Obama CIO stepping down?

Vivek Kundra, Obama’s nominee to act as a Federal “CIO” is taking a leave of absence after federal investigators reported yesterday that one of his direct reports had been engaging in some accounting shenanigans – such as creating fake employees to siphon money away from the District of Columbia, his former employer. Sounds like the same stuff Fry’s Electronics was involved in, only it’s lacking the Vegas gambling angle.

This stuff isn’t funny anymore. If everyone is corrupt, we need to redefine corruption.

I remember when I first heard about this guy. I saw a picture of him on his cell phone – so dramatic! He’s the same age as me and I remember being envious of where his career had already taken him. So I’m disappointed that our first Federal CIO is going down in flames. It’s a bad way to start off a spot like that. But, I must admit I have some schadenfreude.

Shame on me.

Oprah to interview Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg tomorrow

You heard it here first.

Wall Street Journal is reporting that the famed talk show host is going to have the founder on her eponymous show tomorrow. They probably aren’t going to talk about the brain drain, or the devaluation of the facevalue (c’mon, I’m dying here) of the company.

This looks to me like a sign that Zuckerberg is taking it a bit easier and may be relaxing for once – enjoying things while he’s still on top.

New iPod Shuffle & Mac Mini

Okay, I officially have what I will bizarrely title “Shuffle Envy.”

The new iPod Shuffle looks like it’s the size and shape of the Apple remote used to navigate through Spotlight. Only it’s got no buttons on it. Oh, and with a clip. Weird. I like it, if only for it’s high ranking on the oddity scale. Of course, the whole concept of the shuffle is odd, so Apple can kind of use it as it’s “F U” product.

My four year old 2 GB Nano is now officially an antique.

And the Mac Mini gets its specs upgraded all around. Of particular note is the USB port count on the Mac back is bumped up to five. AAPL has re-packaged this puny powerhouse into a “Green Machine” – which makes perfect sense. Unless you hook it up to a 42 inch plasma like I did.

“Après moi, le déluge”

From DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Standard & Poor’s said delinquencies of home-related loans climbed in January, with the rate surging in particular from December for home-equity lines of credit and prime-rated jumbo mortgages.

The agency released that month’s results for residential mortgage-backed securities created in 2005 through 2007 from the home-equity lines and jumbo mortgages as well as closed-end second liens, Alt-A and subprime loans.

Delinquency rates have been climbing for home-related loans as house prices have fallen – sometimes below the outstanding loan amount. As such, homeowners have had less incentive to keep up with payments.

The delinquency rates for jumbo loans – the minimum of which is $417,000 – delinquency rates remained relatively low overall, ranging from 7.2% to 7.8%. But they posted sizable increases from December, with the rate on 2005 loans soaring 26% in one month.

The increase on home-equity lines ranged from 9.2% to 15%, with overall delinquency rates of 12.5% to 17.5%.

By the way, I think jumbo minimums in California have been much higher for the last few years. I’ll look into, but I think it was lifted to ~$700k one or two years ago.

The word Jumbo first appears around the turn of the century. It is the name of a large elephant.