meek-investor

You couldn't have missed the public fury over the Facebook IPO, over the last week, even if you not economically inclined !  Facebook was a darling before the IPO - great company, stratospheric valuations, etc etc, which this blogger has been heartily against. But now after the IPO , Facebook is a pariah, it botched up the IPO, lawsuits threatened, etc etc. This time this blogger is completely on the side of Facebook and totally flummoxed by the public reaction. What is the main charge ?  Facebook's price did not shoot up 10 times after the IPO. Instead it has declined by some 16% or so, over the IPO price, in the first week. The company has committed sacrilege. Really ?? Who are the moaners and bleaters. The punters who bought in the IPO wanting to sell on the first day after listing and make a 5000% profit. Please tell me why the company has any obligations to these greedy leeches ? What economic activity have these speculators done (never mind that in this lot might be Oreg...

We love LA. Century Boulevard? We love it. Victory Boulevard? We love it. Santa Monica Boulevard? We love it. Sixth Street? We love it. That street where a hooker beat me up with her dick after I called her out for selling me Baking Soda instead of cocaine WHO DOES S/HE THINK I AM , A RUBE?!?! We love it. That’s why for this edition of The Business, we got some of the finest comics currently residing in the City of Angels to drop by: Andy Haynes was born in the shadows of Mt. Rainier in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, raised on salmon and caffeine. He now lives in Los Angeles, where he works as comedian, and writer. Part camp counselor, part debate team captain, he’s bringing his immature take on serious issue to audiences around the English speaking world. With recent performances on the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show, and at the New Faces showcase at the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival, Andy is becoming a must see performer. Nick Turner is a humble ...

Its the world's ninth largest economy. Its six times the size of Greece. Its actually bigger than India. And its hopelessly bust . Yet; we aren't hearing much about it. Only because ,  its not a country. Its a state. The State of California. The world's biggest basket case ! This has been a favourite topic of mine having blogged before here and here . California has a state budget of some $90 bn. And it just projected a deficit of $15 bn. What sort of an economy runs a deficit of 18% of the budget ?? This has been going on for years . And what does that state do - simply borrow . And borrow. And borrow.  And with no hope of ever bridging that gap. If California had its own currency, I would be merrily shorting it. It would be a prime candidate for begging at IMF's door.  For once you can't blame the political leaders for the mess, although they are the ones being vilified and quartered. The blame must squarely rest on the citizens of California. For they are the on...

The Business gets feral this week. Our corporate office will be inundated with wild animals, as Sam Tallent, Cameron Vannini and Dr. Foxmeat get all up in our habitat. Since all bios for Dr. Foxmeat have been either scratched into bark or howled at the moon, there is n o written record from which to draw data. What we can conclude is that he is from Arcata, California on some kind of southward trek (which is weird, cause harvest isn’t for months). Cameron Vannini is a dapper, young SF comic and philanthropist. Also known as the San Francisco Treat, Cameron performs regularly at the SF Punchline and is a AAA card member (even though he doesn't have a license). He has been spotted at Cobb's Comedy club, the San Jose Improv, and the Sacramento Punchline. Ingredients include the 2010 SF International Comedy competition and semi finalist in 2010 SJ Improv comedy competition. Sam Tallent's from Denver. Alex Koll and him have done some very bad things together...

The Hon'ble Supreme Court of India is a very esteemed body and is concerned with matters of grave constitutional importance, on which hinges the future of this nation of 1.2 billion people.  Therefore when this august body makes a ruling, we should take it very seriously and comply. It also goes without saying that the Supreme Court only rules on extremely weighty matters and does not lend itself to trivialisation. It is therefore very clear that the removal of sun films from car windows is one of the most important and pressing of issues that confronts India today. The Supreme Court has ruled, after intense deliberation, and careful consideration of legal issues that pasting a sun film on your car window is illegal . That it has devoted its valuable time to this, while it is suffering from a massive backlog of cases is enough evidence that this is an extremely grave matter. A very concerned citizen of India, Mr  Avishek Goenka (it is completely untrue,  that the aforesai...

Making small digital news providers sustainable has become the holy grail of journalists and the search continues for workable business models and revenue streams. Advertising may produce some revenue, but it will never generate sufficient resources to support digital journalism because so little advertising money is available for sites with small audiences. About three-quarters of all online advertising goes to the top 10 sites and Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo account for about 60 percent of all online revenue. This leaves very little advertising expenditures to be contested among all other players--of which news providers are only a small fraction. At the same time, the prices paid for online advertising are falling because there are so many sites offering advertising, the advertising inventory is nearly infinite, and audiences continue fragmenting. This means the majority of funding for start-up digital journalism must come from elsewhere and online news sites—especially s...

This blogger is rather vain about his English. And yet he was completely flummoxed when he spotted the headline " JP Morgan loses $2bn in egregious error " . He has to sheepishly admit that he did not know the meaning of the word "egregious" and had to look it up in a dictionary :( Trust a banker to come up with an unintelligible world - at least unintelligible to one "master" of English :). It sums up the problem neatly. The financial world has gone so bonkers in dreaming up structures of incredible and ununderstandable complexity that we cannot sit by and watch this go on anymore. JP Morgan is a well respected bank. Its governance is top class. It should be one of the models of all that is good about the financial sector. In  Jamie Dimon, it has one of the finest Chief Executives in the world. It has superb risk management systems, strengthened even more in the wake of the financial crisis of 3 years ago. And what happens - it manages to lose $2bn in  on...

Statutory Warning - This post has language which may be offensive to some. Reader discretion is advised ! Why is the  Finance Minister  an angry old man  - approximate translation of the title of this post for non Indians. He is one of the most mature and level headed politicians in India. And yet, these days, he is behaving like an "old f&*% with that perpetual scowl on his face" - you can see zillions of this category in any apartment owners' association in India. Either he has gone a bit batty or has let Ramamritham loose - both of which are awful developments for India I am referring to their collective antics relating to the tax laws in India. The Vodafone story is now well known and is the subject of an earlier post of mine. Pranabda is simply being extremely churlish and petty in pursuing this. I continue to be amazed that they are going after Vodafone (which was the buyer in this transaction and made no capital gain) rather than the seller, Hutchison Telecom,...

Should we worry about India's economy ? Yes says Sriram , a friend and a most prolific and versatile blogger. He makes two or three posts a day  and has wide and original views on a number of issues.  On India's economy, he says "Less than a fortnight into the hundred days in India, the more I observed, the more I wondered whether India's economic "success" story was more hype than real.  That line of thinking morphed into to this column in which I wrote that "the economic health of India is not looking good." Every day, evidence seemed to pile on to further reinforce the impression that India could run into some serious economic troubles really soon.  I was particularly concerned that the country was not paying enough attention to the long-term requirements of resources, energy, and infrastructure ." You can read his full post here . Yes there's much to worry and despair about. We have made some progress, but make disproportionate n...

Where on earth is Omaha ?? I must confess I had to look it up on a map. God - its in the middle of nowhere. Who on earth wants to go to Nebraska anyway. Well, this weekend, all roads lead to Omaha, if you are a certain type who likes to make money. For its the annual jamboree of Berkshire Hathway, and one old man named Warren Buffett. I really don't understand why anybody wants to go to that blessed event. I mean, can there be any excuse for wanting to go to Nebraska ?? For God's sake ! To listen to words of wisdom from the "Oracle of Omaha" ?? Please, spare me the thought. Warren Buffett is no sage. In any case, if the multitude that go there even care to listen to him, they wouldn't be going there in the first place. For after all, he has been saying for donkeys years , don't listen to self proclaimed sages. Don't go on tips and hunches. Do research. Invest for the long term , etc etc. Everybody goes there to get tips on investing. They haven't under...

This week the Business loses Chris and Chris, but welcomes back two local faves Anna Seregina and Rajeev Dhar to make up for our Chris-less-ness. Anna Seregina is a San Francisco-based stand-up comic and performer. She was born in Moscow, Russia, which could explain her deep-rooted cynicism. It could also explain nothing. After being involved in theater and improv for nearly a decade and being funny for nearly a lifetime, she decided to take the plunge into stand-up comedy. Her style can nearly be defined as vocal and un-lady-like, drawing heavily on what little life experience she has. She has been described as having the “worst aura.” Most facts about her are true. Most truths about her are facts. Rajeev Dhar (Phd) has a Tumblr page, but it's password protected, so I couldn't lift his bio from it word-for-word like I did Anna's. Regardless, he is very funny and runs the Tuesday night comedy show called The Break Room at Amnesia in the Mission, not far fr...