Richard Mason

Desperate Times Bring Redesign to NY Times

It appears these changes only affect the New York edition, not the national edition. Basically they are making the New York edition more like the national edition. I guess I see how that could save costs.

The Prius Conundrum

On a status-per-dollar basis, the Prius is really a very good bargain. Celebrities and high-status professionals are known to drive Priuses. If you were taking a supermodel out on a date, you could show up in a Prius and none of her friends would scoff. It's one of the cheapest cars that doesn't say, "I am poor or middle class and had to settle for this car." So in that sense it is a very good buy.

Calculating the dollars of gasoline that a Prius will save you is like calculating the minutes of commute time you will save in a faster-accelerating sports car. The abilities of the car are nice but they are very much secondary to the <i>image</i&g... that comes from the abilities. And if you say you've never made any purchase decision based on image, I say you're a liar.

Borders: New Concept Is Excellent

The whole affiliation with Amazon was such a stupid idea to begin with. I don't have any confidence in Borders management at all. And I say this as a past shareholder and past happy customer who would like to see Borders succeed.

The Top 10 Ethanol Related Stocks

I found this article somewhat interesting but you misspelled 'ethanol' in the title so thumbs down!