July 7, 2008
Leave it to a San Diego paper to find a connection between high oil prices and surfing. Higher prices are apparently raising resin costs, thus hurting surfboard makers, and gas prices are keeping some people from making long drives to...
In looking at the wall-to-wall sell-off in financials today it feels like the market is essentially saying "More than one of you major banks and brokers is going under, so until we know which one, you're all being sold". How...
Now I've got that feeling once again I can't explain, you would not understand This is not how I am I have become comfortably numb -- "Comfortably Numb," by Pink Floyd Media entrepreneur Felix Dennis's new book How...
The Starbucks boom across the U.S. (and worldwide) has added hugely to the list of public restrooms. With cities building fewer of the things, and even closing some, and with many restaurants making it only slightly less difficult finding them...
There is little question one of the driving forces behind the rise in commodities prices has been the Swensification of the stuff. After the dot-com crash investors began looking everywhere for uncorrelated asset classes -- stuff that didn't go down...
My favorite part of the latest Carl Icahn love letter to Yahoo shareholders comes early in the note. Here are the first two sentences: Dear Yahoo! Shareholders: During the past week I have spoken frequently with Steve Ballmer, CEO of...
Downbeat story in the WSJ & Reuters tonight on GM's plans for massive layoffs, etc. And not to diminish the awfulness of GM's plight -- okay, to diminish it a little -- I was struck by the story plopped adjacent...
Chief: Now listen carefully: [gives a series of complex instructions] Did you get that? Max: Not all of it. Chief: Which part didn't you get? Max: The part after 'Now listen carefully'. From Get Smart (1965-1970) You had...
Ted Forstmann says we're all going to hell. That's the message I got from a cheerfully apocalyptic interview with financier Forstmann that appears in Monday's WSJ. Granted, Fortsmann's never been a fan of current financial markets, right back to the...
