Author: Serkadis

 

To Our Clients, Colleagues and Friends,

• We’ve gotten lots of responses to our recent writings on secondary marketing leakage, our favorite one being that “Leakage reminds me of the time I owned a convenience store.  There are only three people that will steal from you.  Customers, employees and suppliers.”
• We read Bill Clinton’s autobiography My Life when it first came out, and we just read that there are about 3 million copies in print.  Remembering how thick it was (999 pages), we pulled it out of our bookshelf and weighed it, and it came out to about three and a half pounds.  That comes out to a bit over 5,000 tons.  If we assume that Kirstie Alley weighs around 350 pounds, the weight of all copies of My Life in print would be the equivalent of 30,000 of her. 
• Speaking of the Rotund One, whatever happened to the actress who originally played Kirstie’s role on Cheers?   We really liked her personality.
• For all the mortgage-related topics we try to sound intelligent on, one of the bigger responses we get is when we run the original names of famous people.  Here are some more:

James Garner (James Bruderlin)	Tom Cruise ( Tom Mapother)
Jane Seymour (Joyce Frankenberg)	Traci Lords (Nora Kuzma)
Jane Wyman (Sarah Fulks)	Rocky M arciano (Rocco Marchegiano)
Janis Ian (Janis Fink)	Snoop Dog (Cordazer Broadus)
Jerry Lewis (Jerry Levitch)	Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu)
Walter M atthau (Walter Matuschankatasky)	Stevie Wonder (Steveland Judkins)
Tiger Woods (Eldrick Woods)	Truman Capote (Truman Streckfus)
Tim Allen (Tim Dick)	Pat Benatar (Patricia Andrejewski)
Robert Blake ( Michael Gubitosi)	Pia Zadora (Pia Schipani)

Tim Allen is a pretty bland name, but it’s still much better than Tim Dick.  And although you meet very few Bulgarians these days, you have to love their names. Bulgarian-born M other Teresa’s original name was very typically Bulgarian, with the letter “X” appearing twice.  Finally, there’s Pia Zadora.  When this fourth-rate actress married a very wealthy man maybe 20 years ago, he financed an off-Broadway production of The Diary of Anne Frank so his young wife could play the leading role.  On opening night she was so horrible, and this is a true story, that when the Nazi’s came knocking on the door looking for Jews who might be hiding, the audience yelled out “She’s in the attic.”

• We got absolutely tons of e-mails about Eagle Scouts.  One we liked was “My brother and I are Eagle Scouts and my aunt’s family had all 3 boys as Eagles. My Uncle was an Eagle too.”  And from David Wales at Gateway Bank:  “I told my son that being an Eagle Scout is the only thing that you can do as a kid that you will be proud to put on your resume when you become a man.”
• Microsoft has a market cap of $245 billion.  Does it surprise you that Apple is not all that far away at $178 billion?
• Capital Markets Cooperative chief Tom Millon wrote us about the baseball Hall of Fame photo last week.  Tom’s great great-uncle was Christie Mathewson who should have been in the picture.  In 1936 Mathewson joined Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson as the first class of baseball Hall of Fame inductees. He would have been in that photo, but he was gassed while fighting in WWI and died shortly afterwards from damage to his lungs.
• Lots of comments about our comment about The Who singing about teen age wastelands and so on.  The guy who figured out how to transition from being rebelliously young to getting older was 1960’s “activist” Jerry Rubin. The diminutive Rubin coined the phrase “Never trust anyone over 30”, and when he turned 30, he said “It’s now don’t trust anyone under 30!”
• We’re always fascinated by entrepreneurial businesses, and we just saw one that really impressed us. We were walking down College Avenue in Berkeley with Evan Stone , and when it started to pour, we ducked into a dress shop to get out of the rain.   It tuned out to be a place where you can rent (you meaning you women) the fanciest dress for 2-3 nights. Think about it: What if you got invited to the White House for a State Dinner?  Do you really want to spend $1,000-3,000 for a gown you’ll only wear once? Here a woman can rent it for maybe $150-200.  Anyway, it’s www.dress-sf.com.  And if you do get invited to a State Dinner at the White House, can we be your date?
• A good test for someone who claims to have been hip in the sixties is to ask them to complete this sentence “People try to put us down….”  The correct answer is “…. just because we get around.”  If there were SAT tests for Boomers, the creative writing part could have this:  Compare and contrast the lyric “People try to put us down, just because we get around” by The Who with “Round round get around, I get around” by the Beach Boys.  Extra credit for explaining what it means to “get around.”
• There was a time when smoking cigarettes was a sign of sophistication.  There was also a time when magazines ran ads like this one.  Times have changed.
  

• This is from a mortgage analyst at a large bank: “Let’s look at your comment on Warren Beatty:  Born in 1937; that makes him 73 years old.  Let’s assume he had no sexual activity until he was 15…..  that gives him 58 years to accumulate his total of 12,775 women (more or less). He married in 1992.  Assuming he stayed faithful all those years (a stretch, I know), that gives him 40 years to bed 12,774 women, plus 1 Annette Benning. 12,774 / 40 years = 319 per year.   This ignores time spent in other long-term relationships where he spent at least some time attempting monogamy (Julie Christie, Natalie Wood, Madonna, etc.). 
  Just to make it round, let’s say he spent the other 46 days per year in monogamous relationships over 40 years- that equals 1800 days, or about 5 years worth of his adult life in his 37 years of adulthood prior to getting married.  So he’s saying that he basically slept with, on average, a different woman almost every single day for 40 years straight.”  We changed a few words for the sake of propriety, but this is one analytical mind at work.  It’s not a surprise that this guy is a well respected mortgage analyst at a well known Wal Street firm.  
• As we deal with banks around the country, it seems that if they have just one non-performing loan, if the rest of the portfolio is performing fine, that one bad loan is always a participation.  At least it seems that way,
• More from clients on re-purchases: “We have only had a few repurchases.  Our experience has been that we lost 20% of the loan balance.  I expect that if we had one today the loss would be much larger as prices have dropped.  We have foreclosed or taken a deed on lieu on all our repurchases.”

• From a client on leakage: “We track leakage on each loan….we’ve done it for ten years now, and as the owner, it’s one of the numbers I really focus on.”
• Wells Fargo isn’t just great at loan production, but they also make money on their loan servicing + the valuation of their servicing portfolio,  Last year, Wells picked up $6.3 billion in the valuation of that portfolio, and to make it even sweeter, they made additional millions on their servicing hedge.
• In about 90% of all FOCIS-plus Reports, we comment that the company needs to have a regular, ongoing and formal process for reviewing counterparty risk with all the vendors and entities with which it does business. How often do you review your counterparties? Do you have criteria you use to assess them? Anyway, the American Banker article had an article this morning on TierOne Bank and their problems. The bank is “significantly undercapitalized”, has struck a deal to sell nearly half its branches, and is suffering from a high level of non-performing construction loans. We hope for the best with TierOne and think they’ll probably raise capital and be just fine, but “hoping for the best” is not a strategy, and if you have a warehouse line with them, you really need to assess their situation.
• Among the mortgage insurers, there’s MGIC, PMI, Radian, Old Republic , Genworth, Triad and United Guarantee.  But what about those that no longer exist? Let’s see, there’s Verex, Tiger IMI, AMI, and Ticor, but that’s all we can remember. Which other ones did we miss? Anyone?  Anyone?

We love the attachment, Laws of Lending. Some of these “laws” can make you laugh, but they can also make you cry. And all of them are true.  A favorite is #3, that Collateral always liquidates for less than it should.  Good luck with all your collateral!  See you next week.

Garrett, Watts & Co.

“Helping lenders increase revenues, control costs, and better manage risk.

• Mike McAuley   ([email protected])
• Corky Watts     ([email protected]) 
• Joe Garrett      ([email protected])

Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

Here at MMO Explorer, we’re about more than just the games.  We’re about the stuff that goes on around them and the peripherals you use to maximize your gaming experience as well as keep your life out of the game going.  Today, we’re going to look at the Logitech Webcam Pro 9000, one of the best webcams you can get for your system.

First off, the little Wecam Pro 9000 is sleek and versatile, mounting just about anywhere you can fit it: on the monitor/laptop case, flat on a shelf, or whatever.  It’s classic black and chrome colors don’t hurt either.

For features, this Logitech Webcam Pro comes with Vid video calling software, ultra-smooth auto-focus and an awesome Zeiss lens system for better optical quality.  It records in HD video, has Logitech’s awesome RightLight2 Technology and has a great built-in mic for picking up great audio quality for most webcam tasks.

All that for less than $100 retail.  The Logitech Webcam Pro 9000 is definitely worth the price.  As for how well it works when using it?

Well, it’s easy to set up.  The only thing to install on most systems is the Vid software, if you plan to use it.  Otherwise, the Webcam Pro 9000 is plug-and-play on nearly every Windows and most Mac systems.  It integrates quickly with both its own Vid software as well as popular video conferencing apps like Skype. Recording video is a snap too.

The camera itself is entirely hands-free and requires little tuning once set up.  It auto-focuses, the RightLight2 software balances contrast to match the lighting conditions, so you don’t have a lot of dark or washout screens, and the 2 megapixel videos are crisp.

The Logitech Pro 9000 is a great peripheral and totally worth having.  Check it out!

Filed under: Car Buying, Etc., Videos

The $1,000 car – it’s an often-quixotic purchase. You go into it an optimist, but very soon after, the newness of your latest old thing wears off, and you’re left with a four-wheeled sarcophagus of rattles, forgotten receipts and gum wrappers. Still, there’s a certain romance to the idea of a fantastic deal on a reasonably-good car, and they are out there. To prove their point, the founders of Carsforagrand.com purchased a Colonnade-era Pontiac for $800 and drove more than 3,000 miles across the country. Boo-ya.

The site aggregates ads from the internet and eBay Motors, and wraps them all up in a neat, zip-code-searchable form. The bigger point we take away from Carsforagrand’s stunt is that there are cars in California that we’d consider nearly perfect in the rustbelt. For a grand. Three-hundred days of sun per year not enough for you guys, you have to hoard all the cheap, non-rusty old cars, too? Now if someone would just start crosscountrycarshippingforabuck.com… Video of their ride is available after the jump.

[Source: Cars for a Grand]

Continue reading Bangers and Mash: Website offers auto classifieds limited to $1,000 [w/video]

Bangers and Mash: Website offers auto classifieds limited to $1,000 [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NEW YORK — Former President Bill Clinton has left the Manhattan hospital where he underwent a heart procedure, a close friend said Friday.

Former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe said on CBS’ “The Early Show” that Clinton had left New York Presbyterian Hospital. Clinton lives in Chappaqua, a Westchester County hamlet about 35 miles north of New York City.

“He’s out of the hospital and in the car back enroute to his home,” McAuliffe told the morning news program.

“And if I know President Clinton, he’ll be on the phone … calling people asking for more help for Haiti and where he can get pickup trucks so they can deliver food or generators. If I know Bill Clinton, he’ll be raring to go in about 35 minutes.”

Clinton could be back at work as soon as Monday, cardiologist Allan Schwartz said previously.

Clinton had quadruple bypass surgery at the same hospital more than five years ago, and returned Thursday to have a clogged heart artery opened after suffering discomfort in his chest.

Two stents resembling tiny mesh scaffolds were placed inside the artery as part of a medical procedure that is common for people with severe heart disease.

Schwartz said tests had showed that one of the bypasses from the surgery was completely blocked.

Instead of trying to open the blocked bypass, doctors reopened one of his original blocked arteries and inserted the two stents. The procedure took about an hour, and Clinton was able to get up two hours later, Schwartz said.

There was no sign the former president had suffered a heart attack, and the new blockage was not a result of his diet, Schwartz said.

“The procedure went very smoothly,” Schwartz said, describing Clinton’s prognosis as excellent.

McAuliffe said 63-year-old Clinton participated in a conference call on earthquake relief as he was wheeled into an operating room.

“An aide had to literally take the phone away from him,” he said.

If Clinton could have, said McAuliffe, he would have discussed Haiti “right through the procedure.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled from Washington to New York to be with her husband. She left the hospital at about 11:30 p.m. without speaking to reporters.

Aides to Mrs. Clinton said she still planned to go ahead with a previously scheduled trip to the Persian Gulf. The trip was to begin Friday afternoon, but now she is planning to leave Saturday so that she does not have to rush back to Washington.

Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, was also with him at the hospital.

In an angioplasty, the procedure Clinton had on Thursday, doctors thread a tube through a blood vessel in the groin to a blocked artery and inflate a balloon to flatten the clog. Often, one or more stents are used to prop the artery open.

The angioplasty is usually done with the patient awake but sedated. It’s one of the most common medical procedures done worldwide. More than a million angioplasties are done in the United States each year, most involving stents.

“It’s not unexpected” for Clinton to need another procedure years after his bypass, said Dr. Clyde Yancy, cardiologist at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas and president of the American Heart Association.

The sections of blood vessels used to create detours around the original blockages tend to develop clogs five to 10 years after a bypass, Yancy explained. New blockages also can develop in new areas.

“This kind of disease is progressive. It’s not a one-time event so it really points out the need for constant surveillance” and treating risk factors such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure, he said.

The former president has been working in recent weeks to help relief efforts in Haiti. Since leaving office, he has maintained a busy schedule working on humanitarian projects through his foundation.

Clinton’s reputation as an unhealthy eater was sealed in 1992, when the newly minted presidential candidate took reporters on jogs to McDonald’s. He was famously spoofed on “Saturday Night Live” as a gluttonous McDonald’s customer.

Friends and family say Clinton changed his eating habits for the better after his bypass surgery.

“He has a brutal schedule. … He travels more than 200 days a year, working on his global initiative, helping people,” McAuliffe said. “I hear people say, ‘Will he slow down?’ That’s not President Clinton. If anything, he’ll redouble his efforts if there’s actually time to redouble what he does.”

But should Clinton slow down a little?

“Yeah, probably,” McAuliffe said. “But he’s been doing this for 63 years and you’re not going to change him. He always says, ‘It’s not about me; it’s about all those people.’”

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

The biggest car show in North America got underway Friday morning at the Chicago Auto Show inside McCormick Place.

Automakers will be letting you get up close with some of their newest concepts.

The Auto Show opens Friday morning at 10 a.m., and runs through Feb. 21.

The show will be open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., except the final day when it closes at 8 p.m.

Over 1 million people are expected to attend during the duration of the show.

People who are interested in the show can see all the showrooms via a Web cam on the show’s Web site.

One big unveiling at the show will be the Toyota 2011 Avalon. Toyota is trying to repair its image after an extensive recall.

Tickets are $11 for adults. Seniors and kids ages six to 12 pay $7.

Children six and under are free.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

Keller Gifted Elementary Magnet School will not leave Chicago’s Mount Greenwood community, Chicago Public Schools officials have decided.

Keller parents learned Tuesday that CPS had abandoned a plan to look into the possibility of moving the school to another location in the city.

“We want Keller to remain an important part of the Mount Greenwood community and to continue to forge relationships with its community partners,” CPS chief Ron Huberman wrote in a letter to Keller Principal LaTanya McDade.

“CPS is proud of Keller’s students and teachers and their wonderful accomplishments, most notably Keller’s distinction as the second-highest-scoring elementary school in the state,” he wrote.

Parents were outraged after learning last month that CPS was studying a potential relocation of Keller to help relieve overcrowding at Mount Greenwood School, 10841 S. Homan Ave.

Christine McGovern, a parent of a Keller student, said she did not expect CPS to make a decision on Keller’s future so quickly.

“I am extremely satisfied. The outcome was unexpected,” she said. “I believe we had our politicians on our side.”

At a Jan. 28 rally at the school, Ald. Ginger Rugai (19th), state Rep. Kevin Joyce (D-Chicago) and state Sen. Ed Maloney (D-Chicago) said that moving Keller, 3020 W. 108th St., would be harmful to the community.

More than 200 parents attended the rally. A smaller group attended a CPS board meeting the previous day.

“I think (CPS) was overwhelmed by our support,” McGovern said. “I don’t think they were expecting such a rally coming from us.”

McGovern said Huberman’s letter is somewhat vague because it does not promise Keller never will be relocated.

She said she plans to attend CPS’s Feb. 24 meeting to ask, “How long is this letter good for?”

Mount Greenwood Elementary School, with more than 800 students, has been overcrowded for several years. Rugai said she has lobbied CPS for years to do something about overcrowding at Mount Greenwood and another 19th Ward school, Cassell.

CPS has agreed to add four modular units to Mount Greenwood next year to provide temporary relief from the overcrowding, Rugai said.

McDade could not be reached for comment.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

Tim Bond at Barclays in London thinks investors should start selling down their government bond positions due to demographic reasons, according to the Barclays Wealth Equity Gilt Study 2010.

As populations become increasingly mature, 'the abundance of savings will decrease' according to Mr. Bond:

Alphaville:

"Over the next two decades, the boomer generation will age into retirement and run down their accumulated savings. An era of capital abundance will gradually turn into an era of capital scarcity. Government debt burdens will rise sharply, with the risk premium demanded for financing these debts increasing as private sector net savings flows dwindle. Given the broad international context for these trends, with similar developments afflicting almost all the world’s major economies, the means by which the government debt burdens are eventually curtailed is unclear. As a result, government bond yields are likely to require a significant rise in risk premia to cover the eventuality of default, either outright or through inflation."

Fair enough, but one can't avoid being a bit skeptical about his recommendation to move into (high fee generating) structured products:

Risk.net: 

"We are suggesting investors should think about structurally underweighting government bonds and reducing benchmark weightings in the asset class as a long-run strategy," says Bond. Despite his previous caution about investing in structured products, he now says they could be a good addition to a portfolio.

"They can be helpful to express specific views. Simple products where you get leveraged returns can be good in your portfolio. But there are other products that are structured to reflect views that might change over time. They might look like a good idea but their illiquidity goes against them for an investor if they change their mind."

The message is clear -- Don't trust government bonds, trust structured products.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• China's Retreat From Risky Bonds Could Be The Straw That Breaks California's Back
• Europe's Sovereign Disaster Makes U.S. Bonds Look Awesome
• It Begins: Japanese Post Bank Urged To Diversify Away From Government Bonds

People have been discussing, lately, how Domino’s new advertising campaign is certainly on the gutsy side. Basically, the company started running commercials that admitted pretty clearly what anyone who’s ever eaten at Domino’s has known for years: its pizzas were dreadful. The new commercials effectively admitted this in touting a brand new recipe that they insist is much, much better, and saying that customers hated the old pizza (in slightly different words). It seems the ad campaign continues to break new grounds, as well, as the latest ad actually uses a lawsuit between two competitors as the key point to bash Papa Johns — even though the Papa Johns won that lawsuit. Found via Rebecca Tushnet, the ad itself mocks Papa Johns for “puffery” in its advertising slogan of “Better ingredients. Better pizza.” Watch it below:

The actual lawsuit had nothing at all to do with Domino’s, though you wouldn’t know that from the commercial. It actually involved Pizza Hut suing Papa Johns over the slogan, as Pizza Hut argued that Papa Johns was implying its ingredients and pizzas were worse than Papa Johns. While Pizza Hut won at the lower level, an appeals court reversed and the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal, so Papa Johns could use the slogan again. Domino’s, again, had no part in the lawsuit, but is apparently mocking Papa Johns in its commercials for claiming in court that such a slogan involves “puffery” and wasn’t meant to indicate that it’s pizzas were better than a specific competitor’s.

You have to hand it to Domino’s ad team, though, for taking a lawsuit that didn’t even involve itself, and then creating a TV ad about it, which doesn’t even mention how the competitor they’re mocking won that lawsuit. That’s bold.

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Yesterday we ran a guest post from Fawzia Sheikh from OilPrice.com arguing that the proposed sanctions against Iran actually constituted a big gift to China that wouldn’t faze Iran in the slightest.

Now Peter Lee at Asia Times has another angle on what’s going on that’s both subtle and fascinating.

Here’s how he explains what’s going on right now at the UN Security Council:

France and the United Kingdom are lined up solidly behind the United States on Iran’s nuclear program, which some say is geared towards making a nuclear bomb, a charge Tehran consistently dismisses.

Russia this year is interested in improving ties with the US and Europe and has moved toward support of sanctions. No Russian veto, no Chinese veto, says the conventional wisdom.

On the other hand, chances of China voting for sanctions are slim.
A press report covering Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi’s visit to Paris at the beginning of February says it all: “China Says Iran Sanctions Hinder Diplomacy.”

Abstention is, therefore, China’s most likely course.

Beijing’s reaction might be expected to be a dismissive and a resigned shrug: a symbolic vote, another toothless round of sanctions, more political kabuki, and eventually business as usual.

However, China’s expected non-vote will be accompanied by new feelings of unease and anger, reflecting Beijing’s growing suspicion that an important motivation for the Iran sanctions, and the escalation of Iran tensions in general, is Washington’s desire to employ the issue as a wedge against China.

Lee also has an interesting contrarian take on the Copenhagen summit, which makes Obama sounds pretty good.

Rather than seeing him as having been undermined by China, it was Obama who brilliantly drove a wedge between China and the developing world by offering financial aid to these countries, who then watched China torpedo the deal. Who looks like a bad guy in that scenario.

As we noted last night, the tension between the Chinese and the US in both the economic and political sphere is clearly growing. Add in the fact that Obama wants the US to be a big exporter, there’s a growing sphere of tension between two countries that obviously rely heavily on each other.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Is The US-China Relationship Now Fraying By The Day?
• Why The New Congressional Threat To Iran Is A Huge Gift To Russia And China
• Ayatollah Khamenei: Iran Set To Deliver Punch That Will Stun The West

Illinois is no stranger to odd, larcenous or rough-and-tumble elections.

But only here, it seems, has a candidate collapsed so ingloriously that he brought dishonor on what many consider a shame-proof industry: pawnbroking.

The Illinois Democratic Party is not the only statewide organization trying to step out of the cloud that hung over Scott Lee Cohen’s exit as the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor — the Illinois Pawnbrokers Association is trying to save face, too.

Mr. Cohen, the state’s first pawnbroker politician, managed to leave a blot on the ledger of an industry that could do without the extra stain.

Mr. Cohen converted instantly from the pride of his industry to a public embarrassment for it when a former prostitute said that he had held a knife to her throat during an argument when the two were dating in 2005.

David Schoeneman, president of the Illinois Pawnbrokers Association and owner of Shane’s-The Pawn Shop in Chicago Heights, this week found himself sharing the same defensive crouch taken by distressed Democratic Party leaders once the abuse accusation surfaced.

“When somebody gets caught being a bad guy, you cringe,” Mr. Schoeneman said. “Same for doctors, lawyers, priests. People are people.”

News of Mr. Cohen’s troubles, which led to his resignation from the Democratic ballot on Sunday, reached Mr. Schoeneman late last week during a layover at the Minneapolis airport as he returned from a vacation in the Philippines.

Mr. Schoeneman recalled that the last time he had vacationed out of the country, state and local police in Evanston announced the arrests of 30 individuals in connection with an undercover pawnshop sting.

Aside from the Evanston arrests, Mr. Schoeneman said, the pawnbrokering industry in Illinois had had little to fear from bad headlines — until now.

“The pawn industry has a roundly undeserved bad reputation,” he said. “Any time there is anything negative in the press, we roll our eyes and say, ‘Oh jeez, just what we need.’ ”

Pawnshops have labored for decades to shake off a stubborn reputation for shadiness and desperation, codified in popular culture, like in the 1964 film “The Pawnbroker.”

The industry contends that it provides a necessary service in offering secured loans, but critics say it takes advantage of people in vulnerable financial situations by charging extraordinarily high interest.

The police say, too, that unscrupulous pawnbrokers provide an outlet that makes it easy for thieves and burglars to fence stolen goods.

Even before Mr. Cohen bowed out of the race during halftime of the Super Bowl, Dave Crume, president of the National Pawnbrokers Association, put out a statement criticizing the news media for routinely invoking Mr. Cohen’s profession, “as a negative connotation to discredit Mr. Cohen and to sway public opinion for the benefit of an important political race.”

Baxter Swilley, Mr. Cohen’s spokesman, also took issue with the characterization. Mr. Cohen made most of his money in real estate, and the pawnshop was simply “the most sensational component of his identity,” Mr. Swilley said.

Mr. Cohen’s campaign has blamed media disclosures about the abuse accusation and his former use of steroids for forcing him out of the race for lieutenant governor.

Once Mr. Cohen’s troubles came to light, he said this week, the Democratic Party leadership was eager to slot a longtime politician onto the ballot rather than an outsider like him.

Mr. Cohen’s fellow pawnbrokers do not appreciate the steady stream of slights they have taken because of his campaign.

“Every time I heard it, I felt like spitting,” said Steve Greenfield, owner of Jewels by Stephanie in downtown Chicago, which has been in his family since his grandfather bought the store in 1918.

As evidence of the industry’s responsible side, Mr. Greenfield notes the heavy regulation of pawnshops, which must comply with numerous federal laws, including the USA Patriot Act.

In Illinois, the Pawnbroker Regulation Act governs the state’s approximately 225 stores.

Mr. Cohen’s pawnshop, State Pawners & Jewelers, based on South Ashland Avenue, has caused considerably less of a stir than his brief political career. .

“His shop is a paid member in good standing of the Illinois Pawnbrokers Association,” said Mr. Schoeneman, who had dinner with Mr. Cohen a few months ago but has not spoken to him since the political scandal broke. “I have no qualms with his business.”

“I am sorry for him to have to go through all of that,” Mr. Schoeneman said, “but that having been said, it is what it is and he did what he had to do.”

Joe Brooks, owner of T.N. Donnelly and Company, Chicago’s oldest pawnshop, said he thought that the industry had begun to turn the corner on its shady reputation.

“We thought so, until somebody got their name into the paper,” Mr. Brooks said. “We have been trying our best to project ourselves as something other than that, and apparently it didn’t get there. The message didn’t get out.”

“I don’t know any pawnbrokers sitting in jail,” he added, “but I know a couple of governors and aldermen. If anything, ‘politician’ should be a dirtier word than ‘pawnbroker.’ ”

Read the original article from the Chicago News Cooperative.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

Filed under: Concept Cars, Geneva Motor Show, Crossover, Citroën, Luxury

Citroën has released the dark teaser images you see above, previewing the new DS High Rider crossover concept that is expected to make its debut at the Geneva Motor Show next month.

The silhouette shows a high-riding GT-type body style, similar to such past Citroën show cars as the 2005 C-Sportlounge and the 2008 Hypnos. The concept is a diesel hybrid, but this being a show car, anything can happen along the road from concept to production. While the DS4 is expected to borrow its underpinnings from the C4 (like the DS3 does from the C3), the bodystyle ought to further distance the premium crossover from the mass-market hatchback.

This will be the second vehicle in the DS line from Citroën, following the DS3. When it debuts in Geneva, it is expected to be accompanied by the DS3-R (or DS3 Racing) hot hatch, while a DS2 based on the unfortunate Revolte concept is also tipped to be in the works.

*UPDATED: More images and PR information added.

[Source: Citroën]

Continue reading Geneva Preview: Citroën teases DS High Rider concept *UPDATED

Geneva Preview: Citroën teases DS High Rider concept *UPDATED originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After learning that he and Chicago’s other elected officials received favorable treatment in a cost-cutting program requiring city workers to take unpaid days off, Mayor Richard M. Daley decided to take 29 furlough days before the end of this year, said his press secretary, Jacquelyn Heard.

That is five more than other city workers must take.

The move came after the Chicago News Cooperative reported last week that the Daley administration treated elected city officials different from city workers in calculating furlough pay cuts.

Rank-and-file city workers have a 261-day-a-year work schedule, and thus each unpaid day off translates into a docking of 1/261st of their annual wages.

But because elected officials are considered to be working every day, each furlough day for the mayor, the clerk, the treasurer and the 50 aldermen represents a reduction of only 1/365th from the total.

Last year, when city workers took as many as 15 unpaid days off, the mayor voluntarily took 16.

In 2010, city workers will be forced to take as many as 24 unpaid days off to help the city balance its budget.

Mayor Daley will now make sure his unpaid days off are calculated in the same way they are for city workers, Ms. Heard said, and he will take off the extra days without pay to make up for the way his paychecks were determined in 2009.

“He wouldn’t ask any of his employees to do anything he isn’t doing himself,” she said this week.

“He was unaware there was a different calculation for elected officials.”

Of the 50 aldermen, 22 took fewer furlough days than other city employees last year.

“It’s totally unfair,” said an aide to one alderman who did not take as many furlough days as his staff.

That aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “We can’t really talk on the record because we would be totally out of work then.”

Read the original article from the Chicago News Cooperative.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

Cloud apps are all the rage right now, but when you cancel out the noise, few of them and even fewer companies are really living up to the hype. Aviary is one of the few, not exactly a household name yet, but definitely one of the most promising startups in the field. It offers a suite of free web-based graphics tools but the full service would set … (read more)

Good news. Shoppers are going out a bit faster than expected.

Retail sales were up 0.5% in January and 0.6% ex-Autos, both of which are superior to expectations.

Economists were looking for gains of 0.3% and 0.5% respectively.

The bad news: The market isn’t moving at all, though there’s still an hour to go before the opening bell.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• BlackRock: Buy Greek Bonds, Because There’s No Way Europe Lets This Go Lehman
• Credit Suisse: THIS Is the Real List Of Countries Verging On A Sovereign Crisis (And Yes The US Is On It)
• And Now The Jobs Bill Is In Trouble Too

Filed under: Budget, Europe, Hatchback, Opel, Vauxhall

Some new vehicle launches come as a surprise, while others are expected well in advance. After Fiat released the updated Punto Evo, it was only a matter of time until Opel did the same with its Corsa.

Why is that, you ask? Because the Corsa isn’t just a competitor to the Punto: it shares the same platform. In fact the platform that underpins the Corsa can also be found in everything from the Alfa Romeo MiTo to the Peugeot Bipper, all courtesy of joint ventures among three major automakers across Europe. It was co-developed between General Motors and Fiat, and underpins some eight different vehicles sold as at Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Abarth, Citroën, Peugeot, Opel and Vauxhall dealerships. But even setting the others aside, the Corsa is Opel/Vauxhall’s top seller, accounting for some 30 percent of its overall sales. A vital product, then.

For the latest Corsa, Opel has kept things simple. That is to say, simple on the outside. While the exterior remains virtually unchanged, a host of revisions have been carried out underneath the skin. For starters, the engine range – comprised of five gasoline fours from 1.0-liter up to a 1.6 turbo and three diesels – has been revised to deliver more power while consuming less fuel and emitting fewer carbon molecules. The suspension has also been recalibrated for increased ride comfort and the steering comprehensively re-tuned by the company’s OPC performance division for greater precision. Full details can be found in the press release after the jump, with high-resolution images in the fresh gallery below.

[Source: Opel]

Continue reading Opel releases updated Corsa in Europe

Opel releases updated Corsa in Europe originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The New Goldman, ie. BlackRock, thinks Greece fears are overdone.

Contrarians go long Greek debt. Especially if you believe bondholders will be saved during any bailout. We can imagine quite a few European banks are holding Greek debt, so you might have friends in high places:

Business Week:

The company has a so-called overweight position on Greek debt, holding more securities than allocated in its benchmark, even after Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service cut the country’s credit grades in December. The fund will continue with this strategy for “some time,” said Michael Krautzberger, co-head of European fixed-income in London, after EU leaders pledged yesterday to help Greece regain control of its finances.

“They won’t allow a Lehman-type crisis,” said Krautzberger, who helps oversee BlackRock’s $3.35 trillion of assets. “The market has worried too much about an imminent government default in Europe that will not happen because of the solidarity.”

Read more here >

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Germans Can’t Get Tough On Greece Because They Have A Massive Guilt Complex
• IMF Jumps On The Greece Bandwagon: We Pledge Support But No Money
• Morgan Stanley: If Greece Leaves The Euro, It’s Over

Since we weren’t blessed with a sexy British accent and since we don’t live anywhere close to Maranello, we will probably never get to take the Ferrari 599XX for a spin. However, we can live our dreams through the guys over at AutoCar, which recently had the privilege to take the exclusive Ferrari around the track.

Check out a video of Steve Sutcliffe’s test-drive after the jump and click here to read his review.

Refresher: Power for the Ferrari 599XX comes from a 6.0L V12 engine making 700-hp with a maximum torque of 479 lb-ft. Ferrari also added a new F1 inspired gearbox that transfers power to the wheels with gear change time cut down to 60 ms.

Ferrari 599XX:

Ferrari 599XX:

– By: Kap Shah