Westwood One Cuts Metro Networks Jobs, Begins Companywide Failure

Last week a number of people at Metro Networks, a company acquired by Westwood One several years ago when Metro was a gigantic money-maker with a good reputation within the broadcast industry, became unemployed people. In St. Louis, several of these people have been friends or co-workers. It is the FAULT of WESTWOOD ONE managers and corporate vice-presidents who know only GREED...not how to handle personnel. In fact, from personal experience, the Viacom/Westwood One corporate attorney remains one of the most-hated people within the entire broadcasting community. I hope he put ALL of his investment money into Westwood One stock...and he doesn't sell off before the BIG CRASH...I want him to suffer the way he's made hundreds of former employees suffer --- without a job and/or money.

WESTWOOD ONE STOCK --- watch it and its mama stock Viacom fall feverishly soon. Within 6 weeks, the managers will be making another announcement in an attempt to keep itself solvent. Mark my words --- it will be an attempt in the barest and most banal sense. Soon you'll see WESTWOOD ONE will be up to the first bidder --- not just the highest bidder. I wonder if someone like Bank of America will want to find a buyer for WW1 and help market them, too?

(Pull your money from BAC - Bank of America now before they ask the Fed for relief! Their stock price fell more than $7 today to close @ $26.55 --- and they had been trading above $52 within the past year, before they "absorbed" Countrywide in that fiasco.)

VIACOM remains desperate, but it is like the basement that leaks on a day when 5 inches of rain falls, 4 inches of that rain within two hours --- it's going to be a very wet and smelly situation. You see, Viacom filed suit against YOUTUBE for $1Billion in March 2007...obviously in an attempt to keep themselves solvent. Their stock price dropped that day to $39.50. See below.

Westwood One closed Monday at $0.67 --- it's highest point in the past 52 weeks was $3.30. Does that tell you how great it is to be managed by these great "budget cutters" who apparently know SOOOO much about the business of business?

Mama company Viacom lost only 1.99% today, closing down $0.54 at $26.62 --- hmmn. Do you see the trend?

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To my friends from Metro Networks St. Louis who are now without a job:

Mark, Tom, Vicki, Jen, Susan...even Chris, whom I don't know: You're all in my prayers! Of course my friends still employed there are in my prayers, too, since you'll have to carry on without these great people.

Here Comes the CRASH of 2008

You didn't see it coming? In fact, I haven't been very convinced that it was going to happen. What? The great market crash of 2008 has been slow in coming, due in part to the way Americans simply joined the rest of the world in paying more for fuel and didn't throw up much of a fuss. Well, something wicked this way comes.

Now, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch in one day. What more proof does the stock market need to spur the greatest sell-off and stock market fall EVER recorded??? Okay --- sure, I could again be wrong that it's about to happen. If I were to have made a prediction in May, I would have said the crash wouldn't happen until October. And, should I be on the limb making direly necessary predictions (are there NECESSARY predictions?), October 2008 still seems a likely place to start with the undoing of all the gains that the wealthiest people on earth (*generalizing that the wealthiest are Americans, even thought we know that not ALL of the wealthiest are from the USA) have enjoyed over the past 30 years, during the tremendous stock market gains which added and padded their bank accounts and pockets.
However, I'm going to waffle here. It could be this week or next week.
Hey...it could be next February just after the 2008 holiday sales numbers have been double-crunched to find, yes, there really is such inflation, unemployment and an actual undiagnosed-by-the-government depression ongoing, that the market goes down like a four-square ball punctured by a nail.

This is simple:
The economy has already gone down --- but the markets have not properly reacted. Yet.

I hope you all realize that the banks/lending institutions you've been opening are so close to dying that you're ready to merge (again??) with one of those banks which weathered the stormy times 79 years ago and still exists. This is my over-the-side firing shot. RAID YOUR BANKS SOON, or you'll be looking like a scene out of "It's a Wonderful Life" when the townsfolk went to all their lending institutions to withdraw all of their hard-earned monies. They want their moneysworth.

Hard-pressed to come up with a great closing line, he simply says: "Send cash."

Regarding GOLD

I'm listening to GOLD again tonight. I've done so off and on for the past more than a month. It's fun to hear what the "presenters" in the UK get to do. My best friend is happy as "Paperback Writer" just started blaring from the speakers. We're here singing along with The Beatles and enjoying our evening. Straight into Bryan Adams "Cuts Like A Knife"...as a person in his 40s, I am really having fun listening to this station --- oldies from 5 decades...and an occasional "new" release by the artists who already belong to the "gold" library. FUN! Now, if they'd only hire me to be their overnight "presenter"!!! THAT would be a blast!

I hope y'all are doing well,

God Bless you!

JRJ