Troubled assets
As Citigroup is bailed out with protection of up to $308 billion dollars in troubled assets, I can’t help but wonder, am I the only freakin’ loan that Citigroup has that is paying his mortgage on time? I mean if you figure the average mortgage is $184,282 that means Citigroup alone has more than 1.6 million troubled mortgages?!?
I was none too happy when my mortgage got sold to CIti a little more than a year ago, from a nice friendly small bank to the arrogant behemouth that is Citigroup. And this only leaves me with the question of whether I want to take the time to find another bank and pay the closing costs just to get away from them.
The good (and important) parts of the bailout
Look, I am not any big fan of bailing out a bunch of Investment Bankers and banks. Fine, I am not a fan of the idea at all. And I am not going to spend too much time on the negatives, the golden parachutes, idiotic CEO pay scales, and the like. These have all been well documented and hammered home on virtually every blog and Tweet on the subject.
However, in all the negativity on the subject, something has gotten lost, and I don’t think (well I know, but I didn’t want to overstate it) many quite understand the gravity of the situation, and why it wasn’t just an “easy” decision for lawmakers to just tell these companies to, “go ahead and fail,” or ”you made your your own bed.” It just isn’t, as much as we would like to think it is, to untie these situations from the rest of the economy because of the scale of it all.
A car dealer not far from my home, Bigelow Motors, had been in business for 66 years. It had weathered upturns and downturns many times over the years, but they were basically forced to close their doors this past week. The reason? They lost their line of credit.
In my own business, there are times that I need credit to cover the time between when I secure the supplies I need and the time my client pays me. Without that line of credit, I am seriously hampered in what I can do and what orders I can complete.
This is a common way of doing business for companies big and small (only the size of the line of credit changes). From small corner delis that need to cover stock to mega corporation deals, there is very little that is done “in cash” because income and outlay do not always line up nice and neatly.
Obviously, the impact on business also affects employment as well. Everybody at that car dealership I mentioned earlier is out looking for a job now. Unemployment is up all over the place, and would only get worse as businesses need to either cut back or shut down because they are not able to conduct business as usual.
So, just understand, it was not a “no-brainer” to just vote this bill down. (Well, it was in that crazy first draft sent over from President Bush, but that was pretty much obvious to everybody except I guess President Bush and Treasury Secretary Pauson). Is it ideal? No. Did it have to be as quickly as it was? Unfortunately, Yes.
While people joke around now about how it hasn’t fixed everything already, this plan it going to take time to actually start having an effect, so even now we are still in crisis, but everyday that it waited is more time until implementation takes effect, and the more business that are apt to fail if this wasn’t passed in some form.
What I think a lot of people are shocked with, it that they got a good look at how Washington works. The sort of wheeling and dealing (and pork additions) that happened here goes on constantly. It is “how things work” and while this is no secret, it was clearly (and expensively) on display here.
I guess what I am trying to say here is, that I am not saying you shouldn’t be angry about what is going on. I sure am. But be angry at the right people, for the right reasons. Look to former Texas Senator Phil Gramm and his slipping in of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA) that enabled things like the Enron collapse, and the bundling of “derivatives” that helped make this mortgage crisis possible. Be angry that this same Phill Gramm is on John McCain’s short list to be Treasurer of the United States. Be angry at those that politicized this process and demanded pork for their vote. But don’t take a “yes” vote in and of itself to be the whole reason. This really wasn’t an easy situation for anyone to swallow, and there are valid reasons to have voted for the bailout. The damage has long since been done, and now it needed to be fixed to keep the situation from getting worse.
Drop it, that’s not chocolate
It is probably enough to have Milton Hershey rolling over in his grave. Last year a number of chocolate manufacturer’s lobbied to attempt to get the definition of chocolate changed so that they could substitute cheap fats in place of cocoa butter when making chocolate. This would have allowed them make the product cheaper, and to profit more by selling the cocoa butter at much higher profits to the cosmetics industry for use in lotions, soaps, etc. This however failed, and the FDA re-iterated that ”Cacao fat, as one of the signature characteristics of the product, will remain a principal component of standardized chocolate” according to the update.
The part that was most galling (to me anyway) was a statement by Kirk Saville, a Hershey’s spokesman, who said (emphasis added by me):
There are high-quality oils available which are equal to or better than cocoa butter in taste, nutrition, texture and function, and are preferred by consumers.
Preferred by consumers? Preferred? I don’t think so, Kirk. Oh, yeah take out the Cocoa Butter which actually has some nutritional benefit, and lets replace it with hydrogenated corn oil instead. Screw the fact that we take chocolate and actually make it unhealthy… it is healthy for profits. What this really means is, I think we can get away with it, and nobody will notice.
In the Biography of Milton Hershey that can be found at hersheypa.com
He took great pride in the growth of the school, the town, and his business. For the rest of his life, he always placed the quality of his product and the well-being of his workers ahead of profits.
Well, obviously Milton is no longer in charge of the Heshey’s chocolate company. Hershey has done an end run around the issue. So, they can’t call their imitation chocolate “chocolate” but that didn’t stop them from making the change in a number of their products. According the the post on CandyBlog, a number of Hershey’s products are no longer milk chocolate, but instead are now “chocolate flavored candy.”
Look at the list of ingredients from a package of the original “Milk Chocolate” Kissables.
Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nonfat milk, milk fat, lactose, soy lecithin, PGPR & artificial flavors), sugar, red 40, yellow 5, yellow 6, blue 1 & carnauba wax.
Now look at the “Chocolate Candy” Kissables:
Sugar, vegetable oil (palm, shea, sunflower and/or safflower oil), chocolate, nonfat milk, whey, cocoa butter, milk fat, gum arabic, soy lecithin, artificial colors (red 40, yellow 5, blue 2, blue 1, yellow 6), corn syrup, resinous glaze, salt, carnauba wax, pgpr and vanillin.
See anything missing? Yup, that is right, no Milk Chocolate in it any longer. The same is true for Whatchamacallits, Milk Duds, Mr. Goodbar and Krackle. Why hasn’t anybody noticed? Because Hershey went to great lengths to make it so that it is difficult to notice. (And in part, thanks to a slight change in labeling law on what has to be called “imitation” ). Products that once bore the words “Milk Chocolate” now instead are listed as “chocolate candy,” “made with chocolate” or “chocolatey.”
Actually, it seems in once case apparently it did get noticed, where Almond Joy was returned to Milk Chocolate after comsumers complained.
Fortunately (so far) Hershey Bars, Kisses, and Reese’s Peanut butter cups remain unaffected and are still Milk Chocolate products. Tell Hershey what you think of their faux chocolate, because messing with our chocolate is just plain wrong.
Are you using Flickr differently now?
I can tell I was really wrapped up lately in prepping for my trade show, since I somehow missed this earlier on. I mean how I missed the fact that every picture on Flickr was offered up for sale from July 3rd – 5th is simply amazing to me. It wasn’t until I spotted it on the This Week in Photography Blog that I really took notice.
What has upset me more though is Flickr‘s response, or more correctly their lack of response. After all, this wasn’t a common, grab a picture and use it sort of thing (which, btw it amazes me how many big corporation have been caught doing this). This was a company using Flickr’s own API, to download images and sell them. I expected some sort of response, even if they didn’t plan to make changes to the API, at least to clarify that this company did things wrong and didn’t use the API correctly. Instead… silence.
Now, I love Flickr. I have a pro account, I have bought pro accoutns for other people as gifts. But I am uncomfortable with them right now. I am certainly not, until they do or say something, going to upload any high res. photos to their site, and I am debating on what I should do with the photos that are already there. Do, I pull them down? Take the time to make low res. versions of all of them and replace what is there? What about you? Have you changed how you have used Flickr?
iTunes should just be considered malware
It wasn’t all that long ago that Apple decided to try and sneak Safari on to Windows users computers through an iTunes update. But apparently they didn’t learn their lesson last time, because they are at it again.
For those of you running Windows, if you have updated your iTunes virus to version 7.7 then go take a look in your Control Panel. You will find a new icon for MobileMe Preferences has be snuck onto your computer. If you click on it, you will be directed on how to sign up for the service you did not ask for from an applet that was snuck onto your computer via an update. If that isn’t virus like activity, I don’t know what is.
If Microsoft (or just about any other company for that matter) played the same games Apple does (do you remember when they snuck a “beacon” into iTunes that calls home without notifying the user that it was in there?), then the company would be publicly flogged (A similar “game” essentially squashed RealAudio back when their player was popular). But Apple some how gets away with it.
No doubt, I will get e-mails from Apple apologist trying to justify this, but I am sorry there is no excuse for the games they play and it is time they get called on it.
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