What's That Sound??
It's the sound of Tiger's and Serena's stock crashing.
When will these idiot consumer product companies figure out that betting the bank on a bunch of famous athlete's meticulously manufactured McPersonality "brands" almost always end up being bad business?
Kind of says it all when you realize that the same companies (Allstate, GM, Dr Pepper, Gillette for starters...) that put hundreds of millions into this kind of "character" branding give little more than a couple of measly (token) $1,000 scholarships to the academic programs represented by their "offensive/defensive players of the game"?
Never mind that the companies spend far more money on just telling everyone about their token generosity than they do on just being generous...
I'm just wondering out loud here, but has anyone ever studied the overall contribution to society made by Heisman Trophy winners versus, let's say, National Merit Scholars? (I don't see the consumer product companies lining up for those endorsements!)
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Heisman Hoopla
As a Longhorn alum and fan, you'd think I'd have a horse in this Heisman race. But actually I could care less. These are college kids, for crap's sake! It makes for good fun on a Saturday afternoon in autumn, but let's all get a sense of proportion here. It makes me sick to my "CapitalOne Bowl: What's In Your Wallet" stomach.
Perhaps college football teams ought to be divested from the universities, turned into NFL minor (but professional) leagues sponsored by corporate America, with the coaches having to graduate in four years before turning pro. At least that way it could be passed off as a somewhat academic "Taco Bell: Think Outside the Bun" pursuit instead of the fraudulent big-money charade it is now.
Hook 'Em AT&T Wireless!
Phaeidaeux
P.S. Colt: please do us all a favor and spend this weekend at home mowing the "Scotts' Miracle-Gro" lawn for your Dad, taking his "Chevy-Tested Tough" vehicle for a "Meinecke Car Care" oil change, or whatever - as long as come Monday, you just "Don't Leave Home Without It".
"Easy."
Right?
OK, "Just Do It."
Perhaps college football teams ought to be divested from the universities, turned into NFL minor (but professional) leagues sponsored by corporate America, with the coaches having to graduate in four years before turning pro. At least that way it could be passed off as a somewhat academic "Taco Bell: Think Outside the Bun" pursuit instead of the fraudulent big-money charade it is now.
Hook 'Em AT&T Wireless!
Phaeidaeux
P.S. Colt: please do us all a favor and spend this weekend at home mowing the "Scotts' Miracle-Gro" lawn for your Dad, taking his "Chevy-Tested Tough" vehicle for a "Meinecke Car Care" oil change, or whatever - as long as come Monday, you just "Don't Leave Home Without It".
"Easy."
Right?
OK, "Just Do It."
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
So who needs banks anymore?
So who needs banks anymore?
Seriously, banks aren't lending cash, they're hoarding it. (Just ask any real estate developer. Banks already own too much real estate to bother with anyone who's going to build more.) And one view of the spread between the highest and lowest rates banks charge each other (LIBOR) as of this morning is the highest it's been in a long time (http://tinyurl.com/oefcdm), which means that certain banks don't trust others. Moreover, corporations are just bypassing banks altogether by issuing their own debt securities directly to other institiutions that have money and are willing to lend it. Even the Fed is getting in on that game by purchasing these securities.
So we have this huge thing called the internet and some are already using it to do the heavy lifting that the banks don't want to do. For example, microlending is certainly changing the way poor and rural people in foreign countries can now fund small businesses. And Virgin Money (another brainchild of Richard Branson) has set out to let borrowers craft their own private lenders - from those who know them best: friends, family and neighbors. In fact, that's exactly how banks became banks in the first place! They lent to family, friends and neighbors - because they knew them best.
Seriously, banks aren't lending cash, they're hoarding it. (Just ask any real estate developer. Banks already own too much real estate to bother with anyone who's going to build more.) And one view of the spread between the highest and lowest rates banks charge each other (LIBOR) as of this morning is the highest it's been in a long time (http://tinyurl.com/oefcdm), which means that certain banks don't trust others. Moreover, corporations are just bypassing banks altogether by issuing their own debt securities directly to other institiutions that have money and are willing to lend it. Even the Fed is getting in on that game by purchasing these securities.
So we have this huge thing called the internet and some are already using it to do the heavy lifting that the banks don't want to do. For example, microlending is certainly changing the way poor and rural people in foreign countries can now fund small businesses. And Virgin Money (another brainchild of Richard Branson) has set out to let borrowers craft their own private lenders - from those who know them best: friends, family and neighbors. In fact, that's exactly how banks became banks in the first place! They lent to family, friends and neighbors - because they knew them best.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Isn't anyone a little bothered about PNC-National City?
October 26, 2008
Isn't anyone a little bothered about PNC-National City?
Treasury invests $7.7 billion in PNC, which turns around and buys National City for $5.6 billion - mostly in stock. So far, so good - though I'm waiting to see whether any lending liquidity eventually gets generated by the Treasury investment, or our dollars simply fund PNC's dreams for "bigness"...
But what bothers me is that certain equity investment firms will cash out hundreds of millions of dollars for investments it now appears they should never have made in the first place.
Isn't anyone a little bothered about PNC-National City?
Treasury invests $7.7 billion in PNC, which turns around and buys National City for $5.6 billion - mostly in stock. So far, so good - though I'm waiting to see whether any lending liquidity eventually gets generated by the Treasury investment, or our dollars simply fund PNC's dreams for "bigness"...
But what bothers me is that certain equity investment firms will cash out hundreds of millions of dollars for investments it now appears they should never have made in the first place.
The Financial Crisis - and what it means for Technology
October 16, 2008
The Financial Crisis - and what it means for Technology
For roughly the last 25 years, business has focused on growth - with technology its lens. As of Friday evening, September 12 2008, that focus turned abruptly to one of “all-out corporate cost containment." Until now, decision-support technologies (known as "Business Intelligence" and "Performance Management" systems in the IT world) have largely existed for the benefit of sales and customer-related growth-oriented activities. In fact, these environments lived on quite happily despite an uneasy, almost surreal, detachment from the world of true accounting debits and credits. As long as sales kept going up, conformity and harmonization between business intelligence systems and company financial statements “would always be nice,” but not critical. However, with cost containment now the goal, technical indifference to these less familiar (to IT, at least), perhaps less approachable financial accounting systems is no longer possible.
As this dramatic upheaval in the financial markets sets the stage, we now witness a seismic and historic transformation from...
“Technology for Growth Enablement” (R.I.P. 1982-2008)
to...
“Technology for Cost Containment” (2009-?)"
- Michael Zimmerman
Business Intelligence and Performance Management Consultant
FOOD FOR THOUGHT...
October 9, 2008
FOOD FOR THOUGHT... A theory for reversing the recessionThink about it. Instead of raising taxes on the wealthy, the government could give anyone who can afford to do so a substantial tax break for DESTROYING their major assets (houses, cars, computers, yachts, anything really...) as long as they immediately replaced them with newly-made equivalents of equal or greater value.
Let's use an analogy. Over the first three decades of the last century, wheat production grew faster than the population. Wheat farmers could earn a small fortune by growing more and more of it. City dwellers fled to the country to cash in on the riches. By the 1920's, a glut of wheat existed, prices dropped and farmers grew even more just to stay afloat. By the 1930's, grain elevators were stuffed full and crops were rotting, yet the American public was going hungry. Ultimately, the oversupply was corrected when the government paid (subsidized) farmers to plow their crops under.
Could that work on a similar scale today with homes, cars, or anything else where making it again would create jobs and opportunities?
FOOD FOR THOUGHT... A theory for reversing the recessionThink about it. Instead of raising taxes on the wealthy, the government could give anyone who can afford to do so a substantial tax break for DESTROYING their major assets (houses, cars, computers, yachts, anything really...) as long as they immediately replaced them with newly-made equivalents of equal or greater value.
Let's use an analogy. Over the first three decades of the last century, wheat production grew faster than the population. Wheat farmers could earn a small fortune by growing more and more of it. City dwellers fled to the country to cash in on the riches. By the 1920's, a glut of wheat existed, prices dropped and farmers grew even more just to stay afloat. By the 1930's, grain elevators were stuffed full and crops were rotting, yet the American public was going hungry. Ultimately, the oversupply was corrected when the government paid (subsidized) farmers to plow their crops under.
Could that work on a similar scale today with homes, cars, or anything else where making it again would create jobs and opportunities?
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