A computer operating system is very close to a natural monopoly. Controlling the dysfunctional effects of such monpolies has proven very difficult. A simple monopoly occurs when one supplier provides 60% or more of the product in a marketplace. Monopolies do not have to be dysfunctional. However, in profit maximizing markets there is a...
Adobe management has a major problem – the operating platform where 50% of its sales come from, Apple, has had top executives sabotaging Adobe’s products and market position. Worse, this abusive behavior has been going on for decades. True, the idea of development neutrality of Operating System vendors is at best only ethically binding...
Henry McCracken at Time magazine has shown how to do computer technology predictions - although McCracken adamantly denies they are predictions. But actually they are deliciously witty, cleverly written yet clasically correct statistical forecasts. For under the guise of writing a)what we can assume will happen – the median value, b)what I hope will...
In the last two years, more article are appearing from Wall Streeters who are questioning the budding financial myths on what caused the Financial Meltdown of 2007-2008. Here is a telling one by a Wall Street analyst, Barry Ritholtz that appeared in the Washington Post and has been picked up by a number of Share websites...
My brother Mark has done very well by his investment in Apple stock over the past decade. Given the recent, relatively substantial downturn in Apple stock PE ratio he received an investment advisory from ye Editor. Here is the jist of those remarks. I think Apple is at a crossroads- they could have become the major desktop...
Over and over again, the world is seeing an anguishing and paradoxical debate over the Deficit Conundrum . Simply stated, nation after nation has allowed bubbles of inflated values to occur, accumulate and eventually topple their economies. The classic bubbly case is the overinflated housing markets in the US and parts of Europe that...
The best lines at the ABCTV-sponsored debate this past weekend was Michelle Bachmann’s ”Newt Romney”, AKA Newt Gingerich and Mitt Romney. Michelle could show the two not only flip flopping together but also abandoning conservative principles at the drop of a hat. The Daily Beast has been following the two since the debate and the...
Nicholas Kristoff at the NYTimes, has a very telling piece about the Bankers who brought about the 2007-2008 Financial meltdown. Recent disclosures by Bloomberg and others have made it clear that the $0.70 Trillion TARP bailout was just the tip of the iceberg as 10 time the TARP, or $7.0trillion has been spent to...
Some media argue that Occupy Wall Street, now that it has been disbanded will peter out and the group will have minimal influence. Don’t let anybody sell you that notion. The vote in Ohio on November 8th restoring Union Collective bargaining in state and local government showed that Occupy Wall Street had managed to change voting...
In an article on her website, Ariana Huffington raises the issue of the level of lying in politics – Mitt Romney Brazenly Lies and the Media Lets Him Slide. Here is he crux of the complaint against Mitt Romney and his election team: The lie is found in Romney’s first television ad, run last week in...
Both fascinating and frustrating reading. The story of Joseph Needham collecting together the history and legacy of China's technological triumph's is utterly fascinating. But frustrating is the failure of Winchester to shed clear light on why a)China did not already have such a hitorical trove in Beijing and b) why did China miss out on the Industrial Revolution while Japan, even more reclusive, did not.
