TECHNOLOGY: E-books are “interesting”

Monday, June 6, 2011

http://www.macworld.com/article/160120-2/2011/05/ebook_prices_outrage_innovation.html

E-Book prices fuel outrage — and innovation
by Narasu Rebbapragada, PCWorld May 30, 2011 9:00 am

*** begin quote ***

The evolution to digital will differ by publisher. Hachette’s Thomas anticipates, “Some print runs will decline, some will expand, and new readers (who were not previously regular physical book buyers) will enter the market because of the digital revolution.”

And only time will tell where in the pricing spectrum—from best-selling $25-plus hardbacks at one end to 99-cent music downloads at the other—e-book prices will settle. Some argue that there’s no incentive for publishers to cut prices. Despite the public protests, people are buying e-books in droves. Others point to the inevitable downward trend of digital content prices.

“It’s still a little bit like the Wild West out there,” says Brian Felsen of the current digital publishing landscape. But who lassos whom—publisher, retailer, or self-made author—remains to be seen.

*** end quote ***

Clearly, the inet is crashing existing business models.

If marketing is a “conversation”, then the model has to profit off that “conversation”. That’s what is important developing that community. Monetizing it is secondary.

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

MONEY: Alignment of motivations

Sunday, June 5, 2011

http://www.ricedelman.com/cs/pressroom/pressroom_detail?pressrelease.id=2431

Are Brokers Being Punished for Not Pushing Enough Product?
For Immediate Release
June 04, 2011

*** begin quote ***

It’s obvious how Merrill’s move might help shareholders: More revenue produces more profit. But it’s harder to see the value for clients. The only way brokers generate commissions is by selling investment products. That means the brokers must constantly pitch new products to their clients. Is that compatible with the clients’ financial goals?

*** end quote ***

Interesting? How do you see if your interests are aligned with those running your accounts?

Good luck.

Even if you’re just using your 401k to save for your retirement.

The company that “generously” provides your 401k is getting kick backs from the the fund company. The fund company is sticking you with fees and commissions that are probably illegal. And that’s just what we can “see”.

ENRON was a disaster for employees because they required you to contribute to your 401k and it had to go into their stock.

And, everyone was encourage to roll over their old 401ks into it. That’s how that pac tel guy managed to lose everything including his 1m$ 401k from his life’s employment with Pacific Telephone. Argh!

I admit I’m a bullion kinda guy. Silver, Gold, Nickels, Pennies, Platinum, Palladium … anything that you can hold in your hands. Even a can of beans!

You have to think that perhaps, just maybe, the 401k that your being offered maybe a “poison pill”. Especially if the Gooferment is gazing wistfully at the umpty ump trillions in “retirement savings”. Your “retirement” savings.

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

RANT: OBL was a convenient villan?

Sunday, June 5, 2011

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8527515/The-bin-Laden-hunter-ex-CIA-man-had-bin-Laden-in-his-sights-10-times.html

Pakistan
The bin Laden hunter: ex-CIA man had bin Laden in his sights 10 times
Terrorist hunter Michael Scheuer tells Duncan Gardham and Iain Hollingshead how he was repeatedly ordered not to stop the al-Qaeda chief.
9:00AM BST 21 May 2011

*** begin quote ***

There are not many sane people who can say with confidence that, had a president of America only listened to them, they could have saved $1.3 trillion and many hundreds of thousands of lives. Michael Scheuer can.

During his 22 years in the CIA – three and a half as head of a 18-man Osama bin Laden unit – he told his bosses at Langley on 10 occasions that he had a clear opportunity to kill or capture the terrorist chief. On all 10 he was told to hold his fire.

To look at Scheuer, 59, bespectacled, bearded and apparently every inch the academic and author he has become, you would not guess at his espionage past. The unit he led between 1995 and 1999 was codenamed Alec station, after his son, but it was nicknamed the “Manson family”, after the criminal Charles Manson, for the zeal with which it approached its task.

*** and ***

Three months later British and American special forces were at Tora Bora, bin Laden’s heavily defended cave complex in Afghanistan, when they heard his voice over a captured radio.

It was the last time they had a fix on him for nine years. The Afghans let bin Laden walk out of Tora Bora and head for Pakistan during a ceasefire.

Scheuer continued to act as an adviser to the bin Laden unit until 2004 when he resigned in disgust at the way in which the public was being lied to over the opportunities to capture the terrorist leader.

His books have pointed out the many failings of American policy in the Middle East, not least their inability to address the other causes of western unpopularity in the region while portraying a myopic image of bin Laden as a lunatic.

*** end quote ***

There’s no doubt the Gooferment, politicians, and bureaucrats manipulate “We, The Sheeple”.

Argh!

What a deadly joke.

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Ranting | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

QUOTE: Weltschmerz

Sunday, June 5, 2011

“Weltschmerz is a German word which loosely means “world suffering deriving from the inevitability of reality to never match up with our expectations.”

— Chuck Lorre Productions #5

# # # # #

Sigh, that’s what I’ve got now!

# – # – # – # – # 2011-Jun-04 @ 08:27

Leave a Comment » | Quotes | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

MONEY: BHO stole 5k$ from my wife

Saturday, June 4, 2011

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/whitewashing-the-auto-bailouts

Whitewashing the Auto Bailouts
Posted by Daniel Ikenson

*** begin quote ***

Any verdict on the outcome of the auto industry intervention must take into account, among other things, the billions of dollars in property confiscated from the auto companies’ debt-holders; the higher risk premium built into U.S. corporate debt as a result; the costs of denying the other, more successful auto producers the spoils of competition (including additional market share and access to the resources misallocated at Chrysler and GM); the costs of rewarding irresponsible actors (like the UAW) by insulating them from the outcomes of what should have been an apolitical bankruptcy proceeding; the effects of GM’s nationalization on production, investment, and public policy decisions; the diminution of U.S. moral authority to counsel foreign governments against market interventions that can adversely affect U.S. businesses competing abroad; and the corrosive impact on America’s institutions of the illegal diversion of TARP funds to achieve politically desirable outcomes.

*** end quote ***

In that “confiscated from the auto companies’ debt-holders” is her 5k$ in bonds in her IRA. (Against my advice!)

Usually very non-political, that really put a knot in her shorts.

Mine too.

Not that it was a lot of money. 5k$ was about a ⅓ of a month’s pay when I was flying high.

She worked hard for her money. Scrimped and saved. Denied herself stuff. Because she was always afraid of being poor again.

It used to be that 5k$ was a LOT of money. But the politicians and bureaucrats have inflated away that value.

And, I know everyone thinks I have a tin foil hat.

But when the Gooferment just takes your stuff because they can and you don’t get mad, well then who has the tin foil hat?

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

ADMINISTRIVIA: A blog that doesn’t …

Saturday, June 4, 2011

A blog, that doesn’t …

… allow comments, is a monolog.

Like a raving loon, standing on a crowded street, yelling!

The beauty of a blog is to allow the Universe, through the comments of your fellow internetters (internutters) to tell you that you’re nuts.

…

(Yeah, I know watching too much “Dharma and Greg”, but it’s very funny.)

http://nicholasnigro.blogspot.com/2011/06/not-going-home-againthis-70s-blog.html#comment-form

*** begin quote ***

While venturing downtown with an older sister to see the film Heaven Can Wait, starring Warren Beatty, in the summer of 1978, a woman was robbed at gunpoint—on the Number 1 train, in the middle of the afternoon, at the rather busy Lincoln Center station. And there wasn’t a police officers in eyeshot or earshot to come to her aid. A fiscal crisis had seen to that. Please forgive my cowardice in this instance, but being at once unarmed and fifteen-years-old, I just couldn’t summon the courage to chase after a guy brandishing both a handgun and a lady’s handbag. That very same summer, a neighbor a few doors down was shot at through his car windshield in the front of his house in the wee small hours of the morning. He ducked in the nick of time in what was, very fortunately, a failed robbery attempt. A few months later, the family next door was ransacked of all their valuable jewelry. Apartments and garages were regularly robbed, too, of their TVs, toasters, and bicycles. Oh, and the area’s parks were always in decay and by and large seedy.

*** end quote ***

Might the lawlessness be attributed to “We, The Sheeple” being denied the tools to defend themselves and their neighbors?

You know the politicians had armed bodyguards. But that’s denied to the common folks. The Mundanes. Like the Warsaw Ghetto Jews. To be murdered. Argh!

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | ADMINISTRIVIA | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: Using techonology to fight

Saturday, June 4, 2011

http://blip.tv/the-raxis-report/nh-clog-bill-d-s-speeding-ticket-trial-2571630

NH-CLOG: Bill D.’s speeding ticket trial
The Raxis Report

# – # – #

(1) Entertaining to use the Gooferment’s court to fight a ticket.

(2) Imagine if they had to do this for EVERY ticket? The system would grind to a halt.

So that how we have to fight. Make small battles too expensive. And, clog their “courts” so they can’t get to the big issues.

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Technology | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

RANT: BHO44 and D’s targeting the home mortgage deduction

Friday, June 3, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul2C8Gfj3Io

Dick Morris TV in the Morning! Goodbye Mortgage Interest Deductions

*** begin quote ***

Dick Morris explains the reasons behind the double dip in real estate and housing prices. He blames Obama’s plans to raise taxes and his efforts to repeal the mortgage interest deduction.

*** end quote ***

While I don’t care for him based on his personal flaws, when he talks politics, he’s a genius.

This “spending / borrowing / inflating” President is a snake!

How can the housing market recover if they do this?

“We” have to cut — cut spending, cut taxes, cut bureaucrats — but most of all cut the “barbara streisand”!

# # # # #

Leave a Comment » | Ranting | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

SERVICE: “MINUTES” made useful

Friday, June 3, 2011

http://minutes.io/

*** begin quote ***

Creating well-organized meeting minutes can be time-consuming, yet the best time to send those minutes is ASAP after the meeting has ended. Minutes.io simplifies this task very nicely. Pop open the webpage when the meeting begins and add clearly defined minutes as you go along.

*** end quote ***

Would seem to be useful.

# – # – # – # – # 2011-Jun-03 @ 11:57

Leave a Comment » | SERVICE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

RANT: Accidental citizen

Friday, June 3, 2011

http://nestmann.sovereignsociety.com/2011/05/26/the-perils-of-accidental-u-s-citizenship/

The Perils of “Accidental” U.S. Citizenship
Mark Nestmann (May 26, 2011)

*** begin quote ***

Compared to most other countries, it’s comparatively easy to acquire U.S. citizenship.

You become a U.S. citizen merely by birth within the geographic boundaries of the United States. In most cases, you’re also a U.S. citizen if you were born outside the United States, and at least one parent was a U.S. citizen or green card holder. In both these examples, citizenship is automatic. Generally, you need not take any affirmative action in order to acquire or retain U.S. nationality. Only in the case of naturalization after an extended period of legal residence in the United States do you need to make a petition for U.S. citizenship and passport.

The ease of acquiring U.S. citizenship by birth means that there are hundreds of thousands of “accidental” U.S. citizens roaming the world. Many of these individuals don’t realize they’re U.S. citizens.

*** end quote ***

A stunning disaster for this fellow. And, for us, as well.

We need to consider what makes “a citizen”.

Not that that is like to happen.

# – # – # – # – # 2011-May-27 @ 12:41

Leave a Comment » | Ranting | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »