Oh, right. Planet Murdoch. It’s been five weeks! How come he hasn’t fixed the economy yet? Maybe because you can’t fix in five weeks what nearly a decade of your abuse has wrought?
Message to the denizens of the WSJ editorial page: You had your turn. You were proven to be lying, cheating, scumbags. And now you’re blaming the good guys for failing to fix your mistakes instantly. Shut up and go away.
Your average newspaper these days has added a comment section to many of its articles. That’s basically an invitation for extremists, trolls, and jackasses. A Boston Globe story about taxes, transit, or the MBTA is generally followed by several comments insisting that bloated corrupt unions are the cause of all its problems and that only a repeal of the income tax will solve anything. In the New York Times, every article about the economy will draw approximately equal numbers of comments George W. Bush and Barack Obama for the parlous state of global finance, plus at least one blaming George Soros and one advocating a return to the Gold Standard and the abolition of fractional-reserve banking systems.
But the best whackadoo comments are to be found in the dedicated financial press. For example, check out this article about oil-price fluctuations. The entirely reasonable premise of the article – that oil prices are volatile and we should plan for such volatility – leads to six hundred comments in under a day. About half are totally dismissive of a possibility of oil returning to high prices, or insisting that only speculators (George Soros again playing the role of bogeyman) caused oil to cross $100/barrel mark last year. Others of course play the opposite role and insist that ammunition, not oil, is where you want to be investing right now, and at least one commenter pops up noting that he’s stockpiling diesel, ammunition, honey, and clean underwear for the coming apocalypse.
I’ve been debating posting about this because I’ve been afraid that it will come back to haunt me in some way. But frankly, if complaining about inconveniences and speculating about other peoples business on the Internet is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
Here’s my question: When is a company dead? When can you bury it?
I’m thinking specifically of LiveUniverse. The company was started by Brad Greenspan, who was one of the original backers behind MySpace. LiveUniverse is basically a roll-up of media websites tied to an ad network. Not a terrible business model, but the media websites themselves have to draw traffic, and they just haven’t been in the top tier.
For example, they bought the startup I used to work for, MeeVee. By total coincidence, I was departing MeeVee at the same time, so LiveUniverse only had me in its employ for one day.
They were supposed to send me some kind of paperwork about my stock options, but they never did. I don’t mind, since the odds of them being worth anything were never very good, and are worse now. That was probably the first sign of trouble. There were others, later, but I won’t bore you.
The big question mark came about a month ago, when Brad Greenspan was forced to issue a press release insisting that the company is doing fine, despite their websites all disappearing for couple days. Both major service outages and press releases saying there’s nothing wrong are big signs that something’s wrong, but website outages can happen to the best of us.
Worse signs are things like failing to send out W2s to former employees. Sure, paperwork can get lost in an acquisition, but really, your payroll provider should handle that paperwork for you. Obviously, I didn’t get my tax paperwork.
When I called to inquire about it, I found that their phone had been disconnected. That’s kind of a bad sign. Although I suppose it’s possible their website just has a typo on the “Contact Us” page.
More likely, LiveUniverse seems to be totally dead.
The only thing is, there’s been no obituary. No notice of going under. Their websites are, in fact, still loading, although the content hasn’t been updated in awhile and the TV listings on MeeVee are all broken.
TechCrunch had a post awhile back in which they asserted that death was at hand, but comments and updates disputed it. No mention in the Wikipedia page about Brad. No bankruptcy filings. Just… silence.
If a company goes under and TechCrunch isn’t there to gloat, is it still in business?
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says Obama is “more analytical” than Bush.
Pardon me for saying so, but DUH.
There’s an ambulance and a police cruiser outside Orleans right now, and the EMTs just loaded someone on a stretcher into it. Fight? Heart attack? Slip and fall? No idea.
Check out this transparency from Good, illustrating the size and impact of mass transit systems around the world. At first it looks pretty bad for Boston, illustrating fewer riders and less track than anyone but San Francisco.
But Boston’s a smaller city. Of course Tokyo transit serves over a billion riders a year: It’s the hub of an enormous metro area. It’s probably a better system, but how much better? How much more useful, per capita? We don’t really know, at least not from this chart. A better reflection would be annual passenger-miles charted against the population of the entire metro area.
I’m guessing Boston would still come up a little short there: We really could use a more extensive transit system, something which is pretty clearly reflected in the chart. But we might not come up as short as this chart initially suggests.
Then you’ll love the value in this beautiful Victorian single-family home on Alston St. in Somerville, located a stone’s throw from the McGrath elevated highway, Pat’s Tow impound lot, and the local waste transfer station.
Sure, it needs a new roof, interior paint & plaster, new siding, probably floor-refinishing, de-leading and maybe even asbestos remediation, but what an opportunity to own a home! Plus, if they ever build that proposed green line extension, you’ll just have to dash across four or five lanes of traffic to get to your trolley stop!
The other night on the way home, I walked over the Charles/MGH stop on the T and saw that police had parked an SUV and a cruiser from the K9 unit on the sidewalk by the entrance. Inside the station, they had set up a bomb-scanning/inspection station on the left side of the information booth and were inspecting random passengers that walked past them.
So I entered on the right side of the information booth, where there were no inspections.
Not sure what they managed to accomplish, aside from just standing around being intimidating.
Linked from a Zillow blog post, a house which has attracted a lot of interest… but is it the good kind?
There’s a note on the description saying “Buyer must provide bank prequal letter including credit review, copy of earnest money (min.$500) Cash offers must show proof of funds & copy of earnest money. There is a delay penalty of $100 per day charged to buyer if closing is delayed due to buyer/buyer’s lender.”
The house is for sale for $6,900.00. Less than seven grand. And they’re concerned about buyers getting financing.
I don’t think that’s a sign that “buyers are lurking” on the sidelines, waiting to jump in. I think that’s a sign that the internet loves a goddamn train wreck.
Obviously, the best thing for a struggling North American auto manufacturer with a poor quality reputation is a partnership with a struggling Italian auto manufacturer with a poor quality reputation.
What a great idea!
Fiat’s not putting any cash into the deal, so it doesn’t stand to lose much, but I just can’t see the logic in it. Sure, they have a lot in common, but is it anything good? Reading about it is like being invited to a wedding where you know the only things the bride and groom have in common are bad personal hygiene, drinking problems, and a fear of dying alone.
Secretly Ironic 