ZVM’s Indian Undercurrent

Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with toddlers—a prize for the best halloween costume, grades in school, gold stars—and on up through the university. On the job, people, teams, and divisions are ranked, rewarded for the top, punished for the bottom. Management by Objectives, quotas, incentive pay, business plans, put together separately, division by division, cause further loss, unknown and unknowable.

Kinda anti-Welch philosophy. Hire A’s! Fire C’s! Could there be a possibility that everyone is an A? And that several Cs+Bs with teamwork and collaboration beats out the As?

So we want to sell our house. I start to research on the web. Here’s what I found:

1. WSJ says house prices will decline:

2. Bloodhound Blog says:

The conventional wisdom in real estate is that the seller pays the sales commission to both the listing agent and the buyer’s agent. Is that really the way things work? To find out, follow the money.

Imagine a closing conference. Normally, we don’t have these in Arizona. Buyers sign their documents at one time, sellers at another. Neither party need ever set foot in Arizona, for that matter.

But for the sake of discussion, picture a settlement conference. Let’s invite everyone who has a seat at the table, so to speak, so we can see who pays whom.

At the head of the table is the escrow officer, who will be getting paid escrow fees and title insurance premiums.

Next comes the County Recorder, who will receive a recordation fee. At the next seat is the County Assessor, who will receive property tax payments. Then comes the insurance underwriter, who will get the hazard insurance premium.

The seller will get a big pile of money, some of which will be passed along to the seller’s mortgage lender.

The two Realtors will both get paid, of course.

The buyer’s lender arrived at the table with a big satchel of cash, but the lender will be taking some of it back in the form of loan origination fees and pre-paid interest. Moreover, the money the lender brought is really the buyer’s money. It was lent on the surety of the home and the buyer’s income and credit.

In fact, everyone seated at that closing table is going to be pocketing money — with one exception.

That one exception is the buyer, who pays for everything else, either out of pocket or on credit. The seller doesn’t pay the Realtor commissions — or anything else. The seller gets paid by the buyer — as does everyone else.

If you’re putting money into your pocket, you’re getting paid, no matter how the transaction is structured. If you’re taking money out of your pocket, you’re paying. The buyer pays for absolutely everything associated with the sale of a home.

3. And that article led me to the next problem: 6% commissions! This is something that Redfin is supposed to build some decent ceiling into: $2000 flat, irrespectice of the house price.

Watch this as I keep you updated on the next steps.

The biggest blogs in the blogosphere, as measured by unique links in the last six months.

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The Huffington Post

• By Arianna Huffington. Last updated 3 hours ago.
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com
• 13,572 blogs link here

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Techcrunch

• By Michael Arrington. Last updated 2 hours ago.
• http://www.techcrunch.com
• 12,083 blogs link here

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PostSecret

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.

• By frank warren. Last updated 5 hours ago.
• http://postsecret.blogspot.com
• 11,734 blogs link here

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This is a first post for a new series - a collection of poems by Rekha Singhal.

Sunset of Life

If you were with me
in the sunset of life
Neither would I wander in the darkness,
Nor would I be this lonely
Together we would walk,
Far far away
Better than any love that exists in this world

Even tired legs reach some destination
Wouldn’t need the daylight,
Would deck our home with stars
If you were with me
In the sunset of life

You would whisper something,
something I may not fully hear
I’d say something to you,
And you would merely smile
We’d live smiling and laughing away
In the sunset of life.

On the breaking of a pleasant dawn
With a hot cup of tea in our hands
Tea is sweet from your memory and
Memories are full of stories -
Some of our own and
some reliving our children’s childhood
Lost in the dreams of the pleasant past
In the sunset of life.

Even if someone near
Hurt my heart’s feelings
Snatched away an old woman’s dreams
Even then I wouldn’t
let the monsoons cloud my eyes
In the sunset of life.

Remember vividly that we had a product review meeting in the morning that I was getting ready for, and absent mindedly turning on the TV. Some channel showed the WTC and the fact that a plane had crashed into it. I flipped channels thinking it might be a pseudo-reality show. But every channel started to show the same… then came the calls. From friends, relatives from all over - India, UK wondering if we were safe (I assured them that California is really away from NY and DC, and that we were indeed OK). After reaching work, everyone was dazed and shocked. We had a steady stream of rumors coming in (there are at least 7 more planes in the air etc etc). By that time the damage was done - the WTC had come down, and along with it the trust in air travel. Colleagues at work started to reach out to friends and family all over, to make sure they were safe. I kept wondering if this was indeed all orchestrated, what was the kind of planning and execution that went behind it? And who would be motivated to actually perpetrate something this horrific? No one could “get on with business as usual” after 9/11. Numb.

fungible \FUHN-juh-buhl\, adjective:
1. (Law) Freely exchangeable for or replaceable by another of like nature or kind in the satisfaction of an obligation.
2. Interchangeable.

noun:
1. Something that is exchangeable or substitutable. Usually used in the plural.

I was at a conference where I heard this word being used over and over by a desi guy and I had no idea what it meant, thought it had something to do with fungus!

Hat Tip: the Tzar.

From CNET

“Terrafugia prefers to call it a roadable aircraft because the Transition will spend most of the time in the air. Owners will, ideally, drive the two-passenger vehicle from their garage to an airport. At that point, the retractable wings will be unfolded and it will turn into a plane.”

“Potential buyers can also now plunk down $7,400, or 5 percent of the anticipated $148,000 purchase price”