vboring

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    • Sat Mar 15th 02:25 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Rally is Coming: Always Buy Too Soon
      another perspective on my point above is that the Fed and the federal government are doing everything in their power to prop up the market, tripping over each other with idiotic bailout plans, debt and currency be damned.

      if the Fed and the federal government are on one team, do you really want to be on the other? they control the printing presses. how can you win against that?
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    • Sat Mar 15th 02:18 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Rally is Coming: Always Buy Too Soon
      it should be remembered that there have been decades when the markets didn't actually always go up.

      during the 1970-1980, the Dow Jones returned an astounding 0%. Nominal!

      yes, the markets have trended up fairly smoothly since Nixon took us off the gold standard, but to blindly assume that they will just keep going up is just a bad foundation for an analysis.
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    • Thu Feb 28th 15:04 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Blu-ray's Fatal Flaw?
      according to computerworld's approach, everybody would move to stealing movies via p2p software, because it is more convenient, less expensive, and the same quality as DVD.

      seems to me blu-ray is already dead in the water. the vast majority of the units sold were playstations, not dedicated players. so there is little evidence that there is any interest in blu-ray at all.
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    • Thu Feb 28th 14:46 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Bernanke Isn’t Finished Cutting - By a Longshot
      if they could just throw that whole "dual responsibility" thing out the window, we'd all be great, right?

      just push the reserve rate to 0% and watch the economy perpetually blossom, just like it has been in Japan for 20 years now.

      jackass.

      some of us work for a living and get paid with these increasingly worthless dollars.
      View article »
    • Wed Feb 27th 14:44 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Western Wind Energy Powers California
      more importantly, California (along with several other states) has a wind energy mandate, so the wind energy capacity will be installed. and once it is installed it is considered "must-run" capacity by the system operator, so all wind energy that is produced must be bought.

      the biggest risk is in interest rates. since virtually all wind energy costs are up front, a small change in interest rates has a large impact on project economics.

      the second biggest risk is transmission costs. wind variability causes all sorts of technical problems for the system. some states are beginning to allow these costs to be passed back to the wind generator. in Washington state, these costs represent up to 10% of the market price of the power. considering that California has more electrical congestion than we do, their costs will likely be higher.
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    • Wed Feb 27th 11:17 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Renewable Energy: Approaching Grid Parity?
      solar has only achieved grid parity in terms of cost in places with massive subsidies, only according to the most idealistic assumptions, and only in places with the worst power system management.

      take away the subsidies and mandates, and add some reality and you end up with coal delivered for about $.06/kWh in most places and solar for about $.25/kWh.

      this is why there are several new large scale coal plants being built in Nevada. to economically serve California's load without emitting CO2 in California.

      Hawaii has huge access to geothermal that they have chosen not to develop so far because the volcano is considered sacred.

      FSLR may make huge piles of cash, but most of it will be from idealism, subsidies, and mandates, not from a better energy product.
      View article »
    • Tue Feb 26th 15:33 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Greenspan's Latest: Oil Boom Will Likely 'Go on Forever'
      forever may be a long time, but energy is wealth and oil is cheap transportable energy and these facts are unlikely to change soon.

      we have no acceptable replacements for oil at any price today, yet all of the world's economies are utterly dependent on oil.

      sure, we can produce a little $200/barrel biodiesel for greenwashing purposes, but there is absolutely no way that we can produce enough to run an economy. there just isn't enough land or fresh water to do it at any price.

      we don't have half of the electric infrastructure necessary to switch to a fully electric economy. and the infrastructure we do have is rapidly approaching the ugly end of the bathtub curve.

      with energy, we can do anything. without it, our economy cannot exist. that is why energy is wealth. we have no replacement for oil, not even in theory.

      forever is a long time and the price, by definition, cannot go up forever since we will eventually run out.

      but, for as long as the world's economy expands, oil will keep getting more expensive
      View article »
    • Mon Feb 25th 18:02 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      When Will China Overtake the U.S. Economically?
      It seems that a discussion of peak oil concerns should be included.

      Also, do we really think the US economy will grow at 2.5% perpetually? Maybe this is a reasonable assumption for 20 years, but at 40 years it starts to sound like more of a WAG.
      View article »
    • Mon Feb 4th 15:19 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      January Auto Sales Were Pathetic
      how can you discuss auto sales without even mentioning credit?

      virtually all new vehicle sales are financed, often by a second mortgage or similar product.

      it seems likely that new vehicle sales are likely to be impacted by the credit industry problems: increasing lending standards, decreasing housing wealth, etc.
      View article »
    • Mon Feb 4th 14:46 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Infrastructure: The Next Bubble?
      also, since wind RE projects are generally very capital intensive, they will benefit from low interest rates.

      they displace oil consumption, so a weak dollar and expensive oil helps them.

      add in their positive image and wealthy baby boomers who prefer to invest green and a renewable energy bubble looks almost inevitable.
      View article »
    • Mon Feb 4th 14:36 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Infrastructure: The Next Bubble?
      infrastructure in general might not be a bubble, but renewable energy easily could be, especially in markets where CO2 offset credits have been created.

      in some markets, such as the pacific northwest, there is little need for additional electric generation capacity, but renewable energy mandates in Washington and California require that the plants be built. add to this the belief that CO2 offset credits will be worth something and you have room for both rapid growth and speculation within the renewable energy sector of infrastructure.
      View article »
    • Mon Feb 4th 11:30 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      RealNetworks Strikes Major Deal With Yahoo!
      Real Networks seems to have the opposite motto from Google.

      instead of "never be evil," they have embraced "always be the asshole"

      no content that requires Real Networks software is worth the pain of interacting with these guys.
      View article »
    • Wed Jan 30th 15:16 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Fed Cuts to 3%
      yeah, funny thing about this rate cut: it prompted a general market jump, but it also prompted a jump in the price of GLD
      View article »
    • Wed Jan 30th 14:41 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Fed Cuts to 3%
      the Fed cuts rates by 1.25% in a little over a week and the market finds this encouraging?

      sounds more like a good reason for concern to me.

      unprecedented actions seem to more often lead to failure than to success.
      View article »
    • Wed Jan 30th 13:51 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Can eBay's New Fee Structure Fend Off Amazon?
      the fee structure is completely unimportant to buyers and mostly unimportant to sellers.

      traffic matters far more than transaction fees to sellers.

      the user interface (UI) and availability of products matters most to buyers.

      Amazon has the better UI by far because it doesn't look like the discount aisle at the dollar store.

      as for traffic and availability of items, Ebay is ahead today, but Amazon is quickly catching up.
      View article »
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