美国债务上限辩论大混战

    “愚蠢。”“就像身处香蕉共和国（指经济单一、政局不稳的效果——译注）一样。”

    投资者纷纷用这样尖刻的话来描述国会在债务上限辩论中的表现。

    一些国会议员宁愿让国家冒违约的风险，也不愿意扩大借贷。因为，美国需要现金来为现有政策买单，而通过这些政策的就是……国会。

    国会的原则听起来很高尚——美国不能无限期地借款。但如果不提高债务限额，就意味着需要大幅削减开支，而此举必将使美国经济陷入困境，导致税收下降，进而使财政赤字进一步恶化。

    虽然美国国会最终涉险过关，但此次争论却使美国失去了宝贵的AAA信用评级。——珍妮•萨哈蒂

Debt ceiling debacle

    "Stupid." "Like a banana republic."

    Those are a few of the choice words investors used to describe Congress' behavior during the debt ceiling debate.

    Some members of Congress were willing to risk letting the country default rather than borrow more money. The country needed cash to pay bills from policies that had already been authorized by...well, Congress.

    Their principle was noble -- the United States can't borrow indefinitely. But to not raise the debt ceiling would have meant cutting spending drastically, upending the economy. That, in turn, would worsen deficits as tax revenue fell.

    Congress came through in the end -- barely -- but the bickering led to the loss of the country's prized AAA credit rating. -- Jeanne Sahadi

Netflix涨价+拆分的双重悲剧

    如果客户对你钟爱有加，而且公司的股票也在持续飙升。这时你会怎么做？还是让网络视频租赁公司Netflix来告诉你答案吧。2011年，公司涨价60%，推出了一个名为Qwikster的新网站业务，这两项举措让网站的订阅用户怒火中烧。

    公司在7月份公布了Qwikster网站的构想，听起来是出于合理的长远考虑：Qwikster网站将主要面向DVD业务，而Netflix将主要负责流媒体业务，因为那才是未来的前景所在。但对于客户而言，这意味着他们需要处理两个账户，两笔信用卡收费，而且还得访问两个网站。

    市场的强烈对抗很快爆发。超过100万名用户注消了他们的会员资格；而在近几个月，网飞公司的股价已经下跌了约75%。因此，Qwikster公布仅仅一个月后，公司便放弃了这一想法。公司CEO里德•黑斯廷斯在近期的一次大会上公开承认：“这次行动不够聪明，我们位次进行了严厉的自我批评。这本身就是画蛇添足。”但他同时又表示：“不过，三、五年之后，我们可能会淡忘这件事情。到那时候，我们更关心的可能会是我们的流媒体业务是否取得了成功。”

    只怕到时候，这家公司又有的忙了。——JP曼加林丹

Netflix's double oops: Pricing, Qwikster

    Your customers love you and your stock is flying high. What do you do? If you're Netflix in 2011, you tick off subscribers with a 60% price hike and the launch of a new business called Qwikster.

    The idea of Qwikster, announced in July, was grounded in sound long-term thinking: It would be for the DVD business, while Netflix would be all about streaming, and that's where the future is. But for customers, it meant potentially dealing with two accounts, two credit card charges, and two Web sites.

    The backlash was swift. More than 1 million users canceled their memberships, and Netflix shares have dropped by nearly 75% in recent months. Just one month after announcing Qwikster, Netflix abandoned the idea.

    "We berate ourselves tremendously for that lack of insight because it didn't need to be that way," CEO Reed Hastings admitted recently at a conference. "But you know, in three or five years, we aren't going to remember it. It's going to be, `Did we succeed at streaming?'"

    Until then, the company will have its work cut out for it. -- JP Mangalindan

明富环球12亿美元不翼而飞

    这笔钱既没有用于豪赌欧洲，也没有像2008年雷曼兄弟公司（Lehman）一样，在倒闭之前进行大规模的举债经营。

    但12亿美元到底去了哪里？

    目前，明富环球公司（MF Global）已经破产。今年12月份，该公司CEO乔恩•科赛因在出席国会委员会听证会时，为自己辩解称：“我也不知道这笔钱去哪儿了。”

    对于华尔街来说，科赛因就是“偷走圣诞节的鬼精灵”【典故出自好莱坞电影《格林奇偷走圣诞节》（How the Grinch Stole Christmas）——译注】。 成千上万的投资者损失惨重，而在这家经纪公司破产之后，1,000多名员工也随即失业。

    科赛因曾是新泽西州州长，并曾担任过高盛集团（Goldman Sachs）首席执行官。2010年，科赛因接管明富环球，雄心勃勃地要拓展这家经纪公司的业务。

    结果，在他的带领下，这家公司却成为第一个在欧洲债务危机中倒下的美国大型公司。 -- Nin-Hai Tseng

Jon Corzine: Where'd that $1.2 billion go?

    It wasn't just the massive bet on Europe. Or the massive leverage that recalls the days of Lehman, pre-bankruptcy in 2008.

    But just where is that $1.2 billion?

    "I simply do not know where the money is," said Jon Corzine, the CEO of bankrupt MF Global, when he appeared to testify to a Congressional committee in December.

    For some on Wall Street, Corzine is the Grinch who stole Christmas. Thousands of investors lost their money and more than 1,000 employees were laid off after the brokerage house went bust in October.

    Corzine, a former New Jersey governor and former chief executive at Goldman Sachs, took the helm at MF Global in 2010 with plans turn the firm into something much more than a brokerage house.

    Instead he turned it into the first major U.S. casualty of the European debt crisis. -- Nin-Hai Tseng

黑莓爆发全球大规模故障

    我们可以把它称作黑莓的“任务完成”时刻。但是，黑莓手机生产商动态研究公司（RIM，Research in Motion）历史上最严重的一次故障导致其全球服务持续中断了三天之久。就在公司宣布问题已经得到解决之后仅仅数小时，这次故障再次升级，从“糟糕”上升为一场灾难。

    此次事故从10月10日（周一）开始，导致欧洲、中东和非洲地区客户的服务中断。周二，问题蔓延到南美洲。当天晚上，RIM曾向用户保证，已经确认故障原因，“目前正在解决”。

    但在周三，美国和加拿大的用户也遭到波及。RIM直到周四才恢复服务。

    周四上午，RIM创始人兼联席CEO麦克•拉扎里迪斯在公司网址上发布了一则音频消息称：“我们让大家失望了。”——朱利安•波比顿

Blackberry: All fixed! Uh oh.

    Call it BlackBerry's "Mission Accomplished" moment. Research in Motion's worst-ever outage, a three-day global meltdown, escalated from bad to catastrophic just hours after the company declared the problem fixed.

    The crash began on October 10, a Monday, cutting off service to customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. By Tuesday it spread to South America. That night, RIM assured customers that the glitch had been identified and was "now being resolved."

    But on Wednesday, customers in the United States and Canada were hit. RIM wasn't able to restore service until Thursday.

    That morning, RIM founder and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis posted a taped message on the company's website, saying, "We've let many of you down." -- Julianne Pepitone

黑莓致歉礼包滥竽充数

    虽然黑莓的大规模服务中断持续了数天，但RIM高层对于如何弥补用户损失一直闪烁其词。

    10月17日，故障最终解决四天之后，RIM发布了一份声明，称：“我们非常珍惜和重视与用户的关系。”

    不过，他们的感激并不是通过现金的方式来表达。相反，RIM免费为用户提供了价值100美元的黑莓手机应用。列表中包括数个“宝石迷阵”（Bejeweled）和“模拟人生3”（Sims 3）等知名的应用，但剩下的基本都是“Vingo Plus”和“泡泡龙2”这样的货色。

    刻薄的说法是：黑莓的应用生态系统非常贫乏，放开手脚买，也花不了100美元。

    《纽约时报》（New York Times）报道称，如果用户选择20美元的DriveSafe.ly，而不是80美元的企业版，那么黑莓提供的清单中，其他应用加起来也才不过76美元——朱利安•波比顿

BlackBerry 'apologizes' with crappy apps

    As BlackBerry's massive outage stretched on for days, Research in Motion execs dodged several questions about make-good efforts for customers.

    On October 17, four days after the lengthy crash was finally resolved, RIM released a statement saying "we truly appreciate and value our relationship with our customers."

    But that appreciation didn't come in the form of cash. Instead, RIM offered its customers $100 worth of BlackBerry apps for free. The list featured a few well-known apps like Bejeweled and Sims 3, but the rest were the likes of "Vlingo Plus" and "Bubble Bash 2."

    Here's the kicker: BlackBerry's app ecosystem is so barren that it's almost impossible to spend $100 buying them.

    As the New York Times pointed out, if customers opted for the $20 version of an app called DriveSafe.ly -- instead of the $80 enterprise version -- and then bought every other app on BlackBerry's list, that would add up to only $76. -- Julianne Pepitone

标准普尔误降法国评级

    今年11月，标准普尔（Standard & Poor's）错误地发出警告，称公司已经调低法国的AAA信用评级。消息一出，有人大骂“该死！”。当然，也许还有更多更精彩的言论。

    之后，这家评级机构很快澄清此事，称该信息属于误发，并归咎于技术问题。

    但这一过失却戳到了许多法国人的痛处，因为外界普遍认为法国极有可能失去其AAA评级。本月早些时候，法国和其他大多数欧元区国家均被标准普尔列入了降级观察名单。不过到目前为止，法国的AAA评级尚安然无恙。——本•鲁尼

S&P downgrades France - by mistake

    Standard & Poor's prompted calls of zut-alors!, and probably other more colorful remarks, after it mistakenly sent an alert in November saying it had changed France's AAA credit rating.

    The ratings agency quickly clarified that the message was sent in error, citing technical difficulties.

    The gaffe hit a raw nerve for many in France, which is widely seen as the most likely candidate to lose its AAA status. Earlier this month, France and most other euro area nations were placed on review for a possible downgrade by the S&P. For now, France's AAA rating remains intact. -- Ben Rooney

瑞士越洋钻探公司滴血的安全奖金

    因为英国石油公司（BP）的大规模漏油事件，BP前任CEO唐熙华曾经登上2010年最愚蠢商业事件榜首，可谓“实至名归”。但与漏油事件相关的糟糕决策却并未就此画上句号。

    漏油事件中发生爆炸的墨西哥湾石油钻井属于瑞士越洋钻探公司（Transocean）所有。今年4月，这家公司在委托声明书中称，“虽然在墨西哥湾发生了人员伤亡的悲剧”，但2010年仍是公司历史上“最安全的一年”。

    更恶劣的是，公司高管获得了898,282美元奖金，其中很大一部分正是源于公司的安全记录。

    越洋钻探公司的九名员工死于“深水地平线”漏油事件。而公司这次的反应与2009年截然相反：当时，由于四名员工在一次事故中丧生，公司扣除了高管的奖金。

    这则消息很快成为一场公关危机，在发布委托声明书四天后，越洋钻探公司宣布，公司高管将“自愿”向深水地平线纪念基金会（Deepwater Horizon Memorial Fund）捐出250,000美元（相对于奖金总额，这只不过是个小头）。希望2012年，越洋钻探公司的高管还能获得与安全相关的奖金。——雪莱•迪布瓦

Transocean pays bonuses for 'safety'

    BP's big oil spill made former CEO Tony Hayward the hands-down winner in our 2010 list of dumbest moments in business. But bad spill-related choices didn't end last year.

    This past April, Transocean, which owned the rig that exploded in the Gulf, claimed in its proxy statement that 2010 was "the best year" for safety in the company's history, "notwithstanding the tragic loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico."

    Even worse, top Transocean execs were eligible to receive $898,282 in bonuses, in part because of the company's safety record.

    Nine Transocean workers died in the Deepwater Horizon spill. It was an about-face from 2009, when the company withheld executive bonuses due to an event that killed four employees.

    The news quickly became a PR crisis, and four days after the proxy statement Transocean announced that top executives would "voluntarily" donate over $250,000, a fraction of their total bonuses, to the Deepwater Horizon Memorial Fund. Hopefully, Transocean execs will earn their safety-related bonuses in 2012. -- Shelley DuBois

KC时装促销恶搞“阿拉伯之春”

    凯尼斯•柯尔在Twitter上利用埃及动乱来为自己的最新产品做广告，简直是愚蠢透顶。

    今年2月份，埃及解放广场（Tahrir Square）上的抗议活动不断升级。时装设计公司凯尼斯•柯尔（Kenneth Cole）的董事长却打趣道：“数百万人在开罗聚集，并引发骚乱。据说是因为我们的最新时装KC正式开始上线销售。”

    数小时后，柯尔在Twitter和Facebook上为自己的不当言论致歉，称并非“有意贬低埃及的严重局势。”

    但他的不当言论迅速引爆了媒体，Twitter界也很快进行了反击，发起了抵制KC的在线活动（#boycottKennethCole）。

    据《郝芬顿邮报》（Huffington Post）报道，有些人创建了名为@KennethColePR的冒牌公关账户，以讽刺他的言论，并发布了同样粗俗的虚假广告，比如“在新奥尔良，人们蜂拥前往凯尼斯•柯尔商店！”以及“衣柜单调至死？来我们的关塔那摩春季新装展逛逛吧。”

    —— 黑巴赫•优素福

Kenneth Cole sale sparks Arab Spring?

    Kenneth Cole committed quite the faux pas when he used the unrest in Egypt to plug his latest collection on Twitter.

    "Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online -- KC," quipped the fashion house's namesake chairman in February, as protests in Egypt's Tahrir Square escalated.

    Cole apologized for the misguided tweet on both Twitter and Facebook within hours, saying that he wasn't "intending to make light of a serious situation."

    The gaffe ignited a media firestorm, and the Twittersphere snapped back with the hashtag #boycottKennethCole.

    Others created a satirical @KennethColePR account and tweeted equally uncouth but fake ads like "People from New Orleans are flooding into Kenneth Cole stores!" and "Wardrobe got you water-BORED? GITMO of our new spring collection," according to the Huffington Post.

    -- Hibah Yousuf

Groupon上市申报文件营收注水

    团购网站Groupon的财务增长令人瞠目结舌，但公司的IPO文件使公众得以首次一窥其中究竟：Groupon在8月份提交的文件中称其2011年上半年的营收为15亿美元，要知道，三年前这个数字才仅仅只有94,000美元。

    然而事后才发现这竟然是一场闹剧——Groupon对于“营收”的定义过于宽松。如果Groupon出售10美元的优惠券，一般需要将其中的5美元支付给商家——但Groupon之前却一直将这10美元全部计入公司自己的营收。美国证监会（SEC）直接驳回了Groupon的申请，并告诫Groupon这种做法违规。

    9月份，Groupon提交了“更正错误”后的修订文件。所谓的错误也就是说，将出售优惠券的收入中应该返还给商家的现金全部计入了自己的营收。

    修订后的文件使Groupon在2011年上半年的销售额遭遇腰斩，仅有6.88亿美元。而Groupon同期的净亏损为2.55亿美元。——朱利安•波比顿

Groupon's $835 million accounting oopsie

    Groupon's IPO paperwork offered the first public glimpse into the financials of a company eye-popping growth: In an August filing, Groupon reported its revenue for the first six months of 2011 at $1.5 billion, up from a grand total of $94,000 just three years earlier.

    Turns out Groupon was being extremely generous in its definition of "revenue." If Groupon sells a coupon for $10, it would typically pass $5 of that on to the merchant -- but Groupon had previously been reporting all $10 as its own revenue. The SEC smacked Groupon and called that a no-no.

    In September, Groupon submitted a revised filing to "correct for an error" -- namely, including in its revenue the cash it has to hand back to merchants for their share of the coupons Groupon sells.

    The restatement effectively whacked Groupon's sales in half, knocking them down to $688 million for the first half of 2011. Groupon's net loss for the period: $255 million. -- Julianne Pepitone

美联航悍然启用911失事航班编号

    航空公司通常会停止使用坠毁航班的编号，但今年5月，联合航空公司（United Airlines）做出了一项错误决定，恢复使用联航93号航班与联航175号航班编号。这两架航班在911事件中被劫持，并最终坠毁，它们的编号成为这家航空公司最著名的失事航班编号。

    之后，联合航空公司很快致歉，并在这两个航班恢复飞行之前取消了这两个编号。公司表示，在联合航空公司与大陆航空公司（Continental Airlines）合并之后，需要对航班编号进行统一，所有编号均是由计算机自动生成。

    联航93号航班因同名电影而出名。这架航班在宾夕法尼亚州尚克斯维尔镇坠毁。飞机坠毁之前，机上的乘客重新夺取了飞机控制权。——克里斯•伊西多尔

United Airlines' unfortunate flight numbers

    Airlines typically retire the number of any flight that ends in a crash. But in May, United Airlines mistakenly brought back the numbers of its two most famous crashes -- United 93 and United 175, the airline's flights that were hijacked on Sept. 11.

    United quickly apologized and immediately removed the numbers before any of the flights got close to taking off. It said the numbers had been generated by a computer as it aligned flight numbers between United and Continental Airlines following the merger.

    United 93 achieved a lasting recognition from the movie of the same name about the passengers who regained control of the flight before it crashed into Shanksville, Pa. -- Chris Isidore

惠普抛售个人电脑打乱仗

    惠普（Hewlett-Packard）是全球最大的个人电脑制造商。今年8月份，惠普宣布公司计划抛售个人电脑业务，科技界一片哗然。公司称希望专注软件业务，而实际上到目前为止软件仅占惠普销售额的3%。行业分析人士一致惊呼：“什么？！”——不久，惠普董事会也做出了同样的反应。

    今年9月，惠普董事会将该计划的设计师、CEO李艾科扫地出门。一个月之后，惠普公司改变了立场，宣布将保留个人电脑业务。

    如果惠普董事会尽职尽责，或许原本能够避免类似的灾难。《纽约时报》近期披露，李艾科获聘CEO的时候，惠普董事会还有多名董事连他的面都没见过。

    惠普董事会之所以被认为是美国公司中最糟糕的董事会之一，这也是其中一个原因。正如智治基金（Ironfire Capital）创始人埃里克•杰克逊所说：“这帮家伙纯粹是一群小丑，无能程度仅次于雅虎（Yahoo）董事会。”——戴维•古德曼

HP: 'We're dumping PCs. No wait!'

    Hewlett-Packard, the world's largest PC maker, confounded the tech world in August by announcing that it planned to dump its PC business. The company instead wanted to focus on software, which currently accounts for just 3% of HP's sales. Industry analysts reacted with a collective "What!?" -- and, soon after, so did HP's board.

    In September, the board fired CEO Leo Apotheker, the plan's architect. One month later, HP reversed course and announced that it would keep its PC business after all.

    Perhaps the debacle could have been avoided if the board did its homework. It hired Apotheker after only a few of the company's directors even met him, the New York Times recently revealed.

    It's yet another reason why HP's board is widely considered one of the worst in corporate America. As Ironfire Capital founder Eric Jackson put it: "These guys are a bunch of clowns, surpassed in incompetence only by Yahoo's board." -- David Goldman

雅虎被逐女掌门冲冠一怒

    雅虎CEO卡罗尔•巴茨被迫离职，并不值得大惊小怪。毕竟，公司全年一直都在苦苦挣扎。但即便人们早有预料，公司辞退她的方式仍然令人震惊：雅虎董事会主席罗伊•波斯托克敷衍了事地打个电话就把她赶出了公司。

    之后，巴茨很快在发给全体员工的电子邮件中，向她的前下属们公布了这则消息和自己被解雇的方式。短信的开头是：“各位同仁，很不幸告诉大家，我刚刚被解雇了。”但最有趣的是信的结尾行：“以上信息通过我的iPad发送。”

    看起来就像是巴茨刚刚挂断波斯托克的电话，就马上抓起键盘，怒不可遏地敲出了最后的告别信。

    可她余怒未消。遭到解雇两天之后，巴茨在接受《财富》杂志（Fortune）独家采访时，再次提到了将她扫地出门的雅虎董事会：“这帮家伙耍了我。”

    哦，卡罗尔，没有了你，科技界将顿失色彩，以及你那“精彩的国骂”。——朱利安•波比顿

Carol Bartz's ouster: "Sent from my iPad"

    CEO Carol Bartz's forced departure from Yahoo was no big surprise -- the company had been visibly floundering all year. But even those who expected Bartz's firing were shocked by how the ax finally swung: Yahoo board chairman Roy Bostock dumped her unceremoniously by phone.

    Bartz relayed the news -- and the manner of her firing -- to her former charges in an all-hands email soon after. "To all, I am very sad to tell you that I've just been fired," the short missive began. But the best bit was its ending line: "Sent from my iPad."

    It's like Bartz hung up with Bostock and snatched up the nearest keyboard to bang out her final farewell.

    She wasn't done. Two days after she was sacked, Bartz gave an exclusive interview to Fortune, saying of the Yahoo board that fired her: "These people f---ed me over."

    Oh, Carol. The tech world will never be quite so colorful -- and full of four-letter words -- without you. -- Julianne Pepitone

好事达保险公司的星座冷幽默

    好事达保险公司（Allstate Corp.）在进行2010年事故率排名时，试图通过星座来幽默一把。但保险公司的幽默细胞藏得太深，结果，这个玩笑自然遭遇冷场。

    2月2日，好事达发布了一则新闻稿，称所有星座中，“焦虑害羞”的处女座最容易发生事故，而最安全的则是天蝎座。文章表示“去年，与坚决冷静的天蝎座相比，处女座发生车祸的几率大约是700%。”

    好事达的语气一如既往地冷静而稳重。这可是一家保险公司，而不是洋葱新闻（The Onion），结果人们对它的说法都信以为真。

    好事达之后的致歉甚至比之前的玩笑更冷峻：“从保险精算的角度考虑，通过占星术进行评级并不完美。我们理解，辛勤工作的客户对保险开支非常重视。我们也是如此。”

    或许他们应该挑愚人节的时候尝试这种玩笑。——亚伦•史密斯

Allstate ties insurance to zodiac...NOT

    Allstate Corp. was just trying to be funny when it ranked 2010 accident rates by Zodiac signs. But insurers are not known for their comic wit, and the joke fell flat on its face.

    Allstate issued a press release on Feb. 2 saying that "worried and shy" Virgos were the most accident-prone of all signs while Scorpios had the safest rate of all. "Over the past year, Virgos were nearly 700% more likely to be in a car accident when compared to the determined and aware Scorpio," said the presser.

    Allstate's deadpan tone was stone cold sober. But this was an insurance company, not The Onion, and people thought it was real.

    Allstate followed with an apology was even more solemn than its joke: "Rating by astrology would not be actuarially sound. We realized that our hard working customers view their insurance expense very seriously. So do we."

    Maybe they should have tried it on April Fool's Day.-- Aaron Smith

黑客攻陷RSA网络安全公司

    今年三月，著名的安全与解码技术企业RSA遭黑客攻击。攻击世界上最成功的安全公司？匪夷所思的是，黑客是怎么做到的？答案是，他们向RSA的员工发送了带有恶意附件的网络钓鱼邮件，邮件主题是“2011年招聘计划”。

    一位员工打开了邮件中的Excel附件，释放了一个程序，黑客随后控制了这名员工的电脑。此后，黑客在RSA的系统中一路畅通无阻。

    据一位研究人员的调查显示，这次大规模的黑客攻击涉及了至少760家公司，RSA自然首当其冲，RSA深受欢迎的SecurID标签也不再安全。

    黑客利用RSA攻击中获取的信息，在几个月后又攻击了国防承包公司洛克希德马丁公司（Lockheed Martin）。据该公司称，此次黑客攻击事件是对其基础设施的一次“重大且顽强的”网络攻击。——戴维•古德曼

RSA - the security company - gets hacked

    RSA, a preeminent security and encryption vendor, was itself hacked in March. How do you hack one of the most successful security companies? Send its employees phishing e-mails with malicious attachments containing the subject line "2011 Recruitment Plan."

    One worker opened the Excel file attached to the e-mail, which set loose a program letting the attacker control the employee's PC. From there, the attackers roamed through RSA's systems.

    The massive attack, which ensnared at least 760 companies, according to one researcher's investigation, hit RSA the hardest, rendering its popular SecurID tags less secure.

    Using information obtained in the RSA hack, attackers hit the IT systems of defense contractor Lockheed Martin a few months later, in what the company called a "significant and tenacious" cyber attack on its infrastructure. -- David Goldman

克莱斯勒羞辱老家车迷

    克莱斯勒公司（Chrysler）电视广告打出了“从底特律进口”口号，大肆宣扬乡土自豪感。但是这家处于困境的汽车厂商今年三月在Twitter上发布了一条不当言论，使人们心中的这股暖流降到了冰点。

    这则言论出现在克莱斯勒的Twitter账户中：“我觉得底特律被称为“汽车城”颇具讽刺意味，因为至今这里的人都不知道怎么开车。”当然，福特家族的人除外。

    这则消息激怒了数十名Twitter用户，他们纷纷转发了这则消息，但之后不久，这则消息就被迅速删除。克莱斯勒在Twitter上道歉，之后又在博客中称，这则“不当评论”是由其社交媒体代理公司New Media Strategies的一名员工发布的。克莱斯勒表示，这名员工已经被“解雇”，之后又发布公告称不会再与NMS续签合同。

    被解雇的NMS员工斯科特•巴托赛维兹接受了美国广播公司（ABC）当地分支机构的采访，将责任归咎于Twitter的应用程序——TweetDeck社交阅读器，称程序有漏洞。短短几周之后，巴托赛维兹就找到了一份新工作，负责管理福特公司（Ford）赞助的一个当地节日博客和社交媒体账户。——朱利安•波比顿

Chrysler cusses out its hometown drivers

    Chrysler touted its hometown pride with "Imported from Detroit" TV ads, but the embattled automaker iced some of those warm feelings in an errant tweet in March.

    The post went out on Chrysler's Twitter account: "I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f---ng drive." Except, you know, with the full f-word.

    Scores of incensed Twitter users retweeted the line, which was quickly deleted. Chrysler tweeted an apology, and later said on its blog that the "inappropriate comment" had been posted by an employee at New Media Strategies, its social media agency. Chrysler said the person had been "terminated," and separately announced that it would not renew its contract with NMS.

    The fired NMS employee, Scott Bartosiewicz, gave an interview to a local ABC affiliate and blamed a bug in Twitter app TweetDeck. Mere weeks later, Bartosiewicz landed a new job overseeing a blog and social media accounts for a local festival sponsored by Ford. -- Julianne Pepitone

联邦储备银行行长的iPad通胀论

    食品价格上涨幅度接近3%？汽车价格上涨28%？别担心！

    无论这些指标跟普通大众的联系多么密切，经济学家衡量通货膨胀时，通常都会刨除这些成分。

    今年三月，纽约联邦储备银行（Federal Reserve Bank of New York）行长威廉•杜德利试图向纽约皇后区的工薪阶层解释这些问题，结果却搞砸了。

    据路透社（Reuters）报道，杜德利说：“今天，你可以用购买iPad 1的价钱购买iPad 2，但是其功能却是iPad 1的两倍。我们需要考虑所有商品的价格。”

    在场的一位听众大声反驳：“可是iPad不能当饭吃！”——安娜莲•沈士奇

    译者：阿龙/乔树静

What inflation? Just buy an iPad

    Food prices up nearly 3%? Gas prices up 28%? Not to worry!

    When economists measure inflation they often like to strip out these choppy components, no matter how relevant they are to folks on Main Street.

    New York Fed President William Dudley was trying to explain this to a working class crowd in Queens, N.Y. in March, but instead, he kind of blew it.

    "Today you can buy an iPad 2 that costs the same as an iPad 1 that is twice as powerful," he said. "You have to look at the prices of all things," Reuters reported.

    An audience member hollered back, "I can't eat an iPad!" -- Annalyn