This gem, called "Lucy in the Field with Flowers," is from the Museum of Bad Art in Masschusetts More...
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Bad Art
This gem, called "Lucy in the Field with Flowers," is from the Museum of Bad Art in Masschusetts More...
NYC Deflation
A new report from Deutsche Bank predicts New York real estate has another 47% to fall. My favorite bit in the linked article notes that New York is home to three of the weakest industries in the world: finance, the law, and media.
Other loser markets include Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Long Island, and Baltimore. Lovely news for formerly wealthy New Yorkers with beach houses in the Hamptons and winter places in South Florida. More...
Other loser markets include Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Long Island, and Baltimore. Lovely news for formerly wealthy New Yorkers with beach houses in the Hamptons and winter places in South Florida. More...
Email Deflation
Countess Deflation
Our favorite "Countess" is reported to be losing her Count.
I'm betting that's something of a relief to all concerned and I'm doubting Mrs. De Lesseps will stop insisting those around her curtsy, etc. More...
Monday, March 30, 2009
Container Ship
Advertising Deflation
In a very smart post, Eric Clemmons argues that advertising on the Internet is failing. I think this is largely correct and is/will be responsible for an ever widening deflation in the value of media. Think about it: for years the adage was "I know 50% of advertising doesn't work, I just don't know which 50%." Well, Google has allowed spending to be much more measurable, so theoretically marketers should be able to get the same bang for much less buck for at least part of their budgets.
As for the marketing spending that is devoted not to people who know they want to buy something (which is what search ads are aimed at, bascially) but the spend that is aimed at people who DON'T know they want to buy something, that spend works great in media like TV and magazines but I'm not sure the web is as constitutionally conducive to it. Imagine if people were suddenly spending less time watching TV and more time playing cards. We wouldn't just assume an ad model would emerge to monetize card-playing. card-playing just isn't conducive to advertising, and perhaps a lot of web-surfing isn;t either. More...
As for the marketing spending that is devoted not to people who know they want to buy something (which is what search ads are aimed at, bascially) but the spend that is aimed at people who DON'T know they want to buy something, that spend works great in media like TV and magazines but I'm not sure the web is as constitutionally conducive to it. Imagine if people were suddenly spending less time watching TV and more time playing cards. We wouldn't just assume an ad model would emerge to monetize card-playing. card-playing just isn't conducive to advertising, and perhaps a lot of web-surfing isn;t either. More...
What's the Chance of Deflation?
BC Blocks DB
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Hate Captchas?
Me too. David Pogue three.
Captchas are out-of-control and they appear in many places where it's hard to understand why they are needed. More...
Liberal Blogs hacked
It amazes me that this sort of thing happens - organized cyber-attacks on liberal blogs (especially the gay ones) from Eastern European hackers, apparently.
More...
More Waters
It is, of course, very easy to make fun of Rep. Maxine Waters for being a thunderous blowhard. Making a bingo square for her is a very b-school kind of mean. In b-school students sometimes play bingo by handing out cards like this (each card slightly different) with each square labeled with some inane common phrase students use during class (e.g., "I'd like to build on what was already said or 'I'd recommend a marketing blitz" or whatever).In this version you watch Maxine on TV until - BINGO! More...
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Maxine Waters Deflation?
Is it possible that Maxine Waters is not totally batshit fucking crazy? Somehow, I doubt it. More...
Housing Deflation
Behold the modern Hooverville. My own introduction to the Hoovervilles of the 1930's came through the musical "Annie."
More...
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
MBA Deflation
A Harvard MBA is worth (to me) exactly as much and as little as it's always been even though mine cost a lot of money back in 1992.
Not everyone agrees. More...
1998 Essay: Don't Bank On It
In this essay from 1998, William Safire pretty much makes the argument against the changes in regulation that led to the current mess.
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Real Housewives Recap
The Real Housewives of New York City is my favorite pleasure. A close second is the recaps posted by Gawker. They are stupendously bitchy. I'll quote this week's in part:
Meanwhile in Brooklyn, Alex and her wife Simon were going clothes shopping. IN BROOKLYN. Isn't that disgusting? They sifted through piles and piles of garbage, their hands red and raw from the broken bottle shards and hobo-scrapes, flaming cats running by them, screeching into the night. Eventually they found a soiled heap of garments at some trendypants boutique in Williamsburg. Alex was kind enough to explain to us that where they live, in Cobble Hill, it's all fancy tea and crumpets and no one ever farts, but up here in hipster town Billsburg, it's anything goes. If you can lash it around your emaciated legs and sport it like a pant, you can wear it. So Alex strapped herself into various ensembles while Miss Simon sat on the sidelines, giving bitchy commentary like "If that's charmeuse, then I'm Diana Rigg." The young designers and owners of the store seemed scared and befuddled, shifting awkwardly in front of the cameras and these strange, cawing ostrich people. Glad for the attention, but frightened of the consequences. Meanwhile, in the store's backroom, a man with a pointy goatee in a red satin suit cackled as he clutched a document signed in blood. "They're mine..." he hissed. "All mine..."More...
Jake DeSantis Quits AIG
In a dramatic Op-Ed published in today's New York Times, a senior executive at AIG publishes his resignation letter.
The gist is "I did nothing wrong. I worked hard. I deserved to be paid." He makes the same point nine or ten times.
While I sympathize, the problem with the argument is that most people who lost out in the financial collapse also did nothing wrong. Life is tough, and unfair. More...
The gist is "I did nothing wrong. I worked hard. I deserved to be paid." He makes the same point nine or ten times.
While I sympathize, the problem with the argument is that most people who lost out in the financial collapse also did nothing wrong. Life is tough, and unfair. More...
Freedom Tower Deflation
TV on the Web
Mossberg reviews yet another attempt to merge the TV with the internet. What's missing is a sense of what's happening in the room the TV is in. If I am watching TV with someone, I don't want web-stuff happening on the screen at the same time.
More...
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
New Yorkers for Bikes
New York City is becoming a far better place to bike (I say this as an NYC resident who uses a bike as his primary means of transportation). Apparently, many new Yorkers are vowing to cycle more.
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Media Deflation: Why Mark Cuban is Wrong
In a post that caused a bit of a stir this weekend, Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas mavericks, HDNet and god knows what else, argues that good TV content is not going to migrate online and be available for free.
Cuban's right in the sense that no producer who gets paid for his content through pay-TV subscriptions (i.e., cable TV networks get a piece of the monthly fee you pay the cable companies) is in a hurry to destroy that business model.
But what Cuban seems to ignore or gloss over is the fact that a lot of stuff people like is available online for free. Inevitably, this will place pressure on pay-TV and on traditional TV producers.
It may be that we'll find ourselves in a world where there's not enough money to pay for the kinds of TV programming we take for granted today. But in a world where people spend their evenings facebook-ing and youtube-ing the night away, perhaps no one will notice. More...
Cuban's right in the sense that no producer who gets paid for his content through pay-TV subscriptions (i.e., cable TV networks get a piece of the monthly fee you pay the cable companies) is in a hurry to destroy that business model.
But what Cuban seems to ignore or gloss over is the fact that a lot of stuff people like is available online for free. Inevitably, this will place pressure on pay-TV and on traditional TV producers.
It may be that we'll find ourselves in a world where there's not enough money to pay for the kinds of TV programming we take for granted today. But in a world where people spend their evenings facebook-ing and youtube-ing the night away, perhaps no one will notice. More...
Monday, March 23, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
The Mob
There is a certain kind of self-righteous person who not only knows he is right and just, but that his good justice is better than the rule of law, the rules of fair engagement, and have nothing at all to do with mob justice.
These people have taken it upon themselves to go after the executives of AIG. More...
Naked Shorts
More evidence that naked shorting contributed to the Fall of Lehman.
Legally, you cannot sell a share short unless you can find someone from whom to borrow that stock from in the first place. Bloomberg says there might have been 57 TIMES AS MANY stocks in Lehman Brothers sold short without a corresponding share that could be borrowed to sell ("naked shorts") as compared to short sales that were actually borrowed before being sold short ("covered short").
Uncovered short sales artificially drive share prices down because they are one way bets without someone taking the opposite side of the bet. All transactions in securities, by definition, have a winner and a loser. The win and the loss cancel each other to zero. Not so here. More...
Legally, you cannot sell a share short unless you can find someone from whom to borrow that stock from in the first place. Bloomberg says there might have been 57 TIMES AS MANY stocks in Lehman Brothers sold short without a corresponding share that could be borrowed to sell ("naked shorts") as compared to short sales that were actually borrowed before being sold short ("covered short").
Uncovered short sales artificially drive share prices down because they are one way bets without someone taking the opposite side of the bet. All transactions in securities, by definition, have a winner and a loser. The win and the loss cancel each other to zero. Not so here. More...
Thursday, March 19, 2009
NYT Attack Dogs
The New York Times is cracking down on web publishers who reprint photographs pinched from the nytimes.com.This move could go either way but I think the Times is right to start to assert its ownership right even if pirate bloggers "borrow their photographs because we think they're great." More...
A Digital Subscription Model for Newspapers?
The Financial Times say they have one. Could U.S. papers emulate it? Or magazines?
Still sounds like a small business, though. More...
Still sounds like a small business, though. More...
Off With Geithner's Head (Again!)
So ..... what if Geithner knew about the AIG bonuses but maaaaaybe fibbed a little bit about when he knew about them?
More...
Layoff tracker
This nifty utility tracks layoffs by date. I learned that I was one of 5,700 people laid off on the same date in JanuaryThat fact was somewhat comforting. More...
Fire!
This comes from a friend of Barry Ritzholtz at The Big Picture:
More...When a fireman sees a house on fire, he sounds an alarm, dons his turnout gear, bravely rescues the occupants and puts out the fire.
When an investment banker sees a house on fire, he quietly sells the burning house short, uses the proceeds to buy a larger house for himself and, when someone suggests that his taxes be raised to help the homeless, he rails against the dangers of socialism.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Off With Geithner's Head
I have never loved Geithner as the Treasury guy, but sweet jesus he's only been on the ground eight weeks, Republicans!
More...
Emirati deflation: Dubai Officially Pops
The property-tourism-and-business bubble that has propelled Dubai for a decade and a half kinda popped earlier this year when the emirate had to be bailed-out by its wealthier and more conservative sister emirate, Abu Dhabi. But news that Dubai is cracking down on music, dancing, and hand-holding still comes as a bit of a shock to anyone who has experienced some of the freewheeling expatriate culture there.
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Google Wooing Advertisers
On the face of it, why would Google need to convince advertisers to spend money online? The answer is that most marketers view online advertising as influencing buyers only AFTER they've made a decision to buy. Marketers care about this, but they also care about getting people to decide to buy in the first place.
Google is Google not because they have the internet's best search engine; they are Google because they have created an environment where they can turn that search engine into cash by serving the needs of advertisers. More...
Google is Google not because they have the internet's best search engine; they are Google because they have created an environment where they can turn that search engine into cash by serving the needs of advertisers. More...
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Empire State Building, March 17 2009
Happy Saint Patrick's Day! New York is a horror show on the feast day of its patron saint; a cauldron of pseudo-Irish-American yahoo, imho.
So there.
Chart of the Day: Hotel Costs
Even after falling 16% since last year, the price of a hotel room in new York will set you back more than $300/night, which is less than in Delhi or Moscow, among others. More...
Poetry in Motion
I saw this poem by Vera Pavlova on an NYC subway a couple of years ago.
More...If there is something to desire,
there will be something to regret.
If there is something to regret,
there will be something to recall.
If there is something to recall,
there was nothing to regret.
If there was nothing to regret,
there was nothing to desire.
Newspaper Deflation: Thinking the Unthinkable
It's quite possible the newspaper industry will deflate until all that are left are highly niche ad other novelty papers. Even a few years ago, the conventional wisdom had the newspaper industry going through a massive contraction and leaving only a few players (e.g., the New York Times) standing.
How the conventional wisdom has changed. I'd say the conventional wisdom is that newspapers survive only as loss-leaders (e.g., the Wall Street Journal) or as foundations.
In an interesting article, Clay Shirky argues that newspapers are simply not willing to face this reality:
How the conventional wisdom has changed. I'd say the conventional wisdom is that newspapers survive only as loss-leaders (e.g., the Wall Street Journal) or as foundations.
In an interesting article, Clay Shirky argues that newspapers are simply not willing to face this reality:
"When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in an industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have the temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact happening are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be ignored en masse. This shunting aside of the realists in favor of the fabulists has different effects on different industries at different times. One of the effects on the newspapers is that many of their most passionate defenders are unable, even now, to plan for a world in which the industry they knew is visibly going away."Will anyone hear the last whimper? More...
Monday, March 16, 2009
Most Interesting Shots (Today) #2
BarclaysWatch
My former employer, Barclays Capital, is a part of the british bank Barclays PLC. The British banking sector is probably in even worse shape than the American one, but Barclays has been particularly insistent that they don't need any sort of government bailout.
Is this because Barclays is in better shape than its peers? Maybe. But George Hay and Hugo Dixon think it's because Barclays makes a lot of money helping clients avoid taxes, and that business would be, er, harder to sustain if it took a lot of government cash. More...
Is this because Barclays is in better shape than its peers? Maybe. But George Hay and Hugo Dixon think it's because Barclays makes a lot of money helping clients avoid taxes, and that business would be, er, harder to sustain if it took a lot of government cash. More...
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Happy Birthday World Wide Web
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Lehman Lynchpin Backlash
The conventional wisdom says that letting Lehman Brothers fail last September was the critical policy error that accelerated the financial crisis.
Let the revisionism begin.
More...
Let the revisionism begin.
The Ponzi Eonomy
For a long time I've thought that our civilization is to some extent a ponzi scheme. I say this because a lot of what we take for granted depends upon population growth, more consumption, technological progress etc. If any of these is removed, then enormous economic stresses inevitable result. Our economy doesn't work if it's merely standing still.
This idea is gaining more currency lately. More...
This idea is gaining more currency lately. More...
The Other D Word
Are we in a depression? The Freakanomics Blog thinks the answer is yes, baby!
More...
Chart of the Day: The Cost Of Inequality
As anyone who has spent time in Brazil can see, societies that tolerate large inequalities in income of long periods of time tend to have significant costs in terms of violence and crime. The chart at the left observes that US cities with more equal income distributions spend much less of security than do cities such as New York, Miami, and Los Angeles, which are more unequal. More...
A Lot of Sampling
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
A Better Mousetrap
Flip this toothbrush upside-down and it turns your faucet into a water fountain - perfect for rinsing More...
Naming This Mess
It's not a recession, it's not a depression, perhaps it's a Great Recession.
More...
The Great Disruption?
Thomas Friedman wonders if 2009 represents the start of "The Great Disruption," or the year that the post-war economy broke down on its way to becoming something different.
Since 1945, we have had a global economy that relied on the US and to a lesser extent Europe to consume more and more stuff. As that stuff came to be made in Asia, the system needed Asian economies to build savings that could be used to finance consumption in the West.
Now, not only is that system in distress, but perhaps it's time to question whether this is the basis for a global economy going forward. Perhaps - shudder - Americans buy, use, and waste too much stuff. More...
Since 1945, we have had a global economy that relied on the US and to a lesser extent Europe to consume more and more stuff. As that stuff came to be made in Asia, the system needed Asian economies to build savings that could be used to finance consumption in the West.
Now, not only is that system in distress, but perhaps it's time to question whether this is the basis for a global economy going forward. Perhaps - shudder - Americans buy, use, and waste too much stuff. More...
Bad Economics on Mortages
There is line of thinking gathering steam among the chattering classes that goes something like this: the government is using tax dollars to bail out the mortgage holders who made all the bad decisions. And guess who's getting screwed? The people like you and me who didn't make bad decisions, who haven't been late on their mortages etc. etc. One such article on RCP is Subsiding Bad Decisions.
There are a number of problems with this argument:
1) The goal here is to stabilize the housing market. If the housig market collapses, many of you who "made all the right decisions" will have houses worth a lot less than they are now, so perhaps they should think about how "a bailout" might help "the good people"
2) People who got into mortgages over their heads were supported by huge armies of bankers, mortage brokers, housing developers, town planners, and lawyers all of who were very willing to ensure that many Americans took on more debt than was prudent. Credit card companies and home equity loan officers in particular aggressively pushed their products on us all. Everyone is responsible for his own actions, of course, but a lot of these people need to accept their own part in this mess.
3) Mortgage holders and taxpayers are one and the same. Currently, one in 8 mortgages in the US is deliquent or in foreclosure. That number will grow. More...
There are a number of problems with this argument:
1) The goal here is to stabilize the housing market. If the housig market collapses, many of you who "made all the right decisions" will have houses worth a lot less than they are now, so perhaps they should think about how "a bailout" might help "the good people"
2) People who got into mortgages over their heads were supported by huge armies of bankers, mortage brokers, housing developers, town planners, and lawyers all of who were very willing to ensure that many Americans took on more debt than was prudent. Credit card companies and home equity loan officers in particular aggressively pushed their products on us all. Everyone is responsible for his own actions, of course, but a lot of these people need to accept their own part in this mess.
3) Mortgage holders and taxpayers are one and the same. Currently, one in 8 mortgages in the US is deliquent or in foreclosure. That number will grow. More...
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Aircraft Cabin Design
Delta airlines unveils a new seat design for its coach cabin. This looks possibly more comfortable than the status quo, but not necessarily for the guy by the window!
More...
Beating Google
There's been a lot of noise in the blogosphere about a new search algorithm being developed by a guy named Stephen Wolfram. The notion is that if someone builds a better search 'mousetrap," the world will beat a path to its door and abandon Google in the process.
Saul Hansell argues that this is non-sense and I agree. Google didn't have the best search algorithm a decade ago and probably doesn't today, but what it does have is an ecosystem of customers and users that allows it to monetize search to an extent that makes it hard to dislodge. More...
Saul Hansell argues that this is non-sense and I agree. Google didn't have the best search algorithm a decade ago and probably doesn't today, but what it does have is an ecosystem of customers and users that allows it to monetize search to an extent that makes it hard to dislodge. More...
Dow Deflation
Forget about the Dow being at 1992 levels; adjusted for inflation, the Dow is back to 1966 levels! More...
Real Estate Blog Deflation
"Curbed" is a terrific blog about New York City real estate, development, and architecture.
Every weekend they run a post listing a bunch of open houses and asking people to comment on them.
What inevitably follows is a comment thread that is usually completely off-topic, mean-spirited, and toilet-humored.
This week's rant imagines, at length, the bathroom habits of Dolly Lenz, the #1 broker in NYC by a long shot. I found it (sorta) genius. More...
Every weekend they run a post listing a bunch of open houses and asking people to comment on them.
What inevitably follows is a comment thread that is usually completely off-topic, mean-spirited, and toilet-humored.
This week's rant imagines, at length, the bathroom habits of Dolly Lenz, the #1 broker in NYC by a long shot. I found it (sorta) genius. More...
Chart of the Day: Housing Vacancies
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Bank of England Deflation
Friday, March 6, 2009
This is not photoshop
I thought this Time Out New York cover was pretty cool, especially since this is how this person actually looks in real life.
Video of the making of below:
More...
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Empire State Building March 5, 2009
MLB's World Baseball Classic. Note the blue on the left - each side was lit with a different color. I once developed a business case for this tournament when I worked at Time Warner.
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Digital TV Transition
Though the analog TV shutdown is postponed until June 12th, at least the much-maligned converter coupon program is up and running again. More...
Delinquents
Penny Stocks
A penny stock is a stock with a price less than $5. The term is typically derogatory because penny stocks have often been small companies, often somewhat shady ones, without enough volume to make it easy to buy and sell the shares in the marketplace.
A lot of renowned companies now have penny stocks, although their trading volume makes them quite liquid. More...
A lot of renowned companies now have penny stocks, although their trading volume makes them quite liquid. More...
Lifestreaming
To date, online properties have been notoriously bad at delivering advertising dollars to their owners, at least compared with what those owners get from the equivalent print or television properties.Facebook is betting they can pump up their ad dollars by making the service more friendly for advertisers and users alike by combining a lot of Facebook's popular features onto a single page and making it easier for select advertisers (e.g., the ones users "fan") to put messages into this "lifestream."
Perhaps. But maybe a lot of what makes Facebook appealing is the lack of ads. More...
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