Biz Weak Briefs of the Week

I call the magazine known to most as Business Week “Biz Weak” because it often has hilariously biased and/or ignorant reporting. That isn’t to say it doesn’t do good work from time to time, but compared to other business periodicals, it usually has less of the good work and more of the bias.

Here are some highlights and lowlights from the June 19 issue (note; some Biz Weak links require a paid subscription, or will within a couple of weeks if they don’t now):

• Three months to go from hero to goat? In March, Biz Weak did an extraordinarily fluffy portrayal of Home Depot and its president Bob Nardelli. The June 19 issue includes Home Depot as one of the country’s three worst alienators in customer service (”Last Among Shoppers“). So which is it, folks?
• “Slipping Past the SEC” finds that private companies offering bonds are limiting access to institutional investors, enabling the firms to avoid SEC registration and having to comply with Sarbanes Oxley. Of course, the article sees that as a bad and “risky.” How about looking into why companies are going to such lengths to avoid have to deal with SarBox?
• This IS a revelation — “What Price College Admission?” reports that some parents are spending upwards of 30 grand on consultants who will chart out Muffy and Biff’s courses, extracurriculars, and (essentially) their lives, in some cases from pre-school, so that they’ll get admitted into a prestige school. At the risk of sounding cynical (no, actually sounding cynical–Ed.), they do this so they can get a better-than-average brainwashing from the “prestige” schools, many if not most of which are notorious for their discussion-stifling political correctness. What was that saying about fools and their money?
• Very good point — Catherine Yang says that the biggest lesson from reactions to Fed Chairman Bernanke’s straight talk during the past couple of weeks is that “Wall Street (will have to) think for itself.”
• Definitely worth noting — Much of Hyundai’s management has been busted in Korea for various forms of bribery and corruption. Biz Weak notes that even the company itself is acknowledging a management vacuum (third item at link), something I have not seen or read elsewhere. Too bad, because the company just shocked the world in the latest overall initial-quality ratings, coming in at Number 3 (behind Porsche and Lexus, but ahead of Toyota and Jaguar in the top five), which may come to be seen as their high-water mark. Also, maybe Ford’s acquisition of Jaguar has finally laid to rest the once-popular saying that you needed to own two Jaguars to cover for the fact that one was always in the shop.