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The%20Business%20End
A look at the week’s economic winners and losers...

by Jacob Shafer

December 04, 2008

The biggest business news of the week, at least in the Aloha State, is  Hawaiian Telecom filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The telecommunications giant, which employs 1,400 people and serves just under 300,000 customers, reported a $34 million third quarter loss. That brings HawTel's total losses for the year past the $100 million mark. "[This] filing allows the company to reduce its level of debt and reorganize its business, so we can emerge"¦stronger and more financially secure," CEO Eric Yeaman said in a prepared statement. Guess that would be the glass half full analysis.

So Black Friday came and went, and the good news for retailers nationwide is that sales were up about 3 percent over last year. Hooray, we all went and did our patriotic duty and bought stuff. Now the ugly part: As you probably heard, a Wal Mart employee in New York was trampled to death by a rushing horde of shoppers who were apparently too psyched to buy crappy discounted items to notice that a man was being crushed beneath their feet. Adding insult to injury, when informed of the death and asked to leave the store, a number of shoppers reportedly protested and insisted that they be allowed to stay and make their purchases. Wow. I know shopping makes our market economy go "˜round (George Bush told us so) and that people like to buy things, especially when those things are on sale. But this goes past all that to a dark, dark place, where consumerism has corrupted us and obscured our humanity. Some may want to shrug it off as an isolated incident, but other events, like a shooting at a Toys "R" Us in California, put a dent in that argument. Not saying murderous rage lies in the heart of every holiday bargain hunter, but when this kind of thing happens and it's only sort of shocking, it's time for a little collective soul searching.

Here's one for fans of blatant corporate backstabbing: Mesa Air Group, which operates the budget inter-island airline go!, is attempting to buy the Aloha Airlines name in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, as reported in Pacific Business News. It's a tangled web. First, go! helped take down Aloha by slashing fares and, according to a lawsuit filed by Aloha's majority owner, stealing trade secrets. Now, go! wants to re-brand itself using the identity of its vanquished competitor. How deliciously ruthless.

A new report from the Hawaii arm of the National Agricultural Statistics Service tells us what we already knew: it's not a good time to be looking for work in the agricultural sector. Hawaii's total ag workforce, including self-employed farmers, is down about 6 percent over the same time last year. Pineapple and sugar cane saw an even steeper drop-off, about 13 percent, in the wake of layoffs at Maui Land & Pineapple and the move by Kauai-based Gay & Robinson to end sugar operations after more than 100 years in business. Is it time to re-evaluate our farming practices yet? MTW

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