Joyful Alternative

The Web Doesn't Belong to the Young After All

Bev, I'm almost senior, and I do all my shopping except food online, as well as my banking, my news reading, and my investing. While politicking online, I met my current husband.

Eight Reasons the Market Is Going Down

Re #7: Driving the interstates has become amazingly more tolerable for a bad reason: many fewer trucks.

eBay: Growth at the Right Bid

eBay traffic for August and September was at a 5-year low: www.auctionbytes.com/c.... These times of recession and unemployment should be glorious for eBay, but they've made both selling and buying so difficult and unrewarding that eBay is sinking.
Friend 1 Googled an obscure item he needs. The only seller is on eBay only. Friend attempts to buy it and balks at having to sign up for PayPal with "too much personal information." "Why can't I just use my credit or debit card directly? Why can't I send a check or a money order?"
NB: PayPal now has competition from Google and Amazon.
Friend 2 is downsizing her empty nest, with piles of slightly used and semi-antique stuff to get rid of. She had used eBay in the past but now finds it too complex, confusing, and "weird" to list her excess for sale. She tried Craigslist and reports great success.
Everything about eBay is too bloated to function now, including its code (slow loads that shut out dial-up buyers and frustrate everyone else) and executive pay. There's just one item I buy on eBay now and only because I can't persuade the seller to list it elsewhere, and I have a shelf of unusual items I'd like to auction off online because I don't know what they're worth but it won't be on eBay.
It's hard to believe this author is so enthusiastic about eBay stock---obviously not a "value" investor.

Tech / Online Trends: The Strong Get Stronger in e-Commerce

This year Amazon's bought some of the better known eretailers, including that shoe store and ABE.

Web Beats TV, News as a Timely Media Source: Case in Point

It's easy to run C-SPAN on your monitor as background when you're working on something that doesn't exactly require genius. If you just catch the morning interview show every morning (with call-ins from around the world! no more wimpy questions!), within a week or two you'll know more about what's going on in Washington than any of the pundits.

Welcome to the New Normal

Re "Of course, we can return to 5% unemployment even if employment does not increase. Just keep shrinking the officially measured labor force and the unemployment roles and we get there. If you have 15 million unemployed out of a labor force of 150 million, that is 10% unemployment."

This tampering in the officially measured labor force took place in the 1980s when unemployment was above 10%. The numbers of members of the military, which had been a separate category and counted as neither employed nor unemployed, were added to the number of employed, on the grounds that the military had become all-volunteer.

Time to Take a Bite Out of Chipotle

I bought it early on, and then kept nagging the company to open a restaurant near me. They did so last month, with a great opening campaign: free food the first day---to feed the hungry and to introduce locals to the food. I imagine it also served as a shakeout cruise.

So CMG had two days of free news, one announcing a free meal and another showing superlong lines. And I have CMG only 15 miles away, instead of 60.

Are Consumers Paying Down Their Debt?

Consumers can always spend to save: insulate the attic, buy a window air conditioner and avoid turning on the central air, buy seeds and a shovel and grow some food, things like that.

Walmart Launches Walmart Marketplace

BigOlDave, you need to shop around. Just because WalMart is so cheesy looking doesn't mean it has the best prices. In my area, the utilitarian Aldi beats WalMart easily, and so does upscale Wegman's. And then there's the local Amelia's chain, an approved retailer of brand-name overstocks. If you're going to WalMart to save money, you're wasting a lot.

China Sneezes, the U.S. Catches a Cold

Out here in the boonies, there's a CRE building boom, including car dealerships. I hope it's a green shoot and not just a hinterlands lag.

Craigslist: Free Trumps Fee

Then again, define "failure" for Craigslist.

Business Trends: Banks, Cars, Healthcare and Safe Vermont Mortgages

I wonder who Mr. Collier would like to fall through the cracks. I pay $350 a month for individual health insurance, my knee replacement cost me $9,000 out of pocket, and friends tell me I'm lucky that the insurer didn't drop me for costing them money. Friends in other states tell me I'm lucky to be able to buy health insurance at all. Am I supposed to fall through the cracks?

Mr. Collier obviously doesn't want his wife to fall through the cracks, and how nice for him that they received charity rather than a bill he'd be paying off for the rest of his working life. Should I fall through the cracks if my osteoarthritis makes another joint replacement necessary and I can't come up with the out-of-pocket expense (plus self-employed people don't get sick leave or sick pay!)? Keep in mind that the surgeon wants cash up front; he's had too many patients unable to pay him after he's done his part. Should somebody who makes $15,000/year and can't possibly pay insurance premiums of $350/month, not to mention all those out-of-pocket amounts, fall through the cracks? Is this guy a freeloader if he gets charity, too, when he gets cancer? And keep in mind that his and Mrs. Collier's charity are paid for by higher bills for you and me.

As a long-time self-employed person (and health insurance buyer), I wish I had access to "Medicare for All." I suspect never before in history have so many people looked forward to their 65th birthdays.

Barnes & Noble Finds New Revenue Streams

Barnes & Nobel reprinted out-of-print (and out of copyright) books 20 years ago. This is just a new name for its line, or maybe an additional imprint.

Everyone Wants a National Broadband Network, But Nobody Wants to Pay for It

Ma Bell was never in the rural areas, and the regionals still aren't, at least in Pennsylvania.

Helloooo Moral Hazard

You wonder where the extreme outrage is. Well, in these parts it's outraged grayhairs storming Arlen Specter's town hall meetings to denounce government takeover of Medicare!

By and large, all anybody knows is what the mass media will tell them, which isn't anything that will affect the ownership of the mass media. For example, Keith Olberman of MSNBC was told by the network brass to stop picking on a Fox News host because Rupert Murdoch was retaliating by publishing stories about GE sales to Iran. So don't blame ordinary people for not reacting to what they don't know about.