Netflix.

Ellisblog!, in a previous incarnation as a columnist for Inside Magazine, wrote what I think was the first column ever written about a video rental company called Netflix.  Back then, the question was this: would Blockbuster and Wal-Mart and Amazon crush Netflix like a bug or would Netflix CEO Reed Hastings manage to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee and somehow emerge victorious? Wal-Mart was the first to throw in the towel. Blockbuster is now on the verge of bankruptcy. Amazon keeps threatening but is focused on other verticals. Netflix, meanwhile, just keeps getting better. It's an amazing company.

Customer Service!

Ellisblog! thinks night and day about one thing: customer service.  Unlike other blogs, which employ cheap tricks to drive hit counts, Ellisblog! employs an investigative reporter (photo below) whose sole purpose is to make your life easier. 

As part of this ongoing commitment, Ellisblog! has found the website that takes the pain out of customer service. It's called Contact Help.  Let's say you've got an issue with your wireless provider or you need some guidance from Amazon about the return of some merchandise.  You don't want to go to their websites and find the information and all that.  Boring!  You just want to type it into a search box and have it appear -- presto.  www.contacthelp.com! Done!

You're welcome.

This Is Beginning To Get Worrisome.


The global financial system teeters on the ledge of disaster and the Secretary of the Treasury can't put together a staff? The Obama Administration might want to spend a little less time on Rush Limbaugh and Jim Cramer and a whole bunch more time focusing on the problem at hand.

Say Goodbye to the Dow Jones Industrial Average.


Citibank is now a penny stock. Delisting TBA. If Vikram Pandit, who really is one of the smartest guys in the room, can't find a way back, then it's probably hopeless for what was once the world's largest and most important financial institution.

Credit Cards and Retail.

Two quotes from James Quinn's editorial at FinancialSense.com struck my eye (the link is broken).  One about credit cards, the second about retail:

1) The credit card wasn’t invented until 1967. Americans have adapted quite well to this new fangled American invention. Since 1970 revolving credit debt has increased by 26,000%, from $3.7 billion to $963.5 billion. Over this same time frame GDP grew by 1,430%. These statistics prove to me that America has maintained its standard of living by using credit cards.

2) The managements of most retailers in the United States are not prepared for $1.3 trillion less consumer spending per year. Their little expansion models were built upon an existing over inflated demand extrapolated at 5% or greater growth for eternity. We know how well bank models worked out. The good news is that retailer expansion models will not bring down the financial system. The bad news is that thousands of retailers will go bankrupt because they planned their businesses based upon false assumptions. Any retailer that used leverage to expand based on faulty pie in the sky assumptions is headed to retail heaven.

It It Walks Like a Duck


And quacks like a duck, then it means that GM is obviously not a going concern. Everyone in the world knows this. Everyone in the world knows that advancing GM more money is an exercise in financial arson. Everyone in the world knows that GM needs to proceed immediately to Chapter 11 or some kind of pre-packaged bankruptcy deal. It's a zombie auto company. Propped up by zombie politics.

T.O.

If you add Terrell Owens to your team you're at least (at least!) 3 points better.  If you add Terrell Owens to your team you take on a boatload of agita.  The biggest impact player in professional football (for ten years) is on the market.  No takers?

Mr. Happy Scours The Globe.....


Always in search of positive news. And where does he find it? On the front page of The Washington Post! Things are looking up! No new office construction is happening inside the District of Columbia. This is the first step in what should be a twenty year process of moving the government out of Washington and back to the states (Treasury to New York State, Interior to Boise, Agriculture to Omaha, Energy to Oklahoma City, Commerce to Seattle, etc.). This idea was first proposed by Kevin Phillips, the author and former political strategist. It remains the first necessary step toward breaking the stranglehold of permanent Washington.

Bjork!

Any article that combines Icelandic investment bankers, Bjork and Michael Lewis is worth your time. Let me be the 15th website to recommend it to you.

The Debate Over Nationalization

Martin Wolf's columns have been consistently clear-headed throughout the crisis of the global financial system. This one is particularly helpful in sorting through the basic components of the debate over nationalization. 

Unemployment by County.

One hopes that this graphic will become a quarterly feature in The New York Times (and elsewhere).  Note the severity of the recession on the West Coast and in Michigan particularly.

Dumb and Dumber

I suppose that attacking the most popular radio talk show host in the history of the medium makes a certain amount of sense, red-meat-for-the-liberal-base-wise.  But, in the end, it's pointless politics. And attacking Jim Cramer is really stupid.  President Obama needs Cramer's support. Cramer moves markets. If you don't think so, ask the guys on the Goldman trading desk.

Obama would be much better served by playing golf with Limbaugh at Andrews Air Force Base and having Cramer down to Camp David for a weekend.  High touch is better than lazy posture. And everybody likes high touch. 

Mr. Positive is Stunned.


I've been in and around the news business for most of my life. This is a headline (and a story) I never imagined I would read. When Toyota asks for government financing, the world (as we knew it) really is coming to an end.

Milk Carton Man.

Mr. Positive is a bit grumpy about the new Treasury Secretary. He's hiding!  That's not going to work. If you're going to prop up credit default swap scam artists like AIG, you've got to explain yourself. Take the heat.  It's part of the job.

Baker Battles The Zombies.

Former Treasury Secretary James A. Baker addresses the nationalization/zombie bank issue today in the FT and recommends nationalization as the path forward. Stock holders would be wiped out, debt holders would have to take a haircut, not a pretty picture, but time to get on with it.

Kindle 2.0


A friend of mine just finished writing a novel. He sent me the manuscript as a Microsoft Word attachment in an email that said: "Here's the manuscript." I saved the attachment, and forwarded it to my Kindle email address. Within minutes, in my new Kindle, was the manuscript, reconfigured as a Kindle book. This transaction cost me 10 cents.

That is cool technology.

Stop Spending Money You Don't Have.


That's Niall Furgeson's advice. His column from Saturday's Australian is well worth your time. He's right about nationalization of the banks, he's correct in saying that mass mortgage modification will be required and he's exactly right that paying policy homage to John Maynard Keynes is nice, but it's probably the wrong policy.

Furgeson writes: The delusion that a crisis of excess debt can be solved by creating more debt is at the heart of the Great Repression. Yet that is precisely what most governments propose to do.

Read it twice. (via Kedrosky).