links for 2009-09-18

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  • Google Just Showed Amazon How to Save the Content Biz " blog maverick
    Mark Cuban: "I thought it was a good idea for media conglomerates to package all their digital assets into subscription offers. Its a far better idea for a marketer like Amazon to package cross company offerings into bigger and better packages."
    (tags: media)
  • The Bank Implode-o-Meter: Wells Fargo’s Commercial Portfolio is a ticking time bomb
    "In order to sort through the disaster that is Wells Fargo’s (quote: WFC) commercial loan portfolio, the bank has hired help from outside experts to pour over the books… and they are shocked with what they are seeing. Not only do the bank’s outstanding commercial loans collectively exceed the property values to which they are attached, but derivative trades leftover from its acquisition of Wachovia are creating another set of problems for the already beleaguered San Francisco-based megabank.

    Wachovia, which Wells purchased last fall as it teetered on the brink of collapse, was so desperate to increase revenue in the last few years of its existence that it underwrote loans with extremely shoddy standards and paid traders to take them off their books."

    h/t to Ed Cone for the link

    (tags: banks economy)

Will Winston-Salem City Council Pull the Plug on Prim?

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I don't think the Winston-Salem City Council can afford to be too tough with Billy Prim and the other investors in the downtown stadium project so it will be interesting to see what happens if Prim misses the Council's deadline on getting the financing done on the deal as this article in the Journal hints might happen.  I really don't think there's much the Council can do other than a little screamin' and hollerin'.

How Youth Was Served in East Winston

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Yesterday I wrote about the 21 year old Winston-Salem State University student Derwin Montgomery who won the Democratic primary and likely the council seat the East Ward of Winston-Salem since there's no Republican candidate.  The Winston-Salem Journal has an article about how he did it.  Please note that he didn't just do this on a whim and that some real strategy and planning went into his effort:

Montgomery, who had been running his campaign more or less alone, started delegating responsibility to fellow students. He had a "director of compliance" who helped WSSU students register to vote in Forsyth County. He had a "director of transportation" who organized vehicles to drive students to the board of elections so they could cast early ballots. He had two administrative assistants.

It paid off in a big way. A total of 440 people cast ballots for Montgomery in early voting, including 211 students at Winston-Salem State who were newly registered. That's more than the total number of people who voted in three of the other six primary races.

Ecorations

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I came across thispress release about a web-based company in Clemmons called Ecorations that has a pretty interesting product concept.

Ecorations, LLC is a web-based company launched in May 2008 by Kathy de Jong and Debora Owens. The concept was inspired by de Jong’s Dutch mother-in-law, who once presented Kathy with a Christmas gift wrapped in a burlap tote—only to promptly ask for it back (promising that she’d “see it again next year”). Today, Ecorations hopes to spread this lovely, timeworn tradition to the rest of the world.

Founded with the mission to reduce waste and shift standards in gift giving, the company is committed to quality and innovation “where green meets smart and chic.” Its bags and wraps are made in the U.S. of high-quality fabric, making them durable throughout years of reuse. Additional gift bag designs, including an apparel box wrap, structured pouch and wine bottle bag, come in several sizes (to fit any gift) and 10 reversible fabrics combinations for a variety of occasions

links for 2009-09-17

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  • Lex: Reinforcements
    Lex has been writing about the efforts of Florida's US Rep. Alan Grayson to get an audit of the Federal Reserve done, and soon. Apparently Rep. Grayson now has a Senate counterpart in Delaware's Sen. Ted Kaufman. Lex pulls a quote from an interview with Grayson in which he's asked what the Fed's been up to:

    "Congressman Grayson: They are performing a truly remarkable, surreptitious transfer of wealth from public to private hands. They are taking their ability to print money and shore up failed banks. They are simply stuffing money into the pockets of private interests."

    (tags: economics government)

  • Triad Biz Journal: Winston-Salem home sales down 20%

    "There were 445 sales of existing single-family homes in the Winston-Salem area, compared with 558 in August 2008, according to data compiled from the Triad Multiple Listing Service and released by the Winston-Salem Regional Association of Realtors."

    (tags: realestate winston-salem)

  • Lex: Can we PLEASE let the smart people run things for a while?

    Lex posts about an item concerning a film on Darwin that can't find a US distributor because the subject would be too divisive for US audiences. Huh? Here's the scariest part to me: "US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution." Can that 39% figure possibly be right? I'm hoping it really is the result of a loaded question like, "Do you believe that Darwin or God was right?" Somehow I doubt it, though.

    (tags: science culture)

  • Triad Biz Journal: GSO home sales drop in August

    "Greensboro home sales in August, at 490, were down 21.7 percent compared to August 2008, when 626 homes were sold, according to data released by the Greensboro Regional Realtors Association. The August total also was down about 4.3 percent from July, when 512 existing homes were sold."

    (tags: realestate greensboro)

Sustainibility Quote of the Day

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Fec, writing about the sustainibility movement, provides the quote of the day:

If climate change is a fact, and I believe it probably is, then we need to do something about it. However, clean coal, carbon capture and offsets are myths. Before we begin to indoctrinate society, I’d just like some agreed upon methodologies, rather than the hocus pocus money grab going on now.

Mostly Local Market, Lewisville

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According to this article from the Winston-Salem Journal a fellow named Tom Raif has opened a market focused on selling locally grown food has opened behind the Brush Strokes art studio on Shallowford Road.  From the article:

He's still in the process of filling the shelves. But he had local tomatoes and squash last week. Pears and apples came from Virginia. Eggs came right from Lewisville. He bought beef off the hoof from Pfafftown and had it processed locally to sell ground beef, steaks, roasts and soup bones. He also has chickens, whole and in various cuts, and plans to add sausage this week.

Right now, he's dealing with wholesalers who can get local produce, but he hopes to work more directly with farmers. He said he has contacted two organic farms about supplying him with pumpkins and other fall produce.

He also plans to add fresh breads, handmade soaps and other items soon.

Sen. Franken Does the Minnesota State Fair

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Former (maybe current) comedian and current US Senator Al Franken of Minnesota has gotten some YouTube love from his recent visit to the Minnesota State Fair.  Here he draws a map of the United States from memory:

And here he debates some folks about health reform and manages to actually have a novel thing called a conversation with them.  Credit also goes to the crowd for treating him with respect.

Love him or hate him I don't think there's much doubt that the man is sharp.