Archive for November, 2007

money sage

28Nov07

This is one of the most interesting financial blogs I’ve found.
http://www.money-sage.com 
It’s especially interesting reading back through the archives and comparing his (or her) comments with what’s been happening in the debt and equity markets.


Some are going to be making money riding these bond insurers straight into bankruptcy:
From an online Fortune article:
“Ambac, for instance, has guaranteed an estimated $620 billion in structured products, but has only about $9 billion in cash. Similarly, ACA (Charts) is on the hook for $61 billion in insured assets, but has only about $326 [...]


In my opinion, the biggest innovation of the Amazon Kindle is the fact that it has an embedded EVDO modem in which the connectivity is wholesaled to Amazon such that the customer does not need to maintain a relationship with Sprint.
The cost of the wireless service is bundled with the cost of the books.
The costs [...]


With a broadband internet connection, it is possible to put an unlimited number of devices and applications online with no marginal cost to the customer.
With wireless service provided by Telcos, the marginal cost of adding an additional device is astronomical.  The barriers to adding incremental services (traffic to GPS, wireless music/podcast capability to car radio, [...]


This is not good.
From an article on Swiss Re’s sub-prime exposure:
Analysts on a conference call questioned why a company better known for determining the risks of hurricanes and floods was in the business of providing insurance against market moves — and how management came to consider the loss possibility as “remote.”
It will be interesting [...]


What I wouldn’t give to have seen this….
Sounds even better than Britney Spears at the VMAs.


This is an interesting link about case where the British government is trying to compel one of its citizens to cough up the pass-phrase for a set of PGP-encrypted files.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/14/ripa_encryption_key_notice/
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in court.
It seems to me that the woman in question can claim plausible deniability on several [...]


Cheers to Warren Buffett for testifying before congress about how repealing the estate tax is a really dumb idea that benefits no one.
What really floors me, however, is that so many commentators are accusing him of holding a double standard and being a hypocrite.  There are actually people in this country that think that by [...]


big ass fans

14Nov07

I saw an ad in a magazine for “Big Ass Fans.” My wife, who works in advertising was sure that it was a joke/novelty site set up to promote some other product.
Nope.
It seems that this company really sells….big…ass…fans.


In the November 26 issue of Forbes, Steve Forbes writes:
“Some of us are old enough to remember the 1960s and 1970s, when food companies shrank the size of candy bars, cakes and other products to avoid increasing nominal prices [due to inflation].”
If only we could be so lucky now, perhaps a little economic inflation could [...]