Yahoo confirmed earlier today that it fired 2,000 employees -- or, about 14% of its global workforce. The hardest hit divisions? Product, marketing, research, and international. Taking Yahoo in a new direction, CEO Scott Thompson wants to focus on core media and communications, platforms, and data. Platforms? We don't really know what he means by that either.
If the end of the world happens, I want to have long-(dated) Treasuries, canned green peas, and small firearms." Those are the words of economist and former PIMCO guy Paul McCulley on Consuelo Mack Wealthtrack, which we took notes on here. The reason Treasury yields have gone up a little lately is that people see the end of the world being less likely than they did fairly recently, when the Eurozone crisis threatened to torpedo the global economy. What's funny is that the canned green pease/firearms thing is pretty common among doomers. The wildcard is Treasuries: Usually you hear people say that gold is the third thing they'd have in that armageddon portfolio. Over all, a big theme of the interview is that he (and Bill Miller, who he was also being interview with) is really not a fan of Treasuries, and that a short-10-year/long-S&P trade is something he'd be inclined to do.
Planet Pepper, a two-man company based in New York’s Garment District, makes the most whimsical costumes on display at drag shows across the city. Take a look inside the studio > Founded by Broadway costume designer Alex Bartlett and entrepreneur Vincent Cuccia, Planet Pepper is a study in turning a niche passion into a business. Bartlett hand-makes the clothes — from $140 dresses to $2000 tuxedos — while Cuccia handles the business side. They’ve doubled revenue every year since they started out in 2009, taking in just under $100,000 in 2011. “There are tricks to get the eyes seeing a waist and hips when they’re not there.” “I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a drag queen, but some of them are quite heavy set,” Cuccia tells us. So Planet Pepper’s lavish costumes are feats of engineering: metal frames prop up improbable shapes and artful padding turns muscular men into curvy characters. Bartlett, speaking in their studio on the 10th floor of a building on West 39th Street, explains how he creates the illusion: “There are tricks to get the eyes seeing a waist and hips when they’re not there,” he says. “You have to cheat some things and fake some things.” Take a look inside the studio > Bartlett was on a brief break: he was halfway through making 50 costumes for New York’s biggest drag ball, 'Night Of A Thousand Gowns'. During one visit, one minute he was soldering together a metal frame for a collar, then he was fitting a flowy red organza jacket on a client. Even when the chaos died down, he’d still be busy: Bartlett also works as a wardrobe supervisor at the Lincoln Center, and his design skills made him a fixture on Bravo reality TV show ‘Mad Fashion.’ Yepoka Yeebo/Business Insider Co-founder Alex Bartlett fits a customer. “There’s virtually no research on drag queens and their buying habits.” Cuccia says that when he sat down to write a business plan, he realized the only other people making dresses for drag queens were little old ladies: “Or drag queens were going to JC Penney or Macy’s and sneaking into the dressing rooms to try on dresses. There’s virtually no research on drag queens and their buying habits. We’re lucky that Alex [Bartlett] does drag and knows a lot about drag queens.” Cuccia, who also teaches business classes at Brooklyn College, says he always wanted to be an entrepreneur. “I have authority issues,” he deadpans. He found a $15,000 grant, and set about looking for a business to start. At the time, he was dating Bartlett, who had been making dresses for drag queens as a side-hustle. He was working out of his tiny studio apartment, which was crammed with sewing equipment and clothes. There were dozens of huge, styled wigs lined up on top of the kitchen cabinets, and there’d usually be a sink full of dirty dishes and two roaming cats. The set-up was minimal, but every time Cuccia would visit, customers would rave about Bartlett’s creations. He had inadvertently spent a decade building a loyal customer base with bare-bones costs: it was a strong starting point for a new company. “Initially I thought in 20 years, we’ll be a household name.” “The next phase is making lots of money,” said Bartlett. “We have to figure that part out.” Cuccia said he slowly realized that’s the biggest conundrum: “Initially I thought in 20 years, we’ll be a household name,” he said, explaining that he planned to go big. But the more he learned about the fashion industry, the more realistic his plans got. “It’s still a tough realization,” said Cuccia. “We’re probably not going to be an IBM or a Prada,” he added. “We’re really just an answer to a niche market.”
Justin Watt, a Web engineer, was browsing the Web in his room at the Courtyard Marriott in Midtown Manhattan this week when he saw something strange. On his personal blog, a mysterious gap was appearing at the top of the page. After some sleuthing, Mr. Watt, who has a background in developing Web advertising tools, realized that the quirk was not confined to his site. The hotel’s Internet service was secretly injecting lines of code into every page he visited, code that could allow it to insert ads into any Web page without the knowledge of the site visitor or the page’s creator. (He did not actually see any such ads.) Mr. Watt posted about the discovery on his blog, and that soon spawned a conversation on Hacker News, a discussion site for tech topics, about the ethics of this technique. One commenter described it as “icky,” and another asked, “Why aren’t they putting ads in my pillow?” Mr. Watt had strong feelings about it himself. He said in an interview that he had never seen an Internet provider modifying Web pages that a person visits. “Imagine the U.S.P.S., or FedEx, for that matter, opening your Amazon boxes and injecting ads into the packages,” Mr. Watt said. A test of the Courtyard Marriott’s wireless network on Friday verified Mr. Watt’s claims. The code was embedded in the pages of several Web sites visited, including Reddit, GigaOM and TechMeme. The lines of code include references to “rxg,” which stands for Revenue eXtraction Gateway, a service aimed at generating money from Internet access points. On its Web site, a company called RG Nets, which makes Revenue eXtraction Gateway, explains that its system rewrites every Web page on the fly so that it can include a banner ad. “As you can see, the pervasive nature of the advertising banner on all Web pages guarantees banner advertising impression,” a narrator says in the video. An online store selling the hardware to provide this service even lists “Web experience manipulation” as a feature. It is not clear whether the technology is in use at any other Marriott hotels. The Courtyard Marriott’s marketing director referred inquiries to Marriott’s New York office, where a spokeswoman said she would have to talk to the national office. The automated phone system for RG Nets quickly hung up on calls, and the company did not immediately respond to an e-mail. Even though this ad-serving system was apparently not serving ads, it was the principle of the thing that upset the online critics. Mr. Watt said that the technique not only affected people browsing the Web, but also the content creators, because they would not get a cut of the revenue and their own ads could be blocked. “Imagine the hotel delivering complimentary issues of The New York Times to every room, except some articles have been accidentally blacked out, all the ads have been cut out, and on every page there’s a new ad that’s been stuck on top,” he said.
77-year-old Greek man has committed suicide in central Athens by the nation’s parliament, shooting himself with a handgun in apparent financial desperation. Eyewitness reports say that the man shouted “So I won’t leave debts for my children” before turning the gun on himself. Others claimed he said nothing. Greek state media reports the man left a suicide note saying “The Tsolakoglou government has annihilated all traces for my survival. And since I cannot find justice, I cannot find another means to react besides putting a decent end [to my life], before I start searching the garbage for food." Georgios Tsolakoglou headed the Greek collaborationist government during the German occupation of Greece in the Second World War. The note has been widely regarded as drawing a parallel between Lucas Papademos’ current collaborationist government and Tsolakoglou’s regime because of the economic crisis in the country. The incident occurred around 9 am (local time) in Syntagma Square, just outside a metro station, when the area was filled with people and commuters. The man took his life behind a big tree, which concealed him from most eyes. Two people sitting on a bench some 10 meters away have been questioned by the police. An investigation into a motive has been opened. The pensioner, whose name is not yet released, appears to have been a pharmacist who owned a drugstore in Athens, which he later had to sell, Lourantos Costas, the head of the Attica Pharmacist’s Association told the Greek daily The City Press. The shocked Greek community is issuing calls for a "Syntagma afternoon" later on Wednesday. Motorcyclists are planning a protest ride around the capital starting at 17:30 local time (14:30 GMT). ‘Who’s next?’ People are bringing flowers to the tree under which the desperate old man took his own life. They also leave messages on the tree: "Austerity kills," "Not a suicide; a murder” or “Who’s gonna be next?” The number of suicides has dramatically increased in the country since the beginning of the economic crisis, shows data released by the Greek Health Ministry. Prior to the economic downturn Greece had the lowest suicide rate in Europe at 2.8 for every 100,000 inhabitants. Now, this figure has almost doubled, with police reporting over 600 suicide cases in 2010 and 2011 respectively. Attempted suicides are also on the up. Just on Tuesday, a 38-year-old Albanian man killed himself on the island of Crete. He had been unemployed for some time. The financial hardship made him jump off his second-floor balcony, reported local news. The private sector is proving to be no safe haven either, as in the last few months several businessmen have fatally shot themselves. To secure loan payments to foreign investors, Greece has been forced to drastically cut state spending by slashing public salaries and pensions by almost 40 per cent, while the unemployment rate has hit 21 per cent. But so far the Greek government has failed to pull the country out of its three-year economic downturn and continues to rack up austerity measures to qualify for EU bailout packages.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued new safety information about these cholesterol-lowering drugs that are prescribed to millions of Americans to lower the risk of heart disease. If you're among them, you should understand what the FDA's new guidance means for your health. "Before anyone gets too concerned, you should know that statins are so widely used because they have a long track record of safety and effectiveness," says Dr. Mark Taber, a cardiologist with SSM Heart Institute at St. Joseph Health Center. "All in all, statins have a very high benefit to risk ratio. The widespread use of the drugs, when indicated, probably accounts to a significant degree for the improvement in life expectancy in this country." The FDA called attention to the threat of liver damage as a rare side effect of statins and advised that regular liver enzyme testing is no longer considered useful in predicting or preventing liver injury. "Actually, in general they liberalized the follow up needed for liver function tests on patients taking statins, due to the very low incidence of true liver issues," Taber says. The main warnings related to a slightly higher incidence of developing diabetes while on statins, and a poorly substantiated claim that statins could result in cognitive impairment. Taber points out that cognitive problems, such as confusion or memory problems, were not documented in clinical studies, only by patient reports to the FDA website. "By stating these concerns, the FDA is raising awareness about the potential side effects of statins, but cardiologists already know that there are inherent risks, and we monitor patients appropriately to help ensure that side effects do not occur or are dealt with quickly," Taber notes. "If there is any evidence of a side effect that could be problematic, we can change the medication. But the fact remains that it's important to decrease risk of heart disease, and for many people statins are needed when diet and exercise alone don't result in acceptable cholesterol levels." Whenever a new prescription medication is started, you should look over the package insert to learn about potential side effects. Signs of liver damage, for instance, include fatigue, loss of appetite, right upper abdominal pain, dark urine and jaundice. Any of these symptoms should be reported to your doctor for evaluation. It is important to remember that you should not stop taking a medication without consulting your doctor first. Discontinuing use of a prescribed drug can be far more dangerous than the side effect you're worried about. "All the side effects listed by the FDA are rare, and the risk of heart attack is far more concerning," Taber says. "Some patients may need extra monitoring or may need to try more than one statin before we find the optimal choice, but in general statins are very well tolerated and don't cause problems for the people who take them." The advice above is universal when it comes to your health. Concerns should be discussed with your doctor, and decisions should always be made as part of a team approach to creating a healthy life.
John Holliday had been on a higher 40mg dose of cholesterol pills for only a few weeks when he started to lose his concentration. ‘I’d be watching TV and suddenly find myself unable to follow the plot of a drama,’ says John, 52, a telecoms project manager who lives in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, with his wife Jill, 51, and their two children Adam, 20, and Emma, 16. ‘I’d have to read the same page of a book over and over because I couldn’t take any information in. ‘I’d always been known for my amazing memory — I was great on trivia and had total recall of events that happened 20 years ago, but suddenly I couldn’t remember things and my brain felt fuzzy.’ Just like up to seven million other people in Britain, John had been prescribed a statin to lower his blood cholesterol levels. The drugs are credited by the British Heart Foundation as contributing towards the dramatic 50 per cent fall in deaths from heart attacks in the past ten years. But while there is consensus that statins are lifesavers for people who have previously had a heart attack, concern is growing over their debilitating side-effects. They include muscle weakness, depression, sleep disturbance, sexual dysfunction, muscle pain and damage, gastro-intestinal problems, headaches, joint pains and nausea. Now, official bodies here and in the U.S. have ordered that the drugs must carry warnings for cognitive problems, too. Worryingly, it’s claimed GPs are failing to warn patients of the effect statins can have on the mind — meaning they may mistake them for signs of ageing or Alzheimer’s. ‘When I went back to my doctor after six weeks for a blood test, I told him how dreadful I was feeling,’ says John. ‘But he just said all drugs had side-effects and didn’t mention reducing the dose.’ It's claimed GPs are failing to warn patients of the effect statins can have on the mind - meaning they may mistake them for signs of ageing or Alzheimer's Things came to a head when a friend showed John an electrical circuit he’d built for his car. ‘I’d worked with circuits since I was 16 but it made no sense,’ he says. So John insisted on seeing his doctor again and repeated his concerns about his rapidly declining memory. This time the GP told him he could start on another type of statin when he felt well enough, and so John stopped taking the drugs immediately. ‘It took a few months, but gradually my memory returned and I’ve got my concentration back. I can’t say for sure statins caused these problems, but it seems like too much of a coincidence.’ Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S. ordered statins must carry warnings that some users have reported cognitive problems including memory loss, forgetfulness and confusion. This followed a decision by the UK’s Medicines Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to add memory problems to the list of possible statin side-effects in late 2009. The FDA said reports about the symptoms were from across all statin products and age groups. Those affected reported feeling fuzzy or unfocused in their thought process — though these were found to be rare and reversible. The FDA also warned, following U.S. research, that patients on statins had a small excess risk of developing Type 2 diabetes — but stressed that the benefits of taking a statin still outweigh this. The MHRA had 2,675 reports for adverse drug reactions connected with statins between 2007 and 2011. Officially, side-effects are rare —affecting only 1 per cent of people on the pills — but some doctors say they are under-reported. Dr Malcolm Kendrick, a GP and author of The Great Cholesterol Con, says he frequently sees patients suffering from mental confusion in his job in hospital intermediary care for the elderly. ‘Many of the patients I see will have been admitted to hospital after a fall or similar crisis,’ he says. ‘If they appear confused I’ll often advise taking them off statins to see if it has any effect — in my experience, about 10 to 15 per cent of people who appeared to have memory problems experienced an improvement in their memory symptoms after being taken off the drug. ‘I had one dramatic case where a lady was admitted to hospital on 40mg a day of simvastatin with such poor memory function her family asked me about power of attorney. 'I suggested taking her off statins and within a week her memory had returned to normal. She went home a fit and independent 83-year-old.’ Dr Kendrick says cholesterol is the main constituent of synapses (structures that allow signals to pass between brain cells and to create new memories) and is essential for brain function. ‘It is still not proven that statins have a significant effect on mortality — it has been calculated that a man who has had a heart attack who took a statin for five years would extend his life by only 14 days. 'Too many statins are being given to people at low risk. ‘Even in the highest risk group you need to treat 200 people a year with statins to delay just one death. 'One day the harm these drugs are doing is going to be obvious — the benefits are being over-hyped and the risks swept under the carpet.’ While Dr Kendrick’s controversial view is in the minority, one large review of 14 studies by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, published by the highly respected Cochrane Library last year, concluded there was ‘little evidence’ cholesterol-lowering drugs protect people who are not at risk of heart disease. This review has been criticised by other doctors who say side-effects are rare and that there are still benefits even for people at lower risk who do not have established heart disease. These defenders of statins include Professor Colin Baigent of the Clinical Trial Service at Oxford University, who published research in 2010 showing statins reduced deaths from all causes by 10 per cent over five years. ‘There is relatively little evidence of cognitive impairment — what evidence there is all comes from observational studies. ‘People read about side-effects and then put two and two together and blame the statins for their muscle pain or other health problems — it’s just not reliable evidence. ‘If you look at the best-quality randomised controlled trial where patients don’t know if they are taking a statin or placebo, there is no evidence of memory problems. 'Even the FDA says the risks of cognitive problems are very small and go away when statins are discontinued. ‘We’re in danger of forgetting just how effective these drugs are.’ Dr Dermot Neely of the charity Heart UK, and lead consultant at the Lipid and Metabolic Clinic at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, agrees side-effects with statins are rare. ‘I’ve been dealing with patients on statins since 1987 and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number whose memory symptoms turned out to be caused by statins.’ However, he said he often saw patients who had not been told about side-effects. ‘It’s important GPs are clear about the drugs statins can interact with, such as certain antibiotics, as this can get overlooked. ‘If a patient notices an adverse effect after starting statins, they should discuss this with their GP —but not stop their drugs suddenly because this can be dangerous.’ Sonya Porter, 73, decided to stop taking statins after her memory problems became so bad that she walked away from a cashpoint leaving her money behind. ‘I was permanently fuzzy-headed and just couldn’t seem to concentrate,’ says Sonya, a retired PA from Woking, Surrey. Then I started to get scared I might have Alzheimer’s. After reading about memory problems associated with statins, I thought it was at least a possibility. I decided to come off the pills to see if it made any difference. ‘I didn’t ask my GP, I just did it — I’d rather die of a heart attack than Alzheimer’s disease. Within a month I felt normal again and didn’t have any problems with memory. ‘I’m terrified that I could have been misdiagnosed with Alzheimer’s.’ John Holliday is also reluctant to go back on statins. ‘I wouldn’t rule it out completely — my latest test showed my cholesterol levels have gone up,’ he says. ‘But on balance, I’d rather take my chances with heart disease than feel as confused as that again. It’s all very well living slightly longer — but it’s about quality of life, too.’