Companies Blame Losses on Hurricanes

[NVMojo]

ummmm, what about the economy, Stupid!!! Or the job market!!

October 4, 2005

NEW YORK (AP) - When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, women across the country crimped their cosmetics spending. Or at least that's what companies like Avon Products Inc. and Estee Lauder Co. want investors to think.

Katrina also caused mattress sales to slide, according to Tempur-Pedic International Inc. Same goes for business at Books-A-Million Inc. stores and Diebold Inc.'s automatic teller machines.

With the third-quarter earnings season kicking into gear next week, the blame-it-on-the-rain excuses are starting to pile up across corporate America. It's a challenge for investors to sort out fact from fiction in those reasons.

There is no doubt that many companies were hard hit by Hurricane Katrina, and in some cases, Rita, too. Given the size of those storms and the paralysis of business along the Gulf Coast, there will certainly be some legitimate costs for business there.

more...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/business/2005/oct/04/100402624.html

[htuttle]

1. The same thing happened after 9/11

There was a website somewhere that printed a bunch of ridiculous excuses in corporate press releases, all blaming downturns on "the events of September 11th". Not that it didn't affect our economy, but these were excuses from utterly unrelated industries.

"Due to the security measures taken after 9/11, we regret to inform our employees that we have switched to a cheaper brand of toilet tissue in our bathrooms..."

Or

"Due to the events of September 11th, we have been forced to remove the Thursday night drink specials from the menu", etc.

[NVMojo]

2. I remember that ....

[ShockediSay]

3. Any excuse will do

for everything from autos to zinc.

[philb]

4. MIT professor says g. w. responsible for more and bigger hurricanes

and global warming having major effects sooner than predicted:

Global warming is ocurring more rapidly than predicted and causing major effects currently that are being rapidly augmented by positive feedback mechanisms related to conditions caused by global warming. There is a rapid warming of the ocean surface temperatures that is having major effects including:

a. more and more energetic hurricanes
b. rapid declines in phytoplankton populations in widespread areas which have induced major declines in all sea life in the ecosystem dependent on the phytoplankton chain, including snails, muscles, worms, small fish, predator fish species, birds, sea mammals, etc.
c. bleaching and harm to coral reefs and coral reef ecosystems
d. declining oceans fiseries
e. increased desertification and droughts
f. major increases in weather related natural disasters and in insurance company claims to deal with natural disasters.
g. Melting of the arctic sea ice, with major degradation of habitat for polar bears, seals, etc. and major positive feedback increase in global warming due to decreased reflection of solar radiation.
h. Rapid melting of vast areas of Siberian and arctic permafrost areas for the first time in recorded history, with huge positive global warming feedback mechanism due to release of methane from the previously frozen permafrost peat bogs.
i. Major slowing of Gulf Stream flow especially in the north Atlantic, due to changes in arctic sea ice and salinity differential in that area that drives the Gulf Stream flow. This is expected to induce rapid cooling of the Eurpean continent and perhaps the beginning of a new ices age affecting that area in the near future

http://www.flcv.com/green.html

[NVMojo]

6. this will work for me!!!

[stepnw1f]

5. Why Not... the RW Blames God (nt)