Money

Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch wrote an "intervention" post for Robert Scoble about his addiction to FriendFeed (and by extension Twitter).

What has he gained? On Twitter Robert has nearly 45,000 followers and has written over 16,000 messages. On Friendfeed Robert has nearly 23,000 subscribers.

So lots of people follow Robert on those services, but they aren’t visiting his site and the content he writes is on someone else’s server. Plus all that content is just really forgettable, compared to a good thought piece that people refer back to over time. There is no direct way to monetize any of that content, which is something that a full time blogger with a family really needs to think about.

Meanwhile, all this attention from Robert has certainly helped the valuations of Friendfeed and Twitter. How much of that value does Robert receive? Zilch.

So Robert has spent 2,555 hours spent reading tens out thousands of mostly inane Twitter and Friendfeed messages, and has written a few thousand messages of his own. Meanwhile, we as a community lost the regularly entertaining and thoughtful posts of a great writer.

Robert dutifully responded over at Scobleizer :

HOW DARE YOU NPR!

Washington-based NPR said it would lay off about 7 percent of its workforce and eliminate two daily programs produced out of its facilities in Culver City, Calif. The shows are "Day to Day," which was aimed at younger listeners, and the newsmaker-interview program "News & Notes," which NPR hoped would attract African Americans.

[...]

Some of those losing their jobs are veteran NPR voices, such as Ketzel Levine, an NPR reporter since 1977, and Vicky O'Hara, an editor and former diplomatic correspondent with 26 years on the job. Others include "News & Notes" host Farai Chideya, "Day to Day" host Madeleine Brand, Washington reporter Libby Lewis, entertainment-industry correspondent Kim Masters and national reporter John McChesney. About half the 64 people cut are journalists.

[...]

Combined with the elimination of "Day to Day" and "News & Notes," the cutbacks constitute a retreat from NPR's efforts to reach new listeners, especially young people and members of minority groups who are not part of NPR's "core" audience. The programs are carried on the Internet, but can be accessed on the radio in Washington only via WAMU's (88.5 FM) "high-definition" channel, which requires a special radio.

"Day to Day" is carried on 186 stations nationwide; "News & Notes" is on 64. Both will remain on the air until March.

So let me get this straight : NPR puts virtually no money to market to the negroes and young crowd. They absolutely spend no effort promoting the stars of their "new demographic" vehicles. They cap the show's distribution at the knees by limiting it to a handful or radio stations and some freakingly obscure high-definition channel that can only be listened to with a freakishly specialized radio and they're complaning the shows tanked?

Yup.

John McCain.

So let me get this straight : The US had 750 billion dollars to bail out Wall Street; a sector of the US economy which has been historically controlled by "white" or US Americans of European ascendancy. The US Congress found 750 billion dollars for them and their European and Asian investors. A bailout, by the way, that now said banks are pooh-poohing, lest the US Treasury and tax-payers find out the depths of their accounting infamies. Yet there's no money to pay back reparations to African Americans for the evils of slavery and Jim Crow laws?

Discuss.

[A scene from the movie Birth of a Nation (1915). Image found in Wikipedia under "Lynching in America")

Started watching the hearing more than an hour ago.

Saw Charles Rangel bullfrog his way into another year as Chairman of the House and Ways Committee. At least that's what it looked like when he was saying his "good-byes" to Jim McCrery (R-La), the minority's leader in the Committee. McCrery is retiring from Congress after failing to land the Chairmanship.

Republicans and Democrats are selling hard the bill, especially the California caucus but for Rep. Sherman(?). Roy Blunt gave a rousing speech. So did John Lewis. David Kucinich decided not to speak but to have his rejection of the bill into the record.

Paul Ryan asks if the bill will stop us into going into a recession? Of course he answers, NO.

Best quote so far has come from Barney Frank, the chair of the Banking Committee : "Ever weary of having George Bush leading us down the path to socialism, I yield my time to the gentleman from Georgia". Awesome.

Rep. David Obey asks Congress to ... obey. Heh. He also agrees this bailout is not going to stop us from going into a recession.

From The Caucus blog :

Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen will do a benefit concert for Senator Barack Obama’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee next month at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City on Oct. 16.

Mr. Obama will be appearing on stage as well for the event, which is set for the day after his debate with Senator John McCain at Hofstra University on Long Island.

The concert was being billed by Obama fund-raisers as the first joint concert for Mr. Joel and Mr. Springsteen, although they have appeared together on stage at least once before in 1987 during a benefit concert for homeless children at Madison Square Garden with Paul Simon, among others.

Tickets for the fund-raiser, which is slated to be Mr. Obama’s last in the New York area, are not cheap. Balcony seats are going for $500; a “premiere seat” costs $2,500; and a “lounge ticket” is $10,000.

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism has put it rather succinctly : Hope you like the smell of napalm in the morning. Otherwise, this will not be your sort of day.

The biggest bank meltdown in US history and it has to be Washington Mutual, the bank that's holding most of my money. Geezus! This from the Financial Times :

JPMorgan Chase has acquired the banking operations of Washington Mutual which was seized by US regulators on Thursday night in the biggest bank failure in US history.

Under the deal, which was brokered by government, JPMorgan will pay $1.9bn to the banking regulator, and acquire all insured and uninsured deposits, assets and some of the liabilities of WaMu’s banking operations, including its troubled mortgage portfolio.

Holy crap! Where's my money? AUUUUUUUGH!

I was actually going to take all my money out earlier in the week but decided to leave it for today. I should have done what the thousands of other depositors did. Take my money out of WaMu. Of course, the deposits run killed the bank, but now I have to run over there and find out if I have access to my cash.

Oh, wait! Here's the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission (FDIC) :