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Memories of “The Bronx” and some from Brooklyn – from a Fraternity Brother -enjoy

May 14, 2012 by Steven R. Gerbsman

THE BRONX THAT I REMEMBER  http://bronxwebpictures.homestead.com/The-Bronx-I-Remember.html

1. The subway and bus were only a thin dime to ride.
2. Schools were the showcase for the whole country.
3. There were no drugs (almost none).
4. There was very little pornography.
5. There were no divorces, few one parent families, and ‘out-of-wedlock’ events were kept quiet.
6. There was respect for teachers and older people in general.
7. There was almost no violence.
8. The theme of the music of the times, even when it became rock and roll, was love not anger.
9. People made a living and, rich or poor, all knew how to have a good time no matter their status.
10. A great day was going to Orchard Beach, Tibbett’s Brook or City Island .
11. Hanging out on Fordham Rd., Pelham Pkwy, Allerton Ave., Mosholu Parkway or Claremont Park.
12. There was Shorehaven and Freedomland, for awhile anyway. And Cascades Pool on Jerome Avenue .
13. There was no better hot dog than at Gormans on Fordham and Valentine Ave. Or at any local Jewish deli too.
14. The games: King/Queen, curb & stoop ball, stickball and punchball played with ‘Spaldings’ and Pennsy Pinkies.
15. The fruit man, the tool sharpener “knives and scissors!”, the junk man “I cash clothes!”, the Knish man, hot jellied marshmallow man, Bungalow Bar, Good Humor, and the fruit man with his horse and wagon.
16. Only place for pizza was Arthur Ave, and every neighborhood had the best egg creams. But if you were lucky, you went to Krum’s, or the Wedge Inn.
17. There were many local theaters, where every Saturday afternoon you could see many cartoons, a newsreel and a double-feature film show for 15-20 cents! Later, 25 cents! And don’t forget the Lowe’s Paradise, Valentine, RKO Fordham, Globe, Devon, Ascot, Lido , Pelham, Allerton and many, many more!
18. City Island had the best seafood restaurants and fishing all the time.
19. Big eating and coffee hangouts: TeePee diner, Baychester Diner, Chock Full O’ Nuts, the 167th St. & 161st St. Cafeterias, the Red Apple Rest, the Adventurer’s Inn with foot long franks for a quarter (with as much mustard and sauerkraut as you could pile on), Carrol’s and many, many more!!
20. Everybody knew all of the high schools in The Bronx .
21. Fordham Road stores all had their own ornate glitz as far as style goes. And so did those on 170th St , 161st, 167th Streets, Tremont, Burnside, the Grand Concourse and all of the rest!!
22. There were many delicatessens in the 50’s, but very few today. The best? Everyone had their own!! Mine were: The Walton Deli, 170th Street, Beletz Bros. on Tremont, Epstein’s on Jerome and Gun Hill and Schweller’s on Jerome and Mosholu. Their food was from Heaven!
23. Tuxedo and Zaro’s were the great bakeries…I loved the chocolate butter cream with the almonds on the side. And the Black and Whites, Charlotte Russes!!?? Did you forget about Butterflake, Snow Flake, The Garden, Winters, and ALL of the other LOCAL BAKERIES!!? Where are they all now??
24. There were no fast food restaurants in the 50’s and a hamburger tasted like a hamburger. Sorry, forgot White Castle (13 cents each!), Caroll’s in Yonkers , and Wetsons.
25. There were the dances at the Bronxhouse and Mosholu Center, Mt. Eden Jewish Center, Concourse Y, Poe Park on Wednesday evenings Wintergarden and the Concourse Plaza .
26. Big night clubs in The Bronx were Dominicos, Jokers Wild and the Tender Trap; and a couple of dumps on Jerome Avenue, where you could listen to “blue” singer Belle Barth (“A Trip Around the World is Not a Cruise”).
27. How could anyone forget all the poolhalls: Penquin Lounge, Cue Lounge, Nat’s on Burnside and so many more on Allerton and Lydig Aves. and all the major streets in your neighborhood!!
28. Knishes were great at B & G’s on Allerton or at Schweller’s on Jerome and Mosholu. Or at ANY corner deli you went into, anywhere, at any time!!
29. People in The Bronx took pride in owning a Chevy in the 50’s; there was nothing better than General Motors then. The cars would run and run and run, no problems. Well, perhaps a few!! Don’t forget Ford, Chrysler, Plymouth , Buick, Hudson, Nash, Studebaker and those other guys, like the Edsel!!
30. You bought sour pickles right out of the barrel for a nickel, and they were delicious. By the 1960’s they cost a whole quarter. Anyone remember Moishe’s, or Jack’s Appetizing, on Allerton, 170th, and Jerome Ave. & Mosholu!
31. The New York Yankees of course, were and still are, considered the best in baseball. And remember the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field?
32. You come from the Bronx but don’t realize you have an “accent.”
33. You played a lot of games as kids. Depending on whether you were a boy or a girl, you could play: Ringoleveo, Johnny on the Pony, Hide and Seek, Red light, Green light, Simon Sez, kick the can, war, hit the penny, jump rope, double-dutch, A-My Name Is, box ball, box baseball, dodge ball, catch a fly, cans up, running bases, iron tag, skelly, tops, hand ball, stoop ball, slap ball, whiffle ball, relay races, softball, baseball, punchball, stick ball, basketball, horse, around the world, foul shooting, knockout, arm wrestling, Indian wrestling fire escape basketball. And then there were card games like canasta, casino, hearts, pinochle, war and the unhappy game of 52-card pickup.
34. You hung out on people’s stoops, or at the different parks and parkways, the local pizza parlor, hamburger joint (Express), your own courtyard, etc.
35. You learned how to dance at some girl’s backyard or house.
36. You roller skated at Fordham skating rink in skates with wooden wheels. You had rollerskates at home with metal wheels for use on the sidewalks, and you needed a skate key to tighten them around your shoes. Those metal wheels on concrete were deafening!
37. The big sneaker brands were PF Flyers, U.S. Keds and Converse.
38. The guys wore Chino pants with a little strap & buckle in the rear, and the girls wore long wide dresses. Remember gray wool skirts with pink felt poodles on them? The poodles had rhinestone eyes. And men’s & guy’s 3-button collars had that third button there in the back!
39. In the 50’s rock and roll started big teen styles for the first time.
40. Everyone went to a Bar Mitzvah even if you weren’t Jewish.
41. Everyone took their date to Orchard Beach for swimming or the submarine races, or the NYU Bronx Campus overlooking the river.
42. There were 3 main nationalities in The Bronx in the 50’s: Italians, Irish and Jews. Then there was a sprinkling of everyone else.
43. It was the only borough that wasn’t an island and everything was downtown, even Manhattan .
44. In The Bronx, a fire hydrant is a “johnny pump.”
45. Rides on a truck came to your neighborhood to give little kids a ride for a dime. The best one was “The Whip,” which spun you around a track. You got a little prize when you got off, sometimes a folding paper fan, sometimes a straw tube that you inserted two fingers into, that tightened as you tried to pull your fingers out again (Chinese Handcuffs).
46. As a kid, you hit people with water balloons from atop a building, you shot linoleum projectiles from a carpet gun, you shot dried peas from pea shooters, and you shot paperclips at people with a rubberband. Today, you’d probably get arrested for that on weapons possession.
47. You shopped at EJ Korvettes, Robert Hall, Woolworth’s, Alexander’s, A&S. Barney’s was Barney’s Boys Town back then, and not a luxury store. You bought your shoes at National, Miles, A S Beck, Thom McAn, Florsheim, London , Coward, Chandlers who had beautiful matching handbags. And how about Lafayette Electronics and Johns Bargain Stores??
49. Everybody lived near, and shopped at, a local candy store and a local grocery store. They added up your bill on a brown paper bag, with a pencil, or put it down in a book, to be paid later.
50. No malls here, only the local places. Who needed malls with all that we had.
51. Bagel stores start popping up everywhere in the 60’s.
52. Went to Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlor with a big group and had the Kitchen Sink. If it was your birthday (you had to bring your birth certificate), you could get a sundae free. Don’t forget Krums.
53. Everybody knew of somebody who was a “connected guy.”
54. We used the word “swell” that is passe today.
55. In the summer, we all waited for the Good Humor, Bungalow Bar, Mister Softee or Freezer Fresh man to come into our neighborhood to buy ice cream. In the early to mid 50’s, the Good Humor man pushed a cart instead of driving a truck. Remember the bells? A pop was 10-15 cents. A large cup was 15 cents, a small cup was a dime. And a sundae — remember licking the chocolate off the back of the cardboard top? — was a quarter.
56. Many of us would sneak cigarettes and hide them when we got home.
57. When we talked about “the city” we meant Manhattan .
58. The Mets in the 60’s became our substitute for the Dodgers and Giants if you were a National League person.
59. In the 60’s we were ready to drive and hit the night life scene. With the car came the girls.
60. We are all in a select club because we have roots in The Bronx

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Waving the White Flag- by John Mauldin – a must read

May 12, 2012 by Steven R. Gerbsman

Waving the White Flag

By

May 12, 2012

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

– Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

For quite some time in this letter I have been making the case that for the eurozone to survive, the European Central Bank would have to print more money than any of us can now imagine. That the sentiment among European leaders was that they were prepared for such a move was clear – except for Germany, which is haunted by fears of a return to the days of the Weimar Republic and hyperinflation.

When Germany agreed to a fixed monetary union and a European Central Bank, it was with the clear understanding that it would be run along the lines of the German central bank, the Bundesbank. The members of the Bundesbank and the German members of the ECB were most outspoken about the need for a conservative monetary policy that would keep a clamp on inflation.

However, as I have previously noted, the Bundesbank was a toothless tiger. Germany has two votes out of 23 on the ECB, and the loud drumbeat from most of Europe, which is experiencing the difficulty of austerity accompanied by too much debt, is for a far more accommodating ECB.

The simple fact is that Mario Draghi, the Italian president of the ECB, created €1 trillion euros to help fund European banks, which promptly turned around and bought their respective countrys’ sovereign debt. Germany’s Angela Merkel forced the Bundesbank to “play nice” and go along with what was seen as the only way to solve a growing banking crisis in Europe. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that this at least bought a year during which things could be sorted out. But it turns out that a trillion euros just doesn’t go as far as it used to. The “relief” lasted about a month. The last few weeks have presented yet another budding crisis, as least as large as the last one. Where to get the next trillion?

This week the German Bundesbank waved the white flag. The die is cast. For good or ill, Europe has embarked on a program that will require multiple trillions of euros of freshly minted money in order to maintain the eurozone. But the alternative, European leaders agree, is even worse. Today we will look at the recent German shift in policy, why it was so predictable, and what it means. This is a Ponzi scheme that makes Madoff look like a small-time street hustler. There is a lot to cover.

At the end of the letter I will mention a few upcoming speaking engagements, in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and a webinar I will be doing next week. Now let’s jump over to Europe.

Waving the White Flag

It is the world’s worst-kept secret: Germany does not want inflation but wants to abandon the European Union even less. And as we will see, the eurozone simply does not have enough money to keep itself together without massive ECB intervention.

“Cry havoc,” wrote Shakespeare in Julius Caesar, “and let slip the dogs of war.” The military order “Havoc!” was a signal given to the English military forces in the Middle Ages to direct the soldiery (in… – go to link below

http://www.johnmauldin.com/frontlinethoughts/waving-the-white-flag

Posted in Economy, International Finance, John Mauldin | Leave a Comment »

Student Loan Entrance Counseling is a Joke -by Eric Bell Founder YoBucko.com

May 11, 2012 by Steven R. Gerbsman

YoBucko

Student Loan Entrance Counseling is a Joke

Posted by

 

How am I Going to Repay Student Loans?To humor myself, I just spent the last five minutes retaking the student loan entrance counseling quiz that I had to take prior to taking out approximately $120,000 in student loans. By my calculations, it is the most worthless, mind-numbing experience of my academic career and financial life. Anyone who has ever been through it may agree – student loan entrance counseling is a joke.

Student Loan Entrance Counseling: Built and Designed for Morons

In order to take out federal student loans, students are required, by law, to complete entrance and exit loan counseling. When you think of counseling, you typically think of sitting in a room with a person discussing the challenges you face. Well, let me tell you, student loan entrance counseling takes a totally different approach that would be an embarrassment to anyone in the history of the counseling field. Here is what it takes to get an enormous amount of debt:

  1. Click through the instructions and pick your school
  2. Read sixteen web pages of text
  3. At the end of each page, answer one or two questions (the answers are above the questions)
  4. Get the questions right or wrong (it doesn’t matter whether you learn anything or not)
  5. Confirm that you have read the Borrower’s Rights and Responsibilities Statement
  6. Click Submit

And you’re done! Oh yeah, if you need a little help, here is the answer key:

  • For every True/False question, the answer is TRUE.
  • For every multiple choice questions, the answer is ALL OF THE ABOVE

That’s it! You are now eligible to take out an enormous amount of debt, mortgage your future and take your spot in line for a lifelong struggle with debt. Enjoy!

Bureaucrats Pretending to Be Lenders

If you taught driver’s education and one of your students never went to class, failed the written exam, got into three wrecks, hit ten children, and got a DUI during the driving test, would you give them a driver’s license? I doubt it. When it comes to taking out student loans, there isn’t much quality control. You could be drunk, dumb and dying and still find it within yourself to pass through the student loan entrance counseling process. It is pathetic.

Student loan entrance counseling is a prime example of the ineptitude of government to manage the country’s financial affairs responsibly. Rather than educating people about student loans and offering access to legitimate financial counseling services, the powers that be prefer to create a ridiculous, online alternative that any nincompoop can pass. With student loan debt surpassing the $1 trillion mark, you would think the government would be less interested making it easy for people to get more loans and more interested in educating, equipping and empowering people to become better borrowers.

Back in my days in banking, we had criteria by which we made lending decisions. Our credit decisions were all based on the 5 C’s:

  • Character
  • Capacity
  • Capital
  • Collateral
  • Conditions

After completing the student loan entrance counseling process, I’m pretty sure none of those factors are considered. It seems to me that all you need to get a student loan and pass the student loan entrance counseling quiz was what I call the four P’s. You need a:

  • Pulse
  • Promise
  • PC
  • PIN Number

What is the Solution?

As the presidential candidates, Congress and the press debate over the student loan issue, there seems to be more people harping on the problems and very few offering viable solutions. If they are truly serious about fixing our student loan system, reducing the nation’s exposure to student loans and improving the financial futures of the next generation, there are a few key areas where they may want to focus:

  • Lowering Default Rates – Perhaps measures need to be put into place to ensure that students have at least a couple of the 5 C’s before writing them a blank check to pay for college. Rather than demonizing everyone who has worked in financial services, now may be a good time for our country’s leaders to learn a few lending lessons from the people who have done it for hundreds of years.
  • Educating Prospective Borrowers – Creating a system comparable to the driver’s education system in the United States may be a bit overboard. But directing resources toward financial education programs on college campuses may be a great way to improve financial literacy in America while lowering default rates.
  • Supporting Current Borrowers – The infrastructure to support the millions of student loan borrowers does not exist. There are informal support networks, credit counseling agencies and financial education programs out there to help people with student loan debt. Perhaps now may be a good time to invest in building out our country’s financial education and counseling infrastructure so we can get back the $1 trillion we loaned out to students.
  • Incentivizing Good Behavior – Remember when your parents used to give you $5 for A’s on your report card? Perhaps lawmakers should consider a similar approach to student loan entrance and exit loan counseling. If you score well, perhaps you get an interest rate reduction or some other incentive. They have similar incentives for setting up direct deposit. Why not give people an incentive to learn about the loans they take out as well?
  • Making Education Affordable – The cost of higher education has more than doubled the rate of inflation over the last 10 years. What incentive do schools have to lower costs if the Department of Education is willing to give students unlimited access to loans? Higher education is becoming a luxury in America, and it is high time to focus on fixing the problem.
  • Offering Competitive Interest Rates – It is cheaper for me to get a mortgage to buy a home than to take out student loans and go to school. What type of message does that send to the public regarding the value lawmakers place on education?

The Bottom Line

Our nation is facing a ton of financial challenges right now, not the least of which is its overexposure to student loans. Today, total student loan debt outstanding is greater than all credit card debt and car loans combined. That’s enormous. So rather than redirecting the conversation away from the real problems with student loan debt for political purposes, I challenge our country’s law makers to stand up and take action to solve this growing problem in America. Now is the time to quit your bickering, grow up and tackle this issue not as Republicans and Democrats, but as Americans. Our country’s future and the financial futures of millions of Americans depend on it.

  • YoBucko, YoBucko is a personal finance website that helps young people learn how to save, pay off debt and invest for the future. We offer free access to a wealth of information and tools to help people make smarter financial decisions.

Posted in Financial Literacy, YoBucko | Leave a Comment »

A Circle of Tech: Collect Payout, Do a Start-Up

May 11, 2012 by Steven R. Gerbsman

Article from NYTimes.

MENLO PARK, Calif. — Matt Cohler was employee No. 7 at Facebook. Adam D’Angelo joined his high school friend Mark Zuckerberg’s quirky little start-up in 2004 — and became its chief technology officer. Ruchi Sanghvi was the first woman on its engineering team.

All have left Facebook. None are retiring. With lucrative shares and a web of valuable industry contacts, they have left to either create their own companies, or bankroll their friends.

With Facebook’s public offering in mid-May, more will probably join their ranks in what could be one of Facebook’s lasting legacies — a new generation of tech tycoons looking to create or invest in, well, the next Facebook.

“The history of Silicon Valley has always been one generation of companies gives birth to great companies that follow,” said Mr. Cohler, who, at 35, is now a partner at Benchmark Capital, and an investor in several start-ups created by his old friends from Facebook. “People who learned at one set of companies often go on to start new companies on their own.”

“The very best companies, like Facebook,” he continued, “end up being places where people who come there really learn to build things.”

This is the story line of Silicon Valley, from Apple to Netscape to PayPal and now, to Facebook. Every public offering creates a new circle of tech magnates with money to invest. This one, though, with a jaw-dropping $100 billion valuation, will create a far richer fraternity.

Its members will be, by and large, young men, mostly white and Asian who, if nothing else, understand the value of social networks. And they have the money. Some early executives at Facebook have already sold their shares on the private market and have millions of dollars at their disposal.

Mr. Cohler, for example, is at the center of a complex web of business and social connections stemming from Facebook.

In 2002, barely two years out of Yale, he was at a party where he met Reid Hoffman, a former PayPal executive who was part of a slightly older social circle. The two men “hit it off,” as Mr. Cohler recalled on the online question-and-answer platform, Quora (which was co-founded by Mr. D’Angelo). He became Mr. Hoffman’s protégé, assisting him with his entrepreneurial investments, and following him to his new start-up, LinkedIn.

Then, Mr. Cohler joined a company that Mr. Hoffman and several other ex-PayPal executives were backing: Facebook.

Mr. Cohler stayed at Facebook from 2005 to 2008, as it went from being a college site to a mainstream social network. One of his responsibilities was to recruit the best talent he could find, including from other companies.

Mr. Cohler left the company to retool himself into a venture capitalist. He has since been valuable to his old friends from Facebook.

Through his venture firm, Mr. Cohler has raised money for several companies founded by Facebook alumni, including Quora, created in 2010 by Mr. D’Angelo and another early Facebook engineer, Charlie Cheever. Other companies include Asana, which provides software for work management and was created in 2009 by Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook co-founder; and Peixe Urbano, a Brazilian commerce Web site conceived by Julio Vasconcellos, who managed Facebook’s Brazil office in São Paulo.

Mr. Cohler has put his own money into Path, a photo-sharing application formed in 2010 by yet another former Facebook colleague, Dave Morin. Path is also bankrolled by one of Facebook’s venture backers: Greylock Partners, where Mr. Hoffman is a partner.

And he has invested in Instagram, which was scooped up by Facebook itself for a spectacular $1 billion. “Thrilled to see two companies near and dear to my heart joining forces!” Mr. Cohler posted on Twitter after the acquisition.

Instagram clearly was a good bet; it is impossible to say whether any of the other investments Mr. Cohler or other Facebookers are making will catch fire or whether the start-ups they found will last. Certainly, there is so much money in the Valley today that start-ups have room to grow without even a notion of turning a profit.

Ms. Sanghvi, one of the company’s first 20 employees, married a fellow Facebook engineer, Aditya Agarwal. Mr. Zuckerberg attended their wedding in Goa, India.

Read the rest of this article here.

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Economy, Entrepreneurship, Gerbsman Partners, Intellectual capital, internet, Investments, IPO news, Market research, Social Networks, Startups, Strategy, Technology, Venture Capital | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Startups Party at the Patent Office

May 10, 2012 by Steven R. Gerbsman

Bloomberg Businessweek Technology

Startups Party at the Patent OfficePhotograph by Image Source/Getty Images

Startups Party at the Patent Office

By on May 03, 2012

Software startups have traditionally avoided patenting their innovations, viewing it as an unneeded expense that can eat up $15,000 or so. “We thought about it, because there’s definitely some patentable stuff,” says Brett Martin, the chief executive officer of New York’s Sonar, which makes an app that helps people connect with strangers. “But we’re busy trying to build a business.”

Yet many who aspire to build the next Facebook are learning from the mistakes of their guru, Mark Zuckerberg. His company was unprepared for the battle that erupted when Yahoo! (YHOO) sued in March for infringing 10 patents. Soon after, Facebook purchased 750 patents from IBM (IBM) and spent an additional half-billion dollars on part of the AOL (AOL) patent portfolio recently bought by Microsoft (MSFT). Meanwhile, Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), Oracle (ORCL), and other tech giants are locked in patent lawsuits.

Which is why more entrepreneurs are thinking like Oliver Cameron. His new iPhone app, Everyme, is a social network similar to Facebook. Behind the scenes, though, algorithms perform some fancy operations, such as grouping a user’s friends on other networks according to criteria such as geography or workplace. Before the app’s launch in April, Cameron, the CEO of the Menlo Park (Calif.) startup, made sure to file his patent paperwork. “We’re not really patent whores,” he says. “We’re just proud of what we’ve built.”

“The Valley in general seems to be getting more litigious,” says Travis Katz, a former Myspace executive who co-founded travel startup Gogobot. “Big companies can sue small companies out of existence, even with a baseless claim.” Katz has had his lawyers begin reviewing Gogobot technologies that could be patented. Path, a mobile social network started two years ago, has filed for 13 patents. Karma, which makes a gift-buying app, has filed for three patents covering technologies related to commerce, notifications, and social networking.

Chris Tolles, an investor and the CEO at local news site Topix, says startups should invest in patents before pool tables and Aeron chairs—the typical accoutrements of hip young companies. “I wouldn’t do it Day One. But you’re a year in, you have some funding, then yeah, get some patents,” he says. The patent process can take as long as five years, according to Mark Radcliffe, a partner at law firm DLA Piper.

While small tech companies are learning to play the patent game, at least one larger one is trying to change the rules altogether. On April 17, Twitter announced all its patents will be governed by its Innovator’s Patent Agreement. Under it, the person whose name is on a patent—usually an engineer or scientist—retains control over how the patent is used, even if the patent is sold to another company. Patent owners must ask the innovator’s permission before suing over the patent, although there are exceptions for companies that use patents defensively.

Everyme’s Cameron and his co-founder Vibhu Norby want to support the IPA. Their first three apps were already with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by the time IPA was available, though, and they don’t plan to refile them. “There are bigger things to worry about,” says Cameron. “Like launching,” says Norby.

The bottom line: While startups get serious about intellectual-property law, Twitter pioneers a type of patent friendly to engineers.

Milian is a reporter for Bloomberg News in San Francisco.

Posted in BloombergBusinessweek Technology, BusinessWeek, Entrepreneurship, Inetellectual Property | Leave a Comment »

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