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As Gillette has come under increasing competition from low priced competitors such as Dollar Shave Club and Harry's, along with a resurgent Schick who is offering refill cartridges that fit Gillette razors, its market share has dropped from 70% to 50% over the past decade. Gillette has been forced to drop the price of its razors by about 15% over the past few years and is on the verge of losing master brand status. It is within this competitive context that Gillette debuted its “We Believe in the Best in Men” ad campaign on its website yesterday, part of an...

The trader sold 19,000 put options on the S&P 500 Index obligating him or her to buy the market benchmark at 2,100 on Dec. 18, 2020, data from New York-based options analytics firm Trade Alert showed. As long as the index doesn't drop more than 22 percent from its current level of 2,582 by that date, the bet will earn the trader roughly $175 million in premiums. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway sold billions of dollars in stock index options between 2004 and 2008, betting that markets would rise over the next 15 to 20 years. Although the trades were made anonymously,...

As Twitchy told you earlier, Gillette recently waded into virtue-signaling waters with their “The Best Men Can Be Campaign”: Gillette ✔ @Gillette "Boys will be boys"? Isn’t it time we stopped excusing bad behavior? Re-think and take action by joining us at http://TheBestMenCanBe.org . #TheBestMenCanBe 3,982 5:45 PM - Jan 11, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 2,402 people are talking about this Because nothing attracts men to your product more than shaming masculinity. Needless to say, Gillette’s finding themselves bleeding customers, so to speak. And Dollar Shave Club is only too happy to make the most of it: Dollar...

---snip--- The saga of Philadelphia’s soda tax war is about more than arcane tax policy, and it’s about more than who may be up and who may be down in this year’s mayoral election. It really gets to a big philosophical question: Just what does it mean to be progressive nowadays? Mayor Kenney and his allies speak the lingua franca of progressivism, but when what you hold up as your signature accomplishment is a tax, as opposed to the program it might fund, and when that leads to the expansion of a food desert in a city with the worst...

A Danville couple is questioning the vetting process of walkers hired through a popular dog-walking app after home video appears to capture a man kicking and whipping their family pet. What makes them worry even more is that the on-demand dog-walking service, Wag!, only conducts background checks on applicants once before they are hired and does not do continuous checks. The dog-walking app has no relation to Wag Hotels.

Shaving supply company Gillette is trying to change cultural norms with a new ad campaign aimed at men challenging them to “shave their toxic masculinity.” The ad, called “We Believe,” kicks off with a flurry of news about #MeToo, bullying, and masculine behavior, while showing various men saying “Boys will be boys.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koPmuEyP3a0

PG&E Corp. stock cratered Monday after the company said it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid the financial anguish stemming from its part in helping spark a wave of historic wildfires in California. Shares of the company dropped nearly 50 percent in early trading Monday, one day after the company said Chief Executive Geisha Williams was stepping down. The company provided the official 15-day advance notice that it and its wholly owned subsidiary, Pacific Gas and Electric, intend to file petitions to reorganize under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code on or about Jan. 29.

If you’re reading this and happen to be Elon Musk, skip to step two. If you're not, read on. Beijing is so happy with Tesla's new factory in China that it has offered Elon Musk a green card. During a meeting at Communist Party headquarters in Beijing on Wednesday, Chinese premier Li Keqiang said Musk may well qualify for Chinese permanent residency, according to a Chinese government report of their meeting. Musk was visiting China for the ground-breaking of Tesla’s Shanghai plant, the electric carmaker’s first production base outside the United States. (He was also spotted having hotpot at a...

Walt Disney Co. Chairman and CEO Bob Iger saw his pay rise to $65.7 million, an 80% increase over a year ago, according to documents filed today with the SEC. The compensation reflects the generous stock package Iger was awarded as incentive to remain with the company past his planned retirement date, and lead Disney through its acquisition of much of 21st Century Fox’s film and television assets. Iger earned a salary of nearly $2.9 million, up from $2.5 million a year ago. He collected options worth $8.3 million and non-equity compensation of $18 million. But the biggest chunk of...

The $150 handset joins the burgeoning club of handsets offering a 48-megapixel rear camera. Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has unveiled the budget Redmi Note 7, which starts at 999RMB ($150) and features a dual rear camera with 48-megapixel and 5-megapixel sensors. The Redmi Note 7 is the first phone launched since Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun revealed last week that it would break out Redmi as its own sub-brand, leaving Xiaomi to focus on higher-end phones. READ THIS Xiaomi goes after Samsung Galaxy S6 buyers with new Mi Note Pro Xiaomi goes after Samsung Galaxy S6 buyers with new Mi Note...

Not that long ago, China’s economy was seen as a juggernaut that would soon overtake America’s to become the world’s largest. “Made in China 2025,” the Chinese government’s blueprint to take over manufacturing, was seen as an existential threat to U.S. technological leadership. Speculation had the Chinese yuan replacing the United States dollar as the world’s reserve currency. What a difference a trade war makes. No one marvels at the Chinese economy today. Car sales in China, the world’s largest car market, plummeted by 19 per cent in December, capping a six-per-cent decline in sales for the 2018 year, the...

Members of Congress would not be paid during government shutdowns under legislation introduced Tuesday by Indiana's new U.S. senator. Republican Sen. Mike Braun's first bill, the No Budget, No Pay Act, would prohibit compensation for lawmakers unless they approve annual budget resolutions and all appropriations bills by the Oct. 1 start of every fiscal year. The pay suspension would last until spending bills are passed, and retroactive pay would be banned. Parts of the federal government have been closed since Dec. 22 after the House and Senate failed to reach agreement on continuing federal funding. The central dispute has been...

When Mitch Steller first moved into his house on a lush 117-acre golf course in Southern California, “this was like the Garden of Eden, having a golf course in my backyard,” he said. Today, his Poway, Calif., home overlooks dry, dead grass in place of a once-verdant fairway. The golf club closed in 2017. “The fairways are brown, the greens are gone, the buildings are being vandalized,” says Mr. Steller, a 70-year-old maritime-management consultant. Forty years after developers started blanketing the Sunbelt with housing developments built around golf, many courses are closing amid a decline in golf participation, leaving homeowners...

(CBS) — A Milwaukee County bus driver is being called a hero, after she rescued a toddler found wandering alone in the cold last month, barefoot and dressed in only a onesie and a diaper. Irena Ivic was driving her regular route on Dec. 22, when she spotted a child running down the street alone, in below-freezing temperatures. Video from security cameras on the bus show the toddler walking barefoot down a freeway overpass. The Milwaukee County Transit System bus driver said she couldn’t believe her eyes. She quickly pulled over, and rushed into oncoming traffic to scoop up the...

i own a sf bay area rental home and use a property manager. the renters have been there for about ~20 years, but the rent has never been raised. The CPI indicates that prices have increased 45% in that period. The renters are Amish. No real problems, at least so far. One online survey (note: not zillow which seems inaccurate at times) indicates that we could raise rent by about 30% if we wanted to be on par with local market rental rates. what are counterarguments to raising rent? apparently there is no rent control in the area. avoid angering...

i often get us mail flyers offering cash for my home. the people all seem (no exceptions) to be white anglo saxon married couples. i personally know of exactly zero white anglo saxon couples with enough money to buy my home. so who are these white anglo saxon couples with money to burn and who just happen to take interest in buying my home??

Buffeted by plunging stock prices and weaker currencies, the number of African billionaires has shrunk to just 20, down from 23 a year ago. Four people fell off Forbes’ annual list of the continent’s richest since last year while one returned to the ranks after a four-year absence. All but four members of the list have smaller fortunes than a year ago. For the eighth year in a row, Aliko Dangote of Nigeria is Africa’s richest person. His estimated $10.3 billion net worth, however, is nearly $2 billion less than a year ago, primarily due to a roughly 20% drop...

Activation server fiddling on day of monthly update... really? Microsoft has said that activation errors seen by Windows 7 users should not be chalked up to Tuesday's patch, but rather were an entirely different cockup.Windows Activation Technologies is the Jiminy Cricket of Windows 7, chirping at you if it thinks you might not be paying for your licensing. Combining Jiminy with the Key Management Service (KMS) on Windows 7, as many enterprise customers likely do (even though Microsoft wishes they wouldn't), hasn't caused too many headaches.Until this week.A tweak to the Activation Servers saw happily licensed Windows 7 users suddenly...

It’s official: Megyn Kelly has parted ways with NBC, three months after being yanked off the air. Kelly and the Peacock network have officially reached an exit agreement, according to CNN, that will see the anchor walk away with every penny of her original three-year, $69 million contract, even though she’s leaving more than a year early. (Kelly joined the network in 2017 after a successful stint at Fox News.) “The parties have resolved their differences, and Megyn Kelly is no longer an employee of NBC,” the network said in a statement on Friday night. Kelly’s daytime talk show Megyn...

10. Spanish Barbie In 1999, fans of this popular fashion doll were very upset that she was wearing a matador's costume - usually worn when bulls are ritually killed in a bullring as a public spectacle. Barbie fans, including actress Alicia Silverstone, wrote letters to Mattel asking that they discontinue the toy. =================================================================== 9. Air Pirates Comic The underground comic, Air Pirates Funnies, was created by a group of San Francisco based cartoonists in 1971. The comic portrayed Disney characters engaging in VERY adult behavior. Disney sued, alleging copyright infringement. In 1978, the Ninth Circuit ruled against the Air Pirates....