Monday, November 29, 2010

Making Money in Wotlk


http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/alpine-payment-systems-c270446.html


http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/alpine-payment-systems-c270446.html


http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/alpine-payment-systems-c270446.html


Kara Dioguardi Without Makeup (&amp; Other <b>News</b>) - Starpulse.com

Kara Dioguardi showed up to the opening night of Cinderella at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood last night looking almost unrecognizable with hardly any makeup or hair styling. Looks like l...

Simpsons Fox <b>News</b> | Simpsons O&#39;Reilly | Simpsons Fox <b>News</b> Joke <b>...</b>

Last night, for the second week in a row, The Simpsons took a shot at corporate cousin Fox News. However, if you're clicking over to Hulu or Fox's websites to check out this week's helicopter gag, you're going to be disappointed.

Leslie Nielsen, &#39;Airplane!&#39; and &#39;Naked Gun&#39; star, dies at 84 <b>...</b>

Leslie Nielsen, who dazzled with deadpan in The Naked Gun and Airplane!, passed away on Sunday at a hospital near his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he...


http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/alpine-payment-systems-c270446.html


http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/alpine-payment-systems-c270446.html


http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/alpine-payment-systems-c270446.html


http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/alpine-payment-systems-c270446.html












Saturday, November 27, 2010

Making Money Advertising


    

OH, THANK HEAVEN� BIPARTISANSHIP IS DELICIOUS: OpenSecrets.org's own  Megan Wilson reports that 7-Eleven, the maker of the frozen Slurpee beverage, is cashing in on President Barack Obama�s joke that Republicans have been �sipping on Slurpees� while Democrats have been hard at work. A "Slurpee Summit" was suggested to unite the two parties at the White House, and 7-Eleven took over.

Starting in its headquarters city of Dallas, the company began a tour that eventually led them to Washington D.C.�s Union Station on Thursday  -- one of the closest Metro stops to the U.S. Capitol -- where the company gave out free Slurpees and T-shirts that stated, �Party animals unite.� It features an elephant silhouette lifting a Slurpee to a donkey silhouette.

� John Boehner and Obama rescheduled their Slurpee summit, but we didn�t,� said one 7-Eleven worker handing out the free shirts as he smiled.

�D.C. OR BUST� read a sign posted on the portable Slurpee dispenser outside the popular Metro stop.

7-Eleven is a modest financial player in politics, with its political action committee usually donating around $10,000 to $20,000 to federal candidates each election cycle. However the PAC has not donated money during the 2010 election cycle. 7-Eleven spent more than $1.25 million on lobbying from 1999 to 2006 when it ended its federal lobbying presence. 7-Eleven became a subsidiary to Seven & I Holdings Co. in 2005, and since 2007 it has spent $510,000 on lobbying. In 2010, Seven & I Holdings was the 35th highest lobbying spender within the retail industry, according to the Center's research.

In the 2008 election cycle, its corporate PAC gave $9,500 to federal-level candidates -- 10 Republicans and four Democrats. It also gave $500 to Texas Republican Rep. Michael Burgess�s PAC, the Lone Star Leadership PAC.  In that same cycle, 7-Eleven�s corporate PAC received a $9,000 donation from Shell Oil.

According to the company, it sells enough Slurpees each year to fill 12 Olympic-size swimming pools.


CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS IN THE NEWS: The Center's annual release of congressional members' personal finance reports was released on Wednesday and since then has been picked up by most major news organization in the nation.

Highlights include the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters, CBS News, CNBC, Fox News and National Public Radio. On Wednesday, the Center for Responsive Politics was on the comedy show, The Colbert Report, as host Steven Colbert used the Center's website to show Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) is "the guy who gets the most cash from the oil industry."

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org. 

News broke late yesterday that Lance Tokuda is stepping down from his role as chief executive of social game- and app-maker RockYou. Coming barely more than a month after the company announced substantial layoffs, we started wondering where RockYou is headed. So I got on the phone with chief operating officer Lisa Marino to find out.


Marino emphasized that both Tokuda’s decision (he will remain at RockYou working on “innovation and strategic initiatives”) and the layoffs were part of a larger reorganization at RockYou as it focuses on social games. The company was already making games, such as Zoo World, but Marino said it was doing too many other things — if you asked people in the industry what RockYou did, you’d get “a mixed bag of answers.”


So RockYou laid off part of its workforce (it never said how much), hired new employees with what Marino called “the right DNA to build the good games” (such as former EA executive Jonathan Knight), and in the last month alone, it shut down more than 50 applications. RockYou has become “a really different place,” Marino said.


And we’ll see the fruits of this new focus in the next few months, she added, as RockYou unveils new products that will make it “very relevant” in the social games industry.


When I asked how RockYou hopes to stand out against giants like Zynga, Marino said the company isn’t just a game-maker. Yes, it’s focused on making games, but it’s also “a social entertainment company”. There’s a media and advertising side to RockYou’s business, which it uses to make money from its own games (so it’s not just tied to virtual goods) and to help other developers do the same.


“This was an aggressive move and a proactive move,” Marino said. “We’ve got a lot of money in the bank.”


Revenue is still strong, she added, with RockYou set to make more money in the fourth quarter of 2010 than it did in Q3 or Q2 (but not as much as Q1).


RockYou has raised $127 million in funding, so if its investors (including Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners) want to see a healthy return, they’ll need a bigger exit than rival Slide’s $228 million acquisition by Google.


Tokuda’s departure from the CEO role fit into that restructuring, Marino said, and it also came from his realization that as the company grows, it will need a “been here, done that” CEO with more experience growing organizations. For now, Marino and the rest of the current executive team are managing RockYou while the company searches for a replacement.


“Because the management team is doing well, we have the luxury of being patient to find the right candidate,” she said.


[Photo of Lance Tokuda at the Facebook Developer Garage via Flickr/Niall Kennedy]


Next Story: Google Wave to ride again as open source Apache project Previous Story: Idiocy: EPA rates 2011 Nissan Leaf ‘gas mileage’ at 99 MPG




bench craft company reviews

<b>News</b> - Jennifer Aniston, Chelsea Handler Flaunt Bikini Bods in <b>...</b>

The new BFFs show off their curves while celebrating Thanksgiving abroad.

Last Look: Style <b>News</b> You Might Have Missed (PHOTOS, POLL)

Welcome to Last Look, where we round up the Style scraps that didn't make it to our news page this week. Click through and catch up on what else happened since Monday!

Minecraft dev explains sales transparency PC <b>News</b> - Page 1 <b>...</b>

Read our PC news of Minecraft dev explains sales transparency.


bench craft company reviews

<b>News</b> - Jennifer Aniston, Chelsea Handler Flaunt Bikini Bods in <b>...</b>

The new BFFs show off their curves while celebrating Thanksgiving abroad.

Last Look: Style <b>News</b> You Might Have Missed (PHOTOS, POLL)

Welcome to Last Look, where we round up the Style scraps that didn't make it to our news page this week. Click through and catch up on what else happened since Monday!

Minecraft dev explains sales transparency PC <b>News</b> - Page 1 <b>...</b>

Read our PC news of Minecraft dev explains sales transparency.


bench craft company reviews

    

OH, THANK HEAVEN� BIPARTISANSHIP IS DELICIOUS: OpenSecrets.org's own  Megan Wilson reports that 7-Eleven, the maker of the frozen Slurpee beverage, is cashing in on President Barack Obama�s joke that Republicans have been �sipping on Slurpees� while Democrats have been hard at work. A "Slurpee Summit" was suggested to unite the two parties at the White House, and 7-Eleven took over.

Starting in its headquarters city of Dallas, the company began a tour that eventually led them to Washington D.C.�s Union Station on Thursday  -- one of the closest Metro stops to the U.S. Capitol -- where the company gave out free Slurpees and T-shirts that stated, �Party animals unite.� It features an elephant silhouette lifting a Slurpee to a donkey silhouette.

� John Boehner and Obama rescheduled their Slurpee summit, but we didn�t,� said one 7-Eleven worker handing out the free shirts as he smiled.

�D.C. OR BUST� read a sign posted on the portable Slurpee dispenser outside the popular Metro stop.

7-Eleven is a modest financial player in politics, with its political action committee usually donating around $10,000 to $20,000 to federal candidates each election cycle. However the PAC has not donated money during the 2010 election cycle. 7-Eleven spent more than $1.25 million on lobbying from 1999 to 2006 when it ended its federal lobbying presence. 7-Eleven became a subsidiary to Seven & I Holdings Co. in 2005, and since 2007 it has spent $510,000 on lobbying. In 2010, Seven & I Holdings was the 35th highest lobbying spender within the retail industry, according to the Center's research.

In the 2008 election cycle, its corporate PAC gave $9,500 to federal-level candidates -- 10 Republicans and four Democrats. It also gave $500 to Texas Republican Rep. Michael Burgess�s PAC, the Lone Star Leadership PAC.  In that same cycle, 7-Eleven�s corporate PAC received a $9,000 donation from Shell Oil.

According to the company, it sells enough Slurpees each year to fill 12 Olympic-size swimming pools.


CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS IN THE NEWS: The Center's annual release of congressional members' personal finance reports was released on Wednesday and since then has been picked up by most major news organization in the nation.

Highlights include the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters, CBS News, CNBC, Fox News and National Public Radio. On Wednesday, the Center for Responsive Politics was on the comedy show, The Colbert Report, as host Steven Colbert used the Center's website to show Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) is "the guy who gets the most cash from the oil industry."

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org. 

News broke late yesterday that Lance Tokuda is stepping down from his role as chief executive of social game- and app-maker RockYou. Coming barely more than a month after the company announced substantial layoffs, we started wondering where RockYou is headed. So I got on the phone with chief operating officer Lisa Marino to find out.


Marino emphasized that both Tokuda’s decision (he will remain at RockYou working on “innovation and strategic initiatives”) and the layoffs were part of a larger reorganization at RockYou as it focuses on social games. The company was already making games, such as Zoo World, but Marino said it was doing too many other things — if you asked people in the industry what RockYou did, you’d get “a mixed bag of answers.”


So RockYou laid off part of its workforce (it never said how much), hired new employees with what Marino called “the right DNA to build the good games” (such as former EA executive Jonathan Knight), and in the last month alone, it shut down more than 50 applications. RockYou has become “a really different place,” Marino said.


And we’ll see the fruits of this new focus in the next few months, she added, as RockYou unveils new products that will make it “very relevant” in the social games industry.


When I asked how RockYou hopes to stand out against giants like Zynga, Marino said the company isn’t just a game-maker. Yes, it’s focused on making games, but it’s also “a social entertainment company”. There’s a media and advertising side to RockYou’s business, which it uses to make money from its own games (so it’s not just tied to virtual goods) and to help other developers do the same.


“This was an aggressive move and a proactive move,” Marino said. “We’ve got a lot of money in the bank.”


Revenue is still strong, she added, with RockYou set to make more money in the fourth quarter of 2010 than it did in Q3 or Q2 (but not as much as Q1).


RockYou has raised $127 million in funding, so if its investors (including Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners) want to see a healthy return, they’ll need a bigger exit than rival Slide’s $228 million acquisition by Google.


Tokuda’s departure from the CEO role fit into that restructuring, Marino said, and it also came from his realization that as the company grows, it will need a “been here, done that” CEO with more experience growing organizations. For now, Marino and the rest of the current executive team are managing RockYou while the company searches for a replacement.


“Because the management team is doing well, we have the luxury of being patient to find the right candidate,” she said.


[Photo of Lance Tokuda at the Facebook Developer Garage via Flickr/Niall Kennedy]


Next Story: Google Wave to ride again as open source Apache project Previous Story: Idiocy: EPA rates 2011 Nissan Leaf ‘gas mileage’ at 99 MPG




bench craft company reviews

<b>News</b> - Jennifer Aniston, Chelsea Handler Flaunt Bikini Bods in <b>...</b>

The new BFFs show off their curves while celebrating Thanksgiving abroad.

Last Look: Style <b>News</b> You Might Have Missed (PHOTOS, POLL)

Welcome to Last Look, where we round up the Style scraps that didn't make it to our news page this week. Click through and catch up on what else happened since Monday!

Minecraft dev explains sales transparency PC <b>News</b> - Page 1 <b>...</b>

Read our PC news of Minecraft dev explains sales transparency.


bench craft company reviews

<b>News</b> - Jennifer Aniston, Chelsea Handler Flaunt Bikini Bods in <b>...</b>

The new BFFs show off their curves while celebrating Thanksgiving abroad.

Last Look: Style <b>News</b> You Might Have Missed (PHOTOS, POLL)

Welcome to Last Look, where we round up the Style scraps that didn't make it to our news page this week. Click through and catch up on what else happened since Monday!

Minecraft dev explains sales transparency PC <b>News</b> - Page 1 <b>...</b>

Read our PC news of Minecraft dev explains sales transparency.


bench craft company reviews

Friday, November 19, 2010

how to budget personal finances

bench craft company rip off

The Quizzle Story: Why Quicken Loans Created Quizzle and How It Got Its Name by QuizzleTown


bench craft company rip off

Middle East violence increases « Liveshots

Another cycle of violence in the Middle East as Israel strikes targets in Gaza in retaliation.

Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

More on Fox <b>News</b>, David Henderson | EconLog | Library of Economics <b>...</b>

I had had hopes for the Fox News Channel as an advocate of smaller government, hopes somewhat justified by evidence. But their treatment of Ron Paul has been off the charts. Chris Wallace has been absolutely vicious - at one point, ...


bench craft company rip off

The Quizzle Story: Why Quicken Loans Created Quizzle and How It Got Its Name by QuizzleTown


bench craft company rip off

Middle East violence increases « Liveshots

Another cycle of violence in the Middle East as Israel strikes targets in Gaza in retaliation.

Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

More on Fox <b>News</b>, David Henderson | EconLog | Library of Economics <b>...</b>

I had had hopes for the Fox News Channel as an advocate of smaller government, hopes somewhat justified by evidence. But their treatment of Ron Paul has been off the charts. Chris Wallace has been absolutely vicious - at one point, ...


bench craft company rip off

Middle East violence increases « Liveshots

Another cycle of violence in the Middle East as Israel strikes targets in Gaza in retaliation.

Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

More on Fox <b>News</b>, David Henderson | EconLog | Library of Economics <b>...</b>

I had had hopes for the Fox News Channel as an advocate of smaller government, hopes somewhat justified by evidence. But their treatment of Ron Paul has been off the charts. Chris Wallace has been absolutely vicious - at one point, ...


bench craft company rip off

Middle East violence increases « Liveshots

Another cycle of violence in the Middle East as Israel strikes targets in Gaza in retaliation.

Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

More on Fox <b>News</b>, David Henderson | EconLog | Library of Economics <b>...</b>

I had had hopes for the Fox News Channel as an advocate of smaller government, hopes somewhat justified by evidence. But their treatment of Ron Paul has been off the charts. Chris Wallace has been absolutely vicious - at one point, ...


bench craft company rip off

Middle East violence increases « Liveshots

Another cycle of violence in the Middle East as Israel strikes targets in Gaza in retaliation.

Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

More on Fox <b>News</b>, David Henderson | EconLog | Library of Economics <b>...</b>

I had had hopes for the Fox News Channel as an advocate of smaller government, hopes somewhat justified by evidence. But their treatment of Ron Paul has been off the charts. Chris Wallace has been absolutely vicious - at one point, ...


bench craft company rip off

The Quizzle Story: Why Quicken Loans Created Quizzle and How It Got Its Name by QuizzleTown


bench craft company rip off
bench craft company rip off

Middle East violence increases « Liveshots

Another cycle of violence in the Middle East as Israel strikes targets in Gaza in retaliation.

Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

More on Fox <b>News</b>, David Henderson | EconLog | Library of Economics <b>...</b>

I had had hopes for the Fox News Channel as an advocate of smaller government, hopes somewhat justified by evidence. But their treatment of Ron Paul has been off the charts. Chris Wallace has been absolutely vicious - at one point, ...


bench craft company rip off

bench craft company rip off

Middle East violence increases « Liveshots

Another cycle of violence in the Middle East as Israel strikes targets in Gaza in retaliation.

Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

More on Fox <b>News</b>, David Henderson | EconLog | Library of Economics <b>...</b>

I had had hopes for the Fox News Channel as an advocate of smaller government, hopes somewhat justified by evidence. But their treatment of Ron Paul has been off the charts. Chris Wallace has been absolutely vicious - at one point, ...


bench craft company rip off

Middle East violence increases « Liveshots

Another cycle of violence in the Middle East as Israel strikes targets in Gaza in retaliation.

Good <b>news</b>: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens <b>...</b>

Good news: James Bond and Indiana Jones hooking up to fight aliens.

More on Fox <b>News</b>, David Henderson | EconLog | Library of Economics <b>...</b>

I had had hopes for the Fox News Channel as an advocate of smaller government, hopes somewhat justified by evidence. But their treatment of Ron Paul has been off the charts. Chris Wallace has been absolutely vicious - at one point, ...


bench craft company rip off

Small Business <b>News</b>: SMB Blogging and Social Media Basics

Far from a fad, a new blogging and social media infrastructure has emerged and is still being built and becoming a part of the new hierarchy can be important to.

Fox <b>News</b> Commentators Caught On Camera Mocking Sarah Palin&#39;s Show <b>...</b>

WASHINGTON -- The Fox News channel has been something of a safe haven for Sarah Palin, the type of outlet that provided the former Alaska Governor not only with a friendly audience but similarly kind questions.

Fox <b>News</b> Decoded - Swampland - TIME.com

What do you do to amp ratings after you've won a big victory at the polls and the public has wandered off to start celebrating the holidays? At Fox News, the answer is obvious: you up the ante.


bench craft company rip off

Police <b>News</b> at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the <b>...</b>

1 Tweets that mention Police News at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics -- Topsy.com. Pingback on Nov 19th, 2010 at 3:23 am. 2 Police News at ...

Small Business <b>News</b>: SMB Blogging and Social Media Basics

Far from a fad, a new blogging and social media infrastructure has emerged and is still being built and becoming a part of the new hierarchy can be important to.

More on Fox <b>News</b>, David Henderson | EconLog | Library of Economics <b>...</b>

I had had hopes for the Fox News Channel as an advocate of smaller government, hopes somewhat justified by evidence. But their treatment of Ron Paul has been off the charts. Chris Wallace has been absolutely vicious - at one point, ...


bench craft company rip off

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Leonardo DiCaprio to Star in New JFK <b>...</b>

Do you find Wall-E and Eve so adorable you just want to eat them? Now you can thanks to Charm City Cakes. - Warner Bros.

Photos Implant &#39;Memories&#39; of Fictional <b>News</b> Events | Smart <b>...</b>

Participants in a study were far more likely to “remember” a fictional news event when a headline was accompanied by a tangentially relevant photograph.

Fox <b>News</b> President: Jon Stewart Is Crazy And NPR Is Run By Nazis <b>...</b>

The second part of The Daily Beast's interview with Fox News president Roger Ailes is out today, and Ailes' encore doesn't disappoint. He responded harshly to Jon Stewart's pervasive criticism of cable news and had some tough, ...


bench craft company rip off

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Companies Making Money

eric seiger

cloudhugh_2 by labsji


eric seiger

The Newsonomics of <b>news</b> anywhere » Nieman Journalism Lab

News Anywhere, or unified news, or All-Access, whatever we want to call it, demands the singular focus, product development and messaging that Netflix, HBO, Comcast, and Facebook are bringing to it. Those are all skills that have been ...

Ominous Colts Injury <b>News</b> From Phil Wilson UPDATE Collie Cleared <b>...</b>

Phil Wilson Tweets some ominous news on the injury front for the Colts.

Good <b>News</b>, College Grads (Except Lawyers)!

Moderately good news, unemployed college graduates! A new report on hiring trends says that hiring of graduates with bachelor's degrees or MBAs will surge by 10% next year. Green shoots! As long as you didn't go to law school.


eric seiger

cloudhugh_2 by labsji


eric seiger

The Newsonomics of <b>news</b> anywhere » Nieman Journalism Lab

News Anywhere, or unified news, or All-Access, whatever we want to call it, demands the singular focus, product development and messaging that Netflix, HBO, Comcast, and Facebook are bringing to it. Those are all skills that have been ...

Ominous Colts Injury <b>News</b> From Phil Wilson UPDATE Collie Cleared <b>...</b>

Phil Wilson Tweets some ominous news on the injury front for the Colts.

Good <b>News</b>, College Grads (Except Lawyers)!

Moderately good news, unemployed college graduates! A new report on hiring trends says that hiring of graduates with bachelor's degrees or MBAs will surge by 10% next year. Green shoots! As long as you didn't go to law school.


eric seiger

The Newsonomics of <b>news</b> anywhere » Nieman Journalism Lab

News Anywhere, or unified news, or All-Access, whatever we want to call it, demands the singular focus, product development and messaging that Netflix, HBO, Comcast, and Facebook are bringing to it. Those are all skills that have been ...

Ominous Colts Injury <b>News</b> From Phil Wilson UPDATE Collie Cleared <b>...</b>

Phil Wilson Tweets some ominous news on the injury front for the Colts.

Good <b>News</b>, College Grads (Except Lawyers)!

Moderately good news, unemployed college graduates! A new report on hiring trends says that hiring of graduates with bachelor's degrees or MBAs will surge by 10% next year. Green shoots! As long as you didn't go to law school.


eric seiger

The Newsonomics of <b>news</b> anywhere » Nieman Journalism Lab

News Anywhere, or unified news, or All-Access, whatever we want to call it, demands the singular focus, product development and messaging that Netflix, HBO, Comcast, and Facebook are bringing to it. Those are all skills that have been ...

Ominous Colts Injury <b>News</b> From Phil Wilson UPDATE Collie Cleared <b>...</b>

Phil Wilson Tweets some ominous news on the injury front for the Colts.

Good <b>News</b>, College Grads (Except Lawyers)!

Moderately good news, unemployed college graduates! A new report on hiring trends says that hiring of graduates with bachelor's degrees or MBAs will surge by 10% next year. Green shoots! As long as you didn't go to law school.


eric seiger
eric seiger

cloudhugh_2 by labsji


eric seiger
eric seiger

The Newsonomics of <b>news</b> anywhere » Nieman Journalism Lab

News Anywhere, or unified news, or All-Access, whatever we want to call it, demands the singular focus, product development and messaging that Netflix, HBO, Comcast, and Facebook are bringing to it. Those are all skills that have been ...

Ominous Colts Injury <b>News</b> From Phil Wilson UPDATE Collie Cleared <b>...</b>

Phil Wilson Tweets some ominous news on the injury front for the Colts.

Good <b>News</b>, College Grads (Except Lawyers)!

Moderately good news, unemployed college graduates! A new report on hiring trends says that hiring of graduates with bachelor's degrees or MBAs will surge by 10% next year. Green shoots! As long as you didn't go to law school.


Wednesday, November 17, 2010

personal finances help



The Asian Development Bank has roped in the European Investment Bank to invest in large-scale solar power plants in India. The ADB is committed to arrange finances for India’s ambitious National Solar Mission projects.


The Asian Development Bank has been working closely with many Asian countries to provide them financial, technical and policy-related support for expanding solar energy infrastructure. The ADB is playing an active role in India to make solar energy more popular. In addition to the European Investment Bank, the ADB has also attracted funding from the US Import-Export Bank and Germany’s KWF.


Under the National Solar Mission, India plans to install 20,000 MW solar-based power generation capacity by 2022. The current install capacity is a dismal 14 MW. The 20,000 MW capacity also includes the off-grid rural power plants. In order to rapidly increase the installed capacity the Indian government has announced two massive solar farm projects, one each in Rajasthan and Gujarat.


Both these states are blessed with substantially high solar radiation resource and also have large areas of unused lands due to lower agricultural land use. Rajasthan has the vast Thar desert while Gujarat has vast wastelands in the west. Gujarat has set aside 2,500 hectare for a 1,000 MW plant while Rajasthan has set aside 8,000 hectare for a 3,000 MW plant. Construction of these plants is expected to start after 2013, that is, during the second phase of the National Solar Mission.


The ADB is also supporting the project developers who intend to set up power plants during the first phase. The first phase aims at installing 1,1o0 MW by 2013; ADB will support 350 MW of these installations. The smaller power plants have been provided with 50 percent loan guarantees and project developers will also provided direct loans.


The Asian Development Bank has been working closely with several ministries of the Indian government to devise overall policies and logistical support mechanism in order to make the solar energy projects commercially viable. The bank would also provide capital grants to cover up the difference between the cost of solar power generation and the average cost of generation from conventional sources.


Such collaborations with international funding agencies help in bridging the financial gap that exists for any new renewable energy technologies. In the absence of a clear agreement on international funding as part of an international climate change treaty, such partnerships with European and American banks helps in the quick implementation of these clean technology projects in the developing countries.


Image: technicolorcavalry/Flickr/CC


The views presented in the above article are author’s personal views and do not represent those of TERI/TERI University where the author is currently pursuing a Master’s degree.


Follow Mridul Chadha on Twitter and Facebook

Consumers bewildered by a rash of resetting rates on loans and various outstanding credit lines now have the same tools banks have to aggregate all their debt in one place, after free online personal finance tool Credit Sesame launched a beta version today to help users get a complete financial snapshot all in one place.


Previously only available to banks or brokers, Credit Sesame uses an in-house loan analytics engine to help users instantly view their credit and debt in one place, while monitoring and tracking often baffling financial information like their credit score, home value and debt-to-income ratio simultaneously.


The news that they can now take their finances fully into their own hands is part of a continuing trend of consumers sick of commercial banks pushing their own complementary loan products on them — or who may just be sick of their bank or broker all together.


Under the company’s system, users are first asked to register their portfolios using the same security technology and encryption methods as banks and financial institutions use, and then Credit Sesame automatically retrieves users’ relevant data like debt, credit, and mortgages so that they don’t have to enter their information manually.


They can then fiddle with Credit Sesame’s tools to set personal goal parameters; see and apply for a wide variety of loans that may fit their restructuring needs; and even create a “what if” scenario that allows them to view multiple scenarios for potential savings or loans based on changes to a user’s financial situation such as a divorce or a job loss.


By using complex algorithms and portfolio “depth” testing, the new beta site will now create 5,000 scenarios with thousands of lending products to help each user find the three best pre-qualified solutions—saving an average user hundreds of dollars a month as they streamline their finances via the web ecosphere.


“We find homeowners as much as $600 a month in savings through restructuring, refinancing and new pre-qualified low-interest loan offers,” said Adrian Nazari, CEO and founder of Credit Sesame. “That’s $7,200 of yearly savings. If that money was put toward debt repayment, imagine how much faster that loan would be paid off and how much money would be saved. The opportunities are out there.”


Since launching to private testers in September, Credit Sesame currently manages $250 million in loans and has generated more than $18 million in lifetime savings for its users.


Once registered, the site will continue delivering a free monthly credit score and instant alerts when more optimal savings opportunities become available.


Next Story: Hulu Plus officially launches at $7.99 a month, now on Roku boxes Previous Story: The many definitions of a VC’s no – Part Two




alpine payment systems scam

Scripting <b>News</b>: Design challenge: River of <b>News</b> in HTML

Design challenge: River of News in HTML. By Dave Winer on Tuesday, November 16, 2010 at 8:13 PM. I'm a big believer in designers, programmers, writers, artists, news people all working together. Permanent link to this item in the ...

Was Tony Parker Cheating? Mystery Teammate&#39;s Wife Revealed... Erin <b>...</b>

The father of San Antonio Spurs star Brent Barry -- whose wife Erin is reportedly the other woman in a Tony Parker love triangle -- tells TMZ he's worried that Brent will be "devastated" by the news. Tony Parker Cheating With Brent ...

Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> And Views About China Stocks (Nov. 18 <b>...</b>

Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: Shanghai's main stock index fell 1.9% yesterday amid concerns about the impact of government efforts to slow down ...



12th Annual Charity Golf Tournament benefitting the Eureka Camp Society-Apex Secondary School-presented by SNC LAVALIN Pacific Liaicon and Associates Benefitting the Eureka Camp Society-Apex Secondary School photos by Ron Sombilon Gallery (367) by Ron Sombilon Gallery


Scripting <b>News</b>: Design challenge: River of <b>News</b> in HTML

Design challenge: River of News in HTML. By Dave Winer on Tuesday, November 16, 2010 at 8:13 PM. I'm a big believer in designers, programmers, writers, artists, news people all working together. Permanent link to this item in the ...

Was Tony Parker Cheating? Mystery Teammate&#39;s Wife Revealed... Erin <b>...</b>

The father of San Antonio Spurs star Brent Barry -- whose wife Erin is reportedly the other woman in a Tony Parker love triangle -- tells TMZ he's worried that Brent will be "devastated" by the news. Tony Parker Cheating With Brent ...

Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> And Views About China Stocks (Nov. 18 <b>...</b>

Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: Shanghai's main stock index fell 1.9% yesterday amid concerns about the impact of government efforts to slow down ...


alpine payment systems scam

Scripting <b>News</b>: Design challenge: River of <b>News</b> in HTML

Design challenge: River of News in HTML. By Dave Winer on Tuesday, November 16, 2010 at 8:13 PM. I'm a big believer in designers, programmers, writers, artists, news people all working together. Permanent link to this item in the ...

Was Tony Parker Cheating? Mystery Teammate&#39;s Wife Revealed... Erin <b>...</b>

The father of San Antonio Spurs star Brent Barry -- whose wife Erin is reportedly the other woman in a Tony Parker love triangle -- tells TMZ he's worried that Brent will be "devastated" by the news. Tony Parker Cheating With Brent ...

Lujiazui Breakfast: <b>News</b> And Views About China Stocks (Nov. 18 <b>...</b>

Investors and traders in China's main financial district are talking about the following before the start of trade today: Shanghai's main stock index fell 1.9% yesterday amid concerns about the impact of government efforts to slow down ...


Free Making Money

 


To support a margin compression theory, the article begins by using institutional selling as proof and presents increasing Android market share as an argument. Let’s take a closer look.


 


1. Institutional Selling


The two examples provided (one institution selling and another expressing worry) are insufficient to support the conclusion that big money has started to dump Apple. What’s happening in the aggregate? Might other institutions have initiated positions or increased their holdings? Unless this table (http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/holdings.asp?symbol=AAPL&selected=AAPL&FormType=Institutional) is out of date (It does include Capital Growth Management’s sale.), there is no significant net change in the number of shares held by institutions.


 


Now, one could argue that CGM’s Heebner and FEAM’s Obuchowski are such stellar managers that their opinion warrants special attention. Well, Heebner’s CGM Focus fund is only a two-star Morningstar rated fund (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=CGMFX+Profile). Heebner “knows how to count”, as the author writes, I suppose, but he doesn’t know how to outperform; Obuchowski’s FEAM50 (http://www.1empiream.com/FEAM50_Q3%2010.pdf) and APA125 (http://www.1empiream.com/apa.htm) funds have beaten their benchmark. However, he’s expressed concern about holding Apple two years from now. He hasn’t sold yet.


 


The article hence doesn’t provide either quantitative (as the number of shares held has not changed significantly) or qualitative (as no star manager is cited as selling) evidence of big money starting to dump Apple because of margin compression. For the one under performing manager cited for selling, no reason is provided. As a matter of fact, there’s no evidence for net institutional selling of Apple, period.


 


2. Increased Android Market Share


With a 35% profit share in 2009 (http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-revenue-vs-operating-pro...), the hardware industry's highest, hasn’t Apple been successful in the personal computer market? I would say so, and yet it had only captured a 7% market share. How has it accomplished this feat? By offering something different that consumers value at a premium.


 


The author writes: “Jobs also (understandably) failed to mention that the “commodity’ Androids materially outperform the iOS products in terms of features and functionality. This is pretty much in direct contravention to the concept of the term “commodity”, isn’t it???? I don’t think many Samsung Galaxy S, Droid X or HTC Evo owners will characterize their devices as “commodities”.”


 


A product’s characterization as a commodity is not a function of the quality of its features and functionality or user opinions thereof. The Android clones are commodities because there’s fundamentally little difference between them. One might have a bigger screen, another longer battery life, and yet another a thinner form factor, but they all run the same OS and hence offer the same functionality. If an innovative feature proves popular, it can quickly be duplicated. There’s little that sets one phone apart from the other. They are interchangeable. As such, they must compete on price. You might prefer the Galaxy S, but settle for a Droid if its price is sufficiently lower to sway you. Their makers will generate lower profit margins, just like Windows PC makers.


 


The iPhone, on the other hand, offers something different: superior aesthetics, greater ease of use, no bloatware, superior integration with related products (Mac & iPad), a certain prestige, but mainly a distinct OS. It offers the whole package. Its hardware competitors might best or equal some features, but not the whole. If you value this different product, you can only buy from Apple. By maintaining full control of the iPhone experience, Apple prevents it from becoming a commodity like all the Android clones and, so long as it’s able to produce a superior experience on the whole, ensures premium pricing and high profit margins.


 


The author also writes: “…its business model may prove unassailable unless Apple makes some drastic changes (ex. allowing cloning)…”


 


What if Apple did pursue the Google model and licensed its OS? If it allowed iOS clones, it would cannibalize its sales and its margins would be obliterated, as it would lose its main differentiator. Would it be able to keep generating a $238 profit per phone (http://www.asymco.com/2010/10/31/making-it-up-in-volume-how-to-view-unit-profitability-vs-volume-in-handsets/)? In light of the fact that Google is giving Android away, it’s highly unlikely.


 


Android has already won. The battle for market or unit share, that is. Apple will henceforth never sell as many phones. That’s OK because Apple will probably keep generating the lion’s share of profits (http://www.asymco.com/2010/10/30/last-quarter-apple-gained-4-unit-share-22-sales-value-share-and-48-of-profit-share/) by executing a business model proven successful with the Mac.


 


As it reaches critical mass, Google’s model might indeed become unassailable. No other company will beat Google at its game. Apple has chosen to play a different game that might also be unassailable. They’re two different ways to win. Google will attempt to monetize Android through market share dominance, while Apple will maintain its profit share dominance among hardware makers through innovation and differentiation. Apple’s margins will suffer significantly only if it’s unable to keep offering something different, valued at a premium by consumers.


 


In short, the article fails to show an institutional dump of Apple shares. It doesn’t even show that the one (marginally competent) institutional manager mentioned for selling did so because of expected margin compression. Moreover, it is misguided in using Android’s unit share dominance to deduce margin compression at Apple. Apple’s profit margin will only suffer significant compression if it fails in the execution of its business model.


 


To further the analysis, is Google’s licensing model superior to Apple’s integrated model, as many seem to believe? In the personal computer market, Microsoft made money by selling Windows to hardware makers. In the mobile phone market, Google is giving Android away, while planning to monetize market share dominance through services (search and others). The hurdles it faces with this model are not insignificant. Its lack of control over its OS is a liability: witness Verizon’s pre-installation of Bing on some Android phones (http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Bing-Wont-Be-Exclusive-On-All-Android-Phones-110294). Its platform is a customizable OS that hardware makers and wireless carriers can tailor to suit their own ends, which may be to Google’s detriment, and they don’t have to pay for it. Its success is far from assured. Might Google be going back to producing its own branded phone because its current strategy is proving difficult to monetize (http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/11/this-is-the-nexus-s/)?


 


Apple, on the other hand, is already monetizing the iPhone. As a matter of fact, it made as much money in Q3 2010 as all other phone makers combined (http://www.asymco.com/2010/10/30/last-quarter-apple-gained-4-unit-share-22-sales-value-share-and-48-of-profit-share/), in spite  of commanding only 4% market share. Apple won both the unit share and profit share battle in MP3 players with the iPod, as no worthy competitor came forth. This is not the case in smart phones with the emergence of Android. Nonetheless, the Mac, with 35% of PC profit share in spite of only 7% market share, has proven that Apple’s model can thrive even in the face of strong competition. 


 






Here's one way to make the mortgage mess work for you: According to The Wall Street Journal, the slowdown in foreclosures due to questions about paperwork, note-holders and robo-signers has allowed some homeowners to live mortgage-free for several months; some are even renting out their homes. The Journal estimates that the "stealth stimulus" gives these homeowners a "subsidy" of about $2.6 billion a month.



According to the Journal, some homeowners in states such as New York and Florida can stay in their homes for more than six months while legal issues are worked out. And if the money they're not spending on their mortgages goes into the local economy, "it's probably stimulative," said economist Ivy Zelman. Then there are those who've turned their homes into new sources of income:



Some homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgage payments are cashing in by renting out their homes. Joe Mayol, a real-estate agent in Palmdale, Calif., estimates that in his area about two-thirds of houses with defaulted mortgages are occupied, and half of those by renters. "People are getting money out of these houses," he said.

Ms. Zelman says her research suggests defaulters do spend much of the money on consumer services and goods. "People are taking what they would have been spending on a mortgage and spending it somewhere else," she says.



However, the Journal is quick to add that local communities still end up getting a bad deal, since they usually can't collect property taxes on foreclosed homes, and the foreclosure crisis only adds to uncertainty about the housing market.



"I don't think that's the kind of consumer recovery we want, if the only reason they're spending a bit more is that they're not paying their other bills," Joseph Carson of AllianceBernstein told the Journal.



Stealth Stimulus: Defaulters Who Live for Free







benchcraft company scam

Pulse Brings You <b>News</b> and RSS in an Elegant Flow

Android/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...

New Yorker&#39;s Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s Daily - NYTimes.com

Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/17 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning, AP. Another round of Kansas City Chiefs news on the house. Please read responsibly.


benchcraft company scam

 


To support a margin compression theory, the article begins by using institutional selling as proof and presents increasing Android market share as an argument. Let’s take a closer look.


 


1. Institutional Selling


The two examples provided (one institution selling and another expressing worry) are insufficient to support the conclusion that big money has started to dump Apple. What’s happening in the aggregate? Might other institutions have initiated positions or increased their holdings? Unless this table (http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/holdings.asp?symbol=AAPL&selected=AAPL&FormType=Institutional) is out of date (It does include Capital Growth Management’s sale.), there is no significant net change in the number of shares held by institutions.


 


Now, one could argue that CGM’s Heebner and FEAM’s Obuchowski are such stellar managers that their opinion warrants special attention. Well, Heebner’s CGM Focus fund is only a two-star Morningstar rated fund (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=CGMFX+Profile). Heebner “knows how to count”, as the author writes, I suppose, but he doesn’t know how to outperform; Obuchowski’s FEAM50 (http://www.1empiream.com/FEAM50_Q3%2010.pdf) and APA125 (http://www.1empiream.com/apa.htm) funds have beaten their benchmark. However, he’s expressed concern about holding Apple two years from now. He hasn’t sold yet.


 


The article hence doesn’t provide either quantitative (as the number of shares held has not changed significantly) or qualitative (as no star manager is cited as selling) evidence of big money starting to dump Apple because of margin compression. For the one under performing manager cited for selling, no reason is provided. As a matter of fact, there’s no evidence for net institutional selling of Apple, period.


 


2. Increased Android Market Share


With a 35% profit share in 2009 (http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-revenue-vs-operating-pro...), the hardware industry's highest, hasn’t Apple been successful in the personal computer market? I would say so, and yet it had only captured a 7% market share. How has it accomplished this feat? By offering something different that consumers value at a premium.


 


The author writes: “Jobs also (understandably) failed to mention that the “commodity’ Androids materially outperform the iOS products in terms of features and functionality. This is pretty much in direct contravention to the concept of the term “commodity”, isn’t it???? I don’t think many Samsung Galaxy S, Droid X or HTC Evo owners will characterize their devices as “commodities”.”


 


A product’s characterization as a commodity is not a function of the quality of its features and functionality or user opinions thereof. The Android clones are commodities because there’s fundamentally little difference between them. One might have a bigger screen, another longer battery life, and yet another a thinner form factor, but they all run the same OS and hence offer the same functionality. If an innovative feature proves popular, it can quickly be duplicated. There’s little that sets one phone apart from the other. They are interchangeable. As such, they must compete on price. You might prefer the Galaxy S, but settle for a Droid if its price is sufficiently lower to sway you. Their makers will generate lower profit margins, just like Windows PC makers.


 


The iPhone, on the other hand, offers something different: superior aesthetics, greater ease of use, no bloatware, superior integration with related products (Mac & iPad), a certain prestige, but mainly a distinct OS. It offers the whole package. Its hardware competitors might best or equal some features, but not the whole. If you value this different product, you can only buy from Apple. By maintaining full control of the iPhone experience, Apple prevents it from becoming a commodity like all the Android clones and, so long as it’s able to produce a superior experience on the whole, ensures premium pricing and high profit margins.


 


The author also writes: “…its business model may prove unassailable unless Apple makes some drastic changes (ex. allowing cloning)…”


 


What if Apple did pursue the Google model and licensed its OS? If it allowed iOS clones, it would cannibalize its sales and its margins would be obliterated, as it would lose its main differentiator. Would it be able to keep generating a $238 profit per phone (http://www.asymco.com/2010/10/31/making-it-up-in-volume-how-to-view-unit-profitability-vs-volume-in-handsets/)? In light of the fact that Google is giving Android away, it’s highly unlikely.


 


Android has already won. The battle for market or unit share, that is. Apple will henceforth never sell as many phones. That’s OK because Apple will probably keep generating the lion’s share of profits (http://www.asymco.com/2010/10/30/last-quarter-apple-gained-4-unit-share-22-sales-value-share-and-48-of-profit-share/) by executing a business model proven successful with the Mac.


 


As it reaches critical mass, Google’s model might indeed become unassailable. No other company will beat Google at its game. Apple has chosen to play a different game that might also be unassailable. They’re two different ways to win. Google will attempt to monetize Android through market share dominance, while Apple will maintain its profit share dominance among hardware makers through innovation and differentiation. Apple’s margins will suffer significantly only if it’s unable to keep offering something different, valued at a premium by consumers.


 


In short, the article fails to show an institutional dump of Apple shares. It doesn’t even show that the one (marginally competent) institutional manager mentioned for selling did so because of expected margin compression. Moreover, it is misguided in using Android’s unit share dominance to deduce margin compression at Apple. Apple’s profit margin will only suffer significant compression if it fails in the execution of its business model.


 


To further the analysis, is Google’s licensing model superior to Apple’s integrated model, as many seem to believe? In the personal computer market, Microsoft made money by selling Windows to hardware makers. In the mobile phone market, Google is giving Android away, while planning to monetize market share dominance through services (search and others). The hurdles it faces with this model are not insignificant. Its lack of control over its OS is a liability: witness Verizon’s pre-installation of Bing on some Android phones (http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Bing-Wont-Be-Exclusive-On-All-Android-Phones-110294). Its platform is a customizable OS that hardware makers and wireless carriers can tailor to suit their own ends, which may be to Google’s detriment, and they don’t have to pay for it. Its success is far from assured. Might Google be going back to producing its own branded phone because its current strategy is proving difficult to monetize (http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/11/this-is-the-nexus-s/)?


 


Apple, on the other hand, is already monetizing the iPhone. As a matter of fact, it made as much money in Q3 2010 as all other phone makers combined (http://www.asymco.com/2010/10/30/last-quarter-apple-gained-4-unit-share-22-sales-value-share-and-48-of-profit-share/), in spite  of commanding only 4% market share. Apple won both the unit share and profit share battle in MP3 players with the iPod, as no worthy competitor came forth. This is not the case in smart phones with the emergence of Android. Nonetheless, the Mac, with 35% of PC profit share in spite of only 7% market share, has proven that Apple’s model can thrive even in the face of strong competition. 


 






Here's one way to make the mortgage mess work for you: According to The Wall Street Journal, the slowdown in foreclosures due to questions about paperwork, note-holders and robo-signers has allowed some homeowners to live mortgage-free for several months; some are even renting out their homes. The Journal estimates that the "stealth stimulus" gives these homeowners a "subsidy" of about $2.6 billion a month.



According to the Journal, some homeowners in states such as New York and Florida can stay in their homes for more than six months while legal issues are worked out. And if the money they're not spending on their mortgages goes into the local economy, "it's probably stimulative," said economist Ivy Zelman. Then there are those who've turned their homes into new sources of income:



Some homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgage payments are cashing in by renting out their homes. Joe Mayol, a real-estate agent in Palmdale, Calif., estimates that in his area about two-thirds of houses with defaulted mortgages are occupied, and half of those by renters. "People are getting money out of these houses," he said.

Ms. Zelman says her research suggests defaulters do spend much of the money on consumer services and goods. "People are taking what they would have been spending on a mortgage and spending it somewhere else," she says.



However, the Journal is quick to add that local communities still end up getting a bad deal, since they usually can't collect property taxes on foreclosed homes, and the foreclosure crisis only adds to uncertainty about the housing market.



"I don't think that's the kind of consumer recovery we want, if the only reason they're spending a bit more is that they're not paying their other bills," Joseph Carson of AllianceBernstein told the Journal.



Stealth Stimulus: Defaulters Who Live for Free







bench craft company scam

Pulse Brings You <b>News</b> and RSS in an Elegant Flow

Android/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...

New Yorker&#39;s Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s Daily - NYTimes.com

Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/17 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning, AP. Another round of Kansas City Chiefs news on the house. Please read responsibly.


bench craft company scam

benchcraft company scam

04 by utsavbasu1


bench craft company scam

Pulse Brings You <b>News</b> and RSS in an Elegant Flow

Android/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...

New Yorker&#39;s Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s Daily - NYTimes.com

Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/17 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning, AP. Another round of Kansas City Chiefs news on the house. Please read responsibly.


benchcraft company scam

 


To support a margin compression theory, the article begins by using institutional selling as proof and presents increasing Android market share as an argument. Let’s take a closer look.


 


1. Institutional Selling


The two examples provided (one institution selling and another expressing worry) are insufficient to support the conclusion that big money has started to dump Apple. What’s happening in the aggregate? Might other institutions have initiated positions or increased their holdings? Unless this table (http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/holdings.asp?symbol=AAPL&selected=AAPL&FormType=Institutional) is out of date (It does include Capital Growth Management’s sale.), there is no significant net change in the number of shares held by institutions.


 


Now, one could argue that CGM’s Heebner and FEAM’s Obuchowski are such stellar managers that their opinion warrants special attention. Well, Heebner’s CGM Focus fund is only a two-star Morningstar rated fund (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=CGMFX+Profile). Heebner “knows how to count”, as the author writes, I suppose, but he doesn’t know how to outperform; Obuchowski’s FEAM50 (http://www.1empiream.com/FEAM50_Q3%2010.pdf) and APA125 (http://www.1empiream.com/apa.htm) funds have beaten their benchmark. However, he’s expressed concern about holding Apple two years from now. He hasn’t sold yet.


 


The article hence doesn’t provide either quantitative (as the number of shares held has not changed significantly) or qualitative (as no star manager is cited as selling) evidence of big money starting to dump Apple because of margin compression. For the one under performing manager cited for selling, no reason is provided. As a matter of fact, there’s no evidence for net institutional selling of Apple, period.


 


2. Increased Android Market Share


With a 35% profit share in 2009 (http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-revenue-vs-operating-pro...), the hardware industry's highest, hasn’t Apple been successful in the personal computer market? I would say so, and yet it had only captured a 7% market share. How has it accomplished this feat? By offering something different that consumers value at a premium.


 


The author writes: “Jobs also (understandably) failed to mention that the “commodity’ Androids materially outperform the iOS products in terms of features and functionality. This is pretty much in direct contravention to the concept of the term “commodity”, isn’t it???? I don’t think many Samsung Galaxy S, Droid X or HTC Evo owners will characterize their devices as “commodities”.”


 


A product’s characterization as a commodity is not a function of the quality of its features and functionality or user opinions thereof. The Android clones are commodities because there’s fundamentally little difference between them. One might have a bigger screen, another longer battery life, and yet another a thinner form factor, but they all run the same OS and hence offer the same functionality. If an innovative feature proves popular, it can quickly be duplicated. There’s little that sets one phone apart from the other. They are interchangeable. As such, they must compete on price. You might prefer the Galaxy S, but settle for a Droid if its price is sufficiently lower to sway you. Their makers will generate lower profit margins, just like Windows PC makers.


 


The iPhone, on the other hand, offers something different: superior aesthetics, greater ease of use, no bloatware, superior integration with related products (Mac & iPad), a certain prestige, but mainly a distinct OS. It offers the whole package. Its hardware competitors might best or equal some features, but not the whole. If you value this different product, you can only buy from Apple. By maintaining full control of the iPhone experience, Apple prevents it from becoming a commodity like all the Android clones and, so long as it’s able to produce a superior experience on the whole, ensures premium pricing and high profit margins.


 


The author also writes: “…its business model may prove unassailable unless Apple makes some drastic changes (ex. allowing cloning)…”


 


What if Apple did pursue the Google model and licensed its OS? If it allowed iOS clones, it would cannibalize its sales and its margins would be obliterated, as it would lose its main differentiator. Would it be able to keep generating a $238 profit per phone (http://www.asymco.com/2010/10/31/making-it-up-in-volume-how-to-view-unit-profitability-vs-volume-in-handsets/)? In light of the fact that Google is giving Android away, it’s highly unlikely.


 


Android has already won. The battle for market or unit share, that is. Apple will henceforth never sell as many phones. That’s OK because Apple will probably keep generating the lion’s share of profits (http://www.asymco.com/2010/10/30/last-quarter-apple-gained-4-unit-share-22-sales-value-share-and-48-of-profit-share/) by executing a business model proven successful with the Mac.


 


As it reaches critical mass, Google’s model might indeed become unassailable. No other company will beat Google at its game. Apple has chosen to play a different game that might also be unassailable. They’re two different ways to win. Google will attempt to monetize Android through market share dominance, while Apple will maintain its profit share dominance among hardware makers through innovation and differentiation. Apple’s margins will suffer significantly only if it’s unable to keep offering something different, valued at a premium by consumers.


 


In short, the article fails to show an institutional dump of Apple shares. It doesn’t even show that the one (marginally competent) institutional manager mentioned for selling did so because of expected margin compression. Moreover, it is misguided in using Android’s unit share dominance to deduce margin compression at Apple. Apple’s profit margin will only suffer significant compression if it fails in the execution of its business model.


 


To further the analysis, is Google’s licensing model superior to Apple’s integrated model, as many seem to believe? In the personal computer market, Microsoft made money by selling Windows to hardware makers. In the mobile phone market, Google is giving Android away, while planning to monetize market share dominance through services (search and others). The hurdles it faces with this model are not insignificant. Its lack of control over its OS is a liability: witness Verizon’s pre-installation of Bing on some Android phones (http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Bing-Wont-Be-Exclusive-On-All-Android-Phones-110294). Its platform is a customizable OS that hardware makers and wireless carriers can tailor to suit their own ends, which may be to Google’s detriment, and they don’t have to pay for it. Its success is far from assured. Might Google be going back to producing its own branded phone because its current strategy is proving difficult to monetize (http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/11/this-is-the-nexus-s/)?


 


Apple, on the other hand, is already monetizing the iPhone. As a matter of fact, it made as much money in Q3 2010 as all other phone makers combined (http://www.asymco.com/2010/10/30/last-quarter-apple-gained-4-unit-share-22-sales-value-share-and-48-of-profit-share/), in spite  of commanding only 4% market share. Apple won both the unit share and profit share battle in MP3 players with the iPod, as no worthy competitor came forth. This is not the case in smart phones with the emergence of Android. Nonetheless, the Mac, with 35% of PC profit share in spite of only 7% market share, has proven that Apple’s model can thrive even in the face of strong competition. 


 






Here's one way to make the mortgage mess work for you: According to The Wall Street Journal, the slowdown in foreclosures due to questions about paperwork, note-holders and robo-signers has allowed some homeowners to live mortgage-free for several months; some are even renting out their homes. The Journal estimates that the "stealth stimulus" gives these homeowners a "subsidy" of about $2.6 billion a month.



According to the Journal, some homeowners in states such as New York and Florida can stay in their homes for more than six months while legal issues are worked out. And if the money they're not spending on their mortgages goes into the local economy, "it's probably stimulative," said economist Ivy Zelman. Then there are those who've turned their homes into new sources of income:



Some homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgage payments are cashing in by renting out their homes. Joe Mayol, a real-estate agent in Palmdale, Calif., estimates that in his area about two-thirds of houses with defaulted mortgages are occupied, and half of those by renters. "People are getting money out of these houses," he said.

Ms. Zelman says her research suggests defaulters do spend much of the money on consumer services and goods. "People are taking what they would have been spending on a mortgage and spending it somewhere else," she says.



However, the Journal is quick to add that local communities still end up getting a bad deal, since they usually can't collect property taxes on foreclosed homes, and the foreclosure crisis only adds to uncertainty about the housing market.



"I don't think that's the kind of consumer recovery we want, if the only reason they're spending a bit more is that they're not paying their other bills," Joseph Carson of AllianceBernstein told the Journal.



Stealth Stimulus: Defaulters Who Live for Free







benchcraft company scam

04 by utsavbasu1


bench craft company scam

Pulse Brings You <b>News</b> and RSS in an Elegant Flow

Android/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...

New Yorker&#39;s Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s Daily - NYTimes.com

Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/17 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning, AP. Another round of Kansas City Chiefs news on the house. Please read responsibly.


benchcraft company scam

04 by utsavbasu1


benchcraft company scam

Pulse Brings You <b>News</b> and RSS in an Elegant Flow

Android/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...

New Yorker&#39;s Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s Daily - NYTimes.com

Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/17 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning, AP. Another round of Kansas City Chiefs news on the house. Please read responsibly.


benchcraft company scam

Pulse Brings You <b>News</b> and RSS in an Elegant Flow

Android/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...

New Yorker&#39;s Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s Daily - NYTimes.com

Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/17 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning, AP. Another round of Kansas City Chiefs news on the house. Please read responsibly.


benchcraft company scam

Pulse Brings You <b>News</b> and RSS in an Elegant Flow

Android/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...

New Yorker&#39;s Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s Daily - NYTimes.com

Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/17 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning, AP. Another round of Kansas City Chiefs news on the house. Please read responsibly.


how to lose weight fast benchcraft company scam
benchcraft company scam

04 by utsavbasu1


benchcraft company scam

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

foreclosure statistics


Josh Rosner of Graham, Fisher didn’t predict the collapse of the housing market. He did something more perceptive than that. Back in 2001 (2001!) he identified the changes in the housing market that would lead to the collapse and warned of the possibility. He called his analysis “Housing in the New Millenium: A Home Without Equity is Just A Rental With Debt.”  He saw things no one else at the time saw and he understood the implications. You should be able to find his paper here or here. From the summary:


This report assesses the prospects of the U.S. housing/mortgage sector over the next several years.  Based on our analysis, we believe there are elements in place for the housing sector to continue to experience growth well above GDP. However, we believe there are risks that can materially distort the growth prospects of the sector.   Specifically, it appears that a large portion of the housing sector’s growth in the 1990’s came from the easing of the credit underwriting process.  Such easing includes:


• The drastic reduction of minimum down payment levels from 20% to 0%


• A focused effort to target the “low income” borrower


• The reduction in private mortgage insurance requirements on high loan to value mortgages


• The increasing use of software to streamline the origination process and modify/recast delinquent loans in order to keep them classified as  ‘current’


• Changes in the appraisal process which has led to widespread over-appraisal/over-valuation problems


If these trends remain in place, it is likely that the home purchase boom of the past decade will continue unabated.  Despite the increasingly more difficult economic environment, it may be possible for lenders to further ease credit standards and more fully exploit less penetrated markets. Recently targeted populations that have historically been denied homeownership opportunities have offered the mortgage industry novel hurdles to overcome. Industry participants in combination with eased regulatory standards and the support of the GSEs (Government Sponsored Enterprises) have overcome many of them.


If there is an economic disruption that causes a marked rise in unemployment, the negative impact on the housing market could be quite large.  These impacts come in several forms. They include a reduction in the demand for homeownership, a decline in real estate prices and increased foreclosure expenses. These impacts would be exacerbated by the increasing debt burden of the U.S. consumer and the reduction of home equity available in the home.


Although we have yet to see any materially negative consequences of the relaxation of credit standards, we believe the risk of credit relaxation and leverage can’t be ignored.  Importantly, a relatively new method of loan forgiveness can temporarily alter the perception of credit health in the housing sector.  In an effort to keep homeowners in the home and reduce foreclosure expenses, holders of mortgage assets are currently recasting or modifying troubled loans.  Such policy initiatives may for a time distort the relevancy of delinquency and foreclosure statistics.  However, a protracted housing slowdown could eventually cause modifications to become uneconomic and, thus, credit quality statistics would likely become relevant once again.  The virtuous circle of increasing homeownership due to greater leverage has the potential to become a vicious cycle of lower home prices due to an accelerating rate of foreclosures.


Rosner recently wrote an analysis of the state of the securitization market. It is superb. He argues that it is crucial to re-establish the securitization market. I disagree. But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is his superb analysis of the Dodd-Frank bill. First, he appears to have read it. Second, he shows how much the legislation relies on government agencies implementing the goals of the legislation. Third, he understands that that is not ideal. Fourth, he shows how even if the legislation is implemented according to its intentions, there are still lots of problems. It’s the best analysis I have read of the current state of the market and the likely impact of the financial reform legislation. A must read.









View Comments

  


Share



  
 Print
  
 Email




Last night, at the Iraq Afghanistan Veterans Association gala in honor of David Gelbaum and Wes Moore, I was overwhelmed by the seemingly contradictory nature of American culture's relationship with its armed forces. Veterans organizations going all the way back to the American Legion after World War I -- and not just in the U.S. but in most other industrial societies as well -- have typically advocated for conservative politics, militarily assertive foreign policy, and economic policies based on rugged individualism. So the stereotype that the military equals right wing and peacenik equals left wing has some reality. President Clinton famously didn't click with the Pentagon, there's a strong correlation between military-base locations and conservative politics, and liberals were the first to voice opposition to the Vietnam and Iraq wars.

But there's also the reality that, internally, the values of a military unit are strongly communitarian ("I've got your back" is an army phrase after all), and the military is probably our nation's most unequivocally meritocratic institution. The wars that our country has fought during my lifetime have not been fed by overly ambitious generals but, rather, by overly reckless or, in some cases, timid politicians.


Last night at the IAVA dinner, the screen behind the podium showed statistics that the nation should be ashamed of: How much higher the mortgage-foreclosure rate is in military communities, how many veterans are unemployed, and what the suicide rate is among returned Iraq and Afghanistan vets. But these issues are the classic concerns of progressives -- and things that the reactionary right tries to keep out of the national conversation. And New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a story last night about a conversation he had with a veteran who understood why it was important that the mayor speak out for the rights of Muslim Americans to pray -- even in lower Manhattan.

As a longtime environmentalist, I still find it startling that the American military is the most important institution -- one with broad credibility and acceptance in all segments of American society -- that clearly understands the urgency of action on climate and clean energy.

I hoped that I would have sorted all this out after a night's sleep. I haven't. But I think that grappling with and gaining a deeper understanding of these apparent contradictions is very important work. Until we get beyond the half-true stereotypes that we rely on most of the time, I suspect we won't be able to reunite America.











eric seiger

Obama 2012 - Doug Schoen - Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Fox News' Democratic analysts have thrown President Obama under the bus: Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell suggested this weekend that the Democratic Party must cut off its head to stand a chance in 2012. Schoen was back on America Live ...

Pulse <b>News</b> Now Free to Download | Android Phone Fans

Pulse News has announced that they're making their application free to download on the Android market following a desire to pull in a bigger userbase. They'll.

First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media

First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...


eric seiger

Josh Rosner of Graham, Fisher didn’t predict the collapse of the housing market. He did something more perceptive than that. Back in 2001 (2001!) he identified the changes in the housing market that would lead to the collapse and warned of the possibility. He called his analysis “Housing in the New Millenium: A Home Without Equity is Just A Rental With Debt.”  He saw things no one else at the time saw and he understood the implications. You should be able to find his paper here or here. From the summary:


This report assesses the prospects of the U.S. housing/mortgage sector over the next several years.  Based on our analysis, we believe there are elements in place for the housing sector to continue to experience growth well above GDP. However, we believe there are risks that can materially distort the growth prospects of the sector.   Specifically, it appears that a large portion of the housing sector’s growth in the 1990’s came from the easing of the credit underwriting process.  Such easing includes:


• The drastic reduction of minimum down payment levels from 20% to 0%


• A focused effort to target the “low income” borrower


• The reduction in private mortgage insurance requirements on high loan to value mortgages


• The increasing use of software to streamline the origination process and modify/recast delinquent loans in order to keep them classified as  ‘current’


• Changes in the appraisal process which has led to widespread over-appraisal/over-valuation problems


If these trends remain in place, it is likely that the home purchase boom of the past decade will continue unabated.  Despite the increasingly more difficult economic environment, it may be possible for lenders to further ease credit standards and more fully exploit less penetrated markets. Recently targeted populations that have historically been denied homeownership opportunities have offered the mortgage industry novel hurdles to overcome. Industry participants in combination with eased regulatory standards and the support of the GSEs (Government Sponsored Enterprises) have overcome many of them.


If there is an economic disruption that causes a marked rise in unemployment, the negative impact on the housing market could be quite large.  These impacts come in several forms. They include a reduction in the demand for homeownership, a decline in real estate prices and increased foreclosure expenses. These impacts would be exacerbated by the increasing debt burden of the U.S. consumer and the reduction of home equity available in the home.


Although we have yet to see any materially negative consequences of the relaxation of credit standards, we believe the risk of credit relaxation and leverage can’t be ignored.  Importantly, a relatively new method of loan forgiveness can temporarily alter the perception of credit health in the housing sector.  In an effort to keep homeowners in the home and reduce foreclosure expenses, holders of mortgage assets are currently recasting or modifying troubled loans.  Such policy initiatives may for a time distort the relevancy of delinquency and foreclosure statistics.  However, a protracted housing slowdown could eventually cause modifications to become uneconomic and, thus, credit quality statistics would likely become relevant once again.  The virtuous circle of increasing homeownership due to greater leverage has the potential to become a vicious cycle of lower home prices due to an accelerating rate of foreclosures.


Rosner recently wrote an analysis of the state of the securitization market. It is superb. He argues that it is crucial to re-establish the securitization market. I disagree. But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is his superb analysis of the Dodd-Frank bill. First, he appears to have read it. Second, he shows how much the legislation relies on government agencies implementing the goals of the legislation. Third, he understands that that is not ideal. Fourth, he shows how even if the legislation is implemented according to its intentions, there are still lots of problems. It’s the best analysis I have read of the current state of the market and the likely impact of the financial reform legislation. A must read.









View Comments

  


Share



  
 Print
  
 Email




Last night, at the Iraq Afghanistan Veterans Association gala in honor of David Gelbaum and Wes Moore, I was overwhelmed by the seemingly contradictory nature of American culture's relationship with its armed forces. Veterans organizations going all the way back to the American Legion after World War I -- and not just in the U.S. but in most other industrial societies as well -- have typically advocated for conservative politics, militarily assertive foreign policy, and economic policies based on rugged individualism. So the stereotype that the military equals right wing and peacenik equals left wing has some reality. President Clinton famously didn't click with the Pentagon, there's a strong correlation between military-base locations and conservative politics, and liberals were the first to voice opposition to the Vietnam and Iraq wars.

But there's also the reality that, internally, the values of a military unit are strongly communitarian ("I've got your back" is an army phrase after all), and the military is probably our nation's most unequivocally meritocratic institution. The wars that our country has fought during my lifetime have not been fed by overly ambitious generals but, rather, by overly reckless or, in some cases, timid politicians.


Last night at the IAVA dinner, the screen behind the podium showed statistics that the nation should be ashamed of: How much higher the mortgage-foreclosure rate is in military communities, how many veterans are unemployed, and what the suicide rate is among returned Iraq and Afghanistan vets. But these issues are the classic concerns of progressives -- and things that the reactionary right tries to keep out of the national conversation. And New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a story last night about a conversation he had with a veteran who understood why it was important that the mayor speak out for the rights of Muslim Americans to pray -- even in lower Manhattan.

As a longtime environmentalist, I still find it startling that the American military is the most important institution -- one with broad credibility and acceptance in all segments of American society -- that clearly understands the urgency of action on climate and clean energy.

I hoped that I would have sorted all this out after a night's sleep. I haven't. But I think that grappling with and gaining a deeper understanding of these apparent contradictions is very important work. Until we get beyond the half-true stereotypes that we rely on most of the time, I suspect we won't be able to reunite America.











eric seiger

Obama 2012 - Doug Schoen - Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Fox News' Democratic analysts have thrown President Obama under the bus: Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell suggested this weekend that the Democratic Party must cut off its head to stand a chance in 2012. Schoen was back on America Live ...

Pulse <b>News</b> Now Free to Download | Android Phone Fans

Pulse News has announced that they're making their application free to download on the Android market following a desire to pull in a bigger userbase. They'll.

First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media

First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...


eric seiger

eric seiger

dupage foreclosure statistics by foreclosurepro


eric seiger

Obama 2012 - Doug Schoen - Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Fox News' Democratic analysts have thrown President Obama under the bus: Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell suggested this weekend that the Democratic Party must cut off its head to stand a chance in 2012. Schoen was back on America Live ...

Pulse <b>News</b> Now Free to Download | Android Phone Fans

Pulse News has announced that they're making their application free to download on the Android market following a desire to pull in a bigger userbase. They'll.

First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media

First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...


eric seiger

Josh Rosner of Graham, Fisher didn’t predict the collapse of the housing market. He did something more perceptive than that. Back in 2001 (2001!) he identified the changes in the housing market that would lead to the collapse and warned of the possibility. He called his analysis “Housing in the New Millenium: A Home Without Equity is Just A Rental With Debt.”  He saw things no one else at the time saw and he understood the implications. You should be able to find his paper here or here. From the summary:


This report assesses the prospects of the U.S. housing/mortgage sector over the next several years.  Based on our analysis, we believe there are elements in place for the housing sector to continue to experience growth well above GDP. However, we believe there are risks that can materially distort the growth prospects of the sector.   Specifically, it appears that a large portion of the housing sector’s growth in the 1990’s came from the easing of the credit underwriting process.  Such easing includes:


• The drastic reduction of minimum down payment levels from 20% to 0%


• A focused effort to target the “low income” borrower


• The reduction in private mortgage insurance requirements on high loan to value mortgages


• The increasing use of software to streamline the origination process and modify/recast delinquent loans in order to keep them classified as  ‘current’


• Changes in the appraisal process which has led to widespread over-appraisal/over-valuation problems


If these trends remain in place, it is likely that the home purchase boom of the past decade will continue unabated.  Despite the increasingly more difficult economic environment, it may be possible for lenders to further ease credit standards and more fully exploit less penetrated markets. Recently targeted populations that have historically been denied homeownership opportunities have offered the mortgage industry novel hurdles to overcome. Industry participants in combination with eased regulatory standards and the support of the GSEs (Government Sponsored Enterprises) have overcome many of them.


If there is an economic disruption that causes a marked rise in unemployment, the negative impact on the housing market could be quite large.  These impacts come in several forms. They include a reduction in the demand for homeownership, a decline in real estate prices and increased foreclosure expenses. These impacts would be exacerbated by the increasing debt burden of the U.S. consumer and the reduction of home equity available in the home.


Although we have yet to see any materially negative consequences of the relaxation of credit standards, we believe the risk of credit relaxation and leverage can’t be ignored.  Importantly, a relatively new method of loan forgiveness can temporarily alter the perception of credit health in the housing sector.  In an effort to keep homeowners in the home and reduce foreclosure expenses, holders of mortgage assets are currently recasting or modifying troubled loans.  Such policy initiatives may for a time distort the relevancy of delinquency and foreclosure statistics.  However, a protracted housing slowdown could eventually cause modifications to become uneconomic and, thus, credit quality statistics would likely become relevant once again.  The virtuous circle of increasing homeownership due to greater leverage has the potential to become a vicious cycle of lower home prices due to an accelerating rate of foreclosures.


Rosner recently wrote an analysis of the state of the securitization market. It is superb. He argues that it is crucial to re-establish the securitization market. I disagree. But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is his superb analysis of the Dodd-Frank bill. First, he appears to have read it. Second, he shows how much the legislation relies on government agencies implementing the goals of the legislation. Third, he understands that that is not ideal. Fourth, he shows how even if the legislation is implemented according to its intentions, there are still lots of problems. It’s the best analysis I have read of the current state of the market and the likely impact of the financial reform legislation. A must read.









View Comments

  


Share



  
 Print
  
 Email




Last night, at the Iraq Afghanistan Veterans Association gala in honor of David Gelbaum and Wes Moore, I was overwhelmed by the seemingly contradictory nature of American culture's relationship with its armed forces. Veterans organizations going all the way back to the American Legion after World War I -- and not just in the U.S. but in most other industrial societies as well -- have typically advocated for conservative politics, militarily assertive foreign policy, and economic policies based on rugged individualism. So the stereotype that the military equals right wing and peacenik equals left wing has some reality. President Clinton famously didn't click with the Pentagon, there's a strong correlation between military-base locations and conservative politics, and liberals were the first to voice opposition to the Vietnam and Iraq wars.

But there's also the reality that, internally, the values of a military unit are strongly communitarian ("I've got your back" is an army phrase after all), and the military is probably our nation's most unequivocally meritocratic institution. The wars that our country has fought during my lifetime have not been fed by overly ambitious generals but, rather, by overly reckless or, in some cases, timid politicians.


Last night at the IAVA dinner, the screen behind the podium showed statistics that the nation should be ashamed of: How much higher the mortgage-foreclosure rate is in military communities, how many veterans are unemployed, and what the suicide rate is among returned Iraq and Afghanistan vets. But these issues are the classic concerns of progressives -- and things that the reactionary right tries to keep out of the national conversation. And New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a story last night about a conversation he had with a veteran who understood why it was important that the mayor speak out for the rights of Muslim Americans to pray -- even in lower Manhattan.

As a longtime environmentalist, I still find it startling that the American military is the most important institution -- one with broad credibility and acceptance in all segments of American society -- that clearly understands the urgency of action on climate and clean energy.

I hoped that I would have sorted all this out after a night's sleep. I haven't. But I think that grappling with and gaining a deeper understanding of these apparent contradictions is very important work. Until we get beyond the half-true stereotypes that we rely on most of the time, I suspect we won't be able to reunite America.











eric seiger

dupage foreclosure statistics by foreclosurepro


eric seiger

Obama 2012 - Doug Schoen - Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Fox News' Democratic analysts have thrown President Obama under the bus: Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell suggested this weekend that the Democratic Party must cut off its head to stand a chance in 2012. Schoen was back on America Live ...

Pulse <b>News</b> Now Free to Download | Android Phone Fans

Pulse News has announced that they're making their application free to download on the Android market following a desire to pull in a bigger userbase. They'll.

First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media

First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...


eric seiger

dupage foreclosure statistics by foreclosurepro


eric seiger

Obama 2012 - Doug Schoen - Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Fox News' Democratic analysts have thrown President Obama under the bus: Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell suggested this weekend that the Democratic Party must cut off its head to stand a chance in 2012. Schoen was back on America Live ...

Pulse <b>News</b> Now Free to Download | Android Phone Fans

Pulse News has announced that they're making their application free to download on the Android market following a desire to pull in a bigger userbase. They'll.

First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media

First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...


eric seiger

Obama 2012 - Doug Schoen - Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Fox News' Democratic analysts have thrown President Obama under the bus: Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell suggested this weekend that the Democratic Party must cut off its head to stand a chance in 2012. Schoen was back on America Live ...

Pulse <b>News</b> Now Free to Download | Android Phone Fans

Pulse News has announced that they're making their application free to download on the Android market following a desire to pull in a bigger userbase. They'll.

First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media

First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...


eric seiger

Obama 2012 - Doug Schoen - Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Fox News' Democratic analysts have thrown President Obama under the bus: Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell suggested this weekend that the Democratic Party must cut off its head to stand a chance in 2012. Schoen was back on America Live ...

Pulse <b>News</b> Now Free to Download | Android Phone Fans

Pulse News has announced that they're making their application free to download on the Android market following a desire to pull in a bigger userbase. They'll.

First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media

First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...


eric seiger eric seiger
eric seiger

dupage foreclosure statistics by foreclosurepro


eric seiger
eric seiger

Obama 2012 - Doug Schoen - Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Fox News' Democratic analysts have thrown President Obama under the bus: Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell suggested this weekend that the Democratic Party must cut off its head to stand a chance in 2012. Schoen was back on America Live ...

Pulse <b>News</b> Now Free to Download | Android Phone Fans

Pulse News has announced that they're making their application free to download on the Android market following a desire to pull in a bigger userbase. They'll.

First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media

First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...



eric seiger

Obama 2012 - Doug Schoen - Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Fox News' Democratic analysts have thrown President Obama under the bus: Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell suggested this weekend that the Democratic Party must cut off its head to stand a chance in 2012. Schoen was back on America Live ...

Pulse <b>News</b> Now Free to Download | Android Phone Fans

Pulse News has announced that they're making their application free to download on the Android market following a desire to pull in a bigger userbase. They'll.

First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media

First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...


eric seiger

Obama 2012 - Doug Schoen - Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Fox News' Democratic analysts have thrown President Obama under the bus: Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell suggested this weekend that the Democratic Party must cut off its head to stand a chance in 2012. Schoen was back on America Live ...

Pulse <b>News</b> Now Free to Download | Android Phone Fans

Pulse News has announced that they're making their application free to download on the Android market following a desire to pull in a bigger userbase. They'll.

First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media

First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...


eric seiger