Technology Spending Won’t Come Back For A While
These days, chief information officers at Fortune 500 companies are spending a lot of their time saying “no.” The good ones are masters at it. They have to turn down pleas from department heads…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
Can We Afford to Help the Unempoyed?
The fiscal toll unemployment is taking on the federal government is laid bare in the recent July Budget Report. Unemployment expenses rose almost 41 percent as of July during the government’s fiscal year to…
The Twitter-24/7 Wall St. Market Watch (8/13/2010) Europe Growth Explodes Up
Twitter has, by most estimates, 100 million members, which makes it one of the largest social networks in the world. All major media companies are on Twitter and some have more than one million…
As Oracle Sues Google, Tech IP Issues Are Too Close For Comfort
There have been for some time a collection of companies that gathers patents and then uses them to sue large technology firms. The issues are often unclear enough and cost of litigation high enough…
American Despair Grows
Americans’ despair about the economy shows up so often in research studies that the results have become redundant. But, the malaise actually deepens with each new piece of data. The troubles that US citizens…
Google, Skype, And A New Age Of Censorship
The book bans of fifty years ago which included “Catcher In The Rye” are distant memories. But censorship is not over. The Wall Street Journal has been banned in Singapore within the last five…
Microsoft Xbox 360 Sales Surge Ahead OF Wii
Nintendo just announced that sales of its Wii game console had reached 30 million units in the US, and had reached that level faster than any other console in history. The celebration was short-lived.…
Media Digest 8/13/2010 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
Reuters: The GM CEO will leave as the company has its IPO. ‘Reuters: Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) sued Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) over Android. Reuters: Germany raised its forecast for the second half Reuters: Hewlett-Packard’s…
Today’s Best Market Rumors 8/12/2010
Updated throughout the day. GM will raise $16 billion through its IPO (Bloomberg) American International Group (NYSE: AIG) is talking to large investors about an AIA IPO (Reuters) Rio Tinto may buy a stake…
The Twitter-24/7 Wall St. Market Watch (8/12/2010): Dark Mood In America, More Foreclosures
Twitter has, by most estimates, 100 million members, which makes it one of the largest social networks in the world. All major media companies are on Twitter and some have more than one million…
Greece Keeps Shrinking
It is hard to see how Greece can repay it sovereign debt if its economy keeps shrinking. According to several media reports including MarketWatch, “Greek gross domestic product fell by 1.5% in the second…
Barnes & Noble Settles With Burkle–To What End?
courtesy Barnes & Noble Inc.Failing bookstore company Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), maker of the also-ran e-reader, the Nook, has settled with raider Ron Burkle, who bought enough shares in the company so that…
Spotting The Lying CEO
Public company CEOs are like politicians. They love to give out good news and avoid mentioning the bad. And it may be human nature that reaches well beyond the powerful to the average person…
The American Taxpayer–Who Needs Faster Broadband?
How fast is “faster” broadband and who wants it at any speed? The FCC has proposed spending tens of billions of dollars on broadening the high-speed internet infrastructure in the US. Even the agency…
Foreclosure Activity Up 4% In July To 325,299
Looking back to early 2010, this is about the time of year many economists and real estate experts believed that the housing market would recover. GDP growth in the third quarter, they reasoned, would…
Media Digest 8/12/2010 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
Reuters: India officials met over a decision about whether to ban certain services of the Research In Motion (NYSE: RIMM) BlackBerry. Reuters: GM put together a $5 billion bank facility and will probably file…
The July Federal Budget Numbers–The Trouble Continues
The Treasury should be happy with its July 2010 budget report. The deficit fell from $180 billion in the month last year to $165 billion in the most recent month–something that the Administration can…
Google’s Robotic Defense of Android
When a reporter asked Google Inc. (GOOG) Chief Executive Eric Schmidt recently about whether the search engine giant was making money on the Android mobile phone operating system, he had a strange answer: “Trust…
Today’s Best Market Rumors 8/11/2010
Updated throughout the day. India shut down Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) BlackBerry service (Reuters) GM earnings will rise sharply for the second quarter 2010 (Reuters) “Spyglass Entertainment was nearing a deal to run…
The Twitter-24/7 Wall St. Market Watch (8/11/2010) Trade Deficit, Yen, And China Growth
Twitter has, by most estimates, 100 million members, which makes it one of the largest social networks in the world. All major media companies are on Twitter and some have more than one million…