TV shows: Make Making Money

The
Federal Reserve is considering making it much harder for homeowners to
stop foreclosures and escape predatory home loans with onerous terms.

The Fed's proposal to amend a 42-year-old provision of the
federal Truth in Lending Act has angered labor, civil rights and
consumer advocacy groups along with a slew of foreclosure defense
attorneys, [who point out that] any future changes to the law [should
not be proposed by the Fed, but should instead] be handled by the new
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which begins its work next year.

***

"At the depths of the worst foreclosure
crisis since the Great Depression, we are surprised that the Fed has
proposed rules that would eviscerate the primary protection homeowners
currently have to escape abusive loans and avoid foreclosure: the
extended right of rescission."

he public comment period on the Fed's proposal is still open until Dec. 23 ....

***

Since
1968, the Truth in Lending Act has given homeowners the right to
cancel, or

rescind illegal loans for up to three years after the
transaction was completed if the buyer wasn't provided with proper
disclosures at the time of closing.

Attorneys at AARP have
used the rescission clause for decades to protect older homeowners
stuck in predatory loans with costly terms. The provision is also
helping struggling homeowners to fight a wave of foreclosure cases in
which faulty and sometimes-fraudulent disclosures were used.

The
violations must be of a material nature to invalidate a loan under the
extended-rescission clause. To do so, homeowners — usually those
facing financial problems or foreclosure — hire an attorney to scour
their mortgage documents for possible violations regarding the actual
cost of the loan or payment terms.

If problems are found, a
notice of rescission is sent to the creditor, which can either admit
to the alleged violation or contest it in court.

Creditors that end up rescinding a loan are then required to cancel their "security interest," or lien, on the property.

Once
that occurs, the homeowner must then pay the outstanding loan balance
back to the lender — minus the finance charges, fees and payments
already made.

Dropping the lien provides homeowners with a
defense against foreclosure and allows them to refinance to pay the
outstanding loan amount.

Critics say the proposed change
by the Fed would render the rescission clause useless. The Fed proposal
would require homeowners who seek a loan rescission through the
courts, to pay off the entire loan balance before the lender cancels
the lien.

"This, of course, would be almost impossible for
most consumers to do because they can't come up with the money until
they get out of the loan. And they can't get out of the loan until the
lien is released," said Barry Zigas, director of housing and credit
policy at the Consumer Federation of America. "None of us are quite
sure what purpose is being served by this proposal or what prompted
it."

It’s that magical time of the year when brand preferences are being lodged in the consumer psyche by any means necessary, be it free online shipping offers or conventional “doorbuster” style shopper stampedes. (Plus, in an admirable show of advance conditioning, there are those sidebar Four Loko-fueled parking lot brawls.)

But the romance of the brand is a notoriously ephemeral thing, as any casual survey of thrift-store Tickle-Me Elmo and Tamagotchi displays will promptly demonstrate. To do the job right, in this as in so many other realms, we would do well to heed the example of the Germans. As Bloomberg’s Chris Reiter reports, Deutschland’s Big Three automakers—BMW, Mercedes, and Audi (now a Volkswagen property)—have long been locked into a battle for the overtaxed attention spans of the youth market.

Back in February, Audi made a dramatic bid for high-end kiddie allegiance with a $13,300 model of a 1930s roadster, evidently calculating that a Weimar-era collectible is the perfect bridge to the true sturm-und-drang of a privileged adolescence. The model comes replete with “an aluminum frame, hydraulic brakes, seven speeds, leather-clad steering wheel, and oak dashboard,” and nearly sold out of its initial 500-unit manufacturing run, Reiter notes.

The idea behind such lush toy marketing, of course, is to instill intense brand-loyalty among the market’s littlest thought leaders. "Merchandising is important not because you can make huge money with it,” Audi sales chief Peter Schwarzenbauer tells Reiter, “but because it's another means of positioning your brand.” That means that Audi isn’t confining its initiatives to pint-sized drive trains, but is branching out to other durable badges of status, such as a $17,000-plus table soccer game—the idea here, evidently, being not so much to cultivate hooligan-style soccer fandom in the plutocratic young, but rather to inculcate the more genteel and respectable habit of full-scale team ownership.

It’s true that Audi isn’t neglecting more downmarket kiddie consumers in its push, with a $60 branded teddy bear and a $400 red-plastic version of the roadster; here, the functional array of model accessories include “an adjustable rollover bar, hand brake, over-sized tires with Audi-style rims, and padded seats.” But the main event is clearly the scrum for top-line market cachet, which is why Audi’s rivals are stepping up their game. Mercedes, for instance, is planning a spring rollout for “the foot-powered SLS Bobby-Benz, featuring headlights, grill, and rear end similar to those of the company's $183,000 SLS sportscar. The toy SLS features quiet-running tires, an Ackermann steering system with tight cornering for living-room maneuverability, and a steering wheel that absorbs impact to prevent injury in the event of a collision.” The model will boast a comparatively modest $120 asking price—but that loss-leader price point is a small sacrifice when you’re grooming future six-figure auto customers. "All the products have to live up to Mercedes' standards for quality and safety—especially our toys, which are all-time favorites with the next generation of Mercedes-Benz customers," reports Christian Boucke, who heads up the Benz accessories division.

BMW, meanwhile, appears to be the most horizontally minded lifestyle competitor in the luxe-branded market, brandishing a wide panoply of gear from a $460 kid-scale version of its M3 GT2 race car to a pair of $50 rain boots. The Beamer accessories division also turns a healthy 7 percentish profit—even though its brand-keepers, too, stress their real stake is in the longer-term loyalty game. “We are first and foremost a marketing initiative, and the main objectives are to broaden the brand's presence and strengthen loyalty," says Thomas Goerdt, who directs BMW’s distinctly un-German-sounding merchandising and lifestyle unit.

Still, the great risk of too-rampant accessory branding is market saturation—which is why Michel Gabriel, a branding specialist who has advised past Audi projectS, draws the line at underwear, even though “a lot of money can be made from a product” aimed at the intimate end of the brand market.

We can’t help thinking, though, that the Grosse Drei auto barons are selling short tomorrow’s financial titans with mere miniature knockoffs of luxury rides—and not just because their British competitor, Aston Martin, still owns the highest tip of the market with a Volante Junior model fetching a cool $24,000 with a devoted consumer base of young royals—who have duly gone on to modify their fullscale Astons to run on wine.

After all, the lesson of branding the world over is that a truly consummate brand eventually eclipses its mere material referent—hence the power of the glyphlike Nike swoosh (which only cost the firm $35 when design student Carolyn Davidson submitted in in 1971), or the “i”-themed Mac brand interface. Likewise, the business model for Mercedes has involved coaxing lavish multimillion-dollar subsidies from U.S. lawmakers at the same time it’s presented itself as an above-the-fray survivor of the 2008 global auto downturn.

Likewise, BMW has briskly seen to it that influential state congressional delegations have placed its own export interests ahead of the bailed-out U.S. auto industry—while Audi’s corporate parent Volkswagen has at least been candid in soliciting U.S. bailout funds, while also putting in for homeland funds to shore up its rickety loan operation. (Needless to say, this corporate pursuit of public-sector handouts doesn’t seem to have softened VW’s stand on American union drives, since like other foreign automakers, it’s expanded operations in anti-union right-to-work states to evade higher labor costs at home.) All of which is to say that, if doting plutocratic parents are looking to instill formative brand preferences this holiday season, nothing says “heed daddy’s example” like a simple, influence-subsidized government check. And Lord knows that for the properly connected family or industry, a good government kickback is about as hard to obtain as a pair BMW rain boots.

You, valued and valuable reader, are invited to join Chris Lehmann and your other fellow rich people to celebrate the publication of Rich People Things, this Thursday, December 2nd, at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City, from 7 to 9 p.m. There will even be a brief chit-chat with Thomas Frank and Maureen "Moe" Tkacik.

bench craft company rip off
Fox News Co-Host Bill Hemmer Is An Adrenaline Junkie
Former bungee jumper now gets his thrills the way many people do -- from Fox News Channel.
News Alert: Big Growth for Internet Ads Through 2014: Tech News «
eMarketer, a New York-based research firm estimates spending on US internet advertisements, will grow 13.9 percent to $25.8 billion for the full year. It expects a 10.5 percent increase in US online ad spending in 2011, ...
Hulu plans its own entertainment news show, but will anyone watch?
As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

bench craft company rip off
Fox News Co-Host Bill Hemmer Is An Adrenaline Junkie
Former bungee jumper now gets his thrills the way many people do -- from Fox News Channel.
News Alert: Big Growth for Internet Ads Through 2014: Tech News «
eMarketer, a New York-based research firm estimates spending on US internet advertisements, will grow 13.9 percent to $25.8 billion for the full year. It expects a 10.5 percent increase in US online ad spending in 2011, ...
Hulu plans its own entertainment news show, but will anyone watch?
As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

bench craft company rip off
Fox News Co-Host Bill Hemmer Is An Adrenaline Junkie
Former bungee jumper now gets his thrills the way many people do -- from Fox News Channel.
News Alert: Big Growth for Internet Ads Through 2014: Tech News «
eMarketer, a New York-based research firm estimates spending on US internet advertisements, will grow 13.9 percent to $25.8 billion for the full year. It expects a 10.5 percent increase in US online ad spending in 2011, ...
Hulu plans its own entertainment news show, but will anyone watch?
As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

bench craft company rip off
Fox Noticias Co-anfitrión Bill Hemmer es un puente adrenalina JunkieFormer bungee ahora consigue su emoción el camino mucha gente - de Fox News Channel.

 Noticias Alerta: gran crecimiento para los anuncios de Internet a través de 2014: Tecnología Noticias «eMarketer, una firma de investigación de Nueva York, estima el gasto en anuncios de Internet en EE.UU., crecerá 13,9 por ciento a 25,8 mil millones dólares para todo el año. Se espera un aumento del 10,5 por ciento en el gasto de EE.UU. de publicidad en línea en 2011, ...

Hulu sus planes de propio entretenimiento de noticias muestran, pero a nadie ver lo que Peter Kafka en informes MediaMemo, Hulu es actualmente el casting para un presentador de la serie que se publica todos los días, teniendo un "diario? enfoque satírico Show' al estilo de las últimas noticias de entretenimiento. Hulu (respaldado por EE.UU. gigantes de televisión NBC ...

bench craft company rip off
Fox News Co-Host Bill Hemmer Is An Adrenaline Junkie
Former bungee jumper now gets his thrills the way many people do -- from Fox News Channel.
News Alert: Big Growth for Internet Ads Through 2014: Tech News «
eMarketer, a New York-based research firm estimates spending on US internet advertisements, will grow 13.9 percent to $25.8 billion for the full year. It expects a 10.5 percent increase in US online ad spending in 2011, ...
Hulu plans its own entertainment news show, but will anyone watch?
As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

bench craft company rip off
The
Federal Reserve is considering making it much harder for homeowners to
stop foreclosures and escape predatory home loans with onerous terms.

The Fed's proposal to amend a 42-year-old provision of the
federal Truth in Lending Act has angered labor, civil rights and
consumer advocacy groups along with a slew of foreclosure defense
attorneys, [who point out that] any future changes to the law [should
not be proposed by the Fed, but should instead] be handled by the new
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which begins its work next year.

***

"At the depths of the worst foreclosure
crisis since the Great Depression, we are surprised that the Fed has
proposed rules that would eviscerate the primary protection homeowners
currently have to escape abusive loans and avoid foreclosure: the
extended right of rescission."

he public comment period on the Fed's proposal is still open until Dec. 23 ....

***

Since
1968, the Truth in Lending Act has given homeowners the right to
cancel, or
rescind illegal loans for up to three years after the
transaction was completed if the buyer wasn't provided with proper
disclosures at the time of closing.

Attorneys at AARP have
used the rescission clause for decades to protect older homeowners
stuck in predatory loans with costly terms. The provision is also
helping struggling homeowners to fight a wave of foreclosure cases in
which faulty and sometimes-fraudulent disclosures were used.

The
violations must be of a material nature to invalidate a loan under the
extended-rescission clause. To do so, homeowners — usually those
facing financial problems or foreclosure — hire an attorney to scour
their mortgage documents for possible violations regarding the actual
cost of the loan or payment terms.

If problems are found, a
notice of rescission is sent to the creditor, which can either admit
to the alleged violation or contest it in court.

Creditors that end up rescinding a loan are then required to cancel their "security interest," or lien, on the property.

Once
that occurs, the homeowner must then pay the outstanding loan balance
back to the lender — minus the finance charges, fees and payments
already made.

Dropping the lien provides homeowners with a
defense against foreclosure and allows them to refinance to pay the
outstanding loan amount.

Critics say the proposed change
by the Fed would render the rescission clause useless. The Fed proposal
would require homeowners who seek a loan rescission through the
courts, to pay off the entire loan balance before the lender cancels
the lien.

"This, of course, would be almost impossible for
most consumers to do because they can't come up with the money until
they get out of the loan. And they can't get out of the loan until the
lien is released," said Barry Zigas, director of housing and credit
policy at the Consumer Federation of America. "None of us are quite
sure what purpose is being served by this proposal or what prompted
it."

It’s that magical time of the year when brand preferences are being lodged in the consumer psyche by any means necessary, be it free online shipping offers or conventional “doorbuster” style shopper stampedes. (Plus, in an admirable show of advance conditioning, there are those sidebar Four Loko-fueled parking lot brawls.)

But the romance of the brand is a notoriously ephemeral thing, as any casual survey of thrift-store Tickle-Me Elmo and Tamagotchi displays will promptly demonstrate. To do the job right, in this as in so many other realms, we would do well to heed the example of the Germans. As Bloomberg’s Chris Reiter reports, Deutschland’s Big Three automakers—BMW, Mercedes, and Audi (now a Volkswagen property)—have long been locked into a battle for the overtaxed attention spans of the youth market.

Back in February, Audi made a dramatic bid for high-end kiddie allegiance with a $13,300 model of a 1930s roadster, evidently calculating that a Weimar-era collectible is the perfect bridge to the true sturm-und-drang of a privileged adolescence. The model comes replete with “an aluminum frame, hydraulic brakes, seven speeds, leather-clad steering wheel, and oak dashboard,” and nearly sold out of its initial 500-unit manufacturing run, Reiter notes.

The idea behind such lush toy marketing, of course, is to instill intense brand-loyalty among the market’s littlest thought leaders. "Merchandising is important not because you can make huge money with it,” Audi sales chief Peter Schwarzenbauer tells Reiter, “but because it's another means of positioning your brand.” That means that Audi isn’t confining its initiatives to pint-sized drive trains, but is branching out to other durable badges of status, such as a $17,000-plus table soccer game—the idea here, evidently, being not so much to cultivate hooligan-style soccer fandom in the plutocratic young, but rather to inculcate the more genteel and respectable habit of full-scale team ownership.

It’s true that Audi isn’t neglecting more downmarket kiddie consumers in its push, with a $60 branded teddy bear and a $400 red-plastic version of the roadster; here, the functional array of model accessories include “an adjustable rollover bar, hand brake, over-sized tires with Audi-style rims, and padded seats.” But the main event is clearly the scrum for top-line market cachet, which is why Audi’s rivals are stepping up their game. Mercedes, for instance, is planning a spring rollout for “the foot-powered SLS Bobby-Benz, featuring headlights, grill, and rear end similar to those of the company's $183,000 SLS sportscar. The toy SLS features quiet-running tires, an Ackermann steering system with tight cornering for living-room maneuverability, and a steering wheel that absorbs impact to prevent injury in the event of a collision.” The model will boast a comparatively modest $120 asking price—but that loss-leader price point is a small sacrifice when you’re grooming future six-figure auto customers. "All the products have to live up to Mercedes' standards for quality and safety—especially our toys, which are all-time favorites with the next generation of Mercedes-Benz customers," reports Christian Boucke, who heads up the Benz accessories division.

BMW, meanwhile, appears to be the most horizontally minded lifestyle competitor in the luxe-branded market, brandishing a wide panoply of gear from a $460 kid-scale version of its M3 GT2 race car to a pair of $50 rain boots. The Beamer accessories division also turns a healthy 7 percentish profit—even though its brand-keepers, too, stress their real stake is in the longer-term loyalty game. “We are first and foremost a marketing initiative, and the main objectives are to broaden the brand's presence and strengthen loyalty," says Thomas Goerdt, who directs BMW’s distinctly un-German-sounding merchandising and lifestyle unit.

Still, the great risk of too-rampant accessory branding is market saturation—which is why Michel Gabriel, a branding specialist who has advised past Audi projectS, draws the line at underwear, even though “a lot of money can be made from a product” aimed at the intimate end of the brand market.

We can’t help thinking, though, that the Grosse Drei auto barons are selling short tomorrow’s financial titans with mere miniature knockoffs of luxury rides—and not just because their British competitor, Aston Martin, still owns the highest tip of the market with a Volante Junior model fetching a cool $24,000 with a devoted consumer base of young royals—who have duly gone on to modify their fullscale Astons to run on wine.

After all, the lesson of branding the world over is that a truly consummate brand eventually eclipses its mere material referent—hence the power of the glyphlike Nike swoosh (which only cost the firm $35 when design student Carolyn Davidson submitted in in 1971), or the “i”-themed Mac brand interface. Likewise, the business model for Mercedes has involved coaxing lavish multimillion-dollar subsidies from U.S. lawmakers at the same time it’s presented itself as an above-the-fray survivor of the 2008 global auto downturn.

Likewise, BMW has briskly seen to it that influential state congressional delegations have placed its own export interests ahead of the bailed-out U.S. auto industry—while Audi’s corporate parent Volkswagen has at least been candid in soliciting U.S. bailout funds, while also putting in for homeland funds to shore up its rickety loan operation. (Needless to say, this corporate pursuit of public-sector handouts doesn’t seem to have softened VW’s stand on American union drives, since like other foreign automakers, it’s expanded operations in anti-union right-to-work states to evade higher labor costs at home.) All of which is to say that, if doting plutocratic parents are looking to instill formative brand preferences this holiday season, nothing says “heed daddy’s example” like a simple, influence-subsidized government check. And Lord knows that for the properly connected family or industry, a good government kickback is about as hard to obtain as a pair BMW rain boots.

You, valued and valuable reader, are invited to join Chris Lehmann and your other fellow rich people to celebrate the publication of Rich People Things, this Thursday, December 2nd, at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City, from 7 to 9 p.m. There will even be a brief chit-chat with Thomas Frank and Maureen "Moe" Tkacik.

bench craft company rip off
Fox News Co-Host Bill Hemmer Is An Adrenaline Junkie
Former bungee jumper now gets his thrills the way many people do -- from Fox News Channel.
News Alert: Big Growth for Internet Ads Through 2014: Tech News «
eMarketer, a New York-based research firm estimates spending on US internet advertisements, will grow 13.9 percent to $25.8 billion for the full year. It expects a 10.5 percent increase in US online ad spending in 2011, ...
Hulu plans its own entertainment news show, but will anyone watch?
As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

bench craft company rip off
Fox News Co-Host Bill Hemmer Is An Adrenaline Junkie
Former bungee jumper now gets his thrills the way many people do -- from Fox News Channel.
News Alert: Big Growth for Internet Ads Through 2014: Tech News «
eMarketer, a New York-based research firm estimates spending on US internet advertisements, will grow 13.9 percent to $25.8 billion for the full year. It expects a 10.5 percent increase in US online ad spending in 2011, ...
Hulu plans its own entertainment news show, but will anyone watch?
As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

bench craft company rip off
Fox News Co-Host Bill Hemmer Is An Adrenaline Junkie
Former bungee jumper now gets his thrills the way many people do -- from Fox News Channel.
News Alert: Big Growth for Internet Ads Through 2014: Tech News «
eMarketer, a New York-based research firm estimates spending on US internet advertisements, will grow 13.9 percent to $25.8 billion for the full year. It expects a 10.5 percent increase in US online ad spending in 2011, ...
Hulu plans its own entertainment news show, but will anyone watch?
As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

bench craft company rip off
Fox News Co-Host Bill Hemmer Is An Adrenaline Junkie
Former bungee jumper now gets his thrills the way many people do -- from Fox News Channel.
News Alert: Big Growth for Internet Ads Through 2014: Tech News «
eMarketer, a New York-based research firm estimates spending on US internet advertisements, will grow 13.9 percent to $25.8 billion for the full year. It expects a 10.5 percent increase in US online ad spending in 2011, ...
Hulu plans its own entertainment news show, but will anyone watch?
As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

bench craft company rip off
Fox News Co-Host Bill Hemmer Is An Adrenaline Junkie
Former bungee jumper now gets his thrills the way many people do -- from Fox News Channel.
News Alert: Big Growth for Internet Ads Through 2014: Tech News «
eMarketer, a New York-based research firm estimates spending on US internet advertisements, will grow 13.9 percent to $25.8 billion for the full year. It expects a 10.5 percent increase in US online ad spending in 2011, ...
Hulu plans its own entertainment news show, but will anyone watch?
As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

bench craft company rip off
Fox News Co-Host Bill Hemmer Is An Adrenaline Junkie
Former bungee jumper now gets his thrills the way many people do -- from Fox News Channel.
News Alert: Big Growth for Internet Ads Through 2014: Tech News «
eMarketer, a New York-based research firm estimates spending on US internet advertisements, will grow 13.9 percent to $25.8 billion for the full year. It expects a 10.5 percent increase in US online ad spending in 2011, ...
Hulu plans its own entertainment news show, but will anyone watch?
As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

bench craft company rip off
The
Federal Reserve is considering making it much harder for homeowners to
stop foreclosures and escape predatory home loans with onerous terms.

The Fed's proposal to amend a 42-year-old provision of the
federal Truth in Lending Act has angered labor, civil rights and
consumer advocacy groups along with a slew of foreclosure defense
attorneys, [who point out that] any future changes to the law [should
not be proposed by the Fed, but should instead] be handled by the new
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which begins its work next year.

***

"At the depths of the worst foreclosure
crisis since the Great Depression, we are surprised that the Fed has
proposed rules that would eviscerate the primary protection homeowners
currently have to escape abusive loans and avoid foreclosure: the
extended right of rescission."

he public comment period on the Fed's proposal is still open until Dec. 23 ....

***

Since
1968, the Truth in Lending Act has given homeowners the right to
cancel, or
rescind illegal loans for up to three years after the
transaction was completed if the buyer wasn't provided with proper
disclosures at the time of closing.

Attorneys at AARP have
used the rescission clause for decades to protect older homeowners
stuck in predatory loans with costly terms. The provision is also
helping struggling homeowners to fight a wave of foreclosure cases in
which faulty and sometimes-fraudulent disclosures were used.

The
violations must be of a material nature to invalidate a loan under the
extended-rescission clause. To do so, homeowners — usually those
facing financial problems or foreclosure — hire an attorney to scour
their mortgage documents for possible violations regarding the actual
cost of the loan or payment terms.

If problems are found, a
notice of rescission is sent to the creditor, which can either admit
to the alleged violation or contest it in court.

Creditors that end up rescinding a loan are then required to cancel their "security interest," or lien, on the property.

Once
that occurs, the homeowner must then pay the outstanding loan balance
back to the lender — minus the finance charges, fees and payments
already made.

Dropping the lien provides homeowners with a
defense against foreclosure and allows them to refinance to pay the
outstanding loan amount.

Critics say the proposed change
by the Fed would render the rescission clause useless. The Fed proposal
would require homeowners who seek a loan rescission through the
courts, to pay off the entire loan balance before the lender cancels
the lien.

"This, of course, would be almost impossible for
most consumers to do because they can't come up with the money until
they get out of the loan. And they can't get out of the loan until the
lien is released," said Barry Zigas, director of housing and credit
policy at the Consumer Federation of America. "None of us are quite
sure what purpose is being served by this proposal or what prompted
it."

It’s that magical time of the year when brand preferences are being lodged in the consumer psyche by any means necessary, be it free online shipping offers or conventional “doorbuster” style shopper stampedes. (Plus, in an admirable show of advance conditioning, there are those sidebar Four Loko-fueled parking lot brawls.)

But the romance of the brand is a notoriously ephemeral thing, as any casual survey of thrift-store Tickle-Me Elmo and Tamagotchi displays will promptly demonstrate. To do the job right, in this as in so many other realms, we would do well to heed the example of the Germans. As Bloomberg’s Chris Reiter reports, Deutschland’s Big Three automakers—BMW, Mercedes, and Audi (now a Volkswagen property)—have long been locked into a battle for the overtaxed attention spans of the youth market.

Back in February, Audi made a dramatic bid for high-end kiddie allegiance with a $13,300 model of a 1930s roadster, evidently calculating that a Weimar-era collectible is the perfect bridge to the true sturm-und-drang of a privileged adolescence. The model comes replete with “an aluminum frame, hydraulic brakes, seven speeds, leather-clad steering wheel, and oak dashboard,” and nearly sold out of its initial 500-unit manufacturing run, Reiter notes.

The idea behind such lush toy marketing, of course, is to instill intense brand-loyalty among the market’s littlest thought leaders. "Merchandising is important not because you can make huge money with it,” Audi sales chief Peter Schwarzenbauer tells Reiter, “but because it's another means of positioning your brand.” That means that Audi isn’t confining its initiatives to pint-sized drive trains, but is branching out to other durable badges of status, such as a $17,000-plus table soccer game—the idea here, evidently, being not so much to cultivate hooligan-style soccer fandom in the plutocratic young, but rather to inculcate the more genteel and respectable habit of full-scale team ownership.

It’s true that Audi isn’t neglecting more downmarket kiddie consumers in its push, with a $60 branded teddy bear and a $400 red-plastic version of the roadster; here, the functional array of model accessories include “an adjustable rollover bar, hand brake, over-sized tires with Audi-style rims, and padded seats.” But the main event is clearly the scrum for top-line market cachet, which is why Audi’s rivals are stepping up their game. Mercedes, for instance, is planning a spring rollout for “the foot-powered SLS Bobby-Benz, featuring headlights, grill, and rear end similar to those of the company's $183,000 SLS sportscar. The toy SLS features quiet-running tires, an Ackermann steering system with tight cornering for living-room maneuverability, and a steering wheel that absorbs impact to prevent injury in the event of a collision.” The model will boast a comparatively modest $120 asking price—but that loss-leader price point is a small sacrifice when you’re grooming future six-figure auto customers. "All the products have to live up to Mercedes' standards for quality and safety—especially our toys, which are all-time favorites with the next generation of Mercedes-Benz customers," reports Christian Boucke, who heads up the Benz accessories division.

BMW, meanwhile, appears to be the most horizontally minded lifestyle competitor in the luxe-branded market, brandishing a wide panoply of gear from a $460 kid-scale version of its M3 GT2 race car to a pair of $50 rain boots. The Beamer accessories division also turns a healthy 7 percentish profit—even though its brand-keepers, too, stress their real stake is in the longer-term loyalty game. “We are first and foremost a marketing initiative, and the main objectives are to broaden the brand's presence and strengthen loyalty," says Thomas Goerdt, who directs BMW’s distinctly un-German-sounding merchandising and lifestyle unit.

Still, the great risk of too-rampant accessory branding is market saturation—which is why Michel Gabriel, a branding specialist who has advised past Audi projectS, draws the line at underwear, even though “a lot of money can be made from a product” aimed at the intimate end of the brand market.

We can’t help thinking, though, that the Grosse Drei auto barons are selling short tomorrow’s financial titans with mere miniature knockoffs of luxury rides—and not just because their British competitor, Aston Martin, still owns the highest tip of the market with a Volante Junior model fetching a cool $24,000 with a devoted consumer base of young royals—who have duly gone on to modify their fullscale Astons to run on wine.

After all, the lesson of branding the world over is that a truly consummate brand eventually eclipses its mere material referent—hence the power of the glyphlike Nike swoosh (which only cost the firm $35 when design student Carolyn Davidson submitted in in 1971), or the “i”-themed Mac brand interface. Likewise, the business model for Mercedes has involved coaxing lavish multimillion-dollar subsidies from U.S. lawmakers at the same time it’s presented itself as an above-the-fray survivor of the 2008 global auto downturn.

Likewise, BMW has briskly seen to it that influential state congressional delegations have placed its own export interests ahead of the bailed-out U.S. auto industry—while Audi’s corporate parent Volkswagen has at least been candid in soliciting U.S. bailout funds, while also putting in for homeland funds to shore up its rickety loan operation. (Needless to say, this corporate pursuit of public-sector handouts doesn’t seem to have softened VW’s stand on American union drives, since like other foreign automakers, it’s expanded operations in anti-union right-to-work states to evade higher labor costs at home.) All of which is to say that, if doting plutocratic parents are looking to instill formative brand preferences this holiday season, nothing says “heed daddy’s example” like a simple, influence-subsidized government check. And Lord knows that for the properly connected family or industry, a good government kickback is about as hard to obtain as a pair BMW rain boots.

You, valued and valuable reader, are invited to join Chris Lehmann and your other fellow rich people to celebrate the publication of Rich People Things, this Thursday, December 2nd, at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City, from 7 to 9 p.m. There will even be a brief chit-chat with Thomas Frank and Maureen "Moe" Tkacik.

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eMarketer, a New York-based research firm estimates spending on US internet advertisements, will grow 13.9 percent to $25.8 billion for the full year. It expects a 10.5 percent increase in US online ad spending in 2011, ...
Hulu plans its own entertainment news show, but will anyone watch?
As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

bench craft company rip off
Fox News Co-Host Bill Hemmer Is An Adrenaline Junkie
Former bungee jumper now gets his thrills the way many people do -- from Fox News Channel.
News Alert: Big Growth for Internet Ads Through 2014: Tech News «
eMarketer, a New York-based research firm estimates spending on US internet advertisements, will grow 13.9 percent to $25.8 billion for the full year. It expects a 10.5 percent increase in US online ad spending in 2011, ...
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bench craft company rip off
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Former bungee jumper now gets his thrills the way many people do -- from Fox News Channel.
News Alert: Big Growth for Internet Ads Through 2014: Tech News «
eMarketer, a New York-based research firm estimates spending on US internet advertisements, will grow 13.9 percent to $25.8 billion for the full year. It expects a 10.5 percent increase in US online ad spending in 2011, ...
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As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Monday, December 6, 2010

Make Making Money

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