Worst business decisions ever?
Editors at the 24/7 Wall St. website identified the most costly mistakes made by US corporations. Here are 5 big missteps that had enormous consequences.
of 7 of 7MORE ON MSN MONEY
VIDEO ON MSN MONEY
Worst business decisions:
Coke comes out with new formula
Excite passed on the opportunity to buy Google for $750,000
IBM lets Microsoft keep the rights to MS-DOS
Electronic Data Systems passes up the opportunity to buy Microsoft for $60,000,000
Decca Records passes on signing up the Beatles because "guitar groups are on the way out."
Financial companies won't hire me because I don't have experience, even though I have been self-employed in the financial field for the past 10 years and have letters of recommendation that come from top people (Presidents, Managing Partners, Founders, etc.) in corporation's that everyone has heard of
The value of that policy was 15,000 dollars.
Inflation's relentless march making the 5 cent candy bar into the dollar candy bar is the one factor that one cannot adequately prepare for.
Many prior retirees have seen their once "comfortable" retirement turn into a financial nightmare with things like gasoline going from $2 to $4 within a couple of years and the ever increasing taxes and increases in utility costs.
Retirees are projected to be about 1/4 of the total population within the next 20 years and the costs of providing services to those who can no longer take care of themselves will possibly create an exponential rise in costs to meet those needs.
Failure to plan sufficiently could cause you to see poverty in your twilight years.
My father told me back in the late 50's, he was watching this country starting to let our manufacturing go overseas. He was very concerned and wrote letter after letter to representatives and senators, he wrote to anyone he could think of, but his word fell on deaf.
He told me, that the only way to create wealth was to manufacture, that is what made this country. If we let that get away from us we would be a service based economy. At that time we would start being controlled by foreign economies.
Seems he was right!
My favorite was watching Wang Labs implode when Fred Wang took over from the brilliant Dr. An Wang (Fred's father).
Fred had ZERO skills and appointed so many family members to important posts that they should have changed the name to NEPOTISM, Labs.
The level of incompetence amongst these family members was even greater than that of Fred himself. One of the most notorious was Ed Yang who was appointed to run the western region.
Needless to say only a few years after the switch, the company went from the number one word processing company in the world to bankrupt.
Fred either fired or pushed out all of the talented executives that built the company in order to make room for the family and their chosen ones.
Prior to Fred's reign Wang was the number 3 computer company in the world with over 33,000 employees and 1980 revenues of $3 Billion. Wang filed for bankruptcy in 1992.
Worst Business Decisions in my book
Ford shuts down for 18 months between the Model T and the Model A and looses 50% of it's market
Coke changes its' formula then goes back.
Sears and K-Mart join forces to ruin the image of both stores
GM accepts bail out from Obama and looses half of it's market
1970's American Auto Manufacturer's relinquish the small car market to the importers because they can make more on larger cars. They loose the ability and image for making an economy car.
DATA PROVIDERS
Copyright © 2013 Microsoft. All rights reserved.
Quotes are real-time for NASDAQ, NYSE and AMEX. See delay times for other exchanges.
Fundamental company data and historical chart data provided by Thomson Reuters (click for restrictions). Real-time quotes provided by BATS Exchange. Real-time index quotes and delayed quotes supplied by Interactive Data Real-Time Services. Fund summary, fund performance and dividend data provided by Morningstar Inc. Analyst recommendations provided by Zacks Investment Research. StockScouter data provided by Verus Analytics. IPO data provided by Hoover's Inc. Index membership data provided by SIX Financial Information.
Japanese stock price data provided by Nomura Research Institute Ltd.; quotes delayed 20 minutes. Canadian fund data provided by CANNEX Financial Exchanges Ltd.
RECENT QUOTES
Watchlist
MARKET UPDATE
| NAME | LAST | CHANGE | % CHANGE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| There’s a problem getting this information right now. Please try again later. | ||||
[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks entered the weekend on a mixed note as the S&P 500 shed 0.1% while the Dow ended with a gain of 0.1%.
The major averages began the day on a lower note as nine of ten sectors saw losses of more than 0.5%.
The consumer staples sector was the lone exception as the group spent the entire day in positive territory thanks to the relative strength of Dow component Procter & Gamble (PG 81.89, +3.19). The second-largest staple stock advanced ... More
More Market News
Currencies
| NAME | LAST | CHANGE | % CHANGE |
|---|---|---|---|
| There’s a problem getting this information right now. Please try again later. | |||
