tedstr

Total Rating:
+3 / -3

22 Comments

    • Thu Nov 13th 09:10 AM | Rating: +1 0
      Commented on:
      Let's Clarify "The Worst Economy Since...." Debate
      I've heard no one talk about the biggest single change between now and the '80's or '29......two income households. Over 65% of married women in the US now work. In the '50s it was less than 25%. I would guess in '29 in was ~10%. We also have unemployment insurance.

      The impact of even 11% unemployment is nothing like what it was in '29 or even '82.
      View article »
    • Sat Nov 1st 10:24 AM | Rating: +2 -3
      Commented on:
      The Shallowest Generation
      This is a moral dilemma. Less about economics. People forget that Democracy and Capitalism require morality otherwise they collapse into revolution and anarchy like any other failed form of society.

      You glossed over the fact that Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were also along for the ride. And that we have done much more over these past 20 years like continuing to be the world’s builder of airplanes, inventor of wonder drugs, dozens of which are obscure and do not get the headlines of Aspirin or Penicillin, designers of the PC and its operating system and software applications that have essentially powered the greatest improvement in productivity and distribution of knowledge since the printing press.

      And yes we are also the world’s power plant. We have the capital and knowledge to find the oil that powers the world. We don’t own that oil anymore, but we find it and dig it up for the rest of the world and then get told how much we will get paid for it at ROI’s that are nothing greater than average.

      We are also involved in defending ourselves against people who hate us for no reason other than our religion and our success and our support of their enemy, Israel. Our volunteer army has cost us a tiny pittance over the past six years. We spend less on national defense as a % of GDP during this war than any other war in history! By far!! And BTW, this is OUR war, not some abstract alliance defending Europe or Southeast Asia. We were attacked!

      But we have a hard time with it because we have hundreds of billions in off shore tax cheats even though we have the lowest marginal tax rates in the past 50 years! Now that’s obscene and no one is really talking about that. If you want a revolution, get that one started.

      If Obama gets in he needs to worry if he can keep George Bush’s legacy of safety for the past seven years.

      You also did not mention that three of the richest people (two boomers) in this country have now dedicated themselves to giving away most all of their wealth and supervising it during their lifetimes. Ted Turner, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet. And they are not giving it to art museums. They want to solve big problems like Malaria which is not even a US problem!! How much does Carlos Slim give to his poor country? Hugo Chavez?

      We also still GIVE AWAY about 1% of our tax dollars to both our friends and ENEMIES. And in exchange we get complaints from countries like little children saying it’s not enough, give me more. Greed is not a unique American thing.

      Your article was very well written but the world is a big place and America still does most of the heavy lifting that is making it a better place. We’ve just become a little too full of ourselves, a little too comfortable, and in some cases way overpaid.
      View article »
    • Mon Oct 13th 09:08 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Media and Advertisers in Damage Control
      A little bit too much chicken little here.

      One needs to be careful not to group all these phenomena together. No doubt this will be a weak Q4. 2008 is already not where everyone wanted it, but then again, traditional media has been on that train for several years, even in a great economy and solid credit, on all platforms; TV, Newspaper, Magazines and Radio.

      Your well written piece doesn't take into account the huge spreads in gross top line between all these businesses. A -10% decline for network TV is a loss of ~$2.0 Bil, a stunning number on top of at least the past two years of slow or declining business.

      An internet increase of +9% would be + ~$1.5 Bil....slower than the ~+30% of recent years but still very very strong in any economy. Some PE compression due there but still nice businesses. Think Google at today's 2005 prices.

      No doubt the loss of an auto brand (Chrysler?) will be devastating. Deflationary cycles have never been good for advertising and media as marketers put more money into price cutting and promotions and media loses its pricing power.

      This time may be slightly worse, but declining commodity prices go straight to the bottom line of General MIlls and P&G and other Top 10 spenders and they will be looking to gain share from weaker competitors in any down turn and will spend ad $$ to get it.

      Stay the course for the web and cable but watch out for newspapers and TV nets.

      However Disney at a 10 PE is mind boggeling.

      View article »
    • Wed Oct 8th 08:55 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Pay Little Heed to Economic Reports and Move On
      better than that...the real story is the end of the Wintel monopoly. Intel chips in Macs and dual operating environments means every PC owner lusting after a beautiful Mac now has no barriers to entry. This is why their laptop business is booming and a wholesale switch to Macs is on. The phones are a sideshow to this phenom.

      This is why Gates is retiring, Vista was an attempt to mitigate the damage by emulating an Apple interface, gone horribly wrong, and Balmer is gone nuts over MSN, his only lifeboat. Buy apple, sell MSFT
      View article »
    • Tue Oct 7th 18:01 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Why Is Everybody Selling as Buffett Is Loading Up?
      Can't get a deal like Buffet? What's wrong with Citibank Preferred at 11-13% yields? Don't you think Citibank is too big to fail. Buffets warrants in GE are alredy underwater
      View article »
    • Tue Oct 7th 08:57 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Our Coming Depression
      You think the PE is going to 5! No question your well expressed comments are right about the asset deflation, general bubble popping, and moral realignment that we ALL need, but you are forgetting that only a small portion of all mortgages are anywhere near default and those 7 million illegal aliens weren't here in '29 to buy homes, cut our lawns, and continue to power our economy with cheap labor and consumer demand.

      Clinton and Franklin Rains started this thing by insisting that everyone should be able to buy a home and Fannie was going to make it happen. OBama ain't going to pull the plug on that one.

      There is a fire sale of incredible proportion going on now. Buffet knows a good thing when he sees it. So does Vikram Pandit. He got such a good deal with Wachovia now they are fighting over it. Paulson is going to look like a genius in 2-3 years when he makes a profit on on the debt he now owns returns to normal.....ah oops actually Obama will be credited as the genius.

      I'd say this was capitulation. The blood is in the streets. Get ready to buy.
      View article »
    • Fri Sep 26th 14:45 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Yahoo Fundamentals Deteriorating - Collins Stewart
      Yahoo's problem like many other portals and vertical publishers is that management still thinks and acts like it is 1998. As amazing as it sounds, after only 10 years, the internet is starting to look like a mature industry. Certainly the media driven businesses like Yahoo are entering a mature phase where you don't need 100 Stanford MBAs running around playing M&A masters of the universe.

      If all these companies, Yahoo may be at the head of the class, would dump a couple thousand of these folks and simply focus on the dull business of publishing and ad sales, they could have a really great business.
      View article »
    • Wed Sep 17th 16:31 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Ultimate Value Trap
      Great article. Motor Trend or otherwise, GM does not make a product that is competitive. Period. Anyone who thinks any of their cars stand up in either perception or reality to any Japanese or german car is in denial.

      The Volt will be a dollar short and a day late. The only play here is that gas goes back to $70-$80 and SUVs return. Happy days are here again. Unfortunatley, a good chance that this is already underway.

      The best way to stay away from value traps is to simply start with the top line. If your products aren't selling, no amount of cost control or financial acumen will save you.
      View article »
    • Sat Aug 9th 10:08 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Have Americans Changed Their Spending Habits?
      Indeed. We are surrounded by products that survive on nothing more than marketing. Consumer product marketing over the past 10-15 years has been driven more by a "hit" culture, meaning making a marketing splash around a huge margin lower quality merchandise, than it has been around building sustainable businesses....all a result of the topping of a supercycle and the attendant almost hourly scramble to make even higher earnings against a turning tide.

      This has been fueled by the late 20th century convergence of mass manufactuing (superpowered by CAD/CAM efficiencies), mass media (superpowered by TV ), and mass marketing to the mass affluent. Even lower socio-economic groups participate now through mass retailing (Walmart and the arrival of big box retailing).

      I doubt most of the people reading this have seen life today at a Walmart in Flint Michigan. Lots of America at the start of the new century not looking very nice.
      View article »
    • Fri Jul 18th 07:47 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Why the Online Video Business Is a Joke
      So complicated.

      The simple reality is that TV advertising, that is the real big money in TV advertising, is all about brand and image. It is not about Google, lead generation, DR marketing (though there is some of that on the low end), targeting etc and the other parlour tricks of the web business. Video is about big time brand building.

      When you are in that business you must have quality trusted environments and engaged users and reliable technology. Online video has none of that. Except for a few young demographic brands, the real money will not be playing with YouTube or any of the other user generated (READ: free and low cost) stuff.

      Add to that that, video just doesn't fit well with the online experience. Online is forward leaning, TV is lean back. How many online video screens have you clicked away from because you just don't want to wait for the load up?

      Add to that Google is not about branding. It's not in their DNA.

      Online video will take a couple of billion away from traditional TV, enough to make them very nervous for the next few years, but ultimately it will be a side show.
      View article »
    • Sat Jun 21st 09:03 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Google Needs to Ramp Up Display Advertising - Citi
      Display is a completely different business. Think of it this way. Google is the Yellow pages. Display is News corp. Google will find this frustrating and will stumble. It will be their first major failure.

      Display is not about technology and technology has been a large part of Google' s success. The highest margin part of Google is google.com and unless they want to completley change their signature interface and add ads (which I highly doubt they will), display will be a minor addition to their business (which they are actually already doing).
      Video ads on Youtube will be a minor side show.
      View article »
    • Wed Jun 11th 09:42 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      What Is Wrong With Tribune's Math?
      All you have to do is follow what has already happened to TV and Radio. More clutter, more ads. Less content (strip series are now common again, remember the days when a different show was on every hour, 7 days a week). Thinner cheaper content (i.e reality programming, ) Higher value content shifts to higher return mediums (movies and several larger production value series now appear on cable and pay cable) Centralized back office/production across newspaper clusters. And less output. Remember that network prime time used to start at 7PM?
      View article »
    • Fri Jun 6th 15:57 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Print Is Toast - Ballmer
      bigger concern is who is going to pay to gather all that news? The AP? It's paid for by the newspapers!
      View article »
    • Sun May 18th 10:33 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Petrobras is Hoarding the World's Deep Sea Drillers
      Is it just possible that Goldman is way long oil is is just perpetuating this speculation that is going to burst sometime soon taking these drillers with it.
      View article »
    • Sun May 18th 10:24 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Misleading April Retail Numbers: Invest In Discounters
      Your argument only supports the fact that more people are shoppping at discounters...a long term trend that has been in place for many years, recession or not.

      The additional day in April does indicate that sales may have been down YTY but it seems to be balancing out month to month at a slow but not recessionary pace.

      View article »
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