Cr-ppy companies --- literally; First-World Problems; They know exactly when you will die
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Jordan and Bryan Silverman's start-up venture, Star Toilet Paper, distributes rolls to public restrooms in restaurants, stadiums and other locations absolutely free -- because the brothers have sold ads on each sheet. (Company slogan: "Don't rush. Look before you flush.") Jordan, with 50 advertisers enlisted so far, told the Detroit Free Press in August that he came up with the idea, of course, while sitting on the can at the University of Michigan library. [Detroit Free Press via USA Today, 8-21-2012]
After an international trade association reported that women bought 548 million pairs of shoes in 2011 (not even counting those used exclusively for sports), the manufacturer Nine West has decided to start its own cable TV channel with programing on "various aspects of footwear," according to an August New York Times report. Programs will feature celebrities rhapsodizing about their favorite pair, women who hoard shoes (purchasing many more than they know they'll ever wear even one time), tips on developing one's stiletto-walking skills and shoe closet designs. It's about a "conversation," said a Nine West executive, "not about a shoe." [New York Times, 8-21-2012]
-- Habersham Funding of Georgia and its competitors make their money by buying terminally ill clients' life insurance policies for lump sums, then continuing to pay the policies' premiums so that they collect as beneficiaries upon death. The companies' business model therefore depends on those clients dying quickly; a client who outlives expectations turns the investment sour.
Thus, according to an August report by the New York Times, the companies run extensive background checks on the illnesses and lifestyles of potential clients and employ sophisticated computer algorithms that predict, better than doctors can, how long a client will live. Supposedly, according to the report, the companies are nonchalant about erroneous predictions. No company, they claim, has an official policy of hoping for early death. [New York Times, 8-11-2012]