Year-end lists, is there anything they can’t do? They dish out convenient bite-site morsels of information, provide periodicals with easy copy around the holidays, and help bloggers like me on a deadline before vacation. Sure, they’re not necessarily news, but they’re usually good conversation (or debate) fodder.
One of the most anxiously awaited lists around the Hoover’s compound is Fortune magazine’s annual compendium of the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business. Topping this year’s dishonor roll is China, which I’ve always considered to be more a sovereign nation than a moment. But when you consider that the country gave us lead-laden toys, tainted toothpaste, and killer drugs all in one calendar year, it’s easy to see Fortune’s rationale, if not choice of words.
Also near the top of the slate are usual suspects Stanley O’Neal and Merrill Lynch (#5 and #4, respectively) and Chuck Prince and Citigroup (#6), after the companies formerly run by those men were compelled to write down billions of mortgage-related investments between them.
No surprises there, but further down is when the list gets good. At #13 is Disneyland’s decision to close the “It’s a Small World” ride for renovations because its boats were getting stuck under the weight of overweight passengers. And how does the Magic Kingdom compensate park-goers whom the ride cannot accommodate? With free food coupons, of course. That just seems cruel.
Speaking of cruel, the Humane Society discovered that the faux fur used to make some of the jackets in rapper Jay-Z’s Rocawear line was actually dog hair (#32). Then there’s the guy who worked at a screw factory in Germany and stole thousands of the buggers each night (#49). Eventually compiling over a million, which he then sold online at below cost, artificially deflating the screw market. There’s a joke in there somewhere but I ain’t touching it.
But perhaps the most inane of all is one that didn’t make Fortune’s cut: the cost of the 12 Days of Christmas. According to PNC Financial, all those pipers piping and a partridge in a pear tree will run you around $19,500, the highest total ever, thanks in part to the spike in golden ring prices and 2007’s minimum wage increase, used to determine the cost of the only unskilled labor mentioned in the song, the maids a-milking.
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