Below is a summary of the top spending items in Obama’s stimulus plan.
And, here’s a PDF with all of the line items:
Stimulus by Line Item High to Low -PDF
If you’d like the Excel file, email me at homak@msb.edu
click to enlarge
WSJ Source:
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/STIMULUS_FINAL_0217.html
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On air yesterday, Rick Santelli — a CNBC reporter — lashed out at Obama’s stimulus and mortgage plans.
Live on the floor of the CBOE, Santelli asked folks: ” How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage (because they) don’t pay their bills? Raise their hand. (no hands raised, lots of booing) President Obama, are you listening?”
The video was looping on cable yesterday and rcord-setting on YouTube and other video sites. Link is below if you haven’t seen it.
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Ken’s Take:Santelli’s rant was a Joe the Plumber moment.
Rick the Reporter captured the frustration of the more than 90% of Americans — mostly tax payers — who work hard, live within their means, pay their bills, etc.
Even Obama admits that sub-prime mortgages are only 12% of all mortgages but more than 50% of all foreclosures. He wants responsible folks to kick in to provide sweet deals to irresponsible deadbeats.
I don’t think that’s going to fly. My hunch: Santelli has started an avalanche.
This may be Obama’s “New Coke” moment — a misread American tastes …
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This will get you fired up (unless you’re behind on your mortgage on have your hand out).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEZB4taSEoA
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Excerpted from MSNBC.com, “Dial-a-recall? Stores use cards to warn buyers” by JoNel Aleccia, January 23, 2009
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Jon Lowder usually disdains computer-generated telephone calls but when he got two this week from Costco, he didn’t mind.
The giant warehouse retailer was dialing Lowder to warn him that two brands of peanut butter sports bars he bought for his kids had been recalled as part of a growing salmonella food poisoning scare.
“They’d scoured their database and found any members who had purchased Clif Bars from them and then called them to let them know that they should dump those Clif Bars,” said Lowder. “Did I mention I love Costco?”
Certain shoppers are getting personalized warnings from the stores that sold them. They’re customers who hold membership cards at places such as Costco, or “loyalty cards” used to access discounts and services at some grocery stores.
About 1 million of Costco’s 54 million card-carrying members got calls about peanut butter products this week.
And in the Northeast, the Wegmans regional grocery store chain completed more than 17,000 calls about potentially tainted ice cream on Tuesday, and nearly 3,000 calls about suspect peanut butter cup candy on Thursday, all to holders of the store’s “Shoppers Club” cards who bought the affected items.
“It was really amazing that so many customers had no idea about the recall.”
The outreach is part of a small but growing trend that raises questions among consumer privacy advocates but draws praise from shoppers warned away from suspect products.
Chalk up a victory to “relationship marketing,” in which retailers try to woo consumers with personal reasons to seek their stores. In the case of food safety outreach, it’s a win all around.
But that confidence may come at a cost, noted Alessandro Acquisti, assistant professor of information technology and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. He said he appreciates the constructive use of consumer data to warn about food poisoning, but worries about less benevolent actions.
“In this case, many consumers would be happy their information was used that way,” said Acquisti, “But they may be very unhappy if that same data is used to send them advertising they don’t want or if it is used in other ways they don’t want.”
Costco started making phone calls within the last two years, after a decade of sending letters about recalled items.
The effort isn’t comprehensive. Costco makes calls only for items identified as potentially serious or deadly Class 1 recalls by federal officials. Calls can only be made to consumers who provide accurate phone numbers and, in the case of Wegmans, only those who provide landlines.
Edit by NRV
Full article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28802536/
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Excerpted from the New York Times, “Sharper Image Stores Are Dead, but the Brand Goes On”, by Eric Taub, January 18, 2009
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The Sharper Image, which filed for bankruptcy protection last February and closed all its stores, was purchased by private investors for $49 million in May. Since then, the company has reconstituted itself (minus the stores) to become a “global lifestyle brand licensor.”
Rather than operate its own Web site, catalog and shops, the company will license products and sell them through third-party retailers. It has struck deals with HoMedics, a manufacturer of health and grooming products, luggage maker EnE and others to produce new products.
The company is also trying a new approach for these difficult times: affordability.
The problem for the original company was that its stores had plenty of lookers but, because of its high prices, not enough buyers.
“Sharper Image was an aspirational brand. While people wanted the products, not enough could afford them. Now we can be in Best Buy, Bed Bath & Beyond and midtiered department stores,” an executive noted.
The new company, which has fewer than 10 employees, kept five of its original product licensees. It currently has the Sharper Image name on 40 furniture and accessory products sold in OfficeMax stores. Its big push will come at the end of this year, when it releases “hundreds” of new, less-expensive products in partnership with 12 unnamed partners.
Edit by DAF
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Full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/technology/companies/19sharper.html?ref=technology&pagewanted=print
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