Hot off the Press: Almost there edition

Some companies pay more in CEO salary than they do in taxes: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/some-companies-pay-their-ceos-more-than-uncle-sam-study-says/2011/08/30/gIQAHMcxqJ_story.html?hpid=z2.

Confessions of a former Apple user: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,783345,00.html. As someone who has owned a Mac since 1993, I can empathize. I love these lines:

The economic victory parade of the iPad and iPhone is accompanied by a dreadful emotional letdown, a bit like with the latte macchiato before it. Something that was pleasingly different, that gave its supporters a certain feeling of hipness, has been sucked dry by its sheer ubiquity. What was once cool has now become the epitome of uncool. If everybody has something, it can no longer set you apart. The most valuable company in the world produces exactly what all the other most valuable companies in the world have produced: soulless junk. Apple is like sushi: What was once exclusive is now as common as a lower back tattoo.

Speaking about Apple, a woman in South Carolina bought what she thought was an iPad for $180 in a McDonald's parking lot. It was, in fact, a piece of wood painted to look like an iPad: http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/business-news-briefs/2011/08/the_latest_low-price_tablet.html.

More about Apple. The company is responding to allegations that its suppliers are taking advantage of China's lax environmental regulations to emit harmful pollutants into the environment: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14746549.

In the first six months of 2011, renewable energy accounted for 20.8 percent of energy consumed in Germany: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,783314,00.html.

A Q&A session with Barbara Ehrenreich about the 10 anniversary of Nickel and Dimed: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/08/26/mm-nickel-and-dimed-10-years-later/.

Apparently, the 250,000 diplomatic dispatches obtained by WikiLeaks is now online and available for anyone, completely unedited and free of redactions. Not good news for informants: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,783778,00.html. Not that I have been looking very hard, but I have not seen anything about this in the US media.

More on the cable's release from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/01/unredacted-us-embassy-cables-online.

The 2011 award for Britain's ugliest new building was given to a BBC regional headquarter near Manchester: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/sep/01/carbuncle-cup-2011-mediacityuk-bbc. I cannot say the Brits have much of an aesthetic sense.