Fargo Business Break: Good Week Bad Week

Good week for: Oscar Wilde, who has been voted the wittiest man in British history. The Irish-born playwright, whose famous last words were, “Either these curtains go or I do,” narrowly beat out comedian Spike Milligan, whose gravestone is inscribed with the epitaph, “I told you I was ill.”

Bad week for: The holistic approach, when a dentist accused of fondling the breasts of 27 female patients told the judge that he was merely manipulating the women’s pectoral muscles to relieve jaw pain caused by temporo-mandibular joint disorder.

Fargo's Area Tid Bit: Good Day, Bad Day

GOOD DAY FOR: High-rolling New Yorkers, as MGM Mirage announced plans to build a $5 billion casino, hotel, and retail complex in Atlantic City. One of the three towers in the massive resort will be reserved “for high rollers or those who are willing to pay to be treated like high rollers,” said MGM spokesman Gordon Absher. (The New York Times
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BAD DAY FOR: Ad professionals, as Frito-Lay said it will feature an original song submitted by a consumer in one of its 2008 Super Bowl commercials. And unlike its successful DIY Doritos commercial contest in this last February’s Super Bowl, the song doesn’t even have to be about a Frito-Lay product. (USA Today)

Fargo's Area Tid Bit: The Bottom Line

Mortgage defaults in September were down 8 percent from August, but still double the rate from a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac. “September’s total was still the second highest monthly total we’ve seen since we began issuing our report in January of 2005,” said RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio. The default rate was highest in Rust Belt and Sun Belt states. Nevada led the pack, with one in every 185 households filing. (CNNMoney.com)

Fargo's Area Tid Bit: The Bottom Line

The income gap between the wealthiest and poorest Americans is now bigger than at any time since World War II, and probably since before the Great Depression, according to new Internal Revenue Service data. The nation’s richest 1 percent earned 21.2 percent of all income in 2005, while the bottom 50 percent earned 12.8 percent. (The Wall Street Journal)

Fargo's Area Tid Bit: The Bottom Line

Starting today, AOL is cutting 2,000 jobs, or about a fifth of its workforce, as the struggling Internet company tries to transform itself from a subscription-based provider to an ad-based Internet portal. The job cuts—1,250 of which are in the U.S.—will help AOL with that transition, but “they’re still not going to overtake Google or even Yahoo” anytime soon, said eMarketer analyst David Hallerman. (The Washington Post)

Fargo's Area Tid Bit: Good Day, Bad Day

GOOD DAY FOR: Good beans, as fewer coffee drinkers are buying supermarket brands like Folgers or Maxwell House. But fewer young people are drinking coffee, too: only 37 percent of U.S. 18- to 24-year-olds drink java today, compared with 60 percent of adults 40 to 59, and 74 percent of those 60 and older. (BusinessWeek.com)

BAD DAY FOR: Good fortune, as New York-based cookie maker Wonton Food is stuffing dire advice in many of its fortune cookies. The company says its new messages—such as “Today is a disastrous day. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”—are supposed to be more contemporary and “value added.” (The New York Times)

Fargo's Area Tid Bit: Only in America

The City Council of Belmont, Calif., has voted to ban residents from smoking in their own apartments. Many of the state’s apartment complexes already have no-smoking policies, but Belmont is the first city to pass legislation making it a crime to light up at home. The city of Calabasas may be next. “The time has come,” said Councilman Barry Groveman, sponsor of the Calabasas no-smoking bill, who acknowledged the public reaction has not been wholly positive. “I’ve gotten threats like you wouldn’t believe.”

Fargo's Area Tid Bit: The Bottom Line

About 150 engineers at Intel are kicking off “Zero E-mail Fridays” today, encouraging coworkers to forgo e-mail communication in favor of the telephone or face-to-face meetings. U.S. Cellular and a few other firms have already instituted e-mail-free Fridays. White-collar workers get about 140 e-mails a day.