Backing up scoops from The Verge and Eurogamer, the WSJ reports Microsoft (MSFT) has developed prototypes for a cheap set-top "for streaming video and other entertainment options." Past reports have suggested Xbox Live and casual gaming support will be part of the package. Microsoft is keen to extend Xbox Live's living room clout, which has grown considerably in recent years - a large portion of Live's 46M+ user base already spend more time consuming music/video content than playing online games. (Xbox tablet rumor) (Xbox Live shows) [View news story]
Can someone please explain WHY Microsoft x-box app in Windows 8 requires you to provide your birthdate just to enter the web site? What is with this intrusive nonsense???
Home Depot: Overvalued By A Significant Margin [View article]
The last quarterly report shows just how worthless this technical analysis. HD blew past the forecasts, whereas LOW's results were nice but ho-hum.
I shop at both retailers. Both in fact have helpful and knowedgeable staff. I have never found a single floor employee who did not know where the most obscure item was located, or who demonstrated sub-par technical knowledge.
The shelves of both retailers are bulging with tools and items in anticipation of the spring rush.
Sorry, but this writer's analysis shows just exactly how investors need to follow their own gut and not follow what someone writes.
stanley your analysis is way off base. At the end of Bush's last year the economy was in complete free fall. Two years ago the economy remained highly fragile. The tax cuts were extended to keep some liquidity in the economy, not for the petty reasons you allege.
The reality is that taxes should never have been cut in the first place 10 years ago. They will need to go up now, and yes spending needs to come down, but not in some kind of cliff crash that Congress cooked up a year ago. This stuff is serious.
The current president did NOT make the fiscal cliff problem. It is a legacy of two decades of fiscal mismanagement and spending hubris by all branches of Congress. "Deficits don't matter." (Dick Cheney) statements like that have consequences and we are seeing the consequence, along with the long tradition of earmarking money for home states, sloshing massive amounts of money at farm states, and a runaway housing bust. Obama didn't cause that either. Are we serious about reducing the debt? It will be costly and everybody's taxes will go up to pay for it. Slashing spending sounds good but will put thousands more workers on unemployment because that is where federal spending goes.
General Motors (GM) and Ford (F) will announce next month that they will work together to study and develop new automatic transmissions designed to improve fuel economy. By joining forces, the automakers can split the investment costs for the development of gearboxes with 8, 9, and 10 speeds that could be the future of transmissions. [View news story]
Actually, innovations like this are probably an indirect result of government fuel mileage policies which, when applied uniformly across the industry, help drive innovation.
I remember when we had antique analog engine systems with horrid mileage and engine wearout. Government imposed standards drove the industry, reluctantly, to innovate.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner says he’s not sure Congress and President Obama can reach a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff. “I’m not confident at all,” Boehner quips. It may just be electioneering by the Republicans to keep the heat on the President going into October, but it's risky banter with a resolution already priced into the markets - like we have right now. [View news story]
False. The offer of tort reform was included in his first state of the union speech. It was always on the table as an item of negotiation. Problem is, the other side was never a serious partner in these negotiations. The Republicans still did not accept that they lost the election.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner says he’s not sure Congress and President Obama can reach a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff. “I’m not confident at all,” Boehner quips. It may just be electioneering by the Republicans to keep the heat on the President going into October, but it's risky banter with a resolution already priced into the markets - like we have right now. [View news story]
Sounds like you are the one drooling with partisanship.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner says he’s not sure Congress and President Obama can reach a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff. “I’m not confident at all,” Boehner quips. It may just be electioneering by the Republicans to keep the heat on the President going into October, but it's risky banter with a resolution already priced into the markets - like we have right now. [View news story]
Actually, they passed bills that they knew would never gain any Democratic support, in the very hope that they could then use this as campaign material. Pathetic. This is the same tactic they accuse the Dems of using to pass ACA.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner says he’s not sure Congress and President Obama can reach a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff. “I’m not confident at all,” Boehner quips. It may just be electioneering by the Republicans to keep the heat on the President going into October, but it's risky banter with a resolution already priced into the markets - like we have right now. [View news story]
We want the Republicans to get off their high horse and sit down for negotiations. Why did they walk out on the Simpson-Bowles negotiations for example? They are not serious.
ECB Chief Mario Draghi writes that fulfilling the ECB's mandate of ensuring price stability and a single monetary policy "sometimes requires us to go beyond standard monetary policy tools" and "may at times require exceptional measures." Draghi's comments, made in an article in Germany's Die Ziet, may well turn up ECB bond-buying speculation to fever pitch. EU markets, though, shrug and stay lower. [View news story]
The aftermath of the USPS defaulting on a $5.5B payment to the U.S. Treasury is relatively muted as jittery politicians prefer to stay out of any action that could cut jobs in their district. Things could get rather interesting in October though, when the USPS could actually run out of money to fund ongoing operations and force companies to improvise. On watch: FedEx (FDX -1.0%), UPS (UPS -0.5%). [View news story]
this is exactly what they should NOT do. Most people mail the monthly bills by first class mail. cost about $.70 per letter. Now you are saying they should pay $5 - $15 per bill?
What they should do is work with the post office to sensibly restructure the service, looking at the cost/benefit of the junk mail portion, and allow rates to rise to an economic level. They should take a *mature* look at the pension / health care situation and make *mature* changes as appropriate. They should have done this months ago. Unfortunately, Congress is right now in the hands of ideologues who will not work on *mature* policies, so we small businesses and rural consumers in America are reaping the consequences.
While President Obama was hounded for his remark that the "private sector is doing fine," he may have been on the mark if corporate profits are anything to go by. At $1.9T last year, profits accounted for a record 12.9% of GDP, or $6,500 for every U.S. citizen. That's well above the $3K during a peak year of 1999. [View news story]
This is certainly the glass-half-empty point of view. I don't think the President would take issue with the general accuracy of such numbers. The question is what to do about them, and also to recognize that in spite of the headwinds companies are hiring, but slowly. That was the author's point.
We all lost money in the RE collapse, which did not happen on Obama's watch. Would a larger stimulus plan have worked better? We can't know. But the "trillion in obama bucks" went to real people to help temporarily fill the hole created by the collapse. A lot of it was in the form of temporary tax cuts to business.
While President Obama was hounded for his remark that the "private sector is doing fine," he may have been on the mark if corporate profits are anything to go by. At $1.9T last year, profits accounted for a record 12.9% of GDP, or $6,500 for every U.S. citizen. That's well above the $3K during a peak year of 1999. [View news story]
What the President intended to say was that private business was doing well compared to state and local governments, particularly if you judge from the stock market recovery since the bottom and by the fact that business hiring is happening (though slowly) whereas governments are still shedding jobs. The recovery has been the result of actual business recovery and profits. He was not trying to say that private business is great when judged by the national unemployment rate.
Anyway, the kerfuffle is the result of Republicans trying to capitalize on his poor choice of words.
Why I Don't Invest In Banks: A JPMorgan Case Study [View article]
One thing about 'value companies' like CMI and many others is that they actually design and make products that people need. This tends to involve many engineers, and in my 25+ years in engineering I have never met an engineer who would deliberately create a 'product' whose aim was to exploit people for profit. Just the opposite. On the other hand, the big banks and "Finance" in general seems to deliberately hire people with that kind of forte. They keep calling them "the best and the brightest" but why do they seem to look more like immoral exploiters?
Chesapeake Energy (CHK) is saddled with $1.4B of previously unreported liabilities due over coming years from off-balance sheet deals, WSJ reports. The company has commitments to banks requiring delivery of specific amounts of oil and gas. These so-called VPPs are essentially debts, with payments due in fuel rather than cash. Shares take a tumble, -1.7%. [View news story]
Unbelievable news..... "off-balance sheet deals" violate Sarbanes-Oxley accounting rules. Where is the SEC? This company (in which I fortunately no longer hold any stock) should be investigated for financial 'Enron' style fraud, IMHO.
Backing up scoops from The Verge and Eurogamer, the WSJ reports Microsoft (MSFT) has developed prototypes for a cheap set-top "for streaming video and other entertainment options." Past reports have suggested Xbox Live and casual gaming support will be part of the package. Microsoft is keen to extend Xbox Live's living room clout, which has grown considerably in recent years - a large portion of Live's 46M+ user base already spend more time consuming music/video content than playing online games. (Xbox tablet rumor) (Xbox Live shows) [View news story]
Home Depot: Overvalued By A Significant Margin [View article]
I shop at both retailers. Both in fact have helpful and knowedgeable staff. I have never found a single floor employee who did not know where the most obscure item was located, or who demonstrated sub-par technical knowledge.
The shelves of both retailers are bulging with tools and items in anticipation of the spring rush.
Sorry, but this writer's analysis shows just exactly how investors need to follow their own gut and not follow what someone writes.
Shame On Washington! [View article]
The reality is that taxes should never have been cut in the first place 10 years ago. They will need to go up now, and yes spending needs to come down, but not in some kind of cliff crash that Congress cooked up a year ago. This stuff is serious.
Shame On Washington! [View article]
General Motors (GM) and Ford (F) will announce next month that they will work together to study and develop new automatic transmissions designed to improve fuel economy. By joining forces, the automakers can split the investment costs for the development of gearboxes with 8, 9, and 10 speeds that could be the future of transmissions. [View news story]
I remember when we had antique analog engine systems with horrid mileage and engine wearout. Government imposed standards drove the industry, reluctantly, to innovate.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner says he’s not sure Congress and President Obama can reach a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff. “I’m not confident at all,” Boehner quips. It may just be electioneering by the Republicans to keep the heat on the President going into October, but it's risky banter with a resolution already priced into the markets - like we have right now. [View news story]
Republican House Speaker John Boehner says he’s not sure Congress and President Obama can reach a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff. “I’m not confident at all,” Boehner quips. It may just be electioneering by the Republicans to keep the heat on the President going into October, but it's risky banter with a resolution already priced into the markets - like we have right now. [View news story]
Republican House Speaker John Boehner says he’s not sure Congress and President Obama can reach a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff. “I’m not confident at all,” Boehner quips. It may just be electioneering by the Republicans to keep the heat on the President going into October, but it's risky banter with a resolution already priced into the markets - like we have right now. [View news story]
Republican House Speaker John Boehner says he’s not sure Congress and President Obama can reach a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff. “I’m not confident at all,” Boehner quips. It may just be electioneering by the Republicans to keep the heat on the President going into October, but it's risky banter with a resolution already priced into the markets - like we have right now. [View news story]
ECB Chief Mario Draghi writes that fulfilling the ECB's mandate of ensuring price stability and a single monetary policy "sometimes requires us to go beyond standard monetary policy tools" and "may at times require exceptional measures." Draghi's comments, made in an article in Germany's Die Ziet, may well turn up ECB bond-buying speculation to fever pitch. EU markets, though, shrug and stay lower. [View news story]
The aftermath of the USPS defaulting on a $5.5B payment to the U.S. Treasury is relatively muted as jittery politicians prefer to stay out of any action that could cut jobs in their district. Things could get rather interesting in October though, when the USPS could actually run out of money to fund ongoing operations and force companies to improvise. On watch: FedEx (FDX -1.0%), UPS (UPS -0.5%). [View news story]
What they should do is work with the post office to sensibly restructure the service, looking at the cost/benefit of the junk mail portion, and allow rates to rise to an economic level. They should take a *mature* look at the pension / health care situation and make *mature* changes as appropriate. They should have done this months ago. Unfortunately, Congress is right now in the hands of ideologues who will not work on *mature* policies, so we small businesses and rural consumers in America are reaping the consequences.
While President Obama was hounded for his remark that the "private sector is doing fine," he may have been on the mark if corporate profits are anything to go by. At $1.9T last year, profits accounted for a record 12.9% of GDP, or $6,500 for every U.S. citizen. That's well above the $3K during a peak year of 1999. [View news story]
We all lost money in the RE collapse, which did not happen on Obama's watch. Would a larger stimulus plan have worked better? We can't know. But the "trillion in obama bucks" went to real people to help temporarily fill the hole created by the collapse. A lot of it was in the form of temporary tax cuts to business.
While President Obama was hounded for his remark that the "private sector is doing fine," he may have been on the mark if corporate profits are anything to go by. At $1.9T last year, profits accounted for a record 12.9% of GDP, or $6,500 for every U.S. citizen. That's well above the $3K during a peak year of 1999. [View news story]
Anyway, the kerfuffle is the result of Republicans trying to capitalize on his poor choice of words.
Why I Don't Invest In Banks: A JPMorgan Case Study [View article]
Chesapeake Energy (CHK) is saddled with $1.4B of previously unreported liabilities due over coming years from off-balance sheet deals, WSJ reports. The company has commitments to banks requiring delivery of specific amounts of oil and gas. These so-called VPPs are essentially debts, with payments due in fuel rather than cash. Shares take a tumble, -1.7%. [View news story]