My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on February 4, 2012

Fred Smith, CEO of Fedex, spoke on Thursday this past week and simplified his thoughts on turning around the economy and creating jobs. He supplied a chart which doesn’t necessarily clear up the “chicken or the egg” discussion associated with which comes first, but his chart does show that capital investment and private sector employment track, and have tracked, each other pretty close.

Now IF we can all agree that business owners and managers respond negatively to disincentives like higher taxes, more regulation and government control, then we should be able to conclude that they will be less likely to invest in their companies and probably won’t be hiring employees. On the other hand, IF they are given some kind of capital investment incentive, lower tax rates and are burdened with fewer regulation from government … they will be more likely to invest in their business and therefore hire employees … just as the graph indicates. If the goal is to create jobs, how about applying what works?

The  free enterprise policies that have created jobs throughout the decades in America will work again today. We are still the same country and have the most innovated people and ambitious workforce. Come on Mr. President, just acknowledge that your administration policies of growing government, centralized control and adding programs have not worked well over the past 3 years. The improving numbers (very weak) over the last couple of months are happening despite the bloat … and has only seen improvement AFTER the mid-term election slowing even a bigger federal intrusion. Thank goodness for gridlock (although reversing the spending and shrinking government would have been preferred).  Let’s open up the free enterprise system as it is the way to create jobs; just borrowing and taxing more out of the economy to fund your bloated federal government isn’t going to return America to greatness.

Category: Business, Financial, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: Business, cnbc, employment, fedex, fred smith, Politics, taxes

Posted By RichC on February 3, 2012

I’ve been using Gmail for years and recently found a hidden gem for filtering email. It works particularly well for me while using the Mozilla client Thunderbird, although is equally useful with any other client or the Google’s web client (BTW the upgrade to 10.0 was pushed out this past week). 

Without getting overly detailed as to how I’m using it, let’s just say that when I want to filter and saved something to a certain folder, I make sure the email address used has an appended plus (“+”) sign and correct folder name (or special word like “+toss”).

Of course a filter needs to be set up in the client to automatically sort, but that is something I’ve been doing for over a decade. No doubt most heavy email users have set up dozens of filters, labels, spam control, etc. (the address above actually works better than the old dodgeit.com address)

The beauty of adding the “+” to your email account name is that whatever is added doesn’t affect the mail going to your account and “could” be even given out to someone in order to have  their mail filtered automatically or even forwarded as needed. I’ve successfully used one that sends me out a text message trigger since the above address isn’t monitored as regularly or received on my phone. Hey … go crazy since whatever is after the plus sign isn’t significant.

Another less attractive but simpler technique is to use the Gmail ignored “dot” or period (“.”) somewhere in your address. Before I learned about the + sign, one my earlier tricks was to use my GMail address without the “dot” for all the less important website sign-ups and to include the “.us” part for the emails that I wanted kept in my inbox or to be filtered appropriately. This worked for a while, but over the years and to my lack of discipline ends up tossing too many emails.

Gmail doesn’t recognize periods as characters in addresses …

***

Category: Computer, Technology | 2 Comments »
Tags: email, filter, gmail, google, techfriday

Posted By RichC on February 2, 2012

Got to love the humor of Jon Stewart, even if he show his bias and plays to his left leaning audience. For the fun of it I figure President Obama deserved a little bit of face time too and added (photoshopped) the little Al Green comparison … perhaps it is not as effective as the Gingrich and Romney comparisons (very funny) … but as an excuse to include the Daily Show’s graphics above (video below).

Category: Humor, Politics, Video-TV | No Comments »
Tags: gingrich, jon stewart, obama, photoshopped, politcs, romney

Posted By RichC on February 2, 2012

Yup … FB .. that’s the stock exchange symbol for Facebook; the biggest IPO of the year, or past few years. This will be the largest web-based company to have an initial public offering since GOOG went public (believe it or not, GM in 2010 was the overall largest). It will instantly turn Mr. Zuckerberg into one of the elite of the elites when talking  business billionaires in the world.

Fortunately or unfortunately most of us won’t have to spend the next few days figuring out the price FB as by the time we digest the surge, it will most likely seem way too high. Only time will tell whether the users of Facebook continue to click ads in order to make it pay off. Personally I’d be concerned that all the new millionaires working for FB will get soft.

Zuckerberg IPO Haul Could Top $28 Billion

By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER

Facebook Inc.’s impending initial public offering will likely net its 27-year-old founder Mark Zuckerberg a fortune of $28 billion.

According to IPO paperwork Facebook filed Wednesday, Mr. Zuckerberg owns 28.2% of the soon-to-be-public company, and is its single largest shareholder. If Facebook raises money at a high-end valuation of $100 billion dollars, Mr. Zuckerberg’s stock would be worth $28 billion. On top of his stock, last year Mr. Zuckerberg was paid $1.49 million in salary, bonus and other compensation for his role as chief executive, according to the filing.

A net worth of $28 billion would have placed Mr. Zuckerberg at number nine in Forbes magazine’s rich list last year, following tech luminaries Bill Gates and Larry Ellison.

But even as Mr. Zuckerberg vaults into the pantheon of the world’s richest people, the young entrepreneur has already proven he doesn’t intend to act like a typical billionaire.

Mr. Zuckerberg grew up in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., the son of a dentist and psychiatrist. He graduated from high school at the elite Phillips Exeter Academy, where he honed his talents in science and the classics.

In the nearly eight years since Mr. Zuckerberg founded Facebook in his Harvard College dorm room, the entrepreneur has grown from a college sophomore into a leading voice for a new generation of technology entrepreneurs.

In the early years after Mr. Zuckerberg moved his start-up to Palo Alto, Calif., he was known for wearing Adidas flip-flops to business meetings and placing little priority on building out an advertising business for his growing social network. He handed out business cards reading, "I’m CEO… b—."

Today, Mr. Zuckerberg has upgraded his wardrobe to Brooks running shoes and even dons a sports coat for special meetings, like with President Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey. And his social network has become so important to many big advertisers that they run Super Bowl ads directing customers to Facebook.

Mr. Zuckerberg has also set the tone for the lifestyles behind the latest Silicon Valley boom, eschewing the giant mansions and posh cars of the late 1990s dot-com bubble. Instead, he has lived in a modest house, and is known for his penchant for taking his dog on long walks. (He runs a Facebook page for his dog Beast, a white Hungarian Puli.) In 2011, Mr. Zuckerberg became a vegetarian.

In 2010, when the movie "The Social Network" debuted and offered a sometimes unflattering Hollywood portrayal of his behavior in Facebook’s early days, Mr. Zuckerberg treated his whole company to a day at the movies to watch the film together.

Mr. Zuckerberg also didn’t wait to begin establishing his reputation as a philanthropist. In 2010, amidst the fall-out from the Hollywood film, he announced the formation of a charity called "Startup: Education" and pledged $100 million to support public schools in Newark.

In December 2010, he signed a pledge—along with his former roommate and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz—to give the majority of his wealth to charity.

LINK

Category: Financial, Social Media, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: facebook, fb, investing, ipo, social network, stocks, zuckerberg

Posted By RichC on February 1, 2012

This content is restricted.

Category: Audio, Aviation, Millitary, Music, Technology, Video | No Comments »
Tags: aviation, bob dylan, changin', dylan, military, mp3, quadrotor, times they are a changin

Posted By RichC on January 31, 2012

Intrade.com is probably one of the more interesting ways to track/trade the election. The ups and downs of a campaign are pretty clear to see … from the Gingrich surge after South Carolina to the precipitous drop we’re watching in Florida.

If I had to vote today, I’m not sure I would even go to the polls to cast a ballot. Thankfully I’m not in Florida, but I reserve the right to withhold my vote on Super Tuesday until a degree of civility returns to the GOP campaign. I’ve been watching and listening to enough of the national news and the negative comments and nastiness has me disgusted with the Republican party (as I recall, the Democrats weren’t all that much better). If this is a taste of what we’ll be hearing in the national campaign, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to take it.

Negative ads were so prevalent in the final week before the Florida primary that they accounted for 92 percent of all campaign commercials that ran.

LINK

Although I’m sure both Gingrich and Romney are slinging their fair share of the mud (or their pacts), the recent sharp attacks from Speaker Gingrich are difficult to take without coming away with a negative impression of him. I’m not sure if it his anger showing through or just his nasty temperament. I recoiled a couple of times as he has moved from calling Mitt Romney a “moderate” to a “liberal.” For Newt Gingrich to portray himself as an “outsider” isn’t believable and some of his ideas are far from conservative. One discussion I heard today has me questioning how Tea Party folks can take him serious: “a 50% increase of the State Department” at a time most of us are demanding smaller government?

Newt Gingrich – on the size of the State Department

Category: Audio, Politics | 1 Comment »
Tags: audio, election, florida, mitt romney, newt gingrich, primary

Posted By RichC on January 31, 2012

After hearing an employee at Sprint talking about the iPhones  substantial impact on activations last week, I pondered the value of the carrier to Apple. With Sprint buying 30.5 million iPhones worth $20B to the cash rich Apple (AAPL) and the Sprint (S) trading at uncomfortable lows, there are rumors that Sprint needs to return to the capital market in order to continue to operate.  To remain competitive, Sprint has to continue building out their next generation 4G network and has to maintain and grow  customers — I wondered, could there be reason for Apple to make an investment in Sprint?

It is one thing to negotiate lucrative deals that benefit Apple, but squeezing a company out of business is not be in their best interest. Both companies benefit if Sprint moves forward with their 4G, therefore  an Apple investment in Sprint may pay off … doubly. First they would benefit as a capital investor if Sprint gets stronger (S today at $2.12) … and second keeping  Sprint as a billion dollar buyer of their hardware bring in more profit than if their were fewer buyers … not to mention keeping Sprint solvent so they can pay for current orders.  Hmm … maybe I’ll pick up a few shares of Sprint?

Category: Cellphone, Financial, Technology | 1 Comment »
Tags: $s, aapl, apple, investing, speculation, sprint

Posted By RichC on January 30, 2012

YouTube live at 5:30PM EST on January 30, 2012

Great use of technology, although it certainly does require respectful users … unfortunately a little too much “respect” ends up with friendly to President Obama questioners. The hangout is interesting as I’m only 15 minutes in, but its beginning to sound a little like a campaign speech. Glad he is answering questions and using Google+. LINK
Oh … and he also mention biodiesel at about the 5:44 mark.

Category: Politics, Social Media, Video | 2 Comments »
Tags: g+, google, obama, president, social, youtube

Posted By RichC on January 30, 2012

For those of you who remember, or just enjoyed (my old  link), the classic Matthew Broderick movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, prepare yourself for a new Superbowl 46 ad by Honda. Hmm, Brenda just might be interested in a CR-V as a replacement for her Rav4 … on second thought, she might really rather have a movie sequel (see video below).

Category: Automotive, Video | 2 Comments »
Tags: ad, bueller, commercial, cr-v, honda, movie, superbowl

Posted By RichC on January 29, 2012

Mom and Diane on Saturday afternoon January 28, 2012

It was great to see my mom happy to have visitors and feeling pretty good after getting a better combination of pain medication. Although her vertebrae is deteriorating and their has been little hope for a surgical repair, she has been in much better spirits now that this past week been tolerable. The beautician that does her hair for 30 years came to the house and believe it or not my dad was able to help wash her a bit (not something dad ever did even with us kids – a different generation I suppose?)

My cousin Diane and her husband Bert Mears were down to Sidney from Maumee Ohio for the day and that really helped with the psychological mood and gave mom a bit lift. We enjoy conversation most of the afternoon and didn’t even detect her tiring, something I would have expected with the pain medication. She had a very strong day … and the conversation was enjoyable as well.

It is tough to see her in a wheelchair and unable to walk; we all know that she needs to get some kind of physical therapy as seeing her feet swell and appetite disappear is difficult. We are hoping that with the major pain under some control that the doctors can begin to deal with these other areas. For now, I’m thankful not to see her in so much pain.

Category: Personal, Photos, Video | No Comments »
Tags: diane, family, momc