Play-by-play without delay
As I waded through the crowd outside of Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater on Saturday evening I spotted three or four guys dressed in referees shirts and wearing some tall contraption with a sign on it. Closer inspection revealed they were selling radios for $25 which would provide the Troy State-OSU broadcast to fans with “no delay.”
Apparently, the over-the-air broadcasts of college football games reach the earphones of listeners in the stadiums a few seconds after the play has ended. That makes for a frustrating listening experience.
So, someone came up with this alternative that catches the broadcast as it happens. I thought the sales folks were enterprising people who hit on an ingenious gimmick. Turns out, I was told, they were employed by the university.
Each of the four sales people I saw outside the stadium seemed to be doing a brisk business about one hour before kickoff.
Business Writer
$700 billion package designed as investment, not bailout
There’s a good summary of the $700 billion rescue package over at the Wall Street Journal. A key aspect for taxpayers:
Protecting taxpayers:
If after five years the government has a net loss, the president will be required to submit a legislative proposal to seek reimbursement from the financial institutions that participated.
By the way, OCU Business Dean Vince Orza told me last week that while he was in New York, one of the editors of the Wall Street Journal joked that things had gotten so bad there that officials were considering changing the name of the newspaper to just The Journal.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Dear american: please help
Over the years the so-called “Nigerian letter” has landed in my e-mail box dozens of times, complete with the bad grammar and punctuation and awkward phrasing of someone not quite familiar with the English language who is trying to scam me out of some cash.
A parody of the letter arrived in my e-mail box this week, and I almost fell out of my chair laughing. It’s so right-on that I had to share it. Here it is, enjoy:
Dear american:
I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude. I am ministry of the treasury of the republic of america. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars us. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.
I am working with mr. Phil gram, lobbyist for ubs, who will be my replacement as ministry of the treasury in january. As a senator, you may know him as the leader of the american banking deregulation movement in the 1990s.
This transactin is 100% safe. This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance.
My family lawyer advised me that i should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred. Please reply with all of your bank account, ira and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction.
After i receive that information, i will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.
Yours faithfully minister of treasury Paulson
Business Writer
Money facts
While sifting through the Internets trying to figure out just how much money $700 billion is, I stumbled across this list of fairly random money facts from the U.S. Treasury. I figured our tax dollars paid for it, so we might as well enjoy it.
- – During fiscal year (FY) 2007, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing produced approximately 38 million notes a day with a face value of approximately $750 million.
- – 95% of the notes printed each year are used to replace notes already in, or taken out of circulation.
- – The first paper currency issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury were Demand Notes Series 1861.
- – During the Civil War period, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was called upon to print paper notes in denominations of 3 cents, 5 cents, 10 cents, 25 cents, and 50 cents. The reason for this is that people hoarded coins because of their intrinsic value which created a drastic shortage of circulating coins.
- – In 1929, the size of currency was reduced to about 2/3’s of its former size when production was converted to 12-subject plates. The familiar portraits and back designs of our currency were also established at that time.
- – The approximate weight of a currency note, regardless of denomination is (1) one gram. There are 454 grams in one (1) U.S. pound, therefore, there should be 454 notes in (1) one pound(Avoirdupois system). If the troy system were used, there are (12) twelve ounces in (1) one pound; therefore, if one note weighs approximately (1) one gram, then (1) troy pound contains approximately 375 notes.
- – If you had 10 billion $1 notes and spent one every second of every day, it would require 317 years for you to go broke.
- – A stack of currency one mile high would contain over 14½ million notes.
- – Currency paper is composed of 25% linen and 75% cotton. Red and blue synthetic fibers of various lengths are distributed evenly throughout the paper. Prior to World War I the fibers were made of silk.
- – Between the Fort Worth, Texas and the Washington, DC Facilities approximately 18 tons of ink per day are used.
- – Have you ever wondered how many times you could fold a piece of currency before it would tear? About 4,000 double folds (first forward and then backwards) are required before a note will tear.
- – The average life span of a Federal Reserve Note by denomination:
Denomination
$ 1 ……………
$ 5 ……………
$ 10 ………….
$ 20 ………….
$ 50 ………….
$100 …………Life Span
21 months
16 months
18 months
24 months
55 months
89 months - – The 100 dollar note has been the largest denomination of currency in circulation since 1969.
- – The obverse and reverse of the Great Seal of the United States appeared in a currency design for the first time when the $1 Silver Certificate. Series 1935, was issued. The Seal dates back to 1782 — before the Constitution.
- – The legend, “In God We Trust,” became a part of the design of United States currency in 1957 and has appeared on all currency since 1963.
- The largest note ever printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was the $100,000 Gold Certificate, Series 1934. These notes were printed from December 18, 1934 through January 9, 1935 and were issued by the Treasurer of the United States to Federal Reserve Banks only against an equal amount of gold bullion held by the Treasury. These notes were used for transactions between FRBs and were not circulated among the general public.
- – The origin of the “$” sign has been variously accounted for, however, the most widely accepted explanation is that the symbol is the result of evolution, independently in different places, of the Mexican or Spanish “P’s” for pesos, or piastres, or pieces of eight. The theory, derived from a study of old manuscripts, is that the “S” gradually came to be written over the “P,” developing a close equivalent of the “$” mark. It was widely used before the adoption of the United States dollar in 1785.
- – Contrary to popular belief, the automobile pictured on the back of the $10 note is not a Model “T” Ford. It is merely a creation of the designer of the bill.
- – The hands of the clock in the steeple of Independence Hall on the reverse of the $100 Federal Reserve Note are set at approximately 4:10.
- – Martha Washington is the only woman whose portrait has appeared on a U.S. currency note. It appeared on the face of the $1 Silver Certificate of 1886 and 1891, and the back of the $1 Silver Certificate of 1896.
- – The beginning of an establishment for the engraving and printing of U.S. currency can be traced as far back as August 29, 1862, to a single room in the basement of the Main Treasury Building where two men and four women separated and sealed by hand $1 and $2 U.S. notes which had been printed by private bank note companies. Today there are approximately 2,800 employees who work out of two buildings in Washington, D.C. and a facility in Fort Worth, Texas.
- – During Fiscal Year 2007, it cost approximately 6.2 cents per note to produce 9.1 billion U.S. paper currency notes.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
We Were Warned
Last December I interviewed Sherron Watkins, the accountant who blew the whistle on Enron and its misdeeds. I’ve gone back through my notes because she predicted the current chaos. Below is the unedited transcript of her remarks – again, this was nine months ago:
“I’ve described 2002 as a problem in corporate
Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was focused on corporate reform. But you had very powerful groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, that really tried to take the teeth out of the act. People who had banked Ernon, or Enron executives, they’re back out in the community. We didn’t kill the Ebola virus with the Sarbanes-Oxly Act, we spread it. I think this sub-prime mortgage crisis, it’s going to be the Ebola virus that got out.
People are selling product to people who had no business getting those products. We’ll have a liquidity crunch, and a recession or worse is coming. What you have is the perfect storm in the sense that banks have junk they can’t get rid of. Henry Paulson is trying to get it into a super fund and sell it to mom and pop investors through insurance. They also sold a lot of colateralized mortgage obligations that credit rating agencies said were AAA that are not AAA risk. Who bought those – insurance companies and insitutation investors that have cash to invest. They’re going to lose money. And secondly, what happens when you’re talking about homes is a few people who shouldn’t have borrowed but borrowed are going to have to forclose, they will have to walk away and let the bank have their house because they can’t do anything with their house. The banks don’t know what to do with that inventory, they will have to start dumping. There aren’t any buyers because there aren’t any lenders, and the price will drop further. So prices start to decline.
Now what happens is people’s mortgages are worth more than home values, because home values are going down. You end up having more and more people walking away, because they owe $50,000 more than it’s worth. And it gets worse and worse.”
- Steve Lackmeyer, Business Writer
SemGroup judge knowledgable on oil
Transcripts of hearings in Delaware regarding the bankruptcy of Tulsa’s SemGroup LP make it clear that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan L. Shannon knows a bit about the oil bidness. One transcript released this week reveals where some of that knowledge comes from.
This is attorney Greg Gordon responding to the judge’s request to explain what vacuum gas oil is:
MR. GORDON: …vacuum gas oil is one of those heavier based components, although I’ve now forgotten what its uses are. Well, I think its primary use is basically to continue to be processed to be made into gasoline. So, it’s sort of an intermediate byproduct of the initial refining phase.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. GORDON: If that answers your question.
THE COURT: It does. Thank you. I saw this on “Dirty Jobs.”
(Laughter)
THE COURT: They didn’t mention vacuum gas oil, but they covered a lot of the rest of it.
On a related note, SemGroup founder Tom Kivisto last week attended a football game at Kansas University, where the field is named after him in honor of his millions in gifts and pledges to the athletic department. That’s according to a report in the Lawrence Journal World. Kivisto, a former Jayhawk basketball star, has been seen rarely in public since his ouster from the company after its July 22 bankruptcy filing.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
With these glasses, she can see Russia from her house
Perhaps nothing says “Sarah Palin” — or is it “Tina Fey?” — more than her fashionable eyeglasses. Now the distinctive eyewear introduced to the world by the GOP’s vice presidential candidate are on sale in Oklahoma City.
Associated Optometrists of Oklahoma sent out a news release Wednesday touting the glasses and claiming to be the first Oklahoma City area optometric practice to carry the Palin frames.
I can’t vouch for that claim, but I do know that the designer frames, designed by Japanese designer Kazuo Kawasaki, are not cheap. While Associated Optometrists did not list the retail price of the famous frames, a recent story in USA Today said they start at a suggested retail price of $375 — minus the lenses, of course.
They were listed on one Web site Wednesday at a bargain-basement price of $335.
That’s still about $275 more than I paid for my stylish Buddy Holly retro frames.
Business Writer
The Business of Ike
Life is intertwined in ways we would never know until disaster strikes.
The newspaper still is the business people call when they want immediate confirmation of what they’ve heard. They simply can’t bear the agony of waiting until the churning rumors on the Net are clarified.
My desk phone rang. On the line was our youngest in Houston, still recovering from the devastation of Ike which had left them among millions without power. No air conditioning in Houston is no fun.
She wasn’t on her cell phone about the destruction all around. She had one question: “Did First Pres burn down last night?” She was talking about the Galveston First Presbyterian Church. I replied, “It stood up to the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, and I imagine it’s OK.” She replied, “I’ve heard there was a big fire in that area last night and I need to know.”
The mother of the bride sprang to action. After all, she was talking about the church where they are members and were married last Thanksgiving. Our family had lived in Houston for a decade before when my taller half was sent to Oklahoma to run a new purchase in the Capital City.
So I let NewsOK know I needed to know the plight of First Pres in Galveston. Checked the Associated Press wire. Nothing. And then I did what the Texas Aggie would have done had she had power for her laptop and Internet capabilities. I looked up the minister online, punched in his cell number and left a message. In minutes, he called and said not to worry. So far the massive structure built in the 1880s was holding up, just as it did in 1900. Fire was across the street. Wind didn’t blow it onto other structures. Basement flooded, so HVAC system is done.
I failed to ask the fate of the glorious Tiffany windows or the small room off the entry where caskets were kept for funerals after the 1900 hurricane. I did ask about donations and he thought they’d eventually have that on the Web site. And they have a fund … solid Presbyterians are like Eagle Scouts, always prepared.
Galveston was just a fun get-away down the road when we lived in Houston, until this wedding came along. The Longhorn the Aggie married brought with him a huge family that sprang from the island. B.O.I. is the real deal for them. We tried to convince them to come to our Westminster Pres church home here, but the Houston-Galveston flock would not be moved easily. So we said, why not? — and moved our annual Thanksgiving family reunion there.
For the wedding festivities, we headed to the historic Tremont House in Galveston. Our oldest grandson, almost 3 then, loved the Tremont so much he was adamant he wanted to permanently live there and was more than a bit upset when he had to give it up. The Tremont? Ike pitched glass from smashed windows across the lobby floor.
The morning after, we went to the Longhorn’s grandmother’s house for breakfast. Warm and friendly, even toasty, it was. The food kept coming. The article about the wedding in the Galveston Daily brought smiles. The Galveston Daily? Building damaged. Rolls of paper soaked. Staff homes destroyed. So happy to be alive and join each other to work from the Texas City office. The business and the personnel are in this together. Subscribers who bump into them on the island yell for their paper.
The grandmother’s modern house took on the old-fashioned feel that comes when generations with a common bond sit down together to share a meal. But did this happy home survive the 100-plus winds?
The night Ike pushed through Houston, the Aggie and I kept in touch by texting. Their power had gone out about 1:35 a.m. True comfort is hearing a cell phone bong in defiance of Ike. The Longhorn snored peacefully for awhile, she said, but then the action picked up when the French doors blew open. They struggled to close them. The rest of the night was spent Oklahoma-style, in the center hallway, protected from the elements.
As her big sis had said in her toast at the rehearsal dinner. “May your love be like the wind, strong enough to move the clouds, soft enough to never hurt … ” Hopefully, a soft wind will be with all of us for awhile.
Nancy Darnell
Assistant Business Editor
Surprising regional bankers survey
(click on image to see larger)
Source: 2008 Community Banks in the 10th Federal Reserve District
__________
Maintaining credit quality is among the least significant challenges over the next five years for bankers in Oklahoma and other states in the 10th Federal Reserve District, according to a recent survey. (link to pdf file) According to the survey methodology, 22 percent of the 401 banks that responded to the survey were in Oklahoma. Banks in Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming also participated.
That surprising finding was part of a recent report on the state of banking in Oklahoma presented by an official with the 10th Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Credit quality is not as much of an issue for many regional banks as it has been for some banks in areas battered by the subprime mortgage fallout. But credit quality was well behind even the 11th most significant challenge cited by the area bankers. It trailed such hot-button issues as an aging customer base and lack of diversification earnings.
To be fair, a majority of respondents described credit quality as a “moderate” challenge for the next five years. But I suspect if the survey was administered this week, the significance of maintaining credit quality might rank a bit higher.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
The show must go on
Here’s a worker who is dedicated to his job (via boingboing):
