Facebook's (FB) business model isn't just social networking; it's advertising. Social networking is just how Facebook acquires traffic for the sake of that advertising. Advertising is where the monetization is.

Because of this, if Facebook begins to undermine the value of Facebook advertisements, then it's undermining its entire business model. Unfortunately, Facebook is doing just that.

They've recently ramped up their so-called "Edgerank" formula, which essentially makes choices for the users of the site, in order to control what content they do and don't see -- rather than allowing them to make that choice for themselves.

This undermines the automatic value of fan pages, makes advertising less attractive, and is leading to some advertisers to advertise less on the network.

What Is Edgerank?

Edgerank is the algorithm that Facebook uses to decide which updates you'll see from pages that you "like", and even which updates you'll see from your friends.

Walt Disney (DIS) has announced that they're in proceedings to purchase Lucasfilm LTD from the sole owner and chairman George Lucas. The price? Roughly $4 billion in cash and stock, give or take some. Not a bad haul for George Lucas, though whether it's cheap or expensive depends substantially on what Disney does going forward -- but it's probably going to be great, given Disney's history.

When you look at the economics and the long-term potential, this looks like there will be quite a bit of upside for Disney, assuming they don't have a series of complete flops like a "John Carter" meltdown. The chances of that kind of a meltdown are unlikely, however.

Regardless, Lucasfilm LTD already pulls in around $200 million a year in products and licensing, according to the press release by Disney. If this is true, that gives an extremely comfortable safety net even

Economists and investors love to argue over the peak oil theory, and what the impact will be for a shrinking high EROEI oil supply means for the global economy. Some think we'll switch to natural gas and electric vehicles, some put their faith in biofuels, and some claim that we still have so much oil through shale oil reserves that we will have entire new technologies ready before it's a problem.

I'm solidly in the electric and natural gas vehicles camp. There's a substantial amount of natural gas for trucks and tractors, and the electric vehicle infrastructure just needs to be produced for a while in order for people to switch over. Both are environmentally friendly, at least to the air, and it's just a logical switch.

The problem, though, is when many claim that we won't be able to use electric batteries for long because of "peak

One of the basic responses to those who are worried about a debt default by the US government is the notion that the US doesn't face that risk because the government has the power of the printing press in an age of fiat currency.

The argument goes that "sovereign debt defaults" are simply for governments not in complete control over their own currency creation, like the Greeks, the Germans, or the US under the gold standard.

This makes many feel quite good about the national debt, and helps create the appealing narrative that debt worries are mostly overblown.

But they're not. The national debt problem is slowly being built into a crisis which will eventually be structurally impossible to fix without massive economic upheaval, and "we print our own money" won't magically fix it.

Yes, The US Has A Default Risk

The US has a default risk, and the notion

Part of the peak oil debate is a discussion on how much oil is "left" for people to consume. Those who reject peak oil (or at least the "doomsday" forms of it) often point to unconventional oil sources as shale oil, oil sands, and even non-oil sources like natural gas or renewable energy.

For example, in my article on the peak oil myth, I wrote:

Innovation makes some oil sources economically recoverable that used to not be recoverable. For example, according to the Economist last year, we were seeing demand outstrip supply. But that doesn't mean we were seeing peak oil. Even with increased demand, we were seeing a boost in production.

This is an important issue when it comes to the price of any commodity consumption; lower quality reserves suddenly become economically recoverable as the price of the commodity increases.

This does have a "limit", obviously -- there's

When buying a stock for the long haul, looking for long-term trends only makes sense. If people are starting to drink less Coke, then Coca-Cola (KO) is going to be considerably less attractive for the long haul. If people are switching from land phones to mobile phones, then investing in a company that focuses exclusively on those land phones is suddenly a pretty rough idea for the long haul.

When it comes to US tobacco investments like Altria (MO), what's the greatest long-term trend that is a huge risk? That people smoke less -- considerably less. And that's what we'll be analyzing here.

The Legal Risks Of Taxes And Regulations

Just recently, US tobacco companies had a huge victory in terms of free speech. The FDA tried to get them to put absurdly obnoxious "warning" labels on the packages to discourage the notion of tobacco being "cool" or something along

Billionaire entreprenuer Mark Zuckerberg has finally started giving some strong hints and an announcement about the real Google killer: an eventual Facebook (FB) search engine. According to Zuckerberg, per TechCrunch:

We're basically doing 1 billion queries a day and we're not even trying... Facebook is pretty uniquely positioned to answer the questions people have. At some point we'll do it. We have a team working on it.

This is probably the biggest "finally!" moment in the last few years for Internet search, because the idea of a Facebook search engine to go head-to-head against Google has simply been a no-brainer.

As Zuckerberg already said, they get a billion or so queries per day just with the absurdly low-quality search function that already exists with their browser.

Why This Is A Broadside Volley On Google

Google (GOOG) is struggling to find any sort of positive feelings in the tech world,

Investing is a fundamentally personal endeavor, because there's no "one size fits all" approach. Different needs, different levels of risk tolerance, different goals, different styles, and different results -- this describes why some people generally buy only dividend paying companies like myself, and why some people are more into speculating micro-cap companies. There's no right answer that's identical for every investor.

Still, reasoning is typically either right or wrong. You might not buy into a company for personal reasons, but that doesn't mean the reasoning you used is right. For one such example, just look at the recent SA article about Apple (AAPL) entitled "Apple: Take The Money And Run".

I'll be defending Apple as a company in light of the arguments made by George Kesarios. This doesn't mean I'm an investor in Apple or a "fanboy." I'm not. The company is not my style of investment

IBM's (IBM) supercomputer "Watson" wowed the world a few years ago when it easily beat trivia king Ken Jennings on Jeopardy!. For years now, people have predicted that such technology, or technology similar, will change the face of computing forever. And they'd be right.

IBM has announced that it will be creating an app for smartphones that uses Watson to answer important questions instantly, saving them time from having to spend hours or even days searching for the answers.

IBM's vice president of innovation said the following:

"A farmer could stand in a field and ask his phone, 'When should I plant my corn?' He would get a reply in seconds, based on location data, historical trends and scientific studies."

This isn't just a cute move for IBM. This is a sign of things to come,and an attack on Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) in the

Economic resources are scarce. Plenty of economists, authors, and investors take this to mean different things. As I've written before, some have incorrectly taken this to be proof that "peak oil" is going to happen.

Of course, the thing with oil is that there are plenty of alternatives that become more competitive when the price keeps rising. Natural gas, biofuels, electric vehicles - all of these become more attractive in an expensive oil world, leading to a downfall of oil's lofty price in the end.

But not all commodities are like this. Gold (GLD) is fundamentally different, and all of the peak projections about gold have a hint of truth in them. This is extremely important for people interested in mining stocks or the gold standard, because it changes everything.

Peak gold is real and it's inevitable. If you're investing in individual gold producers or an index

A new headline by Bloomberg news on a recent note by Citigroup (C) has made the rounds, causing more alarm for long-term energy investors and doomsday prophets.

The argument is that by 2030, Saudi Arabia will become a net importer of oil. That's only a little more than 17 years away. Business Week reports the reasoning:

"Oil and its derivatives are used for about half of the kingdom's electricity production, which at peak rates is growing at about 8 percent a year, the bank said today in a an e-mailed report. A quarter of the country's fuel production is used domestically, more per capita than other industrialized nations, as the cost is subsidized, according to the note."

The more obvious solution for Saudi Arabia would be to phase out the subsidies and to cut back on consumption, and to up their consumption of natural gas, considering half of electricity

A well known economist, William Jevons, wrote a book that upset some of the biggest energy investors and producers in the world. He pointed out that the basic source of our economy's energy was finite, and, therefore, eventually we would run out. This would lead to economic turmoil and we would all suffer.

In his book, he asked the sobering question:

"Are we wise in allowing the commerce of this country to rise beyond the point at which we can long maintain it?"

Scary right?

Only one awkward problem: that book was written in 1865 and was about coal. It was called "The Coal Question". Doomsday energy claims aren't new. They'll probably never stop being popular.

"We're running out of [resource]" theories have been around for well over a century, and they're incredibly romantic, exciting, and dead wrong.

Peak Oil Makes As Much Sense As Peak Coal

Whenever

One of the most important energy theories for investors in energy of any sorts is the notion of "peak oil", or the idea that at some point, we're going to hit a certain amount of oil production, and then we're going to have to naturally start producing less going forward from that middle point.

This makes sense if one doesn't understand the nature of innovation, the basics of economics, or the business of oil production. But once we analyze those angles, the theory falls apart.

Most importantly, let's look at what this all means for those investors of us who are looking forward to being long-term investors in energy of all sorts, including oil and natural gas.

The Theory: What Is Peak Oil?

The Financial Times Lexicon explains the definition:

"The debate over 'peak oil' - the point at which the world's oil supplies go into irreversible decline -

While we're not sure who will be president for the next four years, there's at least a healthy chance it will be Mitt Romney.

Whether we like a politician or not, the changing of the guard always has an impact on the markets. Over the last few years, the coal industry has learned that the hard way.

So what moves will the market take assuming Mitt Romney wins? Let's analyze his plan and look for longer-term trends.

Oil, Natural Gas, And The Romney Doctrine

If there's one economic plan Republicans actually make good on, it's energy drilling. Romney's oil and gas plan is often deemed one of the most aggressive in presidential history, which is great for energy investors, at least.

According to the PDF summary of his plan:

Directs the Department of the Interior to undertake a comprehensive survey of American energy reserves in partnership with exploration companies

Every couple of days, I run into an article rejecting gold (GLD) investments now as essentially being for people in denial. Apparently, the gold bull market ended in August last year, and there are no more riches to be made buying and holding gold.

Is this correct? Not quite.

Why Gold Prices Dropped and Stayed Down

In general, markets overreact to almost everything. George Soros has written a thick book on his theories, as have many others. But in general, when big news occurs, people begin to overreact. People are often emotional; they overextended the "here and now" sense of crisis, and they often create a feedback loop in the market that creates a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

Last year, the run-up in gold in August was almost certainly just the market still moving along from the Aug. 2 debt ceiling raise, mixed with the boost from the U.S. losing

I love gold. I buy more every month and have since I started investing. Same with silver. I have no intentions on ever stopping until retirement. Of course, some people think this must mean I'm a "gold bug."

Gold is an alternative currency that sometimes trades like a typical commodity. It suffers from slight identity crises because the governments of the world have waged war on it as a type of money. They've passed legal tender laws, tax it like a collectible and not capital gains and other attacks.

But unfortunately for the leaders of the world economic system, they can't tell the principles of economics to scram, so gold keeps marching on.

Right now, there are three economic trends that show how insane the world economic system is, and give us signs of incredible trouble ahead. It's not just possible -- it's inevitable.

1. Debt, Debt, and More

Facebook (FB) just settled at a market cap of right at $41.65 billion. This has been a source of endless embarrassment for early investors. Mark Zuckerberg finally admitted it's been "painful". Peter Thiel finally mostly bailed ship, selling over 70% of his stake.

Well over a year ago, when Facebook was being evaluated at $50 billion by plenty of investors in the company, I wrote an article blasting the idea, saying:

I'm not sure how many join every day, but a 6th of the world population is already part of the network, according to Facebook - there's only a potential increase of 600%, ever, unless new ways of monetization are possible.

Even then, most of the arguments so far are something like, "If the company doubles a couple of times in the next couple of years, you'll get normal returns." It's just evidence that the company

The general thought when it comes to falling interest rates is that it's great news for businesses, because they'll be able to go into more debt. Unfortunately, this isn't necessarily true. In fact, a falling interest rate is actually bad news for capital, because it destroys capital, as economists Antal Fekete and Keith Weiner have both pointed out.

This is extremely critical for investors to understand, because it means that as the Fed has lowered interest rates, it hasn't created capital or helped the economy. It's created malinvestment and destroyed capital that way indirectly and has destroyed capital directly.

This means that when looking at the economy, we should be factoring into account destroyed capital via falling interest rates -- even if it's not immediately obvious.

Low Interest Rates Aren't Falling Interest Rates

It's important to understand that low interest rates might be good for businesses in

Billionaire John Paulson-- who made millions betting on a housing crash and a gold boom since the financial crisis-- has released his financial records, and has increased his gold and gold-related holdings by 44%.

Paulson bought 4.53 million more shares in SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) and bought more of NovaGold Resources Inc. (NG), while also cutting his positions in AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (ANG) and Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI).

He also sold a lot of other stocks, boosting the weighting of his gold position even further.

Why Paulson Is Betting The Farm On Gold

Paulson isn't the only billionaire making big bets on precious metals, with George Soros and Jim Rogers both making big bets on precious metals.

1. Eurozone collapse

2. Deficits

3. Uncertainty

Is Paulson a Genius, Mediocre, Or Lucky?

Paulson is a smart man, predicted the financial crisis, and made billions that way. He's also made billions in gold over

When confronted with the awkward fact that the Great Depression lasted a decade under FDR and didn't disappear until the United States was able to help rebuild the world which destroyed by World War II, most Keynesians simply explain that FDR didn't spend enough. A common argument is that the economy was improving, but stopped improving when he began cutting back.

When confronted with the fact that under Obama the economy is arguably structurally weaker than it was when he took office, most Keynesians simply argue that we haven't had enough spending, or that state and local governments stopped spending, and that ruined everything.

Fine. I think Keynesian economics is hogwash, but we have already seen the greatest experiment in the theory of John Maynard Keynes, essentially to the point of digging holes to fill back up.

And it's failed, as China's economy continually shows more and more signs