MarketWatch has just reported that the Senate has made it safe to bet big and naked on Wall Street. An amendment to the Finance Reform Bill that would have outlawed Naked CDS – Credit Default Swaps that are pure bets on what will happen on default positions taken by others; this prudish amendment has thankfully […]
Saints Preserve US – US Senate Rescues Wall Street Gambling Dens! Read More »
There is strong evidence that what has been suspected is true – the Big Banking Game is Fixed. And you thought the top US Banks had to fight to survive in one of the toughest and most coldly efficient banking markets. But diverse financial media players like China Post, Bloomberg, Iranian Financial Times, NYTimes, and
Is the Wall Street Banking Game Fixed ? Read More »
Google is out again with much more Bing-like Search Results Since November 2009 Google has from time to time been changing its interface for Search results – and clearly what I have experienced is now out in the wild again according to SearchEngineLand. And the new interface is very nice indeed – it brings Advanced
Google Gets Binged – Markets Are Working Read More »
The April issue of Scientific American is crammed with good articles this month. There are the 8 Wonders of the Solar System and a superior article on how the many deep problems of psychology and psychiatry can now be traced to improper wiring, relative to the norm, of various brain areas. Thus such problems as
Limits to Growth: Back on the Table? Read More »
Good and True History is important so that past mistakes are not repeated – or false excuses for what was done are exposed for frauds and appropriate parties discredited if not prosecuted. Nowhere is good history more important than in the case of the just past financial meltdown of 2007-2009. Hopefully it does not linger
Meltdown Financial History Read More »
Who pays what in taxes is about wealth and whether it pays its fair share of taxes – leave aside the question of whether the distribution of income and wealth is equitable. Here is the distribution of wealth in America as of 2007: Here is the distribution tax payers in the US as of 2009:
Who Pays the Taxes ? Read More »
Just in case Messieurs Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Thomas , and ” LaScalia” need a reminder, here is telling evidence that Money Talks Disproportionately [oh and another reminder, 5% of the US population of have 67% of its Wealth]. James Pethokoukis describes in Agents of Influence on BreakingViews, how successful the Too-Big- Too-Fail-Banks lobbying has been
Money Talks Disproportionately Read More »
The New York Times Opinionator Blog has a challenging posting by Stanley Fish on ” What is the First Amendment For?” Here is the Crux of the argument: When [dissenting Justice] Stevens writes “has long been recognized,” he is invoking the force of history and asking us to take note of the reasons why many
Supreme Court Unlimited Campaign Financing Debate Read More »
The US Health Care debate has turned on a curious combination of compexity and obscurity. But the bitter reality is that current health rules of the road are quite complex, the resulting care quite variabl[this is a must read link] and the costs keep escalating. Kaiser, one of the major players in health care provision,
Health Care: Pre-existing Conditions and Cross State Insurance Read More »
In Frank Herberts great science fiction novel, Dune, the Fremen had the advantage that they could live anywhere including the many desert regions of the planet. There secret was Thumpers that allowed them to not only detect but also summon the dangerously huge SandWorms. This ability allowed the Fremen to track and control the most
IBM Misses the Thumpers Read More »
The great speculation in the Business and Automotive Press is how much gain will Motown get out of Toyota’s costly and embarrassing recall of 9++million cars plus the halt in sales of more than 60% of its fleet worldwide. There is a superb summary of the problem here. The argument is that the quality chart
Toyota’s Pain, Motowns Gain? Read More »
The Guardian and Financial Times in England have been covering the China vs Google story much more closely than US media. So when the Guardian published a story about Bill Gates reactions to the conflict , curious, I took a look: After pouring billions of dollars into the global fight against malaria and rebranding Microsoft
China vs Google IV : Bill Gates View Read More »
Frank Rich of the NYTimes provides another update to this article in his opinion piece “After the Massachusetts Massacre”. Rich argues that the problem for President Obama has been that he failed to make jobs and financial regulation top priorities. Here is the core of what he had to say: Obama’s plight has been unchanged
Update:Finance and Economics -The Obama Achilles Heel Read More »
This One Has Legs is about stories that are just emerging on the news+web screens which wont be one day wonders but will be grabbing major news space for weeks and months ahead. China vs Google is one of those stories. On January 12th Google said it was considering no longer filtering/censoring search requests from
This One Has Legs: China vs Google Read More »
Conservative pundit George Will is consistently arguing in favor the myth of markets being efficient and self-correcting. Greed is a good thing because those who are too greedy will “eventually” get their come-uppance in efficient, free markets – just like monopolists will finally fail if they don’t meet their customers needs. The only thing preventing
The Supremes Vote for a Bautocracy=Bought Political Power Read More »
The Obama administration just got its wake up call. All this past weekend the various news programs were grading Obama over the past year’s presidency. If you were Democratic the grades were close to Barack’s own, a B+ average. If you were Republican, the grades were draconian – D or worse. If you were Rush,
Massachussetts Wake-up Call Read More »
The NYTimes has one of those small, but seminal stories on the National Scene today – strong evidence of Partisan Decision Paralysis. The US is in a transition like Britain was 150 years ago – Britain from Empire to merely an influential European player; the US from Economic and Military World Power to whatever the
Partisan Decision Paralysis Read More »
ABC – that is the Australian Broadcast Corporation has published a story in which BRIC – i.e. India, acting in concert with Brazil and China [no word on Russia], scuttled the Copenhagen Climate Talks. Now by “doomed” is meant that no target date, no target levels for emission reductions , and no financing mechanism were
BRIC Throws the Brick that Doomed Climate Talks Read More »
Takethe5th is now available in 25 languages including Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, Hebrew, German, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portugese, Spanish, Swedish, Welsh and Yiddish among others. And I say among others because Google has added two new languages in the past few weeks. So you can enjoy a touch of excellence in your native
Takethe5th Available in 25 Languages! Read More »
From the beginning of computing, hardware costs have dominated and shaped the nature of the business. The following $100 WalMart price check for a 1 Terabyte drive says that is no more. And of course Moore and Kurzweil have been telling us this for at least a decade. So maybe Microsoft is right – software
Walmart: “1 Terabyte Drive for $100” Read More »
Given the report from the Wall Street Journal that the banks are bonusing themselves this year at $140 Billion more than 2007’s $130 Billion despite a)still being dependent on bailout money and deficit causing extremely low Fed funds interest rates; b)having lightened their staff employment by 10-30% surviving staff are getting monster bonuses; and c)yet
Capital Disaffection Read More »
The Economist has an article that argues that Big is Back as very large corporates weather the economic downturn [with help from their ‘too big to fail’ friends] much better than small businesses. And instead of offering a treacle on Big is Better, the Economist splits the difference and in good centrist fashion finds virtue
The Economist: Big is Black Ink Read More »
There is a post on Slate.com by Farhad Manjoo whose title tells the story – The Case Against the Case Against Google, The Department of Justice should take a hint from the Microsoft suit: no more antitrust actions against tech companies. Essentially what Farhad is arguing is that a)there is plenty of competition in the
Tech Sector: Monopoly Proof? Read More »
In his NYTimes article, the Joy of Sachs, Paul Krugman underlines one of the fundamental business problems confronting the US. Is the US Government going to continue to “invest” in the Financial Industry by not making any meaningful regulations? Is the US going to allow crowding out of other industries by not controlling Financial compensation
Doing More than Blowing Financial Bubbles Read More »
I was pleasant surprised by Baseball’s AllStar game this year. First, the dedication to Service in the Country with its honoring of volunteers in the various baseball cities across the country was carried off very well. Second, President Obama proved once again that he is as close to a Natural Born hitter than anyone around
Obama in the Allstar Booth Read More »
The following NYTimes story shows the impact that Microsoft’s newly re-relaunched search engine, Bing, is having in the search engine wars. Instead of being a hapless me-too, Bing brings real innovation and a competitive advantage in search results display to BING over Google. Here is the writing on the wall:Google’s frugal search result display under
Microsoft Bing’s Advantage Read More »
Update July 1, 2009: The NYTimes confirms “in I told you so” fashion that indeed Taiwanese firms like Acer are now reaching up to the heights of market dominance in innovation markets. Now one of the pillars of the Obama recovery plan is that American innovation and manufacturing prowess will be unleashed with the huge
Taiwan Takes the Lead in PC+Gadget Innovation Read More »
Update-June 29th, 2009:eWeek has just done a slideshow which confirms that Google is laying the ground works for several substantial revenue streams outside of the search domain. They cite the Google Wave, Google Book and Google Android as do we in our posting below. In the case of Android, Google has just added on and
THE Google Wave: New King of Software, updated Read More »
Nuclear Power has a strong lure to policymakers. It is “clean”, does not dent oil reserves, and its operating costs can be close to cost competitive as long as uranium prices don’t spike. But there are some real downside problems; and the Canadian and Ontario Governments are learning this lesson in spades. The Canadian government
Energy Innovation: A Nuclear Parable Read More »
There is a consensus that Financial Reforms in the US are necessary and various Obama administration officials including SEC Chairman Shapiro, Treasury Secretary Geithner and the President himself have acknowledged the need. Certainly the US and the rest of the world can ill-afford another “financial bubble” exploding in the next 5-10 years. Simply the ability
US Financial Reform Options Read More »
President Obama is being touted for a)eliciting opinions from all players in the policy room and b)allowing (if not encouraging) contrarian opinions in policy debates. This is what the Obama Contrarian series of postings will be about. This first posting is about the kid glove treatment the Financial Community appears to be getting from the
Obama Contrarian: Financial Kid Glove Treatment Read More »
The first big skirmish between the once King of Software, Microsoft, and the Current TitleHolder, Google, was just announced for October 22nd 2009. On that day Microsoft will launch Windows 7 including a Starter Edition of Windows 7 for Netbooks. By that time there should be several Google Android powered Netbooks available on the market.
First Skirmish: Once and Current Kings of Software Read More »
