Showing posts with label country. Show all posts
Showing posts with label country. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

"Blackberry Denied"

Mister President, how are we going to break it to the people? I mean it's going to do one hell of a thing to your image. You can't buy this malarkey. Imagine commercials exploiting this in foreign countries showing their leaders calling you from their flashy red Blackberries. Silvio's with the Ferrari logo on it and Sarkozy's with the Carla-Bruni-singing ringtone. The Kim Jong ills, the Chavezes and Ahmadinejads having theirs designed to look like a missile. Damn it, Mister President. I've been warning for years that we're still riddled with traitors. With your permission I'd like to call the boys in CONCOM :P

http://thinkaloo.com

Friday, May 1, 2009

Take year-off loans to travel

How about a new type of loan for students or workers who want to take a year off (or more) in a foreign country and work as volunteers for a cause? The loan will be repaid in work hours, not in cash. The applicant will indicate how many hours he is willing to work a day and based on the minimum wage for the country calculate the total amount of the loan for the specified duration.

The bank or other organization disperses the loan in daily installments based on whether the applicant checked for work or not that day.

This is what it might make sense for a bank to do that. Usually banks hand out lump sums to charities or non-profit organizations and save on taxes. Why not hand the money to the volunteers directly who will work for the charities? The difference is that More people will probably volunteer if they hear they can take a year-off loan to travel that they repay through work than if a charity advertises its work and asks people to join it.

It will also be good PR for the first bank that tries it as it will enable it to build brand and loyalty with young people based on an experience that was fun early on in their adult life. The bank will thus be able to sell more of its products to them in the future banking on that loyalty and brand it built early on.

http://www.thinkaloo.com