Unilever Buys Out Alberto Culver

Buying Alberto Culver was the biggest transaction Unilever has done in 10 years. September 27th, 2010 Unilever had bought out Alberto Culver for $37.50 a share. Unilever had ran into some problems with buying out the entire business. In order to buy out the name Alberto Culver they would have to sell Simple, Cidal, and Wrights to so they wont be a monopoly. Analysts say Unilever's earning could boost 14 times before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation. (Which means Unilever would profit from this, and not fall into debt, and not to mention it was paid cash). To me it seems that Unilever is the only one in the game after this deal is sealed. They own a huge supply of the market and with this investment it would make them a giant. The government passed the UK contracts this week allowing Unilever and Alberto to keep moving forward with the deal. The U.S contracts are still pending and will soon be announced to the public. Alberto Colver sells 65% of shampoos in the U.S and they also do amazing business in the UK, Mexico, and Canada.

My question is, what if Unilever can't get TRESemme their number 1 target? TRESemme is one of the best shampoos due to the fact that it comes in big quanity and quality and a cheap price. This deal could take years, so what if Unilever wants to walk away from the deal? People should think about selling their stock, because why risk 10% decrease for a 1% increase. There is nothing wrong with taking a profit, but why risk losing that. I am almost sure that this deal will pull through but what if it doesn't? All it takes is one deal to make you or break you. Why would Alberto sell though? It one of the most money strong companys in are economic times. Not many companys have that. It's going to put about 2000 people out of work in Illinois. It will hurt our economy more than it will help Unilever. It seems that Unilever is a monoply, it looks like its going against the anti-trust laws. We can only hope that everything pans out with these to companys

NFL CBA Expiration... Lockout?

The NFL

When Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers triumphed over their competition, thePittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV, there were far more implications than who gets to bring home the Lombardi Trophy. In fact, the broadcast of Super Bowl XLV became the most-watched program in TV History racking up an average of 111 million viewers and 162.9 million viewers in total over the course of the game. Football has quickly become the most popular sport in this country and subsequently the most profitable, hauling in an annual revenue somewhere in the neighborhood of 9 Billion dollars. However, the problems surrounding the NFL lately have focused on how to divide up that money between the NFL and NFLPA (NFL Players Association). This dispute, which has loomed over every season since 2008, when the NFL owners opted out of the 1993 CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) has been carried into this year's off season as the focal point for NFL actions. During the super bowl, the NFLPA took out a 30 second ad that displayed the message, “Let us/them Play,” throughout its duration; I wish it was that simple.

The Dispute

For the past several months, every single one of those 162,900,000 fans have sat on edge as labor talks pressed onward. While the course of this dispute has been swept up in a media frenzy, many notable figures such as the President himself, have begun to weigh in; “You’ve got owners, most of whom are worth close to $1 billion. You’ve got players who are making millions are dollars. My working assumption at a time when people are having to cut back, compromise and worry about making the mortgage and paying for their kids’ college education is that the two parties should be able to work it out without the President of the United States intervening... I’m a big football fan, but I also think for an industry that is making $9 billion a year in revenue, they can figure out how to divide it up in a sensible way and be true to their fans who are the ones who, obviously, allow for all of the money that they are making,” – (President Obama) As is the case with many large businesses, the NFL as a whole, players and owners, showed a complete disregard for their customers or fans with the most recent development. It was a bleak weekend for NFL Owners, players, coaches and especially fans across the board. As of Saturday March 14, 2011, the NFLPA is (at least temporarily) no longer the exclusive collective bargaining agent of NFL players. What this means?........... LOCKOUT

(Image from Us.Fotolia.com)

What is a lockout?- a management action resisting employee's demands; employees are barred from entering the workplace until they agree to terms.

- Although the NFL has effectively been lead into a lockout, this will have no effect on whether or not there will be a season this September IF the Players and NFL can agree to a new CBA before then.

Out of the Conference room and into the Court Room

When talks began, the NFLPA, represented by executive director, DeMaurice Smith, and the NFL represented by commissioner Rodger Goodell met face to face at the table. When that failed, they turned to mediation, an alternative dispute resolution that calls for a mediator to watch over and facilitate discussions. However, 16 days at the office of a presidentially appointed federal mediator couldn't stop the Lockout from arriving. Within the course of a couple days following the NFL's declaration of a lockout, a class-action lawsuit has been brought on on behalf of the NFLPA against the NFL by 10 players including Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Peyton Manning. As shocking as it is, three of the NFL's best players will now be serving as Plaintiffs. The court date has been set for April 6, 2011 as the dispute now lies in the hands of U.S. District Judge David Doty (who has presided in Minniapolis since 1993 and oversaw the last NFL labor dispute.)

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/625954-nfl-labor-talks-the-latest-news-surrounding-the-drama-in-washington-dc/page/2)

In the end, I can see no possible outcome in which the NFL will miss the next season due to the absence of a CBA or a lockout. If we have learned anything from past work stoppages in other sports such as the NHL in 2004, it is that it will certainly put a damper on the future growth and prosperity of the sport. The undeniable truth is that one side will have to give in eventually… for the fans' sake, I hope that moment is sooner than later but at least for now, all we can do is wait.

Albert Pujols Drama

If you are Major League Baseball fan you know who Albert Pujols is. For those of you who don't, he is arguably the best player in the game. In his 10 year career, all played as a St. Louis Cardinal, he has had incredible stats hitting over 400 home runs, almost 2000 hits, and has a career batting average of .331. Add to his resume 3 MVP's, and he is a sure to be future hall of famer. Pujols is now entering the final year of his current contract with the Cardinals and will become a free agent at the end of the season. Shouldn't he get the biggest contract if he is the best player then?



I believe so. Albert and his agent Dan Lozano set their negotiating deadline for a new contract to be February 16. The Cardinals had up until this date to try and renegotiate a contract with the star and failed to do so. Albert has said that he will not be bothered with contract talk during the season, so the Cardinals along with every other team will have a shot to sign him after the season ends.

The reason there was no agreement reached between the two parties was because of Pujols's demands. It has been rumored that he is asking for a 10 year $300 million contract. At $3o million a year, it would make him the highest paid player in baseball. That seems like a fair deal for having the best player in baseball on your team right? Well that is where it gets tricky. Pujols will be 32 next season and a 10 year deal would take him to 41 years old. In question now, is how well he will play at such an old age. It is not likely that he will be putting up the same numbers he is now, in 10 years. But he will still be paid an incredible amount of money for a potentially average performance.



The Cardinals tried to offer him an 8 year deal with a little less money but Pujols wouldn't budge. The Cardinals will not have enough cap space for a 10 year $300 million contract. Although Pujols has expressed that he "wants to be a Cardinal forever" he is not showing signs of loyalty to the club. It seems as if he is only interested in the money and will go to the highest bidder. Which teams would have the best chance of getting him then?

The Cardinals are the obvious front runner, but lurking behind are their division rival Chicago Cubs. The Cubs do not have a 1st baseman signed for next year and have the money to agree to the terms. When money seems to be the top priority the Yankees are always in the mix. With the team valued at $1.6 billion, they will have enough money to sign him, but to make room on the roster the Yankees would have to drop Mark Teixeira the current 1st baseman and pay the rest of his lucrative contract. The team has enough money to do so and would gladly do it to put Pujols in Pinstripes. Other teams amongst talk are the Blue Jays, Rockies, Giants, and Angels. Under the new MLB rules, Pujols will be free to negotiate as soon as the world series ends. Arbitration must be offered to Pujols by midnight on Nov. 23 if a club wants to keep its right to Draft-pick compensation. Draft-pick compensation is when a player signs with a new team and is classified by Elias Sports Bureau and a Type A player, the team that signs that player must give compensating draft picks to that players previous team. This, would be the only immediate downside to signing Pujols. We will just have to wait and see what happens at the end of the season to find out where Pujols will end his spectacular career.

Crocs Product Liability Case

The rubber shoe phenomenon has finally died down. The shoe manufacturer responsible for this fad is Crocs, Inc.. They have been faced with five product liability lawsuits regarding injuries from Crocs in result of escalator accidents. Eleven parents of the victims have filed product liability cases against this company and so far five have been awarded great sums of money. A particular accident happened when a young girl was behaving herself on the escalator. Her shoe got stuck, later resulting in broken bones. Compensations are being rewarded in order to help pay for hospital bills.

I believe that Crocs should take responsibility for these accidents. It is understanding that they were not aware of the problems that these shoes can cause when on an escalator. Similarly to the famous McDonald's coffee case, Crocs should immediately add a warning declaring the injuries that can result from these shoes. McDonald's now warns the drinker that contents in the cup may be hot. A simple sentence can stop any future cases from erupting.

Picture from http://photobucket.com/images/crocs/

FTC investigating Apple's App Store

Introduction

I'm sure you've heard of Apple products, such as the iPod, iPad, and iPhone. Well, these all run an App Store, where developers can post apps that Apple has approved, either for free or for sale. For paid apps, Apple gets a 30% cut of the price while the developer gets a 70% cut. This same setup is used in the Mac App Store as well.

Subscriptions

The Justice Department and FTC (Federal Trade Commission) are deciding whether the recently announced subscription service in the App Store is violating any United States antitrust laws. It seems as if Apple is forcing media companies' customers into using iTunes and the App Store as a payment source, which in turn gives Apple a 30% cut of the profit. Another big issue with the setup is that the developers are not allowed to have links to outside sources or other places where the customer may purchase content, because it would forgo the App Store as part of the purchase which would then take away Apple's 30% cut. Also, Apple's regulations state that the content can't have different prices at different sources (meaning if you buy directly from the developer's website, it can't be cheaper than buying it in the App Store, but the App Store version can be cheaper than outside versions). The article from The iPhone Blog also brings up a good point; several executives in the music industry are complaining because on top of having to pay the record labels royalties, they will not have to pay an additional 30% for any subscriptions sold in the App Store, which makes for a very anti-competitive business model. In addition to the revenue Apple makes from it's cut from the App Store, Apple also gets a cut from their advertising platform, called iAds. Engadget has posted that Rhapsody's official statement is that they will not comply with the new regulations. A Macworld article feels the opposite way, that there is no antitrust threat to Apple because of various reasons. The article says that in order for this claim to be true, plaintiffs would have to show that the new App Store rules prevent companies from selling their content. "Apple's conduct, while exclusionary, is not anti-competitive. A time-honored axiom in antitrust is that it's meant to protect competition, not competitors." This wouldn't be the first time Apple has been pressured into modifying the App Store's terms, though. As stated in a Rethink Wireless article, Forrester Research CEO George Colony thinks that Apple's success has gone to its head and it is overpricing subscription fees in the iTunes Store, which should be about 5% rather than 30%. Because of this new subscription scheme, Apple may infuriate valuable partners, such as the aforementioned Rhapsody.

In-App Purchases

The other subject the FTC is investigating is the subject of in-app purchases, especially in applications marketed towards children (such as Smurfs' Village). The argument they're making is that many children don't understand the difference between real and virtual purchases. The App Store requires the user to enter their password to complete an in-app purchase, but it saves the password for a short period of time. So, if you enter your password and your child goes to play a game, they can rack up very large amounts of in-app purchases without you even knowing. Back to the example of Smurfs' Village, it offers an in-app purchase called "WAGON OF SMURFBERRIES" for $99.99. Unknowingly, children agree to this and end up charging their parents accounts for large amounts of money.

Opinion

I think that while Apple has some right to a cut of the profit because they are supplying the bandwidth and absorbing credit card transaction fees, 30% is somewhat greedy. Apple recently announced that they've paid $2 billion to developers so far since the App Store has launched, which means their cut is close to $1 billion in revenue from the App Store alone. One justification that Apple does have in taking such a large cut is exposure. Without the App Store, many apps would have the exposure that they do and the ability to conveniently and easily be downloaded to many devices. In conclusion, I believe that Apple isn't justified in taking such a large cut from the app and the actual subscription cost, and that they shouldn't put so many limitations on developers. Often, developers would like to give a cheaper incentive on their own website compared to the App Store because there isn't as much overhead in terms of paying Apple a cut and they get more recognized as a developer. If Apple continues to be so greedy and place this many regulations, eventually the majority of the smartphone market will be saturated with Android devices rather an iOS devices because of the open-ness of the system compared to the highly regulated iOS.

What do you guys think? Do you think that Apple has a right to regulate prices of an application in other places than the App Store? What about Apple forcing all developers to remove outside links from the application? And what do you think about the FTC getting involved? Share your ideas in the comments!

Are teachers unions hurting education?

The educational system in America today is a bureaucratic nightmare that seems impossible to reform or correct. While you might be surprised to hear this, the US is not the most educated country in the world anymore, in fact it does not even crack the top ten. The US is 32nd internationally in math scores, 10th in science and 12th in reading. S0 why is the quality of education in the US dropping so much? The answer to that is teachers unions. Most Teachers Unions were established more than half a century ago to protect the rights of teachers because they were not getting fair and equal treatment, but today they are a wall impeding educational reform.
What the unions do is set up a policy where the teachers are paid a wage based on how much the union and the government agree on in collective bargaining. However, what collective bargaining does is give all teachers the same pay and rights without considering how good of a performance he or she is doing. It protects the lowest standard of teaching and if people wanted to motivate teachers to work harder we would have a merit based program that decides pay. Washington D.C. almost did. A couple of years ago Michelle Rhee, the superintendent of D.C. schools, tried to institute a new wage program that paid teachers based on how well the students learned. If teachers did a really good job they might even be able to earn twice their salaries at the time. It seemed like a program that would motivate teachers to work harder and provide results. The teachers union did not think so and killed the idea before it could even be put to a vote. If unions continue to protect the lowest standard of teaching then we can expect to have a lot stupider of a nation.
Unions are not just hurting the standard of teaching, but impending learning as a whole. According to Time Magazine the teachers union in Detroit forced the city to turn down a $200 million charitable gift to build 15 charter schools across the city because they were afraid how the influx of the new schools would affect them. Recently New York turned down a $700 million towards the school system for similar reasons. One of the reasons that unions turn down these offers that would build charter schools is because they would have a more aggressive evaluation of teachers, longer days and school years and more of an individualized theme compared to a group dynamic.
Tenure is another huge problem affecting the quality of teaching today. Tenure is when teachers a granted a permanent position at their jobs and it makes it extremely tough for schools to fire these teachers. One of the biggest reasons that it hurts teaching is because once some teachers are able to get it, they become lazy and lose motivation to be as good of a teacher. Personally, I come from a great school where every single teacher is the cream of the crop so this doesn't really affect me, but I know that it has had a profound effect on lots of schools from around the country. The collective bargaining done with teacher's unions has made it much easier for teachers to get tenure and even harder for schools to fire teachers. In New York they have this area known as the rubber room. What the rubber room is, is a place that teachers accused of misconduct go for usually around three years while their case is waiting to be heard. While in the room the teachers play games, read books, and spend their day doing menial tasks while collecting full pay. This is RIDICULOUS. The rubber room is costing over $35 million a year and the money is going to teachers who spend their day doing nothing. We could spend this money on the schools or invest it into the economy, but instead it's being wasted because teacher's unions have become so strong. Mayors and governors of New York won't go after this because they are afraid of the teacher's union. If something is not done soon then our whole school system will soon be not fixable and do we really want the next generation being brought up with a second class education? We have to take power away from the unions and start using a stricter standard to evaluate teachers. I'm lucky that I go to a school where my teachers all very good at what they do, but what about inner city kids who do not have the advantage that I've had in my life.

Bing Encroaching on Google's Territory?

The search giant, Google, revolutionized the industry in 1997 when it came out with it's relatively new way of searching. Instead of finding the number of times a word appeared on the page, the engine would rank pages by the number of pages and the importance of those pages. Now, many companies have followed suit, including Yahoo!, Dogpile, and more recently, Bing.

Lately, Bing and Google have been having issues over the search material and how Bing comes by its search results. Google is claiming that Microsoft is pulling search results from Google and using them as their own. While there has been no mention of any legal action on Google's part, the questions is, would it be valid?

The questions comes down to this: first, is Microsoft taking search results from Google, and if so, does it go against copyright and trademark laws? Does Google have the rights to the results of its searches?

First off, the question of whether Microsoft is taking search results from Google is a question for Bing. However, if Microsoft is indeed using search results from Google, that would be an infringement on Google's trademark of PageRank, the software that generates all of Google's search results. They would be using the program without Google's permission to make a monetary gain. However, unless Google can prove that Microsoft is using its search results for Bing, Google really does not have a case for trademark infringement.

The bigger question is whether Google has the sole rights to the results of its searches. Some would argue that Google is providing those results for free use, which means that anyone could use those results for their own and there would be no legal complications. However, Google's software PageRank is producing those results. Google does have the rights to the software, but it gives the results to millions of people on a daily basis. While some companies, such as Microsoft, may believe that this information is up for grabs, it shouldn't be. These other search engine companies should be required to have their own software for producing search results.