Ward on Words

The image of the Big Three CEOs flying their own private jets to D.C. (strange how the idea of jetpooling never crossed their minds) to beg for federal money somehow makes me think of an influential album released 40 years ago. I'm speaking of Beggars Banquet by the Stones. If there's any beggars attending any banquets, it would be CEOs who know how to beg for cash like the best of the bums. So with the image of fat cats sitting on leather seats in the privacy of their own jets in mind, let's take a look at how beggars fared at the banquet 40 years ago... The first thing you realize as you listen to the songs on the album is that Beggars Banquet is unbelievably timely, in spite of its age. It opens with a bang: Sympathy for the Devil , a song about Lucifer, the Devil, a song loaded with a history of violence and rage. It was a song played during their Altamount concert, where a man was stabbed after he had pulled out a gun (though not necessarily played at the ...

Oh to be a highly compensated Chrysler executive! You get to run your company into the ground, hold your hand out in the hopes it will be filled with government bailout money AND look forward to a big bonus at a time when everyone else is worried about hanging on to their job. According to this article in the Detroit Free Press, Chrysler plans to hand out $30 million in retention bonuses to its executives. And at least six Chrysler execs "are due to receive bonuses of more than $1 million a piece." As they move to line their pockets with millions, Chrysler executives are joining with Ford and GM leaders to ask the federal government for $25 billion in loans. Really? Seems that free markets are fab when you've got the feds to cover your losses. This I do know: when I buy my next car, it will not come from Detroit. Maybe the feds feel compelled to support failed business leadership - but I won't.

TARP:  A Word with Multiple Meanings In layman's terms, a tarp is a piece of material used to cover and protect exposed objects or areas. Here you see how my family employs a tarp to protect us from the elements during a camping trip. In the current language of American economics, TARP is the acronym for the federal government's Troubled Asset Relief Program, led by the brilliant investment banker, Henry Paulson, who now serves as the nation's Treasury Secretary.  TARP is the Fed's attempt to protect the nation from the collapse of our economy. TARP is also a shifting landscape – in a statement today, Paulson announced changes in how he wants to invest those billions of TARP-assigned tax dollars.  He's decided that purchasing illiquid mortgage-related assets is no longer "the most effective way to use TARP funds."  He's now looking at shoring up the consumer credit market (because consumers need more debt in their lives) and "exploring ...

In the early winter of 1918, after four years of a terrible war that destroyed much of Europe, the Allies and the Germans decided to stop hostilities on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month . That they could be so poetic in their timing of the cessation of battle, after years of the brutality and horror brought by World War I, is astonishing. The official end of World War I happened later, when the Treaty of Versailles was signed in June of 1919, but the day that marked the end of fighting was the day that President Wilson chose as Armistice Day, the national holiday to honor the soldiers who served in that war. Of course, the "war to end all wars" did nothing of the kind. As time went on, we added more wars to history, more heroes to be mourned and remembered. In 1954, after World War II and the Korean War, President Eisenhower changed Armistice Day into Veterans Day to honor the heroism of the veterans of all wars. War Stories My father was a veteran of the K...

They came with tables... They came with blankets... They came in droves... This was the scene you could find last Friday at Old Orchard mall in Skokie, Illinois.  And no - these are not Springsteen fans waiting in line to buy concert tix - these people are patiently waiting (some even pulling an all nighter in the chill of the midwestern winter) in the hopes of scoring L.L. Bean gift cards being given away as part of the grand opening celebration of the retailer's newest store.   The Motivation of Money While Volkswagen is hoping to lure consumers into showrooms with a strangely clever ad campaign , L.L. Bean is using one of the oldest promotions in the book - handing out money just for showing up.   In a time when economic news seems woefully bleak, the appeal of L.L. Bean gift cards was enormous, with a large crowd of people lining up for the opportunity to draw a card worth anywhere from $25 - $500. According to Greg Elder, L.L. Bean vice presi...

Okay, so I confess that I'm scratching my head over Volkswagen's new Routan Boom ad campaign, you know, the one where Brooke Shields informs us about a fertility boom caused by breeders in dire need of German engineering. You can see the ad http://www.vw.com/routan/en/us/">here . It's clever.  It's funny.  But it's weird. Frankly, I'm uncomfortable with any ad campaign that promises to let us "witness the most important story of our time.  Ever."  (Check out the website, I'm telling you - this claim is front and center!) Especially an ad campaign launched at this critical time in our history – a nd suggests people are having babies in order to buy a particular brand of car. Pitching the Pitch Just imagine how the agency pitched this idea to the folks at VW: "The minivan is a car associated with breeders - and to make that point, we'll create a "documentary" on The Routan Boom - an explosion of babies being ...

I was an American Studies major in college, which I've lately realized does not give me the expertise in finance needed to figure out what has gone wrong with our economy.  Waiting until after the market crashes is probably not the best time for a crash course in new vocabulary terms like "credit default swaps" and "collateralized debt obligations." If only I'd gotten an MBA instead of an MFA! From my rudimentary research, credit default swaps (CDS) are contracts that promise to cover losses on securities in the event of default.  But apparently, as we have all learned, people who own these contracts don't necessarily have the money to cover losses should a default occur.   Apparently people bought and sold the idea of money without actually having any money to back it up. Visualizing the Vague In all honesty, I have not been able to uncover what it means to own a collateralized debt obligation.  But you can read more about it here in this nifty int...

Chicago. The City that Works. Urbs in Horto . City in a Garden. City of Broad Shoulders. A city with a complex relationship to race. A city that Martin Luther King, Jr. visited in 1966 in an attempt to bring the civil rights movement north. A city where, during that same visit, Dr. King was hit by a brick thrown by angry whites during a march through Marquette Park. "I've been in many demonstrations all across the South," said King after the march in Chicago. "But I can say that I have never seen – even in Mississippi and Alabama – mobs as hostile and hate-filled as I've seen in Chicago. I think the people from Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn how to hate." Last night, in a Chicago park that had been a key battlefield during the 1968 Democratic convention, an enormous crowd gathered to witness history. White people. Black people. People of all ethnicities came to Grant Park to see Barack Obama. They didn't come to hate....