The Good, the Bad and the Stupid

The December issue of Seattle Business is en route to mailboxes and now online. In this issue, we take our annual look back at the best and worst business stories of the year. It’s a pretty mixed bag, especially given the brutal economic climate businesses have faced in 2009.

Which is all the more reason to celebrate the good news of the year: success stories in this climate are truly exceptional.

But true to form, a bad economy brings out the worst in other people, from petty embezzlers to massive fraudsters, from poor judgment to head-slappingly stupid business decisions. The year 2009 has more than its share, and we would be remiss if we didn’t have a little freude with our shaden.

Read the Best and Worst of Business for 2009 here.

Also, M. Sharon Baker reports that retailers and analysts are hoping for a better shopping season, and that shoppers suffering from “frugal fatigue” may help boost holiday revenues in her story, “Grinchless in Seattle.” Today she follows up with a blog post on the recent (and somewhat lackluster) Black Friday/Cyber Monday sprees.

And in “Ahead in the Cloud,” Randy Woods takes a closer look at a company that survived the dot-com collapse and is now poised to ride out the current economic malaise: F5 Networks.

The complete contents of the December issue of Seattle Business are online now. Happy reading!