Comments

yes of course one will be at the cross hairs, when one takes a 100 full page ad's across the network !!!

Will they surive Blogsphere.. ? The chatter has began..

Posted by /pd at January 14, 2005 12:25 PM

How can we see/read the contents of Tom's visit with Cavuto? The FoxNews website only has a mention. I usually watch the show or catch bits of it here and there, but would have liked to know (in advance, through the website) that Tom would be interviewed...

Posted by Lee H. Igel at January 14, 2005 2:21 PM

Congratulations - Neil is fun to watch and Wal*Mart is always a China-Giant story. The USA slipstream media though usually loves to be anti-USA ... so Wal*Mart and others get extra scrutiny.

Posted by John at January 15, 2005 10:26 AM

Yesterday there was an interesting story on the news covering the limited expense accounts of WalMart execs where execs share hotel rooms, eat on limited budgets when on travel, and are not reimbursed for alcoholic beverages. They spoke in amazement about how the top dog at WalMart had spent a mere $10 for dinner in NYC and had shared a room with another C-level leader. They seemed judgmental of WalMart for limiting the top dogs to such budgets.
I commend the leaders for walking their own talk! All I could picture was the photo on one business magazine of Ken Lay with a Pinocchio nose as his tales got taller and taller and the faces of groups I had consulted to at TYCO after Dennis walked away with the dollars and threw lavish parties that they had seen on TV and that had eaten into their retirements and sent many of their colleagues onto the rosters of unemployment.
Cheap hotele rooms and $10 dinners in New York?--finding them should be every C-level leader's mission and every shareholder's dream.

Posted by Pam Brill at January 15, 2005 10:51 AM

While I applaud sr. execs having to abide by the same policy as the lower folks, I've always felt that having business people share hotel rooms is insulting and unprofessional. I'd rather be put in a cheaper private room than share a room with someone else I work with.

Now if 2 folks want to share a room because they could stay at a nicer hotel for the same price, that's fine, but it should be their choice and not a corporate demand.

Posted by Rusty Hodge at January 15, 2005 5:50 PM

Well, Tom, I hardly ever disagree with you, but I must disagree with your "great person" assesment of Neil Cavuto.

Not only is he a blow-dried a mouthpiece for the Ailes spin machine, his editorials are pandering and simplistic.

He has acted as a cheerleader of disastrous foreign and domestic policies and a vocal defender of the mistreatment of Abu Ghraib prisoners.

I assume Cavuto is a personable man... however, his sacrificing of journalistic principles to pander to his audience and please the Ailes agenda assure me he is less than a "great person".

Posted by Jamie Hathaway at January 16, 2005 1:12 PM

I am (genuinely) curious about why you are a walmart fan. I have no direct experience of it as a store (although they do own some UK store brands). Most of what I have heard is negative:

Bully suppliers

The way staff are treated (you have to cheer in all the right places i.e. leave your personality at the door)

At a more fundamental level that their ownership of the market is so great that they can effectively censor products (i.e. bands and film makers have to change their output to be sold there) stifling creativity and choice.

I guess the only positive things I know of are:

Cheap

The staff are pleasant

So what are the real positives so I can understand this company a little better?

Posted by PaulH at January 17, 2005 9:13 AM

Hey Jamie, thanks for commenting! As an old Liberal, I do try and reach out! Also, the book (his) recounts his battle against cancer (diagnosed 15 years ago) and MS (diagnosed 5 or so years ago); Ailes, whom we both disagree with, was a saint to Neil about the MS. I'm always a sucker for the personal--like you!

Posted by tom peters at January 18, 2005 4:13 AM

PaulH, disagree about the supplier pressure. Many of the suppliers--like "old" P&G--were sloppy as hell. Wal*Mart woke up a lot of slugabeds, to all our benefits. Hey, I like markets, even the ones that cause me lost work--keeps me honest, like cardiostress tests!

Posted by tom peters at January 18, 2005 4:16 AM

Plus, Jamie, i like tangling with people who have different biases than i do. Causes REAL re-examination. How many damn coctail parties (outside Dorset) have we been to which are with people we mostly agree with--at which one learns nothing?

Posted by tom peters at January 18, 2005 4:19 AM

Jamie - Neil is a moderate - so for the few RADICAL LIBERALS that remain - Mr. Ailes and Neil seem so to the right.

The Abu scene was "broken" by that 73 going on 173 year old liar Dan Rather - so it was as perversely false as a Clinton party with a fat intern.

Neil and Mr. Ailes are journalistic superstars compared to the spin-slip-stream media "heroes" of Rather-Brokaw-Jennings-Blitzer.

FOX - internet dialogue - BlogWorld, et. al are all hot properties - ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN are dino-fossils with shrinking ratings and impotent anchors.

Posted by John at January 18, 2005 11:16 AM

buy viagra online 25mg I agree, Tom (see... I told you I almost always agree with you).

And I am a sucker on the personal stuff.

Perhaps someday you can moderate a Neil Cavuto - James Hathaway smackdown.

brand viagra paypal My best to you, old friend (meant in the friend for a long time meaning... not that you are old!)

Posted by Jamie Hathaway at January 19, 2005 4:21 AM

Came across an article in the 'Globalist' arguing that Wal-Mart may be the modern version of General Motors.

"50 years ago, . . . General Motors was the largest and most profitable U.S. corporation. GM's sales at the time amounted to about 2% of U.S. GDP — which is just about where Wal-Mart stands today. . . . Like Wal-Mart today, GM had no competition that could threaten its supremacy."

"But after 1937, GM was a unionized firm, strikes were frequent — and the organized pressure of its workers, seeking a larger share of the GM productivity dividend, was incessant."

"Wal-Mart's competitive strategy . . . has generated a howl of outrage from unions, small businesses — and those communities that see the company's "everyday low prices" as a threat to main street vibrancy. . . Wal-Mart's major competitive problems now arise on Capital Hill and from the capital cities of so many U.S. states." http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=4334

Posted by IJ at January 24, 2005 9:10 AM