The two major contenders for the Delhi throne — the Congress and the BJP — appear to have intensified their hunt for allies as the likelihood of a hung Parliament increased after the fourth round of polling on Thursday.
An estimated 57 per cent voters braved the heat to cast their votes for 85 Lok Sabha seats spread across eight states in the largely peaceful polling, barring West Bengal, where four voters were killed in poll violence.
One person died in Rajasthan when security forces opened fire to foil an attempt to capture a booth.
With voting now over for 457 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats and only 86 seats left for voting on the last round on May 13, the focus has now shifted to post-poll alliances.While West Bengal recorded the highest voting percentage (75 per cent), Jammu and Kashmir capital Srinagar recorded the lowest turnout (24 per cent), mainly due to a boycott call by separatists.
Capital Delhi saw a 50 per cent turnout on a typical summer day. In terms of voting, the city scored over Mumbai, which had seen a mere 41 per cent voting a week back, considered to be lowest since 1977.
President Pratibha Patil, Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, her children Rahul and Sonia, and Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit were among those who cast their votes in the capital.
The ruling Congress is defending six of the seven seats in Delhi which it had won in 2004. “We are going to do well this time also. The assembly elections held five months back had shown which way the wind is blowing,” Dikshit said.
With voting now over for 457 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats and only 86 seats left for voting on the last round on May 13, the focus has now shifted to post-poll alliances.
The BJP’s managers are counting on Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati to spring a surprise and gravitate towards them. The Uttar Pradesh chief minister is at present inclined towards the so-called Third Front, a loosely knit formation of regional parties propped up by the Left.
Her rival and Samajwadi Party chief, Mulayam Singh Yadav, put forward a pre-condition for those looking for his support. “We will support whoever dismisses the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh,” he said after casting his vote in Mainpuri. The Congress was quick to reject such a demand but kept the door open for the SP. Amar Singh, SP general secretary, also hinted at supporting the Congress.
But, the Left parties appeared to adopt a wait and watch policy. The focus now shifts to the final round next week. The most crucial state in this phase will be Tamil Nadu where all 39 seats will go for polls. Polling for 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 11 in West Bengal, 4 in Himachal Pradesh and 5 in Uttarakhand will also be held the same day.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
In-N-Out: Can perfection survive?
My life as a fast-food consumer pretty much ended the moment my kids became old enough to drive themselves to the nearest hamburger stand.
But even back then I knew that all such chains could be divided into two categories: There was In-N-Out, and there was everybody else.
The In-N-Out cult -- is there any other word for it? -- is rooted in its patrons' appreciation for its simple menu and its sedulous devotion to fresh, high-quality ingredients.
To be sure, there are other fascinations. These include the mystique created by its management's traditional refusal to ever speak to the press (including for this column).
Then there are the biblicalcitations imprinted on the edges and seams of its burger wrappers and disposable cups, a practice started by the late Richard Snyder, the born-again younger son and onetime heir apparent to In-N-Out's founders, Harry and Esther Snyder.
Finally, there are the intertwined issues of In-N-Out's colorful past and its unsettled future, which are touched on in a new book titled simply "In-N-Out Burger," by BusinessWeek writer Stacy Perman.
Perman observes that In-N-Out has prospered by hewing close to the stolid principles of controlled growth, limited menu, fresh food and regional focus -- with the exception of one store in Utah, its 232 locations are all in California, Nevada or Arizona -- set in stone by its founders, like commandments. (Harry died in 1976, his widow in 2006.) As a private company, In-N-Out doesn't release financial figures, though the trade press estimated sales in 2005 at $370 million -- a healthy sum for a small chain.
Southern Californians have grown up appreciating the company's virtues, while the rest of the country slavers from afar: In-N-Out generally pays better than other burger chains, in return for which employees are held to rigorous standards of appearance and behavior. It's a fair bet you'll never see a video on YouTube of workers adulterating In-N-Out food even in jest, as recently befell another chain.
In-N-Out management, from corporate headquarters in Baldwin Park and Irvine down to store level, is first class.
"The executive corps is the key to their success at weathering problems," says Perman, who didn't get the company's help with her book.
The menu never changes -- burgers that can be piled high like flapjacks, fries and shakes or soda. The provisions are all fresh thanks to the chain's fabled quality control and a tight geographic footprint that keeps all stores within a few hundred miles of regional distribution centers. There's no denying that next to an In-N-Out burger, the fare at McDonald's, despite the latter's relentless menu experimentation and customer research, tastes like premasticated garbage.
That's not to say that In-N-Out serves health food. I don't have room here for a detailed analysis of its nutritional value, other than to say that a normal adult should be able to cross the Sahara fueled by the caloric, fat and sodium content of a standard dose double-double with fries and a shake. I believe the In-N-Out meal I ingested a week ago Tuesday (submitted as a reporting expense) is still burbling about in my system somewhere, not that I didn't enjoy it to the utmost.
Yet In-N-Out's history is anything but dull. The Snyders established a line of succession skipping over their older son, Guy, in favor of the more stable Richard. That well-laid plan dissolved with Richard's death in a 1993 plane crash. The inheritance passed to Guy, who had a history of drug abuse and died from an overdose of a prescription painkiller in 1999. With Esther's death seven years later, majority control became vested in two family trusts. It will pass after 2011 to Guy's only natural child, his daughter Lynsi Martinez, 27.
What little has been said about Martinez for public consumption comes from the 2006 court battle between the company and Richard Boyd, a former executive who said he had grown close to Esther, only to be shouldered aside by Lynsi and In-N-Out Chief Executive Mark Taylor, the husband of one of her half-sisters.
The fight aired a pile of In-N-Out's dirty laundry, which goes to prove that no matter how hard you work to keep your public image sewn up tight, it can blow at any seam.
Boyd alleged that Taylor and Martinez kept the nearly bedridden Esther Snyder a virtual prisoner in her home, screening and intercepting phone calls and visitors. He depicted Martinez as an immature religious fanatic with a taste for "partying hard" who cast him from the company after concluding he was no "man of God."
The company dismissed these assertions as "conspiracy theories" and said Boyd had been dismissed for fraud and embezzlement. Boyd called the allegations against him "demonstrably false."
The dueling lawsuits were eventually settled on confidential terms, though the courthouse allegations animate Perman's book. Boyd, for his part, remains upbeat about the company where he worked for more than 20 years.
"It's a great company," he told me this week. "When Rich Snyder died, he had so many good people in place that it never missed a heartbeat."
But that still leaves the question of how forcibly Martinez might impose her will on the company and -- even more intriguing -- what is her will? Once she takes formal ownership, if she declares In-N-Out will henceforth sell only Buffalo Burgers or Broccoli Burgers, or will dispense prayers rather than food, her word will be law. Indeed, given the inviolability of the trusts, her word probably already is law.
What should keep the chain's fans up at night is whether In-N-Out can continue to tread the fine line between modern business imperatives and its own traditions. Taylor has been quoted as saying he intends to stick to a pattern of opening 10 to 12 new stores a year, though Boyd claimed in his lawsuit that he had heard him express national ambitions.
An expansion across the Mississippi would probably strain In-N-Out's self-generated financial resources to the limit -- the chain doesn't even accept franchisees. But a public offering, much less a buyout by a public company, would almost certainly render it unrecognizable. The homogenizing cost-cutting of corporate number-crunchers ("let's drop the beef by a grade; the customers won't notice") could mean the end of In-N-Out as we know it.
That suggests the company's best option might be to remain the happy prisoner of its own success. Boyd may be right when he says: "If they leave it exactly as it is and don't make any changes, they'll last forever
But even back then I knew that all such chains could be divided into two categories: There was In-N-Out, and there was everybody else.
The In-N-Out cult -- is there any other word for it? -- is rooted in its patrons' appreciation for its simple menu and its sedulous devotion to fresh, high-quality ingredients.
To be sure, there are other fascinations. These include the mystique created by its management's traditional refusal to ever speak to the press (including for this column).
Then there are the biblicalcitations imprinted on the edges and seams of its burger wrappers and disposable cups, a practice started by the late Richard Snyder, the born-again younger son and onetime heir apparent to In-N-Out's founders, Harry and Esther Snyder.
Finally, there are the intertwined issues of In-N-Out's colorful past and its unsettled future, which are touched on in a new book titled simply "In-N-Out Burger," by BusinessWeek writer Stacy Perman.
Perman observes that In-N-Out has prospered by hewing close to the stolid principles of controlled growth, limited menu, fresh food and regional focus -- with the exception of one store in Utah, its 232 locations are all in California, Nevada or Arizona -- set in stone by its founders, like commandments. (Harry died in 1976, his widow in 2006.) As a private company, In-N-Out doesn't release financial figures, though the trade press estimated sales in 2005 at $370 million -- a healthy sum for a small chain.
Southern Californians have grown up appreciating the company's virtues, while the rest of the country slavers from afar: In-N-Out generally pays better than other burger chains, in return for which employees are held to rigorous standards of appearance and behavior. It's a fair bet you'll never see a video on YouTube of workers adulterating In-N-Out food even in jest, as recently befell another chain.
In-N-Out management, from corporate headquarters in Baldwin Park and Irvine down to store level, is first class.
"The executive corps is the key to their success at weathering problems," says Perman, who didn't get the company's help with her book.
The menu never changes -- burgers that can be piled high like flapjacks, fries and shakes or soda. The provisions are all fresh thanks to the chain's fabled quality control and a tight geographic footprint that keeps all stores within a few hundred miles of regional distribution centers. There's no denying that next to an In-N-Out burger, the fare at McDonald's, despite the latter's relentless menu experimentation and customer research, tastes like premasticated garbage.
That's not to say that In-N-Out serves health food. I don't have room here for a detailed analysis of its nutritional value, other than to say that a normal adult should be able to cross the Sahara fueled by the caloric, fat and sodium content of a standard dose double-double with fries and a shake. I believe the In-N-Out meal I ingested a week ago Tuesday (submitted as a reporting expense) is still burbling about in my system somewhere, not that I didn't enjoy it to the utmost.
Yet In-N-Out's history is anything but dull. The Snyders established a line of succession skipping over their older son, Guy, in favor of the more stable Richard. That well-laid plan dissolved with Richard's death in a 1993 plane crash. The inheritance passed to Guy, who had a history of drug abuse and died from an overdose of a prescription painkiller in 1999. With Esther's death seven years later, majority control became vested in two family trusts. It will pass after 2011 to Guy's only natural child, his daughter Lynsi Martinez, 27.
What little has been said about Martinez for public consumption comes from the 2006 court battle between the company and Richard Boyd, a former executive who said he had grown close to Esther, only to be shouldered aside by Lynsi and In-N-Out Chief Executive Mark Taylor, the husband of one of her half-sisters.
The fight aired a pile of In-N-Out's dirty laundry, which goes to prove that no matter how hard you work to keep your public image sewn up tight, it can blow at any seam.
Boyd alleged that Taylor and Martinez kept the nearly bedridden Esther Snyder a virtual prisoner in her home, screening and intercepting phone calls and visitors. He depicted Martinez as an immature religious fanatic with a taste for "partying hard" who cast him from the company after concluding he was no "man of God."
The company dismissed these assertions as "conspiracy theories" and said Boyd had been dismissed for fraud and embezzlement. Boyd called the allegations against him "demonstrably false."
The dueling lawsuits were eventually settled on confidential terms, though the courthouse allegations animate Perman's book. Boyd, for his part, remains upbeat about the company where he worked for more than 20 years.
"It's a great company," he told me this week. "When Rich Snyder died, he had so many good people in place that it never missed a heartbeat."
But that still leaves the question of how forcibly Martinez might impose her will on the company and -- even more intriguing -- what is her will? Once she takes formal ownership, if she declares In-N-Out will henceforth sell only Buffalo Burgers or Broccoli Burgers, or will dispense prayers rather than food, her word will be law. Indeed, given the inviolability of the trusts, her word probably already is law.
What should keep the chain's fans up at night is whether In-N-Out can continue to tread the fine line between modern business imperatives and its own traditions. Taylor has been quoted as saying he intends to stick to a pattern of opening 10 to 12 new stores a year, though Boyd claimed in his lawsuit that he had heard him express national ambitions.
An expansion across the Mississippi would probably strain In-N-Out's self-generated financial resources to the limit -- the chain doesn't even accept franchisees. But a public offering, much less a buyout by a public company, would almost certainly render it unrecognizable. The homogenizing cost-cutting of corporate number-crunchers ("let's drop the beef by a grade; the customers won't notice") could mean the end of In-N-Out as we know it.
That suggests the company's best option might be to remain the happy prisoner of its own success. Boyd may be right when he says: "If they leave it exactly as it is and don't make any changes, they'll last forever
Report: Farrah Fawcett in "Last Stages" of Cancer Battle
Actress Farrah Fawcett is in the last stages of her battle against anal cancer, according to friends close to the star.
While doctors for the 62 year old actress have recently made public statements indicating her condition has not changed, Ryan O'Neal revealed that her "treatment" has "pretty much ended" and she stays in bed and is on IV's.
...Celebrity website RadarOnline is reporting that the former "Charlie's Angels" star can drink only a little liquid and can't keep food down.
The website also reports that Fawcett's 91 year old father, James, is flying to Los Angeles to say goodbye to his daughter and that a priest has visited Fawcett's Malibu home in recent days.
Fawcett was diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006. She was declared in remission on February 2 2007, but three months later scans showed "not only had it recurred, it metastasised to her liver", according to doctors.
Fawcett's son, Redmond, with actor and partner Ryan O'Neal is currently behind bars following his recent drug arrest. He was allowed to leave jail last month to visit his ailing mother whom he claimed weighed only 86 pounds.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore says O'Neal's family paid roughly $1,300 so that deputies could supervise the three-hour visit.
Fawcett was hospitalized in March suffering from internal bleeding. There had been reports that she was unconscious at the time.
Doctors said the illness was a complication from her medical treatment and was not directly related to her cancer battle.
Fawcett was discharged from the hospital on April 9th.
While doctors for the 62 year old actress have recently made public statements indicating her condition has not changed, Ryan O'Neal revealed that her "treatment" has "pretty much ended" and she stays in bed and is on IV's.
...Celebrity website RadarOnline is reporting that the former "Charlie's Angels" star can drink only a little liquid and can't keep food down.
The website also reports that Fawcett's 91 year old father, James, is flying to Los Angeles to say goodbye to his daughter and that a priest has visited Fawcett's Malibu home in recent days.
Fawcett was diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006. She was declared in remission on February 2 2007, but three months later scans showed "not only had it recurred, it metastasised to her liver", according to doctors.
Fawcett's son, Redmond, with actor and partner Ryan O'Neal is currently behind bars following his recent drug arrest. He was allowed to leave jail last month to visit his ailing mother whom he claimed weighed only 86 pounds.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore says O'Neal's family paid roughly $1,300 so that deputies could supervise the three-hour visit.
Fawcett was hospitalized in March suffering from internal bleeding. There had been reports that she was unconscious at the time.
Doctors said the illness was a complication from her medical treatment and was not directly related to her cancer battle.
Fawcett was discharged from the hospital on April 9th.
California could be broke by July, state official warns
California has an unprecedented cash crisis and could run out of money as soon as July if lawmakers and the governor do not act to stop the financial hemorrhaging, according to a new forecast by the Legislature's chief budget analyst.
"Without additional legislative measures to address the state's fiscal difficulties or unprecedented amounts of borrowing from short-term credit markets, the state will not be able to pay many of its bills on time for much of its 2009-2010 fiscal year," Taylor wrote.
The budget package that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law in February, averting an earlier cash crisis, was intended to keep the state solvent through June of next year. But the deterioration of the economy quickly knocked that spending plan out of balance. The analyst cautioned lawmakers against asking the federal government to help the state secure loans that might provide relief. In such a scenario, the federal government would guarantee lenders that it would repay them if California defaulted. The analyst said such provisions would be likely to have strings attached and could give the federal government too much authority over state affairs.
"The difficult decisions to balance the state's budget now are preferable to Californians losing some control over the state's finances and priorities to federal officials for years to come," Taylor wrote.
He further warned that if lawmakers put off acting until well into summer, state finance officials could be forced to take measures even more extreme than those taken during the winter budget impasse, when taxpayer refunds, student grants, welfare checks, money owed to vendors and other payments were suspended.
This summer, Taylor said, the state may need to suspend employees' pay and cut off funds to local governments.
California lawmakers have few options to address the problem beyond deep spending cuts and more tax hikes. Republican lawmakers vowed to block any further tax increases after billions of dollars in new and higher taxes on sales, motor vehicles and personal income were approved as part of the February budget package. And both the Senate and Assembly Republican caucuses now are led by lawmakers who have never negotiated a state budget.
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) said the latest news underscores that California is "in a world of hurt," and that upcoming budget negotiations will have to focus on "devastating cuts."
Speaking from Washington, D.C., where she has been lobbying federal officials for more financial help, Bass said she was hopeful the state would obtain more stimulus money. She also suggested Democrats may revive an earlier effort to use legal maneuvers to revise the state's spending plan on a simple majority vote rather than the two-thirds majority normally required. That process would skirt the need for any GOP votes, but Republicans say such a move would be unconstitutional.
The debate over what budget actions to take is expected to intensify once Schwarzenegger issues his revised spending plan later this month.
courtsey.latimes
"Without additional legislative measures to address the state's fiscal difficulties or unprecedented amounts of borrowing from short-term credit markets, the state will not be able to pay many of its bills on time for much of its 2009-2010 fiscal year," Taylor wrote.
The budget package that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law in February, averting an earlier cash crisis, was intended to keep the state solvent through June of next year. But the deterioration of the economy quickly knocked that spending plan out of balance. The analyst cautioned lawmakers against asking the federal government to help the state secure loans that might provide relief. In such a scenario, the federal government would guarantee lenders that it would repay them if California defaulted. The analyst said such provisions would be likely to have strings attached and could give the federal government too much authority over state affairs.
"The difficult decisions to balance the state's budget now are preferable to Californians losing some control over the state's finances and priorities to federal officials for years to come," Taylor wrote.
He further warned that if lawmakers put off acting until well into summer, state finance officials could be forced to take measures even more extreme than those taken during the winter budget impasse, when taxpayer refunds, student grants, welfare checks, money owed to vendors and other payments were suspended.
This summer, Taylor said, the state may need to suspend employees' pay and cut off funds to local governments.
California lawmakers have few options to address the problem beyond deep spending cuts and more tax hikes. Republican lawmakers vowed to block any further tax increases after billions of dollars in new and higher taxes on sales, motor vehicles and personal income were approved as part of the February budget package. And both the Senate and Assembly Republican caucuses now are led by lawmakers who have never negotiated a state budget.
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) said the latest news underscores that California is "in a world of hurt," and that upcoming budget negotiations will have to focus on "devastating cuts."
Speaking from Washington, D.C., where she has been lobbying federal officials for more financial help, Bass said she was hopeful the state would obtain more stimulus money. She also suggested Democrats may revive an earlier effort to use legal maneuvers to revise the state's spending plan on a simple majority vote rather than the two-thirds majority normally required. That process would skirt the need for any GOP votes, but Republicans say such a move would be unconstitutional.
The debate over what budget actions to take is expected to intensify once Schwarzenegger issues his revised spending plan later this month.
courtsey.latimes
Campaign Trail Leads to the Web
They figured out how to get New Mexico residents to vote for George W. Bush in 2004. Now, some of the nation’s top political strategists are creating an online-advertising company, hoping to apply to the Web what they know about aiming messages on the campaign trail.
Harold Ickes, left, former deputy chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, is an investor in Resonate Networks.
The company, Resonate Networks, was co-founded by Sara Taylor, the White House political director under Mr. Bush. Its investors include Harold Ickes, the former deputy chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, who runs the database that Democratic strategists rely on; Steve McMahon, the prominent Howard Dean consultant; and Alex Gage, who advised Karl Rove on Mr. Bush’s re-election in 2004.
Resonate is an ad network, which that means it signs up advertisers, along with publishers like Frommers.com and BobVila .com, and matches advertisements with specific sites, taking a cut of what publishers charge the advertisers. More than 300 ad networks have similar models, though all have different recipes.
Resonate differs in its political targeting. This is a strategy that has been used by politicians for years. In 2004, for instance, Mr. Gage’s analysis found a group of New Mexico mothers, Hispanic and lower- to middle-class, who largely voted for Democrats. But the data suggested that they were supportive of Mr. Bush’s No Child Left Behind public school legislation. The campaign sent those women messages about Mr. Bush’s policies on education. In part because of tactics like that, Mr. Bush won New Mexico.
Resonate is trying to do the same thing online for both political issues and corporate ones. It researches sites the way a campaign adviser would research a battleground state, finding which sites have visitors who would be receptive to a certain message.
“We can target an audience that supports a particular issue,” said Bryan Gernert, the chief executive of the company. Because the company can identify the makeup of a site —the percentage of site visitors who support, oppose or have mixed views on a certain issue — it can choose sites that, say, gay marriage opponents do not really visit for a strong advertisement supporting gay marriage.
“You can have a pretty aggressive message that won’t inflame your opposition, but you’ll still mobilize your support base,” Mr. Gernert said. “We can also identify the middle, the persuadable, where you can do an education campaign and move them toward your position on an issue.” That leads to interesting pairings: for a group promoting domestic drilling, Resonate found the most sympathetic visitors were not on a conservative site, but on Egreetings.com.
Resonate gathers about 4,000 survey takers every quarter, and asks them questions about their opinions on issues like gun control or unions, along with questions about their habits and their involvement level in political issues.
Resonate adds information about each panelist from other sources, including voting and campaign contribution history and demographic information, collecting about 1,100 pieces of data per panelist. It then tracks which sites the panelists visit on the Web for four months — the panelists allow Resonate to track their movements, some receiving a small fee in return. With the information about which of their panelists are visiting which sites, Resonate compiles profiles of each site’s visitors.
Advertisers have a range of ways to direct their messages online. They can aim based on someone’s registration information on a site, or by time of day, or by what type of site the ads will appear on or what sites that visitor has looked at recently.
But, advertisers said, this was the first company they were aware of that added visitors’ probable political behavior.
“If you look at the typical microtargeting approach, you have to be a very large national campaign to really afford it,” said Tim Ryan, the general manager of Sawyer Miller Advertising, which has handled public affairs campaigns for Microsoft. “For the public affairs context, I think we’re excited about this, and excited about the ability to better target our audiences at a lower cost point, and get better engagement, and that’s the goal,” he said.
Resonate executives said that they thought the company would be attractive for corporate social responsibility campaigns, or for companies’ advertisements that reflected an issue, like a fast-food company that wanted to advertise a healthy snack to moms worried about obesity
Resonate, which has been operating since the fall, does not have any corporate clients yet; its formation is scheduled to be announced Thursday. Executives said it had sales of about $1 million in its first months, to public affairs groups.
Mr. Ickes, the president of Catalist, which sells national voter data to Democratic and progressive organizations, said he invested in the company because having an Internet version of what he did seemed logical.
“People who are selling things or want to promote something, whether it’s a candidate or a product, are always looking for ways to figure out what audience to target,” he said.
Harold Ickes, left, former deputy chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, is an investor in Resonate Networks.
The company, Resonate Networks, was co-founded by Sara Taylor, the White House political director under Mr. Bush. Its investors include Harold Ickes, the former deputy chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, who runs the database that Democratic strategists rely on; Steve McMahon, the prominent Howard Dean consultant; and Alex Gage, who advised Karl Rove on Mr. Bush’s re-election in 2004.
Resonate is an ad network, which that means it signs up advertisers, along with publishers like Frommers.com and BobVila .com, and matches advertisements with specific sites, taking a cut of what publishers charge the advertisers. More than 300 ad networks have similar models, though all have different recipes.
Resonate differs in its political targeting. This is a strategy that has been used by politicians for years. In 2004, for instance, Mr. Gage’s analysis found a group of New Mexico mothers, Hispanic and lower- to middle-class, who largely voted for Democrats. But the data suggested that they were supportive of Mr. Bush’s No Child Left Behind public school legislation. The campaign sent those women messages about Mr. Bush’s policies on education. In part because of tactics like that, Mr. Bush won New Mexico.
Resonate is trying to do the same thing online for both political issues and corporate ones. It researches sites the way a campaign adviser would research a battleground state, finding which sites have visitors who would be receptive to a certain message.
“We can target an audience that supports a particular issue,” said Bryan Gernert, the chief executive of the company. Because the company can identify the makeup of a site —the percentage of site visitors who support, oppose or have mixed views on a certain issue — it can choose sites that, say, gay marriage opponents do not really visit for a strong advertisement supporting gay marriage.
“You can have a pretty aggressive message that won’t inflame your opposition, but you’ll still mobilize your support base,” Mr. Gernert said. “We can also identify the middle, the persuadable, where you can do an education campaign and move them toward your position on an issue.” That leads to interesting pairings: for a group promoting domestic drilling, Resonate found the most sympathetic visitors were not on a conservative site, but on Egreetings.com.
Resonate gathers about 4,000 survey takers every quarter, and asks them questions about their opinions on issues like gun control or unions, along with questions about their habits and their involvement level in political issues.
Resonate adds information about each panelist from other sources, including voting and campaign contribution history and demographic information, collecting about 1,100 pieces of data per panelist. It then tracks which sites the panelists visit on the Web for four months — the panelists allow Resonate to track their movements, some receiving a small fee in return. With the information about which of their panelists are visiting which sites, Resonate compiles profiles of each site’s visitors.
Advertisers have a range of ways to direct their messages online. They can aim based on someone’s registration information on a site, or by time of day, or by what type of site the ads will appear on or what sites that visitor has looked at recently.
But, advertisers said, this was the first company they were aware of that added visitors’ probable political behavior.
“If you look at the typical microtargeting approach, you have to be a very large national campaign to really afford it,” said Tim Ryan, the general manager of Sawyer Miller Advertising, which has handled public affairs campaigns for Microsoft. “For the public affairs context, I think we’re excited about this, and excited about the ability to better target our audiences at a lower cost point, and get better engagement, and that’s the goal,” he said.
Resonate executives said that they thought the company would be attractive for corporate social responsibility campaigns, or for companies’ advertisements that reflected an issue, like a fast-food company that wanted to advertise a healthy snack to moms worried about obesity
Resonate, which has been operating since the fall, does not have any corporate clients yet; its formation is scheduled to be announced Thursday. Executives said it had sales of about $1 million in its first months, to public affairs groups.
Mr. Ickes, the president of Catalist, which sells national voter data to Democratic and progressive organizations, said he invested in the company because having an Internet version of what he did seemed logical.
“People who are selling things or want to promote something, whether it’s a candidate or a product, are always looking for ways to figure out what audience to target,” he said.
A Dividing Line Through the Financial Landscape
The stress tests released by the Obama administration Thursday painted a broad montage of the troubles in the nation’s banking industry and, for the first time, drew a stark, official line through the new landscape of American finance.
On one side are institutions like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, which regulators deemed stronger than their peers — perhaps strong enough to repay billions of bailout dollars and wriggle free of government control.
On the other side are weaker institutions, among them Bank of America, which now confront the daunting challenge of raising additional capital on their own or accepting increased government ownership, along with whatever strings might be attached. Time is short: the banks have only until June 8 to draw up their plans for regulators. As the results of the tests streamed in from the Federal Reserve late Thursday, banks began racing to raise newly required capital.
Broadly speaking, the test results suggested that the banking industry is in better shape than many had feared. Of the nation’s 19 largest banks, which sit atop two-thirds of all deposits, regulators gave nine a clean bill of health. The remaining 10 were ordered to raise a combined $75 billion in equity capital as a buffer against potential losses should the economy deteriorate. That amount is far less than even the most optimistic forecast.
But the tests left some crucial questions unanswered. Once the banks satisfy regulators, will they start making more of the loans that businesses and consumers need? And what happens if this recession turns out to be even worse than regulators’ worst-case assumptions — and the banks’ losses start ballooning again?
“Everybody should breathe a sigh of relief,” said Peter J. Solomon, who runs a boutique investment bank and early in his career worked at Lehman Brothers. “Now they question is, So what? Will they lend?”
The results shined an uncomfortable spotlight on the most troubled financial institutions: GMAC, the finance arm of General Motors; Bank of America; Wells Fargo; and Citigroup. Several large regional banks were also deemed to need large sums of capital.
Administration officials, as well as banking executives, hope the banks can plug many of the gaps by selling stock to the public or selling businesses. If that is not enough, the banks could ask the government to convert preferred shares purchased last autumn to common stock. Such a move would not involve giving banks additional taxpayer money, although it would represent a riskier deal for the government. It also raises the prospect that the government would become a substantial shareholder in several large banks.
Wells Fargo announced ambitious plans to raise capital in hopes of avoiding increased government ownership. Wells, which regulators determined needed $13.7 billion, said it would seek to sell $6 billion of stock. Morgan Stanley, which was ordered to raise $1.8 billion in common equity, said it would sell $2 billion in new shares.
Bank of America, which faces a gap of roughly $34 billion, said it would make a common stock offering on Friday and would offer an exchange for some of its preferred stock later this month. It said it expected to raise $17 billion this way and also planned to sell assets worth $10 billion. The bank said it would fulfill the rest of $34 billion needed through earnings in next few months.
Kenneth D. Lewis, the bank’s embattled chief executive, hailed the results of the stress test as a sign of his bank’s health.
“The bogey is large but we have significant opportunities,” he said in a conference call Thursday evening. “We do not need new government money, and we do not intend to convert the existing TARP money that we have. In fact our game plan is to get the government out of our bank as quickly as possible.”
Mr. Lewis noted that shareholders last week expressed concerns at the annual meeting and stripped him of his chairman’s title. “As you might imagine, it was a humbling experience,” he said.
“Frankly there’s been a lot of noise around our company,” Mr. Lewis said. “We hope these changes will help us quiet that noise.”
Citigroup, which for many has come to symbolize the problems plaguing the financial industry, was has already been moving quickly to address its problems. Regulators determined that the bank must raise $5.5 billion, on top of the converting $45 billion in bailout funds to common stock, which would give the government a 36 percent stake.
Vikram S. Pandit, the bank’s chief executive, said he would expand the company’s offer to exchange preferred shares of stock for common stock to a broader assortment of private investors. He also said he would speed up plans to sell businesses.
“The government’s stress test was a rigorous process that assessed our capital and confirms our view that Citi’s plans and actions will give it the financial strength to weather an adverse stress scenario,” Mr. Pandit said in a statement.
Citigroup has already accepted the government as a key owner. In February, it announced that it would convert just over half of the $45 billion it has received from the government into common stock, a step that will give taxpayers an ownership stake of 36 percent.
At the Regions Financial Corporation, the largest bank in Alabama, was ordered to increase its common equity by $2.5 billion. The bank is exposed to steep losses on construction loans. But Regions questioned regulators’ determination, saying it believed the projected losses were “unrealistically high.” Nonetheless, Regions said it would comply and that it was considering its options.
SunTrust Banks, a large lender in Georgia that has also been hurt by the construction bust, was told to raise $2.2 billion. In Ohio, Keycorp and Fifth Third Bancorp, both of which expanded into Florida at the height of the real estate bubble and must now raise additional capital to cover their projected losses, said they were evaluating their options.
But a handful of stronger banks are pulling away from their weaker peers and emerging as institutions that could dominate the industry.
Goldman Sachs, for instance, said Thursday that it hopes to return the $10 billion it received from the government as soon as possible, and regulators blessed Goldman’s capital position as it is. JPMorgan Chase, which was also deemed to have enough capital, is pushing to return bailout money as well.
For Washington and Wall Street, the overarching question is whether investors and depositors will take solace from these results. Banks and administration officials are eager to persuade private investors that the banks are stable enough to invest in. While some analysts question the rigor of the tests, Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary, has insisted the exams will foster confidence in the banks.
“The Fed is hoping the whole process will be explained to investors and there will be enough faith in the legitimacy of the whole stress tests that they’ll put to rest all of the speculation,” said Tanya Azarchs, the bank rating analyst at Standard & Poor’s. “The golden ring here, if you can catch it, is confidence.”
,
On one side are institutions like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, which regulators deemed stronger than their peers — perhaps strong enough to repay billions of bailout dollars and wriggle free of government control.
On the other side are weaker institutions, among them Bank of America, which now confront the daunting challenge of raising additional capital on their own or accepting increased government ownership, along with whatever strings might be attached. Time is short: the banks have only until June 8 to draw up their plans for regulators. As the results of the tests streamed in from the Federal Reserve late Thursday, banks began racing to raise newly required capital.
Broadly speaking, the test results suggested that the banking industry is in better shape than many had feared. Of the nation’s 19 largest banks, which sit atop two-thirds of all deposits, regulators gave nine a clean bill of health. The remaining 10 were ordered to raise a combined $75 billion in equity capital as a buffer against potential losses should the economy deteriorate. That amount is far less than even the most optimistic forecast.
But the tests left some crucial questions unanswered. Once the banks satisfy regulators, will they start making more of the loans that businesses and consumers need? And what happens if this recession turns out to be even worse than regulators’ worst-case assumptions — and the banks’ losses start ballooning again?
“Everybody should breathe a sigh of relief,” said Peter J. Solomon, who runs a boutique investment bank and early in his career worked at Lehman Brothers. “Now they question is, So what? Will they lend?”
The results shined an uncomfortable spotlight on the most troubled financial institutions: GMAC, the finance arm of General Motors; Bank of America; Wells Fargo; and Citigroup. Several large regional banks were also deemed to need large sums of capital.
Administration officials, as well as banking executives, hope the banks can plug many of the gaps by selling stock to the public or selling businesses. If that is not enough, the banks could ask the government to convert preferred shares purchased last autumn to common stock. Such a move would not involve giving banks additional taxpayer money, although it would represent a riskier deal for the government. It also raises the prospect that the government would become a substantial shareholder in several large banks.
Wells Fargo announced ambitious plans to raise capital in hopes of avoiding increased government ownership. Wells, which regulators determined needed $13.7 billion, said it would seek to sell $6 billion of stock. Morgan Stanley, which was ordered to raise $1.8 billion in common equity, said it would sell $2 billion in new shares.
Bank of America, which faces a gap of roughly $34 billion, said it would make a common stock offering on Friday and would offer an exchange for some of its preferred stock later this month. It said it expected to raise $17 billion this way and also planned to sell assets worth $10 billion. The bank said it would fulfill the rest of $34 billion needed through earnings in next few months.
Kenneth D. Lewis, the bank’s embattled chief executive, hailed the results of the stress test as a sign of his bank’s health.
“The bogey is large but we have significant opportunities,” he said in a conference call Thursday evening. “We do not need new government money, and we do not intend to convert the existing TARP money that we have. In fact our game plan is to get the government out of our bank as quickly as possible.”
Mr. Lewis noted that shareholders last week expressed concerns at the annual meeting and stripped him of his chairman’s title. “As you might imagine, it was a humbling experience,” he said.
“Frankly there’s been a lot of noise around our company,” Mr. Lewis said. “We hope these changes will help us quiet that noise.”
Citigroup, which for many has come to symbolize the problems plaguing the financial industry, was has already been moving quickly to address its problems. Regulators determined that the bank must raise $5.5 billion, on top of the converting $45 billion in bailout funds to common stock, which would give the government a 36 percent stake.
Vikram S. Pandit, the bank’s chief executive, said he would expand the company’s offer to exchange preferred shares of stock for common stock to a broader assortment of private investors. He also said he would speed up plans to sell businesses.
“The government’s stress test was a rigorous process that assessed our capital and confirms our view that Citi’s plans and actions will give it the financial strength to weather an adverse stress scenario,” Mr. Pandit said in a statement.
Citigroup has already accepted the government as a key owner. In February, it announced that it would convert just over half of the $45 billion it has received from the government into common stock, a step that will give taxpayers an ownership stake of 36 percent.
At the Regions Financial Corporation, the largest bank in Alabama, was ordered to increase its common equity by $2.5 billion. The bank is exposed to steep losses on construction loans. But Regions questioned regulators’ determination, saying it believed the projected losses were “unrealistically high.” Nonetheless, Regions said it would comply and that it was considering its options.
SunTrust Banks, a large lender in Georgia that has also been hurt by the construction bust, was told to raise $2.2 billion. In Ohio, Keycorp and Fifth Third Bancorp, both of which expanded into Florida at the height of the real estate bubble and must now raise additional capital to cover their projected losses, said they were evaluating their options.
But a handful of stronger banks are pulling away from their weaker peers and emerging as institutions that could dominate the industry.
Goldman Sachs, for instance, said Thursday that it hopes to return the $10 billion it received from the government as soon as possible, and regulators blessed Goldman’s capital position as it is. JPMorgan Chase, which was also deemed to have enough capital, is pushing to return bailout money as well.
For Washington and Wall Street, the overarching question is whether investors and depositors will take solace from these results. Banks and administration officials are eager to persuade private investors that the banks are stable enough to invest in. While some analysts question the rigor of the tests, Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary, has insisted the exams will foster confidence in the banks.
“The Fed is hoping the whole process will be explained to investors and there will be enough faith in the legitimacy of the whole stress tests that they’ll put to rest all of the speculation,” said Tanya Azarchs, the bank rating analyst at Standard & Poor’s. “The golden ring here, if you can catch it, is confidence.”
,
Psychiatric tests for L'Oreal heiress in row over €1bn gifts
It's the mother-daughter spat that has gripped the French cosmetics world. The family who control the beauty giant L'Oreal have brought a whole knew meaning to the slogan "because you're worth it" as they row over money and generous gifts to a jet-set photographer.
In the latest twist of the long-running family dispute, it emerged yesterday that Liliane Bettencourt, the 86-year-old principal L'Oreal shareholder and one of the world's richest women, had accepted being tested by a psychiatrist to prove that she has not lost her mind.
Bettencourt's daughter, Françoise, had brought a legal complaint over her mother's generous gifts to a Parisian society photographer and author, suggesting her elderly mother was weak, open to "abuse" and might not have the mental faculties to understand what she was doing.
Over a number of years, Bettencourt, a philanthropist who has a vast private art collection including works by Monet, Matisse and Miro, is said to have given gifts to the photographer, François-Marie Banier, 61, worth up to €1bn (£890m).
In an interview last year with the Journal du Dimanche, Bettencourt shot back that she had bequeathed almost all of her fortune to her daughter, who would inherit it after she died, but that she could spend her money as she wished. She said she had not been coerced into making any gifts. She said the legal case was "stupid", that she got on well with her friend Banier as he was "an artist" and "artists see things differently". She said her daughter was just "jealous". The mother and daughter relationship had broken down years ago. Bettencourt said her daughter should understand that she was a "free woman".
Until now Bettencourt has refused to submit to a psychiatrists' assessment demanded by the state prosecutor. But Le Figaro reported yesterday that she had chosen an independent psychiatrist to assess her and a report had been given to the prosecutor testifying that she was in a "perfect" state of mind. However, the prosecutor is now demanding an additional report by a panel of psychiatry experts, including one of his own choice.
In the latest twist of the long-running family dispute, it emerged yesterday that Liliane Bettencourt, the 86-year-old principal L'Oreal shareholder and one of the world's richest women, had accepted being tested by a psychiatrist to prove that she has not lost her mind.
Bettencourt's daughter, Françoise, had brought a legal complaint over her mother's generous gifts to a Parisian society photographer and author, suggesting her elderly mother was weak, open to "abuse" and might not have the mental faculties to understand what she was doing.
Over a number of years, Bettencourt, a philanthropist who has a vast private art collection including works by Monet, Matisse and Miro, is said to have given gifts to the photographer, François-Marie Banier, 61, worth up to €1bn (£890m).
In an interview last year with the Journal du Dimanche, Bettencourt shot back that she had bequeathed almost all of her fortune to her daughter, who would inherit it after she died, but that she could spend her money as she wished. She said she had not been coerced into making any gifts. She said the legal case was "stupid", that she got on well with her friend Banier as he was "an artist" and "artists see things differently". She said her daughter was just "jealous". The mother and daughter relationship had broken down years ago. Bettencourt said her daughter should understand that she was a "free woman".
Until now Bettencourt has refused to submit to a psychiatrists' assessment demanded by the state prosecutor. But Le Figaro reported yesterday that she had chosen an independent psychiatrist to assess her and a report had been given to the prosecutor testifying that she was in a "perfect" state of mind. However, the prosecutor is now demanding an additional report by a panel of psychiatry experts, including one of his own choice.
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