I went to lunch with the owner of a construction-related company today. He was a hoot. We flipped for who would buy. Before he was even done flipping I knew I’d lost. Was I taken? Still not sure. But he’s clearly a gambler.
When I mentioned that I’m heading to Vegas Thursday, he pulled out a wad of cash and peeled a crisp $100 bill from the bottom. “Put in on black,” he said.
Not sure how many $100s he had in the stack, but I left lunch thinking I’m clearly in the wrong business.
A reader of a blog called the Consumerist wrote in to ask an interesting question: Should AT&T be advertising the iPhone 3G as “twice as fast” in Wichita when the 3G network is not available in Wichita?
The person pointed out that an ad that ran in The Eagle touted the iPhone’s speed but didn’t mention that the network isn’t available here:
It may not seem like a big deal to some of us that are aware that the 3g coverage of ATT is limited and know to check the coverage first, but there is no guarantee that the good folks at the ATT store will let potential customers in on this, and (again) nowhere on the advertisement does it say that ATT’s 3g coverage is quite limited and not available anywhere near the newspaper’s reader’s area.
I have to admit, I love a good gadget and might have considered buying an iPhone if I weren’t still in the first year of my two-year Verizon contract. And I don’t know if I would have researched the iPhone enough to know the network isn’t available here.
I’d be interested to know if anyone bought one without knowing and regrets it. Maybe it’s not that big of a deal, and I imagine the 3G network will be here soon enough.
I regularly get E-mails of some of the best of commentary on issues that I follow regularly, which includes the price of oil and what’s causing today’s astronomical prices. The column I just read is so on point that I wanted to share. It’s written by John Hanchette, a professor at St. Bonaventure University who is also a Pulitzer Prize winning national correspondent, a founding editor of USA Today and a Gannett Top 10 reporter of the past 25 years.
Happy reading.
No sooner had I blogged about the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s delayed public response to the IndyMac failure when I ran across what may be a costly blunder for the federal regulator.
It seems that when it took over an Illinois-based thrift seven years ago, the thrift continued to make subprime mortgage loans.
Ouch.
The blunder was revealed today in a Wall Street Journal story about a Texas-bank that is suing the FDIC for selling it a portfolio of loans that the bank alleges had some of those problem loans.
This is not a good start to the week at the FDIC.
Stressed employees are 4.4 percent less productive at work — versus 0.7 percent for those reporting “no stress” in the past year, according to a survey by Gordian Health Solutions.
Gordian also recently released a list of 10 common signs that employees are stressed out to help employers become aware of the problem, fleshed out byCorporate Fitness & Wellness Today blog.
Notes Onigman:
Workplace stress is nothing new, thatʼs for sure. But with a struggling economy and the ever-increasing need to do more in less time, employees are feeling the pressure even more these days. And, realizing that thereʼs a big difference in the quality of work produced by stressed-out workers, compared with those who are simply challenged by their work (in a good way), employers are taking note of workplace stress levels.
How does your work place handle employee stress?
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. posted on Friday two new items on its Web site, one a link to help depositors of any failed bank after July 1, 2008 determine how much of their money is covered in case of a bank failure and the other directly aimed at IndyMac Bank customers, some of whom made a run on the bank last week that was reminiscent of the bank runs in the 1930s.
Of course this feature that it has unveiled to IndyMac customers comes a full week after the Office of Thrift Supervision shut down IndyMac and appointed the FDIC the conservator of the failed California-based thrift.
The FDIC has taken some heat for its handling of the failure of IndyMac. Maybe that’s because it took it a week to post this handy information.
My first inclination was to fold this one into the previous blog item, but it’s too interesting to bury.
Real Trends reports that a real estate agent named Lisa LaShawn is a little annoyed with mortgage brokers and their role in the sub-prime crisis, so much so that she’s founded this Web site with a less-than-subtle name and an even less subtle message.
I wonder if anyone’s purchased the domain name “ihateoilspeculators.com?”
The number of big residential real estate brokers delving into the commercial side grew a little over the weekend with the Keller Williams announcement.
And there’s an interesting contradiction on the future of the housing market, courtesy of Real Trends, the Colorado-based analyst: Home builder confidence has sunk to 16 on a 100 scale, according to the National Association of Home Builders, with a housing stimulus package needed from Congress to stem the tide.
However, a survey by the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World shows that 59 percent of its brokers are seeing increased activity in their markets.