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Everyone knows when you see those millions of flashing lights on the highway that there was probably some type of accident ranging from a fender bender to a several car collision.  And nothing gets more annoying that getting stuck in traffic, not because of the accident itself, but because of people who slow down to see the wreckage. But I have to say, if I saw one of these accidents, I would have to pull over and take a picture myself.

1. How is this tree still standing?

2. How do you explain this to your insurance agent?

3. Twenty bucks says you can’t do it again.

4. Bad parking job??

5. There’s really nothing to say, I can’t fathom how this is possible.  The picture tells it all, whatever this person was doing, they FAILED.

6. Atleast he found a place to park…..kind of

7. Did I use the wrong escalator officer?

8.  “Hey what’s up?”…”Nothing much, just hanging out…”

9. I don’t know whats more impressive, the car or the women’s smile…..wait no its gotta be the red short shorts.

10. This last one just blew me away…..

Filed under: Bad Apple, Apple, App Store, SDK

Yo, Apple. February’s coming, and likely with it, the iPhone OS 4.0 SDK. And you know what? We’re totally over this infuriating ducking NDA thing when it comes to the iPhone software development kit.

NDAs refer to nondisclosure agreements. They are contracts — in this case, between Apple and would-be developers — that prevent those who have been granted beta access to early releases of Apple’s software development kits from discussing any aspect of the SDK in public forums.

Apple has pulled this NDA on us a few times before, for iPhone SDKs that anyone and their brother could download and look at freely. I’ll say it for the record: NDAs on new iPhone OS SDKs are a bad, bad thing.

These NDAs provide no protection against competitors discovering Apple’s proprietary secrets. Apple places no restrictions on who may sign up and access those materials. At the same time, they limit developer discourse outside of Apple’s rather minimal members-only developer forums.

Under past NDAs, TUAW could not publish how-to articles or code samples, which was frustrating. The fundamental problem is not limited to this site, though. Developers couldn’t tweet about their experiences, write about them on developer e-mail lists or otherwise engage in the kind of productive peer support that makes a development community thrive. Limiting discussion to a vendor-approved site where posts can be modded and/or deleted at the vendor’s whim does not exactly cultivate open discourse.

Of course, we’re talking about Apple. As avowed “Gearhead” Aleksandr Milewski puts it, “It’s Apple. They’d NDA their customers if they could.” So you can take it as likely that once again Apple is going to slam down an NDA on our collective selves. At least unless enough people proactively stand up and say: “We’re mad as hell about NDAs and we’re not going to take it any more.”

So what can you do? Add your voice to this post. Leave a comment and express exactly how you would feel about Apple NDA’ing the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0 SDK. Tweet it. Status wall it. E-mail it to your friends and to Apple. File a bug report at bugreport.apple.com. Give some unofficial feedback. Post about it on your own blog and leave a link in the comments.

It’s time to be heard. We’re tired of REDACTED and we want change.

TUAWEnough already with the draconian NDAs, Apple originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Gourmet food trucks are getting to be “all the rage,” particularly in Southern California. Based on the old construction site “roach coaches” that served stale doughnuts, ancient plastic-wrapped sandwiches, and hot, acidic coffee to hungry workers, the taco truck appeared as a way for food vendors to set up shop without the need for expensive real estate. In SoCal, taco trucks have gone mainstream and serve much more than just tacos. You can get not only excellent Mexican cuisine, but barbecue, Asian fusion, and a huge spectrum of other palatable yummies.

Since the taco trucks and trailers are truly mobile (although the vendors often find a location that becomes their “home territory”), it’s sometimes difficult to find a specific vendor. Fried Rice House has made the hunt a lot easier with their app Taco Loco [on sale for US$0.99, iTunes Link].

Taking advantage of the iPhone’s geolocation capabilities, Taco Loco displays a map of local taco trucks and other wheeled bistros, with a pin denoting the current location of each truck or trailer. A tap on a pin shows the name of the truck, a detailed map of the location, a phone number (if one has been entered), and a rating by other hungry folks who have used the app. If a truck moves its location, there’s a “move” button to note that and send the information to other people looking for a fish taco at 1:30 AM.

Of course, no app is worth its seasoned salt if it doesn’t let you share the information with your friends. Taco Loco adds the familiar share button for sending tweets and emails to your cohorts who might be craving a movable feast. Although TUAW was unable to try out the app, it should work anywhere there are hungry iPhone owners who are willing to buy Taco Loco and let others know about the best little taco truck they’ve found.

[via New York Times Gadgetwise Blog]

TUAWTaco Loco app helps you chase down your favorite taco truck originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With tourists flocking to the Boston to walk the cobblestone streets of the Freedom Trail and visit various historical landmarks, Boston is often thought of for its ties to the American Revolution. But Boston is also the birthplace of a revolution of a different sort.

In 1946, Georges Doriot, a professor at the Harvard Business School, founded the American Research and Development Corporation (ARDC) in Boston – one of the very first venture capital firms. In 1957, the ARDC invested $70,000 in Digital Equipment Corporation, a company founded by two former Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers working on transistor-based computing. The ARDC was later able to turn around and sell their investment for $450 million, quite possibly the best return on an investment ever at that point.

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Half a century later, Boston is a thriving and vibrant community not only for venture capital and startups, but also for large technology companies and research
corporations. With nearly a hundred regional colleges and universities – like MIT and Harvard – and over a quarter of a million students, Boston has quickly become a breeding ground for innovation in the tech sector.

“The thing that’s amazing is we don’t have to worry about attracting people into the Boston community,” said Jeffrey Bussgang of Flybridge Capital Partners in a speech at the Harvard Business School last October (see video embedded below). “The challenge is to retain people.”

And retain them they will, thanks to a plethora of resources available to young entrepreneurs and startups in Boston. Monthly meet-ups like Mobile Monday and Tech Tuesday as well as other events like the biannual Mass Tech Leadership Council Unconference are just a few of the great ways startups can get their feet off the ground.

Other organizations like TechStars and Stay in MA help Boston startups set up shop in Beantown with scholarships, funding, and mentorship. And why wouldn’t startups want to stay in Boston? Massachusetts boasts the highest per capita VC investment rate in the United States, eclipsing California and New York with $457 per person.

Data released today from information and data-services company ChubbyBrain shows that while other Northeaster states are suffering from floundering VC investment, Massachusetts is alive and expanding. While New York and Pennsylvania fell to just $513 million and $254 million respectively in the second half of 2009, Boston’s home state soared to $1.2 billion. Figures like these have vaulted Massachusetts past New York into the number two spot behind California for VC investments.

Bussgang says that reasons like these and the overall economic stability of the state have encouraged startups and entrepreneurs in Boston, despite being across the country from sunny Silicon Valley.

“Yeah the winter sucks, but Massachusetts has delivered a budget on time and balanced the last couple years… unlike what’s going on in California,” he says. Bussgang also points out that California continually ranks last on Chief Executive Magazine’s list of Best and Worst States for Business, though Massachusetts is usually not too far away.

The close-knit technology and innovation community of the greater Boston area has fostered spontaneous collaborations resulting in several successful companies across numerous industries. Cloud computing solutions like Carbonite and GlassHouse, robotics companies like Roomba-maker iRobot, online video providers like Brightcove, and e-commerce startups Vistaprint and Shoebuy are all examples of the firepower Boston’s potential can produce.

Boston has even seen recent expansion from larger corporations, such as Google, Microsoft and Cisco Systems. Having these larger companies in the Boston area provides excellent opportunities for startups, says Bussgang.

“Boston has become an outpost for a lot of these satellite R&D centers, and a place where the companies that we fund can find a home,” he says.

To learn more about the Boston startup scene, check out Don Dodge’s extensive list of events, resources and people, as well as Larry Cheng’s Massachusetts VC Blog Directory, which you can import right into your RSS reader to stay on top of what VCs in Boston are talking about.

Photo by Flickr user the-o.

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A distinguishing aspect to PBWorks is its industry-specific approach. The enterprise collaboration service has made a name for itself by focusing on the particular requirements of the education and legal markets.

Now PBWorks is taking a smart approach by extending its position in vertical markets and offering a template store that people may download and use in a variety of business- and industry-specific ways.

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The template store is opening with 25 applications, both officially approved and those developed by the community at large. PBWorks screens the templates that users provide.

The enterprise collaboration space is still in its early days. People understand the importance of collaboration but often they do not know where to start. The PBWorks templates provide some framework for how to start using wikis and other forms of collaboration. The templates can include embedded media, files and documents as well as folders.

PBWorks is making a smart move by offering templates. It follows a long standing tradition of providing a structure for people who are just starting to use new software or who want to improve what they are already offering. Microsoft has been doing this for years. The practice seems well suited to the increasing complex world of enterprise collaboration.

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Bing, Microsoft’s dedicated web searcher, must be deleted from the iTunes App Store at once. Why? Its image browsing mode can be set to watch hardcore porn. If Apple wants to follow their own absurd rules, Bing must be obliterated.

Seriously, why is Bing still in the Apple store? Its image search engine is perfect to browse porn. Just go into preferences, turn off the adult content filter—one click—and boom, instant hardcore porn browser. And a very sleek one at that, too.

Would Apple delete Bing, which does what ForChan does but much easier and with much more explicit and unlimited results? My guess is that they won’t, because Microsoft is Microsoft, not a no-name app developer.

They should, however, just to be consistent with their stupid “no-porn” policy. And if we are at it, let’s delete the Camera and Photo album app too, because I can use them to take photos of my naked fiancee. Let’s delete any app that can be used to record and transmit porn images online. Let’s ban the sale of iPhones and MacBooks too.

Or maybe they should do the right thing, because all of this is just stupid: Stop censoring, let people decide what to do with their gadgets and software. At least when it comes to the content that we decide to store or access through our cellphones or computers.

Brand advertising — the kind you’re used to seeing on TV and in print — isn’t nearly as big on the Internet as the search ads dominated by Google (GOOG). But that’s got to change, as marketers realize that traditional advertising works on the Web, too.

The above is an article of faith among a certain kind of Web publisher. And some of them are even paying for studies to prove that display ads — basically all the ads you see that aren’t part of search results — really do work on the Web.

Except when they don’t. That’s the unsettling conclusion that some research funded by Yahoo (YHOO) recently reached, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The study was produced by the Web giant’s Yahoo Labs group, which has been getting new attention in the Carol Bartz regime, and beefing up its staff of social scientists by “adding highly credentialed cognitive psychologists, economists and ethnographers from top universities around the world.”

One of the new hires, economics professor David Reiley, tried to track the benefits of a Yahoo ad campaign on behalf of a retail chain. He found that the ads did work — but only for people born before Woodstock:

The research, conducted in partnership with an undisclosed national retailer, sought to accurately measure the impact of Internet display advertising across online and offline sales, by tracking people who had registered with both Yahoo and the store. The research found an approximately 5 percent increase in spending among those who had seen the ads – with 93 percent of those sales occurring in stores.

The potentially worrisome thing, however, was that among those under 40, the percentage was nearly zero. That could reflect the unpopularity of the particular retailer among that demographic. Or it could underscore a growing immunity to display advertising among the Web-savvy younger generation.

Yikes. I asked Yahoo for their take on the study, and they sent me a (not surprisingly) sunnier summary of the research. Some of their highlights:

Major Findings:
By combining a controlled experiment with panel data on purchases, we find statistically and economically significant impacts of advertising on sales.
We estimate the total effect on revenues to be more than eleven times the retailer’s expenditure on advertising during the study.
93% of the effect was on offline (in store) sales.
Persistence: The effects of the campaigns were persistent over time, meaning that the sales impact could be tracked for a period of time after the campaign ended.
Demographics: there was no significant correlation or differences w/r/t location (by state) or gender.
But there was a significant difference w/r/t to age: customers over the age of 40 were significantly more responsive to the ads in terms of sales. The largest effect came from senior citizens (65+).
Clicks versus non-Clicks: Though clicks are a standard measure of performance in online-advertising , we find that online advertising has substantial effects on those who merely view but do not click the ads.
We find that 78% of the effect in sales comes from those who view ads but do not click them, while only 22% can be attributed to those who click.

Count me among the group predisposed to think that brand ads on the Web do work, by the way. But then again, I have a vested interest in that being true, since that’s what’s supposed to keep me clothed and fed. I’d hate to see scientific proof that it’s all a pipe dream.

For a contrary perspective, funded by people whose interests align with mine, check out this study funded by the Online Publishers Association.

[Image credit: pedrosimoes7]

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By Loretta Chao, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Google Inc. (GOOG) sought to calm anger in China over its book-scanning project, saying it aims to work out a new agreement with Chinese writers for the rights to publish their books in its digital library.

In a letter to the Chinese Writers Association, Erik Hartmann, head of Google Books in Asia, acknowledged that the company’s communication with Chinese writers was “not good enough” and said Google is negotiating with the China Written Works Copyright Society to create a new plan for authors and publishers to participate in Google Books.

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To Our Clients, Colleagues and Friends,

• You know how the Fed has been buying up so many Fannie, Freddie and Ginnie Mae MBS?  We read that last year the Fed made up something like 83% of all purchases of all such purchases. We can’t find the article, and it may have been 73%, but either way, it’s a big number. It will be interesting to see what happens as they stop buying.  The conventional wisdom is that it will cause rates to go up, but the conventional wisdom isn’t always right.
• And while we’re talking about mortgages, we all know what an MBS is, right?  It’s a mortgage backed security, singular.  So when you’re talking about a bunch of them, plural, do you call it “a bunch of MBS” or is it “a bunch of MBS’s” or, maybe MBSs without the apostrophe?  Do you pronounce the plural of MBS like Em-bee-ess-iz or is it more properly Em-bee-ess-uh-zuz?  Would someone please call Lew Ranieri and ask him?
• We mentioned Elvis Presley last week, and we came across something interesting. Below is the famous photograph of Nixon and Elvis shaking hands in the White House, this meeting taking place as a result of a letter Elvis wrote the President.  The National Archives kept a copy of the letter, which we’ve attached. It paints a picture of Elvis as being somewhat strange, but it’s also quite touching in a way.
  
  This photo is the property of the U.S. government, and it happens to be the one most requested item year after from the Archives. At the Richard Nixon Library and Museum, you can buy postcards with this photo. It’s their top seller.
• By the way, if you’re interested in U.S. history and politics, the Nixon Library is a great way to spend 3-4 hours.  They hide none of the embarrassing stuff and display Watergate quite prominently. You’ll learn that the EPA was Nixon’s idea, that he proposed a health plan similar to Obama’s, and when you listen to some of his secretly recorded office conversations,  you’ll hear him swear like a sailor.  We even heard him say “We need to stick the IRS on those Jew ___ suckers. “  A favorite is a small auditorium where a holograph of the former President is projected onto the stage.  You ask him certain pre-selected questions, and he answers them!  You get the eerie sense that he’s right there in the room with you, talking directly to you!
• How do you handle volatility?   From late 2007 to the 2009 lows, the Bank of America stock was down 94%.  By year-end 2009, it was up 380%.
• Thumbs down for Up in the Air. George Clooney’s character is empty, and while he has a certain charm, he has no friends, no family, no home, and no possessions.  His acting is what we’ve come to expect from him, and while there are a few light moments, the overall theme is depressing.
• We just read about call centers that pay their employees by the minute, but only for the time the person’s actually on the phone with customers. The one we read about pays $0.25 a minute, meaning that the most a person could make if they talked every second of every minute of every hour would be $15 an hour.  It’s like the old days of piece work. It seems weird at first, but it actually seems to make sense.  Sort of.
• Remember when Lomas & Nettleton was the nation’s biggest servicer with about $20 billion?  Here are the top servicers today.

Number 10 OneWest is the new name for what used to be Indy Mac Bank.  What kind of cash flow does $2 trillion throw off?  Let’s assume 35 bps of servicing income, and if our math is right, the servicing fee is about $7 billion a year or $580 million a month of gross revenue.

• Horizon Bank in Washington State with $1.3  billion of assets has failed, and the FDIC estimates that the cost will be approximately 41% of stated assets.  It seems like only yesterday when the Northwest banks were doing so well.  About 30% of Horizon’s portfolio was construction and land development, with another 34% in multi-family and commercial real estate.  That 41% loss still seems shocking.
• You always read about how the key to real estate investing is to use OPM, or Other People’s Money, and here’s an interesting example: Tishman Speyer paid $5.4 billion for a huge apartment complex in New York ( Peter Cooper Village ), and it’s now worth $1.8 billion.  How much of that $3.6 billion loss did the Speyer family lose?  They lost only $112 million, with the big losses being taken by their investors.  This will knock your socks off, but one of their biggest investors in the deal was the Church of England.
• The Dornbusch Law (named, imaginatively, after the late MIT professor of economics, Rudi Dornbusch) states that “In financial markets, things always take longer to happen than you expect – but once they happen, events unfold more quickly than you’d ever have imagined.”  Think back on the financial crisis of 2008-2009.  Isn’t this exactly how it unfolded?
• Heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson once said that “everybody has a plan until they’re hit.” An interesting statement and one worth thinking about when you’re updating your strategic plan.  The real message is to always have a Plan B.
• No one’s going to ring a bell announcing that the refinance boom is over, but we were puzzled by the MBA refinance Index.  It was 5,904 one year ago and this week it was 1,976.  That’s a 67% drop over the past twelve months. Should mortgage lenders be worried? We’re not on the front lines with loan officers, but it sure seems like things could be cooling down, now or in the near future.
• We mentioned last week that two banks raised their dividends twice last year, and some of you wanted to know which.  They were 1^st Source (SRCE) and Hudson City (HCBK).  Pretty amazing, to raise the dividend not once but twice in such a tough year.  Some more on 1^st Source:
• 1^st Source was founded in 1863 as First National Bank of South Bend ( Indiana ). It currently has 75 branches in Indiana and Michigan and $4.4 billion in assets.  A few of their metrics aren’t all that great: A 0.57% ROA, 4.1% ROE, 3.1% net interest margin, and an efficiency ratio of 68%.  What has really stood out for them, however, is that only 2.9% of their loans are non-performing.  Credit quality always pays off in the end. We like this bank.
• Okay, we’ll go along with the idea that keeping GMAC alive is somehow in our national interest and worthy of federal bailout money.  But when are they going to start getting things turned around there?  It’s hard to know how their auto-lending is doing, but Ally Bank will report a $1.3 billion loss and ResCap, not to be outdone, will report a $700 million loss.  And finally, their international lending group didn’t want to be left out, so it will report a loss of $1.3.  These are apparently due to re-classifying loans from held-for-investment to held-for-sale, but whatever.  GMAC and ResCap have brought in some great people like Steve Abreu, so maybe we’ll start seeing a turnaround soon.
• We get asked from time to time if we do recruiting. We’re not recruiters or head hunters, not by a long shot.  However, we have done a number of select searches for clients, mostly in the areas of Secondary Marketing, Heads of Operations, and Finance.   Our fee, by the way, is about a third of the typical recruitment firm.

• Ladies, do you have one of those lower back tattoos? A study showed that if an epidural is pushed through the tattoo during child birth, there could be severe problems if the ink enters the spine. There may, however, now be a way to remove that tattoo someday: (http://www.hulu.com/watch/61336/saturday-night-live-turlingtons-lower-back-tattoo-remover).    Well, that’s all for now.   See you next week sometime.

Garrett, Watts & Co.

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

Joe Garrett   (510-469-8633)

Corky Watts   (408-395-5504)
Mike McAuley    (281-250-2536)

It’s Tuesday and that can only mean it’s time for our weekly feature, the BlackBerry Buzz. The CES is not a big show for smartphones, but Research In Motion had a big booth and I spent some time walking through it looking for new phones. Unfortunately, all I found were lots of existing Tours, Curves, Bolds and Storms. They didn’t have any new phones on display that we haven’t seen before. There were plenty of accessories, but nothing of note. They did have the Presenter that was announced recently, but that’s about it.

You may have seen a viral marketing piece that Microsoft has been running for Office 2010. It’s pretty funny but what does it have to do with the BlackBerry? If you look closely, the actors are using them in the ad, not Windows Phones. Oops.

We have been long-time fans of Xobni — “Inbox” spelled backwards — the Outlook add-on that adds a lot of power to the program. We previously deduced that Xobni would be coming to the BlackBerry, but nothing for a while. I didn’t see them at the CES, but others found the Xobni folks touting the BlackBerry version of the app that will be coming Real Soon Now. Outlook users should check it out when it’s available.

One year. 365 parasites. Be a part of it.

Important news!!! TenToneHammer.com is giving away the Open beta Keys for Star Trek Online. Supplies are limited. You don’t have to be a premium member or an existing member or anything. I just signed up with a new account there and got my beta key instantly.

“Boldly go into open beta with a key from Ten Ton Hammer!

Be part of the Star Trek Online’s open beta with a key from Ten Ton Hammer! Help test the game from January 12th (at 10am PST) to the 26th. Key quantities are limited so act fast! Login then click here for instructions, then click here to check out the latest Star Trek Online articles and guides from Ten Ton Hammer!”

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/79119

Remember though that you need to go to the Star Trek Online Open Beta page and activate your key and create an account to login and play the game. The section to paste your key into will look just like below for those of you that need some visual help.

http://www.startrekonline.com/openbeta

Just as all of us yanks were riding high on our brand new upgrade to webOS 1.3.5.1 , Palm goes and gives all our Pre-toting brethren over in Europe webOS 1.3.5.2. Considering that it’s a trivial enough upgrade that it only bumps the overall numbering up an earth-shattering zero-point-zero-point-zero-point-one, we’re not all that jealous – but we’ll admit that we might be a little bit jealous.

So what’s new? They’ve made minor improvements all around, primarily focusing on bug fixes. The calendar has been sped up, the App Catalog now supports the simultaneous download of multiple applications, fonts have been tweaked, and they’ve added “better handling of prepaid SIM cards.” As a bit of a treat for folks who find themselves outside of WiFi/3G range often, they’ve also tucked in the option to manually update to new versions over EDGE.

[Via PreCentral via EngadgetMobile]

Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies

Hace poco, Denns nos mostraba algunas imágenes de anticipación del honda CR-Z, a la vez que días antes, anticipábamos que la versión de producción no cambiaría mucho con respecto al prototipo de Tokio, el último presentado en el circuito de salones. El día de hoy, Honda se despacha con el modelo ya listo para entrar en producción, que saldrá a la venta en EEUU en el verano.

La verdad es que el CR-Z no ha cambiado nada con respecto a sus prototipos predecesores. Mantiene el mismo acabado de la carrocería, así como una imágen deportiva que no la hace desentonar el conjunto híbrido.

El CR-Z en su versión comercial, irá equipado con un motor 1.5 litros i-VTEC, con el sistema híbrido Motor Assist, usado por el primer concepto híbrido de Honda, hasta nuestros días con el Insight. Dicho sistema, permite seleccionar tres modos de marcha: Sport, Econ y Normal. El funcionamiento del sistema se lleva a cabo a través de una paleta en el volante. En modo Sport, la respuesta del motor y del sistema eléctrico alcanzan su punto máximo en potencia. Durante el modo económico, el motor da prioridad al funcionamiento con electricidad, antes que con gasolina, mientras que en normal, el motor opera con los valores preestablecidos en la central de datos del motor.

En funcionamiento combinado, el motor 1.5, junto con el motor eléctrico de 10 Kw, producen 122 caballos; a pesar de un aspecto deportivo, el CR-Z no quemará neumáticos en cada semáforo, por cierto. La idea del CR-Z es la misma que la del Toyota Prius o el mencionado Honda Insight.

Fuente | Prensa Honda

A group of visiting experts and Harvard scholars offered a grim prognosis for the success of the health care reform proposals before Congress during a symposium at Harvard Medical School (HMS) on Monday (Jan. 11).

Even as House and Senate lawmakers work toward reconciling the health care bills they passed late last year and submit a unified plan for President Obama’s approval, the panel, hosted by HMS and its Department of Health Care Policy, predicted a tough and eventually unsuccessful road ahead for the effort.

According to the participants, an ineffective governmental system, a flawed funding structure leading to massive debt, and a widening government involvement in personal health care decisions are just some of the problems that are likely to doom the reform proposals.

“I am very pessimistic about what you are going to be able to do,” said Allan Detsky, a professor at the University of Toronto.

The lone Canadian on the panel, Detsky, a Harvard-trained doctor, argued that the main problem facing health care reform in the United States involves the country’s governmental structure. He said it is far easier to approve legislation under a parliamentary system such as that in Canada, where the executive and legislative branches are “always together” when there is a majority government. Such alignment leads more readily to legislation, such as the comprehensive 1984 Canada Health Act that mandated universal coverage.

“We have party discipline. The caucus will debate the policy, the cabinet will decide what the policy is going to be, the prime minister puts the bill out there, and if you are a member of the ruling party and you don’t vote for it, you are kicked out. That’s the way it works,” said Detsky. “We have a government that can do things … your government system prevents you from doing things.”

The congressional health care plans are “not on the right track,” don’t acknowledge the need for trade-offs, and leave difficult decisions about how to contain costs to future generations, said Daniel Kessler, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

“The current bill confuses access with insurance, which is going to lead us to a world of unsustainable deficits, very high implicit marginal tax rates, and increased government controls of people’s personal decisions in exchange for health benefits that are at best uncertain. It has the seeds of some successful cost-containment policies, which is good, but unfortunately it pushes the hard choices on that front off to the future.”

The president and CEO of the Game Show Network seemed an unlikely panelist. But a saddening experience with the U.S. health care system left David Goldhill with a personal perspective to add to the discussion. He began exploring the health care industry in depth after his elderly father died from an infection contracted in 2005 while receiving hospital care. Goldhill, who recently authored the article “How American Health Care Killed My Father” in The Atlantic magazine, argued for a return to having the patient act as consumer.

“What I got out of that experience was a realization that, in this most important service in my father’s life, he wasn’t really the customer of the hospital. Medicare was.”

Goldhill’s recommendations for reform included establishing a national catastrophic policy, requiring that people save for their health care and pay for part of it, and drawing consumers, who “need to be more empowered,” back into the system. He argued that the current congressional bills, which offer subsidies to expand insurance coverage and top-down systems of cost control, “haven’t worked before,” and “I am skeptical it’s going to work now.”

There was one optimistic voice in the debate. Harvard’s David Cutler, Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics, noted that the plans introduce helpful changes, including reforms that bundle payments for patients, once scattered across hospitals and among doctors, into one place. They also incorporate performance payments into Medicare by only rewarding providers who deliver solid service, and offer a holistic approach to health care, one that oversees the transition of patients from one form of care to another and helps to navigate them through “the most complicated system of any industry in the economy.”

Yet even Cutler, who was senior health care adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, framed his optimism with caution.

“This is a path, not a leap. What we have to do is reform the health care system over the next decade, not reform it overnight.”

Jeffrey S. Flier, dean of HMS and Caroline Shields Walker Professor of Medicine, and Barbara J. McNeil, Ridley Watts Professor of Health Care Policy and head of the Department of Health Care Policy at HMS, moderated the symposium. Michael Chernew, professor of health care policy at HMS, William Sahlman, the Dimitri V. D’Arbeloff-MBA Class of 1955 Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and Leonard Schaeffer, professor at the University of Southern California, also took part in the discussion.

A Radio Shack employee was arrested after punching a customer who was trying to return an item. The employee was charged with assault, but since it is Radio Shack, battery was not included. (bah-da-bum)

Yesterday I mentioned Wisconsin’s SAFE Act. How about Oregon’s SAFE Act verbiage, which start at the end of July? “Financial Responsibility Criteria: For purposes of this rule, an applicant is not financial responsible if the applicant has shown a disregard of his or her own financial circumstances, taking into consideration the totality of the applicant’s financial circumstances. Factors that the director may consider in determining whether an applicant has not demonstrated financial responsibility include, but are not limited to, the following: (a) Current outstanding judgments or material litigation, excluding judgments solely as a result of medical expenses; (b) Current outstanding tax liens or other government liens and filings; (c) A foreclosure within the past three years and the type of property subject to foreclosure, whether residential or commercial; (d) Pending or completed bankruptcy proceedings, and the nature of the proceedings, occurring within the past five years; or (e) A pattern of seriously delinquent accounts within the past three years. In assessing the financial responsibility of the applicant, the director may consider extenuating or mitigating factors, including but not limited to the following: (a) Involuntary loss of job or income; (b) Involuntary medical expenses; (c) Divorce; (d) Attempting workout arrangements with creditors; or (e) Any other factor the director believes reflects circumstances beyond the control of the applicant.”

VA lenders may want to visit http://www.homeloans.va.gov/docs/2009_county_loan_limits.pdf That is the website that shows the VA county-specific loan limits. GMAC, for example, reminds their clients that any county that does not appear on this list is assumed to have a county limit of $417,000, and that the VA county limits are used to determine the calculation of the maximum amount of guaranty the VA will provide on a loan. It does not dictate the maximum amount of the VA loan. The new 2010 county limits must be used to determine the maximum VA guaranty/Veteran’s Available Entitlement for loans closed on or after January 1, 2010.

Sometimes a broker or agent will wonder what happened to investors paying 3-5 points for a loan. After all, older Treasury notes with higher coupons are trading at those levels, and more. But a mortgage investor is not going to pay much above par (100) if the loan is expected to pay off early, for whatever reason. Recently we learned that the “aggregate prepayment speed of the Fannie Mae hybrid ARM sector for December surged 32% from 20.3% CPR to 26.7% CPR.” Prepayments increased most dramatically for credit-impaired borrowers who had IO loans that funded in 2006-2007. The aggregate Freddie Mac hybrid ARM prepayments “increased 12% from 21.4% CPR to 23.8% CPR.” But some analysts believe that the aggregate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hybrid ARM prepayments to drop 15-20% this month due to the combined effects of a lower housing turnover in the middle of winter, along with three fewer business days. (Other analysts with attitudes say that anyone using the old “fewer business days” argument is misled.)

And just what is the current hybrid ARM issuance these days?

more news on USDA Rural Development Agency, housing prices, Fed MBS purchases, unemployment, the markets, and joke of the day … <<< CLICK HERE

Throw away your keyboard – well lessen your dependence on it anyway – the PEREGRINE USB glove can be customized for over 30 user-programmable actions allowing you to react more quickly in intense gaming situations. The glove allows the wearer to carry out those time sensitive gaming commands with a twitch of a finger by utilizing the touch sensitive pads embedded in the fingers and palm of the glove…

Tags: Control,
Gaming,
Keyboard,
Touch,
USB

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