Series: BORROW, Total Borrowings of Depository Institutions from the Federal Reserve [Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis via Digg]

We wrote about Hoofnagle's research in February, when he was analyzing identity theft at banks. Since then, he's expanded his research to include incidents at all companies.

Although the research is useful, Hoofnagle concedes that it is imperfect: a customer who falls for a phishing scam doesn't necessarily impart any fault to the company. On the other hand, the amount of phishing-related identity thefts is dwarfed by other types of fraud, such as new accounts created from pre-approved credit solicitations. Hoofnagle asks for increased transparency by businesses, which would provide more useful data and lead to better analysis.

Measuring Identity Theft (Version 2.0)

Currency: The Sinking Dollar [GOOD]

All of Inflation’s Little Parts [NYT] (Thanks to Natan!)

The Times graph, a form of Voronoi Treemap, divides consumer spending into numerous categories and subcategories, allowing you to see what percentage of an average consumer's spending is used for food versus transportation, or on citrus fruit versus tires. Some interesting highlights:

• Electronics took the biggest dip in prices. From March 2007 to March 2008, TVs dropped 18.3% and computers dropped 12%.
• Not surprisingly, the biggest price increases were in fuel: Gas went up 26%, propane and firewood went up 23.4%, and fuel oil (for home heating) went up 48.4%.
• The only non-fuel item that increased by more than 20% was eggs, which went up 29.9%.
• Consumers spend the same amount on "alcohol away from home" (0.5%) as they do on health insurance.
• We spend too much damn money on fast food. The only categories where we spend more money are rent, gas, electricity, new cars, and meals at non-fast food restaurants. Yes, this is because other categories like groceries are subdivided into produce and meat and so on, but 2.4% is still a sizable chunk of spending.

All of Inflation's Little Parts [NYT]
(Photo: =Rah=)

Three of the jobs—waiting tables, bartending, and, uh, bellhopping?—don't include unreported tips. After the food and beverage jobs, the next lowest spot on the chart is "Amusement and Recreation Facility Attendants." Interesting—this could explain why that Zipper ride operator at the fair yelled at us when we were kids and tried to scoop up spare change that fell out of riders' pockets. That was his money.

"The Jobs That Pay the Least" [Political Calculations]

"America's 25 Best and Worst Paying Jobs"
(Photo: Mister Scratch)

It should be noted that the conclusions are less than perfect. What would be ideal is if the number of incidents were ranked by the number of accounts at the bank, not the total number of deposits. However, banks closely guard the number of their depositors and so for now, this is the best we have.TAKEAWAY: HSBC, Bank of America: not safe. ING: safe.

 
In the commentary on last quarters scores, ACSI says they've started including Nordstrom again because of its increasing market share, and back before it dropped off the survey in 2001, it held the top spot frequently, so no surprise there.

They also suggest that Dollar General, "which typically serves neighborhoods that may be too small to attract Wal-Mart," may be scoring high because of its wide variety of items in such small retail spaces.

Sears and Kmart are pretty much exactly where we'd expect them after their plunging customer service last year.

One thing we're not sure about is how the various recall disasters last year affected scores—clearly Dollar General emerged unscathed, despite its healthy dose of lead-tainted toys, Halloween pails, and holiday decorations.

"Q4 2007 and Historical ACSI Scores" [ACSI]
"Customer Satisfaction Falls Again; Retail, Financial Services Down; Wal-mart, Home Depot at All-Time Lows" [ACSI]

RELATED
"How are ACSI data collected?" [ACSI]

(Thanks to Shaula!)

You Are What You Spend [NYT]

...this graph from Credit Suisse is the most sobering thing I've seen in a while. Mortgage_rate_resets It shows that most of the interest rate resets ahead aren't subprime, but are instead Alt-A and option-ARMs...

Alt-A is the category of loans made to consumers with FICO scores just above the subprime threshold. Option ARMs give borrowers several payment options, including making a minimum payment that does not even cover the interest that accrued in the last month. This means it's pretty easy for an option ARM to end up underwater, even in a market where prices are holding steady. If real estate prices are dropping, it is even more likely that an option ARM will end up upside down, which makes refinancing near impossible. The bulk of the Alt-A and option-ARM resets are coming in 2010-2011. A lot of things could change before then. But we might just be seeing the tip of the iceberg in the housing market.

Is This Just a "Sub-Prime" Mortgage Crisis? [Credit Slips]

Vampire Energy [GOOD Magazine]

A Few Changes Made a Big Difference in Our Electric Bill [Blogging Away Debt]

It looks like while CEO pay rose 298.2% by 2005, and corporate profits by 106.7%, the average worker pay has only risen by 4.3%.

The chart seems to show no direct relationship between CEO pay and profit performance, however, CEO pay does track nearly parallel with the S&P 500. That stock options are included in the CEO pay, and those have gotten more popular in recent years, might be a factor. Another is that the CEO population is smaller than that of the average workers, so naturally there's going to be more volatility.

Profits or losses, stocks up or down, the average worker gets paid nearly the same. Maybe the breed of CEOs is just working harder while everyone else is just treading water... — BEN POPKEN

CEO Pay, Stock Prices, Corporate Profits, Worker Pay, and Inflation, 1990-2005 [FairEconomy] (Thanks to something_amazing!)

We expected cable to be far worse, but it's really wireless whose cost grew at the fastest relative rate . Wonder why this is.

Does it reflect the cost of upgrading and expanding cellphone networks, while the infrastructure for cable and telephones has remained much the same? Or is it simply the price elasticity of demand (more popular = able to charge more)? — BEN POPKEN AND THOMAS MOORE

References:
Raw Data (updated)
Cable Pricing (PDF) [FCC]
Telephone and Wireless Pricing (PDF) [FCC]
Inflation Calculator [Bureau of Labor Statistics]

The thought of washing down a Big Mac with a chai was too appealing to ignore, so we mashed up Richmond, Virginia's 1990-2000 Poverty Statistics by Census Tract along with Payday loan center locations. * Click to enlarge.

Richmond payday centers seem to roughly prefer to sit on the edges of areas with 15-30% poverty. People got to have a paycheck to give them an advance on, with 177% interest.

If a worker is short of cash and gets their full next paycheck advanced to them, how are they ever supposed to catch up?

With a windfall investment, or perhaps, another loan. — BEN POPKEN

* Combining 2000 poverty data with 2007 addresses is, admittedly, less than ideal, but it was the best we could get our hands on.

Source: Realtytrac, US Census.

As the housing bubble deflates, it's time to collect on all those subprime loans. Note: Nevada is disproportionately represented here due to a sparse population, but California is definitely screwed.

Big sexy 50 state graph, inside...

Check out our data sets at Swivel, where we also made this graph.

— BEN POPKEN

This totally kickass graph shows the Starbuck stores by country, along with the coffee bean, paper cup and sugar sources. On the right, it shows the McDonald's stores by country, but curiously, no sources.

This is because everything that goes into a McDonald's meal is made in a low-slung factory in New Jersey.

"The Magic Bean Shop, The Fries That Bind Us" (Thanks to Chris!)