Who's decorating the trees on the Garden State Parkway?

Maybe more people should be doing this.

clipped from blogs.usatoday.com Someone is trying to spread a little Christmas cheer along New Jersey's Garden State Parkway. The AP reports that just after Thanksgiving, two large glass ornaments mysteriously appeared on two large pine trees alongside the Parkway in New Jersey's Pinelands. Since then, five more decorations have popped up in the same house-free area. "Somebody has a lot of holiday spirit, which is great, but a lot of spare time at night, which is not so great," Joseph Orlando, a spokesman for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, told the AP. The authority operates the 173-mile toll road, which traverses the state and cuts through 50 municipal areas. No one has taken responsibility for the ornaments. "It's a mystery to us," State Police Capt. Al Della Fave told the AP. (Photo by Mel Evans, AP)

Billion Dollar Loogie

clipped from blogs.wsj.com Sure, the walking, talking gob of phlegm (pictured) was genius. But it was a clever intellectual property strategy that made that loogie worth $2.3 billion. That’s how much British conglomerate Reckitt Benckiser just agreed to pay for Adams Respiratory Therapeutics, the maker of the cough medicine Mucinex (and sponsor of the Mr. Mucus ads). Guaifenesin, the active ingredient in Mucinex, is a medicine that’s about as old as the hills. But Adams was the first company to do clinical trials to prove to the FDA that the long-acting form of the drug is safe and effective. That meant it got exclusive rights to that formulation — which was enough to get the FDA to bump a bunch of generic versions off the market. And congested consumers, happy to take their medicine less often, snapped up Mucinex.

What’s in a Name?

Would you think about this before naming your kid?

clipped from blogs.wsj.com In this week’s print column, I analyze a study that links people’s initials to surprising trends. For example, major league baseball players with first or last initial K were more likely than average to strike out; and business graduate students with initials C or D had lower grades, on average earlier research exploring this link between our names and our taste — in brand names, in hometowns (Louis prefers St. Louis, Jack likes Jacksonville), and in street names. clipped from blog.newsweek.com People like their names so much that they unconsciously opt for things that begin with their initials. Even weirder, they gravitate toward things that begin with their initials even when those things are undesirable, like bad grades or a baseball strikeout. The pattern held for grades, too. Using 15 years (1990–2004) of grade point averages for business school grads, they found that students whose names began with C or D earned lower GPAs than those whose names began with A or B. clipped from papers.ssrn.com Moniker Maladies: When Names Sabotage Success

Nearly 20,000 Downgrades — and Counting

clipped from blogs.wsj.com The tsunami of subprime-related bond downgrades this quarter sent shockwaves throughout the financial markets. Now that the tide has weakened, analysts are surveying the wreckage. According to research from Deutsche Bank, credit rating companies Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings have issued an unprecedented 19,795 debt downgrades so far this year among securitized assets. That compares with the 2,539 separate downgrades they issued for all of 2006, and the previous annual record for downgrades, which was 4,168 in 2003. The percentage of subprime-mortgage-backed debt affected by downgrades is much higher – for example, 58% of collateralized debt obligations backed by subprime collateral that were issued from 2005 to 2007 have been downgraded “Even more alarming is the degree to which very highly rated securities seem to have deteriorated overnight some securities issued by collateralized debt obligations had their ratings slashes from triple-A to “distressed”

The Subprime Bailout Bonanza

clipped from blogs.wsj.com And so it begins. The bailout to end all bailouts government involvement in the markets on a level not seen since the resolution of the S&L crisis Lehman Brothers expects about 2.8 million subprime mortgages to reset in 2008 and 2009 about 30% higher The questions that remain is whether intervention in these markets will produce an solution that will enhance the value of the vast supply of mortgages “The cost of this is, actually, going to be absorbed by investors in mortgage-backed securities,” they write. “This is why ‘good credit’ borrowers are not going to be ‘rewarded’ — because investors cannot be brought to forgo that much interest.” The double-A rated ABX was traded at 39.8 cents on the dollar this morning, as investors still see very little value being recovered from those loans.

Bridezilla Back, Sued Florist

Everybody gets 15 minutes.

clipped from blogs.wsj.com Lawyer Bride Who Sued Her Florist Elana Glatt et al. v. Posy Floral Design Studio sued the florist after she was displeased with how things turned out. (Click here and here for Law Blog Background.) she goes by Elana Elbogen, her maiden name click here for pages 4 through 11 of the answer click here for the 19-page complaint in full. highlights: groom-to-be allegedly had no involvement in the floral arrangements! Glatt and her future mother-in-law allegedly disagreed on the floral arrangements! “ Herbert Glatt, MD, the father of the groom, allegedly paid for the flowers Elana and her future mother-in-law made so many last-minute changes even “up until the final few hours of the latest possible date that Posy Designs was able to place flower orders for Plaintiff’s wedding event that were known and expected to be imported directly from Holland.” The florists asked for sanctions against Glatt for filing a frivolous and malevolent lawsuit.

Fat kids die young

Wake up parents.

clipped from www.usatoday.com A growing epidemic of childhood obesity worldwide will lead to an increase of premature heart attacks and strokes, say two studies out today. Taken together, doctors say, the studies provide new evidence that excess weight does affect a child's long-term risk of heart disease and life expectancy. Previous studies have yielded conflicting results. "The entire argument will be irrelevant, once the full effects of the childhood obesity epidemic are felt," says David Ludwig of Children's Hospital in Boston The higher a child's body mass index the higher his risk of getting heart disease Childhood obesity in the U.S. will lead to a glut of heart attacks, strokes, episodes of avoidable chest pain, medical procedures and deaths. Year Excess crises Needless Deaths 2020 600 130 2025 5,400 550 2030 11,000 1,500 2035 37,000 3,700 Fitness resources and success stories A 13-year-old boy in the highest weight category increased his risk of having a heart attack or other heart-related problem by 33%