, some of my questions for 2012: 1) Will Greece's economy collapse? 2) Will Italy follow suit? 3) Spain? 4) Portugal? 5) Will the Euro collapse, in full or part? 6) Will the US financial system face the same or very similar collapse as we did in 2008, yet again? 7) Seriously, many people I've spoken to--friends--have predicted and are predicting--gulp--the collapse of the US. Nice thought, huh? Understand, I'm not predicting any of the above. I've just seen many people predicting these things. Consider it just food for thought. Think happy thoughts, y'all. And happy new year.

The end of the world as we know it?

There is a really disturbing article out today from St. Louis and a CBS affilate station--KMOX--about people seemingly preparing for Armaggedon: Survival Shop Reports Jump In Sales To People Preparing For “Possible Collapse” WEBSTER GROVES, MO (KMOX) - A chain of three stores that sells survival food and gear reports a jump in sales to people who are getting prepared for the “possible collapse” of society. “We had to order fifty cases of the meals ready to eat to keep up with the demand in the past three months,” said manager Steve Dorsey at Uncle Sam’s Safari Outfitters Inc. in Webster Groves. “That’s not normal. Usually we sell 20 to 30 cases in a whole year.” Dorsey says business has been brisk since the spring uprisings in the middle east, as customers share concerns about political uprisings, the world economy and the future of the United States. I mean, yikes. First, gun and ammunition sales SOARED after the first black president of the US was elected and installed in office, now this. Is this really what we've become? Can we not work together to solve our problems or do we have to, instead, resort to assuming it's all going to come crashing down? (Shaking head in disbelief). Link to original post: http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2011/11/23/survival-shop-reports-jump-in-sales-to-people-preparing-for-possible-collapse/

You should take some time to read this, folks

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090629_the_truth_alone_will_not_set_you_free/