Tuesday, January 25, 2011

He Made It!!!!

Whoooo! that was close. Mr. Emanuel made it on the ballot for the Chicago mayoral race. A day after he was kicked off the ballot for allegedly not actually living in Chicago for the mandated 1 year before the election, Mr. Emanuel's appeal has been heard and a judge has declared that the ballots must carry Mr. Emanuel's name until the appeal is ruled upon. This seems fair to me.  But what happens when Mr. Emanuel wins the election. Hummmmmm. The 2000 election all over again.

Monday, January 24, 2011

I didn't know Apple was based in Chicago

Bloomberg story about Rahm Emanuel's ouster as a candidate for Chicago Mayor.  At the very bottom it lists Steve Jobs as donating $50k to his election fund.  David Geffen donated $100k.  Since Mr. Jobs has left the day to day running of Apple to others, I guess he could now want to live in Chicago.  Personally, I would be in Hawaii / Australia / Vietnam / Indonesia / Maldives / any other place but cold and windy Chicago.  But apparently Mr. Jobs wants to live in Chicago so thats why he donated $50k for Chicago's mayoral race.  Do I think Mr. Jobs and Mr. Geffen care about Chicago city politics? NO! But having the former chief-of-staff of the sitting President become Mayor of Chicago, the current Presidents "home town", on your $50k could definitely open white house doors for any ideas you may have.

And don't worry. I'm sure Mr. Emanuel will get his shot at the highest office in Chicago. This is Chicago Illinois we're talking about. Hint hint. Wink wink. Graft graft. Bribe bribe.    ;)

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Too Fast for Me

Does google.com still offer the best search results?  Is bing.com surpassing the almighty Google? (ok so Bing is the almighty Microsoft, but it's still the underdog)  Should we now only put one space after a closing sentence punctuation?  Whoa the questions I ask and then read about.  FYI, google.com's search results are being spammed up like Yahoo's became.  Is Google the next Yahoo? Is bing.com the next google.com? Should I put one space or two after this sentence? Who knows?

I was around for the birth of the wide variety type of internet.  I remember being amazed by the vast amounts of information that I could get from the web.  I remember printing out hundreds of pages on race vehicle dynamics from a site that had diagrams, formulas, small pictures, stories, and examples, worried that the site might disappear  the next week like many sites I had found previously had seemed to do. I remember going from 12.4(?) to 28.8 to 56.6k speeds and being astounded by what the increased bandwidth could do, let alone the speed when trailrunnings work installed a ISDN line into our home. WOW!!!  So its with a little reluctance that I see the relevance of websites, and all the info contained there in, being relegated to a 2nd class structure of information delivery. First personal blogs, then Facebook, and now Twitter have become the defacto(sp?) delivery "device" for information. I'm not dissing, as it were, on Facebook and Twitter, but I do quietly long for the days of more than 140 character information streams. Many interesting bloggers are getting bored and reducing their posts, while their readers are now checking on so and so's Facebook/Tweet status. Oh well, it must mean I'm getting old.

What do these two paragraphs have in common you may ask? Well, its the speed of change. I have gone from researching junior high class reports with the use of a paper encyclopedia, to having the worlds information at my fingertips. I have seen the substitution of two spaces after a sentence to only one space. And the search giant who defined a new generation of internet info gathering, has now become the hunted whale, still formidable, still swimming, still destroying Ahab's boat, but now with a few spears piercing its skin and a new boat closing in. I have more to say, but you probably didn't get past the first 140 characters. :)

Monday, January 17, 2011

Holidays Shmalidays

I love general holidays in the US.  No, its not that I get to stay home from work (what work?).  Its the flood of announcements that come gushing from the PR departments throughout corporate america.  Today's big announcement?  Steve Jobs is stepping back from the day to day operations of Apple to focus on his sketchy health.  What does this announcement by Apple have anything to do with the holiday you may ask?  Only that if it was a normal trading day, Apple stock would be pummeled and the general market would most likely end lower.  Releasing this announcement on a holiday allows people to step back, assess the situation and hopefully make a rational decision about the company and not the man running it.  Of course you can still trade the market on a "off" day by using futures, but who's counting.  My totally unsolicited and purely theoretical theory is that Apple will sell off Tuesday morning and then flatten when all the bandwagoneers are through jumping.  The stock will then climb higher but will not reach its current level for ........ oh I don't know, 6 months. ;p

Speaking of press releases, whatever your thoughts on Wikileaks (I will not be giving my opinion on Wikileaks at this time), I'm surprised that Bloomberg does not have this story on its front page as of 10:45am.  Does this mean I need to go to Yahoo Finance to get my finance fix.  Even my "home town" news channel has the story on its front page.  Please tell me its not so Bloomberg!  Hummmmmm, maybe Mayor Bloomberg is on the "list" and doesn't want his news organization spreading the story that there is a "list".  Big Corporate Media conspiracy theorists converge!  Maybe Steve Jobs is on the "list" too? :)  Cheers!

PS -SARCASM ALERT!!!!- Just found this pop up at the top of Bloomberg.  Really the same people screaming that a barrel of oil is as rare as a pink striped hippo are now saying don't worry, there's no need to increase the production of oil, supplies are above the five year average.  Its a good thing they're being paid all that money to talk their book and run our country. (and finally one more set of parenthesis - No I don't buy into the idea that GS is a vampire squid out doing the Lord's work for the enrichment of the leisure class while enslaving the workers of this once proud and prosperous nation.  Or at least I don't believe all of that ;)  )  SARCASM ALERT ENDED!!!!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

What do you Know ....... dovetailing

As soon as I posted the last post, I came across and article about Brazil's Real appreciation against the dollar.  Never have I had my last two posts nicely dovetail into one another.  Cheers!

OK, so I need a new closing phrase other than the oft used "Cheers".  People do know that that show left the air over a decade ago :p

Tilt

I have been visiting a new site called Financial Times Tilt, or Tilt Financial Times.  Basically its a emerging market  financial site (did you really think it would be anything but a financial or motorcycle site???) with news from the front lines of the different emerging markets.  News and analysis not filtered through New York.  Supposedly. ;)

As of last Tuesday you could get a Tilt Pro account for free.

Right now I think I have a mild migraine.  Only the third or fourth one I have ever had.  :(  Should I twitter and facebook this fact?????

Monday, January 10, 2011

The FED goes to Crazy Town

Great discussion and stories about the basic question of "What is money?".  This is a topic I have thought about quite a bit lately.  Is money physical?  Is money psychological?  Is money real?  When and where does money end?  Is money trustworthy?  Is money "magical"?  Download it in MP3 format to listen on your iPod thingy while you run, or walk, or ride a bike, or drive your car, or ski, or take a hike, or .......

 By the way the FED got within pennies of "spending" all of the mandated $1.2 Trillion buying MBS's.