Bear Stearns' Building
Bear Stearns: When was the building at 383 Madison Avenue at 47th worth more than the banking firm ?
See also: Value of GM vs value of GM building.
[Via Curbed ]
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November 30, 2008
November 29, 2008
Traditionally, the yakuza have run protection rackets, as well as gambling, sex and other businesses
The Dojinkai is one of the country's 22 crime syndicates, employing some 85,000 members and recognized by the government.
Traditionally, the yakuza have run protection rackets, as well as gambling, sex and other businesses that the authorities believed were a necessary part of any society. By letting the yakuza operate relatively freely, the authorities were able to keep an extremely close watch on them.
In the beginning, there were problems, which Ms. Shigematsu jotted down in a notepad she has kept to this day. Entries for Oct. 10, 1998, included: (1) "no greeting"; (2) "speaking loudly on the phone on the street late a night;" (9) "messy disposal of garbage."
Not surprisingly, Ms. Shigematsu said the yakuza now respected the neighborhood's rules.
"They don't bother the neighborhood," she said, adding: "If I go speak to them about something -- for example, about throwing away the trash -- they'll say, 'Sorry!' "
Mrs. Shigematsu, however, still checked the contents of the Dojinkai's garbage bins just to make sure.
INTERNATIONAL / ASIA PACIFIC
Neighborhood in Japan Files Lawsuit in Bid to Oust Mafia
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
Published: November 16, 2008
Organized crime, considered a necessary evil, is tolerated by, and sometimes allied with, the authorities in Japan.
November 28, 2008
Credit Card Growth
As a banker, let me describe what we do wrong when we accept and review an application for a credit card. First, we don't verify income. The first 'C' of credit: Capacity to repay, is completely ignored by the banks, just as it was in when they approved subprime mortgages. Then we ask for "household income" -- as if other parties in the household could be held responsible for that debt. They cannot. And since we don't ask for any proof of income, the customer can throw out any number they think will work for them. Then we ask if they rent or own and how much they pay. If their name is not on the mortgage, they can state zero. If they pay $1,000 in rent, they can say $500. (Years ago we asked for a copy of the lease to verify this number.) And finally, we don't ask how much of a credit line the consumer is looking for. The banker can't even put that amount into the system. There isn't any place on the application for that information. We simply put unverified information into a mindless computer and the computer gets the person's credit score and grants them the biggest line that score and income (ha!) qualifies for.
Joe Nocera finds the Tanta of credit cards.
November 27, 2008
Voting: more than Yea or Nay
It can be daunting for a first-timer. When a facilitator calls for consensus, members hold up cards to signify their positions on an issue. (1) Green means the holder agrees with the decision; (2) blue means he or she is neutral; (3) yellow, is unsure or unclear; orange, has serious reservations but will not block consensus; and (4) red, will block consensus. The group recently added a (5) white card to signify "I'm not up to speed on this issue because I didn't do my homework."
The revealing voting of co-housing in Brooklyn.
REAL ESTATE
A Village Down the Block
By VIVIAN S. TOY
Published: November 30, 2008
At a "cohousing" project planned for Fort Greene, Brooklyn, the residents will share all decisions and some meals.
November 26, 2008
D-man on derivatives
Cash is the ultimate financial derivative, according to Emanuel Derman.
One airy invention is the PIK (payment-in-kind) bond, a loan that pays its promised interest in additional bonds of the same kind, as opposed to solid cash. It sounds insubstantial, a barely disguised pyramid scheme in which you make your promised payments each time with further promises of payment, each at least as chancy as a subprime CDO. But think about the dollar: deposit it in the bank for a year and you get more dollars at the end. What is paper money but a PIK, an early derivatives contract? To trust it you have to trust the country that provide its value, and the same is true of payment in kind. Used wisely, maybe payment in kind can serve as hallmark of trust in the financial supply chain too.
November 25, 2008
Head hurt bayesian
They found that Web searches for things like headache and chest pain were just as likely or more likely to lead people to pages describing serious conditions as benign ones, even though the serious illnesses are much more rare.
For example, there were just as many results that linked headaches with brain tumors as with caffeine withdrawal, although the chance of having a brain tumor is infinitesimally small.
Would such inference be addressed better by a frequentist or bayesian mindset ?
[Via NYT, Eric Horvitz and Ryen W. White, Microsoft ]
Microsoft Examines Causes of 'Cyberchondria'
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: November 25, 2008
A new survey from Microsoft suggests that self-diagnosis by search engine frequently leads Web searchers to conclude the worst about what ails them.
November 23, 2008
Vice stocks down in recession ?
One report has 'vice' stocks headed down in a recession.
think about "sin industries", the classic countercyclicals. Until now, that is. Vegas is crashing hard, and not just because of its real estate bubble. Can porn and malt liquor be far behind? Is this the moment that amateur porn has been waiting for--just as people have more dinner parties and less dining out during downturns, will people start making their own, er, fun at home?
See also Socially conscious /ethical investing.
November 20, 2008
Charles Tyrwhitt, cursed shirts ?
Fact: Charles Tyrwhitt New York City store #1 is located at Madison Avenue & 46th Street, on the ground floor of the ex-Bear Stearns corporate headquarters
Fact: Charles Tyrwhitt New York City store #2 is located at 7th Avenue & 50th Street, on the ground floor of the ex-Lehman Brothers corporate headquarters
Fact: Bear Stearns is toast
Fact: Lehman Brothers is even toastier
Conclusion: The shirts are cursed.
Shirt reviews; financial analysis by LongOrShortCapital.
November 18, 2008
Value of GM
November 16, 2008
Google, know thyself
Google.com and www.google.com do not share certificates.
November 14, 2008
Why Squatter Cities Are A Good Thing ?
A TED talk, The Shadow Cities Of The Future and Why Squatter Cities Are A Good Thing by Robert Neuwirth, author, Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World, gives a different take on development economics, from mud hut cluster to developed city, with or without debt and property rights.
Video after jump.
Via MeFi
November 13, 2008
Snowclones idiom warehouse
Modern folklore holds that Eskimos have a huge number of words related to snow, but it's just not true--they use no more such words than we do. Still, the factoid continues to spin off phrases on the general format of "If Eskimos have N words for snow, X have Y words for Z." For example, a 2003 article in The Economist declared, "If Eskimos have dozens of words for snow, Germans have as many words for bureaucracy." On his blog, Agoraphilia, Glen Whitman coined a snappy name for the category to which this formula belongs: the snowclone. Of course, he was punning on the snow cone, which is shaved ice flavored with syrup and carried in a paper cone. Other bloggers have since identified more members of this lexicographic species, and one of them, Erin Stevenson O'Connor, is compiling them at at http://snowclones.org.
Many snowclones are firmly entrenched in mainstream culture. For example, I'm not an X, but I play one on TV has been around for more than 20 years. It comes from a 1986 ad for Vicks Formula 44 cough syrup, in which an actor said, "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV."
[Via IEEE Spectrum.]
November 12, 2008
Bush in 1978: before playing country cowboy
"Kent Hance was a down-home boy, real homey, and George W. wasn't homey like Kent," recalled Johnnye Davis, a Republican leader in Odessa. "He didn't come across to the voters as well as Kent did, with the little jokes that Kent told."
While Mr. Bush now is sometimes mocked for an ignorance of policy details, back then people thought he had the opposite problem: a tendency to drop references in his speeches that baffled audiences, like a discussion of anti-inflationary economic policy.
"He was quick, a bit too quick, so that people didn't always get it," Mrs. Davis said. "He was so darn intelligent that a lot of what he said went over people's heads. He's learned to explain things a little better since then."
Another problem was that while Mr. Bush never really had a clear campaign strategy, Mr. Hance did: he focused his campaign on emphasizing local ties and on casting Mr. Bush as a carpet-bagger from the East. One of Mr. Hance's most effective radio spots was this one, read by an announcer:
"In 1961, when Kent Hance graduated from Dimmitt High School in the 19th congressional district, his opponent George W. Bush was attending Andover Academy in Massachusetts. In 1965, when Kent Hance graduated from Texas Tech, his opponent was at Yale University. And while Kent Hance graduated from University of Texas Law School, his opponent" -- the announcer's voice plunged -- "get this, folks, was attending Harvard. We don't need someone from the Northeast telling us what our problems are."
July 27, 2000
GOVERNOR BUSH'S JOURNEY / The First Campaign
Learning How to Run: A West Texas Stumble
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
November 10, 2008
Telephone sales scams promoting extended car warranties
Alert: The muchly annoying robo calls are under investigation.
This is the second warning that the factory warranty on your vehicle has expired.
ATTORNEYS GENERAL in several states are investigating what they suspect are telephone sales scams promoting extended car warranties, often by calling cellphones or numbers that are listed on do-not-call registries.
The Connecticut attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, said his office had received "a huge number of complaints -- hundreds of complaints." Connecticut is part of a large, multistate investigation into such calls, he said.
Another of those states is Iowa. "They are trying to trick you into believing that the communication is coming from the auto manufacturer and that your warranty is about to expire and you need to do something to extend that warranty," said William L. Brauch, a special assistant attorney general and director of the consumer protection division in Iowa.
But automakers are not behind the policies, Mr. Brauch said, and after purchasing such a policy it may be difficult if not impossible to get reimbursed for a repair.
"A number of these companies tend to routinely deny paying, they come up with various interpretations, shall we say, of the agreements, which they say justify them not covering whatever the ...
Fill story after the jump
See also: Amazon Prime $79 Refund class action suit.
The New York Times
Automobiles
States Investigate Warranty Sales Calls
By CHRISTOPHER JENSEN
Published: November 9, 2008
Attorneys general in several states are investigating what they suspect are telephone sales scams promoting extended car warranties.
ATTORNEYS GENERAL in several states are investigating what they suspect are telephone sales scams promoting extended car warranties, often by calling cellphones or numbers that are listed on do-not-call registries.
The Connecticut attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, said his office had received "a huge number of complaints -- hundreds of complaints." Connecticut is part of a large, multistate investigation into such calls, he said.
Another of those states is Iowa. "They are trying to trick you into believing that the communication is coming from the auto manufacturer and that your warranty is about to expire and you need to do something to extend that warranty," said William L. Brauch, a special assistant attorney general and director of the consumer protection division in Iowa.
But automakers are not behind the policies, Mr. Brauch said, and after purchasing such a policy it may be difficult if not impossible to get reimbursed for a repair.
"A number of these companies tend to routinely deny paying, they come up with various interpretations, shall we say, of the agreements, which they say justify them not covering whatever the problem might be," he said.
Mr. Blumenthal said the investigation was looking at whether the policies were legitimate as well as the use of misleading and deceptive sales practices. That includes telling people that their warranties have expired and that urgent action is needed.
Investigators are also looking at violations of the federal do-not-call registry, Mr. Brauch said.
In many cases the callers are hiding the telephone number from which they are calling.
"They are using what are called ghost, or spoof, telephone numbers," Mr. Blumenthal said. "They use technology that masks the source of their calls, which is troubling because consumers can't call them back."
The originating phone number that showed up in recent calls to some New Yorkers was traced to a disconnected phone in Nebraska. It belonged to an illegal immigrant who was arrested in a raid on a meat-packing plant and was deported, said Leah Bucco-White, a spokeswoman for the Nebraska attorney general's office. Last year, a company from Howell, N.J., agreed to pay $120,000 in fines to resolve complaints filed by the New Jersey attorney general, Anne Milgram, that it had engaged in unfair and deceptive marketing in the sale of automotive warranties and that it had violated do-not-call regulations.
The company, Corfacts Inc. (also known as Metro Marketing, National Warranty Division and Warranty Warehouse.com) did not acknowledge wrongdoing. But Corfacts signed a consent order and agreed not to violate the state's consumer protection or do-not-call laws.
For consumers on the receiving end of these calls there is not just the potential to make a bad purchase, but inconvenience and aggravation.
Lon Weston, owner of the Sherman Inn in Bethlehem, N.H, received a phone call recently telling him that his vehicle's warranty had expired, but he could extend it. Mr. Weston was aware that the warranty on his truck had expired. It was, after all, 10 years old. What bothered him was yet another violation of his telephone number's do-not-call status.
"I get a lot of these automated calls," he said. "They are almost impossible to trace."
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
November 9, 2008
Header teasers: unuseful
The lack of specific content in the cached header teasers of major dictionary sites is very annoying.
Better would be to show some information about the word and dictionary sites would compete on quality of definitions.
November 8, 2008
Barack's economic rescue
44's Economic transition team to rescue the middle class and offer more stimulus.
Video after break.
November 3, 2008
Socially conscious /ethical investing
Ahead of the Crisis
Social conscious investing did will in 2008.
Amy O'Brien, part of the social and community investing department at TIAA-CREF, says that Social Choice Equity screens financial-services companies based on factors that include corporate governance, predatory-lending practices, transparency and executive pay.
"The themes that underpin the current crisis are themes that the socially responsible investing community and corporate-governance people have been talking about for a number of years," Ms. O'Brien says.
Matt Zuck, part of a five-person management team of AHA Socially Responsible Equity Fund, says that while screens can sift out some bad stocks, the discipline of tighter screening requires a manager to dig deeper. "It forces you to ask more questions about a company. It's valuable as an analytical tool," he says.
See also Vice stocks down in recession.
WSJ MARKETWATCH
NOVEMBER 2, 2008
Doing Good, and Not So Badly
By SAM MAMUDI
November 2, 2008
Worry about relevance, do not deviate from the consensus
The field of social psychology provides a possible answer. In his classic 1972 book, "Groupthink," Irving L. Janis, the Yale psychologist, explained how panels of experts could make colossal mistakes. People on these panels, he said, are forever worrying about their personal relevance and effectiveness, and feel that if they deviate too far from the consensus, they will not be given a serious role. They self-censor personal doubts about the emerging group consensus if they cannot express these doubts in a formal way that conforms with apparent assumptions held by the group.
Economic View
Challenging the Crowd in Whispers, Not Shouts
By ROBERT J. SHILLER
Published: November 2, 2008
Explaining the psychology of how panels of economic experts can make colossal mistakes.
November 1, 2008
Obama advantage
An advantage in generating appealing factoids:
The Obama campaign spent more than $57,000 at the Four Seasons in Amman, Jordan, during the candidate's overseas trip in July, although a spokesman said that much of that was for rooms for the traveling press corps and that the campaign would be reimbursed by the news organizations. The campaign spent about $60,000 on the staging for Mr. Obama's speech in Berlin on that trip. Then there is the $140,000 that the campaign has spent at companies that make American flags, apparently mostly for campaign events, compared with just $7,000 spent by the McCain campaign.
U.S. / Politics
With Ambitious Campaign, Obama Is Both Big Spender and Penny Pincher
By MICHAEL LUO and MIKE McINTIRE
Published: October 31, 2008
Barack Obama spent enormous sums on nearly everything, yet his campaign has worked hard to maintain a reputation for frugality.