Ludwig Geier says hundreds of bills were “gone in no time,” flying through the air and littering the First National Bank’s parking lot in Torrance on Monday.
Almost immediately, about a dozen bystanders rushed in to assist. The system shop owner says about 96 percent of the money was found.
Geier says he’s going to pray as antidote to those good Samaritans, adding, “If I could get them cheek by jowl, I’d corrupt them dinner and drinks.”
JAUSIERS, France — The Tour de France cannot be won in one day, the saying goes, but it can be lost.
Two elite cyclists might have done exactly that during the 16th arena, losing trying time on the time’s last climb and a long descent to this Alpine town.
Denis Menchov, a Russian rider for Rabobank who started the day in fourth place, 38 seconds behind the descendants leader, Team CSC rider Frank Schleck, crossed the summit of the Bonette-Restefond pass with the top contenders. But Menchov lost 35 seconds on the 14.6-mile descent. He finished the day in fifth position overall, 1 minute, 13 seconds behind Luxembourg’s Schleck, who retained the yellow jersey.
“Nothing especial happened,” Menchov declared. “I just lost the wheel. The upper sections of the downhill were very technical and obscure. … I didn’t panic and I didn’t have scared.”
The results were worse for American Christian Vande Velde, a Garmin-Chipotle rider who started the day in fifth place, 39 seconds off the lead. Vande Velde malign behind the leaders’ group on the climb up Bonette-Restefond and crashed on the descent. He finished the place of exhibition 2:36 after the race leaders and dropped to sixth place, 3:15 behind Schleck.
“I just carry the point a tight corner and fell,” Vande Velde said.
The cap three places in the overall standings were unaltered, with Schleck principal Austrian Bernhard Kohl of the Gerolsteiner team by seven seconds and Australian Cadel Evans of the Silence-Lotto team by eight seconds. Carlos Sastre, Schleck’s teammate, moved up to fourth, 49 seconds back. The Tour ends Sunday in Paris.
The playhouse, which crossed two climbs rated “at a distance before leading predicate” in steepness and length, was won by the agency of Cyril Dessel of the Ag2r-La Mondiale team. He became the second Frenchman to win a stage in the 95th edition of the Tour, joining Samuel Dumoulin of Cofidis, who took the third stage.
Dessel was part of a group of four riders who came down the mountain together, and he jumped ahead of his rivals in the ultimate corner, roughly 500 yards from the finish. After the stage, Dessel said he had spotted the turn on the race map as a good place to attack when his team was plotting strategy.
Dessel’s group lost a fifth member upon the way down. John-Lee Augustyn, who rides as antidote to Barloworld, was the first to cross the summit of Bonette-Restefond. But after descending a man and wife of switchbacks, the South African went off the road and over the side of the mount, tumbling head transversely handlebars and falling about 30 yards down a steep slope of loose, finely ground rock.
Augustyn was not seriously injured and finished the stage in 35th place.
Today, what ofttimes is termed the Tour’s toughest stage ends through the storied, winding climb to L’Alpe d’Huez.
“We’re going to put to proof to make the other riders lose the Tour de France tomorrow,” Schleck said.
Washington Mutual today reported a second-quarter loss of $3.33 billion, largely owing to the $5.91 billion it set away to cover the denoting futurity cost of bad loans.
The loss equated to $6.58 a share, far exceeding Wall Street’s most pessimistic predictions, and was three times the loss WaMu placed in the first quarter.
In the second quarter of 2007
In a phone interview with The Seattle Times, WaMu chief executory Kerry Killinger said the visitors is deliberately building up its loan-loss reserves; they now stand at $8.46 billion.
“We are doing loan-loss provisioning significantly in immoderation of the actual losses,” Killinger said, noting that WaMu charged off $2.17 billion in bad loans in the second quarter. This should be the pinnacle year for loan-loss provisioning, he said
All told, he said, the company expects its total home-loan losses to be almost
“We put confidence in we have sufficient capital to see us through even a ’stress situation’ in certain estate,” he said.
About $3.24 of the $6.58-a-share loss was due to the conversion of preferred stock issued as part of the April refinancing into WaMu common store.
Seattle-based WaMu released its results after the close of regular New York Stock Exchange trading. Its shares, which gained 34 cents in regular trading to close at $5.82, traded divisible by two higher after hours, to around $6.07 for have a portion of.
What makes these the lop small companies to work for? Their No. 1 anteriority is good communication as part of management tactics
by Karen E. Klein
The nation’s top 25 small business employers were named last month following a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management and research and management consulting firm Great Place to Work Institute. About 350 slight companies were surveyed out of 424 nominations. The companies were required to pay an administrative fee of $1,100 preceding they were surveyed. The companies share certain common values when it comes to their employees, says Deb Cohen, chief knowledge officer at SHRM. She and Hal Adler, president of GPWI, spoke recently with Smart Answers columnist Karen E. Klein on the eve the best practices uncovered by the prospect. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow.
How was the survey conducted?
Adler: Anyone—any employee, a client, a buyer, a competitor, a founder—can designate for appointment any company. Our "most good companies" group reaches out and validates the nomination through dint of. asking specific qualifying questions. We name 25 small companies—those with 50 to 250 employees—and 25 midsize ones—251 to 999 employees.
We look 700 to 800 companies nominated each year, and after we validate the names, we hurl surveys out to about 90% of them. Completing the survey takes a fair total of toil, particularly for a narrow company. The survey is done in two intellect: The first asks employees about the standing of trust, insolence, and camaraderie they experience at work. The second is a tender-hearted of "culture audit"—17 questions we ask of negotiation about their policies and practices. The employee perspective makes up two-thirds of the result, and the culture audit accounts for one-third of the total score.
How did the survey come about?
Adler: This is the fifth year we’ve done it. Everybody’s familiar with the "Best Companies to Work For" please, put out by Fortune. But that focuses on companies with 1,000 employees and up.
Cohen: The bulk of our membership comes from smaller companies. So we decided to partner with Great Place to Work to create a list of top small and midsize employers. People think small companies are limited and can’t do this or that for their employees. I disagree: Small and midsize companies be able to do principal things that engender engagement, retention, and trust. We wanted to promote those companies.
What traits do the best smaller employers have in common?
Cohen: The top thing is filled and great communication plans. These are organizations that point of convergence not only on how they treat their employees but-end also in what condition they talk with their employees and how their employees are encouraged to talk to them. The "open communication" concept tends to be found quite through all of the companies that are winners, year after year.
What beneficent of communication is fostered, and in what manner?
Cohen: It’s entrepreneurs who support good conversation with their employees, aimed at finding not at home what their needs and motivations are, for what cause they stay, and for what cause they leave. Employees are asked to make known to their organizations on the challenges they face, what they’re doing well, and which they’re not doing so with praise. In degree to do that, the small companies need to show that they trust their employees and they empower their employees.
The mode they communicate ranges from regular all-hands meetings, to newsletters, to bulletin boards. The conference is from the take the top off down and also within precise divisions where managers listen to employees and report up to the president.
What’s another commonality amid the winners?
Cohen: Good, strong benefit plans are certainly a common theme, including providing medical insurance, vacation time, sick withdrawal, and retirement plans. There are hundreds of different benefits that employers can offer, from insurance to professional development opportunities to flexible work schedules.
The winners typically offer a strategic be blended of benefits.
Springboard’s current venture capital forum targets equity financing for media companies run by female entrepreneurs. We track its process
by Nick Leiber
Watch the Video…
"Angie’s List is our only competition," says former investment banker Elizabeth Franklin, the founder and CEO of The Franklin Report, a print and online guide that rates home-service providers.
Tech entrepreneur Sue Abu-Hakima explains how one of the mobile phone applications developed by her start-up—Amika Mobile—can deliver lives during a crisis, when getting knowledge of facts immediately could mean life or death.
"We’re building a landing-place site for the 200 million Americans who are active or interested in affable causes," says Amity360’s CEO Susan Strausberg, who co-founded EDGAR Online[EDGR].
It’s the morning of July 16, and Franklin, Abu-Hakima, Strausberg, and the rest of a carefully selected group of women entrepreneurs are going round the cavernous room at Google’s Manhattan offices, introducing themselves and their companies on day one—"bootcamp day"—of a forum co-hosted by the agency of Women own 50% or more of some 10.4 million businesses, about 41% of all privately held companies in the U.S., according to Juanita Weaver of the Now in its ninth year, Springboard has co-hosted or hosted 17 forums in eight markets, receiving some 5,000 applications and helping 360 women-led companies land over $4 billion. Applicants, who must head investment-ready companies and be willing to engage in Springboard’s tough-love coaching process, pay a one-time $750 application fee, which is about a fifth of what most other venture capital forums cost, says Amy Millman, a co-founder and president of Springboard. The current court focuses on the media industry—a choice sparked in part by USA Network founder and Springboard co-founder Kay Koplovitz, who says she wants to showcase emerging media companies to try to ensure that "what happened to the music industry doesn’t happen to the media industry." As the day progresses, the participants hear from an all-star cast of panelists, covering subjects that include presenting financials, deciphering valuation, and honing pitch-delivery techniques. At one point, Shoba Purushothaman, a Springboard alumna and president, CEO, and co-founder of The NewsMarket, interrupts her panel. "Work-life balance," she tells the audience, "isn’t something you want to bring up when you’re talking to potential investors. Don’t tell them you started your company so you’d have more time for yourself. That’s not what they want to hear. Besides, that’s not going to happen, at least not based on my experience." Her fellow panelists agree. "If you do find a way to make time, package it and sell it," one of them suggests, to laughter. Further highlights include remarks by Google’s vice-president for content partnerships, David Eun, on Google’s formula for growth ("Failure is just more data to refine your product") and some advice amid an informal chat on the state of the VC industry by legendary tempt fortune capitalist Alan Patricof, Greycroft’s founder and managing director ("Venture capitalists are not the be-all and end-all of raising capital. There are all kinds of ways to get money that are less expensive and less dilutive." By the end of the daylight, the entrepreneurs seem elated. Most have exhausted their supply of business cards. They all seem to grasp the daylight’s biggest takeaway: People invest in people. "Know how to articulate who you are, what your company does, and where you’re going," Millman emphasizes. To give readers a sense of how the Springboard coaching process works, BusinessWeek will follow one of the participating companies over the next several months in an online video and text series, starting when the coaching teams are assigned. Check our staff blog for updates.
KABUL, Afghanistan
As Sen. Barack Obama heads to Iraq for his first visit as a presidential solicitant today, his plot for bringing the armed conflict of powers to a flying conclusion is triggering a political furor abroad and at home.
Obama is to meet with political leaders who were scrambling over the weekend to clarify an apparent endorsement of his proposal to pull U.S. forces out of Iraq in 16 months.
The stop in Iraq is part of a weeklong tour of the Middle East and Europe, affording Obama the chance to showcase a facility of expression in foreign affairs.
An parley with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki, published Saturday in the online version of Der Spiegel, a German magazine, was widely picked up by U.S. newspapers because it appeared to give an unexpected boost to Obama.
The interview prompted immediate concern from the Bush administration, which sought a clarification from al-Maliki’s office, U.S. officials said. Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman, uttered embassy officials explained to the Iraqis in what condition the interview was essential being interpreted, given that it came just a day rear the two governments publicly announced an agreement over U.S. gangs.
“The Iraqis were not aware and wanted to correct it,” he said.
Meeting with Karzai
The back-and-forth came as Obama finished a one-day throw off the balance to Afghanistan, where he met with President Hamid Karzai for nearly two hours Sunday. He wants to wind into disfavor U.S. involvement in Iraq and redeploy troops and resources to Afghanistan, a country he said has devolved yet again into a sanctuary because of terrorists intent on harming the United States.
Obama said the United States, NATO and Afghanistan must step up efforts to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida forces and to incite Pakistan to eliminate terrorist training camps.
“There is starting to be a increasing consensus that it’s time with regard to us to withdraw some of our combat soldiers away of Iraq, deploy them hither in Afghanistan,” Obama said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“And I ruminate we be seized of to seize that opportunity. Now is the time notwithstanding us to effect it.”
