User 142738

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98 Comments

    • Sun Sep 7th 21:55 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Global Stock Markets: We All Fall Down!
      mdmrjsds: Are you referring to Japan?
      View article »
    • Thu Aug 28th 08:31 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Apple's China Debacle: The Corporation as an Agent of Social Change
      The iPod has support for Simplified Chinese, but I don’t believe the iTunes store is open in China. What’s amazing is how Apple is able to amass such sales from people with whom they don’t even do direct business with.

      Asking iTunes to take down all the Tibet-related items is like asking a deli in Manhattan to not sell ham because it offends someone in Tehran… it ain’t gonna happen!
      View article »
    • Wed Aug 27th 10:44 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Miscalculating Inflation: The Link to Global GDP
      romorris: The GDP numbers appear to have been adjusted for purchasing parity, though PPP adjustments should have put the U.S. above the EU by about a trillion international dollars. Japan should have also "shrunk" by the adjustment.
      View article »
    • Mon Aug 25th 19:27 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Shanghai's Own Stock Market Rules
      eid: The most referenced rule is that you are not permitted to short-sell stocks in Shanghai. It makes you wonder if the Shanghai composite would have fallen further if short selling (not necessarily “naked” short selling) were permitted.
      View article »
    • Wed Aug 20th 19:17 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Will GM's Volt Change History?
      169775: According to your numbers, Toyota started its PHEV research in 1987 and found a way to put $10,000 worth of lithium-ion batteries in a car for only $4,000.
      View article »
    • Sun Aug 17th 23:11 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Shifting Emphasis from Inflation to Growth
      JDL51: The Chinese and Russians have quite a bit of experience defaulting on foreign debt, and Japan is doing a better job than the U.S. in going further into it (debt). Your postulate is negated by something called “recent history.”
      View article »
    • Fri Aug 15th 09:30 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Euro's Long Run Is Finally Over
      eh: The EU member countries can only wish that they could lower their collective government deficits to below $1,000,000,000,000.
      View article »
    • Fri Aug 15th 09:30 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Euro's Long Run Is Finally Over
      eh: The EU member countries can only wish that they could lower their collective government deficits to below $1,000,000,000,000.
      View article »
    • Sun Aug 10th 12:39 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Great Firewall of China Faces Challenge During Olympics
      To make a very quick correction: China does not have a 3G network (yet), and Japan was dragged into the 3G game. The two nations with mobile networks separate from GSM (the very old, very slow 3G predecessor) are Japan and the United States. Supposedly China is going to make their own standard, despite every other country giving up on their own standards.

      On a more related note, the way the Internet infrastructure is being set up in China is very “convoluted” (I don’t know any better words to describe it). There are two rival ISPs who tamper with their competitor’s Internet traffic to convince people to switch over to them. With the exception of Hong Kong, the bandwidth capacity in and out of China is on par with a small city.

      I cannot recommend anything to consider investing in at this moment, but if anybody decides to expand China’s bandwidth it would have to be a company in Australia, Japan, or the United States, since those countries run the pipes coming in and out of China.
      View article »
    • Sun Aug 3rd 21:32 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The US Dollar Elevator is Going Up!
      I can see the author’s prediction coming true with a hypothetical yet likely sequence of events: (1) people get out of stocks and decide to hold cash, (2) cash goes into bonds, and (3) people don’t sell those bonds.

      I also find the comments about the euro and Zimbabwe hilarious at the very least. The U.S.’s debt is about $0.62 per dollar of GDP; the powerhouses in Europe have debt that averages out to about €0.75 per euro of GDP and Japan’s debt is about ¥196 per hundred yen of GDP.

      And the United States, thank goodness, isn’t confiscating soybean farms and coal mines for political purposes. If such an event were to happen, then comparing the U.S. to Zimbabwe would be appropriate.
      View article »
    • Fri Aug 1st 11:00 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      How Is GM Still Alive?
      Having a quarter-century head start for building ethanol-capable automobiles in Brazil may have had something to do with it.
      View article »
    • Tue Jul 29th 11:07 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Another American Money Pit: Infrastructure
      "The average US public school building is 40 years old. More than three quarters of these have deferred maintenance."

      Public schools are funded by their respective state governments, not the Federal government.
      View article »
    • Mon Jul 21st 19:33 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Case for Buying China Now
      The fundamentals for FXI, or any Chinese stock and/or ETF, do all the explaining. Oil is a big contributor to losses here. A large chunk of the market capitalization is in large oil companies, but unlike all the other oil producers and refiners who make money in the “crack spread,” China’s oil companies’ profits are controlled by the whim of their government.

      There are several articles quoting Chinese oil company spokespeople about how government price controls are cutting into their profit margins. Profit margins, according to the quotes, range between -40% and -50%. Common sense (and a healthy dose of economic theory) dictates that if a company is losing 50% due to government price controls, it must be due to the government holding prices down 50%.

      So, according to that, gasoline must retail for about ¥3.6 a liter ($1.99 a gallon), right? Wrong. It retails for about ¥6.6 ($3.66 a gallon). Even with a half-off coupon they pay almost as much as Americans do.

      I see any of three events happening by June 2009:

      1.) In an effort to keep the oil companies afloat, China will keep raising and raising fuel prices. Costs for industrial production will spike, resulting in a massive migration of factories to a cheaper market (probably Mexico). Economic growth grinds to a halt. Unemployment and inflation shoot up. People get angry.

      2.) In an effort to keep the people happy, China will keep subsidizing fuel prices. Import tariffs go up. Growth remains high, though it will solely be due to money supply expansion. Investors move their money en masse to other countries looking for the “next big thing.” Hong Kong stocks plummet and Shanghai stocks soon follow. China goes from a net creditor to a net debtor. People’s savings disappear. It’s Japan Part II.

      3.) In a balanced point of view to keep people happy and the oil companies in business, China outsources all or nearly all of their oil exploration projects to BP, Shell, and other dirty, dirty foreigners. Import tariffs remain high but are positioned somewhere between the tariffs in the eurozone and the United States. Chinese stocks with little international exposure drop, but a few make it to the top. Growth slows, but remains modest.

      Jim Rogers called the bottom for Shanghai in late May, then called it again in late June, and will more than likely call the bottom yet again in late July. I’m almost reminded of the childhood tale of the boy who cried wolf.

      Eventually, people won’t care if the wolf exists or not.
      View article »
    • Wed Jul 16th 16:00 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      No Foole Like a Dubious Causality Foole II: Oil and the Market
      So, everything that negates your portfolio gains is a conspiracy theory now?
      View article »
    • Tue Jul 8th 19:46 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The World's Revenge
      I counted the words in each phrase, sentence, and paragraph. In defense of Michael Fitzsimmons, this article is not “98% criticism-2% solution”: it’s 86.2% hypocritical liberal rhetoric (what EU member doesn’t have a twin deficit and out-of-control government spending?), 2.1% portfolio suggestions (the “buy” phrases), and 11.7% fluff.
      View article »
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