Eat Doritos & rock out

Buy Doritos.
Go to DoritosLateNight.com.
Select Blink 182 or Big Boi.
Allow the site to "use" your camera and mic.

What the hell am I talking about?
Check it out at Gizmodo, Smartbrief, & Marketplace.
Woooooooo.

CEO of Lehman Brothers talks about buying time

From Calculated Risk

That is the phases we are in right now. Everyone is trying to buy time, as opposed to dealing with the leverage, they are trying to buy time. Whether you are a banker or a company, they are all trying to buy time. I don't see the leverage coming back, and I don't see the consumption of good and services coming back.
Bryan Marsal, CEO of Lehman Brothers Holdings.

He's the CEO hired on to wind down the company.

What happens when the 8th largest economy in the world is insolvent

And Friday, their IOU's:

A group of the biggest U.S. banks said they would stop accepting California's IOUs on Friday, adding pressure on the state to close its $26.3 billion annual budget gap.

From The Wall Street Journal.

Wonder if their problems & budget problems in other states will have a negative or positive effect.

SP in VF

From VF:

Why did so many skilled veterans of the Republican Party—long regarded as the more adroit team in presidential politics—keep loyally working for her election even after they privately realized she was casual about the truth and totally unfit for the vice-presidency? Perhaps most painful, how could John McCain, one of the cagiest survivors in contemporary politics—with a fine appreciation of life’s injustices and absurdities, a love for the sweep of history, and an overdeveloped sense of his own integrity and honor—ever have picked a person whose utter shortage of qualification for her proposed job all but disqualified him for his?

Ouch.

Surfing the web "only" device

Super cool from the NY Times blog Bits:

The purpose of the CrunchPad will be very simple: surfing the Web. Turn it on and up comes a browser.

I came up with an idea in the late 90s for something similar that had included a QWERTY keyboard since at the time, the touch screen wasn't developed yet. We developed a business plan that included licensing the technology instead of building it ourselves, got an attorney on board, and after an aggressive patent search, we found a patent held by National Semiconductor that stopped us. Their device never came out.

A review of Lecturing Birds on Flying

From naked capitalism:

Chapter 2: modern finance theory is a crock, peddled by charlatans at business schools who have managed to seal themselves off from the usual empirical tests of a theory.

And:

In the end, the message of the book is that quantitative finance is a delusion, and that common sense is a better starting point for risk management.

So if modern finance theory is being proven wrong, depending whether you believe that or not, coupled with the world economy blowing up, how should you invest? The same as you've always done since "the market will come back".

Negative equity key factor in mushrooming rate of foreclosures

Opinion piece from The Wall Street Journal:

What is really behind the mushrooming rate of mortgage foreclosures since 2007? The evidence from a huge national database containing millions of individual loans strongly suggests that the single most important factor is whether the homeowner has negative equity in a house...

And:

We are at a crossroads where we can undo the damage to the housing market by strengthening underwriting standards in a reasonable way. But to do so political leaders must face up to the actual causes of the mortgage crisis, not fictitious causes that fit political agendas and election strategies.

Apple retail stores can fix a cracked iPhone screen on the spot

From The Loop:

The Loop has confirmed that if your iPhone has a broken screen and you take it to an Apple retail relocation, they have the capability to fix it on the spot.

Hat tip DaringFireball.net.

DoGood app imagines 300,000 people a day doing the same random act of kindness

Spotted DoGood at Gadgetwise blog at NYTimes.com.

Called DoGood, the iPhone app is the creation of a group of University of Michigan students who hope to spread random acts of kindness.

Check out DoGood.

365 collective acts of kindness

How to solve too big to fail

If you invest for the "long term" and/or plan on "retiring", have a 401(k), etc, you want this problem solved sooner rather than later to reduce the risk of the worldwide economy melting down more than it did in the fall of 2008. [Remember when your mutual fund portfolio tanked last year? There is huge risk that tanking is not done.]

Willem Buiter, Professor of European Political Economy, London School of Economics and Political Science, writes for FT.com & has a solution for the immense problem of "too big to fail" which is why we taxpayers own AIG & a number of other banks now.

The key points to his solution from his blog post are:

(1) Become too big to save
(2) Restore narrow banking or public utility banking
(3) Create mono-product central counterparties and providers of custodial services, central wholesale and securities payment, clearing and settlement platforms
(4) Keep a lid on the size of investment banks
(5) Tax bank size
(6) Use competition policy
(7) Restrict limited liability to prevent excessive risk taking and reduce the size of banks
8) Create effective special resolution mechanisms for all systemically important financial institutions

In banking and most highly leveraged finance, size is a social bad. Fortunately, there is quite a list of effective instruments for cutting leveraged finance down to size.

If you don't read the entire article, at least read the Conclusion.
Don't let your elected official off the hook. Make them fix the problem now!

Mike Kim of Crossing Borders

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Mike Kim
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

He is the writer of the book Escaping North Korea, & founder of Crossing Borders.

Every day, North Korean citizens who are in search for food and medical help sneak into China where they receive no rights as refugees. This means that many are captured by human traffickers and sold as slaves. Those that are not captured must hide from the Chinese authorities that will send them back to North Korea where they will be tortured and even murdered in their political concentration camps.

Transparency in advertising

Didn't quite "catch it" the first time I watched it.

Saw it at Boing Boing Gadgets:

How cool would it be to have every City offer incentives to develop apps to promote transparency?

At NYTimes.com:

In an effort to improve government transparency and accountability and stimulate development of the digital media industry, New York City is inviting software developers and related professionals this fall to develop applications to help Internet users navigate vast stores of data in areas like citywide events, property sales, recreational centers and restaurant inspections.

So ask your doctor if getting off your ass is right for you

From jay parkinson + md + mph

No diploma no license

I still believe that America, with its unrivaled freedoms, venture capital industry, research universities and openness to new immigrants has the best assets to be taking advantage of this moment — to out-innovate our competition. But we should be pressing these advantages to the max right now.

Link

The moment we're living in, is the largest increase in expressive capability in human history

Wolfram|Alpha

Today's Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all
systematic knowledge immediately computable
by anyone.

Link

The case for working with your hands

The Princeton economist Alan Blinder argues that the crucial distinction in the emerging labor market is not between those with more or less education, but between those whose services can be delivered over a wire and those who must do their work in person or on site.

Link

Nature and Origin of the Shadow Banking System

The Financial Instability Hypothesis
Minsky took Keynes to the next level, and his huge contribution to macroeconomics comes under the label of the “Financial Instability Hypothesis.” Minsky openly declared that his Hypothesis was “an interpretation of the substance of Keynes’s General Theory.”

Link

Imagine L.E.A.R.N. on Pleasure House Point

Imagine L.E.A.R.N. The Lynnhaven Environmental Area Research Network or the McLesky Center for Learning, or the Sandler Center for Learning or another appropriate name for it's mission: Restoring historical Pleasure House Point[PHP] to its environmental glory.

That's just one idea that is a better alternative than building 1000 housing units including all the paving, concrete, pesticides & lawn fertilizer produced by an urban development that is currently proposed. There is a far better public use for what is the last remaining property of significant size that is located in the Lynnhaven Watershed.

Imagine PHP being used for an internationally recognized research facility that would compliment the hard work of our local educational institutions including TCC, ODU, NSU, VT, VBC, VWC, WHRO, Public School Systems, CHCS, etc.

It could even include a unique eco-tourism opportunity at the Beach. Local Seniors beginning their second careers could be included to provide guidance, wisdom & leadership skills.

An incomparable Foundation managed by students whose purpose is to provide educational opportunities that would return the property to it’s original state, definition to be determined, with a focus on study, database creation and scientific, social, environmental, historical, political research based on the activities & results of working toward the long term goal of restoration.

Funding sources could come from various foundations, educational institutions, various levels of membership, fees/donations for use of the property, creation of a Wetlands Bank, tax breaks and other funding sources as they are negotiated and determined to fit with the goals of the umbrella operational foundation. A small footprint, off the grid, high tech facility could provide flex-offices for local environmental organizations including classrooms with 21st Century high speed wireless internet access.

All accomplished by students working with the guidance of the best facilitators from around the area.

Housing on Pleasure House Point. You got to be kidding.