Day

June 12, 2009

"Teaming Up"

Realtor “Teams” Suffer High Divorce RateTo the public, it sure must seem like there are a lot of Realtor “teams” out there: ‘the Nelson team’; “the Anderson-Jones team,” etc. Substitute “group” for “team,” and you’d describe even more Realtor pairings. But are such combinations really that popular? And do they last? I’m not aware of...
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Cisco for General Motors

Economic Watersheds & Financial Footprints If you follow the Dow Jones Average, you know that General Motors was recently dropped for Cisco Systems (and Citigroup for Travelers). Locally, there is an echo of this “changing of the guard”: the old Ford Motor dealership in St. Louis Park, near 36th St. and Highway 100, is out,...
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Warren Buffett, Revisited

Swimsuits and Tides Today’s recession-slash-financial crisis may not have a name yet, but it clearly has a signature parable: Warren Buffett’s now-infamous observation that “you don’t know who’s swimming naked until the tide goes out.” If you’re looking for a bookend, it would be Buffet’s equally famous pronouncement that credit derivatives are “financial weapons of...
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New Magazine Idea?

Target Market: Former Realtors If you’re over 30 years old, and are a fan of Reese’s peanut butter cups, you may be remember their classic ad campaign from the ’70’s and ’80’s. The ads showed two people, one eating peanut butter and one eating chocolate, colliding. One person would say, “you got peanut butter in...
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New Consumer "Payment Hierarchy"

Credit Card Bills Trump Mortgage Payments I attended a private dinner this week where the featured speaker, a senior executive at FICO, offered a wide range of comments. Since the talk was off-the-record, I won’t mention the individual’s name, but the insights were fascinating. In a nutshell, FICO is observing a sea change in how...
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