Hype & the Denver International Airport
I heard the hype while living in Denver nearly 20 years ago. $2.5 billion (turned into $5 billion) was necessary to avoid all of the current airport’s problems during snowstorms. Mayer Federico Pena lead the charge with his reward coming later – the highway to the new airport (DIA) is named “Pena Boulevard”.
Mike Boyd tells the “rest of the story” in the Grinch Comes Clean:
“All Weather Airport? Oh, That Was Just ‘Hype’…” …Along With Most Of The Other Stuff DIA PromisThis Christmas, it wasn’t just chestnuts that got roasted on an open fire.
Denver’s “all-weather” airport, the one that was built to unclog the Western skies, the one that was going to be the glorious technological beacon for all future airports, got roasted big-time in the national media. Justifiably.Denver International got cooked on something called “the truth.”
For almost two days before Christmas, the airport was shut down due to snow. At most times of the year, and at most other airports, this would have been not much more than a page three human interest story, with interviews of passengers stranded like refugees in a big terminal, being asked really deep questions, like, “How long have you been standing in line?” or “When do you think you’ll get home?” Or, “Gee, you gotta lot of luggage there.” Anything to fill a 90-second piece that’s been done dozens of times before.
A Semi Self Defense of Enron
I also have a minor challenge for aficionados of the Enron case.
Years ago, when I was at the Washington Post, one of my colleagues on the science desk—Bill Booth—called up a dozen or so Nobel Laureates in physics and asked them to explain, in plain language, the nature and significance of the Higgs Boson atomic particle. None of them could. This was at a time, mind you, when the physics community was arguing passionately for the construction of a multi-billion dollar particle accelerator to look for things like the Higgs Boson. So it wasn’t for lack of interest. They were gung-ho for nailing the Higgs Boson. They just couldn’t explain the Higgs Boson.
Can anyone explain—in plain language—what it is Jeff Skilling and Co. did wrong?
TSA’s Latest: Sponsored X-Ray Bins
The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is launching a one-year pilot programme to allow companies to place advertisements in bins at passenger screening checkpoints at “select” US airports in return for equipment donations.
The effort follows a 3-month test programme at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) security checkpoints that started in July.
TSA is looking for commercial advertising companies who will team with an airport to provide divestiture bins (the plastic bins used to transport passenger carry-on items through the X-ray machine); divestiture and composure tables; and bin return carts free-of-charge to the TSA. In return, the companies will be allowed to place airport-approved ads “on the bottom of the inside of the bins,” says a TSA spokeswoman. Airports partnered with ad companies will ultimately be required to screen the materials for “offensive, obtrusive, political or controversial” content, she adds.
Not a bad idea, actually. How about a free bottle of water with the ad?
Airships
Sunrise
Happy New Year!
On Earmarks & Lobbyists
Doonesbury. Much more on earmarks, including local activity, here.
Google’s Tipping Point?
Taken in a vacuum, a fairly trivial thing happened a few days ago. The co-founder of Firefox, Blake Ross, wrote a post criticizing Google called “Tip: Trust is hard to gain, easy to lose“. He takes issue with a new Google search feature that promotes certain of their own products over organic search results. See Google searches for Calendar, Blogging, Photo Sharing and others and see Google pushing Google Calendar, Blogger and Picasa, respectively, above what is supposed to be the most relevant results – Google search. Even a search for Yahoo Calendar has these Google results above the obvious destination the user was searching for.
I say this is trivial incident taken in a vacuum because, quite frankly, Google has every right to promote their own products on their website. But I think Ross’ post may be a sign of a change in attitude towards Google that’s been percolating for the last year or so, and is beginning to manifest itself. The fact that a highly respected entrepreneur finally spoke out should be a wakeup call for Google.
The Creation of American Girl’s 2007 Girl of the Year – Nikki
Christina Binkley visits Middleton’s American Girl (a unit of Mattel):
A little more than a year ago, executives at the dollmaker American Girl sat down to undertake a high-stakes marketing mission: cramming everything the company deems uplifting and authentic about American girls into a single plastic and cloth figure. The goal: to create a character so compelling that parents will pay $86 for an 18-inch doll and a paperback book.
Working with a trove of customer feedback culled from its magazine, Web and book-publishing empire, the company determined that the typical girl these days is dependable, athletic and loves animals. She is also completely overscheduled and stressed out. She skis like a demon, rides horses, trains guide dogs, plans school parties, washes the dishes, battles popularity crises and helps her little brother with his math homework.
The improbable result is Nicki Fleming, the company’s 2007 Girl of the Year — an annual event in which the Mattel Inc. unit releases, on Jan. 1, a new doll meant to capture the current state of girlhood. Nicki’s dog Sprocket, together with training treats, a collar and leash, sells for $24. Her horse Jackson with Western saddle costs $62; his tack box, curry brush and carrots are $34.
Mattel’s (Jill Barrad was CEO at the time) acquisition of Pleasant Rowland’s American Girl for some $700M lead the way to the creation of Madison’s Overture Center. Former Oscar Meyer CEO Bob Eckert currently runs Mattel.
The Future of the Equity Premium
Brad DeLong and Konstantin Magin:
Suppose that, at the start of some year since the beginning of the twentieth century, you had taken $1,000,000 that you had invested in bonds and believed you would not want to touch for twenty years, and invested it insteade in a diversified portfolio of equities. (Or suppose you had been able to borrow $1,000,000 at the long-term government bond rate). And suppose you had then let both legs of that investment ride for twenty years. What would have been the results in dollars (adjusted for inflation) twenty years later?