Economyst

Google: Setting Itself Up for Failure?

Google has yet to find a revenue stream that is not ad related. They are giving away products for free (not a great business strategy in the long run).

This was a defensive buy rather than anything else. Google has to protect its monopoly in ad selling or its finished. Its a one product company that cannot allow any form of competition to establish itself in its core market.

Mary Meeker: Economy Is Recovering, Mobile Is Exploding

Mary Meeker and Henry Blodget - did you not learn anything form the Dot Com Bubble. They are hear to drive up share prices.

So first we had the Dot Com Bubble. Share prices collapsed and to avert meltdown interest rates were slashed and money pumped inot the economy to ready it for the Housing Bubble. Now we are getting over the housing bubble we are being prepared for the Mobile bubble where all things with the Mobile/ Social Media moniker will be driven to absurd levels.

Why Android Is Gaining Ground on Apple

Symbian and Windows Mobile have thousands of apps but concentrating on the number of apps available is missing the point. If you count all the Java apps as well, there are probably more apps for the Symbian o/s than for the Iphone. But Apple put all the apps in one place - I own a Winmo phone , Symbian phone and Iphone.

Apple greatest achievement was making the smartphone accessible to all - you want apps - you download them straight to the phone - nice and simple.

Basing your decision on one act of so called anti-competitive behaviour rather than looking at satisfying your actual needs shows more about your ability to make decisions than any reflection on Android.

Smartphones: Apple and RIM Advance in Each Other's Direction

Iphone 3GS encryption and security is useless - www.wired.com/gadgetla.../

Blackberry concentrates on group policy, a proper remote wipe function that doesn't get disabled by simply removing the sim card as in the Iphone.

The Iphone is a great consumer device but use it for business purposes at your own risk. Even winmo phones have more robust security and better group policies.

Apple Sold Twice as Many iPhones as Macs Last Quarter; Closing the Gap on iPod Sales, Too

Just some perspective - the numbers do look good but would be interesting to see how many Iphone 3GS have been sold.

Iphone 1.0 - released on June 29, 2007, Q3
Iphone 3G - released on July 11, 2008, Q4
Iphone 3GS - released on June 19th, Q3

Q3 - 2008 - 717k Iphones sold
Q3 - 2009 - 5.208m Iphones sold

In Q3 last year only the Iphone 1.0 was available for sale. In Q3 this year there was the Iphone 3G and 3GS were available for sale - the split has not been given.

Is the U.S. Dollar the Fed's Next Weapon?

The US economy has been bleeding money in terms of its balance of payments deficit primarily to the Far East. As long as they recycled this money through buying US treasuries and debt it kept the US on life support.

Was the US obliged to bail out AIG and subsequently the foreign counter parties? Well it's what China has been doing for the last decade - bailing out America.

Health Care Reform and Obama's Sinking Approval Ratings

Obamacare in simple terms - he will increase demand by pumping more money into healthcare without making any structural changes to the supply side. Result is inflation in the healthcare sector.

This is what happened in the UK with GP salaries boosting from an average £60k to well over £100k and the amount of work they do was reduced.

The US does not need to spend more on healthcare to make it affordable - they need to spend less. Have the politicians not learned anything from the housing bubble - making loans more affordable only made house prices increase - increase monetary value of available loans leads directly to house price inflation.

Final point
www.opensecrets.org/in...

Top Industries donating to Congress 2010 cycle
1)Lawyers - $5,968,842
2)Healthcare - $4,267,370

Nothing will change for the benefit of the public.

Google Will Win the Application War Against Microsoft

Now let me pull up my calculator, I have 1 million users and I make $0.00 per user on my Free apps so that's 1,000,000 x $0.00 = $0.00

In return for the free apps Google takes your privacy, scans your emails, saves your search history, scans your private documents and the will not say what data it holds about you and where it holds this data.

Supporting the Financial System by Bleeding the 'Real' Economy

Regulation will not solve the problem of fractional reserve banking. A lesson in economic history and the history of money and how todays money supply is actually created through the money multiplier effect and low or non existent reserve ratios. The fact that banks can lend money they do not have is the real cause of inflation and indebtedness.

Financial Intelligence on Google at Harvard Business School

In Germany if I recall correctly you can only write down 50% of the interest cost of debt - this encourages businesses to leverage less and grow at more stable rates rather than the US model where its quick debt fuelled growth followed by default.

Hasn't the housing boom and bust taught us about sustainable debt levels. Ask yourself why should debt interest be tax deductible in the first place?

Financial Intelligence on Google at Harvard Business School

If you want to work out when a company will start to fail look at the ratio of MBA's it has in its management. Once this ratio starts to climb you know this company stock will start to fall.

MBA is just a money spinner for the Business Schools -it's an academic not professional qualification and it qualifies you to do exactly nothing.

Apple Asks Microsoft to 'Quit Running Those Laptop Hunters Ads'

When there is even a whiff of negative sentiment against Apple it stirs a hornets nest and what quickly follows is a barrage of pro-Apple postings. Are Apple supporters so insecure that any comment or article no matter if its substantiated or not causes you to foam at your keyboard (well the responses are written)?

GM's Lutz Fired Up Already

I once read a long interview with Bob Lutz - this guy is so entrenched with his beliefs that GM will continue to fail.

GM needed a lobotomy - the financial restructuring does not address this key concern - the management that got them into this mess is still around.

Will Google's Chrome OS Be a Hit? Probably, Since Steve Ballmer Doesn't Think So

Steve Jobs dismissed the first notebooks as not being influential - he later changed his mind. It's about learning from your mistakes - is Ballmer and MS doing that?

Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from mistakes.

Mark Twain

Palm Pre Sales Appear to Stabilize at Ho Hum Levels

Sprint has about 1400 stores and not 1000, factor in the third party distributors who stock the Pre then this analysis has some basic errors. It seems that if you have a hypothesis then you can make your numbers fit that and that's what this article reads like.