The Phantom of AOL | Friday Humor
 

Robert Cringely (real name Mark Stephens), best known for Tech-related documentaries such as [i]Triumph of the Nerds[/i] (hat tip: Leni Riefenstahl) and [i]Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview[/i], has some interesting things to say about IBM on his blog.

Nice parallel between the general multidecadal hollowing-out of the US engineering/manufacturing economy and IBM's plans to slash its entire US workforce outside of the execs and sales/marketing. Some great quotes from Jobs in there, too.

[url=http://www.cringely.com/2012/04/not-your-fathers-IBM/]Not Your Father's IBM[/url]
[quote]“If you were a product person at IBM or Xerox, so you make a better copy or a better computer, so what?” Jobs asked rhetorically. “When you have a monopoly market share the company is not any more successful. So the people that can make the company more successful are sales and marketing people and they end up running the companies and the product people get driven out of decision making forums. And the companies forget what it means to make great products. Sort of the product sensibility and the product genius that brought them to that monopolistic position gets rotted out by people running these companies who have no conception of a good product versus a bad product. They have no conception of the craftsmanship that’s required to take a good idea and turn it into a good product and they really have no feeling in their hearts usually about wanting to help the customers.”[/quote]

At the very opposite end of the business-size spectrum from IBMs of the world we thankfully find that tech entrepreneurship is alive and well:

[url=www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_20713560/phantom-aol-squatter-internet-entrepreneur-eric-simons-classconnect]The Phantom of AOL: From squatter to Internet entrepreneur[/url]: [i]To save money for two months, 20-year-old Eric Simons surreptitiously lived inside AOL's Palo Alto office, sleeping on its couches, showering in its gym, sneaking its snacks and laboring there all day to develop his dream -- the Internet site ClassConnect, which he launched to help teachers create and share lesson plans with students and other educators.[/i]


[b]Friday humor, Facebook Face-Plant Edition:[/b]

News of the Weird:

[url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/05/22/state/n111212D46.DTL#ixzz1vdOmSxzc]Silicon Valley tech exec accused of Lego thefts[/url]

The story seems flat-out bizarre on its face, but there are persistent rumors that this was part of an - admittedly eccentric - attempt to curry influence with a [url=http://www.sfweekly.com/slideshow/the-obama-inauguration-lego-style-222857/]certain presidential administration[/url].


Next up, maybe this is the real reason Japan has been able to borrow over 200% of GDP at rock-bottom rates:

[url=http://www.zerohedge.com/news/japanese-girl-band-wants-you-buy-jgbs]Never underestimate the power of girl-pop[/url]


And for more Friday financial humor:

[url=http://www.zerohedge.com/news/friday-humor-part-1-reverse-nigeria-scam-email]Reverse Nigerian Scam-E-Mail, Greek Edition[/url]

Completing the circle, there is an odd parallel between Greece borrowing money it has no intention or capability of ever paying back and Facebook scamming [strike]degenerate gamblers[/strike] investors out of their money, in that both scams are covered by the same well-known bromide which has its roots (or perhaps better, hooves) in [i]The Aeneid[/i]:

[i]Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts[/i]

The dotCom-style scam version of which is

[i]Beware of Geeks Bearing Grifts[/i]

I'm going to impose a mandatory cease-posting on the what has degenerated to pointless bickering at the point. (Or insist you take it to its own "Cheesehead has OCD and George is a meanie" thread.)

In summary:

o Cheesehead is technically correct when he says "Obama did not increase the federal budget significantly' relative to the spending baseline he established (or "which was established", if you prefer that more-neutral 'he inherited all this stuff' spin) at outset of his term;

o The rest of us (at least who have weighed in on the issue here) feel that the fact that the government has averaged over 20% more spending under Obama than under his wildly profligate predecessor is significant, and that hiding that truth behind semantic weasel-wording like "but he has not increased spending" amounts to desperation-level spin doctoring.

Next up: Discussion of how Obama in fact technically kept his promise to go after the "fat cat bankers on Wall Street" because as it turns out, Wall Street bankers are actually human (some barely, but even so), so as it turns out the species [i]Felis Mensarius[/i] appears to be nonexistent, at least in Manhattan. Nothing to see here, folks.

:soapbox:

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;300364]:soapbox:[/QUOTE]
[URL]http://xkcd.com/386/[/URL]

My early vote for best post of 2012 goes to Xyzzy. LaurV gets an honorable mention. Thanks guys, I started my Sunday out with a good chuckle.

[QUOTE=Prime95;300388]My early vote for best post of 2012 goes to Xyzzy. LaurV gets an honorable mention. Thanks guys, I started my Sunday out with a good chuckle.[/QUOTE]

Well, I started my Sunday morning moving posts (as promised) by those who simply refuse to put-a-sock-in-it-already to their own "special" play area, but now things are looking better.

------------------------------------

I just received my latest "Monthly Financial Newsletter Offer" from Fidelity ... 12 months of fabulous advice and insghts for this one-time offer price of just $9.95!!! Thanks guys, not interested. But the tenor of the headlines may be revealing. The e-mail cites these recent installments (I have transferred the text highlighting as-is):

[quote]Read Don's [b]market outlook[/b] and [b]advice[/b] each month, PLUS receive access to mutual fund portfolios designed for [b]risk-adjusted returns[/b].

DON'S OUTLOOK KEEPS YOU ADVISED ABOUT WHAT'S AHEAD.

Each month Don reviews the market, analyzes trends and activities, and forecasts his expectations for the near term. Here are some headlines from Don's monthly outlook on the market:
[b]
o Economic Growth Spurs Rally
o Valuation Opportunities in 2012
o Fundamental Strength Trumps Macro Uncertainty
o Market Resilient in Spite of Headwinds[/b]
[/quote]
Clearly, judging from the raging optimism in the above, we have been in a once-in-a-lifetime bull market driven by the "fundamental strength" oft he mighty U.S. economy (USA #1, baby! Don't be a playa hatah, all you Euro losers...) over the past year.

The latest installment, cited in the Subject line of the e-mail, reads

[b]Are you prepared for the European financial crisis?[/b]

Like the children's ditty says, "One of these things / is not like the others..."

I'm curious, though - Since this "Don" fellow is so famous as to need only a first name (Brazilian soccer-star style) and is clearly a legendary stock picker, why is he not running his own multibillion-dollar hedge fund and raking in those massive 2/20 returns (resulting income taxed an ultra-low special rate, to boot) which would be accruing from his genius? He must simply be one of those rare humble genii, who altruistically shares his brilliance, and is not in it for the money. It is comforting to know that such people still exist.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;300408]
I'm curious, though - Since this "Don" fellow is so famous as to need only a first name (Brazilian soccer-star style) and is clearly a legendary stock picker, why is he not running his own multibillion-dollar hedge fund and raking in those massive 2/20 returns (resulting income taxed an ultra-low special rate, to boot) which would be accruing from his genius?[/QUOTE]He doesn't want to become targeted by a revived Occupy movement.

Ernst, your 9999900 bid on yahoo was a data error. The max bid on FB that day was 6 million shares resting at 38. A hefty chunk but not infinite.

The shares outstanding and float don't change from day to day. The next float increase is in a bit less than three months when a bunch of employees see their restrictions on selling stock lifted.

Groklaw has a feed of news picks that I often read. One points to this Rolling Stone article:
[URL="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/accidentally-released-and-incredibly-embarrassing-documents-show-how-goldman-et-al-engaged-in-naked-short-selling-20120515"]Accidentally Released - and Incredibly Embarrassing - Documents Show How Goldman et al Engaged in 'Naked Short Selling'[/URL]. I read it and also the link in the follow-on update that leads to a site called Deep Capture: [URL="http://www.deepcapture.com/joe-floren-screws-the-pooch/"]Joe Floren Screws the Pooch[/URL] where things begin to feel a bit surreal. They helpfully reference Alice in Wonderland near the top of the site by saying "We [I]are[/I] the red pill."
They link the Rolling Stone article and also these:

[URL="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-15/goldman-merrill-e-mails-show-naked-shorting-filing-says.html"] Bloomberg: Goldman, Merrill E-Mails Show Naked Shorting, Filing Says[/URL]

[URL="http://www.economist.com/node/21555472"]Economist: An enlightening mistake[/URL].

Looking around at Deep Capture I get a headache and lose my will to summarize things because there is a definite conspiracy feel. Apparently Patrick Byrne there is the CEO/President of Overstock that is mentioned in all these articles. There are pdf links at the top; I downloaded the "Story of Deep Capture" (tl;dr much)

Definitely through the looking glass. Odd stuff here. Interesting too.

[QUOTE]"There will not be any (European) rescue for the Spanish banking system."

He gave no details of bank recapitalization plans but backed calls for the euro zone bailout fund, which will be in place from July, to be able to lend to banks direct.

Government sources told Reuters Spain may shore up Bankia with sovereign bonds in return for shares in the bank and could use this method to prop up other troubled lenders - moves which would push the country's debts above the 79.8 percent of economic output which had been expected this year.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://news.yahoo.com/spanish-debt-costs-spiral-rajoy-says-no-outside-124659013--business.html[/url]

Somehow the phrase "Read my lips" comes to mind when I read the above. Does anyone care to speculate when Spain will cross the 7% interest rate threshold? I'm claiming the 30 days or less horizon.

The twist on shoring up Bankia with a share exchange is as good as a done deal. The question is will other banks need the same. Why is it important? Because each such exchange is another nail in Spain's coffin. The shares will be purchased with sovereign bonds and the bonds will be sold into the bond market and ever spiraling cost. In other words, the banks will be bailed out but the Spanish people will be left holding the bag.

I have to do some serious pondering to figure out how the EU quagmire is going to affect the U.S. economy. There are definitely investment funds that are overexposed to risky EU debt. Some of them will wind up defunct unless they can move out of the exposed positions. Anyone else care to speculate on the echo effects in the worldwide economy?

DarJones

[QUOTE=only_human;300521]Looking around at Deep Capture I get a headache and lose my will to summarize things because there is a definite conspiracy feel. Apparently Patrick Byrne there is the CEO/President of Overstock that is mentioned in all these articles. There are pdf links at the top; I downloaded the "Story of Deep Capture" (tl;dr much)

Definitely through the looking glass. Odd stuff here. Interesting too.[/QUOTE]
I got sucked into that site some years back --- my take is that Patrick Byrne has come to believe that there is some pan-galactic conspiracy to drive OSTK's stock price to 0 via naked-shorting, and he now spends much of his time looking for evidence fitting that hypothesis.

Which is not to say naked shorting does not occur -- But whether naked or not, the best tool to dissuade predatory short-sellers (real or imagined) is to run a profitable company, and hurt the short sellers where it hurts most, in their pocketbook.

Reminds me a bit of the neverending "silver price suppression conspiracy" meme promulgated by ZeroHedge and other sites -- "maybe silver simply isn't worth $100/oz, guys."

------------------------------------------------------

Some recent developments in the [url=http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-05-26/encore-bailing-out-big-banks-government-backstop-derivativees-clearinghouses-]ongoing government bailout of Wall Street gambling addicts[/url].

In Vatican-bank-scandal news, for once [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/26/world/europe/popes-butler-arrested-in-vatican-letters-leak.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=world]the butler really did do it[/url].

In the U.S., today is the annual Memorial Day holiday. ZeroHedge offers a trenchant commentary which is, shall we say, a tad light on knee-jerk patriotism:

[url=http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-war-pigs-fall-global-empire]Guest Post: War Pigs - The Fall Of A Global Empire[/url]
[quote]As Americans mindlessly celebrate another Memorial Day with cookouts, beer and burgers, the U.S. war machine keeps churning. As we brutally enforce our will on foreign countries, we create more people that hate us. They don’t hate us for our freedom. They hate us because we have invaded and occupied their countries. They hate us because we kill innocent people with predator drones. They hate us for our hypocrisy regarding democracy and freedom. Just when we had the opportunity to make a sensible decision by leaving Iraq and exiting the Middle East quagmire, Obama made the abysmal choice to casually sacrifice more troops in the Afghan sh*thole. We have thrown over $1.3 trillion down Middle East rat holes over the last 11 years with no discernible benefit to the citizens of the United States. George Bush and Barack Obama did this to prove they were true statesmen. The Soviet Union killed over 1 million Afghans, while driving another 5 million out of the country and retreated as a bankrupted and defeated shell after ten years. Young Americans continue to die, for whom and for what? Our foreign policy during the last eleven years can be summed up in one military term, SNAFU – Situation Normal All F*cked Up. These endless foreign interventions under the guise of a War on Terror are a smoke screen for what is really going on in this country. When a government has unsolvable domestic problems, they try to distract the willfully ignorant masses by proactively creating foreign conflicts based upon false pretenses. General Douglas MacArthur understood this danger to our liberty.
[i]
“I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.”[/i][/quote]
Of course MacArthur was probably thinking "If they just made me unquestionable, presumed-infallible supreme poo-bah of the whole show, all would be well...". {more on that below.]

And to [url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8695679/168-children-killed-in-drone-strikes-in-Pakistan-since-start-of-campaign.html]put some numbers on those drone attack victims[/url] - Imagine the global media outrage if those children had been killed by the Taliban or by Syria`s Assad regime. (Which is not to mitigate the crimes of either of those parties).

Now back to MacArthur -- There is an interesting parallel between one of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur]MacArthur`s less-heroic military exploits[/url] and the current quasi-depression and OWS movement:
[quote]In 1930, [MacArthur] became Chief of Staff of the United States Army. As such, he was involved in the expulsion of the Bonus Army protesters from Washington, D.C. in 1932, and the establishment and organization of the Civilian Conservation Corps[/quote]

From the Wikipage on the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army]Bonus Army[/url]:
[quote]The Bonus Army was the popular name of an assemblage of some 43,000 marchers-—17,000 World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups—-who gathered in Washington, D.C., in the spring and summer of 1932 to demand immediate cash-payment redemption of their service certificates. Its organizers called it the Bonus Expeditionary Force to echo the name of World War I's American Expeditionary Force, while the media called it the Bonus March. It was led by Walter W. Waters, a former Army sergeant.

Many of the war veterans had been out of work since the beginning of the Great Depression. The World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 had awarded them bonuses in the form of certificates they could not redeem until 1945. Each service certificate, issued to a qualified veteran soldier, bore a face value equal to the soldier's promised payment plus compound interest. The principal demand of the Bonus Army was the immediate cash payment of their certificates.

Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, one of the most popular military figures of the time, visited their camp to back the effort and encourage them.[1] On July 28, U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell ordered the veterans removed from all government property. Washington police met with resistance, shots were fired and two veterans were wounded and later died. Veterans were also shot dead at other locations during the demonstration. President Herbert Hoover then ordered the army to clear the veterans' campsite. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur commanded the infantry and cavalry supported by six tanks. The Bonus Army marchers with their wives and children were driven out, and their shelters and belongings burned.

A second, smaller Bonus March in 1933 at the start of the Roosevelt Administration was defused in May with an offer of jobs for the Civilian Conservation Corps at Fort Hunt, Virginia, which most of the group accepted. Those who chose not to work for the CCC by the May 22 deadline were given transportation home. [2] In 1936, Congress overrode President Franklin D. Roosevelt's veto and paid the veterans their bonus years early.[/quote]
It gets even better, as both Patton and Eisenhower are featured players in the incident:
[quote]At 4:45 p.m., commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 12th Infantry Regiment, Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, supported by six battle tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, formed in Pennsylvania Avenue while thousands of civil service employees left work to line the street and watch. [u]The Bonus Marchers, believing the troops were marching in their honor, cheered the troops until Patton ordered the cavalry to charge them—-an action which prompted the spectators to yell, "Shame! Shame!"

After the cavalry charged, the infantry, with fixed bayonets and adamsite gas, an arsenical vomiting agent, entered the camps, evicting veterans, families, and camp followers.[/u] The veterans fled across the Anacostia River to their largest camp and President Hoover ordered the assault stopped. [b]However Gen. MacArthur, feeling the Bonus March was a Communist attempt to overthrow the U.S. government, ignored the President and ordered a new attack[/b]. Fifty-five veterans were injured and 135 arrested.[11] A veteran's wife miscarried. When 12-week-old Bernard Myers died in the hospital after being caught in the tear gas attack, a government investigation reported he died of enteritis, while a hospital spokesman said the tear gas "didn't do it any good."[15]

During the military operation, Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, later President of the United States, served as one of MacArthur's junior aides.[16] Believing it wrong for the Army's highest-ranking officer to lead an action against fellow American war veterans, he strongly advised MacArthur against taking any public role: "I told that dumb son-of-a-bitch not to go down there," he said later. "I told him it was no place for the Chief of Staff."[17] Despite his misgivings, Eisenhower later wrote the Army's official incident report which endorsed MacArthur's conduct.[18][/quote]