A $4.8 billion charge due to a drop in the company’s share price caused the one and only satellite radio company to lose $4.8 billion last quarter. Even without the charge, the company would have lost $217 million — a burn rate of about $70 million per month. CEO Mel Karmazin was upbeat:

“Sirius XM third-quarter results demonstrate strong revenue growth, solid cost control and most importantly a clear path to positive cash flow.”

So Mel says the path is clear, but somehow I doubt Sirius XM will be cashflow-positive anytime soon.

[Yahoo Finance] Sirius XM Radio posts $4.88B loss after charge

If you think Ford’s numbers were bad, take a look at the other idiots in Detroit. General Motors’ U.S. auto sales were down a sharp 45% for October. The company only sold an embarrassing 170,585 vehicles throughout the entire U.S. That’s nothing a loan and a merger can’t fix, right?

[Reuters] GM U.S. auto sales down 45 percent

Ford’s October sales drop was almost as bad as September — the company saw a 30% plummet in sold cars. The abysmal sales over the last few months are no doubt going to truck Ford’s third quarter financial numbers set to be released Friday. Expect to see red.

[Yahoo Finance] Ford reports October sales dropped 30 percent

Talk about some bad earnings — insurer Allstate just reported a third quarter loss of $923 million! The downturn and a hurricane or two contributed to the big fucking loss. Allstate CEO Thomas Wilson states the obvious in this insightful soundbyte:

“It has been an incredibly difficult year.”

Give the man a bonus!

[ Yahoo Finance ] Allstate reports $923M loss for 3Q

For a few hours after the new MacBook was announced, Apple France’s headline read “parfaitement con” — which essentially means perfectly idiotic. The page was then fact-checked and now says “perfectly conceived.”

[ Valleywag ]

Silicon Alley Insider has confirmed that Microsoft has established a hiring freeze in its Entertainment and Devices division. Microsoft has denied that this freeze is company-wide. There was reportedly a memo that was sent out so if any of you idiots happen to have that handy — you know who loves you.

Wal-Mart is recalling over 200,000 toasters manufactured in China and sold under the General Electric brand. The company has had 140 reports of fires or sparks coming from the toasters. GE’s manufacturing outsourcing program needs some damn quality control.

More recall info from Wal-Mart.

Fucked Ford has just announced that September was its worst sales month of the year. Sales of its autos in the U.S. was down 34% from the same month last year. This will be offset slightly by Ford’s share of the $25 billion rescue package that Uncle Sam just delivered to U.S. automakers.

More info: Breitbart

Mercedes is apparently recalling 103,000 M-Class SUVs because of a defect that can cause a loss of power steering. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, this defect “could result in a loss of control and a crash without warning.” The recall begins in October and will cover models manufactured from 1998 to 2003.

100,000 Razor scooters are being recalled by the Chinese manufacturer because kids are being sliced so severely, they require tendon surgery. Making a pun on the name is just too obvious…

Information on Razor’s surprisingly-frequent recalls can be found here.

Nike has announced that it will be purging its elite swimwear division, but denied that it was as a result of the success of competitor Speedo. Speedo’s LZR Racer was the brand of choice of Michael Phelps and was the weenie-bikini of choice of 72 lesser previous world champions. Nike was brusque as it exited through the back door:

“We will not invest in next-generation swim innovation, which is not in line with our stated category growth strategy.”

Boo hoo.

[ Yahoo Finance ]

The Bank of America online banking service was down for most of the day begining around 8 a.m. Pacific-time. The bank then posted the error message pictured below, which led to their their website crashing entirely. Downtime is bound to happen when hundreds of thousands of customers make a run at an online bank.

Carmax saw its second quarter earnings drop 78% — $41 million less than it made during the same period last year. The company blames the economy and “higher gasoline and food costs.” [ CNN ]

Opexa Therapeutics, a long-shot biotech firm, has announced that its multiple sclerosis drug has failed to meet up to expectations in a mid round of drug trials. The company wants everyone to know though, that while its drug wasn’t effective against a “dummy drug” — it’s still totally safe!

Opexa’s stock, however, isn’t so safe: the damn thing lost 90% of its value on Friday.

Google’s widely-used Custom Search platform (which power’s Idiot Inc’s search) was down for many users for over twelve hours. The outage broke website search engines on partner sites as well as paying customers. More info is available on TechCrunch.