AP:
For more than 150 years, messages of joy, sorrow and success came in signature yellow envelopes hand delivered by a courier. Now the Western Union telegram is officially a thing of the past.
Small Dairyman Shakes Up Milk Industry
The milk fight, which is being watched in the industry from coast to coast, started because Mr. Hettinga runs a rare hybrid operation. Most dairy businesses either only produce milk, or only process it. He does both. As a result, he falls into a protected class that isn’t bound by an arcane system of Depression-era federal rules. Under it, milk processors selling into specific geographical areas, which cover most of the country, must all pay into that area’s pool for subsidizing milk prices. But so-called producer-distributors have always been exempt.
The Role of Civil Disobedience Today
Students examine civil disobedience’s history and explore whether it is a viable form of protest in today’s world
The End of the Internet?
The nation’s largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.
Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets–corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers–would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.
Fed’s Bies Warns on Mortgage & Real Estate Lending
Regulators are concerned about heavy commercial real estate exposures and risky mortgage lending practices at U.S. banks, Federal Reserve Board Governor Susan Bies said on Thursday.
“There are certain rapidly growing business lines in banking operations that are placing pressures on risk-management systems,” Bies told a financial services industry conference as she outlined guidance regulators have issued on commercial real estate and so-called nontraditional mortgage lending.
In discussing the guidance on exotic mortgage products, such as interest-only loans, Bies repeated that government regulators were concerned risk-management practices had not kept pace with the risks that these widely available loan products could present.
Interview with Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly
In the first installment of our new segment “Conversations from the Corner Office,” Kai talks with Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly about building a corporate culture, and why the customer isn’t necessarily always right.
Southwest continues to have a market cap greater than all of the other airlines, combined. Perhaps, one day, they will serve Madison.
The $200B Broadband Scandal
My friend Bruce Kushnick is a man on a mission. In The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal, he writes:
. . . in the early 1990’s . . . every Bell company . . . made commitments to rewire America, state by state. Fiber optic wires would replace the 100-year old copper wiring. The push caused techno-frenzy of major proportions. By 2006, 86 million households should have had a service capable of 45 Mbps in both directions . . . In order to pay for these upgrades, in state after state, the public service commissions and state legislatures acquiesced to the Bells’ promises by removing the constraints on the Bells’ profits as well as gave other financial perks . . . The phone companies collected over $200 billion in higher phone rates and tax perks, about $2000 per household.
The manipulations, deceptions and broken promises are documented in detail in New Jersey, Texas, Pennsylvania, California and Massachusetts. Book synopsis here.
More here.
Podcasts, blogs and Dave Barry
“Newspapers,” he said right off the bat, “are dead.”
Uh, to be honest, I was hoping for something a little funnier. But, the more he talked about it, the clearer it became that it is a worthwhile topic for discussion. And Barry may even be right.
Everyone has heard about cutbacks in the newspaper business, from the big names on the East Coast to the papers in your driveway. And if there is anyone who typifies the rapid pace of change in the business and its effect on how you get your news, it is Barry.
Shopping in 1975
Alex Tabarrok via a Sears Catalog:
Sears’ lowest-priced 10-inch table saw: 52.35 hours of work required in 1975; 7.34 hours of work required in 2006.
Sears’ lowest-priced gasoline-powered lawn mower: 13.14 hours of work required in 1975 (to buy a lawn-mower that cuts a 20-inch swathe); 8.56 hours of work required in 2006 (to buy a lawn-mower that cuts a 22-inch swathe. Sears no longer sells a power mower that cuts a swathe smaller than 22 inches.)
Could Blogs Get Tangled in Web of Ethics Rules?
That’s because state elections law says that anyone who spends more than $25 a year to advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate – without that candidate’s knowledge or control – must register with the state as an independent committee and disclose the sources of the money spent and how it was expended.
Should bloggers be regarded as a part of the news media, exempt from such rules, or should they be seen as partisan actors in a campaign who must register? Few bloggers draw the line where Berg did.