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Great work Visa, now I HATE you

felixsalmon:

modern-products:

Those folks up there at Visa sponsored the Olympics under the limitation that no other credit card could be used to purchase stuff in the Olympics, from a cup of coffee to an official hoodie… Which practically means that once you’re inside, you can either use Visa or cash, that’s it.

And that REALLY pissed me off. As a consumer, I was abused and insulted. On the practical level, I hold both a MasterCard and a Visa, and the terms I get when using my MasterCard in Europe are better than my Visa (in the USA it’s the other way around). But losing a few pennies was not what pissed me off. It was that a major consumer brand chose to abuse simple folks as a way of marketing. And that’s just stupid. Getting a credit card is not something you do in a minute, certainly not in a foreign country. So Visa couldn’t really expect international visitors holding other cards to actually switch to Visa on the spot, right?

What did they expect them to feel? “Oh my gosh, Visa is so awesome, I wish I had a Visa card, when I return home I’m going to get one ASAP”? No! …

The marketers at Visa are probably more experienced than me, but I still want to give them a small marketing lesson:

If you want people to like you, give them something. If you want people to hate you, take something away from them.

The weird thing here is that the choice between Visa and Mastercard is not a choice made by consumers. To a first approximation, the number of people saying “I want a Visa card” or “I want a Mastercard” is zero. You want some specific credit card, and whether it’s Visa or MC is irrelevant. Visa and Mastercard do have public-facing ad campaigns, but who they really sell their services to is card issuers, not the public. Individuals don’t choose Visa, they’ll never choose Visa. It’s silly to pretend otherwise.

I used to have a Visa. Then my card’s issuer changed it to MasterCard. So it’s not just a matter of whether consumers have a preference or not, sometimes we don’t even have a say in the matter.

(this post was reblogged from felixsalmon)
gq: The Truth about Income Inequality in America Guess what, compatriots? The gap between the richest and the poorest among us is now wider than it has been since we all nose-dived into the Great Depression. So GQ sent Jon Ronson on a journey into the secret financial lives of six different people on the ladder, from a guy washing dishes for 200 bucks a week in Miami to a self-storage gazillionaire. What he found are some surprising truths about class, money, and making it in America. Click for high-res photo

gq:

The Truth about Income Inequality in America

Guess what, compatriots? The gap between the richest and the poorest among us is now wider than it has been since we all nose-dived into the Great Depression. So GQ sent Jon Ronson on a journey into the secret financial lives of six different people on the ladder, from a guy washing dishes for 200 bucks a week in Miami to a self-storage gazillionaire. What he found are some surprising truths about class, money, and making it in America.

(this post was reblogged from gq)
“
Sergey Skaterschikov, who publishes an influential art-investment report, says that no painting bought for $30 million or more has ever been resold at a profit.
How the Art Market Thrives on Inequality - NYTimes.com (via porcupineschool)
(this post was reblogged from sympathyfortheartgallery)

artnet:

Understanding the Art Market

Thomas Galbraith, director of analytics at artnet, discusses with The Street the art market, what The Scream famously achieved, whether a crash is coming, and how the new artnet Indices and artnet Analytics Reports makes sense of it all.

Speaking of art as an investment, now you can track it with an index, just like any other financial vehicle.

(this post was reblogged from artnet)

Nine Quotes about Art as an Investment

In short: art is a terrible investment. Buy art if you love it, but not if you’re trying to make money.

(this post was reblogged from hydeordie)
officialssay: A photo of GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney from back in the day, when he was at private equity firm Bain Capital. (h/t @drgrist) This is, like, the whitest picture ever. Click for high-res photo

officialssay:

A photo of GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney from back in the day, when he was at private equity firm Bain Capital. (h/t @drgrist)

This is, like, the whitest picture ever.

(this post was reblogged from officialssay)

Climate Adaptation: Travel calculator

climateadaptation:

From the NYTimes Green Blog:

“A travel cost calculator introduced on Tuesday at www.befrugal.com may help the bewildered in need of a break to make the most of their time and money while remaining conscious of their carbon footprints.

The calculator, a pet project of BeFrugal’s…

(Source: The New York Times)

(this post was reblogged from emergentfutures)
3rdofmay: The art: Tina Barney, The Son, 1987. The news: “Secret Fears of the Super-Rich: Does great wealth bring fulfillment? An ambitious study by Boston College suggests not. For the first time, researchers prompted the very rich - people with fortunes in excess of $25 million - to speak candidly about their lives. The result is a surprising litany of anxieties: their sense of isolation, their worries about work and love, and most of all, their fears for their children,” by Graeme Wood in The Atlantic. The source: Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but having no money pretty much guarantees misery. Click for high-res photo

3rdofmay:

The art: Tina Barney, The Son, 1987.

The news: “Secret Fears of the Super-Rich: Does great wealth bring fulfillment? An ambitious study by Boston College suggests not. For the first time, researchers prompted the very rich - people with fortunes in excess of $25 million - to speak candidly about their lives. The result is a surprising litany of anxieties: their sense of isolation, their worries about work and love, and most of all, their fears for their children,” by Graeme Wood in The Atlantic.

The source: Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Money doesn’t buy happiness, but having no money pretty much guarantees misery.

(this post was reblogged from 3rdofmay)
bundlehq: So, Americans really seem to love when baseball stadiums offer all-you-can-eat ticket packages. Don’t believe me? The all-you-can-eat section at the Texas Rangers’ stadium routinely goes through 1500 hot dogs, 260 pounds of peanuts, and 62 pounds of popcorn (that stuff’s light — so you know 62 pounds of it is a LOT of popcorn). This is why you’re fat.

bundlehq:

So, Americans really seem to love when baseball stadiums offer all-you-can-eat ticket packages. Don’t believe me? The all-you-can-eat section at the Texas Rangers’ stadium routinely goes through 1500 hot dogs, 260 pounds of peanuts, and 62 pounds of popcorn (that stuff’s light — so you know 62 pounds of it is a LOT of popcorn).

This is why you’re fat.

(this post was reblogged from bundlehq)
“
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Ch. 12

People say “money can’t buy happiness.” Maybe so, but you know what? Having no money (or spending your way there) is a sure route to misery. Oh, this too…how to count Victorian currency.