Economics/Geekonomics

Occupy, Banks, and the Spotlight

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It's looking like the Occupy Movement has gotten the attention of Bank of America with their new Occupy Your Homes anti-foreclosure protests. What's remarkable is that BofA seems concerned enough to send out a memo – and realizes they're being targeted.

I think they're a bit nervous, and they should be:

  • This rebrands the OWS movement in a way that provides easy messaging and positive image.
  • It calls attention to foreclosure and home issues – and can keep the issues in the news.
  • Anything the bank does backfires.
  • The backfires will call attention to bad banking practices, MERS, etc.
  • Most people aren't too happy with banks.

If this continues (and my guess is it will), then it's going to keep the public eye on banks and their activities past and present. This could lead to deeper investigations (if not just more awareness) of serious problems in the system.

As we all know the banks have a lot of problems still – and frankly I don't think they can stand the scruity and the lawsuits that would follow.  So this shift in tactics could have a lot of effects on the banks and how they're treated.

– Steven Savage

Geekonomy, Technology, Homosexuality, Culture, and Apple

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This may be one of my longest post names.

Last week I mentioned I was curious about Tim Cook's appointment as Apple's CEO and the fact he was gay, though it was a subject he didn't talk about (and frankly there's no reason he should or have to).  For me he's a reliable, wonkish, even-handed appointment who's good for a temporary CEO as Apple deals with the change of Jobs – but may have the chance to set a vision and go long term (his stock options hint at that).

As Cook was outed by Gawker (and 'Out' magazine listed him as the most powerful gay person in the world), I'm concerned that his sexual preference might become a Geekonomic/Geek culture issue due to some other trends I want to discuss.  Thus I consider this relevant to the blog, but at the same time feel a bit invasive.

That's a long-form way of kind of apologizing to Mr. Cook if against the odds he reads this or hears about this.

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