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As Citibank and Wells Fargo fight over the pieces of Wachovia, I have to wonder about the demise of Washington Mutual (WaMu). Reportedly the largest bank failure in history, I wonder if different choices by management may have made a difference in the outcome.
Around 1997 I was engaged on a project at Great Western Bank to develop a system to track the performance of their mortgage portfolio, which at the time was around $3.5 Billion, if I recall correctly. The system was to track changes in market value, credit ratings, re-fi and sales activities, etc. I recall we tracked ZIP code-based statistics about property values, and differentiated between residential, multi-unit, commercial and industrial property as well.
The system was developed as a result of an outside auditors report that there was insufficient management visibility into the mortgage pool the bank held.
About a year or so later, WaMu acquired Great Western Bank as part of their expansion outside of their home state. I recall discussions with the new management about the mortgage tracking system and how it could deliver better information about mortgage performance. They responded that they didn't need such a system. So, I moved on to other projects, with cell phone companies, and construction companies and manufacturers.
However, I have to wonder what would have been different had they decided to use that mortgage performance tracking system...I guess we'll never know.
September 16th 2008 20:17
Much has been written about the connection between pay and performance. In England, a farmer asked a team of economists to study the matter and to devise ways of linking pay and performance even closer.
As Slate reports, the results were amazing:
Farmer Smith tried to adjust the piece rate each day so that it was always adequate but never generous: The more the work force picked, the lower the piece rate. But his workers were outwitting him by keeping an eye on each other, making sure nobody picked too quickly, and thus collectively slowing down and cranking up the piece rate.
In three successive summers of picking strawberries, the economists' experiments raised production by 50 percent, an additional 20 percent and yet another 20 percent.
If you have never raised strawberries you may not be aware that they are delicate plants and the fruit cannot wait to be harvested some other day. And since individual fruit may ripen at different rates, it is necessary to return every few days to the same rows and to harvest from thinning quantities of fruit.
What would happen to the produce industry if similar programs were used in less perishable product, such as lettuce or watermelon? In the US farmers proclaim that they must have access to cheap (read "illegal") workers in order to keep market prices low. Since this report I don't agree: It appears to me that you can double output with little change in the total pay of the pickers. Maybe even school teachers could understand those economics!
September 11th 2008 05:21
While everyone is complaining about the high price of gasoline, it appears that employees of the Interior Department in Denver were having sexual relations with oil industry eimployees.
As reported by the AP earlier this evening:
The reports describe a fraternity house atmosphere inside the Denver Minerals Management Service office responsible for marketing oil and natural gas that energy companies barter to the government in lieu of cash royalty payments for drilling on federal lands. The government received $4.3 billion in such royalty-in-kind payments last year. The oil and gas is then resold to energy companies or put in the nation's emergency stockpile.
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One of the reports claims that the former head of the Denver royalty-in-kind office, Gregory W. Smith, purchased cocaine from a co-worker, and one occasion had it delivered to the office. He also allegedly had oral sex with subordinates. The report also said Smith steered government contracts to Geomatrix Consultants Inc. and used government databases and e-mail accounts to conduct business for the company, which paid him $30,000 for his work from April 2002 through June 2003. Smith retired from the office in May 2007.
Congressman Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has already said he will call for hearings next week.
Barack Obama has called for a windfall profits tax on oil companies after another round of record earnings were reported by the industry. As I mentioned here back in May, the only numbers being reported by the media, and repeated often by politicians of a certain stripe, are the earnings.
Horrors! They made money
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Part of being successful in business is not just being efficient but also being effective. Sometimes it is hard to know if there is a better way to do something, or a tool/gadget that makes a particular task easier.
Two of my favorite websites to track for such answers are Cool Tools and Life Hacker
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Since my previous post, Comcast has again landed in the news. Now they announce that, starting in October, subscribers will be limited to 250GB of bandwidth per month. Go over that limit, you get a warning. Exceed the limit again and you get cut off the Internet for a year.
Ah, isn't that a little harsh? Especially considering that Comcast gives (a) no information about your usage trend, (b) provides no way to monitor your ussage, (c) makes no adjustment for subscribers with multiple users (such as roommates or families with active kids) and (d) provides no option to buy more bandwidth to avoid the cut off
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Recently Comcast was found by the FCC to have been interfering with the activities of subscribers to its Internet service. They were using technology that identified users of file sharing software and causing that software to stop working by injecting additional packets into the data stream.
Originally, Comcast had denied that they were doing this and it took some efforts by independent sources to research what was going on before the FCC finally took action
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The New York Times reports that Verizon Communications is spending billions of dollars installing fiber optic cables to the homes of customers in their service area.
The investment will allow Verizon to provide bundled services such as cable TV, high definition video, voice communications and Internet broadband services faster and cheaper than competitors. The estimated cost is $4,000 per customer and Verizon is marketing the service as FiOS
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Dallas-based Brinker International Inc., which operates Romano's Macaroni Grill, Chili's Grill & Bar, On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina and Maggiano's Little Italy, has agreed to sell 80% of Macaroni Grill to "...an affiliate of San Francisco private-equity firm Golden Gate Capital for $131.5 million" reports the Wall Street Journal.
Who knew that all those chains were one company? The WSJ story goes on to say that
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Comment by Opher Banarie
on Fields in Post Form
However, today that field is gone. Hmmm, was the template updated overnight?
Also, the Short Title field is now on the form.
You know, overnight Charles moved me from an Orble domain to my own. I wonder if the system uses different templates and the "old" one is still used when using a generic Orble blog.
Can anyone compare the two?
Thanks again,
Opher