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    • Thu Sep 11th 10:01 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      ImClone's Icahn Is Holding a Pistol to Bristol
      Since Icahn's an insider and the chair of IMCL board, I think he could be in deep doo-doo if he is completely making this stuff up.
      View article »
    • Thu Sep 11th 09:55 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      5 Stocks to Buy if Obama Wins
      GDP and personal income also rose under Clinton. Tech bubble doesn't affect those metrics.

      Also, consistently since 1900 stock market does better under Democratic presidents. Even when you correct for the effect of which bunch controls Congress. This has been extensively written up and could easily be Googled.
      View article »
    • Thu Sep 11th 09:25 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Rackspace Hosting, Inc. Q2 2008 Earnings Call Transcript
      I love the free transcripts. I understand that the people who create them are not usually native speakers of English. It's possible that Mr. Pichler is not the clearest speaker ever, I didn't listen so don't know. But this really is the most garbled transcript I've read on SA.

      My favorite quote: "We conservatives are longer and require larger upfront investments." Personally I think people should leave their political views out of earnings calls.
      View article »
    • Tue Sep 9th 09:47 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Tuesday Outlook: Commodities, Emerging Markets
      Wait, are you saying you don't know who The Band was? Oh man, get thee to the Google! :-)
      View article »
    • Tue Sep 9th 09:47 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Tuesday Outlook: Commodities, Emerging Markets
      The song is called "The Weight." The band is called "The Band." What's the controversy? I thought everyone over 40 knew this.
      View article »
    • Tue Sep 9th 09:40 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Is McCain's Tax Plan Really Any Different From Current Policy?
      BTW unless that audience consisted of people earning over $250K per year, McCain's statement that "Obama will raise your taxes" is untrue.
      View article »
    • Thu Sep 4th 10:50 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Time to Rethink Our View of Private Health Insurers?
      "Employers were supplementing the high deductable plans with employer funded health savings accounts, making the deductables irrelevant from the employees’ perspective."

      A clarification, from someone who actually is on this kind of health plan. What happens is that the employee has the option to direct some portion of their pay into the tax-free Health Savings Account (HSA). This account is "funded by the employer" only in the sense that the employee's salary is funded by the employer. For all practical purposes, the employee is paying into it.

      Then the employee can use HSA to pay for healthcare expenses not covered by your insurance, such as co-pays and deductible. However, even with the bump-up for the HSA being tax-free, it comes down to a cost being shifted from insurer to insured employee. The employee does NOT perceive the costs as irrelevant!

      What's more, in every one of these I've participated in, HSA is "use it or lose it" each year. If at the end of the year you've been healthy and haven't spent your whole HSA, you just lose whatever chunk of your salary you directed to the HSA! Obvious incentive to underfund your HSA (even with the tax effect) from what you think you will spend, especially if you're in good health.

      Someone with a high deductible would probably consider putting less than the deductible into the HSA and just hoping for the best.

      I've never understood who this goofy system was supposed to benefit, except whoever is administering it (usually company HR dept) and whoever keeps any unused balance in HSA (I guess that's the employer too?)
      View article »
    • Thu Sep 4th 09:54 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Sarah Palin: Wall Street's Candidate
      What a great parody! Didn't know this was also a humor site.
      View article »
    • Tue Sep 2nd 14:12 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Pepsi Goes Russki: How Will Deal Affect Earnings?
      Pepsi is one of the longest-established-in... Western companies. During the 1970's they had an agreement under which Pepsi was distributed in Russia and had exclusive rights to import and distribute Stolichnaya in the U.S. It is hardly just this week "going Ruskie" as you so charmingly put it.
      View article »
    • Thu Aug 21st 11:31 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      AutoNation, Sears, and Autozone Getting Closer Together
      How do you get to "20% to 30%" of AutoZone board? There will be 12 members reduced to 10. Which current board member is linked to Lampert? Or other explanation? Thanks
      View article »
    • Thu Aug 21st 11:09 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Whole Food Waits For Shoppers To Return
      I have never understood why WFMI acts as though it thinks it's the only game in town (having bought OATS), yet during merger talks argued that there was plenty of competition. Obviously it doesn't think much of the competition. Here in Portland OR we have several local chains that focus on local organic food (one is almost a clone of WFMI except it has a lot more local food, and one also has a great selection of conventional food), one high-end chain that looks like a WFMI and has some organic food but mostly "gourmet," regional chain Fred Meyer (Kroger) that has added big organic selection to its supermarket side but also has one-stop-shopping a la Target, AND just about every other ordinary supermarket has added some organic. In other words, even if the appeal of WFMI is that it's upscale as opposed to organic, we got your upscale right here baby. Oh not to mention the bazillions of Trader Joe's. So no I don't see that WFMI has a compelling value proposition, although when I worked across the street I did do some of my shopping there. I am glad to hear it is getting to be that way everywhere.

      I do think Mackey's haircut is cute.
      View article »
    • Thu Aug 21st 10:44 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Financial Bloggers: The Conscience of Wall Street?
      It follows from the fact that most investors are mediocre investors or worse, by definition. I am surprised that anyone would even try to argue about this.
      View article »
    • Thu Aug 14th 10:09 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Option ARMs, Who Thought Up these Time Bombs?
      Muley, liberals aren't running the country and weren't running the country during the run-up to the bubble. Plus hardly any of the "underprivileged&... made any money off it.
      View article »
    • Wed Aug 13th 09:22 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Russian Assertiveness Should Give Western Investors Pause
      Uncle I think you missed the author's point. DESPITE the reckless behavior of the CURRENT administration, the U.S. is not totally in the crapper. Obama has had no chance to do anything yet but it's hard to imagine he could do worse.
      View article »
    • Tue Aug 12th 10:03 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Of Russia and Black Swans
      "anyone know if tensions between Georgia and Russia have been an ongoing thing making this conflict inevitable?"

      Gee, let me think. Well, there was the "freezing" of S. Ossetia and Abkhazia ten years ago, when the USSR was breaking up and these two regions made a bid for independence from both Georgia (of which they had been part) and Russia, but didn't really get it -- they were just allowed to basically run their own show unofficially. Or you could go back to the about 200 years before that of Czarist rule of Georgia, which has always considered itself its own country.

      As another poster has said, if you didn't happen to know this off the top of your head, there's always Google and Wikipedia.
      View article »
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