Why No One Wants to Buy an Electric Car
Courtesy Toyota Motor Corp.The very modest success of Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) has been used as proof that the electric car has come of age and demand for these autos will soar. Nothing could…
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Douglas A. McIntyre
China Says GDP Can Grow at 7.6% — If It Gets Some Help
ThinkstockYi Gang, the deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, recently said that the world’s second largest economy has recovered from a nasty period in the first half of 2013. The Chinese miracle…
Global PC Sales Drop as Industry Faces Layoffs
ThinkstockMeg Whitman recently said there would be no huge layoffs at Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ). However, she can only look so far into the future, and her vision eventually will have to take into account…
Rise in Mobile Ad Revenue Is Not Good for Media Industry
courtesy of Apple Inc.According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), mobile advertising revenue soared in the first half of the year. What the association did not mention is that marketers usually pay so little for…
OECD Lashes Out at U.S. Budget Trouble to No Avail
ThinkstockThe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is the latest organization to attack the budget freeze in Washington. Like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and scores of groups that are considered…
How Far Does the Market Have to Fall to Impress Washington?
thinkstockOne of the theories about how the budget, debt ceiling and the funding of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) conflicts may be resolved involves a meltdown of the stock market. If hundreds and hundreds of…
HP Employees Don’t Take Stock Problem “Personally”
courtesy of Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) CEO Meg Whitman asked the tech company’s employees to take the removal of the firm’s stock from the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) “personally,” according to a report from…
Google Chromebook 11, Another Useless Experiment
courtesy of Google Inc.Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) management has a habit, which dates back to shortly after it was founded, of expensive experimentation that often creates new products. Since Larry Page became chief executive…
Cadillac Releases New Escalade No One Will Buy
courtesy of General Motors Co.The Cadillac division of General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) launched a new version of its Escalade super-SUV. And the release was done with great fanfare, a peculiar effort since no one…
How Deeply Will J.C. Penney Cut Merchandise Prices?
Courtesy J.C. Penney Co. Inc.; photo by Chris RupertAmong the many scores of problems that J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) has is how deeply it should cut the prices of merchandise to bring…
Who Buys Debt If U.S. Defaults?
ThinkstockWho buys U.S. debt in the case of a default? The simple answer is no one. However, that almost certainly is untrue. There is always someone, or some group, who has the guts of…
As Gas Prices Fall, One Bright Spot for Economy
ThinkstockThe U.S. economy may default, causing a new recession. Mortgage problems also stemming from the federal government may slow housing sales and reverse the rise in prices of homes. And real wages for many…
Will U.S. Default Risk Drive Money to Foreign Markets?
ThinkstockInvestors have become increasingly anxious about how badly the U.S. equity and fixed income markets will be battered as the American government marches toward a potential default. Of course, investors may sell off U.S.…
Asia Economic Growth to Slow — World Bank
ThinkstockIt likely was inevitable that the white-hot growth of Asian economies would slow, if only because of the recession-like conditions around the rest of the world. Now, that is happening, and these nations are…
JAL Picks Airbus and Shoots Down Boeing
Courtesy Boeing Co.In the largest single blow to Boeing Co.’s (NYSE: BA) plagued 787 Dreamliner, JAL, which has had trouble with the plane, moved a huge portion of its new plane orders to Airbus. The…
Apple iPhone Search Engine Traffic
courtesy of Apple Inc.Do the numbers of searches that a product receives have any relationship to eventual sales? There does not seem to be any scientific basis for the theory. Experian Marketing Services has elected…
Cisco, Google May Consider BlackBerry Bid — Reuters
Courtesy of BlackBerryReuters has come out with a story, which, if true, would seem improbable. Apparently Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Europe’s SAP A.G. (NYSE: SAP) have considered buying…
Apple Continues to Win Smartphone Maker Race
courtesy of Apple Inc.For all of its trouble, based on worries that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has lost its magic and can no longer build iPhones that will create huge sales, there is a…
Gates and Ballmer on Microsoft Board Means No CEO Independence
Microsoft Sweden, via Wikimedia CommonsBill Gates earned his position on Microsoft Corp.’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) board and as its chairman because of his role as founder and long-time chief executive officer. Despite the outcry among…
In HTC, Apple and Samsung Claim Another Victim
courtesy of SamsungHTC, once viewed as a real contender against Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone franchise and the Galaxy line built by Samsung, lost money last quarter. Its potential, which was so bright two…