True sign of the apocalypse

Flickr image by Rat Fink

Hoarding so much crap he can't fit his car in the garage, but can't stomach looking for parking, so he's "extended" his garage by creating a portal that his car fits through but won't allow anyone to sneak in and grab his crap. Then the garage door comes down when he leaves.

At least that's my guess.

If you need the car that bad and you hate looking for parking, get rid of the crap. If you really need the crap, get rid of the car. Preferred option - get rid of both.

Bumped again.

Our company has 32 bike lockers. Sort of like Caltrain has 32 slots per train.

Today, I got bumped!



Oh the indignity of the bike racks in the garage!

Jake DeSantis of AIG resigns in the Times.

Jake DeSantis, an executive of AIG has resigned from his job. Now the company will probably never get out of the rut, without his expertise.

I take a lot of issue with Mr. DeSantis' rant.

"I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G."

Ah yes, the old "I got laid off/bonus cut/whatever because the other people in my company sucked" line. At Digital Equipment I heard this all the time. "My division made money". Of course it did. The problem is the group that builds the buildings, the security guys, paying for the lights, anything overhead - loses money. It's up to the divisions that make money to make enough money to offset what the parts of the company that aren't revenue producers spend. In the case of Digital, there were two or three groups making essentially the same product. All were profitable, but the sum profit of the three was not enough to pay the overhead. Combined, the same product line made by one group, and maybe you can pay the bills. In the case of DEC it was too little too late.

Anywho, AIG. This one to me is a little complex. He was working for the commodity and equity divisions and bringing money into the company - quote - "a couple of years before A.I.G.’s meltdown last September, was named the head of business development for commodities. Over this period the equity and commodity units were consistently profitable — in most years generating net profits of well over $100 million."

Nicely done. He made hundreds of millions of dollars in commodity an equities in a time when stocks were in the middle of a bull market, and while Oil was going to $150 per barell. Basic commodities - metals, food, you name it, all going up. Why? Because of the massive injection of cash into the economy fueled by debt procured in the housing market, backed by credit default swaps.

OK, I'm not an economist, but that's my take. His division made a shitload of money at a time when there was free money being printed because of what was going on in other divisions. But aside from that - his division is SUPPOSED to make money. Just because they made money doesn't make him a rocket scientist. If they made more money than if they had hired someone else to do the job, maybe I'd clap. Of course this is pretty hard to measure.

"Quote" - I can't pick a quote regarding his outrage of being "cheated of our payments". Retention bonus? If these guys can quit on a whim and return the bonus to show the high road, then they aren't effective retention bonuses. These guys have been overpaid from the start, so you can't retain the good people not because other companies are trying to steal them away, but because after a couple of years they don't need the job anymore.

Sure, they make a lot of money for their companies - that is THEIR JOB. I'm not saying they've rooked the taxpayers - they've rooked the SHAREHOLDERS. AIG stock is in the tank. BofA. Goldman. etc... In large part because these guys were overpaid compared to their marginal return to the company compared to other employees that could be hired to do the same job. If one guy makes $100 million for the company and you pay him $50 million, he is not as valuable as a guy who makes $51 million for the company whom you pay $200,000. Thing is, nobody in the company wants to set the trend of lower salaries. Golden rule - the guy with the gold makes the rules. The shareholders? Large mutual funds. Even though Joe Schmoe really "owns" the shares, the mutual funds vote the shares, and those guys work in the same industry and it's to their benefit to match the salary trends.

I don't feel sorry one whit for this guy. I feel sorry for guys at ATI. They made some damn good graphics processors. They were making money, their stock was going up. Then they got bought by AMD, and AMD turned into a boat anchor. Now ATI has to suffer layoffs and paycuts because of AMD's CPU division. This isn't the same as my Digital example, ATI was a well managed company with good products that now has to share the suffering of a really poorly managed company with bad products.And guess what. The government is not bailing them out.

Jake - you picked a bad company. Your company went into the dumper. When your company is going bankrupt, they can't pay you. A white knight comes in to save the company's ass, the white knight gets to make the rules. That happens everywhere in the private sector. Somehow AIG managed to effectively be in the public sector by making its survival indispensible to the general economy, but at some point it doesn't matter - the white knight makes the rules.

The AIG employees that aren't capable of just retiring will stay on. Those that quit can easily be replaced. These guys cooked their golden goose. They got too greedy and now instead of setting their own pay, the peasants get to set their pay. There will be PLENTY of talented people who can do this job for a much lower salary. Maybe AIG can hire the folks from ATI - Graphic Processor Design is a hell of a lot more complicated than "Buy Low, Sell High".

/rant

Sue Lempert Speaks

I don't know quite how to read this one.

"Mark Simon, former San Francisco Chronicle columnist, and now the special
assistant to the executive director at Caltrain/SamTrans, was the
liaison between the JPB and the cycling advocates. Mark has been an
organizer of the Tour de Peninsula, a charity bicycle ride, and has
good relations with the cycling community."

Hmm... that's an interesting way to put it. Last time I heard someone describe Mark Simon of Caltrain it went like this "He is the Special Assistant in Charge of Getting People to Buzz Off, Especially Cyclists".



****************************************************************

The bike lobby
They may not have an expensive office on K street in Sacramento and
they are not known for their generous campaign contributions, but the
bicycle lobby is one of the best organized and most effective locally,
regionally and in the state. CalTrans now has a full-time bicycle
expert in many of its regional offices; the Metropolitan
Transportation Commission has one to handle bicycle issues in the nine
Bay Area counties and most cities in San Mateo County have a bicycle
pedestrian advisory committee in addition to the county=92s bike
commission.
As cyclists gain political clout they have become less
confrontational, as in the disruptive Critical Mass rides during
Friday evening commutes, and are more willing to work with the
authorities to accomplish their goals. What they lack in dollar power
they make up in people power. And the cyclists are smart and in vogue
as more people turn to two wheels to commute to work, to stay fit and
to drive less.
Peninsula cyclists won a major victory when they convinced Caltrain
that more space was needed on trains for bicycles and bumping cyclists
was no longer tolerable. The cyclists wrote letters, many of them
printed in the Daily Journal, sent voluminous e-mails to Caltrain
elected officials and staff and turned up at meetings of the Joint
Powers Board (the three-county board which runs Caltrain) to make
their case. They took time off from work to present a well-researched
and well-presented argument for allowing more bikes on trains. Bike
riders make up 2,400 of Caltrain customers each day out of a total
ridership estimated at 41,000. They are extremely loyal customers and
Caltrain was smart to meet them half way.
By mid-spring, bike capacity on the trains will increase by 27
percent. Gallery train sets will increase to 40 slots (versus the
current 32) and Bombardier trains will have 24 bike spaces (versus the
current 16). Of course, cyclists wanted more but this is a good first
step. Caltrain will have to find $200,000 to remove seats from
existing cars and install new bike racks. The staff also committed to
assign two bike cars to peak-period trains as operations allow.
Caltrain was a pioneer in allowing trains on board in 1992. Mark
Simon, former San Francisco Chronicle columnist, and now the special
assistant to the executive director at Caltrain/SamTrans, was the
liaison between the JPB and the cycling advocates. Mark has been an
organizer of the Tour de Peninsula, a charity bicycle ride, and has
good relations with the cycling community. But the major credit goes
to CEO Mike Scanlon who is a tough executive but knows how to listen
and when to be flexible.

Sue Lempert is the former mayor of San Mateo. Her column runs every Monday.
She can be reached at sue@smdailyjournal.com

Caltrain buckles under intense scrutiny from cyclists

Caltrain has lost their way and implemented a low tech solution.

Per 295bus Caltrain has put a sign on the front cabs of trainsets with 2 bike cars. Passengers have only been recommending this for oh say, 5-6 years. Of course this was probably an expensive implementation and Caltrain had to apply for a grant.

Cyclists and Road taxes

from the San Mateo Daily Journal

> Published Tuesday, March 17, 2009, by the San Mateo Daily Journal
>
> Letters to the Editor
>
> Common sense on the roads
>
> I agree the roads should be for all but I have to register my cars for the
> privilege to use the roads. I think in this era of no money for various city
> and county projects, all bicyclists should pay at least $25 a year to register
> their bikes -- they use the roads -- they should pay.
>
> I would like to see more cyclists obey traffic rules -- stopping at red lights
> and stop signs, watching out for pedestrians and not riding two or three
> abreast on a two lane street, which makes the cars go into the wrong lane to
> pass them. So we should be courteous of one another, use common sense and we
> should all pay to use the streets.
>
> Bill Hogan
> Newark

Why is it that "common sense" seems to be "nonsense" so frequently these days.

This has been discussed ad naseum elsewhere but I'll repeat.

Cyclists already contribute their fair share

$25 per year huh? To pay for our usage of the road. I assume Bill thinks that we can then use this money to build some bike lanes or something. In practice, it would cost this much money just to initiate and run the program, leaving little to no money for road improvements. So he's not really asking the cyclists to pay their fair share and rescue the city and county budgets - really it appears he is just trying to put an impediment in front of cyclists. And given that I am a resident of San Francisco - currently prevented from any improvements for cyclists, I would *really* be pissed to pay a fee to make improvements that won't happen because they are prohibited.

Can I assume that once I start paying my fair share, I can bike to work on US-101? Or would that still be verboten?

What's amusing is that Bill Hogan is probably some right wing nut case that complains about how Obama is going to tax us all in some giant money grab, yet he favors this tax.

UPDATE: Pat Giorni responds the next day.

No registration needed for bicyclists

Editor,

It is the right of anyone in this country to buy a motor vehicle, but to become a licensed driver is a benefit and not an entitlement to operate it on a public thoroughfare. It is indeed a privilege to drive a motor vehicle.

Registration fees are an enforcement tool to ensure vehicles are in legal operational condition with horns, headlights, turn signals and brakes in good working order, along with emissions standards compliance. Bicyclists and pedestrians do not present the lethal possibilities of the operation of motor vehicles, but they are also bound by regulations that are designed to make the streets safer for all users.

That pedestrians jaywalk and cyclists fail to stop at red lights are enforcement issues whereby I agree that citations should be issued. We are all bound by the rules of the road.

Paid registration of bicycles is discriminatory if all other forms of non-motorized transportation is not subject to the same requirement. What next, wheelchairs, baby strollers, shoe-leather?

Pat Giorni

Burlingame

Happy St Patrick's Day