In today’s Boston Globe Magazine, Clifford Atiyeh’s “The Crusade Against Cars” tackles car lovers’ central dilemma today:
“Social responsibility” is the media topic du jour, the latest feel-good narcissism of those leading government, corporations, and other big-mouth organizations. Part of the idea is to give an appearance of top-down restraint – that it’s not OK for the CEO to upgrade his Gulfstream V while downsizing his company. In the auto world, social responsibility comes with good intentions – tougher federal fuel economy mandates, tighter emission controls – but for car lovers like me, it’s a sucker punch in the face.
In other words, it’s hard to be both “authentically” green and also love cars that aren’t.
Reading Atiyeh’s piece created a moment of synchronicity for me.
Just yesterday, I was at an undercarriage session of the Boston Chapter of the BMW Car Club. An “undercarriage session?”
Simple. You take your car to a BMW dealer who allows you into the shop to go over the car with one of their master mechanics. If, like me, you own a car that costs a fortune to maintain, the opportunity to have a master technician take a look at your car for free is like Prozac for budget anxiety.
The session was held in a newly reconstructed BMW dealership and, to put it mildly, the shop was beautiful. Brightly lit, spotless and odor-free, even with cars’ engines running.
I mentioned this to the tech who was giving my car the Nth degree and he said, “What don’t you see here?”
I was stumped. Turns out there were no exhaust hoses to connect to the tailpipes of running cars. None. Cars that are run in the shop empty emissions directly into the shop, which must have had 36 bays.
The tech explained that today’s cars are so clean that the building’s architects were able to design a single airflow system that moved enough fresh air through the shop to obviate the need for separate exhaust hoses. He also mentioned that OSHA and other government regulators had been there to verify the system was working and there wasn’t enough airborne pollution to harm anyone.
His explanation for how this was possible was simple. He told me that cars today — at least the new and late-model BMWs they work on there — just don’t produce enough pollution to necessitate a separate exhaust system.
Maybe instead of Atyieh’s defiant rejection of social responsibility all we need to do is lock a few greenies in a garage with 36 running BMWs.
OK, now that I’ve teed up a 50¢ word like “mendacity,” let me at least tell you what it means. Simply, someone is lying to you. And who hasn’t had the experience of being lied to persuasively?
Now, courtesy of researchers from Stanford and a story this morning on NPR that was so fascinating I almost ran into a tree, it seems that it’s possible just by listening to a CEO to tell when they are, uh, stretching the truth.
And while I knew what being mendacious meant, the story got me wondering how often I’ve been mislead by a CEO’s rosy outlook. Apparently, I — and many others — been suckered more than I ever thought possible.
I started work on a post two days ago that was tentatively titled “Hell Freezes Over: I Learn to Love Microsoft.” I didn’t get far because, as anyone who knows me knows, I have this thing against Microsoft: I am still smarting from the way they competed with Lotus in the 90′s. They were ruthless, cutthroat, aggressive, totally without ethics and, by universal acclaim, the least inventive technology company on the planet. Everything that was the basis of their success from the UI in Windows to their messaging technology they acquired or copied. Microsoft fanboys will argue differently, of course, but a careful listener will recognize a revisionist history in the making. I never got beyond the title of that post.
I was moved to consider such a blasphemy because, of late, MSFT is on a roll. Windows 7 is great. Office 2010 is great (though it’s been 10 years and Outlook’s bad copy of Lotus Notes 4.0′s views remains as impenetrable as ever…proof positive that when you slavishly copy design you don’t understand, you make a mess of it). Windows Live Essentials 2011 is great. IE 9 (buggy as it is — and as derivative of Chrome as it is) is going to be great.
These products are the best consumer software products you can get today because they have virtues found nowhere else today in consumer software technology: rigor in design, development and testing. MSFT has the resources to spend big on UI design. They have fleets of regression engineers to test every build. They have technical writers who make sure the products don’t ship until someone has written down what they do. A MSFT product today, no matter what you think of the origins of its technology, has superior “fit and finish.” Plus, Microsoft products today are arguably more secure than anything else simply because the company got tired of being the bad guy — and applied unimaginable levels of resources to improve.
And, I’ve been a fan of the Windows Weekly podcast with Paul Thurrott for a few years. Paul isn’t objective, but his advocacy of MSFT products is well-argued. And I respect someone who is an advocate but not a ho. If you listen, as I hope I do, with an open, but skeptical mind, Paul will rehabilitate your opinion of Microsoft. I don’t exactly forgive them for they way they got to where they are. But that was then…this is now. Today, the simple truth is non-techie people need reliable, well-designed and well-documented software that has been thoroughly tested. Google isn’t doing this. Have you ever tried the help system in Google Apps Premier? Apple products for Windows stink — and pointing out a flaw in them invites jihad.
So, I found myself trying to compose a paean to today’s MSFT, until I ran across this post from Thurrott’s blog about Windows Phone 7 ads. Microsoft is about to renter the smartphone business. Paul and Leo — and the rest of the MSFT-focused press community — have been banging the drum, hard. Thurrott has written a book about WP7. People are hot and heavy for any tidbit about Phone 7. So, when one of WP7′s biggest advocates wants to carry the new product’s marketing water by linking to leaked commercials for that product, what does MSFT do?
They get YouTube to take them down. Click on the image above to see how it looked on Thurott’s Phone 7 blog.
Let’s think it through: after spending big bucks producing what I presume are killer ads, some idiot in marketing — who doesn’t want to “spoil” their launch ad buys — decides that it just can’t happen that people could watch a commercial for their product before it officially launches.
This is woefully stupid — and classic Microsoft tone-deafness. If some shmoe like me wants to see a Windows Phone 7 commercial, why in God’s name wouldn’t they let me? Because they want to keep Windows Phone 7 a secret? This is going to help them build interest in the early adopter community? The free ad impressions will decrease the ultimate effectiveness of the ads? They will sell fewer phones because more people saw the ads?
This is the kind of marketing idiocy — slavishly adhering to some artificial schedule just because they have one — that reprises their fundamental lack of creativity. Only MSFT could fail to see what a mistake it is to limit access to its own marketing messages. Only they could sap momentum for a new product before it launches. They’re probably sitting around the table talking about how to create Windows Phone 7 “mojo” without knowing they’ve killed it a little. Who wants to bet that marketing team will get a raise and some more restricted shares? (Full disclosure: like others stockholders in pain, it kills me to see MSFT stock stagnant. And yes, I’ve owned MSFT for years.)
So, after all these years, I get my cake and get to eat it, too. I get good products — and I can hold on to my grudge.
Thanks, Microsoft.
Geesh…it’s been a long time since I’ve written for my personal blog. The muse left me…for a bunch of reasons. But, she may be back as I felt a strong urge to write about a controversy that matters to…just about nobody.
I am a huge fan of hyper-local blogging. It’s everything local newspapers can’t be: opinionated, accidentally compelling and useful. Here in Southborough, we have two hyper-local blogs, the better of which (IMHO) is www.mysouthborough.com.
In a demonstration of the power of hyper-local blogs, mysouthbourough.com is covering St. Mark’s decision to allow a portion of its property to lie fallow, or as St. Mark’s has put it, become a “sustainable meadow.” And the comments on this blog post show that it’s as easy for whole communities to talk past each other as it is for us to do so one-on-one.
As a local who has one child who went to Southborough public schools and another currently at St. Mark’s, I’ve participated in both communities. And it’s always amazed me how completely tone deaf each side is to the other’s concerns.
For its part, St. Mark’s seems to be unaware that their “meadow” is at the exact center of town, making it highly visible to everyone. Bottom line: it’s fugly to have a partially-fallow athletic field at the intersection of the main north-south and east-west roads in town.
How could St. Mark’s slap this “meadow” right-up-side-the-head of the locals? Simple: from the perspective of St. Marks’, it’s in the “back.” It’s far away, relatively speaking, from the action on campus. St. Mark’s people don’t see the “meadow” on the way to and from classes…or to and from West…or to and from most of the other athletic fields. I am not sure how many Southborough residents have ever seen Southborough from inside St. Marks’, but I assure you, the view is very different. What’s right in the locals’ faces is on the periphery at St. Mark’s.
On the town side, the same old invective — “We pay for all their services…and they send their teachers’ kids to the public schools” — is equally tone deaf. There’s a long-standing resentment I’ve seen and heard from my experience on town committees and boards that is endemic. When we moved here in the early 1990′s, I distinctly remember the builder of my home telling me how his parents used to “wash the St. Mark’s kids’ clothes” as if Southborough was indentured to the private schools located here.
Well, we have to get over it. St. Mark’s staff pays their taxes like everyone else. And plenty of public school funding and town revenue comes from sources other than the property tax. I understand the importance of the property tax to town revenues. But it’s just red-meat propaganda to suggest that these families are getting a totally free ride for local services. The comments on mysouthborough.com would have you think that the town’s private schools are here specifically to freeload on the rest of us.
I am not calling for kumbaya. That ain’t gonna happen. Mostly, I am amused that there’s so much passion over an unmowed piece of lawn. And that it might become another excuse for us to talk past each other.
Have you ever had a problem with a huge company that tries to “make you go away” by stonewalling and ignoring you? That’s what Charles Schwab has been trying to do since it sold me auction rate securities in 2008 on the day before markets froze. They had to have known when they took the order that these things weren’t liquid and safe, the two reasons they sold them to me in the first place. They were happy to take the order then…but today they, alone among retail brokers, have refused to make good on the ARSs they sold to conservative investors like me.
I have been using this blog (see my previous posts) and the interest of reporters to make my displeasure public.
Beth Healy of the Boston Globe missed the irony of Massachusetts residents lending the state money for the Big Dig and not being able to get it back by pointing out that the state “saved” money by not calling the notes. Healy asserts, “…regulators say they’ve done all they can to help.”
Uh, no, not quite. I’ve never received a single response to repeated inquires to the governor, the secretary of state, the attorney general, my local representative and, above all, the source of these ARSs, the treasurer’s office. Why the silence? Simple: it would be too embarrassing for the politically ambitious Treasurer Cahill to force Schwab to settle. And no state department is going to make another department look bad. AG Coakley can get headlines for pursing fraud from just about any company. Why expose the shady dealings the state itself engages in?
Still, Schwab hated that Globe story enough to send me a letter terminating my accounts. No problem, guys, I was happy to leave.
So, you might think, why not complain to the SEC and to Wall Street’s “self-regulator,” the Financial Industry Regulatory Agency (FINRA)? I have, of course. In 2008 I filed complaints with both agencies. How’d that work out?
Just as you might expect. We all know how well the SEC has done at protecting people from Madoff, Stanford and CDOs. With so many larger fish to pry off the hook, paying no attention at all to individual investors stuck in ARSs is a natch.
And FINRA, known as Wall Street’s favorite regulator, actually contributed its former boss, Mary Schapiro, to the helm of the SEC. Miraculously, after years of doing nothing to protect the little guy at FINRA, Ms. Schapiro apparently grew a pair just in time for her confirmation hearings. Just saying you are for strong consumer protection is, I guess, enough to assure congressional committees you should run an agency we now know was dysfunctional.
Still, FINRA — like Schwab — is listening to the political discourse and is maybe (finally) rubbed a little raw by the attention their abject failures have generated. When Jed Horowitz of Investment News wrote about the lack of action in New York’s suit against Schwab, something must have clicked at FINRA headquarters.
A week or so after Horowitz’s article, I got a call from FINRA. I assume the timing wasn’t accidental. They probably hoped to convince me to shut up, at least for another year or two until they find a way to exonerate Schwab or the whole thing blows over.
They wanted me to know they were “actively engaged” and they’d “made progress.” They couldn’t say what, if anything, they actually plan to do. Or when, if ever, they plan to do whatever they decide they are going to do.
While Congress debates partially re-regulating Wall Street, the simple fact is that the entire industry is morally bankrupt and the interests of the country have been repeatedly subjugated to the greed of the industry. Worse, regulators, such as they are, are victims of “regulatory capture.” Even if FINRA wasn’t designed as Schwab’s concubine, it has willingly become one. Schwab asks, FINRA dances.
Well, the political battle of the (still young) century is over. And, despite the ugly fear mongering of the Republicans — and the very sad racial and homophobic epithets tossed at members of Congress this weekend during the final debate by “Tea Party” activists — the country has shown some political spine and done the right thing.
You’d expect me to have been, like the crazies on the right, apoplectic about the proposed changes to health care. Simply, I am a winner in the current system. I actually have a choice of excellent, affordable group coverage for me and my family through either my wife’s employer or mine.
My taxes will go up: I will have to pay Medicare taxes on unearned income. We won’t get a dime in government subsidies to buy insurance. Because we live in Massachusetts, I suspect the Cadillac tax will eventually hit us as well.
So, why am I pleased at the prospect of real, fundamental, systemic change in health care? Two simple reasons. First, even as a winner in the current system, I can tell you it’s broken, busted, kaput and will bankrupt us. Check this out: I went to see a doctor in my network. Six weeks later, I was checking claims online for another reason and noticed the insurance company had paid thousands for an office surgical procedure I didn’t have on that date. I called the insurance company who wanted me to have to call the doctor’s office and get them to fix it. Sorry, but I took the time to try and fix it by calling the insurance company, who effectively admitted to me that there’s so much waste and confusion in the system that unless I personally undertook to fix it, it would cost them more than they could recover to do it themselves.
Second, anything can happen. Today, I am winner. Tomorrow, I could be destitute. I am willing to pay more now to make sure that when and if the bottom of my life falls out, I could still get medical help. It just seems so basic, so fundamental to life in a civilized country that I am astonished it took 100 years and (probably) will destroy the Obama presidency. One thing I am certain of: without this reform, if the worst were to happen, it would easy to die indigent — a terrible way to go after a lifetime of work and taxes.
Bottom line, this was about fairness to people.
It’s no secret I’m angry at Charles Schwab (here and here). And they don’t like me back. In fact, they’ve “fired me,” sending me a letter terminating my accounts with them in February. (What was it, guys? The blog posts? The Boston Globe story? Did I offend you by insisting that you send me written terms for the “loan” you wanted me to take on these bonds? No matter…when the state of New York whoops your ass in court, you’re still gonna have to settle with me.)
Let’s review: Schwab sold me Massachusetts auction-rate securities underwritten by Goldman Sachs, promising safety and liquidity, but never sent me a single document that described the bonds as ARSs, much less described the auction process and the possibility of them becoming illiquid. Then it sat by while the auctions tanked in 2008 and instead of settling, blamed everyone else for their lies and deceptions.
Worse, when Goldman Sachs settled with its customers who bought these ARSs directly from them, Schwab — alone among downstream sellers — decided not to do the right thing for its customers. They were “not responsible.” They were “just the middle man.” Instead, Schwab decided to manufacture a pile of principles (or what’s really just a pile of you-know-what) that’s convenient for their bottom line.
So you can imagine I search for every bit of news about New York State Attorney General Mario Cuomo’s suit against Schwab and try to follow its progress closely.
And just a week or so ago, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York crushed Schwab’s legal hopes of moving the NY AG’s suit to a federal court. I’ll bet the legal team’s dreams that the judge would move the case to federal court went something like this: “Let’s go for a Bush-era appointee on the Federal bench. You know, a business-friendly Bushie who believes caveat emptor means ‘go ahead and steal from the rubes and we’ll cover for you.’ We gotta shop around, because that NY AG has got us by the you-know-whats with the Martin Act and those recordings of us lying to customers. Unless we can turn this into a case about something other than what we actually did, we’re gonna lose.”
Interestingly, the judge’s decision was based on a fascinating legal concept going back to the Constitution: “diversity of citizenship.” As the linked explanation notes, the framers were concerned about bias when a state court heard a case made up solely of its citizens who sued solely citizens of other states. IOW, if people in Massachusetts could sue in Mass. court those carpet-baggin’ brokers from California, what Mass. judge wouldn’t favor folks from his or her own state?
Well, my former friends at Charles Schwab, your arguments against remand to state court apparently didn’t cut too much mustard with the feds. You’re right back in state court, the AG’s home field. And there I hope you’ll get the shellacking you so richly deserve for treating me and other small-fry investors like lemons to be squeezed dry.
As the judge who remanded the case back to state court wrote in the decision (a full copy of which is attached below):
“[T]he purpose of seeking this wide-ranging relief is not merely to vindicate the interests of a few private parties. Rather, it is to take a step toward eliminating fraudulent and deceptive business practices in the marketplace…The State’s goal of securing an honest marketplace in which to transact business is a quasi-sovereign interest. It is completely understandable that a state should…seek to prevent the recurrence of harmful conduct in the future and to remedy the damage it has caused in the past.
I’ve really had my fill. I’m up to here (picture my hand patting my chest just below my neck) with the claims Martha Coakley is making about bringing “real accountability back to Wall Street and Washington.” The Attorney General is talking, in part, about the settlements she negotiated in the auction rate security scandal.
Here’s the ad she’s running ad nauseum:
Each time I see it, it rings less and less true, based on my direct experience.
The claims about getting “$1B back from banks” conveniently leave out the fact that the Mass. AG’s office left thousands of small-fry holders of ARSs high and dry in the Commonwealth’s settlement with the banks. She got her press conference announcing a settlement…freeing the AG, the Treasurer’s Office and the banks to get back to business as usual. And the claims of accountability don’t match up with the fact that nobody from her office has ever returned my calls or a letter about this in nearly two years.
Madame Attorney General, isn’t it time, as you say in your ads, that you or someone in your office responds to retail customers’ frozen ARSs? (On the off chance you didn’t see my letter from December, 2008, I’ve attached it to this post.) Isn’t it time for you to stop claiming you’re for the little guy when your office cut deals with Goldman Sachs and UBS that left us out in the cold?
There’s at least one voter in the Commonwealth who knows what the AG’s brand of accountability will mean.
And, no, I am not a Republican.
I first heard about this YouTube video on Consumer Reports. As you watch this, note the humor with which the black worker describes the racist HP laptop. I, for one, wouldn’t have been so level-headed if, say, the HP laptop ignored Jewish faces with big noses. The one thing you gotta ask yourself is what engineer could have declared the webcam and its software “finished” without testing it on people of color.
How embarrassed must HP be with QA being done by a white person and a black person in front of a retail display of the product?
I love to eat. I can’t cook. Even microwaved Velveeta on Ritz is well beyond my gastronomic capabilities. I am quite content to sit at home all day Sunday, watch football all day and consume embarrassingly large quantities of things the FDA has no labeling standards for.
Still, I have a lot of respect for “foodie” culture, which prizes organic, sustainable and locally-produced food. So, I am very pleased to recommend a new blog, http://www.seasonalfeast.com, written by my colleague, Sonal Rajan (get it…”See Sonal feast?”) which is off to a great start with mouth-watering new recipes for things I could only dream of being able to make.
So, Sonal, any time you wanna freeze some of that stuff for me for the next Patriots home game…
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