Monday, March 14, 2011

foreclosure

There has been evidence here and there of a marked fall in new foreclosure filings. Lender Processing Services, which handles more than half of the loans serviced in the US, said its revenues in its Default Services Group were down in the final quarter of the year. Why? Its revenues are tied to initial foreclosure filings, and its were off 33%, no doubt in large measure due to the robo signing scandal. Recall that it led many banks to halt foreclosures (some all over the US, others in judicial foreclosure states only) while they inspected the state of play and scrambled to revamp procedures. Banks piously claimed that they found no problems in the correctness of foreclosure actions and that ex making the changes needed to assure affidavits were proper, they were going to be back to business as usual post haste.

Now we already know that that isn’t the case. Since the robosigning scandal broke, foreclosure activity has been down. RealtyTrac reported that foreclosures in January were up only 1% over December levels, which was down 17% from the year prior.

But RealtyTrac captures every foreclosure filing in that particular report, so it is a mix of new foreclosure filings plus additional filings for foreclosures already underway (the number of filings required varies by state, but the minimum number is three, and the number can also be increased if a borrower gets a foreclosure suspended, say by entering into a payment catchup plan, and then has the process restarted later on).

Lynn Syzmoniak of Fraud Digest provides a snapshot for January 1 through January 26 in two counties in Florida, Lee County and Palm Beach County:

Her tally for US Bank over the same period covered only Lee County, but showed similar results: 42 new foreclosures for 2011 versus 143 for 2010.

Now merely eyeballing this sample, and assuming it is representative of Florida (Syzmoniak says other counties show similar patterns), it’s clear the decline is bigger than the 33% fall that LPS mentioned for the fourth quarter of 2010 or the 17% figure from RealtyTrac.

There are reasons why Florida might show a steeper fall than other states. First, the state AG has been investigating all the major foreclosure mills in the state. Some, like the Law Offices of David Stern, have effectively folded. So there could be a bit of disarray simply due to the loss of some processing capacity.

Second, Florida, like New York, has implemented a rule requiring that attorneys verify information provided in foreclosures. That might seem to be merely ceremonial, since lawyers are already responsible for the accuracy of information provided to the court. But I am advised that this measure is more than mere belt and suspenders; it apparently would have the effect of lowering the bar for opposing counsel calling for Rule 11 sanctions if he thought the foreclosing attorney was submitting bogus documents or information. That rule did became effective February 11, 2010 (hat tip Lisa Epstein), and the foreclosure mills have tried to escape compliance. I’d imagine in the wake of the robo signing scandal, their clients are becoming less tolerant of this sort of thing.

If this pattern holds across at least across judicial foreclosure states, it suggests what we have long argued: that failures to convey loans as required by securitization documents are widespread, if not pervasive. Now that servicers and foreclosure mills are finding that a lot of judges no longer take them at their word, which means they increasingly have to provide documentation, they may be finding that a lot of their records do not pass muster. And while document fabrication was once an easy way out, that strategy is a lot riskier than it used to be.

Reader input welcome. Do you have any local data on the level of new foreclosures in 2011 versus same period 2010?

"No TKO's will be accepted"

Check out this letter sent from "Foreclosure Stoppage" Attorney George Babcock to opposing counsel Mark Harmon...

Dear Mr. Harmon,

Please
be advised that I have been retained by Mr. Conley regarding the
notice of illegal foreclosure you mailed to him on February 4, 2011.
The chain of title to this properly and the note is like a walk down
the yellow brick road. Is Harmon Law the Wizard of Title? You
display extreme indifference to the law by noticing a foreclosure on
this property. As you know, I take great pride in defending my
clients against the evil forces that guide your actions. Mr. Conley
is a personal friend. It is my intention to be even more pugilistic in
this matter. It is disgusting and I will make sure that whoever
violates his property rights is knocked out of the ring. No TKO's will
be accepted. A full fledged, right cross to the chin of the beast.

I
look forward to a response although I am quite certain you will not
engage me as is your habit. Send your minions that I may lay waste
to them before me.

I hope that this letter is circulated as
has been your habit in the past. I like my enemy to know that I am at
its doorstep.

Very truly yours,

George E. Babcock, Esquire

Actual letter below...

But first, some background on Mark Harman...

AG investigating Newton law firm's foreclosure work

Harmon
Law Offices, a Newton firm that specializes in foreclosures, is being
investigated by the state attorney general's office for allegedly
unlawfully evicting residents from bank-owned properties.

State
officials want to determine whether Harmon Law failed to comply with a
new Massachusetts law that protects tenants living in foreclosed homes
from eviction, a spokesman for Attorney General Martha Coakley said
today. more here...

Plantation foreclosure company's director quits amid investigation ...

Mark
P. Harmon has resigned as a director at the Plantation foreclosure
processing company with ties to David J. Stern's law practice, as the
Massachusetts Attorney General said it is investigating whether
Harmon's firm illegally evicted tenants from repossessed homes in that
state.

Harmon's resignation, announced by DJSP Enterprises Inc.
on Monday, comes as the beleagured company said it is laying off
another 198 employees, bringing the total to 300 within the past two
weeks. more here...

For more on "Foreclosure Stoppage" attorney George Babcock click here...

4closureFraud.org

Foreclosure Fight Club Lawyer Letter

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Friday, March 11, 2011

Making Money Software

Founded in 2009 by Amanda Steinberg, DailyWorth is actually a every day email newsletter that features information on fiscal literacy and capital management skewed in the direction of a female audience. DailyWorth’s topics vary from the right way to organize your finances to tax ideas to saving recommendations. And DailyWorth has an amazing editorial employees to make content material. MP Dunleavey, previously a individual finance columnist along with the Ny Occasions and at this time a contributor with Cash magazine, is foremost DailyWorth’s editorial crew.

Inspite of unions’ very long hatred of Scott Walker, the new governor is moving to address the two the signs and symptoms of the disease as well as the disorder itself-the public-sector union scheme which has molested Wisconsin’s taxpayers and their youngsters by gaming the process. Unions like Wisconsin’s teachers’ union [WEAC] (which was Wisconsin’s biggest-spending lobby in 2009) are already extraordinarily adept at correcting the system by shelling out millions to elect politicians who, in turn, reward the unions in the expense on the taxpayers.

the Wisconsin battle, when when compared with private-sector negotiations is about: 1) the Scope of Bargaining, 2) Union “Income” Safety [Right-to-Work vs. Forced Dues], three) irrespective of whether Wisconsin should certainly be the unions’ dues collection agency [payroll deduction of dues], and four) whether public-sector unions ought to be ‘recertified’ by keeping elections every 12 months.

place the pictures on line to indicate our tasks staff at msnbc.com, and photographer Jim Seida reported, why really do not we just publish it being a slide present? I was skeptical initially - would that crimp the composing? - but with the conclude I was advocating carrying out it this way once the picture group was skeptical. I believed far more most people would study via it by doing this, and it might be well worth an experiment.”

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On Monday night, I watched my initial, The Last Phrase host Lawrence O’Donnell.
Whereas O’Donnell laudably tried to target the audience’s awareness onand hopefully very last, Charlie Sheen trainwreck interview, courtesy of the tragic undertow that threatens to pull Sheen underneath for beneficial, I was overtaken, not from the pulling on the thread, as well as voracious audience he serves. It didn’t make me sad, it created me angry.

In the case of celebrities, we are able to be considered a heartless region, basking in their misfortunes like nude sunbathers at Schadenfreude Seaside. The impulse is understandable, to some diploma. It might be grating to listen to complaints from individuals who like privileges that the majority of us cannot even consider. Should you cannot muster up some compassion for Charlie Sheen, who may make far more funds to get a day’s give good results than most of us will make in a very decade’s time, I guess I can’t blame you.

With the fast tempo of occasions on the web plus the advice revolution sparked by the Web-based, it is incredibly simple and easy for the engineering business to think it’s completely unique: perpetually breaking new ground and executing items that no person has ever performed prior to.

But you can get other sorts of business which have already undergone a lot of the same exact radical shifts, and have just as wonderful a stake during the future.

Get healthcare, as an example.

We sometimes feel of it as a vast, lumbering beast, but in truth, medicine has undergone a sequence of revolutions while in the previous 200 many years which can be no less than equal to these we see in technological innovation and knowledge.

Much less understandable, but even now within just the norms of human nature, would be the impulse to rubberneck, to slow down and look at the carnage of Charlie spectacle of Sheen’s unraveling, but with the blithe interviewer Sheen’s everyday living as we pass it with the perfect lane of our each day lives. To become honest, it may be tough for most people to discern the variation concerning a run-of-the-mill focus whore, and an honest-to-goodness, circling the drain tragedy-to-be. On its very own merits, a quote like “I Am On a Drug. It is Known as Charlie Sheen” is sheer genius, and we cannot all be expected to get the full measure of someone’s lifestyle every single time we hear some thing amusing.

Rapid ahead to 2011 and I am attempting to investigate suggests of currently being a bit more business-like about my hobbies (mostly audio). By the finish of January I had manned up and started to promote my weblogs. I had designed a lot of several weblogs, which had been contributed to by acquaintances and colleagues. I promoted these routines by Facebook and Twitter.

Second: the very little abomination the Gang of Five about the Supream Court gave us a yr or so back (Citizens Inebriated) basically incorporates somewhat bouncing betty of its individual that can extremely effectively go off within the faces of Govs Wanker, Sacitch, Krysty, and J.O. Daniels. Seeing as this ruling extended the idea of “personhood” to the two corporations and unions, to attempt to deny them any appropriate to operate within just the legal framework that they have been organized beneath deprives these “persons” for the freedoms of speech, association and motion. Which implies (when yet again, quoting law college trained friends and family) that possibly the courts really need to uphold these rights for your unions (as particular person “persons” as assured through the Federal (and most state) constitutions, or they have to declare that these attempts at stripping or limiting union rights must utilize to main corporations, also.

There’s a new gazillionaire in town. Online gaming firm Gazillion Entertainment has hired John Needham, former head of Cryptic Studios, as its new chief executive as the company enters a new stage of its development of massively multiplayer online games.

San Mateo, Calif.-based Gazillion is one of the highest-profile video game start-ups, since it has raised a lot of money ($60 million in its last round alone) and has multiple studios making very ambitious games. Under Needham, the company will complete its shift to a new business model in response to major changes in the way consumers play online games. That’s a wrenching shift, but it’s a necessary one in the face of the disruption happening in the industry.

Needham said in an interview that the company is in the process of converting all of its major games to the free-to-play business model, where users start playing a game for free and pay real money for virtual goods such as decorations or better weapons. That model took off first in Asia and is now sweeping through everything from iPhone games to massively multiplayer online games such as the high-quality games Gazillion makes.

“Free-to-play is gaining a foothold here,” Needham (pictured) said. “That is where the secret sauce is for the industry.”

Needham has been a leader in games since 2001, when he became senior vice president of business development and operations at Sony Online Entertainment. He left Sony in 2008 to become chief executive of Cryptic Studios, an MMO publisher in Los Gatos, Calif. There, he helped publish the Champions Online game, which wasn’t a big success at first but did better after its shift to free-to-play games. He sold the company to Atari and led the launch of the company’s Star Trek Online game, which had mixed results but which Needham says was profitable.

At Gazillion, Needham will have his hands full, because the company is one of the most ambitious in the game business, with three major studios focusing on high-quality online games. David Brevik, a former Blizzard executive, became No. 2 at Gazillion in January, and Needham says he looks forward to working with him. Gazillion has more than 200 employees.

Rob Hutter, former CEO and now chairman, said he welcomes Needham to the new job. Under Hutter, the company has gone through some twists and turns, acquiring studios and shutting one down. Gazillion’s first studio was Slipgate Ironworks, an MMO developer founded by Doom co-creator John Romero. But Gazillion shuttered the game and laid off its staff. Romero left to run his own Facebook games studio, Loot Drop.

The company’s NetDevil studio in Louisville, Colo., also worked on a work-for-hire game for Lego, dubbed Lego Universe. After Lego Universe launched, NetDevil laid off some of the team and then transferred the remaining workers to Lego, which assumed responsibility for maintaining it. The remaining team at NetDevil is working on Fortune Online, a real-time strategy game for the web.

Another Gazillion studio, Seattle-based Amazing Society, is working on Marvel Super Hero Squad. That kid-focused online game is expected to launch in the coming months in conjunction with a show on the Cartoon Network. And the last studio is Secret Identity Studios in San Mateo, Calif., which is working on Marvel Universe, an MMO based on Marvel Comics characters.

Investors include Oak Investment Partners, Hearst Interactive Media, Revolution Ventures, Pelion Venture Partners, Founders Fund, Abu Dhabi Media Company and Temasak Holdings.

Rivals include Bigpoint, Riot Games and a variety of other online game companies.

Next Story: Moolah Media adds phone reports to its mobile ads Previous Story: Instapaper 3.0 for iPhone/iPad brings social features, biggest update yet

Source: http://removeripoffreports.net/ corporate Reputation Management

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Saturday, March 5, 2011

Money Making Schemes

Newt Gingrich’s people wanted everyone to know yesterday that he was definitely about to announce he’s running for president, for realz this time. But then they looked into the paperwork to file an exploratory committee and realized it’s going to be hard to figure out exactly how many money-making schemes he has going these days and exactly how to arrange the documents so nothing too embarrassing comes out about the schemes. (Newt has to be hoping he doesn’t own any Libyan mail-order bride companies and isn’t the sponsor of something called the “Adultery Foundation Awards.” Both are distinct possibilities.) So he will only run for president IF and when these schemes can be carefully assembled into an FEC bento box.

One Republican with knowledge of the situation told Score that Gingrich is likely to confirm his “intention to announce,” but not actually unveil an exploratory committee. ABC reports Gingrich may use the term “explore phase” rather than “exploratory committee” – another way of stopping short of a full-scale announcement. The reason: Untangling the web of business and political groups Gingrich is involved in has proven complicated and he’s not in a position just yet to take a more formal step toward running.

Get it together, sources (zoo animals) close to Newt Gingrich. Newt is going to “confirm” his “intention” to announce? He’s been doing that approximately forever. [Politico via Salon]

Fred and Jeff Wilpon said late last month that they would sell 20-25% of the team to guard against any potential Madoff settlement. Since then, settlement talks have broken down, leading to the unsealing of the lawsuit last week.

Picard is seeking $300MM in fictitious profits from Wilpon and his business partners. In addition, Picard seeks an unspecificied amount beyond that (the New York Times reports it "could reach beyond $1 billion") alleging that Wilpon should have known or suspected Madoff's scheme.

The standard by which Picard arrived at the $300MM is pretty common in these cases- fictitious profits are distributed to those who lost money in Ponzi schemes, scams where new backers are consistently recruited to pay off old investors. For the Wilpons to incur losses above $300MM, Picard's standard will be to prove that a "reasonable man" would have suspected something was amiss regarding Madoff's scheme, and alleges numerous instances of the Fred Wilpon and his partner/brother-in-law Saul Katz receiving warnings from both business partners and Katz's own son.

It isn't clear how Wilpon would raise anything approaching even the initial $300MM from a minority sale of the Mets. Forbes valued the team at $845MM in April 2010, but Wilpon has borrowed heavily against the team. Forbes reported this week that the combined book value of the Mets and Citi Field, including debt, is negative $225MM, though Adam Rubin of ESPN New York has cast doubt on that figure. That was before the Mets were named specifically in Picard's suit, giving the team even more potential liability.

Even if someone would pay a premium to own the Mets outright, it is far less clear that someone will pay that same premium for a minority stake and no authority. In other words, a 25 percent stake in the Mets is worth $211.25MM as per April 2010, absent any of the debt or other mitigating factors, and assuming that a 25 percent stake (minority) is actually worth one quarter of 100 percent stake (majority). (It isn't.) Obviously, with all the mitigating factors, 25 percent of the Mets isn't worth close to $211.25MM - which is, itself, far less than the $300MM Picard is likeliest to recover.

SNY is enormously profitable, and would earn a decent amount in a straight sale. However, Wilpon and his partners have borrowed against SNY as well, diluting the value. And far more ominously, the New York Post reported this week that any proceeds from a sale of SNY would be distributed to those lenders. In other words, when Jeff Wilpon described SNY as wholly separate from any sale of the Mets last Friday, he may not have been making a choice.

At the end of the day, no one knows what the maximum amount of money Fred Wilpon and his partners can raise without selling a majority stake in the New York Mets. But there is a number, X, and as long as Picard's settlement would be higher than X, Wilpon will face the choice between fighting in court and losing his team.

It may well be that there is a certain amount of money Wilpon needs to raise to avoid bankruptcy, even including a full sale of the team. If we call that Y, and Picard's settlement would be higher than Y, Wilpon has even greater reason to fight this in court, hoping a judge sees things his way.

Either way, the longer Wilpon doesn't settle, the likelier it is that one of these two scenarios has come to pass. The results would be disastrous for the New York Mets. With cases such as these often taking a year or more, Mets ownership could be in the midst of this battle next November, just as Albert Pujols and Jose Reyes are scheduled to hit free agency.

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The seemingly organic feud between the New York Times and Fox News took the forefront once more this week when the newspaper's Executive Editor Bill Keller called Fox viewers among the most cynical people on planet earth and blamed ...

Fox News The Only Network Willing To Comment On Clinton's Al ...

"Representatives from CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC news all declined comment."

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New York Times - Bill Keller - Fox News | Mediaite

Fox News The Only Network Willing To Comment On Clinton's Al ...

"Representatives from CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC news all declined comment."

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New York Times - Bill Keller - Fox News | Mediaite

Fox News The Only Network Willing To Comment On Clinton's Al ...

"Representatives from CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC news all declined comment."

Central Florida News 13: Scott Harris has a new role – The TV Guy ...

Hal Boedeker of Orlando Sentinel is The TV Guy. Dishing on TV, the news and what everybody is talking about.

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New York Times - Bill Keller - Fox News | Mediaite

Fox News The Only Network Willing To Comment On Clinton's Al ...

"Representatives from CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC news all declined comment."

Central Florida News 13: Scott Harris has a new role – The TV Guy ...

Hal Boedeker of Orlando Sentinel is The TV Guy. Dishing on TV, the news and what everybody is talking about.

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New York Times - Bill Keller - Fox News | Mediaite

Fox News The Only Network Willing To Comment On Clinton's Al ...

"Representatives from CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC news all declined comment."

Central Florida News 13: Scott Harris has a new role – The TV Guy ...

Hal Boedeker of Orlando Sentinel is The TV Guy. Dishing on TV, the news and what everybody is talking about.

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New York Times - Bill Keller - Fox News | Mediaite

Fox News The Only Network Willing To Comment On Clinton's Al ...

"Representatives from CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC news all declined comment."

Central Florida News 13: Scott Harris has a new role – The TV Guy ...

Hal Boedeker of Orlando Sentinel is The TV Guy. Dishing on TV, the news and what everybody is talking about.

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New York Times - Bill Keller - Fox News | Mediaite

Fox News The Only Network Willing To Comment On Clinton's Al ...

"Representatives from CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC news all declined comment."

Central Florida News 13: Scott Harris has a new role – The TV Guy ...

Hal Boedeker of Orlando Sentinel is The TV Guy. Dishing on TV, the news and what everybody is talking about.

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New York Times - Bill Keller - Fox News | Mediaite

Fox News The Only Network Willing To Comment On Clinton's Al ...

"Representatives from CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC news all declined comment."

Central Florida News 13: Scott Harris has a new role – The TV Guy ...

Hal Boedeker of Orlando Sentinel is The TV Guy. Dishing on TV, the news and what everybody is talking about.

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New York Times - Bill Keller - Fox News | Mediaite

Fox News The Only Network Willing To Comment On Clinton's Al ...

"Representatives from CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC news all declined comment."

Central Florida News 13: Scott Harris has a new role – The TV Guy ...

Hal Boedeker of Orlando Sentinel is The TV Guy. Dishing on TV, the news and what everybody is talking about.

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New York Times - Bill Keller - Fox News | Mediaite

Fox News The Only Network Willing To Comment On Clinton's Al ...

"Representatives from CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC news all declined comment."

Central Florida News 13: Scott Harris has a new role – The TV Guy ...

Hal Boedeker of Orlando Sentinel is The TV Guy. Dishing on TV, the news and what everybody is talking about.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Making Money

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News Corp. to Buy Shine Group for $663 Million - The Hollywood ...

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is to acquire the entirety of Shine Group, owned by daughter Elisabeth Murdoch.

News Crew Attack: TV News Crew Attacked While Covering Shooting

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP); A group of about two dozen angry mourners attacked a news crew reporting on the killing of a 27-year-old man in California.

CBS News' Lara Logan Felt Egypt Revolt "Too Important" Not to ...

"It takes a special kind of person to keep going back into threat areas," a Logan colleague tells Us.

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Thursday, February 17, 2011

Making Money Fast

Of all the interesting new tech that seems poised to garner a lot of buzz in 2011, near field communication (NFC), is probably the most exciting. If it takes off, it will transform the ways we communicate, share, and make payments with digital devices. This will likely take years to happen, but the groundwork is being laid right now. And RFinity is one of those companies at the forefront.

While Google and Apple are responsible for generating much of the buzz about NFC at the moment, the technology goes far beyond simply having the right type of chip in your mobile device. For example, how do you handle different types of data transfers being made from one device to another? And how to you ensure that they happen as quickly as possible? And most importantly, how do you ensure that they happen securely? Those are the things that RFinity is thinking about.

The company has just raised $4 million from Horizons Ventures in Hong Kong. And the space has gotten so red hot, in fact, that we hear they’re already out raising another round.

And it’s an easy bet for investors to make not only because of the space, but because of where the project originated: The U.S. Department of Energy. Specifically, RFinity was born when a bunch of infrastructure security experts working for the government were assigned to find all the vulnerabilities in cell phones. Through software they came up with, they were able to quite easily eavesdrop, manipulate SMS messages, and even compromise LAN security. Then they set out to figure out a way to stop people from doing those very things. That work led directly to RFinity.

Work originally began in the person-to-person and person-to-vendor sales space by way of mobile applications that route transactions through RFinity’s own secure servers. But now that NFC appears ready, RFinity is making sure they’re ready for it. The idea is that their technology could cut out the middle man here: themselves.

Obviously, the company isn’t going to share all the details on how they secure NFC transfers. But the basic overview is that they verify an incoming NFC signal and ask for a user’s permission before taking any action. Further, if the action is a transaction, it requires a PIN, just as you might do an ATM withdrawal. That’s all pretty standard. But the key is one-time-use transaction codes that RFinity creates on the fly along with complex cryptographic signatures. These ensure that an transaction is secure since it means that every transaction can only happen once. Even if those numbers were intercepted by a hacker, they would be useless beyond the one-time payment.

And even if your phone is lost or stolen, a thief couldn’t do anything without your PIN. And you can remotely shut down your NFC capabilities via RFinity. It’s enough to make me wish I could throw out all my credit cards right now. “Today’s identification and transaction systems are based on what? A magnetic strip on the back of a card, based on a 1950’s technology that relies on a base station to read the information embedded as a series of simple magnetic markers in plastic tape,” writes Josh Jones-Dilworth, who is working with the company to bring them to market.

Again, NFC as a technology is great and potentially game-changing. But the software is still needed to make it actually work. And some of the big guys began realizing that early on as companies like PayPal, Bank of America, and even Subway have been testing out different things with RFinity for some time. In fact, RFinity has actually been doing field tests of the software end of their technology since 2009 in places like Idaho, well before most people in the U.S. had ever thought about NFC.

But now people are starting to care. And soon, they could be caring a lot more. NFC is already built-in to Google’s new Nexus S device — and the company has put out a call for developers to start using the tech. Rumors have the next iteration of the iPhone gaining the technology as well. In other words, I suspect we may be seeing acquisition rumors starting to fly around RFinity in about six months or so. Provided their technology proves up to the NFC challenge, of course.

One of the reasons American management isn’t what it used to be is that most companies do not give a rat’s ass about employees. Yes, you’ll get the usual human resources blather about how “our employees are our most important asset”, but actions on this front speak vastly louder than words. In the 1970s and early 1980s, management gurus and the business press argued that one reason German and Japanese manufacturers were trouncing their American counterparts was that they had better employee relationships. But even though there is still a mini-industry dedicated to producing corporate “leaders”, US companies too often see employees as costs, and their objective is to get buy spending as little as possible on them, rather than treating them to the extent possible as allies in building a more successful, profitable venture.

An article in the “You’re the Boss,” a New York Times column, demonstrates how deeply these warped values have taken hold in American business. Now admittedly, this feature focuses on small businesses, and these enterprises are often on the knife edge of survival. At the same time, every now-big company was a small company once, and presumably a venue like the New York Times is trying to help these companies perform better and for those that have significant potential, to chart a path that increases their odds of achieving it.

So consider this discussion:

Last spring I exchanged e-mails with Amy Christensen-Waddell, president of Albion Swords, which makes reproduction swords and armor (and I thought my business was niche!). Discussing employee pay, she asked: “If your people are making a lot of money, do you find it makes them more loyal?” I didn’t give her an immediate answer, but the question has been in the back of my mind since then. Here’s my current thinking….

But what about for the rest of us, for the unglamorous companies with mundane work, for the bosses with feet of clay? We’re going to have to think of loyalty differently. We’re going to have to buy it — by which I mean providing a package of pay, benefits, and workplace atmosphere that’s good enough that our employees can’t easily find better pastures…..

Unfortunately, for many years I was paying my people more than I could afford, and more than they could find elsewhere. Making that payroll was often excruciating. My employees were very happy with their paychecks, but the high costs were bleeding the company white. I cut wages by 20 percent in 2008 and partially restored them in 2009. Through all of that, I had no defections. My conclusion: I was paying more than I needed to.

There’s got to be a sweet spot in the middle where you pay enough to prevent defections but no more. Additional wages and benefits, beyond your employee’s next best choice, are paying extra for something you have already bought.

Now on the surface, this all sounds reasonable enough: employees can’t be relied upon to be loyal, so since they are mercenaries, the boss should pay just enough to keep them from bolting, but no more. But read the language more carefully. The author sees himself as having to buy loyalty, which is barely a step removed from seeing workers as commodities.

And how we got here is conveniently omitted from this picture. Managements at companies big and small have institutionalized short job tenures. But many people, particularly those who do not see themselves as being on a career fast track, value stability and the social contact that comes from a steady job. And if you’ve ever run a small venture, or even a small department in a company, having someone quit is hugely disruptive. You have to scramble and try to get the same amount of work done with fewer hands, and you run the risk of losing customers if you miss deadlines or let your product/service quality slip. And it’s a drain on your time to find and screen potential replacements, and a new person needs to be trained. So there are real risks and costs associated with losing staff. Yes, the author advocates paying enough to avoid attrition, but his attitude is employees come, employees go, rather than employees are the guts of his enterprise.

My experience over and over again is that hiring better people pays for itself, and once you get them, it’s worth it to pay more to keep them. In some industries, the output gap between “high” and “normal” can be very wide; in software development, top programmers are estimated to be ten times more productive. If you’ve ever had the good fortune to hire a superb secretary, you’ll similarly know that supposedly low level staff can be hugely efficient and critical working oars in larger teams. And there are other ways to pay people besides hard cash, for those that are strained. One firm I know was very tolerant of staff maintaining weird hours as long as they kept in touch with the mother ship and got their work done on time; it attracted people of a Bohemian temperament who in return for an interesting combination of indulgence of their quirks but insistence of high standards on client work, got considerable bang for its limited buck.

I’d be curious to get reader input, but I have a sneaking suspicion that most companies that made the transition from startup to long lived ventures didn’t get there by setting wages as just above the level where employees would actively shop there resumes. Running a small business is hard, and cash-strapped employers often have to make difficult compromises, but I am bothered by the fact that this piece sets standards so low. An employer not have the luxury of treating his employees as well as he would like to, or as his workers might deserve, but if he fails to set this as an aspiration, it is guaranteed not to happen.

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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

How to Making Money

Why The Arguments That The Huffington Post Must Pay Bloggers Is Misguided: Payment Isn't Just Money

from the you-made-the-choice dept

We didn't mention the whole AOL buying Huffington Post story earlier this week, because there just didn't seem to be that much to say about it. It was an interesting deal, to be sure, and I'll be curious to watch what AOL does with the property, but, beyond that, it seemed like just another content acquisition deal. However, almost immediately after the deal went through, I started seeing some rumblings on Twitter, picking at the scab that has always annoyed a certain group of people about The Huffington Post: that it doesn't pay most of its writers. Sure enough, it didn't take long for this issue to start to spread, with the inevitable summary line of: "Hey, HuffPo became famous because all these people worked for free, and yet, they don't get a cut of the sale."

That story is now snowballing. Dan Gilmor wrote a blog post arguing that it was the "ethical" thing to do to start paying bloggers. Douglas Ruskoff said that he'd no longer blog on the site for free. And, of course, a bunch of cranky HuffPo contributors have created a whole campaign arguing that Arianna Huffington had no right to sell the site, since it was built off of their free labor.

They're all wrong.

Of course, we've been through this before. Five years ago, Nick Carr tried to argue that all the various big Web 2.0 sites like (at the time) Digg, YouTube and MySpace were really digital sharecroppers exploiting labor. As we argued at the time, this was hogwash. People were using those sites because they provided a valuable service. The reason they provided labor was because they got something of value in return -- whether it was attention or hosting or distribution or reputation.

Three years ago, we saw an almost identical controversy after AOL bought Bebo and musician Billy Bragg demanded some of the $850 million AOL paid (in retrospect, a massively bad decision). Bragg argued that Bebo made this money based on all of the "free labor" of musicians who used the site. But that ignored the fact that those musicians got tremendous value in using the Bebo platform to connect with fans and distribute their music... all for free. The folks who got to keep the money were the ones who took the actual risk. The ones who had to cover the expenses to keep the site and the service running, even when it wasn't making enough revenue. They took the risk, they should get the reward. The people who used the site did so of their own free will knowing quite well that the benefit they got from using the service was worth it to them at the time. Along those lines, if Bebo had struggled and faced bankruptcy instead of a massive buyout, would Bragg have felt obligated to give them money to keep it going? Similarly, if HuffPo had been running out of money, and Arianna had gone back and demanded that those who used the platform pay up retroactively, how would these people have reacted?

There are more ways to "get paid" than with money.

The reason that people chose to blog for free at the Huffington Post was because it's a fantastic platform for exposure. It brings traffic like no one else out there, and if you want to present something in a way that's likely to get more attention than on your own blog that no one visits, posting at HuffPo can be quite a good way to go.

And that's the point: the people who chose -- of their own free will -- to post at the Huffington Post for free did so because they clearly got value out of doing so. Otherwise, why would they have done so in the first place? To then say that the only proper thing is to pay them is completely missing the point. It's an attempt to retroactively go back and change the terms of a deal. If you wanted to get paid directly for what you write, fine, don't write for the Huffington Post. It's that simple. Go out and pitch your stories to publishers who pay freelancers. But don't go back and complain afterwards when the folks who actually did take the risk of putting together the site, financing it, organizing it, hiring the staff, buying the servers, paying for the bandwidth, and building it up so that it was such a successful platform, then get paid for their efforts.

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