6.26.2008
Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, Sergey Brin at Zeitgeist Europe 08
Makes you feel like your there. . .. Rad.
BILL GATES Steps Down
[Bill Gates has always divided opinion. Compared for his arrogance to Napoleon by a US judge, the billionaire has been more recently noted for his philanthropy.
But as he steps down from his role at Microsoft, few can doubt Gates' leaves a profound legacy to business and the wider world.
Microsoft's path to global dominance was shaped by a strategic coup in 1981, that turned out to be a critical blunder for IBM. Microsoft was allowed to license its personal computer operating system to other manufacturers, spawning an industry of "IBM-compatible" machines dependent on Microsoft's operating system.
Popularising the personal computer - both at home and in the office - soon made Microsoft a Wall Street darling. The group's shares soared from $2 in 1986 to $105 within a decade, turning Gates and co-founder Paul Allen into billionaires and changing the global
business forever.
"I think it's fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we've ever created", Gates once said.
Few would argue, but it was Gates's ability to feed PCs to the world that has earned him comparisons with the great businessman of American history such as Henry Ford and JD Rockefeller.
More recent critics have branded Microsoft a dotcom dinosaur and the pointed to the threats to its business from Google. Gates has appeared at ease with the challenge. Talking of Google two years ago, he said: "People tend to get over-focused on one of our competitors. We've always seen that. The biggest company in the computer industry by far is IBM.
"IBM has always been our biggest competitor. The press just doesn't like to write about IBM."
Gates has certainly attracted headlines and was once arrested for racing his Porsche 911 through the New Mexico desert.
Whichever side you take, it is almost impossible to argue that when it comes to building an empire from scratch, changing the way the world does business, and holding on to the competitive edge in an industry - few come close to Microsoft or Gates.]-UKT
Pretty cool video also. Almost as good as his Bio I constantly study.
Wall St. Fibbsters
[On Thursday, Goldman Sachs' (nyse: GS - news - people ) investment bank research analyst William Tanona cut his view on the brokerage sector to "neutral" from "attractive," after having upgraded the group after the mid-March implosion of Bear Stearns. With storm clouds darkening over the financial markets, Tanona now says that "fundamentals continue to deteriorate" and that recovery will take longer than originally thought.
Just three days ago, his colleagues in Goldman's strategy department reversed course and urged investors to "under weight" financial stocks in their portfolios, admitting they erred in recommending the sector in early May on a view that capital raising and government stimulus of the economy would benefit the stocks. "Our thesis was clearly wrong in hindsight," the strategists wrote.
Worsening trends in the financial markets have made fibbers out of many a bank chief in recent weeks. Fortis (other-otc: FORSY.PK - news - people ), the Belgian banking giant, pulled a 180 Thursday, saying it would raise $12.5 billion in capital, $2.3 billion of it through a share sale and the rest from scrapping its dividend and selling assets. Earlier, the company had said it didn't need to raise capital.
Same thing with Merrill Lynch (nyse: MER - news - people ), which said earlier this year it didn't need more capital after raising $6 billion in January. In April, it sold another $9.6 billion worth of securities.
Lehman Brothers (nyse: LEH - news - people ) also said earlier it had adequate capital and then went out in early June and raised $6 billion, announcing the same day a wider than expected $2.8 billion second-quarter loss, all because of more write-downs. That came just weeks after Chief Executive Richard Fuld told shareholders at the annual meeting that the worst of the crisis was over.
"Bank managements have been unusually lacking in knowledge about the depth of the problems in their companies," says Richard Bove, an analyst at Ladenburg Thalmann. "Their perception of events seems to be skewed by desire as opposed to reality."
What's more, financial companies are running out of ways to raise capital without hitting existing shareholders. Ongoing write-downs may make Merrill's chief executive, John Thain, think twice about holding on to the company's stake in Bloomberg, the information and news service, which some value at $5 billion to $6 billion.
"A sale of Bloomberg is increasingly likely if it has to raise additional capital," says CreditSights analyst David Hendler.
"There's a major credibility issue reflected today in the cratering of these stocks," says Michael Holland, chairman of Holland & Co.]-Forbes
Blueprint for emissions reductions
"June 26 (Bloomberg) -- California outlined for the first time the broadest U.S. attempt to regulate greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, calling for the creation of a new emissions-trading program and increased renewable-energy production.
All parts of the $1.6 trillion economy, the largest of the U.S. states, would be affected. Utilities, refiners, carmakers, farmers, manufacturers and forest managers would be called on to cut pollution under the draft plan released today by the state Air Resources Board.
The blueprint comes 18 months after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law requiring the country's most populous state to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The law is the most far-reaching of any climate-change plan in the U.S., where President George W. Bush's administration and Congress have resisted mandatory caps on greenhouse gases.
``It's going to be seen as a model for other states, the country as a whole and other countries,'' Daniel Sperling, a member of the Air Resources Board and a transportation professor at the University of California, Davis, said in an interview.
Schwarzenegger has hailed the climate law as a way to lead the state toward a low-carbon economy and spur investment. In 2006, clean energy technology companies in California received $1 billion in investment, according to Cleantech Network LLC, a Brighton, Michigan-based investor group that conducts industry research.. . . "
Buffett or Bernanke?
[NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Even Warren Buffett is wrong some of the time. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is hoping this is one of them.
Buffett, the billionaire investor behind Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, Fortune 500), fingered "exploding" inflation Wednesday as the biggest risk to the economy. "I think inflation is really picking up," Buffett said on CNBC. "It's huge right now, whether it's steel or oil," he continued. "We see it everywhere."
In part, the Fed's decision turns on a distinction economists make between inflation and "relative-price changes." The former is a general loss of purchasing power that's caused, or at least exacerbated by, overly lax monetary policy (such as keeping interest rates too low for too long). The latter are price hikes driven primarily by fundamental shifts in supply and demand.
The Fed is betting that rising prices won't feed through to higher general inflation expectations unless workers start demanding raises and companies start raising prices.
But wages haven't been rising sharply, and declining unionization means workers have less bargaining power than they did during the inflationary 1970s, economists say. And while some processors of commodities, like Dow, are charging more, their customers in turn have generally been unable to pass along those costs to consumers.
To be sure, there are other factors at work in the Fed's move to the sidelines. Bernanke & Co. wants to measure the stimulative effect of the rate cuts it's already made. The rate cuts of the past nine months - the Fed has slashed its overnight bank lending rate by 3.25 percentage points since September - will take time to impact the economy. If possible, the Fed wants to wait before making another move on rates.
And while fears of a marketwide meltdown seem to have eased, a weak housing market, rising unemployment and increasing loan losses at banks mean the risk of a sharp economic pullback remains substantial.]
Just pulled out the pearls.. . . .
Market snapshot
[U.S. stocks fell sharply Thursday with the blue-chip index enduring its worst June so far since 1930, and plunging to its lowest finish since Sept. 11, 2006, after getting slammed hard as crude soared to new highs and Goldman Sachs disparaged U.S. brokers and advised selling General Motors Corp.
"We're going to move in the opposite direction of oil, and General Motors is going to go out of business, at least according to Goldman Sachs," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) tumbled 358.41 points, or 3%, to 11, 453.42, leaving it down nearly 1,200 points, or 9.4%, for the month, with two trading days yet to go. As things stand, the month is the worst June so far since 1930 when the index declined 17.72%.
"I am asked regularly as to whether or not we are at the bottom, and I feel overall that we are not there yet," said Stuart Miller, Lennar's chief executive, in a conference call]-CNN Money
Untold Wealth: Rise of the Super Rich - CNBC
"-2007 was the first year that making Forbes magazine's list of 400 richest Americans required more than $1 billion. (The cutoff was $1.3 billion.)
There are roughly 150,000 households in the United States with a net worth of at least $20 million.
In 2004, the last time the Fed provided data, there were 649,000 American households worth $10 million or more, a nearly 300 percent jump since 1992.
Most heads of wealthy households hold college degrees beyond a bachelor's degree.
Older women are wealthier and poorer simultaneously compared to older men.
Older women (as a group) own more wealth than older men (as a group) but own less wealth, on average per individual, than do older men.
Women live longer than men -- wives inherit husband's share of wealth more often than other way around and older women outnumber older men about 2:1.
About 51 percent of the individual giving and philanthropy is from the 10 percent of households in the highest income groups.
Over the past 5 years the business jet industry grew 85%
The earners in the top 1 percent in income distribution bracket make 20% of the money.
Private jet travel is the fastest growing luxury market segment. Over 15% of all flights in the U.S. are by private jet.
There are more than 1,000 daily private jet flights in key markets such as South Florida, New York and Los Angeles.- (Elite Traveler Magazine)."-CNBC
Some fast facts from the CNBC website. I just watched this and it was ppuurreee glory. I will never delete this one off tivo. Check out CNBCtv for thee previews and such.
6.14.2008
RIP Tim Russert
"NBC News is very saddened to report that Tim Russert has passed away suddenly after collapsing at work. Our thoughts are with his family and friends."-NBC
6.06.2008
BILLIONAIRE Gone Wild: Indicted
[Somewhere in the skies between Orange County and Las Vegas, federal prosecutors say, Broadcom Corp. co-founder and hard-partying billionaire Henry T. Nicholas III gave new meaning to the term "highflying."
Winging their way to Sin City in 2001, Nicholas and his entourage generated so much marijuana smoke that it billowed into the cockpit, "requiring the pilot flying the plane to put on an oxygen mask," according to a federal grand jury indictment made public Thursday.
The indictment, issued under seal a day earlier, accused Nicholas of doling out drugs and prostitutes as part of a freewheeling lifestyle.
A second indictment accused Nicholas of manipulating stock options at Broadcom, the Irvine-based maker of computer chips used in such products as mobile phones, Apple Inc.'s iPod and Nintendo Co.'s Wii consoles.
In a 21-count indictment, Nicholas and William J. Ruehle, 66, Broadcom's former chief financial officer, were accused of backdating millions of stock options for five years to improperly reward employees.
The document also lists three properties described in previous Los Angeles Times stories about Nicholas' alleged indulgences in drugs and prostitutes:
* An equestrian estate in Laguna Hills, where Nicholas had constructed a series of tunnels and underground rooms, including one that contractors alleged was intended to become a "secret and convenient lair" to indulge his "manic obsession with prostitutes."
* A warehouse-office complex in nearby Laguna Niguel, which contractors said was used for sex and drugs and nicknamed "The Ponderosa."
* A Newport Coast residence where Nicholas was trying to start a record company and where rock groups frequently visited.]-LAT
Unemployment worst in 22 years. . . and more.
[The unemployment rate surged to 5.5 percent in May from 5 percent — the sharpest monthly spike in 22 years — as the economy lost 49,000 jobs, registering a fifth consecutive month of decline, the Labor Department reported Friday.
The weak jobs report, coupled with a staggering rise in the price of oil — up a record $10.75 a barrel to more than $138 — unleashed a feverish sell-off on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down nearly 400 points. The dollar plunged against several major currencies.
Investors’ recent hopes that the United States might yet skirt a recession sank swiftly in the face of gloomy indications that the economy is gripped by a slowdown and pressured by record fuel prices.
For tens of millions of Americans struggling to pay bills, the jobs report added an official stamp of authority to a dispiriting reality they already know: A deteriorating labor market is eliminating paychecks just as they are needed to compensate for the soaring cost of food and fuel, and as the fall in house prices hacks away at household wealth and access to credit.
Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, called the labor report “a reminder that working families continue to bear the brunt of the failed Bush economic policies that John McCain wants to continue,” in a statement. “We can’t afford John McCain’s plan to spend billions of dollars on tax breaks for big corporations and wealthy C.E.O.’s.”]-NYT
Manchester United to get tough on Real Madrid over pursuit of unsettled Cristiano Ronaldo
"A United statement last month warned Real the club would contact world football's governing body if they continued to court Ronaldo in a "totally unacceptable fashion" by publicly attempting to unsettle the forward.
United are preparing a formal complaint after comments from the Real president, Ramon Calderon, admitting that it would be an "honour" to sign Ronaldo.
Calderon, responding to Ronaldo's admission on Thursday that he "would like to play for Real", said yesterday: "For Madrid, it is an honour to know that a player like him [Ronaldo] thinks that playing at Real Madrid would be good."
With Ronaldo due to play for Portugal against Turkey on the opening day of Euro 2008 tonight, Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari has insisted the player will not talk about his future until after the tournament."-UK Telegraph
He always has sick hair lol. . . . besides being a sick footballer
6.02.2008
6.01.2008
Sad Day in Fashion
"Yves Saint Laurent died Sunday at age 71 after a long illness. He had battled mental illness and drug addiction throughout his life.
The fashion giant was one of the most famous designers of the last century, along with Coco Chanel, Christian Dior and Paul Poiret.
Although he retired from haute couture in 2002, after 40 years of designing, YSL continues to dominate, and his clothing is still worn by trend-setting actresses and valued by fashion collectors.
Christian Lacroix has said of Yves Saint Laurent: "Chanel, Schiaparelli, Balenciaga and Dior all did extraordinary things. But they worked within a particular style. Yves Saint Laurent is much more versatile, like a combination of all of them. I sometimes think he's got the form of Chanel with the opulence of Dior and the wit of Schiaparelli."
YSL was responsible for many modern trends including the safari jacket, trouser suits and tuxedos for women, and he was the first designer to use black models on runways."-LAT
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