Brandon Chicotsky

Enjoying the beautiful Lake Austin view and supporting Rep....

Wed, 23 May 2012 19:32:01 -0500

Enjoying the beautiful Lake Austin view and supporting Rep. Donna Howard at a strong gathering…awesome mix. (Taken with Instagram at Lake Austin)

Coolest cousin evaa…an artist to the bone. (Taken with...

Sun, 20 May 2012 02:57:48 -0500

Coolest cousin evaa…an artist to the bone. (Taken with Instagram at Red Hook, Brooklyn)

The official-unofficial Masters ceremony at the grandiose...

Sun, 20 May 2012 02:12:11 -0500

The official-unofficial Masters ceremony at the grandiose Lincoln Center. (Taken with Instagram at New York University)

Pulling an all-nighter with my cousin at his gallery. Insanely...

Sun, 20 May 2012 02:11:42 -0500

Pulling an all-nighter with my cousin at his gallery. Insanely cool industrial revitalization project. (Taken with Instagram at Red Hook, Brooklyn)

~ Brief Evangelizing for P2P ~ A Boost from the Crowdfunding...

Wed, 02 May 2012 18:06:00 -0500

~ Brief Evangelizing for P2P ~

A Boost from the Crowdfunding Amendment of the JOBS Act

Get to know the concept, “peer to peer (P2P) lending.” It’s not too late to tap into the benefits of early bubble growth. LendingClub.com, launched in 2007, passed the $500 million mark for investments, including small borrowers and lenders. More recently they’ve surprised the market with the inclusion of hedge funds, family offices and other heavy investors. CEO Renaud Laplanche claims $85 million of active investment management.

Prosper.com, the closest rival, recently landed a $150 million hedge fund commitment to the platform. They’ve crossed the $300 million loan volume validating the P2P model. By the end of 2011, the U.S. Federal Reserve estimated U.S. consumer credit was at $2.5 trillion. While P2P does not put much of a dent in providing more manageable and affordable interest rates and loan restructures, the online community platforms for lending and credit cut out banks and are gaining traction.

Also, the Security and Exchange Commission receives reports for each investment which has raised eye brows in the insurance and re-insurance industry. New guarantees for repayment could be included in the P2P model soon. This bodes well for bank alternatives as consumer dissatisfaction grows.

Just last week, occupy Wells Fargo, a protest movement spun from the Occupy Wall Street community, shut down an investor meeting. While P2P is likely the next option for small loans and investors, high-profile credit card industry executives are joining P2P companies to guide the growth. Just don’t tell the protest movement for risk of losing momentum for P2P.

Adding to the mega trend stats, last month, SocialLending.net reported for the first time ever a monthly volume for LendingClub and Prosper at $50.8 million. Both companies are maintaining an annual 100% growth rate, which absolutely merits evangelizing.

Below is an estimated five day breakdown of how quickly a P2P loan can be obtained:

Mon – Apply for a loan on Prosper.com
Tue – Loan is active on the platform for investors
Wed – Loan is fully funded by investors
Thu – Prosper emails request for documents (driver’s license, copy of a voided check)
Fri – Phone call from Prosper verifying personal details
Fri – Loan issued
Mon – Money appears in the bank account

P2P offers web-savvy consumers methods to pay down credit cards, while investors have risk-adjusted returns that beat other investment products. They can choose small loan participation amounts, and investments are uncorrelated with other activity in portfolio building.

What are the returns? LendingClub reported an average annual return of 5.8 to 12.3 percent, depending on loan grades, while Prosper reported an ROI of 10.47 percent for its notes. As a reference, Lendstats.com offers a fascinating viewpoint and tracks returns at both companies.

So, will these investor communities ever get fully insured? This conversation takes strategic fundraising, political conversations and time. So far, LendingClub reports show only $6 million from two insurers, one of which has applied for a National Association of Insurance Commissioners rating for its investment. This insurance scale should grow with more customer validation and pressure from government.

This is what we call an emerging market. There’s activity, steady growth and soon will be surprises and setbacks. TechStars, a New York based incubator, said it had more than 30 applications from crowdfunding startups for its summer 2012 class, and The JOBS ACT will spread the investment pool to thousands more.

Last month’s Pebble E-Paper Watch for the iPhone, which raised over $6 million on Kickstarter (a new record), proves the impact of crowdfunding. While this isn’t in the same model of P2P, it demonstrates collaborative consumption’s customer validation process. Eric Ries, an Austin resident, alludes to customer validation in his book, The Lean Startup.

This is the process by which businesses can raise funds or obtain purchases before ordering manufacturing or aggressively pursuing a series round of financing. This goes beyond the expenses of office space and secretaries, which are rarely associated for stratups, and delves into validation methods for assessing company or product viability.

Overall, P2P funding and crowdsourcing are rising. Rather than dwell or labor too intensely in drafting proof, engage the space yourself with a safe, low buy-in. After your returns, you may join me in participating with gusto.

Migrating Your Business to the Cloud – Precautions and...

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 11:07:13 -0600

Migrating Your Business to the Cloud – Precautions and Infrastructure Needs

2012 has been the year of transitioning to the cloud, even though it’s a considerably old internet infrastructure model for businesses. Most executives understand that web space (or cloud space) is not a new invention, but it has new relevance. Looking back, store products showcased in physical boxes with software inside ready for manual downloading were impractical and wasteful delivery methods. The cloud could have provided immediate access and purchases to such software. The same principle applies for internal businesses seeking to streamline processes with data usage.

Retailers slowed the market growth of crowdsourcing, network sharing and software cloud storage. The infrastructure burden is no longer shifted to the consumer. It’s now mostly managed by the server or host. This is a sign of progress, streamlining and internet efficiency. Security protections have matured for server support systems, which give data heavy businesses more reason to migrate to the cloud.

Instead of purchasing additional processors as needs grow, you can now purchase more processing power using a host’s hardware. Ever wondered why Jeff Bezos and the Amazon team began purchasing rural land in your region? They are contributors to the new market of web space hosting. Their servers power the web, like many other providers. The burden of hardware has been minimized, and this can cheapen operations. With sound purchases, your business makes your personnel more easily and more quickly able to eliminate different data types, without ever having to acquire hardware or allowing hardware to sit idle.

The recommendations and fact points below are based on our exposure to IT departments transitioning, or migrating, to cloud based software systems. Part of our research as graduate students focusing on technology management and entrepreneurship was to define the processes and systems involved in this migration process.

Two new technologies are converging, the result of which promises to make businesses that require access to data more productive and profitable: cloud computing and data mining.

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than as a product. Computing resources are maintained offsite in the same way utilities such as electricity, Internet service and telephone service are.

Data mining, as the name implies, is the ability to ascertain desired information from a set of data. Today, it is possible to enable the extraction of knowledge from large, complex data sets—and this is essentially what data mining entails.

Before exploring these two technologies and how businesses will benefit from them, it’s important to understand the current, typical state of affairs for data-dependent businesses.

Firstly, infrastructure is Key.

Businesses that offer software as a service such as Sales Force, for example, typically warehouse disparate types of data. Typically, information such as name, company, title and address is housed concurrently in a single database. Customers log in, and either enter new data, or purge and query existing data through a user interface provided in a web browser over any Internet connection.

This requires hardware and software infrastructure that is expensive to maintain, difficult to ensure uptime, and requires safeguards against corruption. As each customer’s database grows ever larger, such companies must continually expand the infrastructure in the form of things like additional software licenses and servers.

Some companies also have data subscriptions such as litigation and financial data that customers can access through a search engine to perform things like e-discovery, or business intelligence research. In those cases the data is typically growing, which further compounds the need for a growing infrastructure and can complicate otherwise linear business decisions.

In other words, for some businesses, infrastructure growth is directly proportional to business growth. For those that rely on data subscriptions, the equation has many more variables. In both cases, though, data must be first managed, and then mined. This is best possible through cloud integration (cloud computing).

The key benefit of cloud computing is something called elasticity. Elasticity is the concept of on-demand provisioning, which enables cloud computing subscribers to access additional computing resources as they are needed. A conundrum faced by IT departments is to understand the future need of hardware and software infrastructure. They must be able to plan for and procure what’s needed according to a forecasted schedule.

At the beginning of the fiscal year, for example, HR and executive management typically require a forecast from hiring managers regarding the number of employees they will hire and when they will hire them. IT can then submit a budget requirement and schedule for hardware and software purchases. Cloud computing can eliminate or diminish this requirement.

This capability becomes exceedingly valuable to data-reliant businesses. Engineering and IT personnel can reduce planning efforts and resources, and focus more on providing the right infrastructure for individual internal consumers. Migration to a cloud computing environment also yields an additional benefit for data-reliant companies: the ability to dynamically diminish computing resources when they are not needed.

Infrastructure requires a non-trivial capital and human investment. Someone has to buy it, someone has to install it, and someone has to maintain it. The intrinsic flexibility of cloud computing translates to flexibility for both engineering and external customers. If data mining from a new data set is temporarily required, additional infrastructure that will afterward be wasted isn’t necessary.

All of this assists in both business planning and execution, through simplification and reduced cost. This is important for understanding the cloud’s potential, but what about upgrading systems for data usage specifically?

Data mining requires a few considerations before migration from a traditional IT environment to a computing cloud. First, it’s important to understand that you can’t simply flip a switch and dump your data directly into the cloud. Second, it’s important to understand that an orderly migration effort is important.

Cloud computing introduces security risks that don’t exist when data is behind your own firewall and your migration plan must account for that reality. There are numerous companies that are well vetted to establish cloud security and monitor your system, which should be researched and accounted in the transition expenses.

Data behind your firewall is subject to two concerns: 1) privacy for each customer from all other customers, and 2) external threats. In a cloud, although you no longer retain the responsibility for external threats, you retain the requirement of protecting customer privacy—and you introduce an additional risk.

You must also contend with preventing the data from being sniffed or compromised as it is transported from the cloud to its destination. Encryption therefore becomes a critical concern. This typically goes hand-in-hand with another concern: cost optimization.

You want your data to have the smallest footprint possible because a bigger footprint translates to greater computing resources which increases cost. Data compression therefore is highly desirable. What’s needed is a solid set of encryption and compression algorithms.

Data-reliant companies typically also have data hygiene requirements. It’s a simple fact: data is dirty. It is often mis-formatted, incomplete and inaccurate. The data cleansing and verification processes and algorithms already in place are much more important in a cloud than behind your firewall. Because of the extra transportation step from your environment to the cloud, you must know that you have clean data from the start. Pre-transfer and post-transfer testing is critical, and additional attention to monitoring is also necessary.

Cloud migration could be adopted almost universally by businesses that rely on data. Businesses that don’t migrate will lose to competitors who adopt the cloud because the cost of infrastructure maintenance behind the firewall is much greater than operating in a cloud environment. However, that doesn’t mean cloud migration should be attempted rashly. It requires thoughtful planning that involves both engineering and IT.

For example, you should plan to migrate, “mission critical,” operations last to reduce the probability of business disruptions. Infrastructure should be maintained throughout the migration to ensure that it can be rolled back if necessary. Also, careful documentation and testing should be performed during the early stages to ensure mission critical operations are not disrupted during the final phase.

- Brandon Chicotsky & David L. Zion

A (Not So New) Cloud One of Steve Jobs’ last heroics was...

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 19:45:00 -0500

A (Not So New) Cloud

One of Steve Jobs’ last heroics was the announcement and launch of Apple’s iCloud, which allows mp3’s and other Apple applications to be accessed on the internet without taking up space on individual computer hardware. Software engineers and user interface designers have been privy to cloud based computing for years, but now it’s the broader market’s turn to enter the world of, “the cloud.”

The cloud is a type of software that stores your data (emails, pics and documents) and runs in your web browser on the Internet. Its basic name is, “Software as a Service (SaaS),” and is more commonly known as cloud-based computing. So, why is the cloud so significant?

For free-lance and entrepreneurial software engineers, the boom in cloud services has been a game changer. Soon, the average internet user will feel this boom, if they haven’t already. Several years ago, all programs you used had to be installed and upgraded, which took up space on our hard drives and couldn’t be accessed on other computers without re-installing.

Now, almost all software is becoming fashioned for international and indiscriminate-computer access. A common attribute of this cloud boom is that most of the software is accessible without cost! For software coding entrepreneurs and businesses, this creates massive opportunity as, “open source,” applications fuel a collaborative market trend (Wikipedia is, in part, a result of this open source free access).

Aside from the emergence of collaborative consumption business models (Examples: Hadoop, Grooveshark, SalesForce and SurveyMonkey), data, information and software is becoming more accessible for coders, internet enthusiasts and web designers. Some cloud sources are sophisticated enough to create profile login entries, whereby users can access organized and specific software to apply to their projects.

Cloud-based computing is an important trend to monitor to understand where our internet consumer products are headed and where investment deal-flow is directed. As we witnessed with one of Steve Jobs’ last performances, the market is moving toward a (not so new) dynamic in the internet space – the cloud.

- Brandon Chicotsky

Conversations with T. Boone Pickens After recently attending the...

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:04:00 -0500

Conversations with T. Boone Pickens

After recently attending the 2011 Clean Energy Venture Summit, I’ve become inspired by our alma mater’s role in green technology innovation and the surrounding entrepreneurial economy. A week prior to attending this summit at The University of Texas at Austin’s AT&T Conference Center, the Texas Tribune hosted a policy festival at the same location with notable speakers such as, T. Boone Pickens. Like many alumni, I’m proud to learn UT is becoming a center point for energy policy discussions and innovative strategies to develop efficient energy use for our nation’s future.

At the Clean Energy Summit, we learned our university has developed 3,000 strains of algae for companies to pilot test energy extraction potential. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is also sponsoring a project to develop jet fuel, known as JP-8, for military use from biological sources. This involves $25 million in sourced funding.

As university biologists and engineers engage in this research and development, it’s inevitable, “gap fuel,” discussions will ensue. Gap fuels are what T. Boone Pickens (with me, right) described at the Texas Tribune Festival as necessary fuel to bridge the gap from archaic and heavily pollutant energy sources (oil and coal) to fully non-pollutant energy sources. For Pickens, a welcomed Oklahoman onto UT’s campus, he described natural gas as gap fuel touting three benefits, “It’s cheaper than current energy sources, more abundant and domestic.”

Hydraulic fracking, a water-intensive drilling process that fractures rock to release natural gases, was a subject of debate at the Texas Tribune Festival. Pickens, along with U.S. Senator John Cornyn at the policy festival, disputed data reports and environmental activist claims of fracking’s (supposed) cause for minor earthquakes and detriment to water aquifers. While the Texas Tribune Festival admirably debated the issues and policies around fracking, the Clean Energy Summit showcased companies with missions aimed to make fracking safer, more cost effective and more resource efficient.

It’s fitting our university is a partner in coalescing thought leaders in public policy, energy industry and innovative technology. These are arenas of intellectualism, analysis and entrepreneurship that shape our future, alter our markets and affect our livelihoods. Every McCombs alumni and fellow Longhorn can stand proud knowing our campus attracts gatherings that change the world, but we should never stand idle. Let’s give, participate and offer our resources to ensure UT remains a leader in these critical energy and technology advances.

- Brandon Chicotsky

The Vacuum of Downtime for an Information...

Sat, 14 May 2011 07:17:00 -0500

The Vacuum of Downtime for an Information Baby

My generation may not know who to thank for the capitalization of computer microminiaturization advances. Such advances have spawned broadly accessible and affordable personal computer products and internet communication technology. The commercialization and marketing campaigns using this technology have inspired stable interfaces for sharing information and developing captivating applications in what we commonly refer to as, ‘social media’.

Whether it’s the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), British scientist Tim Berners-Lee (“world wide web” creator), Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Tom Anderson, Mark Zuckerberg, or Larry Page and Sergey Brin, my generation owes significant credit to the aforementioned innovators and a host of others for creating a new vacuum of downtime.

Admittedly, my entertainment or whimsical creation is often channeled toward interactive technology, rapid global communication, or information sharing. This begs the question, what does an ‘information baby’ do with spare time? I’ll tell you exactly what we do…we play and inundate our minds.

Put yourself in the mindset of a Baby Boomer. For those who belong in this demographic, I invite sentimental reminiscing. Large-scale commercial products like: erector sets, tinker toys, color television sets, flying miniature helicopters, high-powered telescopes, easy to engineer bottle rockets, remote control toy cars, electric battery lights, citizens’ band (CB) radio, stand-up speakers, four track players, eight track players, and the Texas Instruments’ hand held calculator (remember the $100 and $200 pricing?)…these items among other simple rotary machine toys and sound projecting devices made up the bulk of technology play toys for Baby Boomers.

The downtime of young students in the Baby Boomer era had less connectivity with citizens of other nation-states. There were no visual labyrinths of online linking, coding, and embedding. There were few opportunities to move 2D, 3D, or 4D images in real time through virtual simulation, and few opportunities to map out graphic and informational architecture on a well pixilated and well illuminated screen.

Information was spread orally, through physical publications, through code transfers connected by electronic wiring, through rough video and audio tracking, or physical transfer of ink typed or written imaging or language. Today, all modes of communication from the Baby Boomer era remain in practice, as do a multitude of expedited processes that captivate, easily commercialize, digitize, and connect the world at rapid speed.

Today, my colleagues in graduate school likely read over 3,000 words of content in a business journal or online news publication before attending lecture each day. It’s estimated the front page of the New York Times has roughly 2,200 words, all of which can be obtained on a smart phone with a few scrolls of the thumb. For us multi-taskers, we may enjoy a television news program (they now stream online), which delivers 150-200 words per minute while reading our online publication and fielding SMS (text message) alerts from the Wall Street Journal. This is a simple example of information inundation for news enthusiasts or habitual news readers (I’m one of them).

On average, I have about 8 browsers open at once. Most browsers involve news, social media, search engine entries, music applications, or online radio or podcast broadcasting. The audio feeds outside of music involve information output or idea sharing from industry savants or respected authors. Imagine what this does to a mind in repeated daily sequence over a course of several years of formative growth. Almost all colleagues of mine in graduate school have developed these habits.

While writing this blog entry, I have a radio segment playing in the back round, which I helped develop with other information babies. As an example of how we spent our down time, and to draw a distinct contrast to the recreation involving technology from generations prior, I’ll explain…

While employed with menial tasks (entering data on excel and drafting formulas to determine industry trends and company revenue projections) I found extra time to correspond online with other uninspired young professionals to build an online radio show. We used free software, which we downloaded on sites known as, “open source,” and embedded template applications (also obtained through open source) on another larger template website design. With a little bit of ‘photoshop’ (a term used as a verb, which describes a program that enables graphic imaging and photo editing), we filled in the template design with our customized imaging. With the open source software, open source application, open source web site design, and ‘photoshopped’ imaging, we had a presentable site with functionality.

The site’s goal was to offer a 24/7 radio show and feature humorous video content specific to our industry of interest [either produced by us, by hired interns, or obtained through other online social mediums (like YouTube)]. We took this content and embedded the videos and pictures on our site. We hired interns out of our local universities (respective to our place of work) to broadcast 24/7, wcovering news content, conduct interviews, and offer entertaining segments around the clock. The radio show would broadcast from the site and be accessible worldwide with a simple internet connection. Finally, we embedded a donation application or, “button,” on the site so listeners have the opportunity to express their support for the show.

This entire operation has proven successful (respective to our goals), and the show remains on air and has been running for months. Our expenses are completely off-set by listener contributions, and most notably, we’re all extraordinarily entertained during any waking hour.

Perhaps we were venting from the lack of entrepreneurial freedom in our jobs, or maybe we sensed our generational advantage in developing online endeavors. One confidant is a full-time and profitable online Texas Hold ‘Em player and the other an up-and-coming hardware engineer with a knack for affiliate marketing schemes and basic HTML coding. Bottom line, we represent a breed of plugged-in, online intuitive thinkers, who utilize popular software and internet tools at our disposal to inundate or minds, communicate abroad, and build enterprises via the internet.

Sometimes, these endeavors become markedly profitable for our friends. Other times, as in the case I described with our radio show, only our small network and industry fans enjoy the fruits of our labor. Social media is mostly where we recruit listeners, and those who tune in are loyal listeners and contributors.

Through various chat mediums (skype messaging, oovoo, facebook chat, gmail chat, “tweets” on twitter, online forum threads, and Microsoft Instant Messenger), we were able to brain storm several ideas and delegate tasks. Meanwhile, each of us maintained our various projects, managed our jobs’ deadlines and browsed news, engaged social media, listened to audio feeds, and learned new coding methods through search engine entries.

I must qualify this behavior by saying each confidant involved has developed skill-sets that function outside the online arena, as have most information babies. My confidants and I are sufficient public speakers, have respectable interpersonal communication and organizational skills, and we are enthusiastic dressers of business professional or occasional golf casual.

We learned these skills in the last feudal system in the United States – college campus education; a place where tenured professorships provide timeless insight. I promise, ageless principles touted by Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill have not fallen on deaf ears. I refer these skills because they belong to the majority of college educated members of my generation, especially those who attended The University of Texas.

Information babies generally understand the importance of maintaining relationships, building tangible plans, visualizing success, and creating lasting influence as leaders in varied industry positions. All the while, information babies often have other functions or facets of excellence. We’re superb multi-taskers, we retain and regurgitate information at unprecedented levels, we’re exposed to hundreds of thousands of impressions (images on the computer screen) during an average week; whether advertising, news articles, flash media, website architecture, data, interactive maps, search engine results, interface application systems, or communication technology.

What’s most notable is that information babies are now available on the market to join your companies, start their own entrepreneurial endeavors, and educate the next generation of youths. In our early years, most of our parents taught us to utilize our time wisely, develop a high emotional intelligence, and seek mentors. However, it’s likely none of our parents told us to spend our downtime engaging a community of friends through social media tools or inundating our minds with information through search engines and varied online news-feed portals. The reason these mandates were not pressed upon us is because the vacuum of downtime described above never existed until now.

-Brandon Chicotsky

Understanding my hometown’s tax collection… As...

Sun, 17 Oct 2010 08:26:00 -0500

Fort Worth, TX

Fort Worth, TX

Understanding my hometown’s tax collection…

As mentioned in previous posts, I am pursuing independent study of Fort Worth’s city management, voting trends, history, and cultural developments. My latest discoveries involve taxes. ..

Fort Worth accounts for tax revenues through a City Operating Budget. The accounts are grouped into what’s known as, Enterprise Funds, General Funds, Internal Service Funds, and Special Funds.

All city services (sanitation works, airports, water works) are supported by Enterprise Funds. Generally, user charges pay for operations. In recent years, Fort Worth has pursued a noble goal - eliminating all forms of subsidization to utility enterprise funds. This means, no one is using my tax dollars to pay for mismanagement or budget shortfalls - I highly value this form of conservative governance.

Every tax dollar paid to the municipality initially goes to the General Fund before money is allocated outward. The Internal Service Funds finance the services and goods of each department (equipment, technology solutions, office services, and temporary labor). The Special Fund serves to track revenue and expenses. This fund helps identify excess and lapses while providing a safeguard for any budget oversight.

The city also accounts for grants. For example, in 2006, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development granted the city of Fort Worth over $11 million for community development, emergency shelters, and housing opportunities for persons with AIDS. These grants are handled through a separate budget, which means Fort Worth’s leadership must never become complacent in managing its resources.

Near my family’s retail center on 7th street (Chicotsky’s Center) we have enjoyed new, highly valued commercial and condominium development, which is taking shape throughout the Historic District and downtown area. New development contributes to keeping a low tax rate for property owners. As long as housing developers consider affordability and market forces to avoid over-saturation we can avoid high tax rates.

Fort Worth’s property tax rate has changed several times over the last few years with welcomed tax cuts, and we have proven somewhat immune to the aftermath of the 2008 market dive. Currently, we enjoy the lowest tax rate in the city since 1986. As long as we have an increase in construction, an increase in single-family homes, and smart assessments by the Tarrant Appraisal District (provides current value assessments), we can keep our tax rate competitive.

-Brandon Chicotsky

Economist Adam Smith, Not Always Accurately...

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 18:19:00 -0500

Adam Smith

Economist Adam Smith, Not Always Accurately Portrayed…

It’s my belief that anyone who pursues a legislative or municipal seat in government must understand and consider different schools of economic thought. Legislation, budget allocations, oversight of city works, and management of a government labor force all factor into economics – whether locally or nationally measured.

My education of economics began, oddly enough, with an analysis of Reaganomics by libertarian humorist, P.J. O’Rourke. Satire peaked my interest when I first heard O’Rourke, because I wanted insight and context to connect with the humor my elders enjoyed. To find this, I studied iconic figures like Adam Smith, John Keynes, and Milton Friedman. Admittedly, this was not typical for a teenager.

To begin modern economic thought, one must consider Adam Smith. He is touted as the father of laissez faire (a French term, literally meaning, “leave it alone”), and is championed by conservatives and corporate libertarians as intellectual proof for limited government and pure-free-market reign.

As we dive deep into his writings, particularly his most famous work, The Wealth of Nations, we learn that he is more pragmatic and accepting of government involvement than often perceived. He describes scenarios where government can boost infant industry through subsidies as long as government is relieved of the financial burden once the industry grows into maturity.

Smith describes government and corporations as corruptible and problematic, but in necessary marriage. In, The Wealth of Nations, government is posed as a ploy to protect the wealthy from the poor through a barrier system, while also a mechanism for protecting private property. Smith details how taxes can become badges of liberty, not slavery, as long as they are paid in absolute necessity and, “as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

To me, Smith advocates for a basic form of government, which protects property and preserves the integrity of the nation-state. Far reaching programs and bloated government, as we often find in contemporary economic environments, would be offensive to Smith. As a pragmatist, not a firebrand or pure-free-market zealot, I agree that government should be small and efficient.

I also agree that government can provide safe guards, and checks and balances, but only in limited circumstances. For example, consumer protection agencies, the Food and Drug Administration, and public education are areas of government I want to preserve and improve to better our society and strengthen the private sector.

-Brandon Chicotsky

Liberal Arts and Business… With every business course I...

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 18:54:00 -0500

Liberal Arts and Business…

With every business course I took as an undergraduate student, I found reason to compare them to my liberal arts education. Business studies provided rudimentary knowledge of accounting, finance, marketing, and organizational management, but most of it was a gloss-over exercise in learning. Conversely, liberal arts courses, particularly the upper-division coursework (smaller classes, more rigorous), provided in-depth and introspective viewpoints into subject matter. I found practical applications for my liberal arts concentration - cultural anthropology.

Every day, I am faced with challenges in business where I am prompted to research or lean on third parties for answers. Business education is critical, whether independently pursued or through degree coursework. As a business owner and manager, I’ve learned some tough lessons that could have been avoided with mock trial entrepreneurship as an undergraduate, but it was never offered.

Most undergraduate business studies focused on learning for corporate applications, not suited for start-up enterprises or entrepreneurship. Fortunately, as I was graduating from The University of Texas at Austin, new entrepreneur-based courses were in formation. The future is bright for any student who seizes such an opportunity to take on these new courses.

Cultural Anthropology is the study of social, political, and economic interaction and constructions among people. Often, cultural anthropologists immerse themselves in a foreign environment in an effort to gain understanding of why and how people behave relative to their roots, origins, and location. For me, I take an economic and political approach to any field study or cultural immersion study.

As an undergraduate, I visited 7 countries and took on 3 study abroad programs. My travels have continued, though my writing and research on the areas I visit are less detailed than before. Experiential learning has become a natural priority while away from the grind of essays and course deadlines.

Later in life, I will likely consider pursuing a doctorate in cultural anthropology. I envision myself as a retired politico, traveling to the northwest, where the universities are cut out of the beautiful red wood forests, overlooking a sister city to beloved Austin (Portland quickly comes to mind). As for now, I have a more pressing priority - continuing my business education and getting back to Texas as soon as possible (after studies are complete).

In 2011, I will enroll in a Masters for a business concentration. Applications have been sent and the wait for admissions has begun. The programs to which I applied are varied in business subjects. All of them concentrate on entrepreneurship and management. The traditional MBA, as offered at my alma mater, does not quite suit my career objectives, which are to own and operate businesses for the coming years.

MBAs are known as credentials geared for career shifts or hiring tools. I have little intention of pursuing a cookie cutter role in a developed company. Rather, I will offer such a position in a company of my own, and I will be pleased to hire an MBA student. Meanwhile, I will have a Masters with a concentration in management or entrepreneurship.

I look forward to continuing my education of: capital investments, debt strategies and leveraging assets for growth, accounting, human resource management, market research and analysis, marketing and advertising, and technological tools for business. All the while, I will continue to expand my critical thinking, expose myself to new environments, and remain indulged in worldly reading as an enthusiast of cultural anthropological studies.

-Brandon Chicotsky

Why Midterms Gain So Much Attention… In 1894, President...

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 19:24:00 -0500

Why Midterms Gain So Much Attention…

In 1894, President Grover Cleveland suffered the worst midterm election loss in American history. Congress saw a change in 5 Senate seats and 116 House seats in the aftermath of voter dissatisfaction from economic woes. The “Panic of 1893” involved a railroad bubble caused by overbuilding, dubious financing, and construction speculation. This led to massive bank failures. Sound familiar?

Economic challenges created a politically perilous environment for President Cleveland and his Democratic Party in the 19th century. The parallels of 1894’s election (in the aftermath of the “Panic of 1893”) to the upcoming 2010 midterms (in the aftermath of the 2008 market dive) are quite apparent.

Only four Presidents since Abraham Lincoln have survived the midterms without losses in Congress. The exceptions included unique circumstances - Teddy Roosevelt’s charisma and media courtship, The Great Depression, Republican mishaps with Clinton’s impeachment trial, and 9/11.

It’s important to note that even popular Presidents like Dwight D. Eisenhower and Franklin D. Roosevelt faced losses during midterms (though FDR bucked the trend in 1934). President Obama enters November’s midterm election with an inevitability presented by historical voting patterns. Also, Obama and his Party are faced with a huge burden - the perception of over spending.

FDR’s 1938 midterm Congressional losses were in direct response to a perceived overuse of the New Deal - he lost 71 House seats. Even before then, in 1890, Republicans were pinned with the “Billion Dollar Congress” - they lost 85 House seats. Clinton’s 1994 health care overhaul attempt was pinned as a massive tax increase and overspending initiative, which turned the House of Representatives over to Republican control for the first time in 4 decades (first time since JFK died) - Democrats lost 54 House seats that year.

The Democratic Party currently holds a 75 seat majority in the House of Representatives and a 10 seat majority in the Senate [(including the ex officio President of the Senate, which is the Vice President of the United States (Joe Biden), who presides over the chamber and is counted during tie breaking votes of the 100 member body)]. Democrats control 26 Governor seats, while Republicans control 24. All of these numbers will change come November.

In our Representative Republic, Congressional seats wield significant power. Each voting member of our nation’s federal legislative body chartered in the first article of the United States Constitution has the power to draft law, approve judicial leadership, cast a vote in favor or against defense spending, and represent our government to the world through diplomatic Congressional delegations. Aside from the history’s voting trends, the power stakes involved in the upcoming election are compelling.

-Brandon Chicotsky

A Quick Word About Last Week’s Tragedy At My Alma Mater

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 22:01:00 -0500

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A Quick Word About Last Week’s Tragedy At My Alma Mater

Concerning gun rights… In February 2009, Texas Senator...

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 20:55:00 -0500

Concerning gun rights…

In February 2009, Texas Senator Jeff Wentworth introduced Senate Bill 1164, which, “will allow persons who are licensed to carry a concealed weapon to do so on college campuses in Texas.” The bill passed by a 20-10 vote in the Senate and has been stalled in the lower chamber, though half of the House members endorse the House version.

Click here for text of the bill.

During college, I held the belief that guns were too dangerous for citizens to openly carry and posses outside of private property. I have since reformed my position and taken a more libertarian approach to the issue. However, I am not convinced students should carry weapons on campus. I do believe the more lax gun laws become, the more likely citizens will educate themselves on firearms and responsible usage. Regardless, the conversation on gun rights must continue and resolution on the issue must be settled.

College campuses are no exception to heinous crimes and senseless violence, as experienced on UT’s campus last week. Many believe if students and faculty held the right to bear arms on campus, a deterrent factor would play into anyone’s decision-making before storming campus with deadly intent. I have also heard the argument that if we solely rely on authorities and the state to protect us in all public environments, the American citizen is ultimately stripped of liberty and self-protection in critical circumstances.

History details many narratives where limited or denied gun rights disempower citizenry and establish legal precedents of over-assertive government imposition. As a liberal and critical thinker, I am hesitant to accept that completely lifting campus gun restrictions will create a safer environment for learning, but I am sensitive to preserving and expanding civil liberties. This issue deserves more debate and deliberation.

My heart goes out to everyone who must face this latest tragedy first hand. As the debate over Senate Bill 1164 and rights to bear arms continues, I hope all Longhorns, critics, and punditry remain united in their efforts to better our intellectual communities.

-Brandon Chicotsky

Social Media - and so it begins… This blog site is the...

Sun, 03 Oct 2010 21:35:05 -0500

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Social Media - and so it begins…

This blog site is the beginning of what will eventually become a collective work featured on a media site around my activities in politics and business. During graduate school (the next few years), I will continue to utilize Chicotsky.com to communicate my ideas and career progress in this basic format. My posts are synced with my twitter page and facebook page. Check me out and follow me at…

Twitter.com/Chicotsky

Facebook.com/Chicotsky

LinkedIn.com/in/Chicotsky

My Education of Cowtown, Fort Worth The Chicotskys have a...

Sun, 03 Oct 2010 16:32:26 -0500

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My Education of Cowtown, Fort Worth

The Chicotskys have a tradition of community involvement in my hometown. I intend to take on significant responsibility in the storied gateway to the west known as “Cowtown” or Fort Worth, TX.

My hometown is a cultural center with an industrious population. Fort Worth has emerged from a rough neck, gun slinging, saloon oriented town, to a location center for several Fortune 500 companies, national defense arms manufacturing, and world-class museums.

With each historical narrative and encyclopedic piece I read, my understanding of Fort Worth’s infrastructure, demographics, and politics expands. Reference knowledge of my hometown’s history will undoubtedly serve as a strength when faced with opportunities to draw innovative solutions to future challenges.

Made a quick trip to Mexico - partly for business (facilitating...

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:32:51 -0500

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Made a quick trip to Mexico - partly for business (facilitating a seminar on a cruise ship with my brother)…mostly for fun.

A Quick Flashback to One of My Undergraduate Studies Abroad I...

Sat, 25 Sep 2010 08:19:00 -0500

Injured in secondary growth jungle

Exploring ancient Mayan ruins in college

My study of people and history continues

A Quick Flashback to One of My Undergraduate Studies Abroad

I visited 7 countries while enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin, earning credit at The Universidad de Guanajuato (Mexico) and at an archaeological camp in Central America called La Milpa - an ancient Mayan ruins site in Belize. After college, I studied in Jerusalem for a summer before fund raising and organizing lobby efforts with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. My travels provided experiential learning and broadened my understanding of people and history. La Milpa in particular was a journey of physical challenges and revelations about our ancient past.

Secondary forests consist of dense growth with natural mechanisms in place to poison foreign species of the environment. Many ecologists and nature observers debate whether or not plant and animal evolutionary development specifically target humans. If you spend several months in secondary growth, you may no longer need such a debate. While my injury (shown in a picture above) is not directly attributed to forest elements, several people around me were subjected to brutal discomfort at the hand of this unique forest growth.

Any forest that formerly exists, is destroyed, and then grows back becomes known as secondary growth. Often, in these forests, you find plants, bugs, and animals with symbiotic relationships that are dually functioned to survive and harm foreign species of the forest environment. At La Milpa, there were Africanized bees, which are a breed of bees who protect their territory in packs and will relentlessly attack, in mass, to any offender. I witnessed an Africanized bee sting on a colleague. This person had to be restrained from swatting at the bee or irritating the hive. It was a chaotic moment for this person. As I’m told, anyone stung by such a bee must stand entirely still or run in one direction as fast as possible to escape the territory claimed by the insect.

There were poisonous grass fields to the skin, give-and-take trees (plants with poisonous spikes and a curable ointment only found in the middle of the trunk), and over sized forest cats, who are extraordinarily dangerous. Certain snakes had deathly venom and spiders were notorious for numbing the skin before repetitive strikes. I slept in very fine mosquito nets and could hear insects fly into the netting all night. They were attracted to my body heat, which always surprised me considering the blistering heat of Central American summers.

Howler monkeys could be heard from 3 miles out. These monkeys were mostly peaceful accept their roar is unfathomably loud. If someone did walk under such a monkey perched in a tree, it’s not uncommon for the monkey to urinate or throw feces at the person entering the territory. I was lucky to have avoided such situations but heard of several colleagues who were victimized. These stories always had a comedic tone, but represented the odd and unsettling interaction of American students with secondary growth forests.

Halfway through the summer abroad program, I was exploring the surrounding territory with several colleagues and came across a basketball court unlike any I had seen before. This court was cut out of thick growth, had broken concrete on the ground, a bicycle rim as a goal, and a tree trunk for a goal post. With each new arrival to the camp site, we were delivered medical supplies, food, and special gift request (books, power savers, and water cleansers). In my case, I received a basketball among my special deliveries. The basketball goal was slightly above 8 1/2 feet tall, which enabled me to take on seemingly fanciful dunks.

At the end of the summer, after many hours exploring pyramids ascending over 100 feet from the ground and educating myself on the customs, civic structure, and traditions of Mayan religious practice, I injured myself in circus form. Throughout the summer I sustained countless insect stings and climbed dangerous ruins that were freshly uncovered and unmapped. However, it was the basketball court that conquered my physical durability.

I crossed over to my right and saw an open lane to the goal. It was a 3 on 3 game and we had chilled drinks on the line (a commodity in the jungle). After a few dribbles, I leaped in acrobatic fashion to execute a side-winding dunk. When I came down my right foot became lodged between two broken pieces of concrete (split by persistent roots underneath the foundation). My ankle turned with the full weight of my body coming down, still descending from the dunk. One of my peroneal tendons popped. This tendon is situated in front of the ankle and holds the bone in place. Hours later I had the chilled drinks in hand, but they were not used for celebratory toasts. Instead, I was placing them against the injury to quell the swelling.

Years later, my ankle is fully healed and functional. I had no surgery, but endured many hours of physical rehabilitative exercises. I still take on basketball courts, no matter where they reside. When a similar lane opens up toward the goal, as experienced in La Milpa, I aggressively pursue. Of course, goals are usually 10 feet tall in the states, and any form of a side-winding dunk is unlikely for my stature. However, I look back on my injury, my travels, and the experience gained from adventures in Central America and am enriched with broadened perspective and unique memories.

-Brandon Chicotsky

Joined by Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing,...

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 09:33:00 -0500

Joined by Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs — Chris Dodd.

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My Take On Wall Street 2

I was in my early teens when I first saw Oliver Stone’s 1987 masterpiece, which coined the phrase, “Greed is Good.” Gordon Gekko, the culturally iconic American investment banker, nearly lures Bud Fox (an under-leveraged and vulnerable protégé) into relinquishing all assets of a company sentimental to Fox’s family. Gekko ends up in jail and returns to the private sector as a free man in the sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

The original movie compelled me to participate in stock investing for the first time (Brinker stock at $14/share) as a satellite purchase via my father, a trustworthy guarantor. At a young age, I tasted the turbulence from Wall Street’s activities. Naturally, I anticipated the theater release of the sequel. Here’s my review of the film…

I’m impressed with the relevant historical parallels and characters to the 2008 crash, and irritated by a tangential storyline surrounding a love-lost mellow-drama that’s seemingly unnecessary.

Internet forum rumors pinned the sequel’s script as an exposé of hedge funds, blaming them for big bank failures in ’08. The financial system’s nosedive is attributed to complacent oversight and working groups in Washington and banks’ enormous amounts of toxic-waste derivatives, “pumped full of steroids,” as Gekko aptly describes, and leveraged with our money.

A folksy woman approached Gordon Gekko during the movie and asked, “What is the meaning of a moral hazard?” The response – “When someone takes your money and no longer becomes responsible for it.” If there were ever a summation quote assigned to the 2008 fallout, there it is.

Portfolio.com’s Gary Weiss interviewed Oliver Stone and revealed, “The original script in 2009 was about hedge funds.” The movie I saw tonight focused on American banks and D.C. oversight. Short-seller specialists and hedge fund managers are noted by Weiss as likely influences on Stone’s change of heart. Hedge funds are international networkers involving clientele with high ceiling buy-ins. To avoid a cliché film setting on yachts, Dubai high-rises, and private jet meetings with Russian tycoons, Stone depicts American banks and Washington oversight committees as, “the key to the whole thing.”

In reality, American banks began behaving like fast-trading hedge funds which proved reckless, and as the sequel explains, a new cycle has begun. The trading habits of banks will persist unless there’s an environmental shift or regulatory intrusion – neither of which is taking shape in effective form.

As for the parallels I mentioned earlier…

In the film, Keller Zabel Investments is an undeniable proxy for Bear Stearns, with a few elements of Lehman Brothers (again, in agreement with Weiss). Another bank featured in the film, Churchill Schwartz resembles Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, (Former Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson’s famous examples of 2008 entities, “too big to fail”).

Gordon Gekko’s character is not heightened enough in this film. His menacing ways are overshadowed by his daughter’s anguish over Gekko’s betrayals. The daughter is a character scripted to cry and pout on cue. Overall, the film provides an entertaining and substantive view into the culture of the latest pre-crash era and the frenzy that followed the downturn.

As expected, producers raised funds for the film by selling numerous product ads, which drown the movie’s dialogue in commercial rhetoric and disrupt the cinematography with still-shots of retail products. However, there were too many financier credos and stock trading quips to deny my overall enjoyment. I don’t rate this film very high, but I am glad a sequel exists to the original Wall Street which sparked my interest in the market nearly ten years ago.