Tuesday, June 30, 2009

On-time deflation

One way to boost your on-time stats is to ad your schedule, which is what Southwest is doing on its new service to Laguardia.

Some say cheating. I say woo. More...

Friday, June 26, 2009

Housing Equity Deflation


Was $13 billion, now $7 billion.
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Community Reinvestment Act nonsense

Of all the irritating things I hear ad nauseum on Fox News, the one that gets me the most is the notion that the financial crisis was caused by the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977.

On the face of it, a 32-year-old law is not the most obvious culprit based on age alone, but there are countless reasons this idea is ridiculous.  Barry Ritzholtz does an especially good job of ripping it to bits here.
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Al Sharpton Deflation


While he will hardly be the only person to try to profit from Michael Jackson's death, somehow the Rev's involvement seemed the most predictable
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Thursday, June 25, 2009

So buying a spot on the Simpsons on Hulu now costs more than buying a spot on the Simpsons on TV. More...

Iran Deflation

#Iran election?  Dropping like a stone

#MichaelJackson? Rising tide.

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Flower District Deflation

I've lived adjacent to New York's Flower District for a decade, and while it is a shadow of what it was, it's still a pretty little shadow. More...

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The Kids are Still Watching the Boob Tube


Not sure I believe these stats, but Nielsen claims the kids watch a lot of TV and don't spend so much time online. More...

Next Stop: Barclays Station

With all the money they're saving due to their tenth round of layoffs yesterday, my former employer Barclays Capital is buying naming rights to a New York City subway station. More...

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Empire State Building June 23, 2009


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Chart of the Day: Most popular camera on Flickr


The iPhone is about to take the lead More...

Unmployment exhaustion


This chart shows the percent of unemployment claims that were run through to exhaustion. It's bad. More...

Monster deflation

The truth about job sites is that they aren't useful for finding jobs. But they can be used in other clever ways. More...

Handicapping the Second Great Depression


You know things are rough when the WSJ keeps bending over backwards to declare it's not as bad at 1930 was, except in a few ways. More...

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Empire State Building June 21, 2009


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Facebook Deflation

How will Facebook double ad revenues in this market?

Clickfraud, natch. More...

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Supertrailer



What do you get when you combine Airstream with a Swiss Army Knife?

You get this. More...

Friday, June 19, 2009

Empire State Building June 19, 2009


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Most Interesting Shots (Today) #6




















Every day, Flickr ranks my photos by "interestingness." These are the 30 most interesting today.

6 photos are of my dogs (2 of which were taken by friends).

4 of the Metlife Building. 4 of the Flatiron. 4 of the Empire State Building (if you include the shining moon picture in the middle).

The Flickr set is here. Earlier versions of this post are here. More...

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Empire State Building June 16, 2009


Lots of rain this summer in NYC....
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Fished-out

Yes, we are sweeping the oceans clean of fish at an unsustainable rate. I grew up in Massachusetts and watched the local cod industry more or less go away, so I know it can happen.

But do I really believe there will be no fish left in just 30 years? More...

More Barclays Layoffs


Yet another layoff at my former employer, Barclays Capital. More...

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

CPI Deflation


The latest data shows that consumer prices continue to fall..... More...

Time Inc. Deflation

I worked at Time Inc. in 1991 when it was still a publishing colossus. Now, SVP John Squires has the unenviable task of putting the digital "genie back in the bottle," according to CEO Ann Moore.

That will be a tall task, surely, but unless Time and other publishers are able to get people to pay for content in some fashion, then they won't have a business anywhere near the size of what they have.

And if no one is willing to pay anything for what you're creating, how valuable is it anyway? More...

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Blogopticon


This matrix is about a year old, but it's the first time I'm seeing it. Love it! More...

Boston Globe Deflation

The 700 reporters and editors of the Boston Globe do not like the fact that the newspaper industry is collapsing and can no longer supply the wages and benefits it has in the past. Instead of dealing with this sad reality in as productive and efficient a manner as possible, the Globe's staffers are .... protesting it. More...

Friday, June 12, 2009

Empire State Building June 12, 2009



Caribbean Week More...

At last: The Digital TV Transition


After being delayed once, at last the nation's full-power TV stations have ceased analog broadcasts. I wrote about this a lot in my last job at Barclays Capital.

Good riddance. More...

Snow Leopards of Central Park














The new exhibit at the Central Park Zoo is quite stunning. Great installation; beautiful charismatic creatures. More...

Thursday, June 11, 2009

New York State Deflation

While the finances of New York State go to hell in a handbasket and important legislation on marriage equality, rent stabilization go un-debated, the New York State Senate is engaged in a banana republic-like battle for control, including one party locking the other out of the Senate Chamber and the balance of power held by two Senators widely thought to be (actual) criminals (one beats his girlfriend and the other takes bribes AND doesn't live in his district). More...

New York Times Deflation



When the Daily Show comes knocking, run to the hills unless you are fully prepared to be made a fool of and that's part of the image you wanna project. More...

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Jawdroppers

10% of Americans believe Obama is a muslim, and telling them otherwise simply reinforces their beliefs. More...

The Craiglist Effect

Here's news that Craigslist's revenues recently topped $100MM, which is a lot for a service generally considered to be free. In fact, most of its listing ARE free, but advertisers pay for a few categories like real estate. All this is awful news for newspapers, who used to get a third of their revenue from classifieds. It's hard to compete with someone who gives stuff away, even if they actually sell a few things for money. More...

Monday, June 8, 2009

Empire State Building June 8, 2009


World Ocean Day
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Gay Bar Deflation

Gay bars everywhere seem to be headed for extinction and the conventional wisdom says this is because the kids have the internet when they want to hook up, and don't feel the need to be segregated when they just want to hang out with friends.

For some reason, every couple of years a story seems to come out of Boston with statistics about how there are fewer and fewer gay places there every year. Perhaps I only notice because I'm originally from Boston or perhaps Boston is leading the charge here. More...

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Empire State Building June 7, 2009



Muslim Voices: Arts and Ideas More...

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Advertising Deflation

It's an article of faith in advertising circles that advertising revenue grows at least as fast as GDP - but what if that's wrong? The whole promise of online advertising is that it allows for more efficient, targeted ad spending compared to "wasteful" traditional media. if that is true, then there will be a time when adspend probably shrinks compared to GDP.

regardless, though, right now GDP is shrinking and so is all adspend, not least online adspend which is down 5%. More...

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Graydon Carter Deflation

Everything about Graydon Carter is puffed-up and annoying. Here he solves the woes of the newspaper industry by suggesting the solution is to "write stories people want to read." More...

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Latest "Blow" to the Dollar

According to gold bug Ron Kirby, there's been a suspicious outflow of gold bullion from the United States to the Dominican Republic. His explanation is that drug kingpins in that country have stopped accepting suitcases full of US cash as payment for the White Lady, and now accept only gold. You see, those canny cocaine lords know better than the rest of that the dollar is about to become worthless. More...

Monday, June 1, 2009

Phone Spoils Go to Apple and RIM


This pretty fantastic chart from Deutsche Bank shows that Apple and RIM, the makers of the iPhone and the Blackberry respectively, make a vastly disproportionate share of mobile phone profits given that both devices have a relatively tiny market share (couple of percent each). More...

White Collar Day Laborers



More genius More...

Reagan Did It

The root of the financial crisis, says Paul Krugman, was the decision by Reagan to run federal budget deficits in peacetime and his decision to deregulate financial markets, which let the banks gamble with taxpayer money.

But the worst part of the deregulation was the elimination of the requirement that mortgage lending required borrowers to make a down payment. More...

"Total Eclipse of the Heart" Parody

This is genius

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