aaron c beals

it’s a little after the actual collapse, but my brother forwarded me a great video explaining exactly why the economy collapsed. even if you think you know what went on, it’s a very well-done video and worth the 10 minutes to watch.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

i realize that it might be perceived as mildly unpatriotic to post an article on Inauguration Day that slams several of the largest US businesses, but i cannot sit idly by and let this go unremarked upon. after 5 years as a Sprint PCS customer (way back in the day), i made the switch to Verizon Wireless, mainly because almost everyone i knew was already on Verizon, and if i followed suit, i wouldn’t be charged for calls to them. later, when text messaging became popular, VZW offered free texting to other VZW customers, so that was an added bonus. the downside was that they charged you 10 cents per incoming and outgoing text with members of other networks (that price has since become 25 cents). eventually they provided plan add-ons through which you could pay for 500 out-of-network messages for $10/month, lowering the cost to 2 cents per message. but of course, you had to use all the messages or the per-message price effectively increases… and heaven forbid you go over, because then you’re back to paying $0.25 each. i put up with this nonsense, their lack of a GSM network, absolutely terrible selection of phones, and absurdly high data plan rates all because they have the best coverage in the area and essentially give me a free phone every 2 years. oh, and because the other US carriers aren’t much better.

and then, like salt in an already festering wound, comes the news that these wireless carriers don’t actually have much in the way of overhead (costs) for these precious text messages that they dole out at 4 for a dollar:

article in the NYTimes

today was a big day … Netezza’s (NZ) first day of trading following yesterday’s IPO. the strike price was set last night at 12.00, it opened this morning at 15.00, and climbed slowly but steadily to close out the day at 17.34 — not too shabby.