Iconic local music store New World Record plans to shutter their location on Elmwood Avenue and move to a new location in a strip mall at the corner of Delaware and Hertel Avenues.

The independent record store which features local artists, live performances, and hard to find music had been a key component in the development of the Elmwood Avenue retail district. After 17 years at the corner of Elmwood and Cleveland, New World Record needs room to grow and a lower monthly rent.

I’m sure that many will make this an indictment of business on Elmwood or Buffalo in general, but this is really about a record store fighting the onslaught of on demand music downloads and the lack of interest from consumers in physical media purchases.

From a 50,000 foot view, it would seem that New World Record drew a tremendous amount of foot traffic due to their location in the most vibrant portion of the Elmwood District. Pulling in traffic from their shared entrance with Spot Coffee and the younger demographic found in that neighborhood. Moving to a nondescript Benderson plaza at the non-pedestrian friendly corner of Delaware and Hertel would seem to reduce store traffic.

However, the owners are probably hoping to create a parking friendly destination shopping location for people in North Buffalo and the immediate northern suburbs. The new store will be a a little larger and will provide the opportunity for the buildout of a small stage area for in-store performances.

What are your thoughts? Good news or bad news for Elmwood?

So, I was watching TV the other night and I saw several advertisements for companies that help kids pay for college. They’re private student loan companies like Think, Astrive, NextStudent, and others.

The commercials promise $40,000 per year to help pay for college with no upfront fees or hassle and no need to pay any of the money back until after graduation. Seems too good to be true, don’t you think?

As noted in The Washington Post, the personal student loan market is booming.

Families took out $17.3 billion in private loans in 2005, up from $4.5 billion in 2000, said Sandy Baum, a senior policy analyst at the College Board and a professor of economics at Skidmore Collage. While private loans were only 4 percent of student loan volume a decade ago, they are now 20 percent, she said.

There are several reasons for this boom, including a freeze on federal student loan amounts since 1992, the ever expanding cost of a college education, and a general disregard for incursion of debt.

The ads for these private student loan companies and their websites have little mention as to the general interest rate which is applied to the total amount after graduation. After a little digging, I was able to find a site that helped explain it a little bit.

Private student loans typically have variable interest rates, with the interest rate pegged to an index, such as LIBOR or PRIME, plus a margin.

Based on that, the student gets a loan comparable to a mid-range credit card. Maybe not such a bad deal after all, right? Well, maybe not.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, has been investigating the $85-billion-a-year student-loan industry since last November. Cuomo discovered that loan companies were bribing their way onto schools’ preferred lender’s lists, which students trust to lead them to the best deals.

Prompted by Cuomo’s findings, the Senate began its own investigation and released a 600-page report in June that revealed misconduct among lenders, regulators and universities was much more common than previously thought. Violations included lenders paying for access to students, using official school logos to market their loans and working out of college financial aid offices — acts as insidious as they are unethical. The report also uncovered what Senator Ted Kennedy called “inappropriate marketing practices” used by lenders to over-emphasize private loans by omitting information about unsubsidized federal loans, which have lower interest rates than private ones and are not need-based.

So, as in most businesses, there are disreputable and unethical companies. Not all that surprising, but the issue of confusing loan terms and fine print seems to be leaving tens of thousands of students with an enormous debt burden at the completion of college.

Nicole Gibson, 26, took out six private loans from 1999 to 2004 to finance her education at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. Like thousands of college students across the U.S., Gibson was steered to private loans by her school’s financial aid office and is now struggling to pay them off. Her monthly payments are $1,300 — almost exactly how much she earns each month as a graphic designer. With few places to turn to for help, Gibson contacted a number of lawyers to explore consolidation and payment-plan options, only to be told that nothing can be done. “One of them actually told me to marry a rich doctor,” Gibson says.

“Private loans are the Wild West of the student loan industry,” Cuomo told members of Congress.

Does anyone have experience with taking out a private student loan? What was your experience like? What are your repayment terms? Is this a wild west industry filled with corruption or is it an industry which helps kids get the right start in life?

I’d like to know more.

You might remember me from such films as “Lead Paint, Deadly But Delicious”, “Pinch Me, I’m In Boise”, and “Tom Reynolds, Man Of The People”.

It’s been awhile since I last had something to say, but I have been one busy mofo. We’re working on a design refresh for WNYM, video projects, Beer-O-Vision coverage of the Buffalo Brewfest, documentaries, a soon to be announced television project, a political campaign, and building partnerships with some other local media outlets.

Lots of changes coming soon and we plan to launch comprehensive election coverage next month along with the rollout of some cool new content.

Over at Buffalo Baseball Blog, Jon Splett (the WNYM Intern) has issued a challenge to all members of the Buffalo media to an eating contest.

You pick the food and I’ll beat you at it. I fear no one. If Bob wants to restore his dignity, bring it on. If Buffalo Rising wants retribution for me calling them hipsters last week, put a chicken wing where your mouth is (although I refuse to take you on in something lame like sushi rolls.) I’ll even take on other bloggers if they’re up to it. No challenge will be refused.

I say we take this one step further and host the Intern Throwdown and Showdown ‘07.

We’ll match up Jon Splett with BRO’s intern, Adam Fix in a series of events designed to prove which of these interns is the best around.

Feats of Gluttony - Chicken Wing Eating Contest
Feats of Coordination - Drinking contest combined with feats of strength and athleticism
Feats of Knowledge - Trivia contest designed by both parties
Feats of Strength - Arm wrestling, of course.
Feats of Keats - Timed Haiku contest, no puns or limericks in this contest
Office Olympics - Copies, coffeemaking, chair-iot racing, trash can jumping, etc.

If the competition cannot be settled, we’ll go to a dance-off.

We’ll close out the festivities with an Airing of The Grievances and a sing-along.

Whaddaya say?

On Saturday, the US House of Representatives voted 227-183 in favor of the Protect America Act 2007. Basically, this legislation amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for a period of six months and makes President George W. Bush’s illegal wiretapping order retroactively legal.

Higgins was one of 41 Democrats who crossed the aisle to join Republicans in support of legalizing warrantless wiretapping. The problem with the bill is its intentionally vague language.

Notwithstanding any other law, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General, may for periods of up to one year authorize the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States if the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General determine, based on the information provided to them, that–

`(1) there are reasonable procedures in place for determining that the acquisition of foreign intelligence information under this section concerns persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States

For a period of 120 days, that determination of reasonable belief is left up to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or the DNI without FISA court review. If the FISA court finds that the measures used for surveillance were improper or the targets were indeed within the United States, the Administration may appeal.

You might remember how well unsupervised wiretapping went last time.

The Democrats were seemingly rushed into action on a bill they had previously said would be evaluated in the fall. Unfortunately, they wanted to appear strong on defense and with Bush, McConnell, and Chertoff giving us their best guesstimates and hunches that an unspecified threat could unspecifically target a hypothetical target anytime within the next 6-24 months, well, the call to action was clear.

President Bush thanks Rep. Higgins, Reynolds, and Kuhl for their support of the bill.

Our good buddy over at Beer-O-Vision, Ethan Cox, takes a few minutes to show you how to properly pour God’s nectar of summertime, Hefeweizen.

Click through to read more and see the video…