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After the Fall: One Year Later, Still No Regulations

President Obama gave a speech on Wall Street today that sent a strong message: We must learn from last year’s financial collapse and improve our national regulatory system to fix its underlying weaknesses.

“Instead of learning the lessons of Lehman and the crisis from which we are still recovering, they are choosing to ignore them,” Mr. Obama said in a speech at Federal Hall in Lower Manhattan.

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“They do so not just at their own peril, but at our nation’s … I want everybody here to hear my words. We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses.

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Those on Wall Street cannot resume taking risks without regard for consequences, and expect that next time, American taxpayers will be there to break their fall.”

These are the strongest statements I have heard from the president on how better risk management — internally at banks, systematically from the regulators and philosophically from those working on Wall Street — must be embraced. With Obama using so much of his political capital and “mandate for change” on health care (albeit with little progress), it remains to be seen if he will be able to spur Congress to enact any progress on reforming the financial industry. The White House certainly hasn’t been able to get Capitol Hill to do much thus far.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Obama’s planned overhaul would dramatically rewrite the rules of the road for the U.S. financial sector, with new protections for consumers and safeguards against the potential collapse of more big banks. But it is unclear if Congress can unite behind a revamp on Mr. Obama’s timetable, given the time-consuming debate over health care and disagreements between lawmakers on the major components of the overhaul.

The Atlantic ran its piece today to mark the anniversary of the collapse, looking at “5 Reasons to Worry.” In their first reason, they warn against the fact that “in the U.S. and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger,” according to Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-winning economist and the former chief economist at the World Bank. Among the other four reasons to worry are: continued federal subsidies, unchecked greed and unregulated derivatives.

Those in the risk management industry are unfortunately accustomed to having their advice ignored. Twelve months after the largest collective failure of financial risk management to occur in my lifetime, however, it remains shocking that so little has been done to fix the problem.
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Managing the Risks and Rewards of Social Media, as Illustrated by ESPN’s New Social Networking Policy

We just wrapped our October issue of Risk Management magazine today, and the cover story discusses the opportunities and risks for companies who use social media like blogs, Twitter and YouTube to enhance their brands and sell products. Nowadays, most companies are involved in such “Web 2.0” activities to at least some degree, but many still seem to lack a proper understanding of the potential exposures.

As always, that’s where risk managers come in. So we hope that the article, which was written by yours truly, will help put the issue on the risk management radar.

The piece focuses mainly on the reputation and possible legal risks involved, but there is a lot more to this issue, much of which unfortunately couldn’t be fit into a six-page magazine article. Thus, I thought I would share one of the things I came across that didn’t make the final cut.

ESPN, which was one of the first traditional media companies to really embrace social media, recently issued an official policy for social networking that limited what the company’s “forward-facing talent” (i.e., anyone in the public eye, such as anchors, analysts, reporters, columnists, etc.) is allowed to discuss on their personal blogs and Twitter accounts. The details of the policy, which have been called “short-sighted” and “draconian” by sports bloggers, are a good specific example of the things that our story discusses in more general terms.

Essentially, the key takeaway in the policy is the line “Assume at all times you are representing ESPN” and, according to ESPN.com’s head honcho Rob King, at least some of the reasoning behind instituting the policy was to protect ESPN from potential legal action.

SBD: Let me ask that another way. What’s out there [on Twitter] that made you raise an eyebrow?

King: I can think of cases in which folks have re-tweeted breaking news that turned out not to be true. Some day somebody’s going to get sued somewhere for re-tweeting something that is false. That’s part of a great IQ test that represents the introduction to social media. That’s just from a journalistic perspective, one that has to be taught and managed very carefully. I don’t know which media company is going to run into it. But some day, somebody’s probably going to find themselves in a court of law. That was in no way a line of thought that drove this conversation. But if you’re asking me, personally, sometimes I see folks re-tweeting stuff that is essentially breaking news without really a sense of the sourcing. It runs counter to the journalistic training that folks ingrained in me.

King explains the policy further.

SBD: Explain ESPN’s ban on personal Web sites. Does that mean that someone like Jeremy Schapp can’t operate a Web site?

King: I hate the word ‘ban.’ The guideline on the personal Web site is that they should not be representing sports content at all. If Jeremy Schapp wants to have a Web site that has no sports content on it whatsoever, I think that’s fine. We felt like our forward-facing talent’s relationship with the audience happens through ESPN media. We wanted to reiterate that’s the relationship we expect as long as people are part of the company.

This is the type of stuff you can expect to see in our October cover story, which we hope will help break down some of the Web 2.0 basics for the many risk managers out there who still don’t know the difference between a tweet and a YouTube.

And the ESPN news all goes to show that media companies are indeed beginning to institute official policies on social media, and I think we will see this as a (slowly) developing trend for even non-media companies, particularly as more legal clarity begins to develop surrounding all these concepts. Things like this case involving a landlord suing a tenant for libel based on a tweet she made will help define how social media grievances are handled in a court of law.

Such clarity is a still a ways off, however. We all know how quickly the courts move.

But in the meantime, watch the extremely cool video below. It really helps illustrate how large this phenomenon is.

Storm Summary 7

Welcome to the fifth “Storm Summary” post of the hurricane season.

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Each Friday from now until the official end of the season (November 30) I will post an update on past and present storms, like the following:

NAME PEAK STATUS DATE LOCATION DAMAGE
Andres Cat. 1 6/23 to 6/24 Southeast Pacific Moderate damage
Carlos Cat. 2 7/10 to 7/16 East Pacific None 
Felicia Cat.  4 8/3 to 8/11 East Pacific None 
Guillermo Cat. 3 8/12 to 8/19 East Pacific None 
Bill Cat. 4 8/15 to 8/24 Mid Atlantic  No major damage
Fred Cat. 3 9/8 to present South Atlantic None 

Hurricane Fred developed into a category 3 storm early this morning. It remains active about 745 miles west of the Cape Verde islands and poses no immediate threat the the United States.

Though the Atlantic has only seen three named storms, the waters of the Pacific are seeing constant activity, due, in part, to El Niño, which is “the periodic warming of central and eastern tropical Pacific waters [that] occurs on average every two to five years and typically lasts about 12 months.” Although most people think of this phenomenon in negative terms for the damage it can spur on the West Coast, it is actually beneficial to the East Coast/Gulf Coast in the sense that warmer waters in the Pacific usually create conditions that suppress Atlantic hurricanes.

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Why exactly this occurs is not something I’m qualified to explain but, as I recall, it has something to do with warm and cool air mixing in a different way and creating a “wind shear” that helps prevent storms from developing. The International Research Institute for Climate and Society can probably explain it better.

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For constant, up-to-date storm information, visit NOAA. And for breaking information on the insured losses the storms create, check out the Insurance Information Institute and theInsurance Services Office.

Most importantly, don’t forget to check back next Friday for our eighth “Storm Summary” installment.

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Breakin’ the Law — Internet Commerce Style

A recent study found that a large amount of websites selling electronic goods throughout Europe are breaking consumer laws. The analysis focused on 369 sites selling electronic equipment in 28 European countries.

“We discovered that more than half of the retailers selling online electronic goods are letting consumers down,” said EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva.

EU authorities carried out the investigation, which found that the biggest failure of the companies/websites observed was the breaking of the return of goods rule.

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The authorities chose the websites based on their popularity and also if the site was the source of previous complaints.

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The investigation found the following:

  • Two-thirds (66%) failed to adequately explain that consumers had seven days to return a product bought over distance for a full refund and without giving a reason. Others failed to explain the right to have a faulty product repaired or replaced for at least two years after sale
  • Details about extra delivery charges were missing or difficult to find on the website in 45% of cases
  • A third (33%) did not fully outline the trader’s name, address or email details so they could not be contacted if there was a problem

The websites under question will be contacted  and, if they fail to change their ways, could face fines and other enforcements. Maybe the U.S. should start their own investigation.