This Posting Has Nothing To Do With The Faith Or Politics...
I just find it interesting

I hope you do, too. Here's some of the article from 247WallSt.com;

The Ten Brands That Will Disappear In 2010
24/7 Wall St. has prepared its list of the ten brands that will disappear in 2010.

This list is based on a review of each firm’s financial situation and other operating data, the current and ongoing value of its brand, and whether the company that controls that brand can sell its assets.

This year a number of famous brands have closed or their parents have announced that they will be shut down shortly. This includes decades-old magazines like Gourmet and famous car brands like Pontiac. The recession took whatever economic value these brands had left and destroyed it.

The brands on the 24/7 list for 2010 include companies that have been in trouble for years. Some have been in slow decline and others were irreparably damaged by the credit crisis. Most of these companies will be bought and the rest will simply be closed.


Newsweek. The magazine already has slashed its rate base (circulation guaranteed to advertisers) from 3.1 million to 2.5 million. It has announced further cuts that will take this figure to 1.5 million early next year. Motorola. The handset and telecom infrastructure company may finally have a future three years after falling from the No.2 spot in global cell phone share to obscurity. The time has come for the company to break itself into pieces and allow buyers to scuttle a brand with a bad reputation.

Palm. The smart phone company had a modest success with the launch of its Pre. The follow-on product, the Pixi, is not doing as well. The Pre is facing renewed competition from the Motorola Droid and new high-end handsets from Nokia and Samsung. Pre sales have fallen off, if a number of Wall St. analysts are correct. Borders. Borders Group (NYSE:BGP) lost the online and brick-and-mortar bookstore war years ago to Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS) and Amazon.com (NYSE:BGP). The company’s stock is down to $1.20 from a 52-week high of $4.48 and its market value is less than $80 million. Blockbuster. Blockbuster’s (NYSE:BBI) stock traded for $10 less than it did five years ago. Shares change hands for $.62 now. The video rental company had an awful third quarter. Revenue for this period of 2009 was $910.5 million, down from $1.16 billion for the same quarter a year ago. The 21% revenue decrease was mostly due to a 14% decline in same store sales.

Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) are intertwined closer than peanut butter and jelly. These two former government sponsored entities are now in government conservatorship. Their influence has largely disappeared. In the 1990’s it was believed that the government would never allow them to fold.

Ambac Financial Group, Inc. (ABK) is one of the former solid bond insurers that held the market together. The reality is that its peers may be in the same boat or close behind it, but Ambac is the one with the largest question mark associated with it today.

Eastman Kodak Co. (EK) has been on a downward trajectory since even before the end of the last decade. CEO Antonio Perez has not been able to fix the company since he took over in 2005 and Kodak keeps its heavy project investing and has been in a restructuring state for about as long as memory can go back.

Sun Microsystems Inc. (JAVA) may be headed into Oracle (ORCL) and it may not. Its fate as a standalone company is however looking more and more like an inevitable fate. IBM (IBM) was interested in Sun, but dropped out.

E*Trade Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) is a great company with a great client base. And it was run into the ground from giving risky loans and acting as the end-user banker.