Odds and ends, 1/22/08

Here's a great phrase: Cell phone jail. It describes how people with cell phones are locked into contracts with carriers, and how those contracts are heavily weighted to favor the carrier.

You can read an article about it here.

I have a regular cell service and I own a disposable phone. The disposable needs to be reconnected, as I have let its service lapse. I gave my daughter a disposable, and she hates it because it's so easy to use up all her minutes. But that's budgeting, you know?

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According to Fortune magazine, small employers are having a hard time determining who is eligible for overtime and who is exempt. Their advice: Hire a good lawyer.

As one former manager here used to tell young reporters who worked too many hours off the clock, Gannett is a big company with lots of money. It does not need your charity.

I had to explain to the youngsters every now and then that it may help their careers a bit, but they expose the company to some pretty steep penalties by trying to help out off the clock.

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Why spending too much time watching Wall Street would drive me crazy:

Around 10 a.m., I checked stocks of companies that have a significant presence here in the Tri-State. With exception of a couple of smaller bank companies, everyone was down. Some were down in the 6 to 7 percent range compared with the close of business on Friday.

So at 1:30 p.m., what's going on? Some of those stocks that had tanked in early morning are now up from Friday. One example, picked at random: AK Steel, which was down about 7 percent at 10 a.m. was up 7 percent at 1:30 or so.

Like I say, paying this much attention must drive some people crazy. But some people really get into it. They would be like the people who watch the pro football games so they could watch the play of the offensive line.

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There's a piece in today's Washington Post about the business of being Britney Spears. It's hard to believe that so many people still pay her to show up. Here in Appalachia, we have something called self-respect.

Although the article deals mainly with Britonomics, it does end with this paragraph that puts a more human side to America's favorite train wreck:

It is one thing to do an economic analysis of Britney Spears and still another not to see her as a sad, updated version of the lumpy prizefighter from more than one black-and-white movie. She's taken too many punches and soon those who have attached themselves for the ride will drop off. As Portfolio shows, the Britney Industrial Complex represents an economic truth -- as good a reason as any for economics to be called the dismal science.

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Wall Street has closed for the day. Final numbers aren't in, but several of our local stocks ended the day up. And several ended down. A mixed day.

Bank stocks were up overall, as were transportation. Manufacturing was mixed. Utilities were down.

It could all change tomorrow. As I said earlier, pay too much attention and you will go mad.