• Zero Hedge: Some Friday Socialism Courtesy Of The FDIC, Ahead Of Bank Failure Friday
  Do you know where your taxes are?: "In an act unprecedented nobility, granted using other people's money, the FDIC sent out a release today, encouraging its loss-share partners who have acquired failed banks on the back of taxpayers' footing the bulk of the balance sheet risk and cost, essentially guaranteeing profits for these same partners, to "consider temporarily reducing mortgage payments for borrowers who are unemployed or underemployed." The FDIC's recommendation: "to reduce the loan payment to an affordable level for at least six months." And the kicker, once again subsidized by those taxpayers who live within their means yet do not find it critical to live in a house they can not afford: "losses incurred in subsequent foreclosures or short sales are covered losses.""
  (tags: economics)
• Zero Hedge: One Bank's Failed Attempt At Convincing Paulson And Bernanke It Was Too Big To Fail
  Color me depressed: "What is certain, is that neither Paulson's, nor Bernanke's actions, have forestalled another bubble collapse, and in fact, through their actions have made a certainty that we are currently living in the last bubble: one whose viability is tied with the existence of America itself. Yet this bubble too will pop, and when it does and the wealth destruction, foretold in the Lehman presentation, will be exponentially more pronounced than what even Dick Fuld could imagine."
  (tags: economics)

• NY Times: Accountants Misled Us Into Crisis
  "Unfortunately, some seem to have learned exactly the opposite lesson. Accounting rule makers at FASB and its international equivalent, the International Accounting Standards Board, have been lambasted for efforts to improve transparency by forcing banks to disclose what their dodgy assets are actually worth, as opposed to what the banks think they should be worth.

  Both boards have tried to resist, but have been forced by political pressure to back down on some specifics."

  H/T to Ed Cone for the link.

  (tags: finance accounting economics)

• AVC: Don't Forget About Email
  "Our portfolio company Etsy operates a market for handmade items. Etsy has been operating for over four years. For most of its life, Etsy had little to no email communication with its buyers. In the past six months, they built a number of email services and now email is one of the top traffic drivers to the site, passing popular new traffic sources like social networks, blogs, and communities."
  (tags: email marketing communication)
• RexBlog: “A life recorder that may be this century’s wrist watch” – cir. 1945
  Rex Hammock post reiterates the point that everything old is new again. Love the reference to the Memex.
  (tags: information technology)
• Guest Post: The "Other" Real-Estate Issue Revisited | zero hedge
  Commercial real estate situation is looking ugly. h/t to Lex for the link.
  (tags: economics realestate commercialrealestate)

Fec links to an article in NYT that you really have to read to believe.  In essence it says that the wizards of Wall Street have hit on a new securitization scheme: bundle life insurance policies so that people can sell the payout of their life insurance policies and then the banks collect them after they croak.  Seriously.

Check this out:

The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return — though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.

Either way, Wall Street would profit by pocketing sizable fees for creating the bonds, reselling them and subsequently trading them. But some who have studied life settlements warn that insurers might have to raise premiums in the short term if they end up having to pay out more death claims than they had anticipated.

This is seriously twisted.

• Winston-Salem Journal: HAWS Hires Project Planner
  "The Housing Authority of Winston-Salem hopes to overhaul 130 acres in the northeastern part of the city under a new public-housing plan being considered by Congress.

  The housing authority's board of commissioners decided yesterday to sign a contract with an architecture and planning company that will help the authority create a "master plan" for the overhaul"

  (tags: winston-salem realestate apartment)

• Yes! Weekly: A Mayor for All Seasons
  Yes! Weekly's profile of Winston-Salem's mayor.
  (tags: winston-salem politics)

• Cuban: What's the Difference Between YouTube Today and Broadcast Networks?
  "I dont think there is any question that the Youtube model is better. Now that they have stopped hiding behind the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, Youtube has taken the very smart step of letting content “audition” for the right to sign a license for Youtube to send it traffic and sell advertising around it.

  Anyone can post content on Youtube. If that content generates enough interest (even if its interest that is artificially created by the content production company), Youtube will offer it a license that allows Youtube to sell advertising around the content and share that revenue with the content creator (Without a license,Youtube is not allowed to sell advertising around the content. By the DMCA, they are not allowed to even know it exists. Youtube acts only as a host). It really is win win."

  (tags: media mediaincome)

• Lex: Irredeemable; or, “What’s the recourse if you make a mistake?”
  Lex provides the conditions necessary to him for the death penalty to stand: "If it ever can be shown that the state has wrongfully executed an innocent person even though a fair exculpatory case existed before the execution, then we also should put to death the prosecutor and judge in the case. If a parole board ever commits the kind of dereliction of duty displayed in Willingham’s case with the result that an innocent person is executed, the board members who voted for execution should be put to death. If a governor can be shown to have denied clemency to an innocent prisoner even in the face of exculpatory evidence, as Texas Gov. Rick Perry appears to have done, the governor should be put to death.

  Then and only then, my friends, will we know that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."

  (tags: society)

• Triad Biz Journal: U.S. worker productivity hits six-year high
  "Workers are more productive, but employee earnings are falling, according to a closely-watched report released Wednesday." File this under least surprising business news of the decade. Fear of loss of job/starvation is a powerful motivator.
  (tags: economics productivity)

• Open Forum: A Good Business Move: Joining Associations
  "The next time you write that yearly check to renew those memberships within your industry’s organizations, think about their value in two parts: What are you willing to put into the membership, and what do you want in return?"
  (tags: association)

• Dana Milbank – Washington Sketch: A Hero Named Bill Cahir Dies in …
  "On Saturday, millions watched as Ted Kennedy made his final trip to Arlington National Cemetery. With rather less attention, Arlington's soil opened again Monday to accept the remains of one of Kennedy's former aides, 40-year-old Bill Cahir."
  (tags: war)

• Triad Biz Journal: FDIC chief sees commercial mortgage threat
  "The chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. warned Tuesday that more banks could be put out of business in the next year because of commercial mortgage problems."
  (tags: commercialrealestate commercialloans)

• Ellen Naylor: Will Associations Go the Way of Print Media?
  I had the opportunity to work with Ellen Naylor during my time with SCIP and found her to be one of the most insightful and fun people to work with in the SCIP member community. She makes some good points about the association business in her post, the most important of which is that association execs need to be attuned to the changes being wrought on their "business" by the evolution of social media.
  (tags: association)

• Shell: "Hey man, pull your pants up."
  This has to be a first in the annals of politics in the Triad. GSO City Council At-Large Candidate Ryan Shell was canvassing when he came across a guy running from, and who was eventually tazed by the police. Later he interviewed the guy and as they guy's walking away Ryan tells him to pull up his britches.
  (tags: greensboro politics)
• AVC: Consumer Centric Health Care
  "The benefit of a consumer centric health care system is we all would start paying attention to what all of this costs and negotiating ourselves for better prices and/or shopping around. That never happens except in the cases where the procedures aren't covered. And Goldhill makes a compelling argument that uncovered procedures have shown the benefit of a competitive market at work:"
  (tags: healthcare healthinsurance)

• Freakonomics: Who Causes Cyclists Deaths?
  This bit of info should be a wake up call to anyone who lives in Lewisville, NC seeing as we must have more cyclists per capita than any other town in the union. A study shows that 90% of accidents that result in the deaths of cyclists are caused by motorists.
  (tags: bicycling lewisville)