If I were in a sinking rowboat out in the middle of an ocean and the only way to save the boat was to throw an ideologue overboard, I would not hesitate to do so.
Anyone who is now telling their constituents they voted against "socialism" yesterday is who I am blaming for the future negative impact their "do-nothing" inaction will have on the economy.
Yesterday’s vote was not a chance to vote against socialism, it was a chance to vote against drowning.
Later - Bonus link: If you’d like the annotated version of this post, I’ve just discovered it: This profoundly insightful essay by David Brooks. Every word of it is brilliant. Quote:
"The Congressional plan was nobody’s darling, but it was an effort to assert some authority. It was an effort to alter the psychology of the markets. People don’t trust the banks; the bankers don’t trust each other. It was an effort to address the crisis of authority in Washington. At least it might have stabilized the situation so fundamental reforms of the world’s financial architecture could be undertaken later. But the 228 House members who voted no have exacerbated the global psychological free fall, and now we have a crisis of political authority on top of the crisis of financial authority.
Even later - Another bonus link: Another must read: Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post.
While traveling home from Maine to Nashville late on Monday, I started and stopped several drafts of rants regarding the Profiles in Cowardice displayed by many members of the House of Representatives yesterday. Never has a headline captured the moment than this one from late in the night on Washingtonpost.com: “After $700B Bailout Is Rejected, Lawmakers Blame Each Other.”
I regret that members of the House were unable to overcome the pejorative label of “bailout” attached to the plan by the media and its opponents. As I wrote the other day, there’s no better way to get bipartisanship than by having it “branded” a bailout for Wall Street. Frankly, I couldn’t get a $7 Wall Street bailout passed, much less a $700 billion one.
The notion that this measure was not aimed at “bailing out Wall Street” will quickly become apparent. As apparent as those plastic bags that still cover the gas hoses at service stations all over Nashville — over two weeks after shortages in gasoline supplies here set off a run on gasoline stations — a run that is still keeping supplies low.
In this case, I hate to say, “I told you so.” I’d prefer to keep such reminders in the realm of sports predictions.
But just a few days ago, when I wrote about “the bailout,” I also predicted this outcome:
“The legislation will fail and the market will take a major hit. During the run-up to the election, there will be much shouting and gnashing of teeth and yelling of I told you sos and pointing of fingers and talking heads who can’t balance their checkbooks will spend hours trying to explain the way markets work.
Everyone running for office will say, ‘I was against the $700 billion Wall Street Bailout.’
Right after the election, Congress will be called into a special session where they will consider an emergency plan to provide liquidity to banks that need to lend money for mortgages and car loans and small business loans and loans for companies that employ, well, everyone.
It will be called a Main Street liquidity protection plan.
See, by November, we’ll all know what the word liquidity means and the role it plays in the life of Main Street.
Liquidity will be a killer brand. Liquidity will be the word of the year.
And no, I’m not for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.
But I’m not for the people who are against it, either.
1. Everyone blames someone else for allowing the situation to get to this point. 2. Everyone regrets that we’re in this situation. 3. Something had to be done now — or it didn’t. 4. It will work — or it won’t.
I have no insight to provide regarding the current situation, however, when has that stopped me before? Here are three ideas that struck me while walking along a Maine coast beach this morning (right before getting ready to head back to Nashville):
Idea 1: The Economic Stabilization Plan Wiki:
I think a group of economists and bright students should set up a wiki that will capture and record the flood of hopeful and dire predictions flowing forth from major economists, advocacy organizations, political groups, high-profile pundits (including finance bloggers) and media sources. This group of economists and students should then track the plan as it is implemented outside of the glow of current media coverage. After establishing the benchmarks of what “the experts” have predicted, the wiki should then become the repository of the following: What is purchased, how the money is loaned or spent, how the loans are packaged and sold, what is the return on investment. Where the graft happens. What is wasted.
At some point, in two, five or ten years, it should then publish a report card of who was right and who was wrong among the experts who are claiming now to be all knowing. It should also report: How much did this plan really cost us? Trillions? (I’ve heard amounts equal to many times the annual GDP) or was there a huge windfall return for taxpayers on investment that will reduce the national debt or save Social Security? (I’ve heard both predicted in the past few days.)
I’m sure there will be a “National Commission on What Went Wrong” appointed. What I’m talking about is what is going to happen, rather than what someone (other than me) allowed to happen this time.
Idea 2: The “Too Big to Fail List”: In addition to the “National Commission on What Went Wrong,” I think there should be a “National Commission on Companies too Big to Fail.” If we are going to live in a land that claims to have free markets except for when — for whatever reason (that is someone else’s fault) — there are companies that need to play the “we’re too big to fail” card in order seek loans or other bailouts from the government, then we need to go ahead and set up a “pre-commission” on the topic.
I think if this commission determines a company is too big to fail — say, hypothetically, Wal-mart is determined to be too big to fail because it employs 2 million Americans — then such a company should be required to choose whether or not to opt into the “we’re too big to fail” category of companies. If the company opts in, it would be required to hold certain cash reserves and be subjected to a higher degree of fiscal transparency than most publicly traded companies. During good times, these too big to fail companies would also be required to pay into the Too Big to Fail Trust Fund. When bad times happen, only companies who have opted in can apply for a Too Big to Fail government bailout. If you’re too big to fail and haven’t paid into the Too Big to Fail Trust Fund, too bad.
Idea 3: Read this Brad Stone essay in yesterday’s New York Times on why we think it’s okay some people get rich (entrepreneurs and Tiger Woods, for example) while we think it’s crazy that others do (investment bankers and former Presidents, for example). Great article.
I’ve received a few e-mails and direct messages from people who know I’m in Maine, accompanying the 18 year old on a college visit. I thought I’d answer with this map. Yes, there’s a hurricane heading to Maine. No, I’m not in its path. However, in a few minutes (Sunday, a.m.), I’m evacuating Brunswick for Portland where I’ve located a sports bar with a screen dedicated to the Titans game.
I’ve written a few posts the past few days regarding the semantics and rhetoric swirling around the credit crisis plan. I’ve noted how the branding and specifying could have been improved.
The “former hedge fund manager” and author writes:
“My analysis suggests that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (a former investment banker, no less, not a trader) may pull off the mother of all trades, which could net a trillion dollars and maybe as much as $2.2 trillion — yes, with a “t” — for the United States Treasury.”
In other words, this could be the best deal since the U.S. purchased Alaska for $7 million in 1867.
I’m in. Where can I sign up?
See, if you market things the right way, you can sell anything.
[Note: While I'm an optimist, my reasons for supporting the plan take Kessler's theory with a grain of salt.]
Yesterday, I wrote about the way in which the “brand” that was applied nearly immediately to the plan for the government to provide liquidity to the nation’s credit markets doomed it: Who in their right mind can support a “bailout” of $700 billion for “Wall Street.”
Bailout and Wall Street are metaphors you don’t want in your corner when you’re in a heavy-weight fight.
Last night, while listening to the President, I (yes, I’m a history wonk) couldn’t help but wonder how it compared to the words Franklin Roosevelt used to describe the credit crisis the current one is being compared to. And so, through the wonders of Google, I spent five seconds tracking it down.
The Roosevelt fireside chat (his first) is one of the most famous Presidential addresses and media milestones in history. Yet listening to it, Franklin stumbles through some lines and puts emphasis on the wrong parts of sentences. It’s not one of his best performances. But evenso, he exudes confidence, credibility and leadership.
At times like these, we want leaders.
We don’t want politicians. We don’t want pundits. We don’t want candidates. We don’t want people who are selling books or who are desperate to appear on TV for any reason. And for god sakes, we don’t want yet another blog post. (Please, you are free to stop reading.)
We want leaders.
What the President should have said
I think the words of President Bush’s statement last night were succinct, rational and informative. Yet in the context of his 30% approval rating, they were unconvincing to 70% of us.
He was trying for FDR. He should have been more Harry Truman, another extremely unpopular President.
I think he should have said the following before launching into the explanation of his plan and why it needs to be enacted:
My friends:
Tomorrow, I have asked the leaders of Congress — Republicans and Democrats — and the two men, one of whom will be President in three months, to join me here at the White House to work together to solve one of the most critical problems that has faced our nation’s economy in many decades. What they do tomorrow can help set the course for economic recovery instead of the course we are currently on — one that leads to consequences I will explain in a moment.
But first, before I do, let me start off by asking that you stop looking for someone to blame for this situation.
Stop blaming members of Congress or Wall Street bankers or foreign investors. And please, especially stop blaming men and women who wanted the chance to live the American dream of home ownership.
Blame me.
I’ve been President for the past eight years and I fully accept the blame. It was on my watch. The buck stops here. As I will explain, this is not a crisis about some rich men on Wall Street or lawmakers who take their campaign contributions. This is a complex issue that is the unintended consequence of many different factors that, when looked at one-by-one, may have made sense.
But when I tried to address these issues in the past, I did not do a good enough job connecting all the dots for the American people. And I was focused on other things that I thought were critical to the nation’s security, but that have been very unpopular with the majority of the American people.
And so, my credibility to address these problems was non-existent. For those reasons, I accept the blame and hope that my support and encouragement for their efforts will help the men and women coming to the White House tomorrow find a way through this mess.
Furthermore, any success that comes from tomorrow’s meeting should be credited to Barack Obama and John McCain and to the leaders of the House and Senate. But if it fails, blame me….
Franklin Delano Roosevelt addresses the nation via radio regarding the country’s banking crisis in what is now called “The First Fireside Chat.” March 12, 1933.
My friends:
I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking — to talk with the comparatively few who understand the mechanics of banking, but more particularly with the overwhelming majority of you who use banks for the making of deposits and the drawing of checks.
I want to tell you what has been done in the last few days, and why it was done, and what the next steps are going to be. I recognize that the many proclamations from State capitols and from Washington, the legislation, the Treasury regulations, and so forth, couched for the most part in banking and legal terms, ought to be explained for the benefit of the average citizen. I owe this, in particular, because of the fortitude and the good temper with which everybody has accepted the inconvenience and hardships of the banking holiday. And I know that when you understand what we in Washington have been about, I shall continue to have your cooperation as fully as I have had your sympathy and your help during the past week.
First of all, let me state the simple fact that when you deposit money in a bank, the bank does not put the money into a safe deposit vault. It invests your money in many different forms of credit — in bonds, in commercial paper, in mortgages and in many other kinds of loans. In other words, the bank puts your money to work to keep the wheels of industry and of agriculture turning around. A comparatively small part of the money that you put into the bank is kept in currency — an amount which in normal times is wholly sufficient to cover the cash needs of the average citizen. In other words, the total amount of all the currency in the country is only a comparatively small proportion of the total deposits in all the banks of the country.
What, then, happened during the last few days of February and the first few days of March? Because of undermined confidence on the part of the public, there was a general rush by a large portion of our population to turn bank deposits into currency or gold — a rush so great that the soundest banks couldn’t get enough currency to meet the demand. The reason for this was that on the spur of the moment it was, of course, impossible to sell perfectly sound assets of a bank and convert them into cash, except at panic prices far below their real value. By the afternoon of March third, a week ago last Friday, scarcely a bank in the country was open to do business. Proclamations closing them, in whole or in part, had been issued by the Governors in almost all the states. It was then that I issued the proclamation providing for the national bank holiday, and this was the first step in the Government’s reconstruction of our financial and economic fabric.
The second step, last Thursday, was the legislation promptly and patriotically passed by the Congress confirming my proclamation and broadening my powers so that it became possible in view of the requirement of time to extend the holiday and lift the ban of that holiday gradually in the days to come. This law also gave authority to develop a program of rehabilitation of our banking facilities. And I want to tell our citizens in every part of the Nation that the national Congress — Republicans and Democrats alike — showed by this action a devotion to public welfare and a realization of the emergency and the necessity for speed that it is difficult to match in all our history.
The third stage has been the series of regulations permitting the banks to continue their functions to take care of the distribution of food and household necessities and the payment of payrolls.
This bank holiday, while resulting in many cases in great inconvenience, is affording us the opportunity to supply the currency necessary to meet the situation. Remember that no sound bank is a dollar worse off than it was when it closed its doors last week. Neither is any bank which may turn out not to be in a position for immediate opening. The new law allows the twelve Federal Reserve Banks to issue additional currency on good assets and thus the banks that reopen will be able to meet every legitimate call. The new currency is being sent out by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in large volume to every part of the country. It is sound currency because it is backed by actual, good assets.
Another question you will ask is this: Why are all the banks not to be reopened at the same time? The answer is simple and I know you will understand it: Your Government does not intend that the history of the past few years shall be repeated. We do not want and will not have another epidemic of bank failures.
As a result, we start tomorrow, Monday, with the opening of banks in the twelve Federal Reserve Bank cities — those banks, which on first examination by the Treasury, have already been found to be all right. That will be followed on Tuesday by the resumption of all other functions by banks already found to be sound in cities where there are recognized clearing houses. That means about two hundred and fifty cities of the United States. In other words, we are moving as fast as the mechanics of the situation will allow us.
On Wednesday and succeeding days, banks in smaller places all through the country will resume business, subject, of course, to the Government’s physical ability to complete its survey It is necessary that the reopening of banks be extended over a period in order to permit the banks to make applications for the necessary loans, to obtain currency needed to meet their requirements, and to enable the Government to make common sense checkups.
Please let me make it clear to you that if your bank does not open the first day you are by no means justified in believing that it will not open. A bank that opens on one of the subsequent days is in exactly the same status as the bank that opens tomorrow.
I know that many people are worrying about State banks that are not members of the Federal Reserve System. There is no occasion for that worry. These banks can and will receive assistance from member banks and from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. And, of course, they are under the immediate control of the State banking authorities. These State banks are following the same course as the National banks except that they get their licenses to resume business from the State authorities, and these authorities have been asked by the Secretary of the Treasury to permit their good banks to open up on the same schedule as the national banks. And so I am confident that the State Banking Departments will be as careful as the national Government in the policy relating to the opening of banks and will follow the same broad theory.
It is possible that when the banks resume a very few people who have not recovered from their fear may again begin withdrawals. Let me make it clear to you that the banks will take care of all needs, except, of course, the hysterical demands of hoarders, and it is my belief that hoarding during the past week has become an exceedingly unfashionable pastime in every part of our nation. It needs no prophet to tell you that when the people find that they can get their money — that they can get it when they want it for all legitimate purposes — the phantom of fear will soon be laid. People will again be glad to have their money where it will be safely taken care of and where they can use it conveniently at any time. I can assure you, my friends, that it is safer to keep your money in a reopened bank than it is to keep it under the mattress.
The success of our whole national program depends, of course, on the cooperation of the public — on its intelligent support and its use of a reliable system.
Remember that the essential accomplishment of the new legislation is that it makes it possible for banks more readily to convert their assets into cash than was the case before. More liberal provision has been made for banks to borrow on these assets at the Reserve Banks and more liberal provision has also been made for issuing currency on the security of these good assets. This currency is not fiat currency. It is issued only on adequate security, and every good bank has an abundance of such security.
One more point before I close. There will be, of course, some banks unable to reopen without being reorganized. The new law allows the Government to assist in making these reorganizations quickly and effectively and even allows the Government to subscribe to at least a part of any new capital that may be required.
I hope you can see, my friends, from this essential recital of what your Government is doing that there is nothing complex, nothing radical in the process.
We have had a bad banking situation. Some of our bankers had shown themselves either incompetent or dishonest in their handling of the people’s funds. They had used the money entrusted to them in speculations and unwise loans. This was, of course, not true in the vast majority of our banks, but it was true in enough of them to shock the people of the United States, for a time, into a sense of insecurity and to put them into a frame of mind where they did not differentiate, but seemed to assume that the acts of a comparative few had tainted them all. And so it became the Government’s job to straighten out this situation and do it as quickly as possible. And that job is being performed.
I do not promise you that every bank will be reopened or that individual losses will not be suffered, but there will be no losses that possibly could be avoided; and there would have been more and greater losses had we continued to drift. I can even promise you salvation for some, at least, of the sorely presses banks. We shall be engaged not merely in reopening sound banks but in the creation of more sound banks through reorganization.
It has been wonderful to me to catch the note of confidence from all over the country. I can never be sufficiently grateful to the people for the loyal support that they have given me in their acceptance of the judgment that has dictated our course, even though all our processes may not have seemed clear to them.
After all, there is an element in the readjustment of our financial system more important than currency, more important than gold, and that is the confidence of the people themselves. Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan. You people must have faith; you must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses. Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system, and it is up to you to support and make it work.
It is your problem, my friends, your problem no less than it is mine.
I don’t know much about global finance, but I know something about branding. So I know this: When you lose control of a message so much that within moments of its introduction, everyone is calling your idea a $700 billion Wall Street Bailout, you’ve lost.
Which part of that “brand” can win the approval of anyone? It’s $700 billion of tax payer money. It’s Wall Street, as in Gordon Geeko, greed is good, bastard. And it’s bailout, as in, my crazy drunk cousin has just called me yet again to come bail him out.
So I’m not surprised that, in perhaps the most dramatic display of bipartisanship I’ve seen in my life, everybody hates the $700 billion Wall Street Bailout.
So, here’s my prediction:
The legislation will fail and the market will take a major hit. During the run-up to the election, there will be much shouting and gnashing of teeth and yelling of I told you sos and pointing of fingers and talking heads who can’t balance their checkbooks will spend hours trying to explain the way markets work.
Everyone running for office will say, “I was against the $700 billion Wall Street Bailout.”
Right after the election, Congress will be called into a special session where they will consider an emergency plan to provide liquidity to banks that need to lend money for mortgages and car loans and small business loans and loans for companies that employ, well, everyone.
It will be called a Main Street liquidity protection plan.
See, by November, we’ll all know what the word liquidity means and the role it plays in the life of Main Street.
Liquidity will be a killer brand. Liquidity will be the word of the year.
And no, I’m not for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.
But I’m not for the people who are against it, either.
*As I’ve discovered sarcasm isn’t scalable, the subject line is a reference to lack of knowledge about history displayed by one of the greatest movie characters of all time. Google the term “John Blutarsky” if you don’t know about whom I’m referring.
I don’t typically blog about the launching and closing of magazines or magazine-related online ventures. However, when it involves a once grand, but now abused, magazine brand, I make exceptions. So, here’s a brief timeline of this topic on RexBlog:
September 22, 2004:I blogged about the hype oozing from the Time Inc. press release announcing the “Largest Magazine Rollout in Time Inc. History” — a plan to use the Life brand on a magazine that would be delivered on Fridays as a newspaper insert. A few days later, I wrote another post following up on the same theme.
March 26, 2007: Time Inc. issued a press release announcing it was shuttering the newspaper-delivered Life but was working on “a plan to launch a major portal to put its entire collection of 10 million images online.”
September 23, 2008: (I wonder if they know it’s four years, almost to the day of the 2004 announcement.) While not using that 10 million number anymore, today Time Inc. announced a new joint-venture with Getty Images for a new Life.com that will will “provide access to the most comprehensive iconic and professional photography collections available anywhere online.”
Quotes from the 2004 Press Release:
Bill Shapiro (Life managing editor): “We wanted to create a magazine that people would feel as well as read. LIFE is designed to help people connect: from the images that capture a world of emotions, to tips and ideas to help people make the time they spend with friends and family more special.”
Andy Blau (Life President): “We are thrilled with the debut issue of LIFE. From the iconic photography to ideas for weekend activities, LIFE helps people get the most of out the two most important days of the week.”
Quotes from the 2008 Press Release:
Bill Shapiro (Life.com editor): “Only three percent of the LIFE archive has been seen by the public. This site will put everything on display. You’ll be able to look at the biggest events of yesterday and the stories making news today with just a couple of clicks.”
Andy Blau (Life President): “Image search is the fastest-growing type of online search, and LIFE.com will satisfy the public’s desire for quality and relevant imagery through a visually pleasing and easy-to-browse website.”
[Update: See note at bottom.] First, I love you all. I love you Obama supporters and you McCain supporters. I love you Macs and I love you PCs. I love you economists who think the credit crisis "rescue plan/bailout" is a necessary thing and I love you economists who think it’s too little, too late — or too much, too early. I love physicists who build particle colliders and I love luddites who convince themselves particle colliders will set off a chain reaction that will suck the earth into a black hole.
I love you all because you bring a balance to the world. A ying and yang. And comic relief.
Take the stock market last week. You buyers (I love you) and you sellers (I love you, too) drove the market up and down in a historic way — and yet the market ended the week at nearly the same spot it began. That’s comic relief. And that’s why I love you.
I hope it’s apparent that I’ve declared myself to be a member of the glass-half-full side of the equation. I’ve read and experienced enough history to believe that Franklin Roosevelt summed it all up in a statement that could be fit into a less-than-140-character Twitter tweet: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
But I hope it’s apparent that I have respect for those who disagree with me. I get it. I understand your fear and your proclivity to view the world in terms of entropy, decline and death. I understand why people buy books and attend seminars on why and how they should store up food for Y2K and build giant fences along borders. I disagree with them, but I get it.
Which brings me to why I started writing this post. I read this piece in today’s New York Times called, "Technology Doesn’t Dumb Us Down. It Frees Our Minds."
And while I think technology does both, I am clearly in the "innovation is good" camp. The article refers to a quote by one of my go-to thinkers, Paul Saffo :
"Paul Saffo, the futurist, says he could divide the technology world into two kinds of people: engineers and natural scientists. He says the world outlook of the engineer is by nature optimistic. Every problem can be solved if you have the right tools and enough time and you pose the correct questions. Other people, who can be just as scientific, see the natural order of the world in terms of entropy, decline and death."
Perhaps that’s what this is all about. Some of us view the world as physical scientists: we see everything breaking, declining and dying. We see that even about ourselves (and for most of us, our bodies are breaking as we age). We see it about institutions like government and media. We see it about our cities and our economies and our churches and schools — and all social structures. And some of us view the world as engineers: we see all things — especially broken things — as something that needs improving or fixing — and that can be fixed. And we start looking for the right tools.
We need scientists and we need engineers.
I love them both but I was wired to be an engineer.
Followup: I e-mailed Paul Saffo to see if he could point me in the direction of where he discusses the natural scientist vs. engineer comparison. He told me he is working on a follow-up piece, but that this article about global warming that appeared last year on ABCnews.com is what is being referred to. Sidenote: Corresponding with Paul also helped me discover that, while he doesn’t blog (something I’ve wished publicly on this blog he would do), he does maintain a dead-tree journal and essays from those journals are showing up here , complete with RSS feed. Thanks, Paul.
I’ve blogged about the “on demand” jet service, DayJet, several times. The “world’s first ‘per-seat, on-demand’ jet service” was a great concept but, unfortunately, the thinking behind it was too far outside the box for it to work at this time. On Friday, it ceased operations. The company was facing daunting financial challenges but apparently — at least how the spin seems to be taking shape — was finally pushed over the edge when a congressional report released on Wednesday said the FAA’s certification of the type of jet the company is using — the Eclipse EA500 — had been “rushed.”
Despite its demise, I still recommend listening to the podcast Jon Udell posted a year ago in which he interviewed Ed Iacobucci, DayJet’s co-founder and CEO, regarding the logistical challenges of such a jet taxi service — and how the Internet can one day help overcome the challenges. The interview explores, at depth, the peer-to-peer metaphor as it was being applied to matching up the needs of travelers with the availability of the company’s anticipated fleet of aircraft. This is of significant importance to the hundreds of smaller communities in the U.S. that have airports capable of being served by such services — but that today are completely cut off from any commercial aviation.
Personally, I believe the concept of DayJet was incredibly visionary and I’m sorry it didn’t work. I think in about 10-15 years, we’ll look back and say Iacobucci played a Preston Tucker role in an idea that, one day, will find its time.
Today, Dell’s Small & Media Business (SMB) online marketing group launched a Facebook “community and guide” (translation: page) designed to help educate small business owners on “how to harness the power of social media to reach and serve their customers.” Dell is calling the Facebook “community and guide” Social Media for Small Business.
Guides on how to use blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.
Screencast introductions to social-media tools
A discussion board
Best-practice sharing including a featured small or medium business of the week
Deals and news from Dell Small and Medium Business
According to this post by J.J. Davis, “early adopters” — I guess that means fans — will receive $100 in Facebook ad credits.
Due partially to some Ike-related distribution glitches, but primarily to some panic buying on the part of locals, there is a gasoline shortage in Middle Tennessee. Many stations have plastic bags over pump hoses and those with supplies have lines of cars backed up for blocks. It has a very early 1970s gasoline embargo feel to it.
One thing Nashville has is a lot of active users of Twitter all over the region.
So about an hour ago, I suggested in a tweet that anyone who knows of a gasoline station with a supply, post it on Twitter (called a tweet) and to include the closest thing Twitter has to a “tag,” - a # , hashtag - #nashvillegas.
Here’s the result: A real-time, updated list of gasoline stations with gas:
Sidenote: This Nashville phenomenon is a great study in the power of rumors to drive market-behavior. While gasoline is available all around us, the word-of-mouth engine is suggesting it will be days before our supplies are re-stocked, which leads, of course, to more panic buying.
Finally, Microsoft responds to the cute, but often mean-spirited Apple ads that imply anyone using a PC is a dork — not a geek, but a dork. The ad embedded below is one of three executions of the new ads (these ads are actually about something, not the ones about nothing that had Jerry Seinfeld in them), all variations on the theme that PC people do lots of cool and interesting stuff.
(Also below is a video screen grab I recorded of an ad that appeared on the front page of NYTimes.com yesterday. As typical, the online ad is technically brilliant and an incredible use of the medium. I can’t believe the NY Times allows it, but that’s not what this post is about.)
Here’s my instant review of the Microsoft ad: I wonder why it took Microsoft this long to respond to Apple? I’m sure there’s been a raging debate regarding whether or not responding would “validate” the implications contained in Apple spots. Look at most of the blog coverage and you’ll see what I mean — every post will comment on them in comparison to the Apple spots.
I think the hardcore technology blogosphere will love the ads. That’s because there’s a nuanced and subtle love-hate thing many technology bloggers have with Apple. We (and in this case, I’ll include myself) use Apple products because of their elegant design. But we have come to believe that Apple, the company, lives on another planet — or, at least behind some sort of iron curtain.
Another reason I think these ads work: While I think the Apple ads are effective in pounding in one message (Macs are more dependable than PCs), I don’t believe they’ve been effective at convincing people that users of PCs are losers. Why? Because, at the end of the day, we all love John Hodgman, the “I’m a PC guy,” way more than the straight-man hipster dude who plays “I’m a Mac.”
So, bottomline for me. Kudos to Microsoft. Apple has been offering you this chance on a silver platter for years.
Bonus link: Design blog CounterNotions stayed up late last night to write a long review comparing the Microsoft spots to a campaign Apple did several years ago called, “Here’s to Crazy Ones.”
I’m a PC and I’ve been made into a stereotype, version 1
I’m a Mac, I’m a PC ad appearing on the front of NYTimes.com, September 19, 2008
Finally, I have read something about the whole credit crisis, Wall Street meltdown, et al, that makes sense to me: This op-ed piece by Thomas Friedman .
Quote:
Lets understand what happened here. Wall Street — the financial industry — became a bubble in recent years thanks to an excess of liquidity and the oldest bubble maker in history: greed. Some of the smartest people forgot one of the oldest rules of investing: There is no such thing as a risk-free return. When you reach too far for yield, sooner or later you get burned….Just like the dot-comers in the 1990s, the financial stocks got inflated to ridiculous levels and salaries for Wall Street executives reached ridiculous heights. You are now watching live and in color that bubble burst: "Thank you for playing, Lehman Brothers."
Lots of sound advice, also.
Reading it makes me wonder what the next bubble and subsequent bust will be — and there will be a next bubble/bust as long as there is greed and there will always be greed.
I’m guessing the next bust will be in about five years and will involve wind mills. But that’s just a guess.
Bonus link: Despite its alarming headline, this comprehensive piece in the Wall Street Journal provides a broad explanation of the current situation and what some of the options are. From a common sense perspective, it seems to me that some type of Resolution Trust Corporation model should be instituted. Rather than panic selling, the government may actually end up with something of value. (Of course, this is my observation — and my favorite economist is Navin Johnson.)
Another link: Freakonomics author Steven Levitt interviews colleaguesDoug Diamond and Anil Kashyap at the University of Chicago School of Business for their interpretation of what’s going on.
