A few years ago with Craigslist.org gutting every city newspaper’s classified ad section with its free ads, the writing was on the wall for newsprint: down and out in “know” time. Everybody knew that Web Triumphant would prevail. Well not so fast: This the latest of about 3-5 rejections per week I get from the …
I am a hopeless Detroit Lions football fan. This tortured allegiance goes way back to before Barry Sanders and even the Bobby Layne eras. So in time it twinkles back to the high-fin Detroit cars of the 1950’s. Now any of you who know football, know that I have chosen the-patience-of-Job challenging loyalty. The Lions …
Globalization and widening income inequality/disparity in the US appear to be driving events in the US Presidential election. Lest the debate get lost in shades of gray or deliberate ambiguities let me offer a list of helpful and clear writing on the nature of the events. Globalization: IMF – the strategic view UofFlorida Globalization Booklist …
Bank of America is buying Countrywide Financial – chief instigators of the subprime mess that is wracking the US and World Financial markets. Countrywide according to several reports was on the verge of bankruptcy. Why should Bank of America buy when it could get the same assets in bankruptcy court for pennies on the dollar …
The Fed is to the rescue again of supposedly the economy in general but some would argue Fed Chairman Bernanke and company are rescuing the Greedy-Guts-Itself US Financial Industry. And there is strong evidence from the Federal Reserve Board itself that is actually what is going on. The Chicago FRB in its February 2008 Outlook …
Flash Paper is technology by Adobe by way of Macromedia, it puts eBooks to shame. It comes free with Adobe Contribute product and it has the virtue of being so easy to use – you just print to Flash Paper instead of some printer – and bang your done. Here is an example (do pull …
In Sweeny Todd fashion the Financial industry has chosen, on first blush, a rather unexpected target for its financial rapacity – itself. And recent articles in the prestigious MIT Technology Review- The Blow Up and The Economist-the Darkside of Debt detail how the jugular cuts, more appropriate to a cheap Hollywood Slasher flick, were done …
Wall Street Presents Sweeny Todd – Greedy Guts Itself Again Read More »
Newsweek and Sharon Begley have done a masterful job of exposing the nature of Fear and how it effects people during decision making. But Sharon has a tighter purpose in writing this science piece, she is applying it to the Politics of Fear that has always permeated politics but has been especially war-crafted by George …
The upcoming US election has been predicated on two major issues: the Iraq War and the dissipation of American power and influence over the past seven years. The recent assassination of Benazir Bhutto has apparently escalated this issue back to the top of the Primary Elections agenda including the various world entanglements the US has …
The depth of Greedy Gutting Itself is beginning to emerge. Paul Krugman at the NYTIMES has this estimate of the depth and breadth of the problem . If you do the math on homes averaging $250,000 in value one has between$3-5 trillion on the line. And Allan Greenspan is calling it Turbulent Times – its …
Greedy Guts Itself: III, Casualties(Updated again) Read More »
Here is a bit of widgetry available for free from Yahoo (caution they watch what you watch and record the selfsame Google-like.) For general stock quotes and weather I find the widgets innocuously helpful. Then again I may have to take a fifth on this recommendation.
In our initial Greedy article, I have argued that Financial Institutions have largely put aside Fiduciary Trust – and now have a new primary goal – their own wealth with perhaps some coincident client gains but only for a carefully selected class. In this article by Steven Pearlstein at the Washington Post – you see …
In modern life we pay a lot of premiums almost automatically for the convenience of faster commerce, more security, trust and peace of mind in our social and economic lives. Brand names like Microsoft software, Maytag appliances, or State Farm home insurance imply top of the line products or services with implicit warranties of good …
Take the 5th Amendment Jeff & fellow Amazonians, as repeat offenders you are way past “three strikes”.
The OECD-Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development is the Economic In-club. The economic place you want to be beyond WTO-World Trade Organization and the G8. And part of that reason is because the OECD plays a scorekeeping function, mesauring how its members are doing on a number of economic,political and social measures. Sort of a …
For the past 7-8 months Hillary Clinton has been running a masterful presidential campaign and it shows in the polls – she is leading by 15-20 points except in Iowa and NewHampshire against all her Democratic rivals. But for the first time she has made a series of gaffes – and so she came out …
Hillary: Slipsliding on the Banana of SideStepping Read More »
Beijing has been lecturing Western governments on their support for exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama. US President Bush, while on one hand condemning Congress for its efforts to state that Ottoman Turks were responsible for the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians at the start of the 20th century, at the same time gave Tibet’s …
Al Gore won not just the Nobel Peace Prize this last week but also another perhaps more valuable award – king/queen maker for the Democratic presidential nomination. Of course Al is not going to enter the presidential race; but who he endorses among the Democratic candidates now has even greater coin. Al Gore is being …
In our observation on Top Management Awry we have posited that IT-Information Technology is simply being hopelessly mismanaged with a finger pointing towards CEO’s and Boards of Directors. They are treating a vital, strategic, and rapidly evolving IT assets (people, software and hardware) as cost centers to be bean-counter minimized. CEOs will cite Harvard Business …
In the October 8th issue of Information Week the article by Marianne McGee indicates how badly awry management at the top of corporations is now. The Society of Information Management does an annual survey of what are the top ten concerns for CIOs and IT management. This is one of the strategic polls that I …
When the Wall Street Journal picks up the story on income inequality, you know the situation maybe getting out of hand. Here verbatim is some of the WSJ coverage – go here for the complete story: “The wealthiest 1% of Americans earned 21.2% of all income in 2005, according to new data from the Internal …
In landscape photography there are two terms for how photographers try to enhance a scene – one is called “sweeping” and the other is called “gardening” . Sweeping involves removing all the obvious defects from a scene that might well be done later in Photoshop-post processing. Remove that cup or other junk; crop down to …
In the Business section of the Toronto Star of October 6th 2007, there is coverage of the Ontario Provincial Election by Michael Babad that really sets the case for why our political processes are way out of kilter. Michael shows in straightforward terms how the rise of the Canadian dollar and the continuing effects of …
Toronto served up Nuit Blanche on the last weekend in September 2007. This was the second year of an event that got started in 2007. The premise is simple – sponsor artshows and happenings throughout downtown Toronto at various museums, galleries, and public venues. Generate carriage trade. Scotiabank was again the sponsor this year And …
There came a moment in the USA vs Brazil semi-final game in the 2007 Womens World Cup when one had to issue a red card to FIFA. Fittingly it was the red card call by the Swiss Miss Referee Renghal. She clearly botched the call – Christiane of Brazil had brought Shannon Boxx of the …
Like all sports football craves more goals and bigger scores in its games. At the recent 2007 Womens World Cup, FIFA made a big show of awarding the Golden shoe to Brazil’s Marta for 14 goals in the Final Game ceremonies. But I think FIFA has it all wrong, they should be awarding the Golden …
Its beginning to dawn on Hockey commentators in Canada that the league has done a great disservice to the game in recent months. Take a look at Stephen Brunt’s recent columns in the Toronto Globe and Mail. In essence Stephen is saying that for Hockey Loving cities the times are good. Elsewhere hockey times are …
Baseball is a sport of rhythms and routine; something that once you play it , it definitely stays in your veins. And if you watch Baseball enough, the rightstuff also seeps in to your bloodstream and consciousness. Out in Calgary Alberta, one of my favorite pastimes was to sneak out to Foothill’s Park right next …
