raving lunacy - oxymorons for the 21st century

There seems to be no credit crisis on the taxpayer dollar.

More of your tax dollars at work. A  local TV station reports that AIG blew into town for another ‘conference’ at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort this week. According to the KNXV story:

AIG made significant efforts to disguise the conference, making sure there were no AIG logos or signs anywhere on the property.

An AIG spokesperson said there were no AIG markers in order to minimize signage costs and to lower the company’s profile.
Source: AIG execs at posh Phoenix resort after $85 billion bailout

They did save around 40,000 bucks by canceling Terry Bradshaw, a retired football player booked as a motivational speaker. Using sport metaphors to motivate financial engineers is probably a really dumb idea.

Meanwhile on the ‘retail’ front, meaning folks like you and I, we seem to be deleveraging, or paying off and canceling credit cards, and paying cash for things. Over at the Monitor website is this story on how living within ones means is a bad idea. The ‘Catch 22′ of consumer credit

It is interesting to note that the article continues to beat the drum of using plastic, so as not to harm your FICO score, which is a record of whether or not you have credit cards, and how much you are using them.

Living withing a budget and paying for things as you can afford them is obviously bad for credit card companies, and Fair Issac, the company who computes credit scores. Here is an interesting bit of Financial Profiling:

“Credit adjustments are being based on a broader risk-management model,” says Ben Woolsey, director of marketing and consumer research for CreditCards.com. “Even if an individual consumer has had no problems of credit-payment deficiencies, if they shop where others who have had a history of default shop, then their credit lines will be reduced.”
Source CS Monitor

So kids, Remember Don’t Shop Where Deadbeats Shop!

Well the federal bailout is not working as intended, as banks are keeping all those billions under their own mattresses or buying smaller banks instead of starting up the loan express to keep the economy running.

Since the Fed thinks this is okay, I have a box full of losing lottery tickets I would like to redeem. Should I send them to the Fed or Congress?

Meanwhile on main street companies are cutting back, folks are not spending like drunken sailors, and housing values continue to fall. Mortgages are a large part of the income picture across the economy, and producing payments is what keeps values up and lending continuing.

Foreclosures are up and will continue as the CDO/CDS market refuses to understand that exotic mortgage products may have looked good in the short term, the party is over, and the value of housing is cratering. Short term thinking about  long term investments. Tracking down these folks who created this monster and issuing them a shopping cart and a cardboard sign is a first step toward making amends, but is only a first step. RICO indictments would be good too.

Toilet paper has more value and utility than the CDO/CDS market paper.

There have been reports that have put the blame on the crisis on outmoded computer modeling software. This is truer than most folks know. Companies resist change especially in the IT department. Building a house of cards on a house of cards always ends badly.

Foreclosure Relief

I guess that not every banker in the universe is as dumb as a box of rocks. JP Morgan has decided to stop foreclosures and rewrite loans to get them producing income. Gee why didn’t they think about this on Capitol Hill?  Too fucking busy trying to distance themselves from their campaign contributors, and trying to get reelected.

There is good news here. Rewriting these mortgages will create a much stronger economy, and change the way that credit is rated as folks will make their payments. The house flippers will get strangled, and home ownership will stablize. Someday my house may be worth more than I paid for it.

Rands is one of my favorite spots on the interwebs. Things like this:
Impossible

Asking for the impossible is an advanced management technique and it’s one that is particularly abhorrent to engineers. They are very clear on what is and isn’t possible because they’re responsible for building and measuring all the possible. When you ask an engineer to do the impossible, they often laugh in your face not only because they think it’s an absurd, irrational request, they also have the data to prove it.
Source: Rands in Repose

Accessing information especially Public information has always seemed to me to be a obvious use for the web. Since a large part of my time is spent remodeling and building things, building codes are useful things to have available. If you have ever tried to navigate Building Departments attempting to get a permit, or god forbid, information, you know what I mean.
public.resource.org has posted 50 State Building Codes. You need a PDF reader for these.

Here are some interesting things to show up on the internet lately.
VRM
Is VRM a ‘phenomenon’? Alan Mitchell looks at VRM from a different perspective. Still missing the point that for VRM to succeed requires us to make companies beg for information after a full disclosure. The default position is that they are stealing it with every click and visit.

WordPress
WordPress Tips + Things You Can Do After Installing Wordpress Interesting things to do if you are running WordPress yourself.

Social Media
The Media & Social Media: Follow Up With Cincinnati Enquirer A story selling the Social Media/PR Rebranding/User Generated Content model to the Social Media thermos bottle. It is worth the read as there are a large quantity of numbers tied to this post. It should also be noted that as the Social Media Missionaries show up at your door, you should probably think about how much work this is.

Kindle.
the Amazon electronic book continues to elicit reviews. Shelley Powers has an Interesting look at her’s and pricing.
Grumbles in Kindletown

The Changing Newsroom is a new report from the Pew Research Center that looks at the impact of the Internet on Newspapers.
The study, by journalist Tyler Marshall and the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism is an exceptional document looking at the news from the producers of news.
The Changing Newsroom
Highly Recommended.