Tickerphilia

Shedding Light on the Coming OLED Revolution

Another app for OLED technologies are wearable display screens which now exist mainly for military applications. Imagine a pair of wraparound glasses that show movies 1/2" from the eyes with the images wrapping back to peripheral vision. Full emersion entertainment. In conjunction with an ipod, they are an obvious add-on to the portable market.

Money Supply: The Myth of Hyperinflation

As much as I enjoy this conversation on economic theory and the attempts to prognosticate, a major element has been out of the broad conversational equation: Yankee ingenuity. Any culture's ingenuity comes from a collective enthusiasm toward exercise of innate intelligence applied to processes and devices that improve life. We have a cynicism in this country from certain quarters toward anything public, but high quality public education engenders a populace capable of innovation, which in turn, creates a viable export market. It's not a "quick fix" solution, which will satisfy stockholders, but it is one major track of the longer term pathway toward re-generating ourselves as players on the global chessboard, ie: selling things that China, India, Brazil, and the rest need.

President Obama is hopefully enjoying the absurd breeze of opponents of his speech tomorrow encouraging students to buckle down. He would appear to be a truly moral, ethical leader, and our country sorely needs somebody who can lead, not out of fear, but out of optimism toward putting a fire under our innovative potential.

Detractors rose up when America went into debt to execute the Louisiana Purchase. Wow, what a wise investment. I think that Obama is borrowing not to create a new generation of consumers, but to invest in the creation of a generation of innovators. To do that, we need adequate health care, clean safe schools, and leaders who will show the way to our renewal as a nation. If we unite behind those principles, we will prosper.

Executive Pay Restrictions Will Deplete Wall Street's 'Elevator Assets'

I would agree that the compensation ceiling is largely symbolic.

A more sweeping change that may be in the wings should be instituting .25% tax on the $ amount of all security and derivative transactions to bring in $150B to the treasury annually. Small investors would not notice. Investment bankers and hedge fund managers will cry foul.

Longer term, antitrust must deal with breaking up the "too big to fail" financial industry so that bad practices allow for failure without affecting companies that engage in sound decision making.

The Ghost of Crude Oil Futures (Part 1/2)

The price of oil began to crack when Senate committee chairmen began to rattle that legislation was forthcoming to regulate speculation in the oil markets. It appears that speculators using the CME&ICE began to run for the door. As the price of oil has dropped, so have the equities of these exchanges. A similar oil bubble occurred in the '70's when specs bought up tankers of crude and had them steer in circles until prices rose to a satisfactory level. When the price began to crack everybody ran to the nearest door (read: terminal), and prices plunged.