ToneHall

Blind See With Bionic Eye

What has been a dream for some, science fiction for others, has now become reality for a blind man - he can see again using a bionic eye.

It's exciting to think about what might become available for blind people worldwide.  In the U.S., a company named Second Sight has developed a bionic eye that uses a camera and video processor mounted on sunglasses to transmit images wirelessly to a receiver outside the eye.  The receiver passes the data to electrodes that sit on the retina, and when the electrodes are stimulated they send messages to the brain via the optic nerve to the brain which can perceive patterns of light and dark.

More than 18 people have been fitted with the bionic eye.  The technology looks incredibly promising.

Times Online: £10K and a Year Off - London Law Firms Put Recruits on Pause

In the UK, shiny new attorneys are being told 'call us in a year.'

This is new.  You're recruited.  Yes, we liked you.  But no, you can't start now.  Terribly sorry, we know London is expensive.  Try the new tea and half a crumpet diet.

Here's an excerpt:  "One leading firm, Norton Rose, has invited 55 recruits — whose starting salary is £35,700 — to defer joining, at a likely cost of £200,000. Not all are expected to take up the offer and the firm said yesterday that it would still have intakes in September and January."

Wonder whether we'll start to see the same thing happen over here.

New York Times: AIG is a House of Cards

Joe Nocera is a tough grader when it comes to AIG, calling it "the most crippled of all the nation’s wounded financial institutions" in his New York Times piece.

That could be argued.  What can't is the band-aid approach being taken to stem a bankruptcy by AIG.

As bad as the economy is, it's being made worse by taking a piecemeal approach.  The company is now a penny stock that is a drag on the market.  And there is fear that AIG could trigger a 'domino' situation and hurt pension funds, American and European banks.  What to do?

Read the entire piece here.

Huffington Post: AIG Gets New $30 Billion

Yup...even the folks at HuffPo are reporting the new TARP billions for AIG in pretty strident terms.

Part of the strategy here is to report the bad news Sunday evening and hope the anger blows over by Monday morning.  Maybe not this time, though we've now become conditioned to bad news on Sunday.

Read it here.

Angry Bear: Ken Houghton on AIG and Citi

On the positive side - AIG may have more promise than Citi.

Glad to read Ken's view of things - particularly the concept that AIG may actually have piece-parts that could be worth something in the future after the dreck is cleared away.  I'm not in complete agreement due to my frustration and anger over what appears to be a soft government stance regarding how AIG has to perform after snagging all those TARP billions. Ugh.

Read it here.

Eric G. Lewis' AIG Cartoon

Bloomberg: Zombie AIG Selling Public Offering Within 12 Months

Hard to believe there would be buyers unless a gun was held to their heads - or unless the government planned to give AIG unlimited billions forever.

Britney Spears got it right - Oops, they did it again. 

Here's a corporation that, Naked Capitalism, the WSJ, Bloomberg and the NYT just announced, will be taking another $30B from the U.S. government.  This on top of other billions.  And they'll be announcing a quarterly loss somewhere north of $60B tomorrow.

Great time for a public offering, right?  Looks like they'll be doing it within the next 12 months.  Better still, they may change the company's name because, after all, who'd be stupid enough to buy anything from the likes of AIG?

Here's the quote from Bloomberg: 

"American International Group Inc., the insurer getting a third bailout from the U.S., may sell a 19.9 percent stake in its main unit offering coverage to corporate clients, a person familiar with the matter said.

An initial public offering of the property-casualty division, which was previously intended to be the core of New York-based AIG after a U.S. rescue, may happen by 12 months from now, said the person, who declined to be identified because no formal announcement had been made. The business may get a new name, the person said."

Read the whole piece here.

Naked Capitalism: A $30B Black Hole Named AIG

Excellent compendium post by Yves Smith as AIG takes $30B more from the U.S. government to avoid bankruptcy.

TARP one, TARP all.  AIG in flames and with analyst firms threatening to downgrade it - which would potentially end in bankruptcy - so Uncle Sam throws out another $30B.  Ugly.

The quote:

"The Journal really bends over for Citi. It conveniently omits the tantamount to $250 billion in guarantees that Citi has received. Last week, the Journal ran a piece that had the hallmarks of being a PR plant.

Alert readers pointed out earlier today, when the Bloomberg story first ran, that it fingered some of the big beneficiaries of the AIG rescue:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Societe Generale SA, Deutsche Bank AG and Merrill Lynch & Co. are among the largest banks that bought swaps from AIG, according to a person familiar with the situation. The insurer handed over about $18.7 billion to financial firms in the three weeks after the September bailout, said the person, who declined to be named because the information hasn’t been made public."

I agree with the comment about the Wall Street Journal story being a PR plant.

My experience in the PR industry in Silicon Valley tells me that companies and the government will use the media [which will let itself be used - it sells newspapers, which means it sells advertising] to 'shape' public opinion.  That's PR-speak for controlling what people think so they don't protest too much.

The entire piece, with Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal excerpts, can be seen here.

New York Times: $30B More for AIG, Now Entering a Dali-esque Surreality

Perhaps four times will be the charm?

Salvador Dali, master surrealist, would love this.  Believe it or not, the Fed will now provide $30B in further guarantees for troubled insurance company AIG. 

With the U.S. government now owning nearly 80% of AIG's holding company due to earlier interventions - including a $60B loan, a $40B purchase of preferred shares and $50B to eat toxic assets - the additional monies provide further TARP coverage. 

The company isn't expected to tap the funds immediately.  AIG appears ready to announce a huge quarterly loss on Monday and it appears that this is a preemptive strike to avoid a painful downgrade on its credit ratings which could have led to bankruptcy.

This is precisely the 'good money after bad' kind of move that we believe will come back to haunt the U.S.  AIG is a zombie - let go of it.

AIG - we knew you when, and it's not now.

New York Times: Bill Cunningham - On The Street | A Dash of Color

Bill Cunningham's ON THE STREET

If you're down in the dumps over the economic situation, take a look at fashion photographer Bill Cunningham's latest video.

It's just possible the state we're in could lead to new American innovation - it already has in New York.  I look to invention, ideas and change.

We have always been a country that has excelled at reinventing ourselves.  Look at the movement from an agrarian colony, to an independent country, to battling out differences between the North and South, the movement to mechanization and cities and, more recently, the move to Silicon Valley.

We've done it before. Bill's right - we can do it again. And the tone?  Positive and confident.