Carousel's Comments

Bing Tries to Buy the News

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:56:13 -0500

The last three paragraphs are truisms - the rest of the article is junk.

>> Rupert Murdoch is pointing a gun to Google’s head... <<

I wasn't aware that google is a tiny company dependent on Murdoch to survive.

>> If Bing can somehow become the only place you can find news results and working links to the Wall Street Journal and other top papers such as the New York Times the Washington Post, and the LA Times <<

That's a big "somehow". I liked how you explained how it could happen.

- F. Murray Rumpelstiltskin

Bing Tries to Buy the News

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:55:52 -0500

sdsdaf

EU Objections to Oracle / Sun: Distortion of Market Dynamics Is Bad for Everyone

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:47:13 -0500

the eu is the only policeman working to eliminate criminal monopolistic scumbags from the us stealing from the public

the us is worse than useless ... it is a wide ranging deep active criminal enterprise or conspiracy ... the us political system and the large corporations are completely criminalized ... at the political and corporate level they're a nation of thieves

they've wrecked the global economic system, slaughtered millions in their continuous wars of imperial plunder ... their congress and presidency are totally criminal operations ... it's a plutocracy ... unrelated to the democratic drivel they spout

good on the eu for stopping these nasty criminal thugs from scheming to plunder and wreck europe

Hello, new archrival. H-P (HPQ) puts a bow on its growing conflict with Cisco Systems (CSCO) by acquiring 3Com (COMS) on the cheap. Therese Poletti noted last month (while speculating about an H-P/Brocade (BRCD) tie-up) how former partners H-P and Cisco have gotten increasingly unfriendly, with Cisco making servers and H-P reinvesting in networking and even video-conferencing; your move, Cisco. (WSJ Digits liveblogs H-P call)

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:37:24 -0500

Kick Cisco's ass, HP.

Motorola Hitches Its Wagon to a Star

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:35:29 -0400

"Gmail and Apps are only so-so" .. does the writer even know what he

InterDigital Inc. Q3 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:39:22 -0400

"You may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to Seeking Alpha and either link to the original transcript or to SeekingAlpha.com."

What a strange policy you have, given that it isn't your own material. You just transcribed other people's words. But, whatever.

The Problem with Being Wealthy

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:50:56 -0400

I thought one of the advantages of ETFs was that you can buy the basket of securities that equal one "ETF unit" (I forget the correct term here), and then have them converted into ETF shares and vice versa. Is this the "special manual arrangement" you are mentioning?

Dow Puts Up a Fight While Nasdaq Takes a Breather

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:49:47 -0400

I like your final chart ... is it available (monthly updated) somewhere?

Makes me wonder, if leading indicators don't lead after 6 months of improvements, are they really leading indicators anymore?

Has the U.S. Reached the Hyperinflation Tipping Point?

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:59:47 -0400

Goldbug
1) your analysis of inflation/hyperinflation based on your arbitrary future pricing of coke (soda) is useless.

2) isnt a safe full of gold is always nice to have?

3) gasoline is not good for stockpiling.

4) Where would the US borrow the $ to go to war with China? from China?

5) you are a troll

On Oct 15 09:45 PM goldbug101 wrote:

> Well, if it is true "hyperinflation" (ala Zimbabwe / Weimar) is coming
> then civil society within the US will come to an end and there will
> be mass riots and most likely martial law and forced dusk to dawn
> curfews.
>
> I don't think the US government would ever let it get to the point
> of "hyperinflation", rather what will most likely occur will be a
> prolonged period of high inflation.
>
> Someday a can of Coke will cost $5 or so, high inflation, but "hyperinflation"
> (ala Zimbabwe / Weimar) for USD isn't gonna happen.
>
> For hyperinflation, that can of Coke will have to cost around $150,000!
>
>
> Stop tossing around the term "hyperinflation" and instead use the
> correct terminology - prolonged period of high inflation.
>
> If one really believes hyperinflation will occur ala Weimer or Zimbabwe,
> then you better have:
>
> (1) Lots of guns & ammo
> (2) Basement vault full of actual gold
> (3) Lots of MREs and canned foodstuff or live on farmland with livestock
>
> (4) Stockpiles of gasoline and fresh water
>
> Shakespeare said it would start by killing all the lawyers. If true
> hyperinflation comes to pass, it will be the bankers first followed
> quickly by the politicians.
>
> Let's recap that fact- "hyperinflation" (ala Zimbabwe / Weimar) for
> USD isn't gonna happen.
>
> The US will go to war with China before hyperinflation ala Zimbabwe
> / Weimar takes place.

Telecom Outlook: Exodus from WiMAX Continues

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:59:29 -0400

This article has to be utter garbage?

LTE is nowhere to be seen, WiMAX is rapidly being rolled out - like in the US.

There's no exodus - There's simply equipment makers who FAILED to make it in the WiMAX market place - Aka. You can get better, for cheaper, from another equipment maker.

"This gives the smaller gear makers like PureWave Networks and Airspan Networks a chance to enter the WiMAX market."

In case you don't know. Airspan is about to be liquidated. They FAILED to make a compelling product.

The opportunities for WiMAX are vast, those equipment makers that invested in R&D and produced a decent product are reaping the rewards. The rest are either being bought out, assimilated or hoping they can make it with LTE - They better not be holding their breath!

Sinovac Biotech: Still Worth Owning?

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:39:24 -0400

"The company is now asking the local government to restore its income tax rate back to the 2007 level (15%)."

What is your source for this statement ?

Why Is Congress Agnostic About Natural Gas?

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:58:24 -0400

It sounds like Mike doesn't understand the relationship between the oil lobby and the gas lobby. I can tell you for a fact that they are very closely related. They show up to each others meetings, and share many members. The problem is that oil and gas lobbyists are just not very good.

Everyone Wants a National Broadband Network, But Nobody Wants to Pay for It

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 22:48:49 -0400

Larry, you must have missed my talk about how to roll out broadband extremely economically even in areas of very low population density.

Amazon vs. eBay: 2 Charts Say It All

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:43:36 -0400

Measuring user growth, which I am guessing is based on U.S. figures (?), for large sites such as eBay and Amazon is mostly meaningless considering the number of internet users who need a service as such and who shop online. A more meaningful user metric would be active users and we all know how hard that figure is to compute. So let us stick with the dollar figures.

Vansak nailed it on the head with his (her?) comment.

I'd rather skim 18.66% off of 100s of millions units sold for the next several years than to skim 3.23% off of millions (or even 10s of millions) of units sold for those same years or even for more years thereafter.

Yeah, eBay needs to improve and it looks like they are getting there. I think they have slighted the sellers a bit but I also think many of those sellers were not true business people prepared for the eventual maturation of a new market channel (such as online auction) or should I say their (the sellers) ONLY market channel. I am sure many feeling burned were "eBay only" businesses that did not expand their horizons.

United Airlines Shows How Not to Run a Business

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:26:12 -0400

The US economy is already ruined because of the antics of these corporations. Enough of this too big to fail crapola. Let them go under and let new small industry be born. The likes of GM, UAL, CIT, etc., have proven they are not reputable and not worth our support.

************
461604 -You are a moron if you think that all these major businesses should be liquidated. It would ruin not only the US economy but also pull down the global economy further. The answer to have a change in US corporate governance...

United Airlines Shows How Not to Run a Business

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:20:59 -0400

Being trapped at a United hub, we have little choice in airlines unless we want to transfer multiple times, plus, as mentioned, the MILES!!! I am a slave to the mileage points which make travel on United almost acceptable. However, it is odd that Tilton & Twitts don't seem to get it...how can you be so mediocre and overpaid, and yet hand out harsh reviews and comp freezes to flight crews and gate agents barely making enough to get by on.

Another peeve, United likes to present this "seamless" travel experience, but the second you encounter a ticket agent, baggage handler or ground staff, you are immediately reminded that they are not United, and that they are an outsourced part of your travel experience!! This makes resolving your conflict much more difficult.

The McClatchy Company Q2 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 22:30:24 -0400

What are you nuts? This company will be bankrupt within a year.

Doubling One's Money in 7 1/2 Months with Triple Leveraged ETFs?

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:49:20 -0400

Assuming leveraged ETFs will always have decay/deterioration therefore shorting a leveraged ETF would result in a guaranteed profit. Right?

Doubling One's Money in 7 1/2 Months with Triple Leveraged ETFs?

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:49:04 -0400

Assuming leveraged ETFs will always have decay/deterioration therefore shorting a leveraged ETF would result in a guaranteed profit. Right?

Yahoo’s Revenues Drop 13% in Second Quarter, 5% of Employees to Lose Jobs

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:34:46 -0400

the headline of this article is completely inaccurate. no layoffs announced.

Is Anyone Using Chrome?

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:47:14 -0400

I can't use Chrome for two reasons:

1) No right-click, View/Selection Source, which is extremely handy for looking at HTML
2) The "Find Text" functionality doesn't look inside "textarea"s

For a reputed "developer's browser", these are major omissions.

Goldman Sachs to Pay Out Biggest Bonuses in History

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:58:19 -0400

Does this author even keep up on the news? GS not only repaid tarp, but the investment earned a hefty return for taxpayers. All of this "Goldman got paid TWICE!" crap is BS.

Waste Recycling Is Big Business

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 09:42:53 -0400

Recycling in all forms is wrong. Wrong for the environment and wrong for business. It's been proven, time after time, to actually cause more HARM to the environment than good. From a business perspective, it hurts your profits and burdens your staff by forcing them to do something that wastes time and ultimately hurts, not helps, the environment. Those of you who promote recycling need to learn the facts and stop listening to "green" idiots, with their feel-good agendas, convincing you that recycling is somehow right.

The title of this article says it all: Recycling is big business--for those who profit from it, brainwashing the masses into believing it is helping the environment, when all they care about is making money.

Below is the comment I wrote here when this stupid topic came up in March. Our company is on track to save an estimated $51k this year alone, by doing the right thing and NOT recycling. So far, we have over 100 employees committed to not recycling at home, rewarding them with one extra vacation day.

If you are encouraging recycling at YOUR company then I guarantee you that your profits, along with your company morale and, most importantly, our environment, is hurting.
----------------------...
After years of wasting valuable time, money, facility space and other resources, our company initiated a ZERO-RECYCLING policy last year. In each of our six of our plant locations, we eliminated all indoor recycling receptacles in our offices and on our manufacturing lines. All outdoor industrial recycling bins were returned to our disposal company. All steps of the manufacturing process which directly involved recycling to any degree were put to a stop. We completely eliminated the company position of “material handler” and re-hired that individual to work in an open manufacturing position. All employees are forbidden to recycle at work and we encourage them to follow this same policy at home. We conducted workshops on this initiative for existing employees and all new employees also receive it as part of their orientation. Starting this year, we reward each employee who signs an agreement not to recycle at home one extra paid vacation day.

Why did we do this, especially given the current popularity of acting “green”? Because, after doing months of research and investigations (conducted both in-house and by two outside, independent agencies), we realized that recycling is just a “make-work” initiative, one that does NOTHING to benefit business or the environment, and recycling’s primary goal is to make uneducated, “green” people feel good about themselves.

As a “make-work” initiative, the main goal of recycling, and the companies that do it, is to create fancy-sounding jobs for people who are otherwise unemployable. We would rather create and contribute to a real, necessary, productive workforce economy, vs. standing standing behind a “green” facade. Most importantly, recycling and the companies that do it, have been proven, time after time, to actually do more HARM to the environment than good.

Bottom line: Recycling has been proven–without a doubt–to be nothing more than an expensive economic and environmental fallacy. Here is more information we used in our research:

www.heartland.org/poli...
www.ehponline.org/docs...
www.milkandcookies.com.../

By completely eliminating recycling and initiating a ZERO-RECYCLING policy, our company will save, on average, close to $40k/year, not including the salary of the “material handler” position which were able to completely eliminate. Even better yet, we have seen a huge increase in worker productivity, now that our employees–particularly in manufacturing–are able to focus on their WORK and not be burdened by recycling getting in the way.

The success of our trend-breaking initiative has drawn the attention of other companies in our industry and beyond. Almost every other day, another company calls us, asking for information on how they can eliminate recycling. We have hosted seven walk-through tours last year alone, including a company from Finland and one from the UK, and our VP of Operations has spoken at two business conferences so far this year, with another two scheduled this month and next. Although it is obviously somewhat controversial, we are very proud of our initiative and why we are doing it.

Clearly, in today’s business environment, companies large and small are finally realizing how damaging the scam of recycling truly is–to their bottom line and to the environment. If you, or your company, thinks it’s good to recycle, good to pretend to act “green”, and good to let the fallacy of recycling get in the way of real work, please get educated and start doing the right thing TODAY. We did, and we, and our shareholders, could not be happier.

Strange Inconsistencies in the $134.5 Billion Bearer Bond Mystery

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:56:17 -0400

In 2002, Don Johnson of Miami Vice fame, was caught crossing the German border with 8 BILLION dollars worth of securities in the trunk of his car. Maybe he should be the go-to guy on figuring this out.

Facing antitrust concerns in Europe, Microsoft (MSFT) will release its new operating system in the region without Internet Explorer. The decision surprised EU regulators, who noted "rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less."

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:49:29 -0400

Well, actually you can type "ftp://name.of.website/" in an explorer bar. That's still way beyond most users. It's hard to tell if MS is being serious about this. If they go through with it, it will take Apple nanoseconds to start blasting a billion in ads in Europe touting how their OS is better because it has a browser bundled with it. That's the problem for MS, it doesn't really matter how outrageous and absurd the EU gets, MS pretty much has to roll over or they give up the market.

But I will say that I think it's a very funny move. The whole complaint was that MS was being unfair because it bundled a browser with their OS. So, they offer to stop bundling a browser, thus neatly solving the entire issue from a legal standpoint. Of course the EU will not accept this, because this is really about extorting Microsoft, not "competition", but they are at least forced to show their true faces. The only problem is that the commentators and opinion-makers are just as cynical and hypocritical as the EU, and real people just don't care that much (can you blame them?), so it doesn't really matter.

Telltale Signs That a Significant Correction Isn't Imminent

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:44:42 -0400

i agree with kim's analysis!

EMC's Mozy: The Time Is Ripe for Cloud Backup Services

Mon, 25 May 2009 17:34:22 -0400

@jarco - you're not paying $60 / year for 2 GB of storage. You can get 2GB for free; if you want more than that, you'll pay $4.95 / month or $43.57 for a year with a Mozy Promotional Code
www.onlinebackupsrevie...

On May 23 10:19 AM jarco wrote:

> Why would anyone pay $60/year for 2 Gigs when it can be bought outright
> in an external drive for nearly the same price and be "hands-on"
> secure?

Want a Pension Over $100,000? Be a Government Worker in California

Wed, 20 May 2009 01:33:22 -0400

Ok, stop being insane. Are you all nuts? How can you possibly earn a $100k pension on a salary of $100k?!

Simple lesson in actuarial math here folks, and I'm giving it to you for free, no charge (yes, it's very big of me, lol):
2% X years of work X average of best-5 years salary
That's your pension.
And the maximum recognized years of work is 30. So the best you'd ever get would be 60% of the average of your best 5 years of salary.

Latest data (www.payscale.com/resea...) shows the average California state government salary as $63,172. So even if that were the "average of best 5" (which it won't be, since the previous 4 years of that typical guy's salary would be less, dragging the average down), the best annual pension he could draw would be (drum roll):

$37,903

NOT $100,000 !!!

As for claims above that somebody can earn an annual pension of $241,000 when their salary at retirement was only $185,000 ... what planet do you think their pension plan was invested on? It would have to be earning like a 7,000% annual ROI !!

Are you insane ??

Don't you people ever think and do some calculations before you write things? Don't you ever do any math...

Or are you all sheep? You just believe any old tripe that the Right wing hands you? "Oh my Goodness, some reporter with the Contra Costa Times reported this, so it must be true!"

Didn't it ever dawn on you that reporters are as lazy as you are when it comes to math? Why do you think they get into reporting in the first place? "Those that can, do ... those that can't ... become newspaper reporters..."

Are the Fed and Treasury Secretly Trying to Save the U.S. Taxpayer?

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:10:10 -0400
I'm not much for conspiracy theories-- it presumes those in government are smarter than I think it likely they are. Plus, if what you say is true, the banks aren't in on it, as consider this-- it is not all that easy to *buy* a home right now, only two types of loans are being approved and those only for people with great credit scores-- FHA or 20% conventional. And short sales drag on for months, tying up inventory and frustrating buyers. They'd be better off keeping the short sales off the market until they're ready to deal to keep the available inventory as low as possible. If the banks are really all that interested in getting new buyers to pick up the slack at propped-up prices, they'd best make the process significantly easier and get it done quick while they have the opportunity. A better explanation is that they do in fact think the prices are too low and some miracle may happen to drive the prices back up where they'd like them to be-- banks are clearly in denial about that, and are being dragged kicking and screaming into settling for less.

A Remedy for Short Selling Manipulation

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 13:04:32 -0400
There's also a quote that says, "The market can remain irrational longer than you stay solvent.

Great article GT! I hope it gets implemented!

On Dec 11 02:41 PM Srdjan Popovic wrote:

> There is a theory put forward over 100 years ago that bear raids
> by themselves can't force the price down as the insiders and others
> with knowledge about the company would be more than happy to buy
> at lower prices and by doing so push them back up. Those who get
> in trouble are the technical speculators caught between two trends,
> but so be it. The buyers might decide to wait for a better entry,
> but they won't wait forever... if the company is any good, of course.
> However, when you have a lousy company or weak economic conditions,
> it is all too easy to blame it all on short-sellers.