Tag: banking

What Do Those Initials Hide?

Some of them seem go to initials to hide their real name from customers who’d rather “Buy American.”

Why do companies lose their names and adopt their initials? In some cases the original name becomes obsolete. AT&T doesn’t worry about telegraph anymore. A computer company named COLECO made more sense than The Connecticut Leather Company.

It’s not always that simple, especially for banks! Some of them seem go to initials to hide their real name from customers who’d rather “Buy American.” I was thinking about this after seeing a commercial for ING Direct during the Mets/Phillies game (don’t ask).

  • HSBC: Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
  • TD Banknorth: Toronto Dominion
  • ING Direct: Internationale Nederlanden Groep

These banks are doing nothing wrong or illegal, but I’ll bet few of their customers know where the home office really is.

Is Dodd Done?

To me it has always seemed Connecticut is an address of convenience for Senator Dodd. He’s from Connecticut the way ships are registered in Liberia and Panama or businesses are incorporated in Delaware and the Cayman’s.

Christopher_Dodd_official_portrait_2-cropped.jpgJust as I was getting set for bed the Twitterverse started going a little nuts with word Senator Christopher Dodd will announce he’s not running for reelection to his Senate seat. The announcement, if true, is a shocker even though I’ve been telling anyone who’d listen he was unelectable.

Unelectable candidates run all the time. They lose. I assume he figured that out.

He’s run and won six times. Thirty years in the Senate. Quite a record. Alas, here in Connecticut the bloom is off the rose.

Every time a sleazy rock is turned over concerning banking or finances there seems to be signs Chris Dodd has been there. His mortgage deal with Countrywide, sweetheart or not, never seemed like the kind of deal I’d get.

In the NY Times Gail Collins wrote of his opportunism and Connecticut’s skepticism:

The trouble began with Dodd’s presidential campaign when he famously attempted to win over the voters in the Iowa caucus by moving his entire family to the state and enrolling his daughter in an Iowa kindergarten. Iowa, you may remember, responded enthusiastically and awarded him nearly 1 percent of the vote. Connecticut was mortified.

Mortified. Exactly.

I’ve only met Chris Dodd three of four times in my 25 years here. At a UCONN basketball victory parade I jumped on the back of a flatbed truck and interviewed Dodd and Joe Lieberman on live TV.

The truck began to move as I was clumsily climbing on. Senator Dodd leaned over and reached out to help. He has the softest hands I have ever felt on a man!

A few years ago I walked into the conference room as Ann Nyberg was getting set to interview him. I looked at the Senator and said, “I’m just a typical American boy from a typical American town.”

Nyberg was confused. She flashed a quizzical look. Too young to understand.

Dodd smiled and continued, “I believe in God and Senator Dodd and keeping old Castro down.”

We were doing lines from Phil Ochs’ “Draft Dodger Rag.” The Senator Dodd in the song was Chris Dodd’s dad, Tom. Being in the Senate was like being in a family business.

To me it has always seemed Connecticut is an address of convenience for Senator Dodd. He’s from Connecticut the way ships are registered in Liberia and Panama or businesses are incorporated in Delaware and the Cayman’s.

427px-Richard_Blumenthal_at_West_Hartford_library_opening.jpgMore than likely this opens the door for Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to run.

For Republicans this is a worst case scenario. Dodd was weak. Blumenthal is strong and well liked. It will be tough to muddy this consumer oriented former Marine.

Dick Blumenthal is a retail politician appearing and pressing the flesh at more events than any three other pols in Connecticut. I suspect more Connecticut residents have had personal contact with the AG than any other elected official. That kind of stuff pays off.

Now I can go to sleep.

The Bailout

If you can’t afford it, I don’t want governmental policy encouraging you to borrow. There’s something fundamentally wrong with loans that can only be made when usurious rates must be charged. Hey, Gary Coleman–I’m talking to you.

I am an opinionated guy. I have a position on nearly every public issue. I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad. It’s just how it is.

That’s why this whole bailout issue is so perplexing. I have no idea where I stand!

I am worried what will happen to our country if our banking and financial system fails. Maybe it is to big to fail. Even if I’m pissed at the bankers, I don’t want to cut off my nose to spite my face.

On the other hand I worry we’re rewarding bad behavior by allowing these big businesses to survive. No one can convincingly deny that.

I hear a lot of talk about keeping the credit markets open, but don’t we need the credit markets to be a little tighter? Wasn’t the whole sub-prime mess caused by too much credit being available to too many people?

If you can’t afford it, I don’t want governmental policy encouraging you to borrow. There’s something fundamentally wrong with loans that can only be made when usurious rates must be charged. Hey, Gary Coleman–I’m talking to you.

I don’t want the people who caused this to benefit. That especially goes for bankers. Do you think we consumers don’t understand you’re right up there with airlines in your contempt for us? For many people you have turned borrowing into the financial equivalent of heroin addiction.

Finally, there’s a hard sell on. I see it on the cable news networks especially. Any time the pressure’s on to make a quick move I begin to count my fingers and hide the silverware.

I really wish I knew. This is too big a decision to be rendered without me having an opinion.

Yeah, It’s a Recession

People will feel guilty about conspicuous consumption and cut back.

IANAE–I am not an economist.

We are in a recession.

OK, I’m not 100% on that. However, it doesn’t make any difference. We’re acting like we’re in one. That’s all that matters.

I have been through these before. They suck really bad. A lot of good people are about to get hurt.

Helaine and I looked at a house on-the-market while we were in Palm Springs. It’s still for sale. They’re asking 70% of the original price. That’s what you see in a recession.

People will feel guilty about conspicuous consumption and cut back. Those employees who serve the consumers will be hurt. Foxwoods casino laid off about 100 middle managers today.

A recession, unfortunately, feeds upon itself. Cutbacks affect sales which cause more cutbacks and on-and-on. Entering your first recession, it looks like there’s no way out. There is.

As the number of businesses shrink the remaining players find themselves doing better. The recession ends as those businesses restock and rehire.

This time, we have other underlying problems. Much of the American economy, built over the last sixty years, has moved away. We don’t make things here. I grew up at a time when workers in retail or manufacturing could own a home. No more. That will slow recovery or make the actual recession deeper.

Many businesses are at a crossroads. Broadcasting, my field for nearly 40 years, is increasingly being marginalized by small players taking tiny fractions of our audience. It’s like being eaten by fleas, or so goes the old saying. It’s worse in print media and autos and banking and airlines&#185. There are whole sectors of our economy that seem to have no long term prospects.

This recession will be deeper, but we’ll come out of it. I picture an American economy more along the lines of the European economy. Our days of being the World’s engine of economic growth are over. We will probably pull back our global military reach and step down as the World’s superpower.

We have been defeated by technology and techniques we developed. Sad.

&#185 – About the airlines. Except for Southwest, you have turned us into packages moving through your system. For years you touted your exemplary service. We allowed you to be deregulated with the implied promise that wouldn’t change. Then you pooped on us. Your loyal employees have been hung-out-to-dry by putting them in contact with us after you’d changed all the rules. I have no sympathy for your plight.

On The Air Scare

I don’t normally like to talk about my job here on my website, but I’ll make an exception with this little story. There’s really no other place to tell it.

Our helicopter is flying this afternoon, covering a bad fire in Stamford. Our 5:30 PM producer offered a shot from the helicopter for me to use with weather. I asked for the tail-cam.

As I came on-the-air I could see the sky was white and indefinite. The tail-cam shot shows the copter fixed in the image. It looked like a still photo.

Live, on-the-air I asked the pilot to make a turn, so you could see it was real.

As he banked left, the horizon tilted in the picture. I mentioned it as he kept banking… and banking… and banking.

I don’t fly in copters every day, but it looked like a pretty big bank, when the picture went black.

Oh my!

It was only gone for a split second before returning, but it scared the living daylights out of me. And I was a little shaky for the rest of that particular on-air hit. I’m calming down now… but slowly.

No more requests of the copter pilot. That’s my new policy.