WOW!

The Occupy Movement, commonly known as OWS, has gotten so popular that they now have:

1. A rap video

2. An official opposition movement

3. Academic commentators

4. Celebrity attention

1.

The rap video:

2.

The 53% movement. Based on some statistic that 47% of Americans don’t pay federal income tax. An article from CNN.

3.

Where it gets interesting is the academic commentating. For those in Chapple’s Econ 101 class – the name Mankiw may be familiar. Well he’s the guy who wrote our Econ 101 textbook. This Harvard professor/textbook writer may or may not be planning his own counter OWS movement. But his blogpost is sure a start.

4.

Conan sends his reporters

I appears that OWS has reached some sort of critical mass and is now taken somewhat seriously. But the question is, will they reach a point that the US government will bend to this movement in the coming months leading up to the 2012 elections?

John Donne: “No man is an island”

Aside from occupying Wall Street, Vancouver, Washington amongst other states and many parts of Europe and around the world, the movement is occupying my mind and certainly bringing conversation to the topic of inequality.

When I first saw news of hooligans protesting on Wall Street over a month ago, I thought it was a joke; maybe a few broken windows, a few arrests, and there you go. But they’ve stayed there, spread and gathered support – over $200,000 raised, the bulk of which came from donations under $75.

They’ve won over my interest, and the attention of many. Although they lack professionalism and coherence in their views, in my opinion it would be naive to brush this ‘Tea-party’ movement off. If not only because they’ve captured the attention of so many. Commerce is a social science and we don’t only live in this world but also need to do business in it. Likewise with CSR & Sustainability, if the focus on inequality becomes so strong, then corporations will gradually find it profitable to develop CSR regarding inequality.

Check out how this new TED talk, a medium of expression for many important ideas, views inequality.

Summary of Article:

With over $30b of funds available, only $11.8b was applied for with $4b distributed. Out of that $4b, only half was loaned out to small businesses. Approval rates have also dropped and most banks used the funds to repay TARP loans. 

What I get out of this article is that despite money being available, there’s nobody worthy to lend to because the underlying economy is not picking up.

And according to Biz2Credit.com, a leading index for small business loans, the low approval rates for small business loans are due to these reasons:

1.         More than 73% of small businesses reported declining sales in first 7 months of 2011.

2.         Profitability has declined at more than 90% of small businesses over the past 2 years.

3.         Bank underwriting criteria is harder now than in 2010 when stimulus money was flowing. (source)

 

Even though the government is pushing hard on the economy with monetary policy i.e. Bernanke’s Twist and Geithner’s ‘No Lehman in Europe’, what if underlying economy just doesn’t seem to be growing? Are we only experiencing an European problem or is it larger than that?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204138204576603100469929700.html

RIM’s a Canadian heart throb. But Peter Fader, marketing professor at Wharton warns:

“A lot of success is about being in the right place at the right time,” Fader, “RIM was the only player for a time, but it wasn’t equipped for a competitive market.” – (Source)

Is it possible? This company with no debt and ubiquitous products – especially in the financial sector – is a one hit wonder? Lately, RIM’s become everyone’s suspect for a turn around. Just look how much RIM moved on Carl Icahn rumours. But activists like Canadian fund Jaguar have been lobbying RIM for a long time. And what’s there to do? Sell the company? Maybe the Chinese will buy it? Or focus on underdeveloped markets like India. Where lacking infrastructure has been a boon for the Blackberry maker. But selling outdated and cheap devices doesn’t makeup for ingenuity – and plus, that’s Nokia’s game.

I expect some big shifts over the next two quarters in the mobile ecosystem market. Some upcoming events to look for are: adoption of NFC, Blackberry OS 2.0 (playbook) which includes Android App support and such adoption on next generation Blackberries as they move onto QNX, Apple’s iPhone 5 launch with iOS 5 (iMessenger – possible BBM parity), and popularity of Microsoft’s OS.

Following up on one of my previous posts:

The SEC just put on the table a new rule regarding the financial sector. If passed, it will limit the ability of financial firms, or third party hedge funds, to short investment products sold to the firm’s clients. This comes tumbling in four years after Goldman & Paulson’s CDO fiasco.

This new proposed law seems to be too blunt. Like the Dodd-Frank bill, this leaves people wondering how the implementation will work (and if it’s just another jobs bill).

While the industry is arguing that this may hurt competition and the recovery of the securities market, I think this is great for the industry. At the heart of this bill, if sharpened a little to not be so all-encompassing, is a boost for investor confidence. I’ve spoken to people in sales/representative roles who say ordinary ‘investor’ confidence is so low that most people are scared to even talk about their money let alone invest it. That, coupled with low financial literacy and all the negative news as of late, is scaring away clients and potential capital.

This bill I would say, rather than weakening the financial recovery, should act to strengthen it.

But it will be interesting to see if, when, and in what form this bill will be passed in the face of strong opposition from lobbies.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/19/us-financial-regulation-sec-idUSTRE78I2SK20110919