We’ve relaunched two sites in the Curations staple, today: Yokiddo (kids and baby) and Popgloss (fashion). Both are built on our new visual ‘curations engine’ that is something like a visual RSS aggregator which is then hand filtered by curators.
The result is a visual gallery of news in specific topics, from thousands of news sites and weblogs.
Inc.com chooses Yelp as one of the best company names.
This gives me some personal satisfaction, having come up with the name and having to push for it to be adopted.
When we were looking to do a Yellow Pages based company at MRL Ventures, where we incubated Yelp, Jeremy Stoppelman wanted it to be called Yocal whereas I wanted Yelp (as a contraction of yellow pages and help). In the end, Jared Kopf got out his personal credit card and bought the domain directly, for $4K, while everyone slowly came round to the idea of Yelp.com.
“Yelp definitely has an emotional quality to it,” Altman says. “It’s an exclamation and it really emphasizes what the site does, which is aggregate reviews from all these extraordinarily passionate people. You get these connotations of a high-pitched cry coming from a dog or animal or something like that. It’s a name that really connects to the people on the site in a humorous way.”
Interestingly, the very qualities that Altman sites, i.e. the emotional cry of Yelping, like when you tread on someone’s toes, were the reasons why other people on the team were uneasy about using the name. Which shows either that the pejorative can often become the most positive or that you can post rationalize anything.
“The Treasury will use a $30 billion infusion into AIG to force the company to repay all of the bonuses promised to employees of its Financial Products group, a White House official said.”
This is a political magic trick, the same one used in the UK with RBS. Here’s how it works:
AIG agree to repay bonuses to prevent the $30 billion being stalled. But the bonus payments already went out on Friday and can’t be recouped.
The money to return to the government comes from AIG, not the bonus recipients, and therefore creates a cost which in turn comes from the government which potentially plugs the hole in the books by handing the money back.
The sleight of hand is that everyone is so fixated on the name AIG as the villain, that they don’t see that AIG is largely nationalized and therefore themselves, whereas ‘bonus recipient’ is the real target.
Nicholas Ashooh, AIG’s SVP of Communications sold his soul to the devil long ago, but he’ll still say anything to keep getting paid.
His latest gaff concerns why the people in the AIG gambling division in London who destroyed the company and who AIG specifically said wouldn’t be rewarded, are.
“You really do need these people, because they are the ones who know these contracts.”
Yeah, like you shouldn’t shoot the guy who is holding you over a cliff.
It would be naive to think that we could avoid paying these people, they have us over a barrel as well as a cliff. But the reason they have this power is nothing to do with contractual obligations. A law would be required to nullify their contracts, but a law was required to secure bail-out funds to stop AIG going bankrupt. Without that law nobody would get bonuses.
The rule of law would not break down, if a contract which could only be preserved by changing the law was broken by changing the law.
Unlike the Financial Products guys who are needed to diffuse the ticking bomb they created, Ashooh has nothing to offer the taxpayer, so there is the opportunity to put him over a barrel, now, if people want to.
After I blogged about the original furor about AIG compensation, in January, I received the email below from AIG flacks, where Ashooh’s principal defense was that the people receiving bonuses: “are not with, nor have ever been with AIG Financial Products, the group that sold the credit default swaps.”
The Washington post writes that AIG Financial Products employees are being given bonuses totaling $450M.
Ashooh has a BA in Journalism, Journalism, philosophy, psychology (I thought you could only get this kind of thing in France) from the Marquette Jesuit University. Here is their ‘fighting song’, which he can perhaps recite to keep his spirits up, since he’ll soon never be able to show his face in a restaurant again. “Goooo! Goooo! Go Ashooh! Go! Go! Go! Go!”
Marquette University fight song – Ring Out Ahoya
Ring out ahoya with an M-U rah-rah!
M-U rah-rah!
M-U rah-rah! Rah rah rah!
Ring out ahoya with an M-U rah-rah,
M-U rah rah for Old Marquette!(Chanting)
Goooo! Goooo! Go Marquette! Go! Go! Go! Go!
Goooo! Goooo! Go Marquette! Go! Go! Go! Go!
And here is Ashooh’s original email:
Dear David Galbraith:
Given your recent coverage of our company, I wanted to let you know that you can contact me if you are looking to get AIG’s perspective on an issue relating to the company.
I also I wanted to give you a heads up that we have responded to a letter from Representative Cummings regarding AIG’s retention planning. Here is the letter we have sent (I have attached it above).
Our key point is this: our highest priority is to pay back the government. We will do this by selling some of our high quality businesses. In our industry, the value of those businesses is based on two things: people and capital. The people that run those businesses are stars in their field. They are the ones who made AIG the largest player in insurance, and they are constantly being solicited by our major competitors. These employees are not with, nor have ever been with AIG Financial Products, the group that sold the credit default swaps. These folks are employees of AIG’s core insurance operations. Moreover, we’ve been informed by credit agencies that if we lose key insurance employees, our credit ratings will suffer (this is detailed in Mr. Liddy’s letter to Mr. Cummings).
For us to get the best value out the businesses we’re selling, and to ensure that our core insurance businesses remain profitable, we need them to stay. If they leave, the value our businesses will decline, and we will have less money to pay back taxpayers.
Regards,
Nick Ashooh
AIG
Elia Dattolo
Admin. Mgr. & Exec Asst. to
Nicholas Ashooh, SVP, Communications
Tel. 212-770-3150
Fax: 212-785-0785
elia.dattolo@aig.com
The MTA transit authority, which operates the New York subway is warning of drastic service cuts, price increases and staff reductions. People are up in arms, but this is one area where even if these unfortunate measures were taken, New Yorkers would be better off than places which offer many more benefits in things like healthcare and public services.
For example, for the New York Subway to be like the London Underground:
Service cuts: The Subway runs 24 hours. The Underground shuts down around 1am replaced by a horrid fleet of scorchingly lit night buses full of kebab-eating binge drinkers. In addition, the Subway system is almost fully redundant with express and local lines, so the effects of cuts to service from non-overtime maintenance are much reduced.
Fares: The Subway costs $2 per ride. The Underground costs $5.60 per ride. It would take a mammoth increase to match that.
While its true that the overall level of disrepair in the Subway makes it look like a dilapidated open sewer in comparison with London, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo etc., it is efficient and relatively cheap, just not pretty to look at.
A journalistic cliche is that ‘Dog Bites Man’ isn’t a headline, but ‘Man Bites Dog’ is.
The New York Times has always been desperate to appear non-sensational to the extent of being dull and its headlines are sometimes almost willfully boring. My personal, all time favorite Times headline is: “No Anthrax Found in Pond”, i.e. nothing happened in an insignificant body of water. This is the equivalent of running ‘Dog Nearly Bit Man’.
In recent years the Times’ understatement has lead to neo-Edwardian prudery, which is ironic for the newspaper of record in a town where people are renowned for being thick skinned. Today’s example comes from middle of the road, star reporter, Thomas Friedman, who quotes the classic Onion article about a Chinese factory worker who cannot believe the crap he is making for American export. The Times censors the word shit, and removes 90% of the impact of the punch-line.
“Often, when we’re assigned a new order for, say, ‘salad shooters,’ I will say to myself, ‘There’s no way that anyone will ever buy these.’ … One month later, we will receive an order for the same product, but three times the quantity. How can anyone have a need for such useless [garbage]?”
“Often, when we’re assigned a new order for, say, ‘salad shooters,’ I will say to myself, ‘There’s no way that anyone will ever buy these,'” Chen said during his lunch break in an open-air courtyard. “One month later, we will receive an order for the same product, but three times the quantity. How can anyone have a need for such useless shit?”
Here are some unpleasant truths that most American’s don’t acknowledge or know, now that they are worse off than France in unemployment percentage terms and without the upside:
In the US being fired means no notice and being escorted off the premises with two months severance if you are lucky. If you are an executive with a history of litigation you normally get more from a board, because there is a risk the company will incur costs (I have been in board meeting this spineless immoral stance has been the attitude). It means that for a year or so you can pay to keep your healthcare. After that, you are pretty much screwed.
In France you will get 3 months warning, and 2 years (23 months) at 60 – 70 % of your salary up to $90K. Your pension will continue to be paid and you will get free healthcare. And after 2 years the healthcare will continue and you will not starve. You will not have mortgage payments which are more than 3 times your previous salary, because that is illegal and you will be in a minority if you use a credit rather than a debit card. You will not need to get into debt to get a credit score, and you won’t have much of a student loan. The very best schools (Henry IV) are free and so is university (although the universities are sub par compared to the Grand Ecoles or places like INSEAD).
Lastly – personal taxes are about the same and the productivity of French workers is the same as the US.
There are downsides to this of course, business taxes are higher, people exploit the system and there is a deluded and hypocritical sense of self-entitlement in France from its, ultimately Bourgeois, left who are living off the tax revenues from principal exports such as luxury goods for the rich and weapons for the oppressive. The culture is less dynamic, and there are plenty of socio-economic problems, but there is plenty to enjoy anyhow.
France has less boom and less bust, booms are smaller and longer and so are recoveries. There is, of course a happy medium in between France and America, but in the current environment it pretty clear where is a better place to be for most people. America is on the side of the extreme that will create extraordinary hardship for a large number of ordinary people that will be more familiar in Mexico City than Paris. The upside is that the US may recover quicker, but what would you rather have a three week flu or cyanide?
… and is still a Philistine. Economists are not Concerned Only with the Financial Value of Things:
The dismal performance by the London stock market leaves City high-flyers facing much reduced bonuses and foot soldiers fearing thousands of redundancies…With no obvious turnround in sight some of the gloomiest market watchers are making comparisons with other share meltdowns such as the 1929 crash. The FTSE 100 index is now down 43% from the peak reached on New Year’s Eve 1999.
Wall Street traditionally enjoys a late rally in the last couple of weeks of December but this time the fillip failed to materialise. The Dow is also ending down for the third consecutive year. The Nasdaq has dropped even more sharply, recording a 31% drop this year.
The Dow has now suffered a cumulative fall of almost 38% since January 2000, compared to a slide of 45% during the 1970s oil crisis and an 89% drop during the depression of the 1920s and 1930s.
This was 2003, right in the middle of the UK housing boom and a 15 year stretch without a recession. The point being that things can get better quickly, but that the UK markets still have a long way to drop, relative to the gravity of the downturn.
This recession is really bad, its the first systemic failure of globalization in the electronic age. I am a naturally negative doomsayer and I think this will end in a large war within 10 years, but now I’m seeing some irrational pessimism that I don’t buy, regarding all banks, and so I’ve bought Goldman Sachs stock.
Jeremy Warner says it well in the Independent:
“If every house on your street was put up for sale all at the same time and it was announced that they must all be sold within the week, you wouldn’t expect to get much for your property…Nobody in their right mind would think of participating in such a firesale unless they absolutely had to, yet this is the sort of nonsense approach to valuation which is now routinely applied by analysts, accountants, regulators and financial commentators to bank and insurance balance sheets.”
Myth busting the Wild West.
In the cowboy towns that epitomized the Wild West: “Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City, and Caldwell, for the years from 1870 to 1885, there were only 45 total homicides. This equates to a rate of approximately 1 murder per 100,000 residents per year”.
Source.
Measured by murder rate, in 2007 New York was 6 times; DC, 31 times; Newark, 37 times and Baltimore, a staggering 45 times more wild than the Wild Wild West.
DC – 183 Murders (31 per 100,000 residents)
New York – 494 Murders (6 per 100,000 residents)
Baltimore – 281 Murders (45 per 100,000 residents)
Newark – 104 Murders (37 per 100,000 residents)
In Poland, 60pc of mortgages are in Swiss francs. The zloty has just halved against the franc. Hungary, the Balkans, the Baltics, and Ukraine are all suffering variants of this story. As an act of collective folly – by lenders and borrowers – it matches America’s sub-prime debacle. There is a crucial difference, however. European banks are on the hook for both. US banks are not.
Almost all East bloc debts are owed to West Europe, especially Austrian, Swedish, Greek, Italian, and Belgian banks. En plus, Europeans account for an astonishing 74pc of the entire $4.9 trillion portfolio of loans to emerging markets….
Whether it takes months, or just weeks, the world is going to discover that Europe’s financial system is sunk, and that there is no EU Federal Reserve yet ready to act as a lender of last resort or to flood the markets with emergency stimulus
The pinch of salt that should be taken with this article is that its author is a renowned euro-skeptic. For example, Polish mortgages in Swiss Francs are still cheaper than if they had been taken out in Zloty, and the number of people with large levels of housing debt is much less than US or UK.