Indy Telecom & Industrial Media

A quick look at the VIX should send shivers up anyone’s spine.

Here’s what the VIX looks like, from the time it was created about 15 years ago.

And a look at VIX for the past 5 days, and the past month is even scarier. If you notice, there has been a significant jump or fall between the closing and opening index values for every single day.

The NYT has two excellent pieces on the current fiasco that’s been going on — What’s Worse Than a Flawed Bailout? and Revolt of the Nihilists.

Well worth reading.

The NYT has a good map that shows who voted for and against the bill.

I know where I’m moving to next…

With the way financial institutions have been going, it was only a matter of time before we went back to the roots of cooperative lending. Except that with a bit of technology, you add an element of modernization to the process.

And with that, I welcome you to P2P Lending.

Saddled by student loans and credit card debt, Ryan Little was looking for relief. Like many, the 30-year-old insurance agent turned towards banks for a loan but he ended up finding a much better deal elsewhere, on the Internet, through a website called Lending Club (lendingclub.com).

Little eventually borrowed 10,000 dollars from 30 people he didn’t know and had never met through Lending Club, a “peer-to-peer” or social lending network.

Websites like Lending Club and Prosper are doing just that, where they enable people to pick and choose who they lend to, and who they borrow from. The upside for the lender is that you have insight into why someone needs the money, and feel part of a good cause in helping someone in need. The upside for the borrower is that you get much lower interest rates, and you are accountable to not one person but to a community. The down side, of course, is the lack of any protections offered by a traditional banking system.

But given the credit crunch and the reluctance of banks and other financial institutions to lend money at low interest rates without guarantees, the market for such a service is definitely understandable.

Back to the basics, it would seem.