Isegoria

Tom Chiarella took two grand in twenties, rolled them up, and left for New York, planning to spend three days greasing palms from gate to gate to see what it got him. Thus, he became the twenty-dollar millionaire:

I bought my way into a good table at a Les Paul show with a twenty. I got an usher at NBC to hold a front-row seat for Busta Rhymes on the Carson Daly show. I got a seat at Dos Caminos, Manhattan’s jumpingest Mexican restaurant, in five minutes despite the two-hour wait. I cut to the head of the line at the half-price Broadway ticket booth in Times Square. I got my shoes resoled in twenty minutes instead of two weeks. I got a little love by shoving a twenty into a homeless guy’s coffee cup.
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A twenty can’t buy everything. I failed often enough with my twenties that there were times when I doubted whether they could do anything at all. I tried to get into the Guggenheim when it was closed. I pushed the docent to let me roll one ball in the Frick museum’s secret bowling alley. I asked a stripper for a big wet kiss. I tried to get an ABC security guard to show me Peter Jennings’s car. I attempted to jump to the head of the rotation at a karaoke place. I tried to get into the premiere of Analyze That by passing a twenty folded in the shape of a ticket. The doorman looked at me like I was a mime.

Then I realized something else: Most people aren’t willing to lose their job for twenty bucks, but if they have something they already take for granted — a place in line, a seat, a ticket to a show they’ve already seen — they’ll jump on a twenty like a possum on a wet bag of groceries. It’s a matter of opportunity. You have to find your moments.
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It’s all about attitude and need. You have to have the attitude. You must discern the need. If you are the least bit hesitant or apologetic for offering the money, you are doomed. No one likes to take money if he feels as though the person is stretching himself to give it away. Remember, the more public the favor, the more private the pass. Whip out the bill, move swiftly. Fold it in quarters for discretion. Use the right palm. Smile knowingly. Wave it flat, like a flag, when you’re after more favors, more fealty. In this case, use the fingertips. Either way, it’s really just a sort of greeting. Treat it like a how-do-you-do and nothing more.

Apparently British mega-retailer Tesco is Wal-Mart’s Worst Nightmare:

British retailer Tesco entered the U.S. market only last year but already it has managed to put Wal-Mart, the world’s No. 1 retailer, on the defensive. Tesco fired the first salvo, in a battle that retailing analysts expect will intensify, by launching Fresh & Easy, a chain of 10,000-square-foot convenience stores, in cities across California, Nevada, and Arizona in November 2007. Eleven months later, Wal-Mart returned fire, taking on Tesco in Arizona with the debut of the similar-size Marketside, its first new store format in a decade.
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Back home in Britain, Tesco has long outpaced the Wal-Mart-owned discount chain Asda. The British giant currently has 34% market share, nearly double that of Asda. In a quarterly trading update on Dec. 2, Tesco reported that despite the economic slowdown, group sales rose 11.7% for the 13 weeks ended Nov. 22, compared to the same period the previous year, due in large part to the strength of Tesco’s international operations. While like-for-like sales in Britain rose a paltry 2%, the slowest growth rate in 15 years, Tesco’s international operations posted revenue growth of 28%. Analysts at Citigroup expect sales for the full fiscal year ending Feb. 28 to rise 13.6%, to $82 billion.

Tesco’s international momentum is expected to continue. A recent report from the Institute of Grocery Distribution, a British food industry group, forecasts Tesco will continue to grow at an average of 11% annually through 2012, enabling it to overtake France’s Carrefour to become the world’s second-largest retailer by 2012.

I thought this was WalMart‘s key strength:

Analysts say that Tesco’s big advantage over major international rivals, which also include Germany’s Aldi and Lidl, is its unrivaled ability to manage vast reams of data and translate that knowledge into sales.

Tesco’s strength lies just outside of Tesco actually:

While data crunching may sound dull, it has given Tesco two major advantages: an unmatched ability to operate multiple retail formats — ranging in size from convenience stores to hypermarkets — and the market knowledge to offer what many analysts say is the best and broadest range of house brands from any retailer.

Tesco uses information gleaned from Dunnhumby, a British data mining firm of which it has majority control, to manage every aspect of its business, from creating new shop formats to arranging store layouts to developing private-label products and targeted sales promotions. In 2003, U.S. supermarket chain Kroger copied Tesco’s example, setting up a joint venture with Dunnhumby in the U.S. Since then, Dunnhumby also has signed deals with a number of other U.S. retailers including Home Depot, Best Buy, and Macy’s.

Tesco’s other strength is its private-label goods:

While U.S. retailers have struggled to convince shoppers that supermarket brands are as good as big-name counterparts, Tesco’s private-label products account for as much as 60% of sales in many countries. According to the company, private-label products also account for more than 70% of Fresh & Easy’s sales. “Wal-Mart and France’s Carrefour are lucky to get 35% of sales from private label,” Flickinger says. The reason, he says, is that Tesco has a range of house brands to cover every price point. In fact, some of its premium-range products, such as Tesco Finest chocolate or yogurt, even sell at up to a 50% premium to established brands such as Cadbury and Danone.

Nicholas D. Kristof reviews Dan Pallotta’s Uncharitable, about The Sin in Doing Good Deeds:

Mr. Pallotta’s frustration is intertwined with his own history as the inventor of fund-raisers like AIDSRides and Breast Cancer 3-Days — events that, he says, netted $305 million over nine years for unrestricted use by charities. In the aid world, that’s a breathtaking sum.

But Mr. Pallotta’s company wasn’t a charity, but rather a for-profit company that created charitable events. Critics railed at his $394,500 salary — low for a corporate chief executive, but stratospheric in the aid world — and at the millions of dollars spent on advertising and marketing and other expenses.

“Shame on Pallotta,” declared one critic at the time, accusing him of “greed and unabashed profiteering.” In the aftermath of a wave of criticism, his company collapsed.

One breast cancer charity that parted ways with Mr. Pallotta began producing its own fund-raising walks, but the net sum raised by those walks for breast cancer research plummeted from $71 million to $11 million, he says.

Mr. Pallotta argues powerfully that the aid world is stunted because groups are discouraged from using such standard business tools as advertising, risk-taking, competitive salaries and profits to lure capital.

“We allow people to make huge profits doing any number of things that will hurt the poor, but we want to crucify anyone who wants to make money helping them,” Mr. Pallotta says. “Want to make a million selling violent video games to kids? Go for it. Want to make a million helping cure kids of cancer? You’re labeled a parasite.”

Chris Hardwick (Nerdist) spent a couple weeks “flirting with The 4-Hour Workweek” and other productivity regimens, and he shares his experience in his Diary of a Self-Help Dropout, which he sums up nicely:

Allen, Morgenstern, and Ferriss are a nicely compatible family unit: David Allen is the practical dad who reminds you not to overcomplicate things; just get the job done. Julie Morgenstern is the encouraging mom who, while hugging you, says, “It’ll be all right; you just need to focus on what’s important here.” And Tim Ferriss is the upstart kid who cries, “Think outside the box, man!” So in retrospect, it makes sense that I found it easier to cherry-pick elements from each and stitch together my own wearable cloak of efficiency. Now, I know that David Allen is the head vampire of productivity, but if you only have the fortitude to read a single book, I’m gonna throw my lithe frame behind The 4-Hour Workweek. Ferriss lays out a series of nimble yet perfectly legal cons to help you break out of the corporate Bastille — and work from the actual Bastille, if you want. That sly creativity best fits the rogue nature of the freelancer.

Toyota Expects Its First Loss in 70 Years:

On Monday, Toyota said it expected an operating loss in its auto operations of 150 billion yen, or $1.7 billion, for the fiscal year ending March 31. That would be the company’s first annual operating loss since 1938, a year after the company was founded, and a huge reversal from the 2.3 trillion yen, or $28 billion, in operating profit earned last year.
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With some $18.5 billion in cash, and relatively little debt, Toyota is still in far better shape to weather the downturn than General Motors and Chrysler, which on Friday received $17.4 billion in emergency loans from Washington.