bigmoney

Verizon's Droid Is the Real Deal

>> 3.7-inch touch-sensitive display with a resolution of 854×480 pixels, 16 million color depth.

Awesome screen resolution + android + physical keyboard + verizon = MOAP (mother of all phones)

401ks Aren't the Problem

I like my 401k. Choices are kind of lousy, but there is S&P500 index, and intl large cap index, with ultra low fees, along with cash & bond fund, including TIPS bonds. Employer provides 6% match. If I leave my job, it can be made into rollover IRA brokerage accounts, with access to ETFs and plain ole stocks.

The problem with 401k's may be that they expect layman to really understand finance. And they disguise their products. In the old days my choices included "high growth". Who doesn't want high growth? But that was a euphamism for NASDAQ, which collapsed around 2001.

Browser Market Loser Opera Should Be Careful What It Wishes For

the author doesn't appear to be sophisticated tech guy. IE might be #1 in popularity due to its tight integration in Windows, but it has many seriously negative drawbacks, including security, privacy, performance, and even innovation. The minority browsers out there tend to come up with interesting features, such as tabbed browsing, ad block, flash block, no script, etc. that may or may not ever find their way into IE. And if you want latest IE, it requires downloading patches / Service Packs, that load all sorts of other annoying trojan MS code that you may or may not want.

Learning from the Postal System: Healthcare Could Use a Last-Resort Provider

apples to oranges. There is limited demand for postal service, excluding marketers. Most people are happy to mail a letter or two, and have it delivered in a reasonable time. There is unlimited demand for medical care, both quantity and quality. How many sick people get some level of treatment, and accept that its "good enough". Demand curve goes exponential toward end of life. Although in some cases, the heroics may not customer demand, but doctor push. The latter under the unbrella of "ethics", but with a dubious profit motive.

Why Health Insurers Make Lousy Villains

>> rather than sending their board members to places like Hawaii for board meetings

I'd have to run the numbers, but I suspect if this sort of opulence was returned to shareholders, it wouldn't add up to much, maybe a few pennies per share. Even plush executive bonus's spread out over millions of shares wouldnt' add up to much. Probably where the temptation to skim comes from.

Book Review: Geoffrey Miller's 'Spent'

peacocking via material possessions is a fact of life. Even savings in the bank / stock investments can be a form of peacocking. Its very unlikely that Buffet could pull a hot mistress in her 20s/30s, if he was lower class, earning $20k / year, living in trailer, and no savings,

Healthcare: Does Prevention Reduce Costs?

I wonder how much expensive medical testing occurs that the doctors consider legit, or whether they are just hedging against lawsuit. Guy goes into doctors office complaining of chest pain. Is this heartburn or heart disease? No worries. Just juice him up on imaging dye, and run him through the CAT scanner.

Why I Bought Goldman Sachs Friday

interesting, I was just reading another seekingalpha article "Where's the Derivatives Exposure?", and GS was one of the top. One comment was made that "derivatives were created to circumvent taxes, laws, regulations and/or to achieve purposes not visible to the naked mind.".

And if the derivatives market implodes, they will surely get a plush government bailout. Which I believe they already have, either directly, or indirectly via AIG. In a fair situation, if their derivative house of cards implodes, then it takes down the whole company. No bailouts. Period.

GS seems to be heads I win, tails you lose. Of course, that doesn't mean its not a profitable investment.

Is Healthcare a 'Right'?

rationing makes sense, but how to do that? price rationing seems to the most capitalistic, but medical care doesn't lend itself properly to price signals. For one thing, its way too intertwined with government and big corporations. Most doctors (or rather their minimum wage receptionists) will scoff if you ask them how much an exam / procedure will be. Usually all they want to know is what insurance you have.

Medical care at a low level could be a "right". This could well established medicines, basic surgery, and trauma care. However what about organ transplants, bone marrow transplants, dialysis, etc.? Obviously the tax payer cannot afford to provide these uber-expensive treatements to any and all. With some illnesses, its fairly easy to exceed $1 million in medical care. And these are often for elderly. In some cases, pre-mature babies costs can exceed $1 million.

Oil Prices and the Suburbs

$20/gallon gasoline. Is this peak oil or inflation / currency devaluation? What if a suburban house averages $5 million? Or DOW trades at 50,000? Or a pound of organic hamber is $50? In these cases it would be clear that Uncle Ben's plan to drop $FRN from helicopters was very successful.

Either way, suburbs could be improved substantially by making them mostly self-contained. As it stands, people usually have to drive to do every single little thing. Such as driving the children to socialize and recreation. The army of soccer moms out there in 6000 pound SUVs is probably a substantial component of auto traffic. Of course there is the small problem that suburbs aren't designed to do much except big houses and auto traffic.

The Ramifications of Growing Global Gas Guzzlers

high density housing / public transportation sounds good on paper, but when given a choice, people tend to avoid high density housing, most likely to avoid the noise blight. Try living a year in a bottom floor apartment, where the neighbors upstairs are unemployed obese insomniacs, who run their TV through a 12" 300 watt subwoofer that drones through the ceiling much of the day (and night). And they like to play fetch upstairs with their 80 pound dog. And if you ask them to be quiet, they get indignant and deny making any noise and accuse you of being overly "sensitive".

So to get away from apartment hell, they buy a house in the suburbs, and commute far. High density housing works best in a culture of discipline, and being polite and respectful. Too many people are not that.

John Maudlin on Globalization and Leverage

along the way, these big banks must have become increasingly confident, that in a black swan event, they would get a government bailout. With confidence comes risk taking.

People like confidence and risk taking. The timid, pessimists, defeatists, realists, and other conservative types are no fun.

At the battle of Gettysburg, Lee was confident. His sidekick Longstreet was a "realist" / pessimist. They marched Union stronghold with confidence. And what happened to the southern army after that is history. No government bailout for those guys.

Why Bet on a Black Swan?

I read through Nassim Taleb's book when it first came out, recommended from a website I follow. It was entertaining, but I didn't take away anything actionable. Perhaps it was over my head, or maybe it was voodoo.

When I think of black swan, I think of leverage. Some people may leverage up for that elusive black swan, while others bet again (LTCM, et al).

The Link Between Health Insurance and Labor Markets

I'd like to see what percentage of health care is already paid for by government. Those under 50 probably consume relatively little. Those over 65 get into medical heroics, such as organ transplants, dialysis, and extended ICU stays. Many of these folks burn enormous amounts of medical care in their elderly years, unless they do a Will / Advanced Medical Directive that specifically says "no heroics", which I doubt many do.

In some cases, corporations are providing pension healthcare to the AARP crowd, such as GM, but it becomes very obvious that with globalization, that is not sustainable. They require government bailout.

No easy answer. Medical care is one of those things with unlimited demand and limited supply.

Demographic Trends: Key to Long-Term Global Investing

the four quadrants is certainly interesting. I'd like to see the numbers after factoring out immigrants, both legal and illegal. One advantage of low birthrates is reluctance for war. Families with only children just aren't going to be very eager to see them squandered in some foreign meat grinder. I'd guess that Germany, with its 1.4 BR, will be the last country to start a war for the foreseeable future.

One disadvantage is that western economies will have to back fill with large numbers of immigrants which will result in change in culture and ethnic makeup. Se Habla espanol? Hablo castinano norte americano?