Federal Reserve looking to launch "sentiment analysis and social media monitoring" program

A couple weeks ago the Federal Reserve Board of New York floated an RFP (Request for Proposals) for a program of "sentiment analysis" of social media networks.   I've embedded the scribd version of the doRFP below for your reading pleasure.

They seek to "to establish a fair andequitable partnership with a market leader who will who gather data from various social media outlets and newssources and provide applicable reporting to FRBNY."

The idea is for the Federal Reserve to have a system to monitor traffic on online social networks, gather the discussions, extract "sentiments" (thoughts, opinions) about the Federal Reserve, and report them to the FRB.

In part the issue here isn't so much that they're doing this - plenty of organizations are doing this already, and it's fair for organizations to want to know what is being said about them.  "Sentiment analysis" via monitoring social media is the act of summarizing what people are saying in online networks (twitter, facebook, etc) to extract information that's useful to the organization.   As they themselves say: "There is need for the Communications Group to be timely and proactively aware of the reactions and opinionsexpressed by the general public as it relates to the Federal Reserve and its actions on a variety of subjects."

In part the issue is that this is a pseudo-branch-of-government intent on tracking every conversation, and in particular "reach out to key bloggers and influencers" plausibly so they can control the messages from those key bloggers and influencers?

In part the issue is that the RFP timeline is it was issued on Sept 16, 2011, and that they expect a response (proposal) by Sept 28, 2011.  The two week timeline implies that there are software companies who have already developed this sort of service.  The FRB seems to expect the service can just be deployed (perhaps after the expenditure of many $$$'s of consultant time for training, installation, and support).

Their stated purpose is:

Social media listening platforms are solutions that gather data from various social media outlets and news sources.They monitor billions of conversations and generate text analytics based on predefined criteria. They can also determine the sentiment of a speaker or writer with respect to some topic or document.

The information gathered can guide the organizations public relations group in assessing the effectiveness of communication strategies.

Here are some of the services it can offer:

• Track reach and spread of your messages and press releases
• Handle crisis situations
• Continuously monitor conversations
• Identify and reach out to key bloggers and influencers
• Spot emerging trends, discussions themes and topics

 

Solution requirements:

A. Geographic scope of social media sites

The solution must support content coming from different countries and geographical regions. It should also support multiple languages.

B. Content and Data Types

The solution must be able to gather data from the primary social media platforms –Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube. It should also be able to aggregate data from various media outlets such as: CNN, WSJ, Factiva etc.

C. Reports and Metrics

The solution must provide real-time monitoring of relevant conversations. It should provide sentiment analysis (positive, negative or neutral) around key conversational topics.  It must be able to provide summaries or high level overviews of a specific set of topics. It should have a configurable dashboard that can easily be accessed by internal analysts or management. The dashboard must support customization by user or group access. The solution should provide an alerting mechanism that automatically sends out reports or notifications based a predefined trigger.

D. FRBNY Technology Integration

The solution must be able to integrate with existing FRBNY technologies such as: Google Search appliance, Lotus notes suite and web trends.  It must have support for single sign on or windows integrated authentication.

E. Cost Structure

The solution should offer a flexible pricing structure that can support multiple user licensing. It should also have the option to base pricing on content volume and usage. _Supplier acknowledges an understanding of and agrees to comply with the above minimum solutions requirements.

 

Frbny Social Media Rfp

Review: I.O.U.S.A. - America's big debt crisis told through a skewed lens

How much is the Federal Debt as a percentage of GDP? Do you understand why that's a critical problem? What does it mean that China is the worlds biggest exporter, and the U.S. is the worlds biggest importer? What do you think is the real cause for the current economic mess? Just how fiscally irresponsible was George W Bush and the other Republicans since 1980?

I.O.U.S.A. is a movie that goes over these questions and go. It's an excellent movie in many respects that I largely agree with. It is also a partisan movie which means I expect it's presenting a slanted point of view, especially considering the main person, David Walker, was President Bush's Comptroller General. The movie focuses on a nationwide Fiscal Wakeup Tour with David Walker and the Concord Coalition going around the country teaching what they said to be a message of fiscal discipline both for the national government and for individuals.

I.O.U.S.A.

The movie begins with a voice saying "I would argue the biggest threat facing the United States is not someone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan, but our own fiscal irresponsibility". Of course at the moment I'm writing this is after the death of Osama bin Laden. We know he wasn't hiding in a cave in Afghanistan, but in a well off lifestyle in a fancy home in Pakistan.

Immediately after that quote, with "fiscal irresponsibility" still hanging in your ears, it launches into a series of statements by U.S. Presidents about the need to conquer the national debt. The first being Pres. Reagan, who was one of the most egregious of the national debt builders we've had.

In that series of quotes was Pres. Clinton who, upon signing the first balanced Federal Budget, declared the U.S. was on track for budget surpluses for the next 25 years. Later in the movie they talked with Robert Rubin, Clintons Treasury Secretary, who explained this further. He claimed that they had found a political consensus around fiscal discipline, and when he left office in 1999 he thought it (fiscal discipline) had become a permanent part of Washington. But the next President, GW Bush, threw that all out the window.

The theme of the movie is to discuss four deficits: Budget, Savings, Balance of Payments, Leadership

Budget Deficit: There's a history with federal budget deficits going back to the Revolutionary war, and every war has been funded by running a debt. In the past the government had enough fiscal discipline to pay down the debt after the war was finished. Starting in the 1960's the government stopped that policy. And more egregiously, President Reagan was the first U.S. President to run big deficits for a reason other than war. His theory was the idiotic trickle down give tax cuts to the rich and eventually it'll make us all rich idiocy.

The important measure is the Deficit as a percentage of GDP, or Gross Domestic Product. Essentially that ratio is what determines how sound the economic situation is, and the ability of the country to handle the debt load.

Again the history of Deficit/GDP is that the percentage rose during war-time, and after the war it would drop again. Beginning with Reagan the percentage began climbing, and climbing, with the only pause being the Clinton years. The GW Bush years were a precipitous rise in this percentage.

Low Savings Rate: Much of the movie centers around a low savings rate in the U.S. In the past we were encouraged to have a high savings rate but since WWII the mantra has been to spend, spend, and spend some more. Consumption is what drives the economy today. As a result many people are living paycheck-paycheck with very little savings. Silly people.

David Walker is quoted saying the high rate of foreign ownership of the national debt is because of the low savings rate. Uh... I thought this was because of the high imbalance of trade but I suppose a high savings rate would mean more of the national debt is owned by Americans.

This is a national security issue - the high rate of foreign ownership of the national debt.

Balance of Trade / Payments: This is the ratio of exports and imports. A factoid tossed out during the movie is to list the countries by their trade balance. China exports the most, hence imports the most money, and the U.S. imports the most, hence exports the most money.

A factoid said right after that is: Buying more than you're selling results in your trading partners owning you.

This was demonstrated by an article written by Warren Buffet - Squandersville versus Thriftville. In Squandersville the mantra is spend spend spend, whereas in Thriftville the mantra is Live beneath your means and a high savings rate.

Basically the U.S. is Squandersville and China is Thriftville. The pattern is that Squandersville is exporting money and will eventually run out of money and will have to start selling parts of its hard assets like land and buildings. Eventually Thriftville will end up owning every square inch of Squandersville.

For a practical example they went to a scrap yard showing machines grinding up cars to make scrap metal of the sort used in mills to make new metal. The owner of the scrap yard explained they used to send the metal to domestic (U.S.) mills but nowadays they're sending it to foreign mills in China and elsewhere. In other words, the U.S. has killed off its industrial base and the only export we have is scrap metal.

Another assertion made is the immorality of one generation to spend the next generation's money. That's what happens when the government runs up such a big debt. This generation, us, we who are enjoying the fruits of that debt, we cannot pay off that debt. Who will pay it off? Our children?

Leadership Deficit: The movie talks a lot about the lack of political will to do anything about this. The responsibility lies with everyone involved in government. Earlier I mentioned how it's Republican Presidents who've been the worst about this, and they have, but really it's the whole set of people in Washington. They've become addicted to wasting our money.

The movie was filmed before the crash of 2008.

Given that the main person in the movie, David Walker, was GW Bush's Comptroller General, and hence in charge of the General Accounting Office, it strikes me that this guy has quite a bit of responsibility for the crash of 2008. He spoke a great line of reasoning in the movie about fiscal responsibility, but the GW Bush Administration was anything but fiscally responsible. In fact the movie itself does point a finger at the Bush Administration and while it doesn't outright say they were fiscally irresponsible, it strongly implies this.

Somehow the movie does not lay any blame on David Walker, however. But that could be because the whole thing is an infomercial for the Pete Peterson Foundation and a project which David Walker was hired by the Peterson Foundation to lead. In other words, one slant in the movie is to present the Concord Coalition and the Peterson Foundation and David Walker as saviors of mankind with a mission to educate us on fiscal responsibility.

I personally support having more people educated on fiscal responsibility. I just have a hunch that this movie is slanted towards a partisan message of some sort. In particular I hear in the movie some echo's of some of the Tea Party nonsense.

A recommended movie - just take it with a grain of salt.

American Dream: Is it propaganda meant to perpetrate victimhood?

"The AMERICAN DREAM is a 30 minute animated film that shows you how you've been scammed by the most basic elements of our government system." That's how this movie is billed on YouTube (linked below). The movie intends to wake up the viewer to truths about the Federal Reserve that supposedly are secret, and that it's part of an evil global banking elite that's sucking the money out of countries around the world. The movie has some good points to it, but misses one aspect to it. We're not automatically the victim of the banks, we can make choices so that we are free of the banks. Further, the system could work if regulations were in place to keep greedy tendencies in check, but those regulations were dismantled over the last few decades.

The movie seems to come from the Tea Party movement. Clue? It has a long section focused on one of the U.S. Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, and especially gives a rendition of his statement that occasionally the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants. That phrase has recently come back to the surface in a way that's advocating for a new civil war or revolution. As if fighting in the streets will result in anything useful.

The movie shows the life of a financially ignorant everyman who wakes up one morning to undergo foreclosure. As his house is being taken away he's whining about being behind in his payments, but next month he'll have more money just have mercy. The movie goes from there through a tour of the history of money and banking, slanting the presentation towards bankers being evil villains and us normal folk being victimized every time money stops being "real money"

"Real money" appears to be defined as being backed by gold held in a vault.

The story does have a lot of good information in it, and is probably factually correct. But it's highly slanted towards keeping the viewer thinking they're a victim of the system.

One crucial piece it misses is the depression of the 1870-1880's. The movie shows Pres. Andrew Jackson "killing the banks" and fast forwards to 1913, claiming that everything in-between was hunky-dory. It wasn't, that depression in the late 1800's was supposedly extremely severe, and occurred while the U.S. was not under the influence of any form of false money.

The main thing ignored by the movie however is our power of personal choice.

Individual people have two choices about their financial health. They can live above their means, spending willy nilly, maxing out the credit cards, etc. Or they can live beneath their means, keeping borrowing to a minimum, instead saving and investing their money in a way that creates personal financial resiliency.

The movie shows the ignorant everyman as having lived above his means. Unable to keep up with his personal greed, the banks simply exercised their rights in the contract he signed when he couldn't keep up payments on the loans that fueled his greedy lifestyle. Living above ones means is just as greedy as the bankers depicted in the movie as evil demons, what's different is the scale.

The fact is that any time you take out a loan you're putting yourself under the control of someone else. Somewhere inside that loan will be provisions of taking back stuff in case loan payments are not made. Any lender who doesn't put those provisions into loan agreements is stupid and will go out of business. The banking business has thousands of years of history behind it, so every bank will understand that principle.

The way to not being controlled by others? Don't take out loans. Instead of living a life based on borrowed money, be frugal and create personal financial resilience.

It's that simple.

We don't have to see ourselves as victims of the great evil banking conglomerates. We can live beneath our means and be free of debt.

Links: 

http://theamericandreamfilm.com/

Federal Reserve celebrates 100 years of dominating America

This week is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Federal Reserve.

It was formed during a meeting held, 100 years ago this week, at Jekyll Island in Georgia. To honor the 100th anniversary they are holding a meeting at the same Jekyll Island resort.

The video below starts at that point but goes on to rant a bit about how the Federal Reserve was invented to enslave the U.S. with a mountain of debt. That may be, or might not be. It is true that the U.S. is saddled with a mountain of debt but it's plausible the debt could be paid off if everyone were to focus on doing so. That is, including the Fed.

The system as it is seems geared to continue the debt situation. The people who make megabucks by loaning money to the federal government will want the current system to continue. The Federal Reserve is the largest entity to be making money by loaning money to the federal government. Clearly they want the current system to continue.

As it stands a huge portion of the national income (taxes etc) is siphoned directly into paying INTEREST on the national debt. When the Bush Administration (both of them) participated in raising huge amounts of debt, this directly benefited the bond holders, the largest of which is the Federal Reserve.

What it means is that a huge portions of our lives are wasted on paying the interest on the national debt. Paying interest on debt does nothing other than enrich the bond holders.