"I'm going to be in jail for committing tomato Ponzi," says Zachary Lippman in a New York Times piece by Robin Finn (8/22/10). Zach probably won't be going to jail, but he may be laughing all the way to the bank once his research into tomato genetics bears, um, fruit. Zach and his team at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have figured out how to "make a tomato plant increase its yield by half and simultaneously sweeten its produce."

But they're doing it not with "genetically modified tricks" but rather as Mother Nature intended. The process involves "manipulating a single copy of a mutant gene ... known as S.F.T. (single flower truss)." Called the "flower power gene" it "tells plants when and how many flowers to generate." The hope is that one day any gardener with a packet of Zach's superseeds could produce a bumper crop, not to mention the commercial potential of sweeter, more plentiful tomatoes.

There's also the possibility of manipulating melons and soybeans in similar fashion. "If this technology can be transferred to other species it could be quite valuable, and that's what Zach is working on now," says Bruce Stillman, president of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Zach's fellow scientists may not be so impressed though; a group of them recently greeted him with shouts of, "Hey Zach, nice tomatoes!" But Zach is undaunted: "If I had a million dollars, I'd start a seed company tomorrow," he says. A patent on his mutant seeds is pending.

"Bank of America, J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo are making life harder for local bankers," report Dan Fitzpatrick and Robin Sidel in the Wall Street Journal (7/20/10). Taken together, the three banks "now have 33 percent of all US deposits, up from 21 percent in mid-2007." They also "now hold more than a third of all deposits in 25 metropolitan areas that are home to 70 million people, or nearly one-fourth of the US population." This is really putting the squeeze on smaller, local banks, who are finding it harder to compete.

The big banks say that consolidation benefits their customers, what with "more branches, ATMs and features like free online bill payment." They also "often offer lower mortgage rates and other types of loans." However, to help make this possible, they've slashed interest rates on "certificates of deposit and other savings products." The average yield on a one-year Bank of America CD "fell to 0.4 percent from 3 percent" versus a year ago, for instance. "The US average is 0.79 percent." Loans, meanwhile, are generally harder to come by.

Smaller banks are also complaining that the giants are telling customers that if they move their savings accounts elsewhere, they won't give them loans. A Wells Fargo spokesperson denies this, but allows that "deeper customer relationships better equip us to offer the best solutions." Adding to the pressure, the big banks are investing heavily in "billboards, print and television ads and junk mail." A local bank in Florida closed its loan office after its newspaper ads failed to dent a big-bank billboard campaign. "You cannot compete on that level," the bank's finance chief said.

Josh Reich is creating a banking experience that's "more akin to Twitter than to Chase," reports Ira Boudway in Bloomberg Businessweek (7/12/10). Josh is a 32-year-old "former equity researcher at a New York investment fund" who thinks traditional banks "suck." His solution is called BankSimple and has no bank branches -- in fact, it isn't even chartered as a bank (money is "held at FDIC-insured partners, mainly nonretail institutions that manage money held on gift cards and flexible spending accounts").

Members receive a debit card that "is also linked to a small credit line. When they have a positive balance ... they earn interest at 'above average' rates. If it's negative, they pay interest but will face no overdraft fees. Customers can get cash from 50,000 ATMs in small banks, stores, and fast-food outlets across the US." Membership is limited to "smartphone users, though they will also be able to access their account online."

Each time members use the debit card, they receive a message on their phone "showing the amount charged and the balance -- which serves as both a record-keeping tool and an instant fraud alert." Members can also submit their financial goals and instantly set up the recommended instruments. Some observers think BankSimple, being unchartered, faces considerable consumer skepticism, while others note that traditional banks aren't exactly all that trusted these days, either. BankSimple will launch this fall, and already has signed up 10,000 customers.

"We are looking at different ways that customers can provide us value for the value we provide," says Bank of America spokesperson Robert Stickler in a Wall Street Journal piece by Dan Fitzpatrick (7/16/10). "That can be the way they interact with us," he continues, "how much business they bring us, and if all else fails it can be a monthly fee." That's the strategy at Bank of America, which has "some sort of banking relationship with half of all US households," once "the expected new era of regulatory restrictions" takes effect.

It's a strategy involving the "retraining employees in its 6,000 branches" and it is captured in a single word, "Guest." It's actually an acronym: "G is for 'genuine welcome,' U means 'undivided attention,' E is for 'empowered,' S stands for 'solutions' and T is for 'thank you.'" But its effect, apparently, is to invite customers to stop talking to tellers and use the ATM machines outside instead because it's cheaper, for the bank. Soon, it will be cheaper for its 55 million customers, too.

Bank of America is introducing a new type of account where if you agree to bank only online and by ATM, your account is free. But if you still want to talk to a teller and receive paper statements, it's $8.95 a month. The bank is doing this, in part, because the new banking regulations outlaw overdraft fees, which will eliminate $2.2 billion of its revenues. In fact, as of last year, "fees and service charges generated $6.8 billion, or nearly half the revenue in the bank's deposit business." Next window please.

Woody Tasch thinks "small local farms are the ultimate hedge fund," reports Stephanie Simon in the Wall Street Journal (9/16/09). Woody is a former venture capitalist who believes investors should "put some of their assets into businesses they can see, smell and even taste -- to measure growth not by the flashing numbers on a stock ticker, but by the slow ripening of a tomato." He doesn't pretend that "investing in sustainable local agriculture will yield an enviable return," maybe 3-6 percent over the very long term. He says the real dividend is "diversity."

As Woody sees it, investing in small farms is a way to introduce something different into a marketplace dominated by industrial farms, "where millions of acres are planted with the same variety of corn and millions of pigs are bred to be genetically similar." Small farms meanwhile "preserve heirloom seeds and quirky breeds; strengthen the soil with organic nutrients; create local markets that connect producer directly to consumer." A few investors are buying into the slow-money idea, although cautiously.

"I won't lie -- it's a scary thing," says Martin Lindstrom, a Rockefeller heir, who says that giving his money to a goat farmer feels like "jumping off a cliff." Even some of the farmers aren't so sure about they idea: "Specifically, they fear deep-pocketed local investors will demand a say in management decisions." They're also afraid that "small-sum investors" will swamp them "with requests for tours and samples." Some feel they're better off with a traditional bank loan. But Woody Tasch, who has written a book about his idea, "Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money," seeks a million people to join him. "We must bring money down to earth," he says.

Eight credit unions in Michigan are offering a novel program that's "a cross between a certificate of deposit and a raffle ticket," reports Jason Zweig in the Wall Street Journal (7/18/09). The way it works is, you put at least $25 into a one-year, Save to Win CD and "are entered into a monthly 'savings raffle' for prizes up to $400, plus one annual drawing for a $100,000 jackpot ... In 25 weeks, the program has attracted abut $3.1 million in new deposits, often from people who have never been able to set money aside."

Peter Tufano, a finance professor at Harvard came up with the idea, which is currently open only to Michigan residents. It's premised on a fairly basic reality: "In 2007, the latest year for which final numbers are available, Americans spent $92.3 billion on legalized gambling, according to Christiansen Capital Advisors; that same year, says the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), Americans saved only $57.4 billion." Peter's idea was that maybe more Americans would save money if doing so were "more exciting than just a dull deposit into a bank account."

This works for Takisha Turner, who doesn't gamble, but doesn't save, either. She put $25 into Save to Win CD, and promptly won $400. She took that money and put it into another CD, giving her a second chance at the $100,000 jackpot. As Hank Hubbard, president of one of the sponsoring credit union notes, "You are sort of betting, but there's no losing." Personal savings among Americans has risen lately, to 6.9 percent annually, but that's less than the 8-10 percent savings rate in the late 1980s, according to the BEA. As of 2005, American "households were spending 99.6 of every dollar they earned.

Former People's Bank ceo David E.A. Carson calls his Wellfleet, Mass., home "The Kolumns" because of "the pairs of dark-red steel K-shaped ceiling supports," reports Lisa A. Phillips in the New York Times (5/8/09). Back in the day, David "helped People's survive the banking crisis of the early 1990s" by expanding the bank's training programs and its credit-card business while others were cutting back. He thinks the current crisis is no different and points out that some banks are doing just fine simply by "lending money to the people who would pay it back."

After he retired, David's kids suggested he build a house on Cape Cod so they could, you know, come and visit. "I didn't want the house to be just mine," says David. "I wanted it to be a concept we all bought into." The result is a $2.3 million, 5,000 square-foot abode "set on a steep, wooded, one-acre lot." It is centered on a great room, but "it has several sublevels, with rooms and balconies separated from the main floor by a few steps ... Even when the house is full the layout offers privacy."

The design was supposed to recall an oak leaf, but David says it ended up looking more like a ship. This was perfect, because David's father was a merchant seaman and his father a sea captain. David himself had sailed to America from England as a child. "It's part of my DNA," he says. "The water and the things that border on the water ... are fascinating and a great stimulus and keep the mind active." Of Wellfleet, he adds: "It is incredibly beautiful, one of the first places settled by the Europeans ... You're part of the Northeast Corridor, but it's still the primitive land the Pilgrims arrived at" (images).

"Sometimes we need to reason through our options and carefully analyze the possibilities. And sometimes we need to listen to our emotions," writes Jonah Lehrer in his new book, "How We Decide," reviewed by Steven Johnson in the New York Times (3/22/09). Unlike Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink," which also looks at "the boundaries between reason and intuition," this book "is an inside job, zooming in on the inner workings of the brain." It features experiments involving brain scans of people "in the process of making decisions," for instance.

Jonah uses anecdotes to set up key insights about decision-making, things like Tom Brady's "memorable pass in the 2002 Super Bowl." Along the way, readers "learn about the reward circuitry of the brain," and gain insights into "our pursuit of those rewards." For example, in explaining "the propensity of the brain to register bad news more strongly than good," Jonah notes that "in the average marital relationship it takes five compliments to make up for a single cutting remark."

Where creativity is concerned, he observes: "From the perspective of the brain, new ideas are merely several old thoughts that occur at the exact same time." He also notes that we are "loss averse," but mainly in the short term, "making us more susceptible to the siren song of the LCD TV or the McMansion." As for our shopping habits, he says credit cards "fundamentally change the way we spend money ... When you buy something with cash, the purchase involves an actual loss -- your wallet is literally lighter. Credit cards, however, make the transaction abstract." ~ Tim Manners, editor.

American Express is offering some of its card-holders a $300 "gift card" to pay off their balances and close their accounts, reports Mary Pilon in the Wall Street Journal (2/24/09). "The intention is to help card-holders lower their debt and encourage responsible management of their credit," says Molly Faust, an Amex spokesperson. While Amex won't say how many of its card-holders have received its offer, Molly says, "It's a relatively small number of card-members who have sizeable balances and little spending and payment activity."

Amex started sending out letters to its targeted cardmembers "earlier this month." The letters included "an RSVP code that, when submitted online, immediately cancels that member's card. Members have from March 1 to April 30 to pay off their balances and receive the prepaid card. During that time, the balance is subject to the same interest rates and fees that it would be if they chose to keep their card. If customers don't pay off their balances by April 30, they will not get the gift card and their accounts will still be closed."

What's more (or less), customers who close their accounts "lose all Membership Reward points accumulated while they were customers ... That means customers should use up their points before agreeing to the offer." Curtis Arnold of cardratings.com says, "This is a huge paradigm shift," and says he expects other credit-card companies to follow Amex's lead. He adds: "It's a nice way of saying, 'We want you out and we want to entice you financially to get out' ... It's not about them handing out $300 out of the kindness of their hearts." And, oh, by the way, "closing a line a credit generally hurts customer credit scores, even if the customers do it themselves." ~ Tim Manners, editor.

The Dutch government may have shelled out $13.4 billion to bail out ING Direct, but the innovative, online-only bank remains in pretty good shape, notes Dave Kansas in a Wall Street Journal book review of "The Orange Code," by Arkadi Kuhlmann and Bruce Philp (12/10/08). The book consists of a conversation, of sorts, between Arkadi, the bank's U.S. chief and Bruce, who chairs its marketing operations. It features some "12 maxims for building a new brand and new business," but its organizing principles are simply that bricks are bad and saving is good.

The ING idea is premised on unremarkable insight that if it avoided the "costs related to a bricks-and-mortar business, it could afford to pay savers a higher interest rate than traditional banks." ING first tested this idea in Canada in 1997, and within two years "it had more than $2 billion in accounts and more than 250,000 customers." A year later it launched its U.S. business, and as of "the end of 2007, ING Direct had $62 billion in deposits and more than seven million customers." Sounds simple enough, although similar formulas didn't necessarily pan out for its competitors.

Arkadi and Bruce credit marketing with making a difference, such as its iconic "orange ball" ads "with catchy lines like 'More Piggy, Less Bank'." But its anchor is ING Direct's "reputation for being straightforward, democratic and even a bit schoolmarmish. It pushed the importance of savings at a time of profligate spending." It also fought a bill that made it harder for people to declare bankruptcy and refused to sell off its mortgages, burnishing its image while avoiding problems. That wasn't necessarily short-term profitable, but it left ING Direct positioned "as a champion of savers just as thrift is coming back into style." ~ Tim Manners, editor