Leftfield

Skype's Legal Drama Ends: It's Time to Start Innovating

Philip Cohen,

I figure the policy of squeezing small sellers out went hand-in-hand with workforce reduction. That is, they planned that sellers would be eliminated, and planned workforce reduction. I'm sure this has gone beyond their expectations because they are short-sighted, greedy and unconnected with the real world. Buyers who were attracted to unique bargains won't flock to a confusing site with me-to Chinese mass-merchandise, to eBay's surprise.

I don't expect Skype's independence to help eBay. It will help Skype.

The Glide Path Option

The "glide path option" presented here sounds plausible, if you accept the author's premise that muddling through could continue for a long time. However, I would be interested in further details in a comparison of Japan and the US before accepting the premise that the situations aren't wildly dissimilar.
Japan runs trade surpluses. Japan manufactures far more. More importantly, Japan was able to muddle through during bubbly boomtimes since the 80's. What times are these?
Agreed with Alphameister about our government, the profiigacy of our generation and his skepticism of the next. But, just our government at this time precludes any sane solution. These are the people who long ago coopted the Keynesian "flywheel" of deficits in recession/surpluses in recoveries, to run perpetual deficits which have only grown hopeless, despite endless contrary rhetoric.
If so much of our society is infected by entitlements and bubbles we can't vote representation that reflects the real world any more, we'll keep the government much as we have now. And then, even if there really is a glide path option, it's not going to happen.

Unemployment: It's Even Worse than You Think

Thanks for pointing out that an increase in the labor force will be an important sign of recovery. Because at such time people will actually believe there are jobs and at such time the jobless rate will actually go up for a time. It's up to us, though, to find elusive, usable data.
Good point about the 1/3 government and quasi-government sectors that make up our economy. That sector has also hidden the impact of the outsourcing and general mayhem visited on the shrinking real private sector which bears all of the declines. The magical sectors have retained their raises, employment and benefits.
Sadly, they have become dependable sources of votes and, with "private" beneficiaries of government policies, like, accountants, lawyers and bankers, and the recipients of government checks, we may never be able to vote policies that function in the real world, back in.

Regulating Wall Street Like Las Vegas: Yes We Can

Nevada Gaming Commission as a model. Great proposal. Maybe that gets the public's attention enough to get a foot into the door of Wall St. to finally begin to clean house.

How Warren Buffett Is Smarter than the G20

Buffet, who made his fortune betting on America where he saw undervaluation, is actually hedging that this time our ship doesn't get righted. The article rightly points out that it is more of a bet on growth outside the US, with China prominent on the list.
I grew up reading of countries prospering because they were out-competitive in finished goods, not raw materials. I learned how America's freedom from the yoke of tyrants allowed the spark of inspiration to fan into flames of new and innovative industries where none had existed before.
Now we have control by oligarchs and the nanny state. We are descending into the third world. The middle class, as the article mentions, is reduced to fighting against reduced living standards, that have gone on for decades now. Our leaders are squandering everything on preserving the status quo for the oligarchs and bloated government. Only the middle class has to tighten it's belt as credit dries up.
Buffet is hedged against the strong possibility that there aren't enough Americans aware, awake and motivated enough this time to awaken to the desperately-needed change of course.

Skype's Legal Drama Ends: It's Time to Start Innovating

Good point, the importance of Skype being "in a position to innovate and prosper instead of being scrutinized under the quarterly earnings microscope of Ebay."
Ebay management is notoriously short-sighted. They have been kicking small sellers off the site for a year now to reduce their workforce. The me-to dysfunctional Amazon clone that resulted from this short-sighted cost-cutting has caused 3 straight quarters of loss--shocking and unprecedented.
This is the first Wall St. analysis I've read on SA that seems even obliquely aware of the situation on Ebay.

Skype Founders Settle: After the Deal Drama, What Next?

eBay+++: Did you put your own thumbs-up on your comment?

Painful Unemployment Report

It makes perfect sense given our leadership that they concoct phony statistics, monopolize the media and use the last of our reserve-status balance sheet and QE to impose themselves as absolute rulers and absolutely necessary in most American's minds. As User 353732 states, "The middle class is redundant. Parasites and predators provide economic growth. The government has the statistics to prove it."
This has to, of course, collapse, leaving the predatory, parasitic leadership, clients and cronies MORE in charge than ever. Unless Americans who value the truth and principle over pure greed and utilitarianism, wake up in time.

The Fed and Fannie Mae: Throwing Money Down a Black Hole

Nice, shows us another facet of how Wall St. got it's hands on upfront funds via fraudulently made loans and went on it's merry way leveraging while the taxpayer is holding the bag. For the original loans, for the ruined housing market and economy as well as for direct assistance to Wall St. Keep those bonuses coming!
Loan adjustments of $150/month will also fail to keep up with property tax increases within a year or two, by the way.
Monumental figures such as this ONE agency of government throws around routinely, with incomprehensible losses, show clearly that government is the problem. They are involved in every facet of American life, hindering and costing good citizens the opportunity to make it on their own while enabling the worst levels of fraud ever seen. They're everywhere, doing the worst job imaginable and still grasping for more.
Obama promised a year or so of expanding deficits, then solvency. Then issued a budget that shows the largest deficits ever, into perpetuity. The Fed will do the same after promising to end it's agency and MBS debt purchasing programs by March. There is not a single promise by US government, down to it's currency, that has a shred of validity.
What the heck, it's not their money.

Senate Democrats Pass Carbon Plan Over GOP Boycott (Update1)

Graham and Dodd Investor: I thought afterwards, maybe Buffet bought the railroad because he can make a few fortunes shipping coal to China even if the captsters get their bill. That way, China pollutes all they want while we try to make up the difference.

Fannie Mae's Deal: Rent Your Home from the Government

The loans involving no income verification are likely to fail the 31% income/payment test. Plenty there, especially as many probably involved house flippers who have, by definition, lost their source of income now.
Good luck, buyers of distressed real estate. You not only have monumental property taxes that are likely to go only up, but the government is likely messing up housing in the US for generations if not forever.
Government involvement means, whatever harebrained and arbitrary decisions they arrive at, rule. They are now becoming the biggest player in many areas of the economy. They respond only to those who have the clout to influence them. Money, mostly. Not principle. So, the bloated government that has overreached into every crevice of American life with rules, steps and requirements now reaching the fulfillment of it's path: Americans will now become renters with mortgages.
This program is designed to help the banks, government's main partner, as they are co-dependents in fraud. This is the result of at least decades of settling for compromise for a temporary easy way out, by too many Americans. The bill and pain of any way out gets larger every time we accept falsehoods in lieu of a real solution because we have solved nothing. We have career politicians who have built their fiefdom, government, to such size and power that it has crippled Main St. Together with Wall St., they have turned America into an unrecognizable, tragic parody.
We still have elections. Those quaint founders who gave us the truth, the Constitution, that once gave us America, envisioned citizen politicians who would bring real-world experience and solutions to government, then go back home. We have to evict the career shysters in power one after another until we get real citizens again in government.

GM Backs Out of Magna Deal: It's Each Nation to Itself

Davewmart: So true.
Whatever the posturing, as the article says, Magna may have likely been just as bad for the workers as GM. Now, lots of politicians can huff over their turf in a combination of offended ego and vying for support from their marks, I mean, supporters.
Germans have plenty of ammunition as one of their banks was stiffed about 1/2 $billion on an overnight loan as Lehman went under. That used to sound like real money, remember? How could Obama throw Merkel into such a humiliating situation?
More layers of politicians, such as the EU probably is even more idiotic and wasteful than the League of Nations that did so much to prevent WWII.

Charlie Gasparino: Another Crash 'Has to Happen Again'

A John Lounsbury instapost recently depicts a number of notables from
GS making the rounds of English churches to spread their notion that they haven't violated Biblical morality. One said that since it commanded to love thy neighbor as thyself, it's okay to be unstinting in self-love. I guess that includes cloaking oneself with unlimited wealth by any means necessary, no matter at whose expense.
Wall St. and Washington have already reached the greatest levels of looting in history, by plumbing some of the lowest levels of self-serving doublethink possible. It is only made possible by the insentience of Americans, who, as Vuke comments, must understand that they will always be pikers at this game. Handing Washington the keys to our future generation's future, hands it to the biggest liars and swindlers of all time, leaving behind only virtual crumbs now.

Senate Democrats Pass Carbon Plan Over GOP Boycott (Update1)

Hopefully, Buffet knows something we don't about the real prospects of this idiocy.
Democrats rushing their "no government left behind" agenda can mean, the false green shoots are wilting fast and their window of opportunity will close.
Of course, these programs are what they live for; we're between elections again, might as well get their most damaging work done so headlines can fade next year.
Big, unaffordable programs always become an unalterable fact of life no matter how wretchedly they fail; a one-way ratchet. That roach motel.

On Financial Bloggers Meeting with Treasury Department

Geithner to the Economic Club of Chicago: "You can say with confidence now that the financial system is stable, the economy is stabilized,,,,,You can see the first signs of growth here and around the world,"
Treasury can peddle crap to "important" economists that can't get by bloggers or my mother. It figures; the people in charge and the trouble we're in are one and the same.