voice

Cellcrypt Appoints Dr. Andy Lilly as VP Engineering & Development

by on May 17, 2011

Key Addition to Senior Management Team as Company Meets Increasing Global Demand for Voice Encryption Services

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Cellcrypt Appoints Dr. Andy Lilly as VP Engineering & Development

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Hank Morris Is Going To Prison

by AP on February 17, 2011

NEW YORK — A former top political consultant to New York’s disgraced ex-comptroller was led off to prison Thursday after being sentenced to at least a year and four months behind bars for his pivotal role in an influence-peddling scandal involving the state pension fund. Henry “Hank” Morris, who rose to political prominence in the state as a campaign manager for Democrats, apologized to the people of the state for compromising their faith in government before a Manhattan judge handed down the punishment. “Words cannot express the depth of my remorse,” he said, his voice and hands shaking as he read a prepared statement. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Bart Stone was unmoved. He sentenced Morris to the maximum allowed under the law, then denied him time to put his affairs in order before going to prison. “No. It’s time to go,” the judge said. Morris, 57, pleaded guilty in November to securities fraud. He admitted using his connections to former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi and other officials who oversaw New York’s massive pension fund to extract kickbacks from investment firms hoping to manage some of the funds’ assets. New York’s $125 billion retirement pool is one of the world’s largest government pension funds and richest sources of potential investment dollars. Over just a few years, Morris made $19 million in fees from companies awarded state business by Hevesi’s office. Prosecutors with the state attorney general’s office and the Securities and Exchange Commission said firms that refused to play ball had a harder time getting their foot in the door. The scandal enveloped a number of state officials and money managers, including Steven Rattner, the Wall Street financier who helped lead the Obama administration bailout and restructuring of Chrysler and General Motors. Morris has agreed to forfeit his millions of dollars in fees and has already repaid the retirement fund about $18 million, officials said. But “it is not sufficient that a thief restore stolen property so as to avoid jail time,” the judge wrote in explaining his sentencing decision. Morris will be eligible for parole after 16 months and would serve no more than four years behind bars. “Throughout my life, I have believed in the potential for government to be a force for good in the lives of people. In fact, I devoted the bulk of my professional life to achieving that goal,” Morris told the court before he was sentenced. “To recognize that my actions undermined those efforts has been very painful.” “Simply put, my actions undermined the integrity of New York State’s government, and, most importantly, have led ordinary people to question their faith in the political system.” As he was led away in handcuffs, he told relatives and friends in the courtroom: “I love you. I love everybody. Thank you.” The pension fund investigation was initiated and led for several years by former State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who is now the governor. He called Morris’ sentence “a strong signal that it’s time to clean up Albany and the culture of corruption must and will end.” The pension fund probe became a political issue during Cuomo’s run for governor last year. His Republican opponent, Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino, argued that Democrats were going easy on Democrats in the case. Paladino continued his criticism Thursday, saying Morris emerged with too light a conviction and adding, “These people should pay for their indiscretions.” Eight people pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the case, including Hevesi, who admitted taking campaign contributions and luxury vacations from one money manager seeking pension fund business, and David Loglisci, the pension fund’s chief investment officer. Several financial firms also paid more than $170 million in civil penalties for their actions, including well-known, politically connected firms like the Carlyle Group. Rattner, who was accused of arranging for his investment company to pay Morris $1 million to better the firm’s chances of landing an investment deal with the pension fund, ultimately paid $16.2 million to settle civil lawsuits filed against him by Cuomo’s office and the SEC. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat who inherited the case from Cuomo, said Morris’ sentence showed “that those who abuse positions of power to line their own pockets will be held accountable by this office.” ___ Associated Press writer Michael Gormley in Albany contributed to this report.

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Naveen Jain: Manage Your Company’s Online Identity — Or The Competition Will Manage It For You

February 15, 2011

Your LinkedIn profile is diligently maintained, your blog is free of comment spam, and you tell your kids to wipe their Facebook pages clean of party photos. You work hard to maintain control of your personal online identity. But do you give the same attention to how your business is portrayed online? The online identity, or “o-dentity,” of your business can help or hinder its bottom line. Yet, too many executives fail to safeguard their company’s online reputation. If you allow disgruntled customers or bloggers with a grudge to speak out unhindered about your company, rest assured your competitors will pounce on this opportunity to spread the (negative) word. Following are the five most common mistakes top executives make regarding the management of their company’s o-dentity, and some advice on taking control to prevent a downward spiral. 1) Delegating o-dentity and holding steadfast to the “it’s not my job” attitude. Many top executives see managing the link between CEO voice and corporate brand as something their PR and marketing firms do, along with managing a blog and the company’s Twitter feed – that’s why you hired them, right? However, control of a company’s online reputation can no longer be outsourced without further thought — or worse, kicked downstairs to IT and the SEO management team. Noise from the online world is too loud, complicated, and fast-moving to delegate this task. CEOs need to proactively communicate with potential customers or investors in social media outlets such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. If you’re not making a connection between your voice and views as a CEO, and your company’s brand, you’ll become a corporate dinosaur. Think of Steve Jobs and Apple Computer, or Jeff Bezos at Amazon, execs who truly live and breathe their brands. The presence and voice of the CEO is now more important to branding than the right logo, tagline or campaign. 2) Clinging to one-way communication with customers. In the old days (that is, before 2003 or so), you talked to your customers and they didn’t talk back – or at least they didn’t talk back in a way that could result in a crisis in a matter of hours. If customers were unhappy, they called customer service, their problem was solved, and the CSR rep closed the file – end of the story. Nowadays, customer communications has morphed from a one-way street into a multi directional super highway, and CEOs who ignore this fact do so at significant peril. Top executives who are engaged with customers and online influencers on a daily basis can rectify problems before they turn into crises. To get a handle on the dialogue surrounding your company, you need to spend time reviewing the top 10 thought-leader blogs and Twitter feeds covering your industry – don’t rely on summaries from assistants or wait until they tell you about the negative buzz. You and your company should be engaged daily in two-way conversation with the top influencers in your industry, whether these are executives of other businesses or vocal customers. Granted, this won’t be an easy transition for executives who aren’t comfortable with such direct (and possibly confrontational) contact with influencers – it’s easier to deliver a speech and be done with it. Nevertheless, you need to ask questions and listen to what influencers are saying. Don’t talk “at” people — talk “with” them. 3) Underestimating the power of insights from unhappy customers. Building on the last point, not all CEOs are willing to accept the fact that today the power of one voice – that is, a customer – can provide valuable insights on products and services. Before social media changed the world, a disappointed consumer could only tell a handful of other people about their experience. Today, one viral posting about lousy service (like the infamous recording of an AOL member’s argument with a customer service rep) can result in thousands of social media posts or even stories in The New York Times or Wall Street Journal . Learn from Dell’s example of retooling customer service: After getting hammered in the blogosphere about poor response to online customer complaints, Dell created a “social media swat team” that monitored blogs for negative posts about Dell’s products. The posts are routed to this team, which can then quickly respond before the negative post gains traction. And be proactive: Don’t wait for complaints to come in through the toll-free number before you do anything about them – contact unhappy customers before they can negatively influence other customers. Airlines, often roundly criticized for poor service, are getting smarter about fast response to customer problems via Twitter and other social networks. Delta Air Lines now has a special team, @DeltaAssist , that monitors Twitter for passenger complaints. 4) Believing that customers understand the difference between The Wall Street Journal and a blogger. Executives think consumers can differentiate between a respected media outlet like The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times – whose staff are governed by a code of ethics, and whose lawyers ensure reportage is fair and accurate – and a blogger with a few readers who could be backed by your competition. Today everyone with a Internet access can be a “journalist,” regardless of whether they have had training and answer to a team of editors, or simply started a blog using free software. Don’t assume consumers can discern the nuances of journalism – if your customers take bloggers or Twitter users seriously, then you should too. When Sean Parker, an entrepreneur and the first president of Facebook, was concerned at how his portrayal in the movie “The Social Network” was damaging his online reputation, he didn’t just sit still. He reached out to Henry Blodget, CEO of the online business publication Business Insider and a Huffington Post columnist, to tell his side of the story . Thanks to Blodget’s posts, as well as tweets to his 24,000+ followers, Parker was able to present an alternate picture of his life and accomplishments. 5) Sending out inconsistent messages to external and internal audiences. Do you tell customers that you pride yourself on exemplary customer service, then fail to offer them a toll-free number for questions so they can speak with a real person? Do you proclaim your company as an innovator, yet tell your employees that you’re pulling back on R&D? You need to represent the company internally in the same way you do to your customers. Two excellent examples come to mind: Nordstrom and Gilt Groupe . Nordstrom is legendary for its in-store customer service, and has successful extended this experience to the web. Likewise, Gilt Groupe, the discount designer fashion website, projects an image of exclusivity and stellar customer service. Both embrace consistent messaging. There’s no disconnect, because the image is reality. When you make a mistake — like shoe retailer Kenneth Cole did recently by tweeting, “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online,” — quickly apologize and communicate that the message is at odds with the company’s image, both inside and out. Cole tweeted : “I apologize to everyone who was offended by my insensitive tweet about the situation in Egypt. I’ve dedicated my life to raising awareness about serious social issues, and in hindsight my attempt at humor regarding a nation liberating themselves against oppression was poorly timed and absolutely inappropriate.” Avoiding the “don’ts” above can help you gain visibility into and control of the online dialogue surrounding your company. Remember, if you don’t take charge of your o-dentity, the competition will be happy to do it for you.

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Naveen Jain: Manage Your Company’s Online Identity — Or The Competition Will Manage It For You

February 15, 2011

Your LinkedIn profile is diligently maintained, your blog is free of comment spam, and you tell your kids to wipe their Facebook pages clean of party photos. You work hard to maintain control of your personal online identity. But do you give the same attention to how your business is portrayed online? The online identity, or “o-dentity,” of your business can help or hinder its bottom line. Yet, too many executives fail to safeguard their company’s online reputation. If you allow disgruntled customers or bloggers with a grudge to speak out unhindered about your company, rest assured your competitors will pounce on this opportunity to spread the (negative) word. Following are the five most common mistakes top executives make regarding the management of their company’s o-dentity, and some advice on taking control to prevent a downward spiral. 1) Delegating o-dentity and holding steadfast to the “it’s not my job” attitude. Many top executives see managing the link between CEO voice and corporate brand as something their PR and marketing firms do, along with managing a blog and the company’s Twitter feed – that’s why you hired them, right? However, control of a company’s online reputation can no longer be outsourced without further thought — or worse, kicked downstairs to IT and the SEO management team. Noise from the online world is too loud, complicated, and fast-moving to delegate this task. CEOs need to proactively communicate with potential customers or investors in social media outlets such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. If you’re not making a connection between your voice and views as a CEO, and your company’s brand, you’ll become a corporate dinosaur. Think of Steve Jobs and Apple Computer, or Jeff Bezos at Amazon, execs who truly live and breathe their brands. The presence and voice of the CEO is now more important to branding than the right logo, tagline or campaign. 2) Clinging to one-way communication with customers. In the old days (that is, before 2003 or so), you talked to your customers and they didn’t talk back – or at least they didn’t talk back in a way that could result in a crisis in a matter of hours. If customers were unhappy, they called customer service, their problem was solved, and the CSR rep closed the file – end of the story. Nowadays, customer communications has morphed from a one-way street into a multi directional super highway, and CEOs who ignore this fact do so at significant peril. Top executives who are engaged with customers and online influencers on a daily basis can rectify problems before they turn into crises. To get a handle on the dialogue surrounding your company, you need to spend time reviewing the top 10 thought-leader blogs and Twitter feeds covering your industry – don’t rely on summaries from assistants or wait until they tell you about the negative buzz. You and your company should be engaged daily in two-way conversation with the top influencers in your industry, whether these are executives of other businesses or vocal customers. Granted, this won’t be an easy transition for executives who aren’t comfortable with such direct (and possibly confrontational) contact with influencers – it’s easier to deliver a speech and be done with it. Nevertheless, you need to ask questions and listen to what influencers are saying. Don’t talk “at” people — talk “with” them. 3) Underestimating the power of insights from unhappy customers. Building on the last point, not all CEOs are willing to accept the fact that today the power of one voice – that is, a customer – can provide valuable insights on products and services. Before social media changed the world, a disappointed consumer could only tell a handful of other people about their experience. Today, one viral posting about lousy service (like the infamous recording of an AOL member’s argument with a customer service rep) can result in thousands of social media posts or even stories in The New York Times or Wall Street Journal . Learn from Dell’s example of retooling customer service: After getting hammered in the blogosphere about poor response to online customer complaints, Dell created a “social media swat team” that monitored blogs for negative posts about Dell’s products. The posts are routed to this team, which can then quickly respond before the negative post gains traction. And be proactive: Don’t wait for complaints to come in through the toll-free number before you do anything about them – contact unhappy customers before they can negatively influence other customers. Airlines, often roundly criticized for poor service, are getting smarter about fast response to customer problems via Twitter and other social networks. Delta Air Lines now has a special team, @DeltaAssist , that monitors Twitter for passenger complaints. 4) Believing that customers understand the difference between The Wall Street Journal and a blogger. Executives think consumers can differentiate between a respected media outlet like The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times – whose staff are governed by a code of ethics, and whose lawyers ensure reportage is fair and accurate – and a blogger with a few readers who could be backed by your competition. Today everyone with a Internet access can be a “journalist,” regardless of whether they have had training and answer to a team of editors, or simply started a blog using free software. Don’t assume consumers can discern the nuances of journalism – if your customers take bloggers or Twitter users seriously, then you should too. When Sean Parker, an entrepreneur and the first president of Facebook, was concerned at how his portrayal in the movie “The Social Network” was damaging his online reputation, he didn’t just sit still. He reached out to Henry Blodget, CEO of the online business publication Business Insider and a Huffington Post columnist, to tell his side of the story . Thanks to Blodget’s posts, as well as tweets to his 24,000+ followers, Parker was able to present an alternate picture of his life and accomplishments. 5) Sending out inconsistent messages to external and internal audiences. Do you tell customers that you pride yourself on exemplary customer service, then fail to offer them a toll-free number for questions so they can speak with a real person? Do you proclaim your company as an innovator, yet tell your employees that you’re pulling back on R&D? You need to represent the company internally in the same way you do to your customers. Two excellent examples come to mind: Nordstrom and Gilt Groupe . Nordstrom is legendary for its in-store customer service, and has successful extended this experience to the web. Likewise, Gilt Groupe, the discount designer fashion website, projects an image of exclusivity and stellar customer service. Both embrace consistent messaging. There’s no disconnect, because the image is reality. When you make a mistake — like shoe retailer Kenneth Cole did recently by tweeting, “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online,” — quickly apologize and communicate that the message is at odds with the company’s image, both inside and out. Cole tweeted : “I apologize to everyone who was offended by my insensitive tweet about the situation in Egypt. I’ve dedicated my life to raising awareness about serious social issues, and in hindsight my attempt at humor regarding a nation liberating themselves against oppression was poorly timed and absolutely inappropriate.” Avoiding the “don’ts” above can help you gain visibility into and control of the online dialogue surrounding your company. Remember, if you don’t take charge of your o-dentity, the competition will be happy to do it for you.

Read the full article →

Ernan Roman: Egypt’s Social Media Revolt: Is Your Company Next?

February 14, 2011

THE PROBLEM: Disengaged consumers are using social media resources like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook to stage large-scale revolts against companies big and small. THE SOLUTION: Make sure your organization is prepared to play by the open-dialogue rules of social media. You need to engage consumers through the channels of their choice … and then respond to their feedback quickly, tactfully, and politely. Last March, the Nestlé company’s Facebook page was deluged with protests from users critical of the company’s environmental practices. Some protesters left messages on Nestlé’s page using Facebook profile pictures that were based on parodies of Nestlé trademarks. These revised logos portrayed the company as both an abuser of the environment and a practitioner of cruelty toward animals. The Nestlé Facebook moderator, apparently irked by the appropriation of the company’s intellectual property, started posting rude messages threatening certain users with deletion. The question for marketers: “Is inappropriate behavior on the part of some Facebook users a reason for the company to start insulting them?” The answer is “no.” Attempting to censor fellow users of the social media space, or ordering on-line protesters with whom we disagree to cease and desist, simply doesn’t work. Nestlé assumed it had more control over the social media space than anyone actually does. At the end of the day, Nestlé’s arrogant posts had not only galvanized an even larger base of protesters, but also kindled a P.R. nightmare . Part of the price we pay for participating in the social media space is an acceptance of the basic principle of open dialogue. Yes, that means putting up with people who say nasty things about our company. It also means thinking carefully before responding to criticism. Case in point: A moviegoer in Minnesota had a bad experience at the multiplex, and wrote the company via e-mail to complain about it. The response she received from a senior executive used profanity and told her, crudely, to take her business elsewhere. She posted the executive’s crass e-mail response to her complaints on her Facebook page. Within 72 hours, a host of outraged readers–over 3,300 of them–had joined a grassroots campaign to boycott the cinema. A tidal wave of bad press followed. The question is: How can marketers prevent such social media revolts from emerging in the first place? By doing what Mubarak refused to do for three decades: Listen. TRY THIS: Start by recognizing that PR, marketing, and customer service all OVERLAP in the social media space. Therefore, make sure they have tight/real-time, communication linkages within your company. Beware the “Mubarak Syndrome”: Give up the idea that you can “control” or censor social media participants. Recognize that even harsh social media feedback is helpful and can teach you. Do not cop an attitude. Listen. Ernan Roman is President of the marketing consultancy, Ernan Roman Direct Marketing. Recognized as the industry pioneer who created three transformational methodologies: Integrated Direct Marketing, Opt-In Marketing, and Voice of Customer Relationship Research. Clients include Microsoft, NBC Universal, Disney, Hewlett-Packard and IBM. Ernan was named to “B to B’s Who’s Who” as one of the “100 most influential people” in Business Marketing by Crain’s B to B Magazine. His latest book on marketing best practices was published in October, 2010, and is titled: Voice of the Customer Marketing: A Proven 5-Step Process to Create Customers Who Care, Spend, and Stay . Ernan is also the co-author of “Opt-In Marketing: Increase Sales Exponentially with Consensual Marketing” and author of “Integrated Direct Marketing: The Cutting Edge Strategy for Synchronizing Advertising, Direct Mail, Telemarketing and Field Sales.” www.erdm.com ernan@erdm.com

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Christine Pelosi: Realizing the Shared Vision Is Up to Us

February 7, 2011

I’m excited by the new venture: as long as HuffPost and AOL’s shared vision imagines creative contrarian content, this site will flourish. But that will depend as much on the community as it does the leadership. Candidly, when I first got the HuffPost-AOL news, my thoughts turned to another high-profile media marriage: Comcast-NBC and the temporally if not causally related cancellation of Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Naturally, my first worry was this: will HuffPo’s populist voices be Olbermanned by corporatist interests at AOL? But I scratched my head reading dozens of comments from folks who plan to leave HuffPost in protest of what they fear could happen in this regard rather than fighting for the site to retain its populist integrity. I’m blogging because I’m staying. Let’s consider our history. Arianna’s politics have changed but not her contrarian DNA. She evolved past the left-right paradigm long ago to a “beyond left and right” approach to politics in “Third World America.” Ahead of the post-partisan curve, Arianna moved the HuffPost emphasis from traditional partisan appeals to more organic policy, impact, and movement questions that challenge Democrats as much as Republicans. She — and we — turned a $1 million investment into a $315 million success, proving that questioning authority is good politics and good capitalism. Meanwhile, the community’s politics are diverse and trending populist. There are more progressives on HuffPost, but we are given no quarter by the community — we are given a forum and we are held accountable. I’m sure readers will prove that in your responses to this post as you have every other time. The leadership can help build trust by responding to dark fears with sunshine. One key test of this new HuffPost-AOL marriage will be whether we read about AOL’s corporate practices with the same sunlight that HuffPost has regularly asked of other institutions from media to banking to government entities. That alone would be transformative on our constant quest for Truth 2.0. (And yes I’ll be watching to see where they post this essay in order to determine whether they welcome the question). So before you leave here in protest of what you think might happen, consider the role you could play in retaining the vision of creative contrarian content, and keep lending your voice if you want Huffpost to retain its.

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Beth A. Brooke: What’s the Difference?

January 28, 2011

Kudos to the World Economic Forum (WEF). Big changes usually begin with small steps and the WEF continues to step forward. A new WEF policy this year required the Forum’s 100 Strategic Partners to select at least one female executive among the five delegates they sent to Davos. This simple action more than doubled the participation of women executives among the Strategic Partners. Women were still few and far between in Davos, but it was both symbolic and an important step forward. I have been a WEF delegate for my organization, Ernst & Young, for five years. It was gratifying to participate with friendly faces that brought different perspectives to this important annual gathering. My initial impression when I saw the participant list — wow, I knew nearly all of the women! These are highly regarded, high-level women leaders. Why hadn’t they been at Davos before? I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising. There is a paucity of women CEOs, board members and policymakers. Progress around women’s advancement has been moving at a glacial pace in all countries. The White House Project Report: Benchmarking Women’s Leadership shows that women hold a static 18% in the leadership ranks across ten sectors of the US economy, despite their record participation in the US workforce. Another example: The latest statistics from Catalyst on the percentage of women on boards and in leadership concur that the numbers have been virtually stagnant over the last five years. Women are still less than 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs, 15% of boards, and only 20% of WEF attendees. WEF has been trying. They formed a gender parity group with 50 men and 50 women. They issue the annual Global Gender Gap Report. They are shooting for 40% women in their Young Global Leaders program. After all these steps failed to produce the desired results, WEF took this next step with the policy this year. Without a little nudge, it’s easy to gravitate towards colleagues and leaders who think, look, and act like we do. Unconscious bias on the part of those in power is undoubtedly behind the glacial pace of change. (In fact, I’ve found this same dynamic to be true in discussions of women’s advancement initiatives — it’s too often women only talking to other women about what needs to change.) With WEF’s new policy, suddenly, women who arguably should have already been a part of the Davos scene were actually there this year. And there was no doubt in my mind that having access to the incredible network of corporate, political and civil society global leaders — these women would make the most of it. They contributed positively and differently to the dialogue, to the benefit of the companies they represent and to the broader public interest. Having said that, there were still far too few women on the dais and on the panels debating the serious issues facing our global economy. The fundamental question for each of us when it comes to women’s advancement — and more inclusive leadership in general — is whether we believe there is still a reason to “push.” Is there really a benefit? Is there something to be gained by aggressively engaging diverse perspectives? I believe the answer is yes — we still need to push — for two reasons. First, there is undeniable proof that performance and outcomes will be better. Second, I have personally experienced the benefits of diversity in action. There is a tremendous volume of research, conducted by both the private and public sector that having more diversity on corporate boards, for example, results in better financial performance and corporate governance. Research has also proven that well-led diverse groups are better at problem solving and homogenous teams run the risk of “groupthink.” Today, there is an even more compelling reason to involve more women leaders. Women, according to a study by Booz & Company, are an “emerging market” as they become economically empowered around the world. They are “the third billion”, consumers, employees, leaders, or entrepreneurs, only behind China and India. Who would ignore that size of emerging market? Who would exclude India or China from Davos or fail to evaluate investments in women as they consider investments in other emerging markets? Having access to and leveraging the potential of half of the global talent pool is vital to economic progress around the world – individuals, families, corporations, and whole societies benefit. The potential ROI is undeniable. Putting the research aside, I have countless examples throughout my more than 30 year career of meetings in which I’ve been the lone female voice. Often, my voice was dismissed, and I know I speak for all women leaders when I say that. On the flip side, I’ve been in meetings where there was a critical mass of diverse perspectives, and the conversations changed: tough decisions were made, but only after incorporating multiple and varying viewpoints and perspectives. After many years of experience, I can vouch for the fact that a healthy dose of difference, even dissent, produces better conversations and results. At a time when the global problems we face are more complex than ever, we can no longer stay in the comfort zone of the status quo — we must proactively seek to include diverse perspectives by setting goals and taking action. We need to go beyond mentoring to sponsor and appoint leaders who don’t think, look, or act like we do. In short, we need to push. This year, having more women in Davos was important but not a tipping point; the numbers are still too few. But things changed. I spoke with many leaders who found the different conversations and the new networking refreshing. They found, like I have often found, that when there is a lot of “different” going on — good things happen. So thanks to the WEF for using your platform to make a difference. Keep pushing.

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Ernan Roman: Lessons From My Chimney Cleaner About Service and Marketing Best Practices

January 24, 2011

A few weeks ago I called a local chimney-cleaning company and set up an appointment for a cleaning. When the workmen arrived, I asked them to remove their sooty shoes when walking around the house. Despite this request, the workers left an ugly trail of black soot stains on our basement carpeting. So began a fascinating opportunity to experience how some companies are mastering the integration of marketing and customer service. My problem was turned into a marketing opportunity by the company — but only because the person I spoke with to file my complaint understood that customer service is actually a marketing opportunity. That person happened to be the owner of the company. Viewing customer service and marketing as two sides of the same coin is the first step in turning service disasters into marketing opportunities. This can only occur if marketing and customer service teams work together based on the recognition that customer retention is essential. Marketing can no longer afford to view customer service as a labor intensive “operations” function. In this era of empowered consumers with social media megaphones, the ability of dissatisfied customers to voice their opinions worldwide is astonishing and frightening. Back to my chimney-cleaning saga: The owner listened carefully to my complaint and acknowledged his company’s responsibility for the problem. He said, “On behalf of our company, I would like to apologize for what happened. I would also like to thank you for taking the time to call . We will do what it takes to clean up the mess we created.” The owner and I reviewed the details of the damage and the follow-up action, which was to have a professional carpet cleaning company come to my home within a week, at no charge. I then asked why he had thanked me for making the call. His reply was the essence of both great marketing and great customer service. He said, “I want to be able to go to your home next year and the following year and the year after that, to clean your chimney. By calling our company, you provided me with the opportunity to prove to you that, while we made a mistake, we have the professionalism and integrity to take care of our customers. I want to prove to you, that even though we have already been paid for this job, we are not just looking for the bucks. I want you as a long-term customer.” I was intrigued. What he had just said was in line with one of the most important, though often overlooked tenets of innovative marketing: One of the most important metrics for identifying the success of a marketing initiative is its capacity to generate repeat purchases. I asked about the company’s customer service team. Was I getting a good outcome simply because I had been lucky enough to speak with the owner of the company? Or was this approach really part of the organization’s service culture? My call, as it turned out, had been no accident. Customer service reps at this firm were empowered to resolve customer problems ; they worked closely with the marketing department to ensure that customer acquisition and retention were tightly integrated. This was a fairly small company, a fact that intrigues me on two fronts. First, smaller organizations (which are likely to have fewer problems with “turf and fiefdoms”), may well have the inside track when it comes to seamlessly coordinating marketing and customer service efforts. Second, those companies that do manage to integrate these departments successfully find themselves in a position to significantly improve the customer experience and increase customer lifetime value. Here are seven tips to help you improve your customer experience: 1. Do not view customer service call centers as cost centers. These are revenue centers. 2. Customers’ post-sales experiences have significant impact on repeat purchase likelihood and willingness to recommend the company . Companies must consider the financial ramifications of losing customers due to poor post-sale experiences. 3. Do not cut back on training, quality control procedures, and related investments in customer service call centers. 4. Remember that it’s seven to 10 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to sell an existing customer. 5. Mistakes happen. Make sure that, when they do, your frontline people are empowered to take responsibility for those mistakes, and propose a solution that is fair to the customer. 6. Customers expect high-quality post-sale support. If it is lacking, they will not only be inclined to go elsewhere, but they will also be inclined to use the power of social media to let others know about their dissatisfaction. 7. The big question is not whether we can get a customer to buy from us once, but whether, after a customer service problem, we can get him or her to buy from us a second time. What kind of experience will make a customer decide not only that he or she isn’t going to demand a refund, but that a repeat purchase is in order? The owner of that chimney-cleaning company knew that I, as his customer, considered the marketing and customer service experience to be inseparable — so he made sure that he and his entire team operated under the same assumption. As a result, I am now a satisfied customer, a committed candidate for repeat business — and an evangelist for his firm. Ernan Roman is President of the marketing consultancy, Ernan Roman Direct Marketing. Recognized as the industry pioneer who created three transformational methodologies: Integrated Direct Marketing, Opt-In Marketing, and Voice of Customer Relationship Research. Cross posted at 1to1® Media .

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Arthur Rosenfeld: Working Around Life’s Obstacles

January 16, 2011

Walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it has to be a duck, right? In a word, no. At least not in the case of Russell Bishop’s new offering Workarounds That Work — How to Conquer Anything that Stands in Your Way at Work . The title, subtitle and cover art all suggest yet one more addition to the huge library of business success books, yet there is a wonderful surprise lurking beneath the surface here. Bishop has a long and impressive track record solving problems and bringing people together as a corporate consultant for major corporations. In that role he has developed something of the voice of the elder statesman, not necessarily a member of the wink-and-nod crowd, but certainly a certain savvy and perhaps even gravitas. He’s a straight shooter and his chapter heads, ( It All Starts With You, Getting the Right Things Done, Misaligned Leadership and Unclear Direction, Death by Decision: Stop Deciding and Start Choosing, When the Best and Brightest Are Wrong , just to name a few) ring simple and true. Indeed, every one of the book’s 238 pages delivers something that smells like nuts and works like bolts — useful observations, information and techniques that help the reader look at the same old thing in a fresh and different way. Most of it isn’t startlingly new, but all of it is couched in a fashion that makes it feel like it is, and stimulates a different approach. That’s something, because unless we’re Einstein or Homer, it has all been said before. How many times, for example, have we read ways to stop procrastinating and just get down to work? How many times have we heard not to blame others for our own laziness and shortcomings? Plenty, and Bishop doesn’t go there. Instead, for example, he likens work to exercise. It’s there and you can duck and dance all you want, but it still has to get done. In the chapter titled The Email Avalanche he adds to the run of solid advice by giving the desk jockey’s nemesis a clever once-over. “Always change the ‘subject’ line to reflect what you’re doing,” he writes. “Use the Cc line for people who need to know about the action but do not have to take action themselves.” Ever thought of it quite that way? Hmm. In addition to tried-and-true recommendations for handling clutter, Bishop actually discusses screen dimensions in this chapter, reminding you that there may be important messages waiting below the line of your browser window. Nuts-and-bolts indeed. Admittedly, some of Bishop’s observations are standard corporate fare, as in the obvious concept (in the chapter Are You a Corporate Firefighter? ) that while it’s wonderful to be the hero, the need for repeated dramatic rescues reveals some fundamental mismanagement. On the other hand, there are some real gems. The chapter on making decisions, for instance, advances the innovative notion that we should substitute choosing for deciding. The word “decide”, Bishop says, suffers from the suffix “ide”, which is often associated with killing, as in fratricide, homicide, etc. Deciding, he writes, is a process of limitation, while choosing can be a creative, a positive and proactive process. In another particularly memorable passage, the author reminisces about the way spelling tests were graded when he was a child. -7, for example, or -4. Instead, he suggests, why not focus on how many answers we get right? This deceptively simple idea echoes one of the books recurring themes, which has to do with choosing positive options over negative ones. Many books in this category work their magic from the outside in. That is to say they examine the circumstances, obstacles and issues and propose external solutions. Other books in the genre turn this around and go from the inside out, looking at the prejudices, presuppositions, habits and addictions we harbor on the inside, and how they manifest in our external life. Workarounds That Work is a rare find in that it examines its topic from both directions. Thus, in addition to advice on how to organize your in boxes, we see lines like “What could you do that would make a difference in your job that requires no one’s approval, cooperation, support, or agreement other than your own?”, concepts like “time management problems are really self management problems”, and chapter heads like Multitasking Our Way to Oblivion , wherein Bishop cleverly proposes substituting the setting of multiple goals to the juggling of multiple tasks. The more you read, the more you realize that Workarounds That Work is a personal development guide hidden as a business handbook. Spirituality circulates through the book’s business meat and management gristle like blood through bone. It’s a treat of a read for a much wider swath of readers than its category feel would suggest. Here’s hoping that in his next book, this practical sage will be brave enough to cross the line he only touches with his toe in this one and give us his thoughts on the repurposing of business so that profits are not the Holy Grail, but rather merely a tool for the development of employees and community.

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Ernan Roman: Are You Going for the "Quickie Sale" or the Relationship?

December 13, 2010

The Myth: During the holiday season, the goal of retail, online, and mail-order marketers should be to process as many sales as possible. This will help recoup some of the lost revenue due to the poor economy. The Reality: Marketers are losing millions of dollars by going for the “quickie sale.” It’s hard to get a customer at any time of year, so when they are coming to you, driven by the holiday purchasing wave, you have the opportunity to accomplish much more than just robotically swiping their credit cards and moving on to the next transaction. This month, millions of customers will be purchasing from an on-line, mail-order or brick-and-mortar marketer. The majority of those customers will not be engaged in any way by the sellers, who are stuck in a manufacturing model, trying to process “holiday” transactions as quickly as possible. These blunders represent literally millions of dollars in lost opportunities to establish relationships with customers who could make multiple purchases in the future. In a previous blog, Discounting as Addiction , we discussed the dangers of relying on discounting as the mainstay for driving customer purchases. The end result of this addiction is that the only compelling reason to visit the company’s store or web site is for another discount “high.” This addiction by the consumer is perpetuated by the seller’s addiction to discounting, and so the cycle deepens. Relationships based on value identified by the customer , on the other hand, carry significant long-term potential for both seller and buyer… but you can’t find out what your customer considers valuable if all you are interested in is a “quickie” transaction. Try This: Ask each customer if you can ask a few brief questions to help provide them with ongoing value as defined by their individual needs/interests . The types of questions you should ask are intuitive. For instance: Would they like to receive information, useful tips, or promotions regarding the product(s) they just bought? Are there other products in the store/catalog/or web site about which they would like to receive information? Any other friend or family member they would like to send this information to? And last… as a result of offering value, you have earned the right to request their email address. Think about it. What better time to prove your value and build a powerful database than at the point of purchase? Most customers are happy to spend the extra few seconds identifying how you can better serve them in the future. And those that don’t want to spend time can choose not to. Ernan Roman is President of the marketing consultancy, Ernan Roman Direct Marketing. Recognized as the industry pioneer who created three transformational methodologies: Integrated Direct Marketing, Opt-In Marketing, and Voice of Customer Relationship Research. Clients include Microsoft, NBC Universal, Disney, Hewlett-Packard and IBM. Ernan was named to “B to B’s Who’s Who” as one of the “100 most influential people” in Business Marketing by Crain’s B to B Magazine. His latest book on marketing best practices was published in October, 2010, and is titled: Voice of the Customer Marketing: A Proven 5-Step Process to Create Customers Who Care, Spend, and Stay . Ernan is also the co-author of “Opt-In Marketing: Increase Sales Exponentially with Consensual Marketing” and author of “Integrated Direct Marketing: The Cutting Edge Strategy for Synchronizing Advertising, Direct Mail, Telemarketing and Field Sales.” www.erdm.com ernan@erdm.com

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Andrew Tucker Avorn: The AT&T Settlement: A Reason to be Thankful This Holiday Season

November 26, 2010

AT&T Mobility customers who use a smartphone to connect to the internet got notice of an early holiday gift this year — a class action settlement to compensate them for illegal taxes that the company has collected since 2005. After looking at the settlement website and one of my wireless bills, I realized that this lawsuit provides a good reason to be thankful America’s class action system in this season of consumer largesse. The settlement is for a lawsuit that was filed on behalf of customers for AT&T Mobility’s violation of The Internet Tax Freedom Act, passed by Congress in 1998. The Law prohibits states from taxing access to the Internet. In spite of the law, AT&T Mobility has been collecting state sales taxes on iPhone and Blackberry data access packages, and keeping a fee for collecting those taxes. A monthly bill provides evidence of AT&T’s overcharge. Suppose I have an iPhone and pay $25 per month for voice and text service and $30 for data. Because Internet taxes are illegal, my state can only tax me on my voice and text plan, which is $25. I live in Massachusetts, which has a 6.25% sales tax, so my telecommunications tax should be $1.87. But it’s not. On my bill, next to “Massachusetts Telecom Tax,” it says $3.52, which means that AT&T is assessing the tax based on $55.00. I lose $1.65 per month so that AT&T Mobility can help Massachusetts illegally tax my access to the Internet. The bigger the tax that AT&T Mobility collects, the bigger the fee they get to keep. This practice demonstrates why class actions are so vital for holding companies accountable to their customers. Your state government has no interest in helping you, because they are benefiting from your tax revenues even though they are illegal under state and federal law. Congress can’t help you because it doesn’t enforce the laws it passes, and it has already spoken on the issue legislatively. Because a legislative battle would pit big telecom and state governments against unorganized, unfunded consumers, consumers would lose on Capitol Hill. Since the amount of money per person is only a few dollars per month, no individual has a strong enough interest in hiring a lawyer to his/her own lawsuit. But multiply those few dollars per month times several years for each subscriber, and multiply that by AT&T Mobility’s 92.8 million customers, and we are talking about a gigantic sum of money that the company has stolen from the public. Because of the class action system, the enterprising consumers who figured out this scheme can combine forces with every subscriber who has lost money by hiring a few lawyers to stop AT&T Mobility from collecting the illegal tax, disgorge its ill-gotten gains and compensate consumers. Instead of charging by the hour, the attorneys who represent the class will get a percentage of the total settlement. Consumers pay nothing if they get nothing, but lawyers take a massive risk by investing their time and resources if they lose. The parties have negotiated a settlement, and a federal court will determine its fairness in March. The usual arguments against class actions will surely surface: the lawyers have made a windfall, and the customers got comparatively little. But without our admittedly flawed system of civil justice, who else will prevent companies from ripping off their customers with impunity? Probably no one. AT&T Mobility will take a costly hit, and the next time that they, or any other company, considers charging an illegal tax in order to profit at the expense of its customers, it will have to decide whether or not it’s worth facing the consequences of America’s class action system. To collect your compensation, you do not have to do anything. Judging by the flurry of text messages that the court has sent to class members, someone will notify you when your claim is ready. So this holiday season, as you prepare to give and receive, to own and enjoy the fruits of American capitalism, you may rest easy, knowing that there is a class action lawyer out there who might be the only force between you and the company who is trying to rip you off.

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Tom Donohue: The Road Ahead for a Nation at Risk

November 18, 2010

Election Day is now two weeks behind us. The analyses and recriminations were many, and the “What does it mean?” debates will likely continue until the next election, when they will begin anew. Such is life for those whose job it is to analyze and propound on such things. But for us, as the voice of business and free enterprise, we don’t have the luxury of analysis and navel-gazing, for on so many fronts we are a nation at risk and we must be about the business of moving forward. When we say we are a nation at risk — borrowing a phrase famously used to describe the deplorable condition of our nation’s schools — we mean that our economy remains in a damaged state. We know how fragile this economy is because we are in touch with our members, business large and small across the country, every day. Today, our economy is simply not expanding fast enough to reduce unemployment and create 20 million jobs — the growth we need to get us back to where we were before we plunged into the deepest recession in the post-war era. It would be all too easy to backslide. We have many ills to confront at once. We must stem the rising tide of regulations, address our faltering schools, modernize our crumbling infrastructure, and rein in skyrocketing deficits. We need a sensible trade policy that will spur exports and create jobs here at home. The American people don’t want status quo, they want their problems solved. To that end, we will be focused on the following areas going forward: Supporting sensible regulations –

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Katie Corrigan: Think Flexibly/Act Locally: The National Dialogue on Workplace Flexibility Goes on the Road

October 28, 2010

A lot can happen in a year. Since 2009′s National Work and Family Month, we’ve come a very long way — and the stage is finally set for workplace flexibility as a national priority, in the year 2010 and beyond. In March, the President and First Lady summoned a group of nationally recognized leaders — including CEOs, academic researchers, advocates and union representatives — for a groundbreaking discussion on the need to increase flexibility in the American workplace. That day, President Obama shared his belief that workplace flexibility has become, “…an issue that affects the well-being of our families and the success of our businesses. It affects the strength of our economy — whether we’ll create the workplaces and jobs of the future that we need to compete in today’s global economy.” The president’s comments signaled a tremendous evolution in issues at the intersection of work and family. They indicated that it’s no longer good enough to let families muddle through this on their own. Indeed, addressing this issue has become a social and economic imperative. But to really understand the depth of this challenge and the need for flexibility, it’s critical that we understand what’s happening on the ground — in workplaces and communities large and small. For meaningful change to happen in the American workplace, we need the engagement and commitment of business and civic leaders and employees and employers from across the country. That on-the-ground engagement and commitment is building quickly. Last week, far from DC and in the heart of Texas, a group of small business owners, managers, and employees — as well as advocates, researchers and union leaders — gathered on the Dallas campus of Southern Methodist University to carry on the conversation that began at the White House. They were the first to participate in the “National Dialogue on Workplace Flexibility” series being organized and hosted by the Department of Labor in cities across the country. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis kicked off the event, expressing how critical these issues have become. As she said in her recent editorial, “June Cleaver, Meet Juana Solis,” “Workplace flexibility initiatives aren’t niceties; they’re necessities for working families. For employers, they aren’t just the right thing to do; they’re the smart thing to do.” And then the conversation really began. We heard the latest data on small business from the Families and Work Institute — and got to hear from local business leaders on why they use flexibility as a business strategy. Participants engaged each other on best practices for implementing innovative flexibility programs — particularly within a small business — and addressed the challenges that come with them. We heard participants asking and answering critical questions such as: What’s the best way to train managers so that they understand how flexibility can support their own objectives — and overall business success? How do you implement flexibility programs that meet the needs of all workers — particular those on the “front lines” that need be physically present during regular hours? How can businesses — particularly small businesses — contain costs while also trying to offer paid leave when employees need it? To each of these challenging questions, participants offered innovative ideas and potential solutions. And ultimately, participant’s experiences and stories revealed a truly remarkable theme. That is — both employers and employees are recognizing that the nature of work has changed irrevocably over the last several decades. And that flexibility can be a crucial tool in helping the American workplace catch up. Before the Dallas event, the Society for Human Resource Management, a leading business association, published an ad declaring that “a flexible workplace is the next business imperative.” At the same time, the National Partnership for Women and Families and Family Values @ Work released a report — “Dallas Workers Speak” — outlining how employees “satisfaction correlates with a positive workplace culture that embraces flexibility and fosters trust.” There’s no doubt we’ve reached a turning point this year. There is increasing agreement that flexibility can support working families and business’ bottom line at the same time. And indeed, there are many innovative, effective workplace flexibility practices being used right now that are benefiting both employees and employers. In our conversations around the country, we’ve heard about business innovation, new models of measuring success and achieving your bottom line, practical ways to make work work for a diverse workforce, and community efforts to promote flexibility as a tool to combat traffic congestion, stabilize the low wage workforce, allow for job training opportunities, and boost health and wellness. Sharing these stories — and spreading the word on innovative practices — is a key to creating meaningful change in the American workplace. Which is why it is so critical the Obama Administration has taken this national conversation on workplace flexibility on the road, and into local communities. The Department of Labor’s next stops are in Atlanta and Los Angeles — with more to come in Seattle, Chicago, Boston and cities in between. For more information on attending an upcoming event, visit the National Dialogue on Workplace Flexibility website. And if you can’t make it to an event, considering hosting your own through the White House Work-Flex Event Starter Kit. Local, on the ground knowledge will make all the difference in propelling this national conversation forward. Make your voice be heard!

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Les McKeown: The Vital Missing Voice in the Economic Recovery Debate Is Someone You’ve Never Heard of

October 21, 2010

It’s clear that we’re going to see a shakeup in the administration’s economic policy team before the end of the year , and there’s been much talk of bringing in a successful business leader (such as Anne Mulcahy, ex-Xerox CEO) in an attempt to counter criticism that the Obama White House appears out of touch with — and unsympathetic to — corporate America. While I admire many successful leaders of large corporations — it’s a hard and complex job and requires a wide range of skills — with the greatest respect to those same people, theirs is not the voice that we most need to hear from at this time. To stabilize, strengthen and accelerate our barely-breathing economic recovery, a truly brave move on the part of the president and his team would be to appoint not a marquee “brand name” business leader like Mulcahy, but instead, to turn to one or more successful founder-owners from the SME (small- and medium-sized enterprise) community. Why? There are five main reasons we need to hear from this group, rather than from their more well-known celebrity big-business colleagues: 1. They think, talk and act with skin in the game. Founder-owners are distinguished from just about every other business group as being people who live or die by the decisions they make. There are fewer Mark Hurd-like second acts in the world of SME business owners, and as a result, they ruthlessly stress-test the likely results of their decisions. With all the best will in the world, when you’re “merely” salaried (no matter how high or performance-oriented that salary is), you think in a completely different way from people who are literally “all in.” It’s like the old adage of the chicken and the pig. When it comes to breakfast, the chicken may be involved in delivering the egg, but the pig is committed . Founder-owners are committed. Celebrity CEOs are merely involved. We’ll get very much less of the “let’s throw it against the wall and see if it sticks” policy approach if founder-owners are part of the process. 2. They do results, not optics. Let’s face it, running a public company these days is as much about the optics — how things look — as it is about the underlying fundamental realities. In this regard, most celebrity CEOs are far too like their political brethren in being easily swayed to agree to a path of action because it looks good, rather than because it will actually make a real positive difference to the people impacted. Running a privately-held organization is a different game altogether. Managing by “what makes me look good” has a short shelf life, and those that rise to the top in the SME world — and stay there — tend to be people who trade in bloody, inconvenient reality. 3. They’re less likely to be building a future platform. We’ve all seen the celebrity CEO that has used their business fame as a stepping stone to political power — see the current races in California as an example. That’s their right, of course, and more power to them — but it’s not the type of person we need to hear from while trying to stabilize and accelerate our faltering economic recovery. The people we need to hear from — urgently — are those who will only under the utmost reluctance engage in public service; give it their all while they can make a difference, then get the heck out of there and back to where their true passion is — running their business. Would one or more SME founder-owners become enamored of the political life and decide to hang around? Sure. But I’d rather start with the reluctant many than depend on the clamoring few. 4. They know how to (and will) speak truth to power. If, as I have, you’ve worked in a wide range of both privately-held and publicly-traded companies, you’ll have noticed that one of the biggest differences between them is the degree of honest interaction at the very top. There’s simply less… well, politics. That’s not to say that there aren’t privately-held companies where senior execs play politics, or publicly-traded organizations with a mature, no-nonsense top team, but the general tendency is that founder-owners put up with (and generate) a lot less bull-hockey, and tend much more toward straight talk. You think we could do with some straight talk right now? 5. They’re closer to the real world. If there’s one thing that marks the era of modern-day economic policy making, it’s that the policymakers are increasingly cocooned from personally living with — and suffering from — the impact of their decisions (I’d love to watch a few senators travel coach for a month before approving yet another dignity-abasing piece of security theater at the airport). Especially in the area of economic recovery, we need the policy debate to be from people who live, eat and sleep in the real world just like the rest of us — not for reasons of schadenfreude (I have no problem with celebrity CEO’s traveling by company jet everywhere, heck, if I could get that gig I might take it too), but because we need real, working answers in the next 18 months — and those are much more likely to come from people who are living it in the trenches every day. There’s no glamor or media brownie points in eschewing the celebrity CEO and appointing a relative unknown founder-owner from the SME community to advise on real-world economic reform — but there just might be a massive payoff.

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Marty Robins: Conservatives: Do the Right Thing on Proxy Rules!

October 6, 2010

I’m a conservative because I feel that it is best for the greater good when government gets out of the way of the people, lets them make their own decisions and keep hold of their own earnings. I’ve been quite troubled by the activist, anti-business agenda which our current administration has pursued and feel that it has suppressed economic recovery — witness all economic statistics from unemployment to home sales to capital investment. A genuine conservative agenda — emphasizing personal responsibility instead of more programs, taxes and regulation — is an essential antidote. But when I read about the legal challenge to the new SEC proxy access rules which have caused a stay of the application of such rules, I wonder about the motives of my fellow conservatives. As a bit of background, the rules are intended to improve corporate governance by making it easier to remove poorly-performing corporate directors who fail to supervise management. In particular, the rules are intended to allow the names of candidates opposing the management slate of directors to go directly on management’s proxy card next to those of the management slate allowing dissatisfied minority holders to avoid costly proxy fights. Far from authorizing candidacies by fringe groups with trivial stock positions, the rules require a 3% holding for three years, which in many cases such as Apple, GE and other companies of the same size, will require over a billion dollars of stock. They also do not guarantee anyone a board seat, but only a spot on a ballot. Reading the papers filed by the Business Roundtable and U.S. Chamber of Commerce in their lawsuit made me wonder whether I had inadvertently been transported back 100 years to a wood-paneled private club where portly industrialists railed against “commonists” between sips from their brandy snifters and puffs on their cigars. Specifically, the papers which were filed dwell on the likelihood that the new rules will bolster the influence of “union funds,” “union interests,” “labor unions,” and “union pension funds” as reasons why its adoption was “arbitrary and capricious”. Reasonable arguments have been made by many, including institutional investors for institutional investors, and against the new rules. Only time will tell whether they will be sustained in court and if so, if they can facilitate the avoidance of the debacles we have seen far too frequently during the last decade, as corporate managements did stupid and/or dishonest things in the absence of any oversight from boards of directors. However, this sort of union baiting is hardly a legitimate argument. Anyone with a given stock position in a company should have the same rights, irrespective of their nature or affiliation. I feel that the labor laws are too heavily weighted toward labor, especially public employees, and that mandating card check to replace secret ballot in organizing drives would be a disaster for the economy. But saying that something is bad only because it bolster the voice of unions undermines the conservative movement. Invoking the specter of union domination suggests that far from principled opposition to a public policy, the supposedly mainstream Roundtable and Chamber may not care much about investors as a whole but care more about their “class” avoiding challenges to their authority. I sincerely hope that this is not the case and that other business organizations and conservatives will disavow these anachronistic sentiments and recognize that many business practices need to change in order to facilitate recovery and avoid future disasters . To facilitate the election of genuine conservatives, it is essential to demonstrate that this would serve the interest of the country as a whole and is not a movement limited to the privileged. For example, if we don’t want a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau taking steps which will reduce consumer lending and borrowing at a time when this would be disastrous for the economy, we need lenders to demonstrate that they have learned from recent debacles annd will behave responsibly on their own. In order to avoid and roll back the burdensome, counterproductive policies of the present administration, conservatives need to demonstrate that they are serious about individual responsibility, And that starts in the boardroom.

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Miguel D. Lausell: Tax Subsidies for Wealthy Foreign Corporations? How Congress Has Already Broken its Most Important Promise

September 9, 2010

In 2008, the Democratic Party Platform criticized the previous eight years of Republican failures: “These are not just policy failures. They are failures of a broken politics — a politics that rewards self-interest over the common interest and the short-term over the long-term, that puts our government at the service of the powerful. A politics that creates a state-of-the-art system for doling out favors and shuts out the voice of the American people.” Sadly, a mere two years later, we Democrats are already guilty of the same failures. Despite numerous appeals to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then-Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Charlie Rangel, lawmakers allowed a British liquor conglomerate to abscond with $6 billion of tax revenue that was intended for the general welfare of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The party leadership’s failure on this issue is epic. Rather than protect about 350 union jobs, Democratic lawmakers have allowed British-owned Diageo to move to the U.S. Virgin Islands where they will take about half of the Federal tax subsidy on rum, in order to provide the U.S. Virgin Islands 40 jobs in exchange for a $6 billion gift from US taxpayers. Not only are these jobs non-union, Diageo is guaranteeing that only 32 of the jobs will be filled with locals from the U.S. Virgin Islands. American taxpayers are paying more than $3 million per year for each of these non-union jobs for locals. Government is in the service of Diageo — it appears to be actively promoting the company with tax dollars that were intended to support the general welfare of our citizens in the U.S. territories. Diageo is receiving an average of $100 million per year in corporate tax breaks, sugar subsidies and direct payments. That is enough money for every child in the U.S. Virgin Islands to receive over $3,000 per year for their current or future educational expenses. This money could more than double what the territory currently spends for its combined Health and Human Services and Department of Health budgets. Instead, these funds will be lining the pockets of British corporate executives and their shareholders. While this may sound like a Republican corporate welfare scheme, this happened on Democrats’ watch — and with our complicity. Legislation (HR 2122) was introduced before Congress to set a ten percent cap on the amount of Cover Over revenue that can be paid directly to a rum producing company. As then-Chairman of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, Charlie Rangel was able to block this legislation imposing corporate kickback limits from leaving his Committee. By keeping the legislation from seeing the light of day, Rangel denied American taxpayers the opportunity to learn about and publicly debate the appropriate use of federal tax revenues and financial support for our nation’s territories. As a result, lawmakers shut out the voice of the American people before we had a chance to speak. For example, Puerto Rico uses 94 percent of this federal tax rebate to support investments in infrastructure, health, education, and environmental preservation. The additional six percent is being spent to promote the territory’s rum industry. Local law limits to ten percent the amount that can be used for this purpose. Why should we allow a highly profitable, union-busting British company take a $6 billion gift from the US treasury at a time when our local economy needs that money reinvested in our soil. Another result of Congress’ stalling the bill in committee is that Diageo will now receive subsidies worth more than twice their production costs. Basically, they will make substantial profit — while workers receive less than a pittance in return. Any which way you look at this sweetheart deal, you realize it was designed only to benefit the British company. From the initial gifts of the state-of-the-art distillery, to the $50 million “start-up” funding, to the 50% of the tax subsidy, to all additional local tax incentives, to the unbelievable subsidy on molasses, this deal is a major gift to a very wealthy foreign company at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. Should we be worried about another corruption scandal here? It is very strange that with so much money at stake here there has been absolutely no debate in Congress over this deal. When Republicans controlled government, Democrats promised a new era of ethics and responsibility. Handing $6 billion to a profitable British liquor conglomerate is exactly the kind of unethical policy that Democrats promised to end. Allowing funds intended for the general welfare to be diverted to corporate pockets sounds like an exaggeration from the pen of Charles Dickens. The union workers who lost their jobs and the American people who put us in control of government in the last election are owed — at a minimum — an apology. Instead of putting a stop to this outrageous corporate thievery, lawmakers were complicit in this betrayal of workers. Lawmakers should immediately allow this legislation to move forward — allowing the public to debate the appropriate use of tax dollars in supporting corporations. In fact, they should go a step further and oppose any attempt to directly pay corporations a dime. After all, if this program is going to be used to allocate $6 billion for just 40 jobs, we should strongly consider eliminating this tax subsidy altogether. If this is the kind of “change” that we Democrats are willing to deliver to the American people, then we do not deserve to lead.

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Caroline Dowd-Higgins: The Power of In-Person Communication in Your Job Search

September 3, 2010

In this technology driven age people rarely communicate face-to-face anymore. Emailing, texting, and Tweeting have kept us hidden behind computer screens and handheld devices. It’s time to dust off your professional communication skills and speak to people, especially if you are searching for employment. In-person communication is always the best option so you can utilize eye contact and positive body language. Remember, first impressions are lasting so be prepared to put your polished, professional self out there. Since you don’t have a built in auto correct mechanism for verbal communication like spell check on computers, you must become self aware and take charge of your communication skills. Ask those in your circle of trust to give you constructive feedback and listen and observe others in your professional circles to emulate great communicators you know. Here are some strategies to keep in mind as you begin to put your communication skills into practice. 1. Think before you speak and consider what you want to say before you open your mouth. In a professional situation you must be succinct and able to get your point across effectively. Rambling and tangential comments decrease your effectiveness and cause your audience to lose focus. Always consider whom you are addressing and customize your comments for each audience. 2. Diction is paramount – speak clearly and embrace your inner confidence. Be aware of your tempo and volume making sure not to speak too quickly or too softly. Channel your inner news anchor and aim for that kind of articulate delivery. Listen to yourself on your voice mail message to gage your clarity and vocal articulation. Clear diction is essential in the communication process – if you are unintelligible, your message will never land. 3. The use of appropriate humor is welcomed and can add levity to a situation but use it wisely and sparingly. Inappropriate language and off color jokes are never acceptable in a professional situation. This is not the time to test drive your stand-up comedy act, but a little humor can break the ice and set the tone for a conversation. 4. Body language is as important as what you actually say out loud. Make eye contact with those to whom you are speaking, assume a confident posture while standing or sitting, and be sure to smile naturally when it feels right. Avoid fidgeting and extraneous facial expressions. Keep an open body position and avoid crossing your arms so as to welcome your listener and draw them into your conversation. 5. Be an attentive listener – it’s an important part of how you communicate with others. Don’t interrupt or finish another person’s sentences. Be engaged and show them you are genuinely interested. The ability to fully comprehend information presented by others through active listening is a vital part of communicating. 6. Avoid filler words such as: “like” and “um” and avoid colloquial phrases in the professional arena such as: “you guys”. Actively listen to yourself to catch these filler words and remove them from your day-to-day vocabulary in professional conversations. Since the hidden job market represents 80% of positions that are never posted, it’s wise for job seekers to get out from behind the computer to be seen and heard. Building and stewarding professional relationships is how you will get noticed, recommended, and eventually hired. Strong communication skills still sit at the top of the list for career competencies that employers value most. Honing your communication skills will distinguish you and set you apart from the competition. It takes practice to polish these skills and build your communication confidence. So get out there and start talking with people. Attend networking events, community functions, or other activities and give yourself the opportunity to flex your communication muscles. Step away from your computer and start talking with people! Caroline Dowd-Higgins pens a career transition blog called “This Is Not the Career I Ordered” ( www.notthecareeriordered.com ). She is also the Director of Career & Professional Development at Indiana University Maurer School of Law.

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Liz Ryan: How to Show Volunteer Experience on a Resume

September 2, 2010

Dear Liz, If you’re using a “Human Voice” Resume style in a chronological format, what is the best way to include volunteer work experience? Should it be in a separate section of the resume or integrated by date, and if integrated, what would it look like? Diana Hi Diana! It depends whether the volunteer activities happened alongside a regular job, or filled in their own time slot. If you volunteered when you were between jobs, you could show the volunteer experience this way (and by the way, we’re not going to use the word ‘volunteer’ in our description — you did the work, so who cares how and whether you got paid?): American Red Cross, Clifton, New Jersey Webmaster 2004 I was brought on board to overhaul the organization’s website, specifically to attract volunteers, make it easy for them to sign up to help with programs, and accept donations online. – In the three months following the site relaunch, donations increased threefold (from $40K to $120K) – I wrote a soup-to-nuts webmaster’s guide for use once my assignment was completed, detailing everything from changing pages to best SEO practices – The New Jersey state Red Cross Executive Director remarked “Clifton’s is by far the best Red Cross chapter site I’ve seen, anywhere.” Cheers — Liz p.s. Our new Career Altitude Online courses for September are launching next week! Here’s the lineup of courses: Stop! Don’t Send That Resume (Avoiding the Black Hole) Put a Human Voice in Your Resume Build Your Personal Brand Crafting Compelling Pain Letters Getting Started on LinkedIn Enrolling Your Network in Your Job Search The cost to participate is $129 for one course, $199 for two, $269 for three, $319 for four, etc. Join us! … or write to Jackie@asklizryan.com with questions.

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Gulf Oil Spill Leaves Local Businesses With A Lost Summer

August 4, 2010

ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — A stack of business cards for tourists sits on a countertop beside the cash register at Zeke’s Marina on the Alabama shore. Beside it sits another stack, advertising mental health counseling for locals. It’s been a depressing summer for business owners along the coasts of Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. Unlike Louisiana, which has fishing, and Mississippi, which has gambling, resort towns on this stretch of sugar-white sand rely largely on one industry: tourism. The oil well that blew on April 20 off Louisiana and sullied the season is now capped, at least temporarily, and has been pumped with drilling mud to stem the flow. But with just a few weeks left before school starts, and many tourists having already made other plans, business owners say the remaining time before Labor Day will largely do nothing to keep them afloat. Even now, with the beaches relatively clean and the water clear, business is a bust as many tourists stay away, having heard about soiled beaches or fearing the unknown. Oil or no oil, the summer is shot, and everyone from hotel managers to souvenir shop owners and restaurateurs is looking to BP PLC to help keep their doors opens, their employees paid and their livelihoods intact until next summer. At the Paradise Inn Motel on the main drag in Pensacola Beach, Fla., where a bright yellow sun on the sign advertises its bayside bar and grill, manager Dana Powell said the remaining few weeks of the peak season won’t even be a Band-Aid to the bottom line. The inn is usually booked full through the summer but is now down about 50 percent. Powell wondered whether she would even have a job this winter. “I don’t ask that question because I don’t want to know,” she said, shaking her head. “Anxiety, stress. People have been pretty miserable around here. It’s just been depressing.” About 25 miles east in Perdido Key, Fla., souvenir shop owner Wayne Cavalier is exhausted. He has given up on saving summer and now spends most of his days plowing through paperwork for his BP claims. “There’s just not enough business left to save us,” he said. “Without BP, we’re done.” Cavalier runs two souvenir shops along the coast road, selling beach towels, T-shirts, sandals, rafts, shells, jewelry and other fare typical of tourist traps. He speaks with grief in his voice, pausing occasionally to sigh. “I’m in jeopardy of closing both of them down, and just losing them,” he said. “All of this is coming down on me, man. We’re just trying to make a living.” Tony Kennon, mayor of Orange Beach, agreed that BP will have to come through on claims for many of his constituents to stay afloat. “Summer’s gone, and there was nowhere near enough cash generated for our businesses to make it through the off-season,” Kennon said. “We’re going to do the best we possibly can with the remaining weeks, but our businesses won’t survive without BP’s help.” The company has begun speeding up the claims process for business owners along the coast and has started easing documentation requirements, BP spokeswoman Pat Wright said Tuesday. Taxable lodging rentals for Orange Beach area and Gulf Shores, just down the road, declined 7.3 percent from the year before for May alone, according to the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention & Visitors Bureau. Numbers are not in yet for June and July, typically the busiest months and those that saw the most tourist cancellations this year. A recent report from the Natural Resources Defense Council found the oil had forced beaches along the Gulf Coast to issue nearly 10 times as many closing and advisory days as last year – more than 2,000, compared with 237 in 2009. The Fourth of July weekend fizzled, with many fireworks displays canceled, replaced instead by cleanup workers and heavy equipment removing oil-stained sand from the beaches. Tourist traffic picked up this past weekend in Gulf Shores, bringing a drive-in crowd that can make last-minute plans – but not the kind of weeklong visitors who make or break the summer. A few scattered tar balls stained the sand and a light sheen shimmered in the sun just offshore while families splashed in the surf, sunbathed and tried to make the best of one of the first nice – and clean – beach weekends there in weeks. “Growing up, we always came to Gulf Shores, and this is about as pretty the water has looked as I can remember,” said Michael Hitch, 34, a pastor from New Orleans who came over for the weekend with his wife and three children. “Well, at least today it is,” he added with a nervous chuckle. “We’ve been staying away for about 2 1/2 months now.” Even with weekend tourist traffic picking up, it’s nowhere near what it should be. Don Roberts just opened his beachside service business in Gulf Shores this year, hoping to make some cash renting chairs, floats and umbrellas. “The season’s over now, man,” Roberts said with a sigh, sweating in the early morning sun as he set out his wares. A few tourists trickled by, but an hour later, he had made no sales. “I just hope people start coming back if they haven’t already made other plans,” he said. “It’s going to be tough.” No matter that the beaches appear clean and the water clear now, perception – not oil – has become the region’s biggest hurdle. “Look at the beach; it’s as clean as it can be,” griped B.J. Johnson, owner of Funny Cars in Pensacola Beach, which rents out vehicles similar to golf carts that visitors can use to ferry themselves around town. “But where are the people?” He’s waiting on his BP claims check to help keep his doors open. “We’re 30 days away from Labor Day. You can’t make up an entire summer in 30 days,” Johnson said. “There’s just no way.”

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Ken Markman: The Advent of Brand Culture

July 29, 2010

Recognizing the Need for Reinvention Whether you work with brands every day or want to develop your own brand, your success lies in a different place than most experts would have you look. We have a tendency to travel the same road, again and again. We talk incessantly about the same problems: The trade, the economy, the licensor, the licensee, the deal. It’s an endless, circuitous, chain of circumstances with little time or effort directed toward understanding the changing consumer. Who is The New Consumer? They are Millennials. They are your strongest advocates. We’re not the first, nor the last to mention them. But, if you don’t know who they are…the short answer is they’re your future. Their values, attitudes and demographic characteristics are different than all previous generations. They are driving digital technologies that are changing media habits; enabling consumers to self-edit, while at the same time, by choice, become advocates of what is meaningful to them. It’s causing brand-marketers and licensors to reconsider how they are reaching the right audience at the right time with the right message in the right place. Like it or not, they are tethered to technology. Successful products offerings enable Millennials to participate in their own experiences. It is tribal; technology is the acoustic rhythm to their narrative. As a result, the convergence of technology (xbox 360 Kinetic, Apple iPad) and the interplay of mobile phones (apps), immersive retail experiences and location based (touch-screen) venues are the new brand media mix. Millennials Millennials, there are about 80 million of them born between 1980 and 19951. They are the prize. They are who you must embrace. They are not just consumers, they are the owners of your brand. They are advocates who dictate purchase patterns and are the voice of authority. Millennials are setting the new social agenda, in a context called BrandCultureTM. We are just beginning to witness the nuances and shifts of their consumer behavior. The real ah-ha will arrive when we unlock the coding of this generation and the hardwiring of their brains. If you know a Cognitive Scientist, hire them; they’ll be your most trusted resource when unraveling the mysteries of your new consumer and the behavior that is driving businesses, brands and culture in the 21st Century. Consumer Attributes They think in pictures: Images are the narrative of culture. 32,000 years ago the earliest of cave paintings served the same purpose. They’re hard wired into our brain. They work like semeiotic messages. Meaning, the images are the language of story-telling. It’s the earliest form of personal and cultural brand messaging. (Consider: Facebook, Flickr and the iPhone). They remember stories; so, don’t repeat facts: Brands are emotional stories. They are experiences, merging interest with intent by igniting curiosity and inviting consumption. “Your brain didn’t retrieve a fact about an experience,” says Douglas Merrill, former Chief Information Officer of Google, “….your brain retrieved the story.” Their brand is their message: Messages are everywhere. They work as reoccurring themes that bond culture. They establish a context and work like scaffolding in your brain. They function in a setting of story-telling and myth-making where symbols are language and images are text. They embrace the “authentic” power of Social Media: Okay. I get it. We know Social Media is important. But, do you really know why? It’s not because of its instantaneous reach or ubiquitous use. Social Media dominates all other media because of its relevance. It’s your story, shared with others, that touches the same core emotions. They use technology: “It’s not just their gadgets, it’s the way technology has been fused into their social lives.” This is the new “collective -connective,” a social dynamic requiring participation — real, authentic participation. It’s that simple. Why We Believe In What We Create? We remember things that are important when they are experienced as stories. Our brains take notice of them. We become conscious of them. They become relevant, take on a purpose and meaning and move to our memory. Cognitive scientists call this process encoding, which means something is being converted from one format into another. Cultural Myth, Story Telling And Recurring Themes Bond Culture It is based upon the uniquely human capacity to symbolically classify experiences, link and then to share them…the process through which an older generation induces and compels a younger generation to reproduce the established lifestyle, consequently a culture that is embedded in a person’s way of life. This multi-generational social condition is called the “Cultural Evolution Theory” which states, “that traits have a certain meaning in the context of evolutionary stages, and they look at relationships between material culture and social institutions and beliefs.” The importance of realism amid such heightened realities in worlds of fantasy make characters, specifically heroes and their powers, when stripped away, real to an audience that wants to believe they really exist. This transformation is a blurring of “reality’s” fantasy. Captured in symbols and an extremely evolved iconography, popular, recurring themes understood completely or not, become folklore…create a suspended disbelief: a new reality for a new generation… borrowing from the past and making them their own…a form of branded history, with its own images indelibly marked on the minds of a new global audience. The images they represent, from myth to folklore, become the legacy that defines a brand. Central to this process is the concept and arch of the Brand…or as we will call it: BrandCulture KKMBRANDS.COM

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Reggie Middleton: A New Spin on Bank Fraud: Banks Defrauding Their Investors, Auditors and Regulators, Which Also Helps Delinquent Mortgagees

July 28, 2010

Last week, I made clear to my readers and subscribers that the bank malaise is not over, despite what may appear to be encouraging moves by the executive staff. Housing prices are still on their way down, save temporary blips from government bubble blowing and the outright concealment of non-performing assets by banks, see Anecdotal Evidence That Banks Are Hiding Depressed High End Real Estate. Now, many may see this as consipiracty theory, which is why I always included hard analysis behind my posts. After a Careful Review of JP Morgan’s Earnings Release, I Must Ask – “What the Hell Are Those Boys Over at JP Morgan Thinking????” The boys over there at the “Morgan’ appear to be partying like it was 1999, releasing all types of reserves and provisions (which coincidentally padded a very weak earnings quarter) as if I didn’t make it “Very Clear In March, US Housing Has a Way to Fall”: Well, here is some additional evidence which shows how banks are producing those positive sloping credit metrics… They are fudging the delinquency reporting. Reference this note from a fellow BoomBustBlogger: Hello Reggie, I’m a big fan of your blog and greatly appreciate your diligent efforts in effectively educating your readers while exposing the the biggest heist ever perpetrated on the American Public by Wall Street.

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Tom Emmer, Anti-Gay Pol, Gets Donations From Target, Stirring Up Controversy

July 28, 2010

Over at The Awl, Abe Sauer has been documenting the rise to prominence of Tom Emmer , a Republican member of Minnesota’s State House of Representatives who is running to replace Tim Pawlenty as Minnesota’s governor. Most of you non-Minnesotans probably know Emmer as the guy who wanted to cut the minimum wage for service-sector workers who earn income based on tips . Another thing you might want to know is that he’s hostile to the rights of the LGBT community. Per Sauer : Emmer says marriage “is the union between one man and one woman” and he supports the constitutional marriage amendment defining marriage as such. As a point of his “values” position, Emmer has been married to just one (presumably biological) woman since 1985. Meanwhile, claiming that it infringes on individual rights, he opposed the state’s indoor smoking ban. Displaying a complete lack of self-awareness, Emmer called one of these two issues “social engineering.” Can you guess which one? Enter national mega-retailer Target, whose corporate headquarters is in Minneapolis. As Sauer reported last week, Target donated “$100,000 cash and another $50,000 of in-kind goods and services” to a political action committee named MN Forward. In turn, MN Forward has used those donations to run ads in favor of Emmer’s candidacy. Sauer called Target’s donations “surprising,” and it’s not hard to see why : Progressive compared to its peers, Target extends domestic-partner benefits to gay and lesbian employees. It has also openly sponsored Twin Cities Pride and other gay and lesbian events in the state. Target puts its name on Minnesota AIDS Walk, a move that many corporations, worried about religious consumer terrorism, are far too cowardly to even consider. Target’s been deservedly rewarded, receiving a top rating of 100 percent on the 2009 and 2010 Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index and Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality, the 2009 Rainbow Families Award and the 2009 Lavender Pride Award–and a reputation amongst the LGBT community as a “good” big box retailer. In subsequent follow-ups, Sauer has documented that Target’s response to inquiries on this matter is based on two points . First: that its donations are based “strictly on issues that affect our retail and business interests.” Second: It continually insists that its “rating of 100% on the 2009 and 2010 Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index further demonstrates the reputation our company has earned.” The Huffington Post reached out to the Human Rights Campaign today, to inquire about whether Target’s political donations in this instance would affect that pristine 100 percent rating on its Corporate Equality Index. The short answer: No, because political donations aren’t part of that index’s calculations. From HRC spokesman Michael Cole: Since news of Target’s contribution to MN Forward, an independent expenditure committee, became public last week, people have asked HRC if political contributions by companies are factored into a company’s score on the Corporate Equality Index (CEI). Unless the contribution is to a ballot initiative that is anti-LGBT (such as California’s Prop. 8 in 2008), political contributions are not factored into a company’s score for a number of good reasons. It’s important to understand that the CEI is a measure of the workplace practices of a company toward its own LGBT employees. We don’t believe that rating companies based upon their political contributions is an accurate reflection of their commitment to LGBT equality in the workplace. In fact, corporate America is leading the way on issues of equality: over 85% of Fortune 500 companies prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and 40% include gender identity in their nondiscrimination policies; and 57% provide domestic partnership health insurance benefits. Companies most often contribute for reasons associated with their particular business. With respect to the CEI and political contributions, it would be difficult to develop criteria by which to judge companies. Virtually every company in the Fortune 1000 today has contributed to candidates (of both political parties) that have voted against issues important to the LGBT community. There are Democrats and Republicans alike, for instance, that voted against the repeal of DADT in the U.S. House of Representatives. Should a company that contributed to these incumbents get points deducted from their CEI score? As a rule, we don’t believe that political contributions to candidates make companies any less committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce. HRC does pledge to keep an eye on this issue, however: The advent of unlimited corporate political contributions as a result of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling is a subject of great concern to all progressive movements, ours included. We will continue to monitor its impact on issues of equality and will revisit the issue of whether and how to factor in the political contributions made by corporate America as new information becomes known to us. Over at the Village Voice , Jen Doll speaks to Target spokesperson Jessica Carlson, and gets a little bit further with Target’s side of this debate: So, why donate to someone who’s anti gay marriage if you call yourself a supporter of the gay comunity? Carlson : At this point what we’re sharing is what was in Gregg’s email. To be clear, we donated to a political action committee, the MN Forward, which is a bi-partisan group, and not directly to Emmer’s campaign. Carlson goes on to say that she “can’t speculate on the nature of where our donations will go” in the wake of this story. RELATED: Real America: Why Target Supports Tom Emmer [The Awl] Real America: Target CEO Chooses “Business” over Gay Rights [The Awl] Target Says “We Do Not Have a Political Agenda” [Runnin' Scared @ The Village Voice] [Would you like to follow me on Twitter ? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here .]

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Greg Brown: The Smart Grid: The Future is Now

June 30, 2010

This year’s hurricane and tornado seasons threaten to bring power outages and remind us once again of the challenges facing our current electric grid system. Thousands of people could be without power and will look for solutions to prevent similar disruptions in the future. While the short-term remedy may require firing up a home generator, the long-term solution is a smart grid. At Motorola, we are currently partnering with U.S. electric utilities to provide the wireless communications infrastructure to create a smarter grid. Smart grid communication infrastructure is basically the Internet for electricity transmission and distribution systems, with information technologies embedded throughout the system such as digital meters, remote sensors and data communications devices. Smart grid technologies provide energy producers and consumers with real-time information and better control of the electric grid, improving energy reliability, reducing energy costs and minimizing greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change. We can improve energy delivery and reliability. Power outages cost Americans more than $150 billion a year. That’s about $500 per person. Currently, most power companies do not have communications systems that reach their entire grid infrastructure and often don’t know there has been a power outage until a customer calls to report it. Advanced smart grid communication technologies will give power companies greatly enhanced capabilities to remotely monitor and control energy distribution systems to determine where the outage has occurred, which customers have been affected and how to re-route energy around problems. More importantly, with more frequent monitoring and diagnostics to enable effective preventative maintenance, the utility will be able to prevent an outage from occurring in the first place. We can reduce consumer energy costs. In-home smart metering devices – a component of a smarter grid – can help consumers save energy and money. Smart meters and in-home displays provide energy data to consumers, allowing them to monitor their consumption patterns and better manage their electricity use. Studies show that simply giving people access to and control of this information can result in energy savings of 5-15 percent. With better information, consumers can visibly see the economic benefit of turning down their air conditioning on hot summer days or switching off the lights when they leave a room. We can help fight climate change. It’s clear that human activity is warming our planet, and we must act to reduce our contribution to the problem. A smart grid will not only save energy costs and reduce our carbon footprints by reducing energy consumption but also it will make it easier to integrate energy from renewable sources onto the grid, two critical elements to reducing climate change-causing emissions. According to a report released by the Boston Consulting Group and GeSi, a smart grid in the U.S. could reduce emissions by as much as 7.5 percent by 2020 – nearly half of the reductions proposed by the U.S. Congress. To achieve these benefits, we need the right policies to incent the transition to a smarter grid. In February 2009, the U.S. Congress earmarked $4.5 billion for smart grid development in the stimulus bill and more incentives are included in the comprehensive energy and climate bill introduced last month in the Senate. In the meantime, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission can begin revising regulations created for a century old electric system to make way for a 21st century smart grid. In addition to the right policies, a secure wireless data system to transmit energy information will be essential to protect the electrical grid. At Motorola, we have a proven history of providing secure and dependable voice radio systems for the military, police and fire departments and utilities. We will continue to partner with utility companies to bring the same level of quality and reliability they’ve experienced with our voice radio systems to their wireless data systems for a smarter grid. We can create a more reliable, less costly and environmentally responsible electricity system. The technology is available, the benefits are clear, and it’s time to take action.

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Stuart Whatley: Orrin Opens the Hatch

June 29, 2010

Day two of the Elena Kagan Supreme Court confirmation hearing saw an act of political soap-boxing by Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, who dedicated the brunt of his time to the left’s griping over January’s Citizens United decision. Some of his frustration is likely deserved — a few responses to the ruling may have gone above and beyond the call of shrillness (further elucidation on that here ). But nor was the content of Hatch’s tirade without its flaws. His claim that the decision is widely supported does not reflect polls taken in its aftermath . And as Constitutional Accountability Center founder Doug Kendall notes , the Utah Republican conveniently avoided a central argument of the case: whether corporations should enjoy the same equal rights as individuals to vote, run for office, and participate in electioneering. Just as revealing as these outstanding blemishes though is what Hatch had to say about Utah small businesses and S Chapter corporations (small chartered, incorporated entities that can have as few as one shareholder), which by his conjecture would lose free speech rights if corporate political speech were to be managed. On some issues it is expected that the business community will unite homogeneously around a common cause, such as on taxation. But bundling in small businesses and S Chapters with multinational corporations that comprise forceful “special interests*” largely ignores the way influence peddling works in American politics. When one looks to the most destructive and inane policies operative today, or to lobbying and electioneering efforts that effectively “drown out” the voice of the people, rarely is it disparate laundromat owners or lawn services that raise eyebrows. Though Wall Street and health insurers have stolen the show this year, these are merely the latest installments in a long saga whereby the general public ultimately suffers from a concentrated industry’s bloated gains. More often than not, the story is eventually told of how that industry made its own bed through policy-oriented efforts to avoid oversight and costly regulations, or to garner the largess of contracts and extravagant subsidies. For the past decade a famously egregious but hardly exceptional example of waste stemming from special interest influence is the U.S. sugar program, which pointlessly subsidizes the largest sugar producers at an estimated cost of $2 billion annually to American households . Equally concerning is the massive waste of taxpayer dollars due to an unseemly favoritism for wildly expensive defense contractors and foreign aid distributors prosecuting American adventures abroad. In fact, another salient example could be some public labor unions , which Hatch conveniently groups in with corporations as fellow influence peddlers (the implication being that equal opportunity institutional corruption is unproblematic). Single-cause special interests in politics more resemble business cartels like OPEC than innocuous collections of freethinking but like-minded individuals. The distortive power of such highly concentrated funds on specific legislative causes cannot be overstated, and it is influence individual citizens and small business owners cannot match. In 1998, the year the sugar program began, it’s estimated that the industry enjoyed a net gain of over $1 billion at a campaigning cost of only $2.8 million because its vast reserves of potential electioneering funds were leveraged into powerful campaign threats. Donating to a pliable candidate with the threat of funding his next opponent tenfold is common practice, and it turns $2,000 spent into $12,000 worth of influence gained. What’s more, the ruling in Citizens United furnishes special interests with far more threat credibility than they previously had at their disposal. This influence equally pervades all parties and campaigns, and it has a knack for building up those who are most susceptible. Very rarely do the policy victories attained partly or wholly through such means benefit anyone else. The sugar program has done nothing but reward a few large producers at the expense of billions of dollars to consumers. The regulatory breakdown in the financial sector and that sector’s subsequent growth over the past two decades has resulted in a crash that leaves millions of homes underwater or in foreclosure and middle class incomes stagnant, to say nothing of the national debt to GDP ratio leaping up 30 percent. The influence of nationwide health insurers first ushered in significantly higher costs for care over time, and has now resulted in a reform bill that profoundly expands those very insurers’ customer bases without challenging their status as legal monopolies. Scenarios of this nature that benefit genuine small businesses and striving midsized S Corporations are simply nowhere to be found. Nor does the situation arise abruptly. Each is the foreseeable product of years of influence that is eternally trickling into the system widely unbeknown to the rest of us — American workers and business owners who are busy holding a job, raising a family, pursuing an education, or just trying to stay out of the red (or wondering why sugar is always costing more and more). When politicians from both sides of the spectrum — including Senator Hatch — condemn waste, fraud and abuse in government, these are the types of surreally counterproductive policy scenarios of which they speak. So, it doesn’t take much to see the irony in a politician simultaneously condemning waste in government while championing measures that further enable special interest participation in policy making. * The definition I am using for “special interests” in this post is that used by the IMF’s Marcos Chamon and Stockholm University’s Ethan Kaplan . It states that: “Special interest groups care only about a particular policy, and do not care inherently about which candidate wins the election as long as their special interest policy is supported by the winner.” Related Readings: Financial Reform Won’t Alter Capitalism’s Icarus Trajectory The Capitalist Hagiography Has Little Room for Saints Citizens United , the Roberts Court, and the Future of American Electioneering Obama’s State of the Union Falls Short on Correcting Citizens United American Plutocracy: Corruption Is In the Eyes of the Beholder

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Sen. Blanche Lincoln: The Time Is Now

June 25, 2010

My constituents want Washington to work for us, not the special interests like Wall Street banks. That’s why I stood up for Main Street banks, small businesses and working families in my home state by proposing the toughest reforms for Wall Street of anyone in either party, including the administration. One of my reform proposals would make the $600 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market fully transparent where today it is completely in the dark, with no regulation, no oversight and no public disclosure. Early this morning, the Senate-House Conference Committee on Financial Regulation passed landmark legislation that included the most important provisions of my original proposal. When I first unveiled my plan in mid-April, it was dismissed by many as a political stunt that would never see the light of day. Well, I’ve been underestimated before. What matters to me, and to the retirees, small businesses and local bankers that I represent, is that we expose risky trading by the big Wall Street banks to the light of day. Now my colleagues in the Senate and the House need to know that you stand behind this reform. I have launched a petition and I hope you’ll add your voice to the growing chorus of Americans who support strong financial reform. When my committee, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, adopted my bill with bipartisan support, the big banks sent hundreds of lobbyists to Capitol Hill. Most of them promised it wouldn’t be included in the overall Senate Financial Reform bill. When Senate reform became the Dodd-Lincoln Substitute with my derivatives provision intact, there were numerous articles predicting that my provision did not have enough support to defeat amendments to strip it from the bill. However, it’s most significant threat failed with only 39 votes. When the Senate passed comprehensive financial reform with my provision unchanged, the headlines predicted that it would be removed in the conference committee of Senate and House members. This morning, the conference committee ended an all-night session by adopting historic financial reform that offers unprecedented protections for consumers and includes the bulk of my provision. The riskiest trading practices by Wall Street banks that nearly blew up the world economy will have to be moved to an affiliate within two years. While we are changing the way Wall Street does business, the real story is how reform will benefit Main Street by helping families save for college, protect retirees, ensure that small businesses can get loans and most importantly create new jobs. We are not over the finish line. You may still hear opponents using the same tired claims and worn out, catch-all defenses of “unintended consequences” or “driving business overseas” in an attempt to stop our reform efforts. But with momentum on our side, the strong reform that America’s small businesses, community banks, and families need is within our grasp. It’s time we proved the naysayers wrong once again and pass historic financial reform. I hope you add your name to the petition today so that my colleagues in Washington know you want to change the financial system so families have the protections they deserve.

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House Targets Underwater Homeowners

June 10, 2010

The House GOP launched an assault Thursday on homeowners who walk away from underwater mortgages, arguing that such foreclosed-on former homeowners are using the money they save to dine out and go on cruises. ” The Wall Street Journal has reported on families that have chosen to stop paying their mortgage and instead use the extra money they are saving each month to ‘buy season tickets to Disneyland…take a Carnival cruise to Mexico…’ and go out to dinner more often,” says House Republican leadership in an e-mail to colleagues explaining the anti-strategic-default effort. In other words, consumers with more money tend to spend it, spurring demand — exactly what the economy needs. More than a few economists argue that the ongoing jobless crisis is a direct result of a lack of consumer demand. A homeowner stuck in an underwater mortgage is, each month, paying off a mortgage that is worth more than their home. The increased cost of housing means that money that could otherwise could be circulated through the economy – at restaurants, Disneyland, or on cruises, for instance – is sent off to Wall Street, whose profits have been soaring despite the economic downturn. The GOP offered its provision as “motion to recommit,” which is one of the minority party’s few ways to amend a bill on the floor. Known as an MTR, the motion is generally stripped out in the Senate if it is adopted in the House. Such measures are put forward more to score political points than to craft policy, but the mood of the House can sometimes be gleaned from the vote’s outcome. In this case, Democrats chose not to fight, and accepted the motion with a simple voice vote. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com and an adviser to John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, says that strategically defaulting is “a form of stimulus, a little tax cut.” Estimates of the number of homeowners are underwater range from 10 to 15 million. Dean Baker, an economist with the progressive-leaning Center for Economic Policy and Research, agreed that strategic defaults are good for the economy, but also noted the irony that the GOP effort interferes with the market. When Democrats were pushing to enact “cram down,” which would allow judges to rewrite mortgage contracts in bankruptcy court, conservative Democrats and the GOP argued that it would violate the “sanctity of the contract.” There is only sanctity, however, for one side of that contract. “It also disgusts me that the Republicans would use Big Government to interfere with the sanctity of contract,” said Baker in an e-mail. “Those who do a strategic default are complying with their contract. The deal was that the banks get back the house if the homeowner doesn’t pay the mortgage. Now, the Republicans are arguing that the nanny state has to look out for the little boys and girls at the big banks who are too dumb to understand contracts. They are going to use the power of the government to punish people because they acted on the terms of the contract to the disadvantage of the banks.” Baker said that the GOP position should put to a rest the assumption that liberals favor big government while conservatives favor free markets. He doubted that it would, however. “It’s kind of an overreach by the federal government, isn’t it?” teased Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the Education & Labor Committee, when told of the GOP motion. He said he hadn’t been aware of the voice vote, but said he was sure it wouldn’t become law. The motion, he said, is indicative of GOP priorities. “They’re back to punishing the poor guy that got stuck with the subprime mortgage and we haven’t yet figured out what to do with the people who gave them the mortgage,” said Miller. This story has been updated to include the Democratic acceptance of the MTR. Read the GOP memo on their motion to recommit: From: Vieson, Chris Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 10:15 AM Subject: WHIP LD Alert: Republican Motion to Recommit FHA Reform The Republican Motion to Recommit H.R. 5072, the FHA Reform Act, would amend the bill to prohibit individuals who strategically default on their mortgage from accessing the FHA program and protect taxpayers from financing a bailout of FHA programs. Strategic Defaults A strategic default occurs when a borrower decides to stop paying their mortgage even though they can still afford their payments. It is usually undertaken by those who owe more on their mortgage than their home is currently worth. The Wall Street Journal has reported on families that have chosen to stop paying their mortgage and instead use the extra money they are saving each month to “buy season tickets to Disneyland…take a Carnival cruise to Mexico…” and go out to dinner more often. Companies have even sprung up to capitalize on the new trend with websites advising people (for a fee) on how to go about a strategic default. These companies actually advertise that after a few years an individual who chooses to default on their mortgage should be able to buy a home again, including through government loan agencies. 60 Minutes reported on individuals who defend their decision to strategically default saying, “…with the money savings that I will have in four to six years, I’m confident I’ll have money to buy my way into a house if I want to.” Strategic defaults raise costs for responsible borrowers, many of whom may currently be struggling to make their mortgage payment themselves, but who take their obligations to pay their debts seriously. The MTR would ensure that no one who chooses to simply stop paying their mortgage, even though they can afford to do so, is able to benefit in the future from the government’s FHA program. Future Bail-Outs The Republican motion also protects American taxpayers from possible future bailouts of FHA programs. Washington currently has a bailout culture at the expense of hard-working Americans and this MTR puts into place protections against FHA receiving a taxpayer-backed bailout. The Republican MTR is a vote to expose and prevent fraud and abuse from FHA and protect the American taxpayer from another Washington bailout.

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OrderCatcher LLC Announces Appointment of Senior Management Team

June 10, 2010

Miami-Based Voice Recognition System for Quick Service Restaurants and Hotel In-Room Dining/ Guest Services Recruits Industry Veterans for Key Leadership Roles

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McDonald’s Recall: ‘Shrek’ Glasses Contain Cadmium

June 4, 2010

LOS ANGELES — Cadmium has been discovered in the painted design on “Shrek”-themed drinking glasses being sold nationwide at McDonald’s, forcing the burger giant to recall 12 million of the cheap U.S.-made collectibles while dramatically expanding contamination concerns about the toxic metal beyond imported children’s jewelry. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which announced the voluntary recall early Friday, warned consumers to immediately stop using the glasses; McDonald’s said it would post instructions on its website next week regarding refunds. The 16-ounce glasses, being sold for about $2 each as part of a promotional campaign for the movie “Shrek Forever After,” were available in four designs depicting the characters Shrek, Princess Fiona, Puss in Boots and Donkey. In the animated comedy, which debuted May 21 as the latest installment of the successful DreamWorks Animation franchise, the voice of Shrek is performed by Mike Myers of “Austin Powers” fame, Cameron Diaz performs as Princess Fiona, Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots and Eddie Murphy voices Donkey. The movie has been No. 1 at the box office since its release. The CPSC noted in its recall notice that “long-term exposure to cadmium can cause adverse health effects.” Cadmium is a known carcinogen that research shows also can cause bone softening and severe kidney problems. In the case of the Shrek-themed glassware, the potential danger would be long-term exposure to low levels of cadmium, which could leach from the paint onto a child’s hand, then enter the body if the child puts that unwashed hand to his or her mouth. Cadmium can be used to create reds and yellows in paint. McDonald’s USA spokesman Bill Whitman said a pigment in paint on the glasses contained cadmium. “A very small amount of cadmium can come to the surface of the glass, and in order to be as protective as possible of children, CPSC and McDonald’s worked together on this recall,” said CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson. He would not specify the amounts of cadmium that leached from the paint in tests, but said the amounts were “slightly above the protective level currently being developed by the agency.” Wolfson said the glasses have “far less cadmium than the children’s metal jewelry that CPSC has previously recalled.” Concerns about cadmium exposure emerged in January, when The Associated Press reported that some items of children’s jewelry sold at major national chains contained up to 91 percent of the metal. Federal regulators worry that kids could ingest cadmium by biting, sucking or even swallowing contaminated pendants and bracelets. The consumer protection agency has issued three recalls this spring for jewelry highlighted in the AP stories, including products sold at Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer; at Claire’s, a major jewelry and accessories chain in North America and Europe; and at discount and dollar stores. Those recalls all involved children’s metal jewelry – and all of that jewelry was made in China. Manufactured by ARC International of Millville, N.J., the glasses were to be sold from May 21 into June. Roughly seven million of the glasses had been sold; another approximately five million are in stores or have not yet been shipped, said Whitman. Associated Press reporters tried unsuccessfully to buy the glasses late Thursday at McDonald’s in New York, Los Angeles and northern New Jersey but were alternately told the merchandise was sold out, no longer available or “there’ll be more tomorrow.” E-mails sent after business hours to two spokesmen for ARC International seeking comment were not immediately returned. McDonald’s said it was asking customers to stop using the glasses “out of an abundance of caution.” “We believe the Shrek glassware is safe for consumer use,” Whitman said. “However, again to ensure that our customers receive safe products from us, we made the decision to stop selling them and voluntarily recall these products effective immediately.” Whitman said that as the CPSC develops new protocols and standards for cadmium in consumer products, “we adjust as necessary to ensure that our customers can continue to trust what they receive from McDonald’s.” Federal scrutiny of the glasses began last week. The Washington office of U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat who has proposed strictly limiting cadmium in jewelry, received what a spokesman described as an anonymous tip that testing with an X-ray gun that estimates how much cadmium an item contains indicated the metal was present in the glass paint. Speier’s office requested samples of the glasses from the tipster, and upon receiving them May 27 sent them to the CPSC for further investigation. “Our children’s health should not depend on the consciences of anonymous sources,” Speier said in a statement Friday. “Although McDonald’s did the right thing by recalling these products, we need stronger testing standards to ensure that all children’s products are proven safe before they hit the shelves.” ___ The Associated Press National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate(at)ap.org

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Zach Carter: Come Shape The Next Phase Of The Progressive Movement At America’s Future Now

June 3, 2010

It’s an interesting time to be a progressive in the United States. In many ways, the election of President Barack Obama represented a logical, if improbable, end to the era of phony Reaganomics and demonization politics. But the Obama presidency has been a serious test for the progressive movement. The leaders in Washington who were elected with progressive support have repeatedly settled for needlessly weak reforms while ignoring important progressive priorities. There’s a critical lesson here: Progressive organizing doesn’t start or stop at the voting booth. Grassroots activism from the blogosphere to the union hall is the force that moves both political power and public opinion. We have an opportunity to rekindle the progressive flame that reshaped Washington at the America’s Future Now conference June 7 – 9. I hope you will join us. We will be organizing around every key issue in the progressive pantheon, from the rise of the Tea Party to the future of health care. The contemporary political turmoil will be underscored by multiple in-depth discussions of economic issues –areas in which, I confess, I am deeply personally invested. In addition to working as AlterNet’s economics editor, I’m a fellow at Campaign for America’s Future, the group sponsoring the conference. On June 8, I will be speaking on a panel about bringing economic populism to Washington . It’s a critical topic for my fellow bloggers and journalists, and I strongly encourage anybody reading this article to come and make their voice heard. When the U.S. House of Representatives first shot down the bank bailout bill in the fall of 2008, I was working in a financial newsroom. Dozens of reporters and editors were crowded around a television, watching CNBC’s coverage of the House floor, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average embedded in the corner of the screen, glowing green. When it became clear that the bill did not have the votes to pass, the room broke into a panic–people scrambling for the phones, clattering furiously at their keyboards, shouting across the room and pounding on desks, all while the green numbers on the television grew more ominous by the second. Much of the hubub was about the news: “Congress Rejects Bailout, Dow Crashes! That’s your headline!” But the furor was intensified by an economic anxiety so intense that it was manifesting itself physically–raised voices, grinding teeth and sinking stomachs. My coworkers at the time were well-intentioned, but as you might imagine, financial newsrooms are not hotbeds of progressive thought. My colleagues were facing an intellectual crisis. How could Wall Street possibly have screwed up this badly? How could Congress not come to the rescue? Am I going to have a job tomorrow? To a great extent, this newsroom chaos reflected the nation at large. All but the most die-hard right-wingers found themselves drawn to progressive ideas. Ronald Reagan’s worldview, which had dominated economic policy for nearly thirty years, was collapsing with the Dow. If anything, that worldview has been discredited even further by the events that have transpired since the Great Financial Crash of 2008. Unemployment has surged to double-digits, while corporate malfeasance has created the greatest environmental calamity in history in the Gulf of Mexico. The banking oligarchs have restored their bloated bonuses, even as the foreclosure crisis deepens unabated. Nearly two years after The Crash, Obama and Congress are all-but-certain to enact Wall Street reform legislation. Like much of the Obama presidency, it is a bittersweet victory. Regulators will get real and necessary tools to fight financial excess, but without major and unexpected improvements, the bill will not meaningfully rein in the capital markets casino that wrecked the global economy. The bill’s shortcomings ensure that our recovery will be weaker than necessary, and leave us vulnerable to another Great Crash in the near future. America’s Future Now will provide several opportunities for progressives to plan the next steps for our economy. What further reforms must Congress address next year? How can we press Congress to stand up for its non-corporate constituents? What are the most effective avenues for progressive activism? Some of today’s most important economic thinkers will be presenting , from economists like Simon Johnson and Robert Johnson, to commentators like Robert Kuttner and Arianna Huffington, to labor leaders like Richard Trumka and Andy Stern, to activists like George Goehl and Heather McGhee, to Congressional stalwarts like Sen. Dick Durbin and Rep. Alan Grayson. The progressive movement is capable of extraordinary things. With Corporate America allied against us, we forced Republicans out of Congressional control in 2006 and pushed them out of the White House in 2008. Today’s fight is more complex, as the executive class strengthens its ties to the Democratic Party, and the Democratic leadership softens its tone on corporate abuses. That’s what makes an event like America’s Future Now so important. Today, the progressive movement faces a set of decisions more critical than any in its recent history. Please join us and help shape the future of that movement.

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Ellen Sterling: The Way We Watched Movies…Remember?

May 29, 2010

In the May 18 edition of the New York Observer Lee Siegel wrote an article titled Ciao to the Cineplex; I Miss Mass Culture! He noted that “The Federal Communications Commission has just decided to allow the Motion Picture Association of America to send recently released films directly to your television or computer before they are released on DVD or Blu-ray” and went on to explain the potential impact this will have on movie-going. Since I, personally, prefer seeing a film in a theater as a member of an audience, this is sad news, indeed. And, equally sadly, it’s already begun to change. Remember what it used to be like when you went to the movies? Did you ever tell your children what it was like when there were no commercials — only coming attractions — in the theater? Have you ever waxed nostalgic for the days when an film advertised to begin at 8 pm actually did began at 8 or, perhaps, a few minutes later, after the trailers? Well, my dear, those days are gone and are probably never going to be seen again. Now, I’m not talking about the 20 minutes of commercials for various products (lots of soft drinks) and TV shows shown before the advertised movie start time. We’re pretty used to this by now and know that if we get to the theater early we’ll be subjected to this. No, what I am talking about is totally different. First, let me explain that here in Las Vegas, movies open weeks — sometimes months — after they open in New York City or Los Angeles. This is true of many large cities — Chicago, Miami, Seattle among them. For example, Crazy Heart, was released in New York and LA on December 16 and in Las Vegas on February 5. After awhile you get used to that. Foreign films are often difficult to find in Las Vegas. Fortunately, the two theaters closest to my home, the Regal Village Square and the Century Theater in the Suncoast Hotel and Casino (Yes! But that’s another story.) are the only two here that regularly play foreign, independent and small films. It’s nice know that even if they arrive months after they play on a coast, they will play here. Eventually. So, that is the overall film-going picture here in Las Vegas. And that is what we expected when we went to the Regal Village Square Friday night to catch City Island before it leaves on Thursday. The showing was advertised at beginning at 6:30. We took our seats about 10 minutes before the show and got what we expected, the last 10 minutes of the series of commercials called “Regal First Look,” (Most likely it is so called in an attempt to make the audience stuck watching it believe it’s a special privilege to get a “first look.”) You know the drill: the 20 minutes of business, a couple of quick commercials (Fandango/Fathom Events) then the trailers for 10 minutes or so and, finally, the film you came to see. That’s what we know and that’s what we expect. Right? Wrong. When we went to buy the tickets we saw that the price had gone up 50¢. That might be understandable in a bad year for movie attendance but, when I reported on ShoWest, the annual convention of film exhibitors this year, I noted they reported that, despite “the number of US-produced films being down 12 percent, attendance was up 11 percent and the box office worldwide totaled a staggering $300 billion.” But, if Regal needed to raise its prices, I guess 50¢ isn’t too bad. So we paid and went in. The usual First Look ended and then we were treated to 26(!) minutes or so of more commercials for TV shows and products no one really needs to know about. There were even two ads for the same TV series on two different stations. Couldn’t both stations be listed in one ad? This ad marathon ended and there were about five minutes of previews. This included one for Princess Kaiulani . It ended with the words “Coming Soon” written in large white against a black screen. The only thing is, the film was showing in the theater already. In the end, we had to pay 50¢ more to have our time wasted. (And, by the way, we also paid for the privilege of sitting next to a man who loudly munched popcorn out of a huge trough and, that finished, started equally loudly on candy. But that’s another story.) We really enjoyed City Island and I wrote a very positive review for it. But that wasn’t the point. On the way out we asked the manager, who turned out to be a thoroughly dyspeptic, nasty woman, about the length and abundance of the ads. She explained as if she was talking to recalcitrant four year-olds, that we were wrong. “It’s always been like this. There are 15 minutes of ads and 15 minutes of coming attractions.” No, I responded, there are always a couple of minutes of ads after the First Look stuff, then the trailers for a few minutes and, finally, the film. She was insistent (and very rude). “It has always been like this. And blame CineMedia, not us. They place the ads.” she said, raising her voice. She then turned her back, walked into the box office from whence she’d come and slammed the door. It was charming. In researching the issue, I found a terrific website called CaptiveAudience. Browsing it I found Regal is apparently the worst offender. Some theaters do post actual film start times but they’re very difficult to find. I learned that a class action lawsuit had been filed in 2003 against Loew’s Cineplex Entertainment Group for showing ads. It was dismissed. The site quotes Raymond W. Syufy, CEO of Century Theaters. “If we start showing commercials and go that route, then we are blurring the line between the 500 cable channels at home and the experience we want people to have when they leave their homes.” Hooray for Mr. Syufy! So, with more and more time devoted to advertisements in movie theaters, what can we, the people who don’t want to witness the demise of the movie theater culture, do about it? Maybe we should sign the online petitions to end this practice and hope it works. If it doesn’t, I guess I’ll learn to love watching movies at home.

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Pennsylvania Tax Ad Has Orwellian Theme (VIDEO)

May 2, 2010

Pennsylvania’s Department of Revenue has launched a new ad campaign letting residents know about a 54-day ‘tax amnesty,’ during which people who owe the state back taxes can pay them with 100 percent of penalties and half of the interest waived. But the television ad promoting the amnesty has raised some people’s hackles. It features a computerized voice addressing an individual who owes back taxes, named “Tom.” “Listen, Tom, we can make this easy,” the voice says as a satellite image zooms in from space onto Tom’s house. “Tom, we do know who you are,” the narrator continues before a caption appears on the screen, “Find us before we find you.” WATCH, then tell us what you think below:

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Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, Leader of Liberal Bloc, to Retire

April 9, 2010

By Greg Stohr April 9 (Bloomberg) — Justice John Paul Stevens , the leader of the U.S. Supreme Court ’s liberal wing, said he will retire, giving President Barack Obama his second chance to shape the closely divided court by appointing a successor. Stevens, the court’s oldest justice at age 89, served for 34-plus years and supported gay and abortion rights and limits on government support for religion. He was the only current justice to say the death penalty was unconstitutional. Stevens’s replacement is likely to have similar views and might even make the court more conservative on some issues. Among the candidates the Obama administration is considering to succeed him are U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan and federal appellate judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland . “Justice Stevens’s unique and enduring perspective is irreplaceable,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy , a Vermont Democrat, said in a statement. He called on Republicans to join in “a thoughtful and civil discourse” to consider Obama’s choice for a successor. Obama was aboard Air Force One this morning headed back to Washington from Prague when his counsel, Bob Bauer , told him by phone that Stevens had sent a letter revealing his intentions, said a White House official who requested anonymity. Stevens wrote that he had concluded “it would be in the best interests of the court to have my successor confirmed well in advance of the commencement of the court’s next term” in October. Senate Consideration Obama will have to get his nomination through the Senate, where Democrats and allied independents hold 59 of the 100 seats. They will need at least some Republican cooperation to get the 60 senators needed to bring the nominee up for a vote. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said his party will “make a sustained and vigorous case for judicial restraint and the fundamental importance of an even-handed reading of the law.”      “Even if Justice Stevens’s liberalism has led to many decisions I oppose, I respect his devotion to the institution and the gentlemanly manner in which he always carried out his work,” McConnell said. Senator Jon Kyl , an Arizona Republican, said on April 4 he doubted his party would use a filibuster to block consideration of a nominee. The administration is preparing to move quickly with a nomination, a person familiar with White House discussions said last week. Praise From Roberts Stevens “has enriched the lives of everyone at the court through his intellect, independence and warm grace,” said Chief Justice John Roberts in a statement. “We have all been blessed to have John as our colleague,” said Roberts, who almost always is aligned in opposition to Stevens when the court divides 5-4 on sensitive issues. Stevens, a 1975 appointee of Republican President Gerald Ford , was a testament to the ability of a justice to evolve on the court. He was something of a maverick in his early years, often writing separate opinions to make fine legal distinctions or provide a unique analysis. More recently he became a liberal coalition builder, working to secure swing justice Anthony Kennedy as the fifth vote to bolster the rights of suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay and to allow more consumer lawsuits. He served as the voice for his wing of the court in high-profile dissents, as when the court this year struck down decades-old restrictions on corporate campaign spending. “While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics,” Stevens wrote in a 90- page dissent. Second-Oldest He will step down as the second-oldest justice ever to serve on the court, behind only Oliver Wendell Holmes , who retired in 1932 at 90 years, 10 months. Stevens’s tenure puts him two years behind William O. Douglas , the longest-serving justice with 36 years of service. Stevens said he will serve until the end of the term in late June or early July. The high court is scheduled to rule in dozens of cases, including fights over gun rights and the fraud conviction of former Enron Corp. chief executive officer Jeffrey Skilling . Kagan, 49, and Wood, 59, interviewed with Obama last year before he appointed Sonia Sotomayor to succeed David Souter on the high court, according to a different White House official. Garland, 57, was one of nine candidates the White House considered for that vacancy, though he didn’t meet with Obama. Solicitor General Kagan is the first woman to serve as solicitor general, the federal government’s top Supreme Court advocate. She took that post after serving as the first female dean of Harvard Law School , her alma mater. Wood, a judge on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago since 1995, has developed a reputation there as an intellectual jurist willing to take on her more conservative colleagues Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook . Garland, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, is perhaps the most conservative of the trio, often siding with the government on criminal questions. Charmaine Yoest , president of the anti-abortion Americans United for Life, said her group would oppose “a judicial activist” if Obama chooses someone who would “impose their own social agenda through the courts.” Nancy Keenan , president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said Obama should name someone who “supports the constitutional right to privacy” that the Supreme Court invoked to legalize abortion nationwide in 1973. To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net .

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Don McNay: ATT: Reaching out and Ripping off Long Distance Customers. Like Me.

March 24, 2010

I’ve had a landline with Bell South for about 30 years. Somewhere along the way, two things happened. One is that they became part of ATT. The second is they offered unlimited long distance service. Both have been bad for me. And many other ATT customers. Each month, I pay for unlimited long distance service. Each month, ATT sends me a bill for all my long distance calls. At 33 cents a minute. This has happened for six consecutive months. I got my bill tonight and they did it once again. They charged me for my unlimited long distance service. Then they threw on another $171.60 on top of it. I suspect if ATT customers look closely at their bills, a lot of them are going to have the same outrageous charges that I have. I ‘ve confirmed in my monthly phone calls to ATT supervisors that my problem is not an isolated one. They also confirmed that they don’t have any plans to correct the matter anytime in the near future. I’d like to complain to someone but not sure who. I tried by starting by calling my friends at Bell South, who are now my friends at ATT. That’s not an easy thing to do. This bill tonight, like every other one I have received, came in after the ATT Customer Service office has closed. They are open from 7 am (not a good time to catch me by the way) and close at 6 p.m. while I am normally still at work. I tried using their “online service” (as the voice on their hold message frequently tells me) but online don’t seem to have a category for my problem. If they charge you 33 cents a minute when they are supposed to be charging you zero, they don’t have a button to fix it. In fact, the only thing online does is prompt you to call their office. Which I do. It normally takes about 30 minutes but then I speak to a live human being. They know they have a problem and usually fix it. Then I ask to make sure it won’t happen again. The first few months, they assured me it was a one time thing but after being lied to a few times, I spent another 30 minutes waiting to speak to a supervisor. At least two supervisors have told me it is a widespread problem. They also told me that the only way to fix it is to keep calling every month. I’m not sure what to do. I actually want a landline. I do a lot of radio interviews and it’s worth the $50 a month (which is the flat amount I supposedly pay for local and long distance) to have a landline in my house. It’s also good in an emergency. Bell South stayed on during an ice storm a couple of years back when my cable and electric were out. I’m not sure the new ATT will do that but I would like to think they would. We have a Public Service Commission in Kentucky and a Federal Communications Commission in Washington. Since this problem is supposedly impacting other consumers, you would think they would do something about it. I don’t think they are really following it. I recognize that landlines are a relic from the horse-and-buggy era, but I was offered a flat rate for mine and that is what I accepted. Since I suspect that most landline users are my age (51) or older, I suspect that this “glitch” is making a bundle for ATT on the backs of senior citizens. It’s an election year. I wonder if any of those who are supposed to be lobbying for seniors rights, like AARP, have the guts to stand up to a powerful corporation like ATT. I’ll be calling my friends at ATT tomorrow. It will an hour of my life wasted but I am determined not to get ripped off. And hoping this column will keep many others from being ripped off as well. Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is an award winning, syndicated financial columnist and Huffington Post Contributor. You can read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com McNay has Master’s Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Eastern Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni. McNay has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win The Lottery

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Afghan Government Decries Civilian Deaths in NATO Air Strike on Minibuses

February 22, 2010

By Eltaf Najafizada and Mark Williams Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — A NATO air strike in Afghanistan killed as many as 33 civilians, triggering a government protest over noncombatant deaths that undermine a stepped-up offensive to defeat Taliban insurgents. Early reports of the “unjustifiable” attack on three minibuses in central Uruzgan Province said nearly three dozen people were killed, including four women and a child, Afghanistan’s Council of Ministers said in a statement. Twelve people were injured in the attack on a convoy traveling to the southern province of Kandahar, it said. Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said 21 people were known to have died. “We are extremely saddened by the tragic loss of innocent lives,” U.S. General Stanley McChrystal , the top commander in Afghanistan, said in a statement. “I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people, and inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission.” The incident comes as an offensive by 15,000 Afghan and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in neighboring Helmand Province is seeking to wipe out a Taliban stronghold whose opium crop has helped fund the guerrilla movement. It is the biggest operation against the Taliban since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks. Air Attack NATO said Feb. 15 that 12 civilians had been killed in a rocket attack as part of the offensive. McChrystal apologized for that attack as well, saying it undermined the mission’s stated goals of restoring security and stability in the region. The latest civilian deaths may be the worst such incident since a Sept. 4 air strike in the northern province of Kunduz, ordered by a German commander, killed as many as 142 people, including civilians. The fallout from that attack, which outraged Afghanistan’s leadership, prompted the ouster of a minister in German Chancellor Angela Merkel ’s cabinet and sparked a debate about Germany’s presence in Afghanistan. The Dutch government collapsed two days ago over the refusal by the coalition’s Labor Party to extend the country’s military deployment in Uruzgan province. NATO said aircraft yesterday fired on suspected militants in Uruzgan believed to be preparing to attack a unit of Afghan and international troops “resulting in a number of individuals killed and wounded,” NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement. Women and Children Women and children were later found at the scene of the attack, and the wounded were taken for medical treatment, it said, without giving further details. Afghan ministers have urged NATO forces to avoid civilian casualties “considered to be a major obstacle for an effective counterterrorism effort.” Bashary, the ministry spokesman, told Associated Press the minibuses had been carrying 42 civilians when they were attacked driving down a major road in the mountainous province. At least 13 NATO troops, one Afghan soldier, 16 civilians and about 120 insurgents have died during the Helmand fighting, according to news media including the Associated Press and Voice of America. Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged forces “to exercise absolute caution to avoid harming civilians” before the operation began Feb. 13. Obama Policy The Helmand offensive is the first major combat test of U.S. President Barack Obama ’s policy of sending in reinforcements to reverse Taliban territorial gains, protect civilians and train local forces to start taking over parts of Afghanistan in July 2011. The next stage will be to “roll eastwards into Kandahar,” British Major General Nick Carter, the top coalition commander for the area, said Feb. 18. More troops are scheduled to come into Afghanistan starting in March as part of the surge, aided by additional Afghan security forces. To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Williams in New Delhi at mwilliams108@bloomberg.net

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NATO Air Strike in Afghanistan Kills as Many as 33 Civilians in Minibuses

February 22, 2010

By Eltaf Najafizada and Mark Williams Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — A NATO air strike in Afghanistan’s central Uruzgan Province killed at least 21 civilians, including women and children, the country’s Interior Ministry said. Those killed were travelling in three minibuses, said Zemarai Bashary, the ministry ’s spokesman. “Fourteen wounded people have been found” at the scene, he said. NATO said aircraft yesterday fired on suspected militants believed to be preparing to attack a unit of Afghan and international troops “resulting in a number of individuals killed and wounded.” Women and children were later found at the scene of the attack, and the wounded were taken for medical treatment, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement, without giving further details. “We are extremely saddened by the tragic loss of innocent lives,” U.S. General Stanley McChrystal , the top commander in Afghanistan, said in today’s statement. “I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people, and inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission.” Bashary told Associated Press the minibuses had been carrying 42 civilians when they were attacked driving down a major road in the mountainous province. The incident comes as an offensive by 15,000 Afghan and NATO troops in neighboring Helmand Province is seeking to wipe out a Taliban stronghold whose opium crop has helped fund the guerrilla movement. It is the biggest operation against the Taliban since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks. Helmand Fighting At least 13 NATO troops, one Afghan soldier, 16 civilians and about 120 insurgents have died during the Helmand fighting, according to news media including the Associated Press and Voice of America. Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged forces “to exercise absolute caution to avoid harming civilians” before the operation began Feb. 13. The Helmand offensive is the first major combat test of U.S. President Barack Obama ’s policy of sending in reinforcements to reverse Taliban territorial gains, protect civilians and train local forces to start taking over parts of Afghanistan in July 2011. The next stage will be to “roll eastwards into Kandahar,” British Major General Nick Carter, the top coalition commander for the area, said Feb. 18. More troops are scheduled to come into Afghanistan starting in March as part of the surge, aided by additional Afghan security forces. To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Williams in New Delhi at mwilliams108@bloomberg.net

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NATO Air Strike in Afghanistan Kills 21 Civilians in Minibuses, Injures 14

February 22, 2010

By Eltaf Najafizada and Mark Williams Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — A NATO air strike in Afghanistan’s central Uruzgan Province killed at least 21 civilians, including women and children, the country’s Interior Ministry said. Those killed were travelling in three minibuses, said Zemarai Bashary, the ministry ’s spokesman. “Fourteen wounded people have been found” at the scene, he said. NATO said aircraft yesterday fired on suspected militants believed to be preparing to attack a unit of Afghan and international troops “resulting in a number of individuals killed and wounded.” Women and children were later found at the scene of the attack, and the wounded were taken for medical treatment, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement, without giving further details. “We are extremely saddened by the tragic loss of innocent lives,” U.S. General Stanley McChrystal , the top commander in Afghanistan, said in today’s statement. “I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people, and inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission.” Bashary told Associated Press the minibuses had been carrying 42 civilians when they were attacked driving down a major road in the mountainous province. The incident comes as an offensive by 15,000 Afghan and NATO troops in neighboring Helmand Province is seeking to wipe out a Taliban stronghold whose opium crop has helped fund the guerrilla movement. It is the biggest operation against the Taliban since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks. Helmand Fighting At least 13 NATO troops, one Afghan soldier, 16 civilians and about 120 insurgents have died during the Helmand fighting, according to news media including the Associated Press and Voice of America. Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged forces “to exercise absolute caution to avoid harming civilians” before the operation began Feb. 13. The Helmand offensive is the first major combat test of U.S. President Barack Obama ’s policy of sending in reinforcements to reverse Taliban territorial gains, protect civilians and train local forces to start taking over parts of Afghanistan in July 2011. The next stage will be to “roll eastwards into Kandahar,” British Major General Nick Carter, the top coalition commander for the area, said Feb. 18. More troops are scheduled to come into Afghanistan starting in March as part of the surge, aided by additional Afghan security forces. To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Williams in New Delhi at mwilliams108@bloomberg.net

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NATO Air Strike in Afghanistan Kills 21 Civilians in Minibuses, Injures 14

February 22, 2010

By Eltaf Najafizada and Mark Williams Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — A NATO air strike in Afghanistan’s central Uruzgan Province killed at least 21 civilians, including women and children, the country’s Interior Ministry said. Those killed were travelling in three minibuses, said Zemarai Bashary, the ministry ’s spokesman. “Fourteen wounded people have been found” at the scene, he said. NATO said aircraft yesterday fired on suspected militants believed to be preparing to attack a unit of Afghan and international troops “resulting in a number of individuals killed and wounded.” Women and children were later found at the scene of the attack, and the wounded were taken for medical treatment, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement, without giving further details. “We are extremely saddened by the tragic loss of innocent lives,” U.S. General Stanley McChrystal , the top commander in Afghanistan, said in today’s statement. “I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people, and inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission.” Bashary told Associated Press the minibuses had been carrying 42 civilians when they were attacked driving down a major road in the mountainous province. The incident comes as an offensive by 15,000 Afghan and NATO troops in neighboring Helmand Province is seeking to wipe out a Taliban stronghold whose opium crop has helped fund the guerrilla movement. It is the biggest operation against the Taliban since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks. Helmand Fighting At least 13 NATO troops, one Afghan soldier, 16 civilians and about 120 insurgents have died during the Helmand fighting, according to news media including the Associated Press and Voice of America. Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged forces “to exercise absolute caution to avoid harming civilians” before the operation began Feb. 13. The Helmand offensive is the first major combat test of U.S. President Barack Obama ’s policy of sending in reinforcements to reverse Taliban territorial gains, protect civilians and train local forces to start taking over parts of Afghanistan in July 2011. The next stage will be to “roll eastwards into Kandahar,” British Major General Nick Carter, the top coalition commander for the area, said Feb. 18. More troops are scheduled to come into Afghanistan starting in March as part of the surge, aided by additional Afghan security forces. To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Williams in New Delhi at mwilliams108@bloomberg.net

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Hard Times Profiteers: Help HuffPost Investigative Fund Investigate ‘Signs Of Deception’ (VIDEO)

February 19, 2010

Drive through most any city in America and the offers will leap out at you: “Repair Your Credit!” “Modify Your Loan!” “Sell Your House Quick!” The creators of these signs — Hard Times Profiteers, as we at the Huffington Post Investigative Fund have dubbed them — are moving to capitalize on the financial troubles of others. They are posting advertisements on walls, street lamps and bus shelters. The ads range from handwritten cardboard cutouts to printed plastic signs. WATCH HuffPost Investigative Fund’s video report: The Investigative Fund has begun collecting photographs of these ads in the Washington D.C. area. Now we’d like you, our readers, to help us find them across the country. Have you spotted suspicious signs in your neighborhood, or on your way to work? Snap a photo and send it to us, and we’ll post it on our interactive map . INTERACTIVE MAP: Searching for Signs of Deception » Send us photos of suspicious signs in your neighborhood. We’re also still collecting the stories of people who have been victims of real estate schemes. We’re looking for your tips and stories to help us investigate . As for the roadside signs, during the boom times, these magic-marker notices often advertised: “We buy houses.” These days, with a record number of homeowners defaulting on loans, they are giving way to signs that pitch mortgage modification and foreclosure rescue schemes. Law enforcement groups warn that companies charging upfront fees could be behind the ads. This practice is illegal in some states and the Federal Trade Commission has proposed outlawing it nationwide . Also, in many U.S. towns, it’s illegal to post these so-called “bandit signs” without a permit. James McNeill, a real estate agent in Mesa, Ariz., took to tearing down signs when he noticed that many didn’t include business names or licensing logos, as required by local law. “I call and get a recording, usually an information gathering type — leave your name, number, email, date of birth, do you own a home, and on at least one occasion asking for [a social security number] — so that was a scam for sure,” McNeill told the Investigative Fund. In Baltimore, Robert Strupp, director of research and policy at the Community Law Center, says he has collected about 1,200 signs posted throughout the city since 2006. “People were actually calling the numbers on the signs and falling victim to some of these scams,” Strupp said in a recent interview. “We hear it in their voice — we hear their stories of people who bought a house to live in and someone talks them into selling it – leaving them with nothing. It’s very sad.” Do you have information about this story? Send us a tip or submit a correction . Follow the Huffington Post Investigative Fund on Twitter or fan us on Facebook .

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Michael Blumenfield, M.D.: Huge Compensation Packages Should Be Approved by Stockholders

February 17, 2010

WellPoint Insurance Company Wants A 25 % Increase From Policy Holders The Los Angeles Times recently reported that WellPoint Inc., a subsidiary of Anthem Blue Cross, is planning to increase health insurance rates of its policy holders by an average of 25%, with some people facing as much as a 39% increase. When HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius heard about this she said, “It remains difficult to understand how a company that made 2.7 billion in the last quarter of 2009 alone can justify massive increases that will leave consumers with nothing but bad options.” Brian Sassi, president and CEO of the Anthem Blue Cross Consumer Business replied, “The Anthem Blue Cross unit at the heart of the inquiry lost millions in 2009″ Compensation of Healthcare Executives Well Into the Multimillion Dollar Range I couldn’t find a record of the salary of Sassi but I did find a report that in 2008 the CEO of WellPoint, (the subsidiary that recently lost millions), Angela Brayer , received $9,844,212 total compensation. Six years ago Larry Glasscok the top executive at Anthem Blue Cross, of which WellPoint is a component, received a 42.5 million dollar bonus on top of his multimillion dollar salary. Other healthcare CEOs receive multimillion dollar salaries and large bonuses. The salary and bonus paid to Cleve L. Killingsworth , chairman and chief executive of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, increased 26 percent last year, to $3.5 million with his total compensation package worth 4.3 million, even though the health insurer’s membership declined and its net income fell 49 percent. Corporate Compensation Especially Those Receiving Bailouts Are Even Higher The average CEO of companies in the S & P 500 was 10.1 million dollars per year The CEOs at 20 banks that were granted US aid received compensation 37% higher than the this group . Bank of America and Wells Fargo paid CEOs an average of 13.8 million per year., The average CEO pay was 430 times larger than for typical workers. Some other remarkable compensation packages stand out. Citigroup — which received about 25% of the aid going to the nine banks — has the No. 1 pay recipient. Andrew Hall, who heads Citigroup’s energy-trading unit Phibro LLC, received $98.9 million in 2008, according to a government official. Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, by comparison, received more than $38 million last year. Should There Be a Law? It seemed that there was nothing much anybody could do about these compensations except make some noise. That outcry led to at least one company requiring that their executives would be required to give a certain amount of their bonuses to charity (with a tax deduction, of course.) There has been a proposal from Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio that there be a 50% tax on bonuses over $25,000 but before we consider this, I think that we need to look at the big picture. I am not an expert in the world of financial compensation. I am a psychiatrist who worked either with an hourly fee or with an academic salary (no complaints). I also strongly believe in the free enterprise system. People who create a business should be entitled to whatever profit they can make in the competitive world. Perhaps there should be some exceptions if people’s health or lives are endangered. That may be one of the reasons that doctor’s fees are set by Medicare and to a certain extent by insurance companies. I don’t believe that the government should set corporate compensation. In those limited situations where the government spends the taxpayer’s money to allow a company to survive there should be some extra tax or payback. Proposal Requiring Stockholders to Vote on Executive Compensation The owners of the company should have something to say before executives are given multimillion dollar compensations. You would think that this is the case now. Not exactly, the way I see it. As I understand it, the salary of the CEO is set by the Board of Directors or a component compensation committee. The salary of other executives is set by the CEO and/or with approval of the board. But I don’t view the Board of Directors as really being the voice of the stockholders or the true owners. Perhaps you can make a case that indirectly they are because they ultimately approve new board members who are nominated by other members or the CEO (or in some cases by a petition). The board members are often friends of the CEO or are beholden to him/her through perks or other complicated political benefits. Why not have the real owners directly approve these very high salaries and bonuses? I would like to see Henry Waxman (my Congressman), Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, propose federal legislation which would require the following: Any compensation (salary plus bonuses including stock options) of an executive of a publicly owned company that was more than 200 times the minimum wage would have to be approved by a majority vote of the stockholders of that company. Any vote to increase the compensation of employees at the above level would require that the stockholders would have to vote either no increase, increase to cover inflation or a series of one or more levels of compensation put forth by the board or compensation committee. Information about the reasons for the suggested alternatives would be provided along with benchmarking data from other similar companies. New executives could be hired at the pay of the previous executives in the same position but the stockholders would vote approval of the compensation within 3 years. Continued compensation over 200 times the minimum wage would have to be approved by this method every three years. The federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour or approximately $15,080/year so I am suggesting that stockholders will have to approve any total compensation more than 3.0 million dollars per year or 200 times minimum wage. If the owners of a company feel their executive is worth more than 200 times the minimum wage, or even $98 million as in one case above and that they really couldn’t hire anybody else to get the job done at lower compensation, let them pay the money. The owners of a company should be allowed to do this even if the company loses money and needs a bailout to survive. I would like to hear opinions about this proposal.

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Anya Kamenetz: America’s Student Loan Providers Object to Being Cut Off at the Public Trough

February 5, 2010

Here is the propaganda website of Sallie Mae and the other jerks ( Hi, Kevin Bruns! ) who want to keep collecting public subsidies for the favor of giving out student loans. Here are the stories of students who have been victimized by their wholly unreasonable borrowing policies. Here’s a picture of Al Lord, the former CEO of Sallie Mae, who got so rich off students’ backs that he built his own golf course and tried to buy the Nationals baseball team. The bankers are whining today because their special sweetheart subsidy program is on the verge of being canceled. This would save the taxpayers as much as $80 billion over 10 years, money that the Obama administration wants to use for Pell Grants and other good things. President Obama has called this idea a “no-brainer.” In fact, the bill has already passed the House. The bankers are spending tens of millions of dollars to buy Senators so that it doesn’t pass the Senate. Sallie Mae alone has spent $8 million. If you want to make your voice heard on this issue, go to this website, Students Over Banks.

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Goldman Parachute Awaits Geithner to Ease Fall: Caroline Baum

January 25, 2010

Commentary by Caroline Baum Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is scheduled to testify to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee tomorrow. The hearing is certain to be good theater. Whether it reveals good government, or a government working for the few at the expense of the many, is another matter. If it turns out Geithner failed to act in the best interest of taxpayers in the bailout of American International Group, Inc ., he is unworthy of the public trust and should step down. That thought may have crossed President Barack Obama’s mind as well. When Obama proposed new limits on the size and scope of commercial banks last week, standing at his side was Paul Volcker , head of the president’s Economic Advisory Board, whose height (6 feet 7 inches) belies his diminished influence –until now. Volcker has long advocated banning commercial banks from speculating with federally insured deposits, but his voice was drowned out by the pro-Wall Street sympathies of Geithner and Larry Summers , another Obama economic adviser. The House Oversight Committee, chaired by Edolphus Towns , a Democrat from New York, subpoened documents from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York relating to the AIG bailout in September 2008, when Geithner was president of the New York Fed. The Fed turned over about 250,000 pages of documents, some of which have been leaked to the press. Lawmakers are particularly interested in the decision to pay AIG’s counterparties, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar to cancel, then and there, the credit default swaps the insurer sold them. They also want to know why the New York Fed pressured AIG to withhold that information in its regulatory filings. Secrecy’s Downside So do we. Secrecy surrounding the AIG bailout has worked to compound suspicions the New York Fed did something fishy, that it found a back-door way to pump money into the banks and, in the process, hosed the rest of us. Geithner has testified that the Fed’s hands were tied, that the bank could not “selectively default on contractual obligations without courting collapse.” If that’s the case, why hide the evidence? CDSs are customized, privately negotiated contracts. We have no idea how they were written. Only the parties to them do. Through a Treasury spokesman, Geithner has said he recused himself from “working on issues involving specific companies, including AIG,” after his Nov. 24 nomination as Treasury secretary. How likely is it Geithner was unaware or uninvolved in the negotiations? The New York Fed did not respond to multiple inquiries on the nature of the recusal. Body Language “It’s not necessary to speak words or render a decision to cause influence,” says Jacob Frenkel , a former federal prosecutor and Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement attorney now in private practice. “Mere presence can affect the outcome.” Geithner’s problems pre-date AIG. After Obama nominated him to the Treasury post, a job that put him atop the Internal Revenue Service, we learned he cheated on his taxes. He settled his 2003 and 2004 tax liability after a 2006 IRS audit but didn’t pay back taxes for 2001 and 2002 until Obama nominated him. Obama rushed Geithner’s confirmation process through the Senate on the grounds that he was the only man for the job. The main selling point? In his position at the helm of the New York Fed since 2003, he was familiar with the crisis story line and was involved in the various rescue efforts. He also fiddled while the biggest banks, most of which are in the New York Fed’s district, burned. Escape Clause Geithner has been a public servant his whole life, holding various positions at the Treasury, the International Monetary Fund and the Fed. Somehow he managed to shed the stigma of tax scofflaw, but now BOTH Democrats and Republicans in Congress want blood. His may be just the scalp Obama needs to pacify the populist outrage, especially since he’s perceived as being too cozy with bankers. Following the loss of the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in Massachusetts, Obama is trying out his populist voice. By all rights, he should sacrifice one of his political advisers, who seem to have miscalculated the Massachusetts election and misjudged the public’s appetite for health-care reform when the chief concern is jobs . Axing Geithner might be good for president and Treasury secretary alike. Obama would be seen as an ally of the people. Geithner would be free to claim his just reward: that plum offer from Goldman Sachs. The circle would be squared. Obama would have his man on the inside. ( Caroline Baum , author of “Just What I Said,” is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.) Click on “Send Comment” in sidebar display to send a letter to the editor. To contact the writer of this column: Caroline Baum in New York at cabaum@bloomberg.net .

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Charlie Cray: Dark Days for Democracy

January 25, 2010

They’ve reloaded the Chamber and, unless we — the body politic — get off our backs, democracy will soon be dead. I refer, of course, to last week’s Supreme Court’s decision (Citizens United v. FEC), which gave corporations the go-ahead to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections. The ruling is one of the biggest direct shots at democracy taken since Lewis Powell outlined a multi-decade strategy to squelch the voice of citizens and enthrone corporate rule. Powell, who was appointed to the Court by President Nixon just two months later, wrote his now-infamous memo for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to urge its member corporations to fight a multi-pronged war by targeting three key institutions as the battlefields in our society where the shape of democracy would be debated and determined – the universities, the media and, especially, the courts. The Chamber and its allies at NAM and the Business Roundtable quickly mobilized to put Powell’s plan into action, with the help of various ideological philanthropists along the right wing/corporate axis (e.g. Scaife, Olin, Coors, Koch, Smith Richardson, and Bradley). Together, they built up a phalanx of right-wing think tanks, public relations operatives, lobbying outfits, media whores and corporate-friendly legal foundations — from the Federalist Society to Washington Legal Foundation. Together, these groups constitute what has been called (no doubt to smooth over the ideological implications) a ” business civil liberties ” movement. In his memo, Powell advised the corporate elites that “strength lies in organization, in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations.” And that’s just what they did. As Lee Drutman and I wrote in our book describing what we must do about the excesses of corporate power (The People’s Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy), “Powell’s point was simple: develop a multifront plan of attack and patiently implement it.” Four decades later, the result has been an all-out attack upon anyone who might pose a “countervailing” threat to business’ power, as John Kenneth Galbraith described labor and other institutions’ role vis-à-vis the corporation. Take trial lawyers, for example. Back in 2006, Alison Frankel declared in the American Lawyer that it was “over”: After a 20-year tort “reform” campaign by the Chamber, industry and its allies had effectively extinguished the ability of injured workers, defrauded consumers and bankrupt investors to pursue justice through civil litigation. (If you were around during the 80s you will recall how much more of a boogie man “trial lawyers” seemed to be, Now when the Right sounds such alarms — like they did during the health care debate – it seems as ridiculous as when the warmongers compare the next tinpot dictator to Hitler). And so it goes — just as they did with their “tort deform” campaign, the Chamber and other business ideologues have organized strategic campaigns to drive litigation to Supreme Court to expand the corporate agenda (often dragging traditional liberal groups – such as unions and the ACLU – along, as they did in the Citizens United case), especially in the area of First Amendment rights. The Citizens United decision is therefore the latest (and worst) result of a long campaign to (improperly) imbue corporations with constitutional rights originally intended for real “people.” And although the history of decisions that have done so extends way, way back – to the Santa Clara case (establishing corporate personhood doctrine) and beyond – the point is that right now, corporate America has is busily undoing our ability to restrain their “speech” – whether that means commercial speech (e.g. overturning any bans on commercial advertising in schools, ads urging off-label drug use, or the do-not-call registry as a form of restraint against free speech), corporate control over the media through deregulated ownership rules (recall how under the Powell FCC the proposal to loosen media ownership rules was framed around the “rights” of broadcasters, rather than the right of communities to structure the media to facilitate democratic discourse), and corporate domination of politics. (How long before the Roberts Court agrees to hear another case challenging the 1907 Tilman Act?) As Ruth Marcus pointed out in the Washington Post, on its face the Citizens United decision was astonishing for the shoddiness of its logic. At the very least, it should disturb anyone who remembers how Roberts and Alito kept referring to “stare decisis” (respect for precedent) in their nomination hearings to witness them overturning decades-old decisions when the facts in the case before them didn’t even warrant such a broad examination of the question of corporate speech. The Roberts Court abandoned the usual practice of adjudicating non-constitutional claims before constitutional ones – a radical departure that indicates how far it may be willing to go to serve the “business civil liberties” agenda. While the immediate effect of the decision is likely to be a surge in corporate cash in the fall elections, it also signals something bigger and much more frightening: The opening salvo of an open and sustained attack by the Court upon the rights of the People to govern the behavior of corporations, which, if successful, will eviscerate what’s left of American democracy. It’s tempting to toss up my hands and leave it there, but that would be unnecessary catastrophizing, because there is the slim hope that we can address some of the worst impacts of this decision. To start, we need to push for public financing of elections (as in Senator Dick Durbin’s Fair Elections Act), as well as other proposals outlining the measures Congress should craft in response to the Court – including proposals that would require affirmative shareholder approval before executives are allowed to spend out of corporate treasury; and perhaps some kind of “pay to play” restriction against such expenditures by lobbyists and companies (contractors) wishing to do business with the federal government. But add all of those up and they will not be nearly enough. Which is why we need to go deeper into the framework of law itself. E.g., two coalitions have put out the call for a Constitutional Amendment restricting the rights of corporations. To learn more, go to Free Speech for People and Move to Amend . It’s a good start for what will be a long, difficult struggle to roll back corporate rule.

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Village Voice Affiliate Might Face Forced Bankruptcy in Ad-Rates Dispute

January 15, 2010

By Phil Milford and Greg Bensinger Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) — New Times Media LLC, which merged with the Village Voice newspaper’s parent company in 2006, might face U.S. Bankruptcy Court proceedings after losing a $15.9 million judgment for ad-price manipulation, a lawyer said. New Times, an affiliate of Village Voice Media LLC, sued West Coast rival Bay Guardian Co. , asking a judge to rule it doesn’t have to pay the judgment in a dispute over advertising rates in San Francisco-area alternative papers, according to a complaint made public yesterday in Delaware Chancery Court. “You learn in civics class that when you get a judgment against you, you have to pay,” yet the Village Voice group hasn’t done so, said Tim Redmond, the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s executive editor. He said in a phone interview yesterday that the judgment has risen to $21 million, with interest. The ruling gives Bay Guardian a lien on all the Village Voice group’s newspaper properties, according to Redmond, who said Bay Guardian is considering petitioning to put the Village Voice chain into involuntary bankruptcy to collect the debt. “We’re considering all options,” including forced bankruptcy, Jay Adkisson, a lawyer representing Bay Guardian, said in a phone interview. Randall Farrimond, an attorney representing New Times Media and two affiliates named in the original suit, said such a forced bankruptcy wasn’t possible. “It is simply ludicrous to suggest that any of the companies that are not parties to the California action might somehow be facing bankruptcy as a result of that judgment,” Farrimond said in a letter. Lien Limited Farrimond said any lien would apply only to the holding companies named in the original suit. “It does not extend to the property of any other newspapers,’’ he said. Adkisson said that while Village Voice Media claims it only has enough assets to pay $80 million to lenders led by Bank of Montreal, he believes it can afford to pay the judgment based on court records showing it had $191 million in assets at the end of 2007. Adkisson said yesterday the Bay Guardian had just received the Delaware lawsuit and couldn’t immediately comment. Farrimond said the lawsuit “asks a judge to rule that the partnership or membership interests of New Times Media LLC in certain Delaware companies cannot be sold in order to satisfy the judgment against New Times Media.” Involuntary Petition Under U.S. bankruptcy law, creditors owed at least $10,000 are allowed to file an involuntary petition to put the case before a judge. Village Voice Media contends it “is entitled to an injunction preventing defendant from seeking remedies against Delaware entities that are forbidden by Delaware law,” according to court papers. “There’s not anything that we can do to prevent them from attempting to put any entity into bankruptcy, whether or not there’s actually a basis for it,” Farrimond said in an interview. “There’s nothing that has come up recently, that I am aware of, that would trigger a bankruptcy proceeding.” Farrimond’s clients include the defendants in the original ad-price lawsuit, the SF Weekly and the holding company for the East Bay Express, which has since been sold. He said the combined assets of his clients are less than Adkisson claims, without providing specifics. “The assets of SF Weekly are obviously far less than that $191 million number that Adkisson is throwing around,” Farrimond said in the letter. New Times Appeal Farrimond said assets of Village Voice Media outside of California weren’t subject to the original ruling. New Times Media has a pending appeal in California and won’t pay the amount of the judgment before the appeal has run its course, he said. Average weekly circulation for the Village Voice, founded in 1955, declined 11 percent in the six months through June 2009 to 213,358, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The SF Weekly lost 15 percent of its average weekly circulation in the period, dropping to 85,046. The case is New Times Media LLC v. Bay Guardian Co. Inc., CA5204, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington). To contact the reporters on this story: Phil Milford in Wilmington, Delaware, at pmilford@bloomberg.net ; Greg Bensinger in New York at gbensinger1@bloomberg.net .

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Perfect Weekend in New York Brings Masochism, Huge Critter, Pig Feet

January 15, 2010

Review by Manuela Hoelterhoff Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) — David Ives, who turned Baruch Spinoza and his stressful religious problems into a diverting play, has moved on to Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the patron saint of sadomasochists. “Venus in Fur” — based on the Viennese author’s 1870 novel, but set today — concerns a playwright who has adapted the story and is auditioning an actress for the role of the imperious heroine. The session quickly spins out into a struggle involving sex and power. In previews, with a Friday night performance at 8 p.m. at the Classic Stage Company, 136 E. 13th St. Tickets are $65. Information: +1-212-352-3101; http://www.classicstage.org . Saturday Take a walk on the Lower East Side. At Reena Spaulings Fine Art , check out the nutty show by the Paris-based collective that goes by the name of Claire Fontaine. The chief objet d’art is a kitty litter box with Swarovski crystals. Continue on to Joanna Malinowska’s exhibition at Canada gallery where more oddities await, including a tusked creature that is 8 feet tall and made of plaster, water from the Bering Strait and Bolivian president Evo Morales’s sweater. “Inhibitions” is on view through Jan. 31 at 165 East Broadway. Information +1-212-477-5006; http://www.reenaspaulings.com . “Time of Guerrilla Metaphysics” exhibits through Jan. 24 at Canada, 55 Chrystie St. Information: +1-212-925-4631; http://www.canadanewyork.com . Saturday Night Using no more than hands as expressive as a Tibetan dancer’s and a face seemingly made of rubber, Andrew Dawson tells the story of the Apollo 11 moon landing in “Space Panorama.” His fingers dart like butterflies and when the voice of President Kennedy is heard declaring that we would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, Dawson’s facial mimicry is downright eerie. Dawson’s solo show — which is over in under a half hour — is one of the more enchanting discoveries of the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival 2010 in downtown Manhattan. Afterwards, maybe dinner across the street at Indochine, where the staff is at least as exotic (and fashionable) as the menu. “Space Panorama” is at 7 p.m. (or 1 p.m. on Sunday). 425 Lafayette St. Tickets are $15. Information: +1-212-967-7555; http://www.publictheater.org . Indochine is at 430 Lafayette St. Information: +1-212-505-5111. Other Options Have a drink at Robert, the recently opened restaurant atop the Museum of Arts and Design . Advance word is good, especially for the views over Columbus Circle. Then head down for a noisy night chewing on pig feet at the new Breslin Bar & Dining Room. Robert is located in the Museum of Arts and Design at 2 Columbus Circle. Information: +1-212-299-7730; http://www.robertnyc.com . The Breslin is at 16 W. 29th St. Information: +1-212-679-1939; http://www.thebreslin.com . Looking Ahead Monday night at the Metropolitan Opera , Placido Domingo, the smartest and sturdiest of that three tenor act from the 1990s, makes his debut as a baritone singing the title role in Verdi’s gorgeous “Simone Boccanegra.” A historic occasion. Limited seating still available for some performances. The Metropolitan Opera is at Lincoln Center. Information: +1-212-362-6000; http://www.metopera.org . (Manuela Hoelterhoff is executive editor for Muse, Bloomberg’s arts and culture section. Any opinions are her own.)

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Realty Times – Part 2: Creating A Business Model from the Current …

December 9, 2009

Real Estate News And Advice – Part 2: Creating A Business Model from the Current Distressed Asset Marketplace. … consulting focuses are public speaking and media relations development and content delivery and management, Peter is also the host of the Voice America Network’s weekly radio program, “Income Property Investment Talk,” a one-hour program that brings the powerhouses of commercial and residential real estate to property investors every Wednesday at 11 a.m. EST. …

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Liz Ryan: Building a Job-Search Brand? Make Us Care

December 7, 2009

Check this Liz, says my friend Allan on the phone, I’ve been working on my job-search brand. What have you come up with? I ask him. Here it is, says Allan. I’m an explorer, like Marco Polo. That’s the heart of my job search brand. I’m fearless, and I go wherever the action is. I dive into any type of situation and figure out what needs to be done. Whatever’s happening, I will get there. I travel light and I get around. Cool, right? Hmmm, I say. You don’t like

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Krugman: Deficit Hawks Trying To Scare People With Big, Out-Of-Context Numbers

November 30, 2009

On ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopoulos asked Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist, about the argument that the nation’s rising debt level may lead to “a major weakening of American power.” Krugman responded : KRUGMAN: You know, first thing to say is people are putting their money where their mouth is, which is the bond market. Things were fine. You know, the U.S. government is able to borrow long-term at 3.3 percent interest rate. So, obviously, you know, the market is not convinced. Now, the market has been wrong. But, then if you do the arithmetic, these numbers look huge. The American economy is huge. The debt burden, even after five years, is going to be well below as a share of GDP well below levels that lots of industrial countries have reached in the past, including ourselves after World War II, when we were able to handle that just fine. We’re not going to hit 100 percent (of GDP in debt) until a decade from now. And countries have gone above 100 percent. I mean, if you actually ask about the interest cost, particularly inflation-adjusted interest cost, you know, we’re now paying 1.2 percent real interest rate on federal debt. Even if you add 50 percent of GDP in debt, which I don’t think is going to happen, that’s still only a fraction of a percent of GDP in additional debt service costs. Washington Post columnist George Will, a vocal deficit hawk, pushed back: “But even unreasonably cheerful assumptions about economic growth and interest rates, we’re apt to be spending in 10 years $700 billion a year servicing our debt .” WATCH (debt discussion begins at about 12:30): On Monday, Krugman took to his blog to call Will’s response an example of “debt scare,” joking that the statistic about 700 billion dollars should have been ” read in the voice of Dr. Evil. ” I get that a lot — people who talk about the big numbers which are supposed to imply that things are terrible, impossible, we’re doomed, etc. The point, of course, is that everything about the United States is big. So you have to interpret numbers accordingly. As the graphic above shows — it’s taken from an article that managed to maintain a grim tone while reporting numbers that actually weren’t all that grim — what we’re talking about is a debt-service burden roughly comparable to that under the first President Bush. How many of the people now warning about the impossible burden of currently projected debt were issuing similar warnings back in 1992? Not many, I’d guess. As Krugman notes , debt levels today are quite low by historical standards, and even when interests rates rise, they are projected to rise to levels experienced during the 1980s and 90s. Moreover, as Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim reported recently: The focus on the deficit is also fraught with economic miscalculations. Long-term interest rates are extremely low, despite the hysteria, and the U.S. government is well positioned to meet its obligations indefinitely. The Chinese government, meanwhile, which holds a pile of U.S. debt, has little recourse other than to continue to buy U.S. bonds. The Nation ‘s DC editor Chris Hayes put it succinctly , using an old saying, in a recent column: “‘When you owe $100,000, the bank owns you. When you owe $100 million, you own the bank’ — and it aptly describes the US relationship with China, which holds approximately 70 percent of its 2.3 trillion foreign reserves in dollars.” Nevertheless, deficit hawks are threatening a dramatic move to force cost-cutting plans, as McClatchy reported on Monday . A bipartisan group of more than a dozen senators is threatening to vote against an increase in the debt limit unless Congress passes a new deficit-fighting plan. “I will not vote for raising the debt limit without a vehicle to handle this. … This is our moment,” California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said. She and nine other senators wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., asking that Congress create a special commission to make recommendations that then could be decided by an up-or-down vote. HuffPost’s Jason Linkins has much more on this plan for a deficit-fighting commission HERE .

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Sony’s `2012′ Is Top Weekend Movie in U.S., With $65 Million Ticket Sales

November 15, 2009

By Inyoung Hwang and Sarah Rabil Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) — “2012,” the doomsday thriller about the destruction of earth, opened as the top film in U.S. and Canadian theaters this weekend with ticket sales of $65 million for Sony Corp. Last weekend’s No. 1 movie, “A Christmas Carol,” fell to second place with $22.3 million for Walt Disney Co. , researcher Hollywood.com Box-Office said today in an e-mailed statement. “2012,” from the director of “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow,” is Sony’s eighth top debut this year. The company ranks third among the six major studios in U.S. ticket sales this year with $1.23 billion as of Nov. 8, according to researcher Box Office Mojo . The film, starring John Cusack , focuses on a global cataclysm hitting the Earth in 2012, the end-date of the Mayan calendar. “A Christmas Carol,” a 3-D adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic, features the voice of Jim Carrey in multiple roles including Ebenezer Scrooge. To contact the reporters on this story: Inyoung Hwang in New York at ihwang7@bloomberg.net ; Sarah Rabil in New York at srabil@bloomberg.net .

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Byron Dorgan’s Financial Plan: Common Sense From The Senator Who Saw This Coming

November 12, 2009

He got it right last time. Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, was one of eight senators who stood up to oppose the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act in 1999. That repeal, which was signed into law by President Clinton exactly 10 years ago today, broke down the barriers between commercial banking and investment banking, and led to the growth of behemoth financial firms that were able to take enormous risks with impunity, because they were “too big to fail.” “I think we will in 10 years’ time look back and say we should not have done this,” Dorgan said back then. The video of his speech has become something of a cult favorite for wonks — ten years, a $700 billion bailout and a major financial crisis later. Washington has an odd habit of listening to the people who consistently get such things wrong, and ignoring the ones who get them right. So today, on this solemn anniversary, how about listening to this guy? What does he think we should do now? “Three things,” the senator told me in an interview. “One is to separate investment banks and FDIC-insured banks. Second, prohibit FDIC-insured banks from dealing in risky financial instruments on their own proprietary accounts… And third, abolish ‘too big to fail.’ If you’re too big to fail, you’re too big. Too big to fail is what I call no-fault capitalism.” All in all, it’s a much more forceful agenda than his party leaders — including his president — are advocating. Why isn’t the administration at his side? “You’d have to address that question to the administration,” Dorgan said. He did, however, express disappointment. “I would like to see them more aggressive on this issue.” But he’s still hopeful. “We don’t have any bill on the floor of the House or the Senate to evaluate,” said Dorgan, who is not on the Senate’s Finance Committee. “My hope is that we’ll get a piece of legislation that will restore that separation.” Dorgan said he hasn’t yet taken a position on the administration’s proposed Consumer Finance Protection Agency, but “clearly there needs to be consumer protection. The question is how.” Also, he said, “I think you have to regulate hedge funds… You have to have transparency on these financial instruments.” And then there’s the whole issue of accountability. “It’s one of the most frustrating things,” Dorgan said. “We essentially have had modern-day bank robbers — except that they wore gray suits and not masks — and there’s been no accountability for it.” Dorgan has repeatedly called — fruitlessly — for a federal task force to investigate and establish accountability for the crisis. What’s needed, he said, is an agreed-upon “master narrative” for the story — and then prosecution of any criminal activity. Dorgan, who is finishing up his third term in the Senate, is also an author. His latest book, published in May, is titled: “Reckless! How Debt, Deregulation and Dark Money Nearly Bankrupted America and How We Can Fix It” . In it, he writes about the government’s obligation to right the tilted playing field of modern free-market capitalism, which currently favors the major players over regular folk. He writes: Every day we see energy speculators, war profiteers, managed health-care providers, media propagandists, and/or financiers given some unfair advantage over the average consumers and taxpayers, and the cumulative effect of the American people watching selfishness prevail over the public interest has been an undermining of the public’s trust in government. This “anything goes” approach to capitalism has injured the very economy we have aspired to create. It is a philosophy that corporations and markets can be counted on to police themselves…. I’m a big fan of the free-market system. I don’t know of any better method of allocating the goods and services. But in a free- market economy it is not unusual to see the big interests pitted against the little guy. When they are allowed to run unchecked or to rig the system, the big interests have the potential to drag down the very economy they need to remain stable and healthy. That is why it is so important we fight for a new era of reform and change to put our country back on track — giving working people and small businesses the voice and the power to make the changes necessary. This is not about a liberal or conservative philosophy. It is about making sure our economy and the free-market system work for everybody. “There’s no question the system is rigged against the little guy,” Dorgan told me. “The bigger interests have a lot more information. They jerry-rig the system so that they always win.” “I think that has to be one of the lessons that comes out of this experience,” he said, noting that it’s been “one of the most expensive lessons in the history of our country.” As for what motivated him back in 1999, Dorgan said: “I just felt that merging the risks of investment banks with FDIC-insured banks was going to cause very expensive problems for the taxpayers of the country. And it turns out that’s exactly what happened.” WATCH: Here’s Dylan Ratigan “celebrating” the 10th birthday of the Glass-Steagall repeal. Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News , World News , and News about the Economy * * * * * * * * * * * * A message from Dan about how to find me: You can find my latest posts on this page , or you can subscribe to this RSS feed . You can also get an e-mail alert as soon as I post by creating a HuffPost Account (or logging in , if you have one already) and becoming one of my “fans” . Make sure you also click on “Get Email Alerts from this Reporter” — so that on this page , the little box next to “Notify me when a blogger I’m a fan of writes a new post” is checked. You can also follow me on Twitter , or Facebook . And I always welcome your emails at froomkin@huffingtonpost.com .

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Martin Varsavsky: Why it may make sense to buy Skype back

November 6, 2009

Image via Wikipedia My investors at Fon (Fon is the largest WiFi network in the world and is built by its users) include most of the people and companies that were involved in the recent sale of Skype . At Fon we have eBay , Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom personally as investors and board members, Mike Volpi personally as an investor and board member, Danny Rimer as a board member and Index Ventures as an investor, and Marc Andreessen as an investor. So for me to talk about Skype after the recent dispute for the control of this company could be dangerous. But there’s no need to be concerned. This post is not about my opinions on what happened in the Skype dispute. Personally I think that Janus, Niklas, Mike, Danny and Marc are all awesome guys, amazing investors and board members. So what I will speak about in this post is strategy or how I see the future of Skype: the dangers it may face and the opportunities it may have. Before getting started I would like to say that I have been a user of Skype from the very beginning, from way before I actually met and became partners with Janus and Niklas, that I think that Skype is a remarkable product that is way ahead of the competition. While not yet a highly profitable company Skype is heavily used around the world and has certainly been a gift to humanity. Now having sent my thank you note to its founders, let’s talk business. Most communication on Skype as we all know, is totally free, only occasional calls to non Skype parties are the ones that generate the $740 million revenue run rate that allows Skype to make a living. The rest is an enormous amounts of minutes of communication that take place thanks to the amazing piece of software that is Skype. And the few minutes that are revenues are under threat from three main rivals. The first one is called Facebook . While my friends inside Facebook have not disclosed anything confidential to me, I think it is obvious that Facebook will soon have its own Skype. And what´s amazing about Facebook is that even though it produces mediocre to bad apps everyone loves their convenience and uses them. Its pictures apps is mediocre in comparison to Flickr, its email pales in comparison to Gmail and its chat is way worse than that of Skype (no file attachments, no this, no this no that), still the growth of those apps in Facebook is explosive. So much so that while I have been in Skype since 2004 and Facebook since 2006 on a recent check I had around 30 people I knew on Skype and 144 on Facebook chat. When Facebook incorporates a Skype like product, how many people will go on using Skype? Facebook is already hurting MSN big time. Moreover, Facebook is getting so big that soon there will be no Facebook Out. The threat that was Skype’s threat, namely how do you make money if everyone is on Skype and there is no need for Skype Out, is now being transferred to Facebook. But the thing is that Facebook, another gift to humanity, has a different business model, advertising, and they could really hurt Skype. The second threat to Skype is flat rate pricing from telcos around the world. Why would anyone use Skype Out if they have an all you can eat tariff on their phone? And all you can eat tariffs are more and more frequent. In Europe all ADSL plans come with flat rates to all fixed lines, and in USA flat plans to fixed and mobile plans are more and more common. There are also community plans like calling anyone on AT&T for free that turns AT&T mobile into a Skype. It is remarkable that these plans are available to visitors such as myself and my family. We are six and when we go to USA everyone gets a phone with an AT&T card and we all call each other for free on prepaid! And telcos have one big advantage and that is that you don’t need a computer to make a phone call :) The third threat is Google Voice . Google voice is interesting because it came out of the Google Talk fiasco and it shows how relentless Google is when it gets its mind set on something (disclosure Google is also an investor in Fon). What Google Voice is doing with the free phone calls attacks the very livelihood of Skype and that is Skype out. And the integration with Gmail and Gmail contacts is amazing. Skype is weak at that, it has no email. Google first copied Skype with Gtalk and it took off but not really. Google Voice is the second derivative of the Skype attack, and is going well. The $50 million acquisition of Grand Central that resulted in Google Voice stands up there with the acquisition of Keyhole that resulted in Google Maps as two of the best M&A moves of Google so far. So considering that Skype is under attack from Facebook, the largest telcos in the world and Google how can it be a good business to buy Skype? Well the key here for the new investors in Skype is not whether Skype will rule the world but whether it will be worth more than what the investors paid for it. And after giving you the cons here are some arguments and strategies in favor of the acquisition. Skype is simple. Michael Arrington and all of Silicon Valley may find Google Voice amazing but is the average global citizen ready to use it? Massively use it? You download Skype, you find your friends on Skype, you talk. And if you don’t find them you Skype out. And when you talk you can also do video. I LOVE video calls on Skype. I used to use them for people I really cared about, relatives, close friends. Now I even do business calls on video with Skype. It just gives you more of a sense of what is going through the other person´s mind. And Skype is the leader on video quality. So simplicity plus video may be a good way to beat flat plans from telcos and avoid being Tivoed. If the video services can migrate to mobile phones Skype is on to something. Skype can include advertising. If Gmail reads your emails and places ads why can´t Skype do the same thing on their chat or even their voice channels? How far are we from systems that listen to what you say and just as you finish saying “let´s go to Ibiza for the weekend” they start showing you cheap flights to Ibiza. Gmail proved that if you give people a great service they don’t care if you spy on them. That could be an enormous revenue source. So far Google has been kind to Skype even including it in the Google pack. Maybe a Google deal for advertising is in the making. Skype can conquer the business world. Facebook is not the only community in the world, there is Linked In, Xing (disclosure I was an investor in Xing) and other more business minded networks. Those “business types” work best with Skype. I believe that as Facebook squeezes everybody in its quest to Microsoft the world (Mark Zuckerberg told me that Microsoft is his model) a few “Apples” will emerge. Skype could be one of them. Apple has a tiny fraction of the PC market, Dell dwarfs it in revenues. But Apple dominates the over $1000 PC segment and dwarfs Dell in market cap. Skype could position itself as the communicator of choice for businesses. And that has tremendous value. Bottom line, the jury is still out. I have no doubt that Skype now has tremendous brain power. But it will need it all to succeed. Good luck Janus, Niklas and Marc!

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