Ebay and Paypal on Agnosticism and Plaigiarism

Heard in an interview on CNBC radio: "We are agnostic about how a customer funds a PayPal account." -CEO of Ebay/Paypal, John Donahoe.  That is quite a turn of phrase, using that word "agnostic" in a business sense. Quite literate, I would say. His point was that a customer could fund the PayPal account using credit cards, debit cards, banks, etc. Ebay didn't care which. Mr. Donahoe was explaining that Ebay has acquired some companies that will help them move more into brick and mortar payment transactions. The idea is security and PayPal wants to be the holder of your wallet, so no one will steal it.

First, the turn of phrase is so unique, is Mr. Donahoe that brilliant? Well, no. Just eleven days before in this article:  http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2011/03/visa-going-up-against-paypal-and-others-in-personal-payments-game.ars  "The benefit to the services mentioned above [PayPal is one mentioned above] is that they are all account agnostic—it doesn't matter whether you have accounts with Visa, American Express, Bank of America, ING Direct, or any other financial institution. "   Quite a nice phrase that! Mr. Donahoe must have committed it to memory and then it just popped out of his mouth like it was his own, uncredited.

Secondly, agnosticism towards payment methods really doesn't mean PayPal would be favoring a type of payment as PayPal does when it nudges a customer to use bank accounts and presumably save PayPal a transaction fee with the credit card.

When trying to add funds on PayPal, this is what I get:

Agnosticism on a very limited scale. Nudge nudge, psst use your bank account, not your credit card. There is no option I can see for that.

When buying from a store, maybe you can use your credit card?

I have a $4 balance. It HAS to be used first. No exceptions to this. Ummm. What about my credit card? Only if the funds are not available in my bank account? That's not agnostic. Notice the small insignificant blue colored link "change" right by payment methods. It is not included as an option in the list of options (actually there is only one button signifying no choice, just move on), "Change" is disguised as a link. But here I could change my payment method THIS TRANSACTION ONLY to my credit card. There is no provision for making a credit card the primary source for the future. Your bank account must always be your primary source. I am forced to remember to click the little blue "change" each time. In the beginning you had to have a bank account to start a PayPal account. I think it might be different now. My advice, don't put a bank account on PayPal no matter how many times they nag you for it. The website is designed to nudge you in the right direction (bank account) and PayPal nudges like an enforcer for a protection racket. And, if you don't have a bank account listed they nag you like Lieutenant Columbo for you to add one. They used to be even slimier making the insinuation that you were not covered by PayPal's automatic transaction insurance if you didn't use a bank account. "Geez, it would be a shame if something were to happen to your fine establishment's brand new HD TV set."

Agnostic towards credit cards? I think it looks a little more like a modified atheistic approach towards certain types of payment methods. But that phrase John plagiarised sounded pretty darned good. In fact, I kind of wonder whether that article 11 days before started the whole acquistion cycle. Perhaps the whole business strategy is borrowed.

Hats Off

Heard on CNBC radio on the Fed's announcement of quarterly news conferences: "Hat's off to the Fed on this transparency."  "Well, you know I think Chaiman Bernanke wanted more transparency from the beginning."

Ok, it's not hard to guess why the Fed is willing to introduce more transparency with concrete details of the $3.5 trillion secret Fed loans about to come out. The anti-Fed group will be having a field day. Like Saudia Arabia the Fed is making concessions in advance of the uprising.

If Chaiman Bernake actually wanted transparency, why would he hide the $3.5 trillion in loans? Why, I suppose it was because the public was about to vote for the Presidency and this would have actually become a campaign issue, ie., it would be transparent to the voters. It would have been a transparency that would have insured that every last American would have known the level of financial crises being passed on from the outgoing administration.

Hats off with pom poms shaking to CNBC's transparently cheerleading comments.

Ironic

In the latest round of union busting since President Reagan's efforts, Reagan International airport doesn't have enough flight controllers to avoid the recent sleeping incident. That is bittersweet irony, surely. We might be able to cut staff at many airports since two planes landed fine without a controller. In this one person midnight shift, do you suppose the person gets 15 minute breaks and just leaves the station unmanned, say, during breaks in the flight schedule? Does the lone controller eat a meal at the radar screen or just leave things at prescheduled slow times hoping there won't be some unforeseen emergency landing needed? It is fairly remarkable to think about. Surely no liquids must be allowed during this shift anyway, because when nature calls particularly loudly, what would happen? A call down to the rental car folks to take the helm for a minute or two? Depends, I guess.

Salt Problems

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/world/asia/24nuclear.html?partner=rss&emc=rss


More Japan nuclear problems:  from having had to pour sea water into reactors salt buildup on rods may stop water's cooling ability which could cause rods to melt, causing... etc etc etc.
Oh, for the days when a meltdown was "just a meltdown".

Just as in 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl, the events are fluid and unpredictable. Anyone that says they know something is just guessing. The only thing to know is that you can't possibly know.

Japan: A Chip Off the Old Block

"...an unhealthy alliance between regulators and power plant operators."  Underscore the word "unhealthy."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/world/asia/22nuclear.html?_r=1&hp


Thankfully things are looking up over there except in the trust category. Trust is just another word when it comes to making money.