Are You Going to "Get Motivated" in Charlotte?

If you read the Charlotte Observer surely you've seen the full page promotional program advertising speakers Colin Powell, Laura Bush, Rudy Guiliani and Zip Zigler (?) at the Charlotte seminar of  Get Motivated!.  This seminar title should be expanded to "Get Motivated to Buy Our Overpriced Investment Tools Because Jesus and Uncle Sam Want You To."

Husband and wife team, Peter and Tamara Lowe organize these seminars that profit handsomely from blurring the lines between inspirational, aspirational and motivational.  They've been at it for years.   What is especially disappointing to me are the "celebrity" speakers that have signed on to this.  I mean do President Bush (special guest speaker Fort Worth seminar) and First Lady Laura Bush, and President Clinton (who toured in 2002) really need the money?   I wonder what these speakers are being paid?  What a disgrace.

I sure hope you're not planning to attend this scam.  Oh, you are?  Well then surely don't waste your money registering for it.  Not when Craigslist is advertising for Charlotte seminar "volunteers" (to fill up seats for free) for this scam of an event.   Seat fillers are needed.

Will Charlotte Become Banking's Detroit?

From The Washington Post, This is the Bust in the Boomtown that Banks Built: Beneath Charlotte's shiny skyline, 'a new humility'

Few American cities prospered more over the past two decades than Charlotte, its growth propelled and gilded by Wachovia and its crosstown rival, Bank of America. Executives shoehorned gaudy mansions into old neighborhoods around downtown. Workers poured into vast subdivisions on the city's ever-expanding periphery. With coffers overflowing, giddy public officials spent tax dollars on a manmade river for whitewater rafting.

 Now Charlotte is suffering. Unemployment has spiked to 12 percent, well above the national average. Subdivisions sit unfinished. Mansions cannot be sold. The school system, which for years had recruited teachers from shrinking cities such as Detroit, laid off more than 1,000 employees this summer.

There is a grim picture being painted, but the story is still unfolding. Because Bank of America was headquartered here, this served as a bit of a buffer as the national economy faltered.  If Bank of America headquarters move from Charlotte, the city will become a shadow of its former self.  This city was built by the banks and real estate, and it will suffer as these industries do.


Note:  The author is this piece, Binyamin Appelbaum, worked as a business reporter for the Charlotte Observer prior to moving to the Washington Post.  He knows Charlotte.  While at the Observer he investigated and authored a great expose on the rampant fraud of Beazer Homes. 

Who Will Be the BofA/Merrill Scapegoat?

"Surely he hath borne our Griefs and carried our Sorrows; Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of GOD and afflicted."

Someone has to pay for the Bank of America overpaying for Merrill Lynch and awarding Merrill executives inflated bonuses.  Who will it be?  Ken Lewis is an obvious contender as he's already been banished from the top job at the bank. 

Or will it be the lawyers who, according to Lewis, advised him on his actions on behalf of the bank? Bloomberg notes, " A showdown is looming and many will be combing through the legal records of the BAC/Merrill transaction."

Eastover Elementary and Myers Park High School: Boundary Battles Heat Up

The overcrowding issues at Eastover Elementary and Myers Park High Schools have been contentious not just for families with students enrolled in those public schools, but for neighboring schools that might be affected by CMS rezoning proposals that counter this overcrowding. 

The Charlotte Observer writes CMS Will Get An Earful Tuesday and that as of yesterday afternoon, "45 speakers had signed up for public comments, ensuring that the board will spend more than two hours hearing views on possible changes to Myers Park and East Mecklenburg high schools, as well as Eastover, First Ward, Dilworth, Myers Park Traditional and Elizabeth Traditional elementaries. Advance signups continue through noon Tuesday, and speakers can also sign up on site."

 Websites and internet forums discussing and mobilizing families have sprouted up in the Dilworth, East Mecklenburg and Elizabeth neighborhoods (because they are most vulnerable?).

Dilworth For Positive Change (on Facebook)

Dilworth Online

Under the Watertower (Elizabeth community website)

CMS School Board, District 5 (East Meck)

I haven't seen anything online from the Myers Park, Eastover or Cotswold neighborhoods.  Are they mobilizing affected families in their communities?  I think the answer is yes. We'll see who shows up at the school board meeting tonight. 

Something clearly must be done to address this issue, but I don't think the solution is to bus the children that currently reside within these respective school zones to another, more far away school.  Whatever Peter Gorman (the Superintendent of CMS) and the school board decide, there will be howls.  However Charlotte will have a hard time justifying the relatively higher property taxes (in a declining real estate market no less) in  Myers Park and Eastover if living there doesn't even ensure families a spot in their neighborhood schools.  Will this issue ultimately come down to property tax monies?  I think it will.

Future BofA HQ: Charlotte vs. Boston

Now that Ken Lewis has been dispensed with, the foodfight for the heart and soul of Bank of America has begun. Wrapped up in this battle is the determination of BofA's corporate headquarters.  See Clusterstock's Bank of America's Board Starts to Crack Up Over CEO Hunt .

The primary factions in the internal battle are the old boys gang from Charlotte, North Carolina, and Boston, which had been the headquarters of Fleet Financial Group, the bank acquired by Bank of America in 2004. Both actions were Lewis cronies and deeply loyal to their boss. But with the top guy stepping out of the way, all bets are off.
snip
The Charlotte loyalists, who have been with the bank since its early days as North Carolina National Bank, are fighting against what they view as a Boston take-over of their bank. Led by Hugh McColl, Lewis's mentor and predecessor, and Meredith Spanger, the bank's largest individual shareholder, this faction has little representation on the board but exercises influence through extensive loyalty in the executive ranks.

You didn't think that BofA would just automatically stay in Charlotte, did you?  The stakes couldn't be bigger for the future of  Charlotte's and North Carolina's economies.  Expect the politicans to jump into this fray in 3...2...1.