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Hola:
Una infografía sobre Empresas con más liquidez (USA).
Un saludo
You will find more statistics at Statista
This kind of advertising literally pays: they’ve sold out of the 570 three-packs of Banana Bunkers that this post was meant to move, yet the post sort of took on a life of its own.
We often highlight social media marketing when it goes terribly wrong, so it’s only fair that we highlight when it’s done correctly. Well done, Groupon.
Banana Bunker [Facebook] (via Adweek)
That slice of pizza may not involve the level of complexity involved in this stackable, cheap masterpiece, nor does it include an entire fried fowl, but you’ve got to give them an A for effort, because pizza is delicious.
Along with the pizza there are other important food groups involved: There’s a beef stick (great food group), two kinds of cheese (best food group), an olive, celery and a pickle spear. The whole thing goes for $19 and comes with a beer back because come on, you have to have a beer with a Bloody Mary to do it right.
Twins former first baseman Kent Hrbek has his name on a bar and restaurant behind home plate at Target Field in Minneapolis. He Tweeted the new pizza Bloody Mary offering out yesterday, calling it the College Daze Bloody Mary.
This actually combines two over-the-top food trends — crazy stadium food AND wacky Bloody Marys, so good job on that one, Hrbek.
Fraudsters have been known to scam unsuspecting consumers by claiming to be agents with the federal government. So, in a bit of poetic justice, the Federal Trade Commission had a hand in shutting down a business calling itself the “FTC Credit Solutions.”
The (legitimate) FTC announced today that a federal court granted its request to halt the operation of the company allegedly using false connections with the Commission to market bogus credit repair services to Spanish-speaking consumers.
According to a FTC complaint [PDF], the company – along with its employees – deceived consumers in advertisements and phone calls by claiming to be affiliated with or licensed by the FTC, falsely promising that they could remove negative information from consumers’ credit reports, and guaranteeing consumers a credit score of 700 or above within six months or less.
In some instances, Guillermo Leyes, the marketing director for the company, promoted the services on the radio and in videos posted on the internet.
The pitches, which were presented in Spanish, feature Leyes boasting about his experience in credit solutions.
“Fourteen years working in banking tells you that I can help you. I was the first to come here on the radio, bringing you what is called credit restructuring. And what many ask, how are we going to remove a bankruptcy? This is impossible. How are you going to remove it? They have had to hold their tongues and say, well, we don’t know how he does it. And I am not going to tell them either. Because to do it I have not rested my brain, to do it I studied and to do it I have a license direct[ly] from the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission.”
Subsequent calls placed to the company by FTC investigators posing as consumers uncovered instances in which employees of the company routinely said the operation “works under the Federal Trade Commission, which is a law that was signed by the President in 2010.”
Employees also falsely promised that the company could “delete” and “get [the investigator] a pardon” for $19,000 in debt.
In addition to making false statements about an affiliation with the Commission, the FTC alleges that the company unlawfully charged consumers fees in advance of providing the promised credit repair service.
The company was also found to have sent false information to major credit bureaus.
According to the FTC, the company and employees, Maria Bernal, Guillermo Leyes, Jimena Perez and Fermin Campos, violated the FTC Act by misrepresenting their affiliation with the FTC and violated the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA) by charging upfront fees for services.
At FTC’s Request, Court Shuts Down Credit Repair Scam That Impersonates FTC [The Federal Trade Commission]
Liquidators Hilco Streambank listed this information as one of the Shack’s assets that would be for sale, alongside the company’s domain names, house brands, and patent portfolio. Yet the auction has an official consumer privacy ombudsman who looks out for, well, consumer privacy. The ombud, New York attorney Elaine Frejka, sent a letter to the bankruptcy judge in response to the letters from the attorneys general of Texas and other states objecting to the possible sale of consumer data.
Her response is simple: RadioShack told her that they aren’t selling consumer data.
I have been advised by the Debtors that customer lists and other customer-related information (the Customer Data”) will not be included as part of the sale to be considered by the Court on March 26, 2015. In light of the fact that the sale of Personally Identifiable Information, as defined in section 101(41A) of the Bankruptcy Code, is not at issue at this time, the Ombudsman respectfully submits that filing a report at this time would not benefit the Court or other parties-in-interest.
This doesn’t definitively rule out selling the data in the future, but it isn’t part of the current auction.
Shoppers’ personal info not part of RadioShack sale: ombudsman [Reuters]
The 23-year-old Denver woman says she was at a bar last Friday night around closing time, when a woman got a bit too close.
“She leaned in to say something into my ear. Things were loud, and I felt a tug on my purse,” she tells 9News. Suddenly, both her phone and the girl were gone.
Thinking her phone was a lost cause, she logged into Facebook on Monday morning and had a bit of hope spring up, as she started seeing photos apparently taken by the thief upload automatically to a private Facebook folder set up for that purpose. She can then decide whether or not to post them.
The woman she remembers from the bar is going around downtown Denver, snapping pics while she goes, she says.
“It actually becomes a lot more plausible for me to get it back when she starts posting selfies,” she said.
The thief has been stirring up trouble in the meantime — responding to a friend of the owner’s request to pick her up from the airport and saying she would, and then not showing, of course.
Thus far, police have tried calling the phone, and whoever answered said they’d return the phone. That didn’t happen.
Police are now offering a reward of up to $2,000 to find the selife-loving thief.
Again, we’ve seen this resolved happily in the past when such evidence is so plentiful, so there’s a good chance for a positive outcome here, too. As long as there are people who love taking pictures of themselves, there are ways of identifying them.
Selfie-loving iPhone thief taunts owner [9News]
Most motorcycles come with just two wheels and those components are crucial to the operation of the bike. That’s why BMW recalled 49,000 motorcycles in the U.S. and Canada.
The Associated Press reports that BMW initiated the recall covering several models produced between 2005 and 2011 after finding that the rear wheel can loosen.
BWM says the bolt that holds the rear wheel flange may be over-tightened, leading to a crack. If this occurs, the bolt can loosen resulting in an unsecured wheel.
The company first discovered the issue last summer after a motorcycle crash in Spain that left the rider and passenger bruised and scraped.
Recalled motorcycles include model year 2005 to 2010 R1200GS and R1200RT motorcycles, model year 2006 to 2010 R1200GS Adventure and model year 2007 to 2010 R1200R, 2007 R1200S and K1200R Sport.
Also included in the recall are model year 2005 to 2007 R1200ST, model year 2008 and 2009 HP2 Megamoto, model year 2006 HP2 Enduro, model year 2008 to 2010 HP2 Sport, and model year 2005 to 2008 K1200S, model year 2006 to 2008 K1200R and K1200GT, as well as model year 2009 to 2011 K1300S, model year 2010 to 2011 K1300R, and model year 2009 and 2010 K1300GT.
Owners of affected models will be notified in April and a dealer will replace the aluminum flange with a steel part.
A BMW spokesperson says, in the meantime, owners should check their rear wheel flanges for cracks. If none are found, the bike is safe to ride until recall repairs can be finished.
BMW Recalls Nearly 49K Motorcycles; Rear Wheel Can Loosen [The Associated Press]
After a rash of poop vandalism, officials in Hampton, IL decided to tackle the problem head on and have added a sign reading “Stop Pooping On Bike Bath,” reports WQAD, along with a helpful, crossed out smiling poo emoji, in case the message is unclear.
And lest you think this sign is for dogs — which is ridiculous, because dogs can’t read — it’s not, says the city’s Public Works supervisor. It’s been a problem for two years, and it is human feces being left on the path.
“Well, animals don’t carry toilet paper and then stuff it on the top,” he points out, saying whoever it is leaves a patch of paper on the poop every single time.
Sure, sometimes you’ve just gotta go, but there are other more civilized options available, he adds.
“It’s a mystery to many as to why someone would do it, especially when there are public restrooms nearby,” he says. “It’s gross and other people shouldn’t have to use our path like that,” said McKay.
Seriously — if you have enough forethought to bring toilet paper so as to wipe like a civilized human being, the least you could do is direct your backside to an actual toilet if it’s available.
Hampton posts signs asking people to “stop pooping on bike path” [WQAD.com]
Kaiser operates as both care provider and insurer, with Kaiser doctors treating patients at Kaiser clinics and hospitals. Some have argued that while this may be good for Kaiser’s business, it’s not necessarily good for the patients to have their HMO actually employing their physicians.
The patient in this case alleged that Kaiser was looking out for its bottom line and not looking out for her when doctors refused her and her mother’s requests for an expensive MRI, but instead directed them to nutritionists and acupuncturists.
This didn’t make much sense to the 5’4″, 125 lb. teen, who had a hard time believing that her severe lower back pain could somehow be attributed to her physique.
“I just felt really hopeless and I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t do the test,” she tells the L.A. Times. “[The MRI] was an option, people get them every day, and for some reason I was left out.”
After three months, Kaiser relented and agreed to the MRI, which found the rapidly growing tumor and led to the surgery that took her right leg.
“If it were caught earlier, her limb could have been salvaged,” the patient’s attorney claims.
Kaiser maintains that its doctors did nothing wrong and that an earlier MRI would not have changed the outcome.
“[H]ighly respected medical experts testified that the medical care provided was appropriate,” a rep for company tells the Times. “We will be evaluating in the days ahead how best to respond to this verdict.”
Calling the “forgotten flavor sense,” in a new report published in the journal Flavour , researcher Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University (via Time.com), reviews a bunch of research related to how sound can change how we perceive flavor.
He comes to the conclusion that what a food sounds like is integral to the experience of eating it, as his findings show people use sound to assess how tasty a food is, even if they don’t know they’re doing it.
“What we hear can help us to identify the textural properties of what we, or for that matter anyone else, happens to be eating: How crispy, crunchy, or crackly a food is or even how carbonated the cava,” Spence writes, adding that “sound plays a crucial role in determining how much we like the experience.”
One study found that consumers used the word “crisp” more than any other descriptor when evaluating 79 foods, which makes sense. Biting into an apple that snaps with freshness is going to be a different experience than when your teeth meet unyielding mush.
Another study he reviewed took on the delicious concept of bacon as not only just the taste and aromatic pork odor, but the crunchiness that sounds when you bite down.
“We often think it’s the taste and smell of bacon that consumers find most attractive. But our research proves that texture and the crunching sound is just—if not more—important,” the lead researcher wrote in that study.
Spence’s own work showed that people like carbonated beverages more when the sound of bubbles popping is louder and more frequent.
We put importance on the way foods sound because it could be indicative of texture, and therefore quality, says Spence. Even a softer food like breads or bananas can whisper to you in their own special way, conveying something special about how it tastes.
“Just think, for instance, of the subtle auditory cues that your brain picks up as your dessert spoon cuts through a beautifully prepared mousse,” he writes.
The importance of sound while eating could lead to a surge in food sounds in trendy restaurants, Spence predicts, starting with “modernist chefs.”
Understanding how foods sound and trying to modify those foods to appeal to senior citizens could make eating more pleasurable for the elderly, he adds, as their other senses decrease. The idea being, if you can’t see your meal that well or even smell it, the way it sounds when you sink your teeth into it could go a long way toward increasing enjoyment.
