Jack Bog's Blog

Who says they're ignoring Sellwood traffic problems?

2009-11-07T12:49:22Z

The "multi-modal mecca" known as the City of Portland is about to turn the main road on the east side of the crumbling Sellwood Bridge into a bike boulevard.

Have a great weekend

2009-11-06T22:21:04Z

Where those missing pets go

2009-11-06T17:51:02Z

A reader writes:

We just missed losing our Jack Russell terrier tonight. I let him out for his last potty break and went to my computer. Seconds later I heard him scream. I ran to the door and threw it open to find three huge coyotes in my SW Multnomah District front yard. Two ran out the gate and one jumped the fence with ease. We checked the dog over and luckily there are no bites. But he sure is scared, and you know how fearless Jack Russells can be. Maybe you can blog something about this, so that folks who might not be aware can avoid what might have happened to us.

Saint Al Gore, pray for us

2009-11-06T13:15:55Z

Years ago, when I was part of a thought-provoking discussion group on ecology, a skeptic in our midst argued convincingly that concern for the earth was in essence a religion. The rest of us thought about it for a while, and then told him that we didn't care -- we still believed in living with the planet in mind. Now we see that climate change is being designated a religion (or its equivalent) for some purposes under British law. Over in England, this means victory for global warming activists in some cases, but victory for the skeptics in others. It depends on the legal context. What would that kind of reasoning mean here in the United States? Given our insistence on separation of church and state, it might mean that the constant sermonettes that we get from holier-than-thou governing bodies such as the Portland City Council might have to be trimmed a bit. Every time I roll out my recycling bins, I see a sticker that tells me, courtesy of Mayor Creepy and Fireman Randy, that "it's the right thing to do." I don't disagree with that, but I don't need the characters at City Hall to be preaching to me about it. If I relied on them for right vs. wrong, the afterlife would not be kind to me.

New feature at the Astoria Red Lion

2009-11-06T07:45:17Z

Outdoor swimming and diving.

The Communists were lightweights

2009-11-06T07:38:35Z

You want divisiveness? Nothing beats MTV.

Who says there are no debtors' prisons in the United States?

2009-11-06T01:02:22Z

An alert reader wrote us today with concern about a case in which a man was sent to prison for willfully failing to pay his company's payroll taxes, even though he argued that he didn't have the money to pay them. Jack Easterday operated a chain of nursing homes in Northern California. He always reported the company's federal payroll tax liability accurately, but he paid only part of it. The IRS came after him to collect what was owed, and it put liens on the company's assets, but eventually it filed criminal charges against Easterday -- 109 counts of willful failure to pay over the payroll taxes that the company had withheld from employees. Easterday put on testimony at his trial that the nursing homes were losing millions of dollars, and thus couldn't pay all their payroll taxes. The judge ruled that that didn't excuse him from criminal liability, and the jury convicted him on 107 of the 109 counts. The court of appeals agreed with the trial judge that in order to prove the crime of willful failure to pay over taxes, the government need not prove that the taxpayer had the ability to pay; it ruled that the fact that the taxpayer is too broke to pay is irrelevant to that crime. This week, the Supreme Court let that ruling stand. I have no doubt that Easterday is not a saint, but I agree with the reader that in incarcerating someone for failing to pay taxes -- taxes that he or she freely reported to the government -- we ought to ask whether the person had the wherewithal to pay. Otherwise, aren't we putting people in jail simply because they can't pay a debt?

Side effects may include

2009-11-05T22:18:09Z

I got a flu shot this morning, and now, suddenly, I'm craving nacho cheese Doritos.

Mutation

2009-11-05T19:49:38Z

Overheard at the cllinic: someone calling it the "heiny" virus.

Trial by internet

2009-11-05T17:11:15Z

Here's the jail booking photo. Here's the sketch of the suspect. Same guy?

Recall 2.0 sets itself up for epic fail

2009-11-05T14:55:18Z

The group that wants to try again to recall Portland Mayor Sam Adams is making things hard for itself. Not only is the enigmatic Jasun "Kiss of Death" Wurster, who ran the doomed first effort, continuing to be prominently involved, but now they've also got a Kevin Mannix pal doing the strategerizing. Throw in a Victoria Taft live remote and daily all-caps e-mail tirades from Jack Peek, and you're pretty much dressed for failure in lefty Portland. What next -- Bill Sizemore and Loren Parks?

On beyond OnPoint

2009-11-05T12:56:54Z

Our blog posts about the quarterly results at OnPoint Community Credit Union -- a Portland-based financial institution that we consider at least some indicator of the state of the area's economy -- have led readers from time to time to request comparisons of OnPoint results with those of other credit unions. We've resisted that invitation on a number of grounds -- mostly because we're not really an expert on financial institutions. We've been pulling numbers off the voluminous reports filed with the regulators with interested but highly untrained eyes. Besides, it's a time-consuming deal. But the challenge has been too good to keep down, and so with the important caution that we are not expert in these matters, just for kicks we'll compare some of OnPoint's financial data with that of three other Oregon-based credit unions that readers have mentioned: Unitus here in Portland, First Tech in Beaverton, and Oregon Community down in Eugene. One number that we've been tracking for OnPoint has been its ratio of delinquent loans (two months or more) to total loans -- the higher the number, the worse the portfolio from a delinquency standpoint. Here are the percentages for all four of the credit unions in that department:

Credit union	9/30/08	6/30/09	9/30/09
First Tech	0.75	0.96	1.12
OnPoint	0.63	1.23	1.16
Oregon Community	0.53	1.13	1.87
Unitus	0.38	1.85	1.59

Another ratio that we've been watching at OnPoint is delinquent loans to net worth. Here are the percentages for the whole group on that score:

Credit Union	9/30/08	6/30/09	9/30/09
First Tech	5.22	6.06	6.98
OnPoint	5.74	10.67	10.05
Oregon Community	5.76	12.63	21.41
Unitus	2.90	13.22	11.42

The side-by-side reviews turned up one curiosity: Not all of the credit unions are accounting for the industry's deposit insurance troubles in exactly the same way. OnPoint and Oregon Community both showed millions in "stabilization expenses" for the first time this year on their third quarter financial reports, whereas First Tech and Unitus had been showing that expense since the first quarter of the year. Finally, let's take a gander at the year-to-date net income (loss) figures for the group over the first three quarters. Although given their varying sizes, we're likely talking apples and oranges, the trends are probably worth comparing:

Credit Union	9/30/08	6/30/09	9/30/09
First Tech	$11,004,579	$15,679,047	$19,083,328
OnPoint	$16,329,466	$18,586,772	$21,965,019
Oregon Community	$2,276,125	($1,600,252)	($1,663,273)
Unitus	$1,638,409	($2,932,744)	($3,713,168)

You wanted comparisons? Well, there you have some, folks. Obviously, of the group, Oregon Community has got the biggest delinquent loan problems, is reporting its delinquencies more conservatively than the other three, or both. Relatively speaking, First Tech appears to paint the rosiest picture of the four. If this sort of discussion makes you want to hunt around through the credit unions' financial reports yourself, just head over here and get started. Once you have the identification number of the institution you're looking for, lots of data can be gleaned here.

The latest "green" vehicle: the Ford F-150 pickup

2009-11-05T06:21:36Z

Handing out tax money to get people to buy cars was nothing more than robbing from our children to postpone the inevitable for the auto industry. But it was easy to sell: just make it a "green" program. Conserving energy! Stopping global warming! Saving the polar bears! And the flock of sheep we've become as a nation says, "Baaaaaa." Not only did "cash for clunkers" enable gas-guzzler motorists to buy new gas guzzlers, but the program was also rife with fraud. Much like the first-time homebuyer handouts, which are now going to be made permanent and extended to existing homeowners who want a new house. Just keep printing dollars, America. Party on.

Future to the back

2009-11-05T03:49:29Z

Economists, ya gotta love 'em. "That suggests the recession will likely end sometime in the third or fourth quarter of 2009, he said." Nothing like "predicting" the third quarter, five weeks after it's over. I predict that the Yankees will make it to the World Series.

Primed for disappointment

2009-11-05T01:09:13Z

Tri-Met's dismantling of urban core "frequent" bus service draws a big question mark here.