May 2012
3 posts
Bill Clinton and the Financial Crisis of 2008
The financial crisis of 2008 cost millions of people their jobs, their savings, and their homes. Conventional wisdom has it that the collapse was the result of President George W. Bush’s economic policies. But there’s one problem with that idea: it’s not true. Bush was a sitting duck. Two of President Bill Clinton’s decisions were the primary causes of the global economic crisis of 2008.
The Bank...
The War Between Data and Storytelling →
Kevin Drum makes a great point at Mother Jones:
But for some reason, what really struck me today was the way that both Brooks and Krugman play to type. Krugman the liberal is all about the data: he hauls out charts, models, “signatures,” and international comparisons. Brooks, by contrast, barely admits that data even bears on this question. He’s all about telling a plausible story: the chickens...
How to End This Depression →
Paul Krugman:
For the fact is that we have both the knowledge and the tools to get out of this depression. Indeed, by applying time-honored economic principles whose validity has only been reinforced by recent events, we could be back to more or less full employment very fast, probably in less than two years. All that is blocking recovery is a lack of intellectual clarity and political will.
...
April 2012
7 posts
iPhone and iPad ASP Both Down
Apple just reported earnings for its first calendar quarter of 2012. With revenue and profit up 58 percent and 94 percent, respectively, it was one of Apple’s best quarters ever.
Despite an incredible quarter, the average selling price of both an iPhone and an iPad were down. For an iPhone, it was $647.10; for an iPad it was $558.57. This information is shown in the graph below:
The $399 iPad...
Why Anyone Should Care that Bill O’Reilly Calls Me... →
Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Labor, was called a communist on Fox News a few days ago. This is his response. It couldn’t be better.
Obama Targets Speculators in Latest Gambit of... →
Oh, CNN. This has nothing to do with politics.
Because oil is traded on a world market, more U.S. drilling doesn’t reduce the price of oil in the U.S. On the contrary, 80 percent of the U.S. oil futures market is speculation. And Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil, told Congress that speculation jacks up the price of oil by up to 40 percent.
As I said, targeting oil speculators has nothing to...
Enron, Anyone? →
Matt Taibbi on the JOBS Act:
For instance, if this bill is supposedly about increasing access to capital for small businesses, why do we also need to repeal the conflict-of-interest ban on bank analysts talking up startup firms in an attempt to gain their investment banking business? Wasn’t it just ten minutes ago that Eliot Spitzer had to drag the entire financial services industry into court...
Wells Fargo’s Prison Cash Cow →
Charles Davis:
As Wells Fargo has grown over the years, using its bailout funds to gobble up rival Wachovia and expand to the East Coast, so has the U.S. prison population. By 2008, one in 100 American adults were either in jail or in prison – and one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34, many simply for non-violent offenses, justice not so much blind as bigoted. Overall, more than...
ARM Holdings to Drop 40 Percent in 2012, Shares... →
Tim Plaehn at Seeking Alpha:
When viewing the three-year stock chart of ARM Holdings, the share price looks like the top of a mesa for the last year-and-a-half. The price will fall off the table in 2012, dropping to below $20 for the ADRs [American Depository Receipts]. Based on long-term potential, ARM Holdings would be an attractive buy somewhere below $15. Currently this is a dangerous stock...
One-Third of U.S. High School Students Now Own an... →
Not true at all.
March 2012
14 posts
Blackberry ASP Takes a Nosedive
RIM just reported earnings for its first calendar quarter of 2012. 68 percent of its $4.2 billion in revenue came from the sale of hardware, which includes both Blackberrys and Playbooks. That means RIM brought in $2.85 billion from hardware sales.
Assuming that each Playbook sells for, on average, $250, then RIM took in $2.73 billion from Blackberry sales. Divide that number by the 11.1 million...
RIM Begins Laying off High-Level Staff →
Iain Marlow at The Globe and Mail:
Ahead of RIM reporting fourth-quarter and year-end financial results on Thursday after markets close, a source with knowledge of Mr. Heins’ actions said RIM executives at the senior vice-president and vice-president levels had been told they no longer had jobs on Thursday.
Wow.
IDC Predicts Apple Will Sell 318 Million iOS... →
Apple will easily hit that number in 2013.
Harvard Schmarvard →
The main question for me is whether or not Apple will succeed in building a walled garden for everything new that breaks out of the old 1080p mold.
The main question for me is why this blog post is titled “Why the new iPad screen is the future of display [sic]” when the content of the post has nothing to do with its title.
Why You Should Buy Stock in ARM →
Tony Daltorio at The Motley Fool:
Telecom equipment company Ericsson ADRrecently forecast that there would be roughly 50 billion connected devices by 2020, up from just 5 billion in 2010. And ARM chips are likely to be in most of them.
Apple Could be Top Mobile Processor Maker by End... →
Apple started making mobile processors a little more than two years ago.
Apple Announces Plans to Initiate Dividend and... →
Apple:
“Combining dividends, share repurchases, and cash used to net-share-settle vesting RSUs, we anticipate utilizing approximately $45 billion of domestic cash in the first three years of our programs,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “We are extremely confident in our future and see tremendous opportunities ahead.”
That may seem like a lot, but it’s not. Apple made $13 billion last...
Apple Stock Seen Hitting $718 on Sales of 60M... →
From the department of too-high-to-do-basic-math:
As for the iPhone, [Gene] Munster’s models call for Apple to sell 134 million units this year, up from the 93.1 million the company sold in 2011.
Apple has sold more iPhones every year than in every previous year combined, yet Munster thinks Apple won’t sell even 50 percent more iPhones in 2012 than it did in 2011.
Did he even look at...
Is Now the Time to Take Profits in Apple? →
No.
Five Tablets That Go Where the New iPad Doesn’t →
First of all, the fifth tablet mentioned is the iPad 2. And if you exclude the iPad 2, I’d be willing to bet a lot of money — a lot of freakin’ money —that the other four tablets combined won’t sell even half as well all year as the new iPad does the quarter after it’s launched.
Please pass me some of what this guy is smoking.
AAPL Closes at Another All Time High →
At this rate, my eight Apple shares will cover four years of college spending money.
New Apple TV Sports Custom, Single-Core A5... →
One benefit of designing your own processors is the ability to make specific processors for each device. This is a perfect example.
Is Apple Still a Buy Before the iPad 3? (AAPL) →
Yes.
Apple Expected to Ship 40M ‘iPad 3,’ 25M iPad 2... →
Again, too low.
‘Significant’ iPad Update Expected to Drive Sales... →
Too low. 70 million is my lower bound.
February 2012
10 posts
“Google is Becoming Totally Obnoxious!” →
That’s what my grandma said after reading this.
Mitt Romney’s Conservatism Called Into Question... →
“It confirms yet again that Romney is not a limited government conservative.”
One RIM Every Two Days
Apple reported its Q4 2011 earnings after the market closed on January 24th. Since then, there have been 18 trading days, and Apple’s market cap has increased by $76.2 billion, from $392 billion to $468.2 billion. That’s a rate of $4.2 billion per day.
According to WolframAlpha, RIM had an average market cap of $8.3 billion during the same 18-day trading period.
For more than three weeks...
Where are the WSJ’s Fact Checkers? →
Taos Turner, reporting for the Wall Street Journal:
Apple sold about 87 million iPhones world-wide in 2011, according to its latest quarterly report.
No. Apple sold 93 million iPhones in 2011.
Apple to Take On Windows 8 with OS X Mountain Lion →
Paul Thurrott:
Apple surprised tech enthusiasts this morning with an announcement about a coming Mac OS X update, dubbed Mountain Lion, that will ship this summer. There were absolutely no rumors to indicate such a release was coming, and—given the timing—one can logically assume that Apple is trying to steal some thunder from Microsoft’s eagerly awaited Windows 8.
Yep. That’s why Apple...
Congress Sends Letter to Apple Over Path Debacle →
If only congress worked as fast on the real issues that face this country.
Calling Captain Obvious →
Josh Ong at AppleInsider:
A new analysis from investment bank J.P. Morgan says Windows-based ultrabooks are unlikely to achieve similar success as Apple’s MacBook Air in their first generation and will not become “meaningful enough” to drive growth in the notebook PC market until at least 2013.
Why will 2013 be different?
To Catch a Hypocrite →
MG Siegler:
These assclowns should be fined out of existence or go to jail for a level of hypocrisy so bad that it makes Newt Gingrich seem like a good husband fully qualified to lecture others on ethics.
Sell Apple Shares at $475 →
Bullshit. In the short- and long-term, $AAPL is one of the safest investments you can make.
January 2012
15 posts
School Bans Fuzzy Boots Used to Hide Cell Phones →
Dave Warner at Reuters:
Starting Monday [Pottstown Middle School] is banning the wearing of fuzzy open-top boots, including the popular Ugg brand, to middle school classes because students have been stashing cell phones in the loose footwear, according to district director of community relations John Armato.
Seriously? Should they ban backpacks because students can hide their phones in them,...
The Austerity Debacle →
Paul Krugman:
Such invocations of the confidence fairy were never plausible; researchers at the International Monetary Fund and elsewhere quickly debunked the supposed evidence that spending cuts create jobs. Yet influential people on both sides of the Atlantic heaped praise on the prophets of austerity, Mr. Cameron in particular, because the doctrine of expansionary austerity dovetailed with...
Apple Predicted to Sell Up to 40M iPhones on China... →
At current sales prices, that would be more than $13.5 billion in profit.
I was Wrong →
Back in March of last year, I predicted that Apple would be 2011’s largest PC manufacturer. It turns out that Apple sold 58.3 million PCs in 2011, and HP sold about 61.4 million.
Apple was, however, the largest PC manufacturer in Q4 2011.
Takeaways from Apple’s (Q4) 2011
Apple just reported earnings for the fourth calendar quarter of 2011. It sold 37.04 million iPhones, 15.43 million iPads, and 5.2 million Macs. With a record $13.06 billion in profits, it was Apple’s best quarter ever — by far. If we do some quick math with Apple’s (fourth quarter) 2011 sales numbers, we can determine some incredible things.
In 2009, Apple sold more iPhones than it did in 2007...
Perspective
Picture the entire political spectrum, from communism all the way on the left to fascism all the way on the right.
Now picture America’s two mainstream political parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
If a ruler represents the entire political spectrum, with communism at the 1 inch mark and fascism at the 12 inch mark, then Democrats and Republicans are at the 5 and 7 inch...
Kodak Files for Bankruptcy Protection →
A sad day.
RIM is Still Screwed, Just in Case You were... →
Jonathan Geller at BGR:
We have heard that Jim Balsillie is actively meeting with almost every company that might be interested in either a part or all of RIM, in addition to having talks about licensing.
It Looks Like Apple was the Number One PC Vendor... →
Horace Dediu, today:
Apple is ahead of schedule on their taking the top spot in terms of units.
Me, six months ago:
Apple […] will be 2011’s largest PC manufacturer.
HP Can’t Match Apple’s Prices →
And they make nowhere near the profits.
(Via John Gruber)
This Is Weird →
Scott Wilson and Greg Jaffe, reporting for The Washington Post:
Obama favored what Donilon described as a broad discussion of U.S. strategy and priorities, including the need to expand its military influence in Asia.
Why do we need to expand our “military influence” in Asia?
Time To Take Profits In Apple →
Thomas Kee, the president and CEO of Stock Traders Daily, kindly shares some of his wisdom with us:
In the case of Apple (AAPL +0.95%), the demise of the growth rate of what was once one of the best on the planet is happening in front of our eyes. Unless Apple starts to serve its customers better, it will begin to materially lose market share and revenue and earnings projections will come down...
A False Dichotomy →
The Wall Street Journal on Mitt Romney:
He says the coming election represents “a very simple choice” between Mr. Obama’s “European social democrat” vision and “a merit-based opportunity society—an American-style society—where people earn their rewards based upon their education, their work, their willingness to take risks and their dreams.”
I don’t understand that type of thinking. It doesn’t...
Verizon iPhone Sales More Than Doubled →
Maybe the pattern will continue?
Those Are Some Great Analysts →
Theresa Tedesco and Matt Hartley, reporting for the Financial Post:
Much of the negative sentiment around RIM in 2011 was caused by the underwhelming launch and poor performance the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet computer, a device that was supposed to be RIM’s answer to rival Apple Inc.’s iPad. While some analysts expected RIM to sell several million PlayBooks in its first year, to date, RIM has...
December 2011
12 posts
1 tag
The Six Words That Can Fix America
Wages are at an all time low while corporate profits are at an all time high. Big businesses continue to ship jobs overseas while unemployment is at 8.6 percent. The median net worth of a congressman has more than doubled since 1984 while it has dropped for the average American.
Our government used to work for the middle class. Not anymore.
Even if you make 100 times the median income (i.e. if...