Talk:Andrew Kahr

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[edit] Actor in Frontline???

"the character portraying Kahr in Frontline is an actor" - this sounds like a wild claim and needs some citation. Frontline has no such disclaimer of 'dramatic reenactments' iirc I deleted it, as the website [1] explicitly says they interviewed Kahr himself.

[edit] Kahr

You are obviously right. I have added the exact quotes that Andrew Kahr said. Now, I can only find information about Andrew Kahr on these sources:

  • The San Francisco Chronicle cited an internal memo written by Providian founder Andrew Kahr
  • PBS Frontline [2]

The rest of this man is a mistery. I would like to check to see if he indeed did this invention.

This is what he said in the PBS Frontline documentary.

Andrew Kahr, Credit Card Industry Consultant: Well, I convinced the client that instead of having 5 percent of the balance as a minimum payment, we should reduce that to 2 percent. It's a very dramatic change, less than half. Having a lower minimum payment allows you to offer higher credit lines, which, first of all, makes your card product more attractive because people judge, even if they don't intend to use the whole line, they would rather have a higher line.

The high-balance accounts will be much more profitable than the low-balance accounts. Because they're paying interest on a higher balance.People were offering 12.9 percent interest for the first six months, 10.9 percent on balance transfers, and I convinced the client to go straight to zero percent as an introductory rate.

It gave them competitive advantage. It led to, of course, the others also going to zero percent. When you're getting something in the mail several times a week that offers you zero percent for six months— they look at the headlines of the solicitation in the mail, they spend 30 seconds on it, and, "OK, I'm going to be better off at the beginning. They're going to give me something. They're going to give me a zero percent rate." People believe what they want to believe.

End Quote.

Killerdark 13:33, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


Zero interest rate policy
Killerdark 13:37, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Distinguished Personality Andrew Kahr

Is there any history on this chap? Where and when was he born, his parents, his education, connections, awards, family, etc.? I can't even find his paper, "A Minimal Reduction Class for the Entscheidungs Problem."

For the man who changed the history of the credit card industry there is next to nothing about him out there. How very odd...


conjuring..... wiki, wiki, do your best!

Reference to a book he cowrote: Brown, R. V., A. S. Kahr, and C. Peterson. 1974. Decision analysis for the manager. United States of America: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Killerdark 13:51, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Try searching for Kahr-Moore-Wang
[3]
1962b (With A. S. Kahr and Edward F. Moore) `Entscheidungsproblem reduced to the AEA case', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U. S. A. 48, 365–377.
[4]
Killerdark 13:59, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

"Where and when was he born..." - This PBS page[5] states he got his Ph.D. at age 20 and the wikipedia article currently states he was granted a Ph.D. in 1962 so, unless he has more than one Ph.D., he was probably born around 1942. Also, the obituary for his mother (below) only suggests he was born and/or raised in NYC --George3 17:07, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] washington mutual card services

This article makes it sound like the company is still using the same illegal practices in its latest incarnation, although this is doubtful. Ken6en 09:04, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First Deposit Corp

We currently have a redlink to "First Deposit Corp". Apparently it was entirely Kahr's creation and had no more worthwhile existence than what we have already recorded here. If so, there's no need for an article about it, though we might create a redirect from that title to this article. Any thoughts? -Will Beback 10:21, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


It got bought by Capitol Holding, changed its name a few times and then got know under the name of Providian... I changed the link to point to Washington Mutual Card Services Killerdark 21:59, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plagiarism

The section indicated is a cut-and-paste from the Chronicle article, somewhat cut down. 70.19.88.122 21:26, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that. I've removed the section. Someone should try to write a fresh account of that period of the subject's life. -Will Beback · † · 21:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Andrew Kahr info

I'm new at editing, but I can do pretty good research.

There is an image of Andrew Kahr at [6] (he recently was appointed to thir board of directors).

Image:Http://www.healthmarkets.com/images/portraits/Andrew S. Kahr.gif


In conjunction with that appointment, an SEC EDGAR filing [[7]] lists the following address for him in St. Moritz Switzerland: <MAIL-ADDRESS> <STREET1>8 10 VIA STREDAS <CITY>ST MORITZ <STATE>V8 <ZIP>CH 7500 </MAIL-ADDRESS>

Also someone asked about his history. I found this death announcement for his mother [[8]]: KAHR--Madlyn (Millner). February 24, 2004. Wife of the late Dr. Sidney Kahr. Of Providence, RI formerly of NYC. Mother of Dr. Andrew S. Kahr, San Francisco and Paris, Dr. Frank M. Kahr, Providence, RI. Sister of Irvin Millner, Pompano Beach, FL; Dr. Bernard N. Millner, Wolfeboro, NH; Lawrence Millner, Boynton Beach, FL. Adored grandmother of Julia, Byron, Zoe, Tony and Genevieve. Funeral was private.

Should any of this info be incorporated? Lfelia 17:06, 5 March 2007 (UTC)lfelia

[edit] Lemon award citation

In an effort to give proper citations in the article, I briefly tried to research the "Lemon Ad Award given out by USA Today (in 1996)..." statement. USA Today only makes small abstracts of their archives available for free online. In 1996, there is reference to Lemon awards but no mention of Kahr or his company. However, the primary source of the Lemon award seems to be The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). This is the 1996 CSPI article but it is not a comprehensive list of award recipients. Someone could probably dig deeper from that CSPI reference and confirm this claim. --George3 18:23, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Looking also at the 1997 Lemmon Awards winners, in addition to the partial list for 1996 (above), it seems doubtful Kahr himself was named in the "award", since recipients seem to always be corporations, not individuals. Although, it is possible either First Deposit Corp or Providian were named in 1996, I find no proof. --Georgeryp 20:05, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of information

I removed the lemon ad award per Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, we don't have a cite for it, and since Andrew Kahr is still living we can't have it in the article.

The Providian links aren't about Kahr himself, the only link to the SF Newspaper article is already in the citations, so we don't need to duplicate ourselves on it. Additionally we provide a wikilink to Providian, so readers can read up on Providian that way, which doesn't incorrectly attribute the whole Providian.com website to Kahr. —Cliffb 04:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)