links for 2009-11-05

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  • CNN Report Has Me Wondering if We Need to Wear Bike Helmets for Everything
    I'm telling you if they don't stop doing medical research we're not going to have anything left to do that can't somehow kill you or at least bring you serious harm:

    "For decades, doctors described cases of a rare neurological condition that usually occurred in patients over age 50. Neurologists noted that patients knew their identities, but couldn't retain recent memory, where they were and how they got there. They showed no other symptoms.

    Sex is one of the major triggers for the baffling medical condition called transient global amnesia in which patients lose their ability to retain immediate memory."

    (tags: weird interesting)

  • Yes! Weekly: Faith and Politics

    Keith Barber pens an article that looks at the intersection of faith and politics in Winston-Salem.

    (tags: winston-salem politics religion)

  • Winston-Salem Construction Costs per Square Foot Lowest in Survey

    In this Reed Construction Data survey of 25 cities Winston-Salem had the lowest construction costs per square foot in four categories (hospitals 2-3 stories, hospitals 4-8 stories, nursing homes, apartments 8-24 stories). Honestly I'm trying to figure out where the apartment buildings over 8 stories are in the city.

    (tags: winston-salem commercialrealestate)

  • Interesting Info from Donor's Choose Challenge

    For three years Fred Wilson has done a great job of raising money through the Donor's Choose Bloggers challenge. In this post he shared data on how much money was raised each year and from how many people. What I find interesting is that the amount of money is relatively flat from year to year ($18,538 in 2007, $17,029 in 2008, and $18,824 this year), but the number of donors increased dramatically this year (92 in 2007, 80 in 2008, and 205 this year). While it would be great to see the amount-per-donor at the same level as 2007 with the higher number of donors in 2009 I think that's unrealistic in this economy. In the long run I think that having the higher number of donors will be a positive because when next year rolls around there will probably be more donors coming back and if times are better then the dollars-per-donor average will go up and it's a long-term win for Donor's Choose. I'm wondering if the same trend is happening with other non-profits?

    (tags: nonprofit)

  • AVC: Throw the Bums out

    I'm in general agreement with Fred Wilson:

    "It is not a positive to be an incumbent right now. And that's a good thing because the track record of our government sucks. I hope the anti incumbent mood continues to be honest. We could use a good house cleaning throughout our government."

    (tags: politics government)

AP Economic Stress Index

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Fec linked to the AP Economic Stress Index and he apparently heard about it from a commenter.  The index is very interesting, and according to it Guilford County (12.56) is slightly more stressed than Forsyth (11.02).  FYI, 100 indicates maximum stress.  In October 2007 the Guilford number was 5.52 and Forsyth's was 5.64, but I don't think anyone would be shocked to learn that we're more than twice as stressed as we were two years ago. 

Of course it's all relative.  12.56 is a walk in the park compared to these places:

  • Nye County, Nevada – 23.73
  • Yuma County, Arizone – 25.82
  • Imperial County, California – 33.52

links for 2009-11-04

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  • CRE Trouble
    From the report:
    "In September 2009, the delinquent unpaid balance for CMBS increased to $31.73 billion from $28.16 billion a month prior. Such delinquent unpaid balance is up an astounding 583% from one-year ago (when only $4.64 billion of delinquent balance was reported for September 2008), and is now over 14 times the low point of $2.21 billion in March 2007. An increase in four of five delinquent loan categories was noted in September, with a slight decline experienced in the REO bucket (reflected in the increased liquidations for September). Despite such decline, the distressed 90+-day, Foreclosure and REO categories grew in aggregate for the 22nd straight month – up by $1.48 billion (8%) from the previous month and over $16.65 billion (547%) in the past year (up from only $3.044 billion in September 2008)."
    (tags: commercialrealestate economy)
  • How Greensboro Voted
    A map showing how Greensboro residents voted for mayor. A very stark divide between east and west Greensboro.
    (tags: politics greensboro)
  • Yes!Weekly: Bill Burckley on the clock
    A look at how a GSO political handler evaluated the field and got a political neophyte elected mayor of Greensboro.
    (tags: politics greensboro)
  • Hoggard: Council Kingmakers
    David Hoggard has an interesting post about last nights Greensboro election results, including a link to a blog post at Yes!Weekly about the work of Bill Burckley who managed the campaign of mayoral upset winner Bill Knight.
    (tags: greensboro politics)

The Obama Head Fake?

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So maybe health care reform is just a decoy:

But other issues that once consumed Congress are now sailing into law, often without much public notice. Senior White House political adviser David Axelrod said his opponents in Congress are absorbed with defeating Mr. Obama's health-care overhaul, what he calls "the shiny object that they've chased." As a result, he contends, other measures have been left to pass into law.

Earlier in the article:

Last week, Mr. Obama signed defense-policy legislation that included an unrelated measure widening federal hate-crimes laws to cover sexual orientation and gender identification — 12 years after it was first introduced. The same legislation also tightened the rules of admissible evidence for military commissions, an issue that consumed Congress in debate in 2007 but received almost no attention this go-round.

Other new measures signed into law since the administration took office, all of which kicked up controversy in past congresses, make it easier for women to sue for equal pay, set aside land in the West from development, give the government the power to regulate tobacco and raise tobacco taxes to expand health insurance for children. Congress and the White House, in the new defense-policy bill, also killed weapons programs that have survived earlier attempts at termination, among them, the F-22 fighter jet, the VH-71 presidential helicopter and the Army's Future Combat System.

About the Winston-Salem Journal

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I've been meaning to write about the local newspaper for the last couple of months, but I'm just now getting to it.  Anyone who's read this blog over the last few years knows that in the past I've been somewhat critical of how the newspaper has approached competing the modern information era.  Well I'd like to take a moment to give them kudos for two recent changes:

  1. Unlike some folks I like their redesign to the smaller format. I find it easier to read and I like the new fonts and layout as well. It's purely a personal preference, but the redesign definitely works for me.
  2. I think combining the hard news into one section and focusing on local news in the front is a good move. National news is easily available from other sources (cable news, national news websites, etc.) and the one competitive advantage that the Journal has is in-depth local news and they need to emphasize that.

I also think the Journal is trying hard with their online efforts.  I'm a fan of some of their blogs, Dan Collins' in particular, and they're even trying some live online chats.  Unfortunately the live chat with Mayor Joines to discuss the Dell situation seemed to have attracted about four people judging by the number of people who submitted questions (I think there were two of us) and I don't sense that many of them get a lot of active engagement. 

What I'm hoping is that the paper will keep plugging away and somehow find gold in the online hills, and do it ASAP, because their print circulation is looking pretty dismal.  Numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulation show the number of M-F subscribers for the six months that ended 9/30/2009 to be 67,169 and the number of Sunday subscribers to be 82,959.  As those print numbers continue to plummet so will the advertising revenue derived from them, and unless it's replaced with revenue from some other function I don't think the paper will be a viable business for many more years. 

Unfortunately I think the Journal gave up its greatest competitive advantage years ago when it started laying off reporters.  I'm not saying that the folks at the Journal did it light heartedly or without a great deal of consideration, but those very same reporters would be the people that could create the locally focused product unique to the Journal whether in print, online, or written in chalk on the road for that matter.  That content could then be packaged and sold, whether to advertisers or directly to consumers, and would hold what I consider to be the best opportunity for the Journal to survive or even thrive.  Unfortunately that horse is long out of the barn and it's a little late to shut the door.

My friends, the demise of the Journal would be bad for all of us because local newspapers have traditionally been the most effective watchdog of local government and without them we'll have a vacuum to fill.  Sure, we could have "citizen journalists" step in and do some of it, and local TV will do whatever it can in two minute chunks, but local newspapers offer a level of expertise that will be very difficult to replace in the short term and as we've seen recently here in Winston-Salem, even the best intentioned and most respected politicians need some looking after.

links for 2009-10-31

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  • Univ of Chicago Mag: Sumo wrestlers are big, but are they a Big Question?
    Freakonomics' Steven Levitt is an economist at the University of Chicago and the school's magazine asks if he's responsible for ruining economics. It's an interesting article in and of itself, but I got no small measure of pride when the one non-Chicago economist cited was from my alma mater (George Mason University). FYI, GMU's first Nobel Prize was for economics in 1986 and the winner was James Buchanan, Director, Center for Study of Public Choice. I can still remember the buzz on campus the day it was announced.
    (tags: economics)
  • Bloomberg: Wilbur Ross Sees ‘Huge’ Commercial Real Estate Crash
    From the story: “All of the components of real estate value are going in the wrong direction simultaneously,” said Ross, one of nine money managers participating in a government program to remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets. “Occupancy rates are going down. Rent rates are going down and the capitalization rate — the return that investors are demanding to buy a property — are going up.”

    h/t to Ed Cone for the link.

    (tags: economics commercialrealestate apartment)

links for 2009-10-30

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Everything Old is New Again

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I read this Gartner blog post about the government making its data more easily accessible with a little smile on my face because it caused me to have a little "Back to the Future Moment" moment.  More specifically I enjoyed this part:

A conversation with a federal client on Monday about this last aspect was illuminating. He observed that certain data may allow businesses to create services that they charge for and profit from. If successful, these services, irrespective of whether they are useful to the public, would put a significant demand on the government infrastructure. The question then would be how to strike a fair balance between providing data transparency and access to the public, and ensuring that taxpayer money is not being used to subsidize businesses.

I hate to tell them, but there's been a nice little sector of the publishing industry that's made a killing off of repackaging public data since well before the internet even existed.  They did it by compiling relevant data for readers that was easier to digest than the "off the shelf" data provided by the government and/or the information was delivered in a more timely manner.  To me this worry is a lot of noise about nothing; the government has to provide the public access to its data as part of its mandate and worrying about businesses being subsidized by this activity is, to me, nonsensical.  Companies won't be in business long if they simply regurgitate data, but they can build a nice business if they add a little value for consumers (insight, context, timeliness, etc.) and I think everyone benefits from that in the long run.

links for 2009-10-29

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