Got an email the other day from a friend who works at Tektronix... said that Tek just laid off a bunch of people Monday. So the slowdown has not only hit the tech front line, but also their suppliers (like Tek).
The things about tech is, when the economy is bad companies invest in tech to cut labor and become more efficient. So tech will ultimately be fine. That's where I'd want to be right now.
Sort of like that dude in the lawn chair with all the balloons. How can it fail?
Have you heard about Cisco's video conference product?
They'll rent you a flat screen tv, computer, microphone, and webcam for about $200,000 annually if you have a promotional code, and then you can do meetings with a similarly equipped room without actually flying anywhere.
They're cisco so they must have the lowest cost and that business is impregnable. We're in a web 2.0 economy here bro
The important point of CR's graph is the spike seen after the '81-82 recession. We're not going to have anything like that. As everyone here knows, the current decline in RI is based on the collapsing of a bubble rather than a recession artificially induced by the Fed raising s.t. interest rates. But everyone here does not make up blue chip economists and their forecasts for recovery by next year, 2010, or anything shorter than a decade. Throw all your models out the window, or bring that chart back to the '30s.
Anonymouse,
It's worse than you think. Far too many economists tout forecasts of bad 08q4, 09q1 and then remarkable spring bounce recovery for summer 09
It is the hoopajoops on the Fed balance sheet that allows them to infinitely expand the money supply without inflation - due to the hoopajoop LTD S^4 technology - the patented Sterilized Schroedinger Superposition State allows money to both exist and not exist at the same time (as long as nobody looks at it).
If we have to pay north of 10% sales tax, I'm shoplifting the difference. Just every month or so pocketing something at Target or Albertsons.
Influence peddlers better tell meathead to lay off the proles. We wrecked Davis for less and we'll draw and quarter your ass if needed.
If we get sales tax north of 10%, I will be buying everything that's not food over the net.
Maybe this will be the crisis that gets everyone re-thinking about how great Prop. 13 is.
This afternoon I heard from the director of an agency that issues debt for public infrastructure that Nancy Pelosi is sending out emails saying that the lame duck Congress is definitely going to try to push through a stimulus package with infrastructure spending.
Unrelated to that, do not know if any of you follow these reports, but they have some good general information about Treasury debt.
EHP, ave you heard about Cisco's video conference product?
I used it this year.
It is AWESOME.
I did videoconferencing work in the mid-nineties but this Cisco system is truly like you're in the same room. We did a videoconference with several folks in China.
Basel Too,
I was going to bring it up myself, but nice to see you remember that I was Time Magazine's Man of the Year.
CR,
Neat chart for equipment + residential, however you know better and as Anonymouse already said most of those RE downturns were initiated by interest rate increases and followed by typical weaning of inventory with lower rates recessions. Logically RE does not have to have returns proportional to software
They are apparently proposing a time limit for using the money, so the agencies are scrambling to figure out which projects they are going to spend it on.
Broward Horne,
It may be fine, but they either have to create an option to buy or lower their lease rates
see, even crispy&cole could see the business plan flaw.
Even if you go for the full custom soundproof room construction with 3 60" plasmas, and THX 20 speaker surround sound. The capital and labour costs are covered with a few days of lease payments
Living over the hill from Silicon Valley, the tech workers I know are plenty worried -- just not affected yet.
Something like 12,000 of our 55,000 citizens commute to the SV and get their money from over there instead of from our pathetic local service economy.
When the valley starts massive layoffs, we'll feel it bigtime, and so will real estate. Right now nothing's selling, but few seem desperate to sell, either.
bond girl,
From your treasury link FY 2009 Marketable Borrowing Range*** 1,100 - 2,100 (numbers in billions of USD)
yikes.
As for the infrastructure, that's a tough timeline (I hear of a Jan 20 deadline target)
First the government needs to have a clue, then they need to send RFCs to see if feasible, followed by RFPs to get some bidding, then they have to negotiate and sign the details all during what is the biggest holiday period of the year when no work is getting done.
Expect a lot of lame stuff that was already on the books within the next 2 years being reallocated over to this plan to save the governments money
Stock Mutual Funds Get $2.2 Billion, First Deposits Since July
By Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam
Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Stock mutual funds attracted $2.2 billion in the past week after equity values surged, giving them their first net deposits since July, according to estimates from TrimTabs Investment Research.
Funds that invest in the U.S. companies garnered $2.3 billion in the week ended Nov. 5, compared with withdrawals of $7.05 billion during the prior week, according to Sausalito, California-based TrimTabs. Withdrawals from funds focused on non- U.S. stocks narrowed to $140 million from $2.2 billion.
The net inflow followed a rise of 10.5 percent by the Standard & Poor's 500 Index in the final week of October, the benchmark's biggest weekly jump in 34 years.
Why not just buy a couple of $100 webcams and do it over the internet for a whole lot less?
Because it's not the same. The Cisco system captures true points-of-view. When somebody on the other side is watching the guy next to you, you can see it. His eyes are focused on the guy next to you.
The sound was excellent. It uses three large LCD screens to project the illusion of a room on the other side of a conference table.
It really is quite remarkable.
We finished our call and people on our side broke into private conversations. The Chinese side began talking among themselves and the next thing I knew, we had informal cross-call conversations going on, just like we were at a party.
Manufacturing costs is high for initial products but the actual production of the Cisco system could probably fall to a few thousand dollars in four or five years.
It's really just some LCD teevees and sophisticated sound circuits.
Currently Smoking Cannabis writes:
If we have to pay north of 10% sales tax...
Its not tax, its "sacrifice". Thats how the new prez puts it. Get used to seeing more "sacrifice" once the revenue crisis hits Washington. The problems in the states are only the preliminaries to the main event.
Comrade Dope Paul in SB writes:
If we get sales tax north of 10%, I will be buying everything that's not food over the net.
Oregon has no sales tax at all. This means more Northern Californians driving to the border to do their shopping, one would assume. Cheap gas + high sales tax differential = good times.
I don't know about South Park this year. Last nights episode was the best of the season, but I didn't really get Barrack smuggling the hope diamond in his ass. Randy Marsh cracks me up though.
I say this because many years ago I worked for a company that was big on meetings and meetings about future meetings and more meetings...all we did was meet.
(there was never any time to screw off on the internet)
Actually the hoopajoop ETF is 2x short AND 2x long at the same time - the patented S^4 technology allows this otherwise impossible superposition of states - as long as no one looks inside the box...
crispy&cole,
There is some very important adaptive noise canceling filtering happening, but it doesn't cost as much as cisco is pricing it
Basically Cisco's plan is to put these meeting rooms in airports and hotels and rent them by the hour. Also to lease some at major companies, but they've got to be making at least 100% markup on the lease within the first year and all gravy after that.
So it's a good product, but their view is they are competing directly with the airlines companies spend millions on annually and they have the advantage of less time/discomfort spent traveling
It took the USG a long time to get the stimulus checks out the last time. It's pointless to try and rush something, especially during the holidays. Remember how the California official who told Schwarzenegger he couldn't cut pay temporarily because it would take too much time and money to change the computers? I'm sure the USG is at least as efficient.
EvilHenryPaulson writes:
So it's a good product, but their view is they are competing directly with the airlines companies spend millions on annually and they have the advantage of less time/discomfort spent traveling
Now if they could just perfect virtual sex-tourism technology, I'd never need to leave the house.
The portion of the hoopajoop which is invested in a 2x short ETF hoopajoop fund is hedged by the same position, because the hoopajoop short fund is self-hedged by shorts in itself, which in turn are shorted in a subsequent fund that contains the original hoopajoop. This single instrument which is synthetically divided into two halves, each of which shorts the other, can climb to the sky in value in much the same way that two individuals can climb to the heavens by sequentially standing on each other's shoulders, or, in the case of the short fund, by both agreeing to dig a hole at the bottom of a hole the other has dug.
Broward Horne - No offense, but waste the money? Does it really add that much value or profit to your company?
At the current price point, no. But Moore's law is still in effect and I expect that the system could be created profitably for a reasonable sum.
There's two aspect to consider - intertional use because flight times are exceedingly long.
But one thing I've noticed with cell phones is that once they became pervasive, they changed behavior. Nobody can plan more than 24 hours ahead now. I am amazed at the expectation that instant meetings can take place within hours of scheduling.
This technology is similar. Instead of planning flights, hotels, bookings and travel, you can initiate an instant meeting.
It will be a few more years before it's widely used. It accomplishes what we tried to do during the mid-nineties but we had bandwidth constraints and sound problems (echo, etc).
The Chinese lead had his cell phone on the table and I could READ the manufacturer label on it. Really impressive.
So it's a good product, but their view is they are competing directly with the airlines companies spend millions on annually and they have the advantage of less time/discomfort spent traveling.
As a veteran of offshore development, I started my first project in India with a 2,000 baud modem and a custom BBS.
Faster communications and later video come in really handy but there is in the end no substitute for real person to person interaction. You can reduce it significantly with new tools but the less personal contact the less emotional accountability. Having lunch and dinner together still counts for an awful lot in my book and produces real world results.
I personally do not understand the deadline. I mean, I get the logic, because they are trying to counter the criticism that this type of stimulus does not have an immediate effect. But state and local governments are going to have to use it on projects that are already pretty far in the planning process - i.e., projects that already have an identified source of funding and were probably going to happen anyway. I suppose it is better than giving Goldman Sachs bonus money though.
TI get the impression that to your thinking peak oil as a concept requires that oil prices can never go down - is that your position?
Uggg... Does anybody ever get sick of talking about peak oil? This sounds like the global warming debate: everything is proof positive. Oil goes up: PEAK OIL IS HERE!! Oil goes down: MOMENTARY DIP BEFORE TSHTF!! BUY BUY BUY!!
Broward Horne,
The bandwidth may have played a role in lag (due to compressing/uncompressing video) back in the day, but the echo is the noise canceling DSP
They're using some patents one of my former professors owns. Basically the challenge is to compression-quality-time delay/cost
They're mostly pricing it expensively because they can find buyers. Just like luxury brand retail
I say this because many years ago I worked for a company that was big on meetings and meetings about future meetings and more meetings...all we did was meet
That's the nature of people, man.
There's a certain level of coordination and information transmission that's necessary to get any organization to work. It's hard to find the right balance.
Most people don't think of it the same way that I do but you can demonstrate that certain levels of communication are actually more efficient than others.
One manager who acts as an information filter can actual decrease the net necessary communcation in a group and make it more reliable, faster and more efficient.
Bond Girl, http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/Small%20Business_7_24_08.pdf
Mark Zandi of Moody's says that General State Aid has a GDP multiplier of 1.36 and increasing infrastructure spending has a multiplier of 1.59, so if they were trying to do Keynesian stimulus, the numbers say that's a good way to go.
The deadline is of course politics, and in the worst case scenario it's just chalked up as general state aid
I saw some commentary suggesting that Nortel is on the ropes, in part due to pension issues. The gist was that Nortel wants to sell its main businesses to get the cash, which would leave the company a shell of itself. It appears a liquidation whether voluntary or not, is in the cards.
"Oregon has no sales tax at all. This means more Northern Californians driving to the border to do their shopping, one would assume. Cheap gas + high sales tax differential = good times."
Not many Californians living within 100 miles of the Oregon border and once you cross it, where are you? Ashland. I don't think a lot of this'll be happening. Just not worth it for most people.
Internet sales -- that's another matter. Another kick in the balls to California retail.
Zombie Panda,
Nortel is finally decently reorganized but they need to catch a telecom boom again. Products are competitive. I have a lot of people I could ask, but I don't know about the selling of units right now. They're keeping their costs down by firing the older workers, they hire a lot of new grads each year
I wouldn't be surprised about some kind of harsh capital raising.
Once telecom companies decide to roll out 4G/Wimax they'll do well (keep in mind they have to upgrade their whole stream to handle the greater bandwidth, not just the towers), but that's not happening with bad credit conditions for telecoms.
Bond Girl,
EHP/EVP, I understand both. I mistype it's/its more than I like, but I just let it be
As for a drop in the bucket, yeah but this is a politician's dream. The ability and freedom to spend money without questioning. The hangover will be rough
Clearly a disaster if the manager fails.
Some redundancy is good, even in government agencies.
Clearly.
Everything is a mix. That's a simply example I put together really to show information inefficient in a free market. There's a reason that we don't have true free markets.
That's also a reason to justify regulation. The manager has exposure to all information and therefore can make the best decisions. But the worker nodes only received a subset of info from the manager.
There's a fudiciary responsibility there, really. The manager has an obligation to not exploit his position at the expense of the team.
Bob Dobbs writes:
Living over the hill from Silicon Valley, the tech workers I know are plenty worried -- just not affected yet.
plenty of 2nd homes/vaction retreats in that mix, not owned by the locals. Also Carmel really blew up after the dot com crash in 2001, lots of 2nd homes that had to be sold due to margin and layoffs.
So that was about a 41 million share offering...AH hours taking WFC down another 5% and change (almost to the $27/share from the offering)
Wells Fargo Raises $11 Billion to Fund Wachovia Deal (Update1)
By Elizabeth Hester
Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Wells Fargo & Co., the biggest bank on the U.S. West Coast, raised $11 billion in a stock sale to help fund its purchase of Wachovia Corp., exceeding its estimate for the offering.
The bank sold 407.5 million shares for $27 each, 6.2 percent below today's closing price of $28.77, according to a company statement. The company may sell an additional 61 million shares if demand warrants. The San Francisco-based lender had planned to raise $10 billion.
The U.S. Treasury bought $25 billion of Wells Fargo's preferred shares in October as part of its rescue of the banking industry. Wells Fargo is expanding its deposit base to the East Coast and creating the biggest U.S. bank by branches with its purchase of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia.
Influence peddlers better tell meathead to lay off the proles. We wrecked Davis for less and we'll draw and quarter your ass if needed.
Currently Smoking Cannabis | Homepage | 11.06.08 - 5:40 pm | #
I have some dear friends at Apple, some FT, some contractors. The contractors who were about to be picked up permenantly were told "opps!" today. They finish their contracts and are out the door come the 1/1/09. Hiring can only be done by Jobs directly now.
Now that the FT folk have had it happen close to home, they are panicing too. I'm getting the crazy calls - Xmas vacations are being voluntarily cancelled, xmas shopping lists being pulled back, "do you mind if we uninvite your date to the wedding because we really don't know them well and we need to save as much money as possible now?" etc. It's nuts.
And then this fear factor jumped to friends in other companies like Intel... you get the picture >; (
These are all people who told me as recently as last week that nothing bad could ever happen to them. What a difference a day makes eh?
While I fully expect tech spending to continue its decline over the next year or so - the best companies actually increase their tech spending in a recession to gain competitive advantage in both - market share and productivity. Every point in market share and productivity you can gain now by tech spending will be well spent. Unfortunately for most tech companies its usually a tough sell.
If there was a list of companies increasing their tech spending in the coming year - I'd start with those as my possible investments when the market finally does bottom.
Misean - I am not saying its all overvalued, I am a big believer in it...but when things get tough and budgets get tight, a phone in the middle of a conference room with a speaker will work just as well as a $200,000 cisco system.
" ron writes:
Bob Dobbs writes:
Living over the hill from Silicon Valley, the tech workers I know are plenty worried -- just not affected yet.
plenty of 2nd homes/vaction retreats in that mix, not owned by the locals. Also Carmel really blew up after the dot com crash in 2001, lots of 2nd homes that had to be sold due to margin and layoffs.
ron | Homepage | 11.06.08 - 6:56 pm | # "
Yes, there's a lot of that in Santa Cruz, and I'm waiting for it to happen. Also a lot of investor-owned "vacation rental" homes near the water that sit empty most of the time; I expect them to start turning over when folks no longer want to plop down $3500 a week (in summer) for a house that's walking distance to Steamer Lane.
We have two dedicated meeting rooms with the Cisco system in the med center I work at. One in Finance which I understand they use for insurer, Medicare meetings, etc. One off the doctors lounge where the doctors can consult with other physicians worldwide and we have yet another system in the robotic surgery suite where the surgeons, who are university faculty, teach robotic surgery worldwide. Cisco worked closely with da Vinci Surgical Systems to customize the system so it can track both the hand movements and the internal robotic arm on a split screen.
The only really useful piece of high tech equipment I've acquired recently was a jammer to jam all the other junk SV has developed to make a slave
on the company plantation.
Had to send away to China for it too.
Now when I let people see how 'free' I am when it is on they want one too.
My point is somewhat different. The Cisco system and the phone have internal differences, but for the cluser there is little learning curve to talk on it. It's those other features. They don't get used, because the cluser doesn't care/want to learn them.
Same with computer systems and software.
I still get calls like,
cluser: Misean, when I open this file it's all jibberish.
Misean: Is it a pdf?
cluser: Yes.
Misean: Are you using Word?
cluser: Is there something else?
Even though all Winblows programs have similar menu system, since it's Adobe, I just get:
Well I don't know how to use that.
Some classics:
Lady calls BOFH HQ and says computer isn't working. Send tech to location. He calls back. Problem-monitor was powered off.
Moving a cluser to new desk with new monitor.
cluser: "How are you going to get all my stuff on the new monitor.
cluser: Misean, the power must have gone off last night and my computer won't come on.
Misean: Did you power it back up?
cluser: Yes the light on the monitor is flashing, but there's nothing there.
Misean: How about that box underneath your desk?
cluser: Oh, I don't like to touch that. Do I have to?
crispy&cole,
Those triangle shaped conference phones are also hundreds of dollars.
It's what you get for being 'enterprise'
Since we have lots of satellite offices we just upgraded from the triangle to one of the video systems that looks like Simon Says.
We have a monster flat screen and it all works surprisingly well. You feel like the people are in the same room with you.
We make a joke out of it and do product placements during the meetings so we have all our beverages, snacks, and office supplies placed in front of the camera with their labels prominently displayed for the other office.
I like her conclusion: Companies with cogent business models that provide consumer value should survive / thrive consumers need value more than they have needed it in a long time
Translation:
"The companies that don't go out of business, and can sell stuff cheaply, will do well. Consumers are broke."
ac,
If you want to have some fun next time, pretend there is a big time lag (like you would see with a reporter on the news via satellite)
The time lag was the biggest hurdle to commercialization other than echo. All my profs that did DSP or controls (basically ANC) had such low tolerances for echo/feedback when using a mic. It literally haunts them I think
I can see the value in the Cisco system when it is surgeons conducting remote instructions. That is a radical increase in productivity given the cost per hour of a surgeon's time. On the other hand, why the need for the gold-plated system in the lounge area, where the fine-grained resolution is less likely to add value.
As someone who has worked in finance for 14 years, there's no way the finance team needs that kind of bling. That's just a status symbol for the finance types.
After being all cash for over a year, I jumped back in this morning. Bought DXD at the opening bell. I am now 90% cash and 10% DXD. I was merely lucky that it got a nice pop today, of course, but I am convinced this sucker's going down. I'll hold my DXD all the way down to 6000.
ac,
If you want to have some fun next time, pretend there is a big time lag (like you would see with a reporter on the news via satellite)
The time lag was the biggest hurdle to commercialization other than echo. All my profs that did DSP or controls (basically ANC) had such low tolerances for echo/feedback when using a mic. It literally haunts them I think
Well my team just uses it for meetings where it's totally unnecessary. We have status updates in the morning; the visual feedback is totally unnecessary so I don't think any appearance of lag would cause a problem.
I'm trying to think of some other things we could do. Maybe some how splice an earlier recording into the feed or something.
Needless to say anytime somebody starts to nod off we instantly zoom the camera in on them and they become the main feature.
I anxiously await the reaction of house prices to the drop in Tech stock prices.
In the Los Gatos neighborhood where I sold my house in 2005, prices have miraculously levitated until now. However, I notice that suddenly there are 8 For-Sale signs in a neighborhood that might have 6 of them during the height of the busy spring/summer selling season.
None of them are moving. I attribute that largely to tight and expensive credit. But plummeting tech stock prices will only hasten the price decline. Things are going to drop VERY fast when these folks start losing their jobs too.
Silicon Valley, and therefore California in general, are in for some serious trouble. The aspects of the economy that have held up so far are about to collapse.
Looks like Glodman Sachs theory of "Peak Finance" was blown out in El-Lay:
Layoffs Watch '08: Goldman West
Posted by Bess Levin, Nov 06, 2008, 5:28pm
Having been previously under the impression that Goldman Sachs's Los Angeles office was a lost tribe in the Amazon, never exposed to civilization and insulated to the trubs of the modern world in which we live, we were extremely surprised to hear that they were not spared from yesterday's carnage. Apparently GS LA, which heretofore apparently employed about fifty bankers, laid off "everyone except for a few senior guys" this morning.
In the Los Gatos neighborhood where I sold my house in 2005, prices have miraculously levitated until now. However, I notice that suddenly there are 8 For-Sale signs in a neighborhood that might have 6 of them during the height of the busy spring/summer selling season."
Short, I think you get the Seriously Committed award for the path you've traveled. Your friends probably called you crazy back in '05. Now, not so much.
Although I doubt that Los Gatos will ever be exactly cheap.
Not sure why this is news. I graduated from school (Computer Science) in August 2007, and started my job hunt soon afterward. Lots of crazy stuff (sudden hiring freezes, new position being eliminated, suddenly cancel interview after they purchased tickets, etc).
I could see this trainwreck coming. Hiring will be slow coming back (at least in the US). We never really recovered from the 2001 slowdown until about 2004. And even then, entry level hiring NEVER recovered. I base that on conversations with my friends in the field, and classmates graduating and looking for jobs.
"Having been previously under the impression that Goldman Sachs's Los Angeles office was a lost tribe in the Amazon, never exposed to civilization and insulated to the trubs of the modern world in which we live,"
I think this sentence pretty much illustrates how much of LA views businesses and property values here. Perhaps that will now begin to change. . .
All the attention is on electronic tech but biotech ain't doing so well either. I guess a lot of the start ups
are going to go bust as they can't raise anymore money.
"8 Pounds of Chocolate writes:
I'm not even that old, and even I've already lived through two "Silicon Valley is dying!" episodes. Someday I'm sure it'll be true but....?"
Who said die? It goes, it comes.
Back in '93 - '94 I was contracting at Tandem on the Cupertino/Santa Clara border near Tantau, and there were so many empty buildings around there -- some entire campuses -- that homeless guys were sleeping in the landscaping. Nobody home to toss them out.
Three or four years later, every bit of that space was occupied -- or had been torn down and replaced by something new.
Bob Dobbs writes: Short, I think you get the Seriously Committed award for the path you've traveled. Your friends probably called you crazy back in '05. Now, not so much.
Although I doubt that Los Gatos will ever be exactly cheap.
Actually, I think Los Gatos will get as much as 40-50% cheaper than the peak... But even if it doesn't go down at all, our cash (from selling) has grown enough to buy back the same house without credit...that's thanks to this site, books on financial history, and all the contrarians and bears that got the word out as early as 2004-5.
But in 93-94 the credit bubble still had years to run. The laundering of our trade and fiscal deficits into mortgage products had not yet started and you could not buy a house with nothing down.
This time we have really hit the wall and it will be 'different'.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Mattel Inc. said Thursday it is cutting about 1,000 positions worldwide because of the economic downturn that is clouding the holiday outlook for toy makers.
Friday is gonna be a doozy.
The jobs numbers are going to suck.
GM is going to go up in flames.
The markets will poop themselves.
People will be anxious because Obama is still warming up in the bullpen.
Can we wait? What can we do?
And before January, this place is going full-on, all-out Roman-style sacking of major cities.
I actually had the Cisco idea for restaurants and nightclubs years ago, so you could party with your friends across the country. Thought it would be pretty cool.
Don't think it needs to cost that much, either, though.
But then again, it makes people miss all the fun of traveling, really getting to know their business partners, going out and getting drunk together, etc...
And we held teleconferences and online business meetings 30 years ago, so it's really not a big new deal. Sometimes it's more fun to be able to have them while you're in your underwear and fuzzy slippers. ;^)
"What if [sic] their was peak food' what would prices do? Would they go up and down as much as oil?"
My counterexample to the idea that oil prices are a futures-driven phenomenon are the much larger rises in commodities with no futures market at all...
This was something I wrote about back in July, hence the prices. Picking out 3 years of data and cherrypicking some notable outperformers:
Crude oil - $50 to $125, vs.
Cobalt - $12 to 45
Chrome - $0.50 to 2.50
Magnesium - $0.60 to $2.40
Manganese - $0.25 to $1.50
Tin - $3 to $11
Scrap iron's quadrupled in 3 years. Molybdenum prices have fallen back now, but they were an 8-bagger from 2003 - 2004. You'll never hear the term used, but the US probably passed peak phosphorus in 1988.
This is industrial and agricultural demand. You and I just haven't needed to give a shit about moly and phosphate prices because, well, that's someone else's problem for now.
yarn sales are up for knitting sweaters when the fuel bill does not get paid and for the knitted presents to everyone over the holidays. Go long yarn and sheep.
In answer to the question about $12.00/barrel oil in '98, I think it was caused by Saudi's taking the price so low it would drive the Russians out of the business. It did the trick for a few years, as the Russians stopped drilling, and skipped maintenence. Made a mess of their oil ecomomy. Of course, we prodded the Saudis a little bit too. Played hell with the domestic drillers though.
100 year something
Dory? Marlin?
Once again...old myths are going to die, like the one about tech being immune to an economic slowdown.
Judging from the morning, mid-day, and afternoon traffic around Silicon Valley...
There is no recession here, yet.
I was at lunch so I missed the comments on Arnold raising the state sales tax...that really pisses me off!!!
Nemo - those people are driving around to job interviews.
Thank you for the comedy relief, CR!
Got an email the other day from a friend who works at Tektronix... said that Tek just laid off a bunch of people Monday. So the slowdown has not only hit the tech front line, but also their suppliers (like Tek).
If we have to pay north of 10% sales tax, I'm shoplifting the difference. Just every month or so pocketing something at Target or Albertsons.
Influence peddlers better tell meathead to lay off the proles. We wrecked Davis for less and we'll draw and quarter your ass if needed.
The things about tech is, when the economy is bad companies invest in tech to cut labor and become more efficient. So tech will ultimately be fine. That's where I'd want to be right now.
Sort of like that dude in the lawn chair with all the balloons. How can it fail?
I get so tired of 'my industry is immune in a recession.' No one is immune. We've just all forgotten what a real recession is.
Hoopajoops are immune to recession, and I will not tolerate your libellous implication otherwise, Nanook.
Have you heard about Cisco's video conference product?
They'll rent you a flat screen tv, computer, microphone, and webcam for about $200,000 annually if you have a promotional code, and then you can do meetings with a similarly equipped room without actually flying anywhere.
They're cisco so they must have the lowest cost and that business is impregnable. We're in a web 2.0 economy here bro
we still need to eat in a depression....going long on sunshine and water and dirt...
The important point of CR's graph is the spike seen after the '81-82 recession. We're not going to have anything like that. As everyone here knows, the current decline in RI is based on the collapsing of a bubble rather than a recession artificially induced by the Fed raising s.t. interest rates. But everyone here does not make up blue chip economists and their forecasts for recovery by next year, 2010, or anything shorter than a decade. Throw all your models out the window, or bring that chart back to the '30s.
I know that a sure sign that tech is doing poorly is when employees start eatin the chips for food. If that is starting to occur, watch out.
Anonymouse,
It's worse than you think. Far too many economists tout forecasts of bad 08q4, 09q1 and then remarkable spring bounce recovery for summer 09
We're in a web 2.0 economy here
Seems so long ago that I was Time's "Person of the Year."
A-mouse,
But we still might get the interest rate spike! lol
It is the hoopajoops on the Fed balance sheet that allows them to infinitely expand the money supply without inflation - due to the hoopajoop LTD S^4 technology - the patented Sterilized Schroedinger Superposition State allows money to both exist and not exist at the same time (as long as nobody looks at it).
Sham-WOW!
Is there a hoopajoop double short ETF I can buy?
If we have to pay north of 10% sales tax, I'm shoplifting the difference. Just every month or so pocketing something at Target or Albertsons.
Influence peddlers better tell meathead to lay off the proles. We wrecked Davis for less and we'll draw and quarter your ass if needed.
If we get sales tax north of 10%, I will be buying everything that's not food over the net.
Maybe this will be the crisis that gets everyone re-thinking about how great Prop. 13 is.
This afternoon I heard from the director of an agency that issues debt for public infrastructure that Nancy Pelosi is sending out emails saying that the lame duck Congress is definitely going to try to push through a stimulus package with infrastructure spending.
Unrelated to that, do not know if any of you follow these reports, but they have some good general information about Treasury debt.
U.S. Treasury - Office of Domestic Finance
(click on the November 2008 report, source data is below that)
EHP, ave you heard about Cisco's video conference product?
I used it this year.
It is AWESOME.
I did videoconferencing work in the mid-nineties but this Cisco system is truly like you're in the same room. We did a videoconference with several folks in China.
Why not just buy a couple of $100 webcams and do it over the internet for a whole lot less?
Basel Too,
I was going to bring it up myself, but nice to see you remember that I was Time Magazine's Man of the Year.
CR,
Neat chart for equipment + residential, however you know better and as Anonymouse already said most of those RE downturns were initiated by interest rate increases and followed by typical weaning of inventory with lower rates recessions. Logically RE does not have to have returns proportional to software
They are apparently proposing a time limit for using the money, so the agencies are scrambling to figure out which projects they are going to spend it on.
crispy&cole writes:
Is there a hoopajoop double short ETF I can buy?
No, but the new 3x small cap ETF goes under TNA. It's down 25% in 2 days.
The more you like President-Elect Obama, the more you'll LOVE this piece.
YouTube - Obama Win Causes Obsessed Backers To See How Empty Lives Are
All in good fun.
10% just laid off at zappos.com
Good stuff CR, appreciate it.
Broward Horne,
It may be fine, but they either have to create an option to buy or lower their lease rates
see, even crispy&cole could see the business plan flaw.
Even if you go for the full custom soundproof room construction with 3 60" plasmas, and THX 20 speaker surround sound. The capital and labour costs are covered with a few days of lease payments
Living over the hill from Silicon Valley, the tech workers I know are plenty worried -- just not affected yet.
Something like 12,000 of our 55,000 citizens commute to the SV and get their money from over there instead of from our pathetic local service economy.
When the valley starts massive layoffs, we'll feel it bigtime, and so will real estate. Right now nothing's selling, but few seem desperate to sell, either.
CSC,
That is awesome.
The more you like President-Elect Obama, the more you'll LOVE this piece.
Half of my classmates are still in permagrin. The other half are figuring out what to do when not poll-watching.
Sadly, I know people like that
Anybody notice that eerie John Lennon sound-alike in Cisco's TV commercials for their system?
bond girl,
From your treasury link FY 2009 Marketable Borrowing Range*** 1,100 - 2,100 (numbers in billions of USD)
yikes.
As for the infrastructure, that's a tough timeline (I hear of a Jan 20 deadline target)
First the government needs to have a clue, then they need to send RFCs to see if feasible, followed by RFPs to get some bidding, then they have to negotiate and sign the details all during what is the biggest holiday period of the year when no work is getting done.
Expect a lot of lame stuff that was already on the books within the next 2 years being reallocated over to this plan to save the governments money
Hmmm wonder how that is working out this week...
Stock Mutual Funds Get $2.2 Billion, First Deposits Since July
By Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam
Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Stock mutual funds attracted $2.2 billion in the past week after equity values surged, giving them their first net deposits since July, according to estimates from TrimTabs Investment Research.
Funds that invest in the U.S. companies garnered $2.3 billion in the week ended Nov. 5, compared with withdrawals of $7.05 billion during the prior week, according to Sausalito, California-based TrimTabs. Withdrawals from funds focused on non- U.S. stocks narrowed to $140 million from $2.2 billion.
The net inflow followed a rise of 10.5 percent by the Standard & Poor's 500 Index in the final week of October, the benchmark's biggest weekly jump in 34 years.
Stock Mutual Funds Get $2.2 Billion, First Deposits Since July - Bloomberg.com
Why not just buy a couple of $100 webcams and do it over the internet for a whole lot less?
Because it's not the same. The Cisco system captures true points-of-view. When somebody on the other side is watching the guy next to you, you can see it. His eyes are focused on the guy next to you.
The sound was excellent. It uses three large LCD screens to project the illusion of a room on the other side of a conference table.
It really is quite remarkable.
We finished our call and people on our side broke into private conversations. The Chinese side began talking among themselves and the next thing I knew, we had informal cross-call conversations going on, just like we were at a party.
Manufacturing costs is high for initial products but the actual production of the Cisco system could probably fall to a few thousand dollars in four or five years.
It's really just some LCD teevees and sophisticated sound circuits.
Bond Girl:
South Park Episode Player - About Last Night...
I like how the primary dealers expect the deficit to be essentially twice as big as everyone else predicts.
C&C,
Replied to your November 12th query a few thread back JICYMI...
HaloScan.com - Comments
Currently Smoking Cannabis writes:
If we have to pay north of 10% sales tax...
Its not tax, its "sacrifice". Thats how the new prez puts it. Get used to seeing more "sacrifice" once the revenue crisis hits Washington. The problems in the states are only the preliminaries to the main event.
Broward Horne - No offense, but waste the money? Does it really add that much value or profit to your company?
Comrade Dope Paul in SB writes:
If we get sales tax north of 10%, I will be buying everything that's not food over the net.
Oregon has no sales tax at all. This means more Northern Californians driving to the border to do their shopping, one would assume. Cheap gas + high sales tax differential = good times.
CSC,
I don't know about South Park this year. Last nights episode was the best of the season, but I didn't really get Barrack smuggling the hope diamond in his ass. Randy Marsh cracks me up though.
I say this because many years ago I worked for a company that was big on meetings and meetings about future meetings and more meetings...all we did was meet.
(there was never any time to screw off on the internet)
Thanks energycon!!
C&C,
Actually the hoopajoop ETF is 2x short AND 2x long at the same time - the patented S^4 technology allows this otherwise impossible superposition of states - as long as no one looks inside the box...
Energycon - Then why did oil go to $12 bbl in 1998 (and Kern River Crude to $7 bbl)?
crispy&cole,
There is some very important adaptive noise canceling filtering happening, but it doesn't cost as much as cisco is pricing it
Basically Cisco's plan is to put these meeting rooms in airports and hotels and rent them by the hour. Also to lease some at major companies, but they've got to be making at least 100% markup on the lease within the first year and all gravy after that.
So it's a good product, but their view is they are competing directly with the airlines companies spend millions on annually and they have the advantage of less time/discomfort spent traveling
It took the USG a long time to get the stimulus checks out the last time. It's pointless to try and rush something, especially during the holidays. Remember how the California official who told Schwarzenegger he couldn't cut pay temporarily because it would take too much time and money to change the computers? I'm sure the USG is at least as efficient.
EvilHenryPaulson writes:
So it's a good product, but their view is they are competing directly with the airlines companies spend millions on annually and they have the advantage of less time/discomfort spent traveling
Now if they could just perfect virtual sex-tourism technology, I'd never need to leave the house.
As for the infrastructure, that's a tough timeline (I hear of a Jan 20 deadline target)
They were saying 120 days.
The portion of the hoopajoop which is invested in a 2x short ETF hoopajoop fund is hedged by the same position, because the hoopajoop short fund is self-hedged by shorts in itself, which in turn are shorted in a subsequent fund that contains the original hoopajoop. This single instrument which is synthetically divided into two halves, each of which shorts the other, can climb to the sky in value in much the same way that two individuals can climb to the heavens by sequentially standing on each other's shoulders, or, in the case of the short fund, by both agreeing to dig a hole at the bottom of a hole the other has dug.
Bond Girl,
I guess I should have said Jan 20 target to announce the legislation, I incorrectly assumed the start date for projects would be the same
Broward Horne - No offense, but waste the money? Does it really add that much value or profit to your company?
At the current price point, no. But Moore's law is still in effect and I expect that the system could be created profitably for a reasonable sum.
There's two aspect to consider - intertional use because flight times are exceedingly long.
But one thing I've noticed with cell phones is that once they became pervasive, they changed behavior. Nobody can plan more than 24 hours ahead now. I am amazed at the expectation that instant meetings can take place within hours of scheduling.
This technology is similar. Instead of planning flights, hotels, bookings and travel, you can initiate an instant meeting.
It will be a few more years before it's widely used. It accomplishes what we tried to do during the mid-nineties but we had bandwidth constraints and sound problems (echo, etc).
The Chinese lead had his cell phone on the table and I could READ the manufacturer label on it. Really impressive.
C&C,
TI get the impression that to your thinking peak oil as a concept requires that oil prices can never go down - is that your position?
HLTD,
Send me the prospectus, now!
So it's a good product, but their view is they are competing directly with the airlines companies spend millions on annually and they have the advantage of less time/discomfort spent traveling.
As a veteran of offshore development, I started my first project in India with a 2,000 baud modem and a custom BBS.
Faster communications and later video come in really handy but there is in the end no substitute for real person to person interaction. You can reduce it significantly with new tools but the less personal contact the less emotional accountability. Having lunch and dinner together still counts for an awful lot in my book and produces real world results.
Sorry 2,400 baud modem.
I personally do not understand the deadline. I mean, I get the logic, because they are trying to counter the criticism that this type of stimulus does not have an immediate effect. But state and local governments are going to have to use it on projects that are already pretty far in the planning process - i.e., projects that already have an identified source of funding and were probably going to happen anyway. I suppose it is better than giving Goldman Sachs bonus money though.
TI get the impression that to your thinking peak oil as a concept requires that oil prices can never go down - is that your position?
Uggg... Does anybody ever get sick of talking about peak oil? This sounds like the global warming debate: everything is proof positive. Oil goes up: PEAK OIL IS HERE!! Oil goes down: MOMENTARY DIP BEFORE TSHTF!! BUY BUY BUY!!
EVP,
He was implying that Pelosi wants it done as soon as possible.
Broward Horne,
The bandwidth may have played a role in lag (due to compressing/uncompressing video) back in the day, but the echo is the noise canceling DSP
They're using some patents one of my former professors owns. Basically the challenge is to compression-quality-time delay/cost
They're mostly pricing it expensively because they can find buyers. Just like luxury brand retail
I mean EHP not EVP, dang it.
Halo told me I have to wait at least 20 seconds between posts. I have a feeling it thinks I'm neurotic.
Nice crisp summary of todays disastrous economic news. After reading it, it's surprising that the indexes only moved down 5%.
U.S. Stocks Tumble in Market's Worst Two-Day Slump Since 1987 - Bloomberg.com
I say this because many years ago I worked for a company that was big on meetings and meetings about future meetings and more meetings...all we did was meet
That's the nature of people, man.
There's a certain level of coordination and information transmission that's necessary to get any organization to work. It's hard to find the right balance.
Most people don't think of it the same way that I do but you can demonstrate that certain levels of communication are actually more efficient than others.
My best example -
Transaction Costs - Peer-to-Peer example
One manager who acts as an information filter can actual decrease the net necessary communcation in a group and make it more reliable, faster and more efficient.
Bond Girl,
http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/Small%20Business_7_24_08.pdf
Mark Zandi of Moody's says that General State Aid has a GDP multiplier of 1.36 and increasing infrastructure spending has a multiplier of 1.59, so if they were trying to do Keynesian stimulus, the numbers say that's a good way to go.
The deadline is of course politics, and in the worst case scenario it's just chalked up as general state aid
At the tech company where I work we had a big meeting today in which the CEO assured us that there would be no layoffs this year...
of course, there's only about 8 weeks left to this year.
EHP,
I saw some commentary suggesting that Nortel is on the ropes, in part due to pension issues. The gist was that Nortel wants to sell its main businesses to get the cash, which would leave the company a shell of itself. It appears a liquidation whether voluntary or not, is in the cards.
Clearly a disaster if the manager fails.
Some redundancy is good, even in government agencies.
"Oregon has no sales tax at all. This means more Northern Californians driving to the border to do their shopping, one would assume. Cheap gas + high sales tax differential = good times."
Not many Californians living within 100 miles of the Oregon border and once you cross it, where are you? Ashland. I don't think a lot of this'll be happening. Just not worth it for most people.
Internet sales -- that's another matter. Another kick in the balls to California retail.
Max,
Thanks for the noise on the signal - now piss off.
EHP,
Sure. Whatever they pass will be a drop in the bucket compared to the economic situation though.
or read, learn - whichever - where is the sales pitch again?
HaloScan.com - Comments
The deadline is of course politics
I'm thinking there's nothing Pelosi would like better than to stick the stimulus on Bush's, rather than Obama's, tab
Zombie Panda,
Nortel is finally decently reorganized but they need to catch a telecom boom again. Products are competitive. I have a lot of people I could ask, but I don't know about the selling of units right now. They're keeping their costs down by firing the older workers, they hire a lot of new grads each year
I wouldn't be surprised about some kind of harsh capital raising.
Once telecom companies decide to roll out 4G/Wimax they'll do well (keep in mind they have to upgrade their whole stream to handle the greater bandwidth, not just the towers), but that's not happening with bad credit conditions for telecoms.
Bond Girl,
EHP/EVP, I understand both. I mistype it's/its more than I like, but I just let it be
As for a drop in the bucket, yeah but this is a politician's dream. The ability and freedom to spend money without questioning. The hangover will be rough
They're mostly pricing it expensively because they can find buyers. Just like luxury brand retail
Yes, I could see that.
The system I used wasn't a lease, it was vendor-owned. Ahem.
Broward Horne writes:
They're mostly pricing it expensively because they can find buyers. Just like luxury brand retail
Skimming strategy
Clearly a disaster if the manager fails.
Some redundancy is good, even in government agencies.
Clearly.
Everything is a mix. That's a simply example I put together really to show information inefficient in a free market. There's a reason that we don't have true free markets.
That's also a reason to justify regulation. The manager has exposure to all information and therefore can make the best decisions. But the worker nodes only received a subset of info from the manager.
There's a fudiciary responsibility there, really. The manager has an obligation to not exploit his position at the expense of the team.
Which leads to...
Henry Paulson.
I hope he goes to jail.
Henry Paulson.
I hope he goes to jail.
Broward Horne
He won't, they'll give him some kind of medal.
energycon - I think oil is a commoditiy driven by greed and speculation, lots of leverage and a little bit of fundamentals.
What if their was "peak food" what would prices do? Would they go up and down as much as oil?
Bob Dobbs writes:
Living over the hill from Silicon Valley, the tech workers I know are plenty worried -- just not affected yet.
plenty of 2nd homes/vaction retreats in that mix, not owned by the locals. Also Carmel really blew up after the dot com crash in 2001, lots of 2nd homes that had to be sold due to margin and layoffs.
So that was about a 41 million share offering...AH hours taking WFC down another 5% and change (almost to the $27/share from the offering)
Wells Fargo Raises $11 Billion to Fund Wachovia Deal (Update1)
By Elizabeth Hester
Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Wells Fargo & Co., the biggest bank on the U.S. West Coast, raised $11 billion in a stock sale to help fund its purchase of Wachovia Corp., exceeding its estimate for the offering.
The bank sold 407.5 million shares for $27 each, 6.2 percent below today's closing price of $28.77, according to a company statement. The company may sell an additional 61 million shares if demand warrants. The San Francisco-based lender had planned to raise $10 billion.
The U.S. Treasury bought $25 billion of Wells Fargo's preferred shares in October as part of its rescue of the banking industry. Wells Fargo is expanding its deposit base to the East Coast and creating the biggest U.S. bank by branches with its purchase of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia.
Wells Fargo Raises $11 Billion to Fund Wachovia Deal (Update1) - Bloomberg.com
Qualcomm revenue was up 45%. WTF?
c&c,
Malthus wrote about that, IIRC.
What if their was "peak food" what would prices do? Would they go up and down as much as oil?
Check out soybeans...
Soybeans Futures Chart - Long-Term Commodity Chart
Influence peddlers better tell meathead to lay off the proles. We wrecked Davis for less and we'll draw and quarter your ass if needed.
Currently Smoking Cannabis | Homepage | 11.06.08 - 5:40 pm | #
Count me in!
Maybe the Silly Valley isn't as immune?
I have some dear friends at Apple, some FT, some contractors. The contractors who were about to be picked up permenantly were told "opps!" today. They finish their contracts and are out the door come the 1/1/09. Hiring can only be done by Jobs directly now.
Now that the FT folk have had it happen close to home, they are panicing too. I'm getting the crazy calls - Xmas vacations are being voluntarily cancelled, xmas shopping lists being pulled back, "do you mind if we uninvite your date to the wedding because we really don't know them well and we need to save as much money as possible now?" etc. It's nuts.
And then this fear factor jumped to friends in other companies like Intel... you get the picture >; (
These are all people who told me as recently as last week that nothing bad could ever happen to them. What a difference a day makes eh?
While I fully expect tech spending to continue its decline over the next year or so - the best companies actually increase their tech spending in a recession to gain competitive advantage in both - market share and productivity. Every point in market share and productivity you can gain now by tech spending will be well spent. Unfortunately for most tech companies its usually a tough sell.
If there was a list of companies increasing their tech spending in the coming year - I'd start with those as my possible investments when the market finally does bottom.
Crispy&Cole wrote:
Why not just buy a couple of $100 webcams and do it over the internet for a whole lot less?
If you have to ask, you probably wouldn't understand the answer.
Noble and Brusier - you guys must work in the tech biz?
Tech is overvalued in non tech decision makers brains.
Sure, I can do that, I often say. But PEBKAC and pure resistance by the clusers to actually use the stuff will stop any value added in it's tracks.
Knurd!
Nostrovia,
Price is a human phenomenon, watch production.
C&C - yes - tech consulting
Misean - I am not saying its all overvalued, I am a big believer in it...but when things get tough and budgets get tight, a phone in the middle of a conference room with a speaker will work just as well as a $200,000 cisco system.
" ron writes:
Bob Dobbs writes:
Living over the hill from Silicon Valley, the tech workers I know are plenty worried -- just not affected yet.
plenty of 2nd homes/vaction retreats in that mix, not owned by the locals. Also Carmel really blew up after the dot com crash in 2001, lots of 2nd homes that had to be sold due to margin and layoffs.
ron | Homepage | 11.06.08 - 6:56 pm | # "
Yes, there's a lot of that in Santa Cruz, and I'm waiting for it to happen. Also a lot of investor-owned "vacation rental" homes near the water that sit empty most of the time; I expect them to start turning over when folks no longer want to plop down $3500 a week (in summer) for a house that's walking distance to Steamer Lane.
C&C - I was in telecom consulting in my "prior life". Now I'm just a humble LAN Admin for a non-tech company.
crispy&cole,
Those triangle shaped conference phones are also hundreds of dollars.
It's what you get for being 'enterprise
We have two dedicated meeting rooms with the Cisco system in the med center I work at. One in Finance which I understand they use for insurer, Medicare meetings, etc. One off the doctors lounge where the doctors can consult with other physicians worldwide and we have yet another system in the robotic surgery suite where the surgeons, who are university faculty, teach robotic surgery worldwide. Cisco worked closely with da Vinci Surgical Systems to customize the system so it can track both the hand movements and the internal robotic arm on a split screen.
How much is the NASDAQ down since the first time CR first posted this video?
Odd. CR's chart doesn't show much of a boom in residential investment from 2002 - 2007.
What gives?
Food inflation in the US to rise at least 7% in 2009. Something around a $70bn food bill increase
Steep food price increases on way: experts
| Reuters
The only really useful piece of high tech equipment I've acquired recently was a jammer to jam all the other junk SV has developed to make a slave
on the company plantation.
Had to send away to China for it too.
Now when I let people see how 'free' I am when it is on they want one too.
Those triangle shaped conference phones are also hundreds of dollars.
And the stupid little plastic clips on the ends of the cables ALWAYS break off.
Sorry, pet peeve.
c&c,
I had to skip some posts to catch up...
Didn't know that was the discussion.
My point is somewhat different. The Cisco system and the phone have internal differences, but for the cluser there is little learning curve to talk on it. It's those other features. They don't get used, because the cluser doesn't care/want to learn them.
Same with computer systems and software.
I still get calls like,
cluser: Misean, when I open this file it's all jibberish.
Misean: Is it a pdf?
cluser: Yes.
Misean: Are you using Word?
cluser: Is there something else?
Even though all Winblows programs have similar menu system, since it's Adobe, I just get:
Well I don't know how to use that.
Some classics:
Lady calls BOFH HQ and says computer isn't working. Send tech to location. He calls back. Problem-monitor was powered off.
Moving a cluser to new desk with new monitor.
cluser: "How are you going to get all my stuff on the new monitor.
cluser: Misean, the power must have gone off last night and my computer won't come on.
Misean: Did you power it back up?
cluser: Yes the light on the monitor is flashing, but there's nothing there.
Misean: How about that box underneath your desk?
cluser: Oh, I don't like to touch that. Do I have to?
So, that's what I'm talking about.
Knurd!
Nostrovia,
crispy&cole,
Those triangle shaped conference phones are also hundreds of dollars.
It's what you get for being 'enterprise'
Since we have lots of satellite offices we just upgraded from the triangle to one of the video systems that looks like Simon Says.
We have a monster flat screen and it all works surprisingly well. You feel like the people are in the same room with you.
We make a joke out of it and do product placements during the meetings so we have all our beverages, snacks, and office supplies placed in front of the camera with their labels prominently displayed for the other office.
Thanks for the noise on the signal - now piss off.
OK, lets talk about peak gold next.
LOL!!!!
I like her conclusion:
Companies with cogent business models that provide consumer value should survive / thrive consumers need value more than they have needed it in a long time
Translation:
"The companies that don't go out of business, and can sell stuff cheaply, will do well. Consumers are broke."
Or peak Nikkei.
-445. Ouch.
ac,
If you want to have some fun next time, pretend there is a big time lag (like you would see with a reporter on the news via satellite)
The time lag was the biggest hurdle to commercialization other than echo. All my profs that did DSP or controls (basically ANC) had such low tolerances for echo/feedback when using a mic. It literally haunts them I think
I can see the value in the Cisco system when it is surgeons conducting remote instructions. That is a radical increase in productivity given the cost per hour of a surgeon's time. On the other hand, why the need for the gold-plated system in the lounge area, where the fine-grained resolution is less likely to add value.
As someone who has worked in finance for 14 years, there's no way the finance team needs that kind of bling. That's just a status symbol for the finance types.
Max writes:
Or peak Nikkei. -445. Ouch.
After being all cash for over a year, I jumped back in this morning. Bought DXD at the opening bell. I am now 90% cash and 10% DXD. I was merely lucky that it got a nice pop today, of course, but I am convinced this sucker's going down. I'll hold my DXD all the way down to 6000.
ac,
If you want to have some fun next time, pretend there is a big time lag (like you would see with a reporter on the news via satellite)
The time lag was the biggest hurdle to commercialization other than echo. All my profs that did DSP or controls (basically ANC) had such low tolerances for echo/feedback when using a mic. It literally haunts them I think
Well my team just uses it for meetings where it's totally unnecessary. We have status updates in the morning; the visual feedback is totally unnecessary so I don't think any appearance of lag would cause a problem.
I'm trying to think of some other things we could do. Maybe some how splice an earlier recording into the feed or something.
Needless to say anytime somebody starts to nod off we instantly zoom the camera in on them and they become the main feature.
I'll hold my DXD all the way down to 6000.
At the rate it's crashing, you'll be rich by 11PM PST.
I anxiously await the reaction of house prices to the drop in Tech stock prices.
In the Los Gatos neighborhood where I sold my house in 2005, prices have miraculously levitated until now. However, I notice that suddenly there are 8 For-Sale signs in a neighborhood that might have 6 of them during the height of the busy spring/summer selling season.
None of them are moving. I attribute that largely to tight and expensive credit. But plummeting tech stock prices will only hasten the price decline. Things are going to drop VERY fast when these folks start losing their jobs too.
Silicon Valley, and therefore California in general, are in for some serious trouble. The aspects of the economy that have held up so far are about to collapse.
Looks like Glodman Sachs theory of "Peak Finance" was blown out in El-Lay:
Layoffs Watch '08: Goldman West
Posted by Bess Levin, Nov 06, 2008, 5:28pm
Having been previously under the impression that Goldman Sachs's Los Angeles office was a lost tribe in the Amazon, never exposed to civilization and insulated to the trubs of the modern world in which we live, we were extremely surprised to hear that they were not spared from yesterday's carnage. Apparently GS LA, which heretofore apparently employed about fifty bankers, laid off "everyone except for a few senior guys" this morning.
Layoffs Watch '08: Goldman West - Dealbreaker - A Wall Street Tabloid - Business News Headlines and Financial Gossip
I have already benefitted from the Obama Presidency.
This evening I was given a free gram of cannabis to celebrate the election!
The pot dealers are already being the change they seek. Who's lookin out for you?
"ShortCourage writes:
In the Los Gatos neighborhood where I sold my house in 2005, prices have miraculously levitated until now. However, I notice that suddenly there are 8 For-Sale signs in a neighborhood that might have 6 of them during the height of the busy spring/summer selling season."
Short, I think you get the Seriously Committed award for the path you've traveled. Your friends probably called you crazy back in '05. Now, not so much.
Although I doubt that Los Gatos will ever be exactly cheap.
Not sure why this is news. I graduated from school (Computer Science) in August 2007, and started my job hunt soon afterward. Lots of crazy stuff (sudden hiring freezes, new position being eliminated, suddenly cancel interview after they purchased tickets, etc).
I could see this trainwreck coming. Hiring will be slow coming back (at least in the US). We never really recovered from the 2001 slowdown until about 2004. And even then, entry level hiring NEVER recovered. I base that on conversations with my friends in the field, and classmates graduating and looking for jobs.
"Having been previously under the impression that Goldman Sachs's Los Angeles office was a lost tribe in the Amazon, never exposed to civilization and insulated to the trubs of the modern world in which we live,"
I think this sentence pretty much illustrates how much of LA views businesses and property values here. Perhaps that will now begin to change. . .
Currently Smoking Cannabis writes:
Who's lookin out for you?
<a href="http://assets.hulu.com/shows/key_art_the_a_team.jpg>these guys
Long live the "triangle phone"!!
I'm not even that old, and even I've already lived through two "Silicon Valley is dying!" episodes. Someday I'm sure it'll be true but....?
Well I'm goona go and Post Apocalyptic.
Just installed Fallout3.
Knurd!
Nostrovia,
Comrade Misean is Dope ... you sound like the tech support guy from SNL ... "MOVE!"
All the attention is on electronic tech but biotech ain't doing so well either. I guess a lot of the start ups
are going to go bust as they can't raise anymore money.
10.25% sales tax!?! That is absolutely disgusting. Thank God I moved out of that wretched State.
And what the hell is with Arnold?!? He should be demanding budgetary cuts left and right - not raising taxes!
RhodesianGreenbackinAZ,
I'm more like this guy.
The Home of the Mighty BOFH • The Register
BOFH--Bastard Operator From Hell.
Nostrovia,
Unit472 - YES...nano-tech..."Peak Nano"
"8 Pounds of Chocolate writes:
I'm not even that old, and even I've already lived through two "Silicon Valley is dying!" episodes. Someday I'm sure it'll be true but....?"
Who said die? It goes, it comes.
Back in '93 - '94 I was contracting at Tandem on the Cupertino/Santa Clara border near Tantau, and there were so many empty buildings around there -- some entire campuses -- that homeless guys were sleeping in the landscaping. Nobody home to toss them out.
Three or four years later, every bit of that space was occupied -- or had been torn down and replaced by something new.
Just installed Fallout3.
The wet slapping sound from the feet of a ghoul running at you from somewhere uncertain in the dark is reasonably terrifying.
So Misean,
Do you have a PFY as well? I find them quite handy myself...
clickety-click.
Bob Dobbs writes:
Short, I think you get the Seriously Committed award for the path you've traveled. Your friends probably called you crazy back in '05. Now, not so much.
Although I doubt that Los Gatos will ever be exactly cheap.
Actually, I think Los Gatos will get as much as 40-50% cheaper than the peak... But even if it doesn't go down at all, our cash (from selling) has grown enough to buy back the same house without credit...that's thanks to this site, books on financial history, and all the contrarians and bears that got the word out as early as 2004-5.
But in 93-94 the credit bubble still had years to run. The laundering of our trade and fiscal deficits into mortgage products had not yet started and you could not buy a house with nothing down.
This time we have really hit the wall and it will be 'different'.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Mattel Inc. said Thursday it is cutting about 1,000 positions worldwide because of the economic downturn that is clouding the holiday outlook for toy makers.
Friday is gonna be a doozy.
The jobs numbers are going to suck.
GM is going to go up in flames.
The markets will poop themselves.
People will be anxious because Obama is still warming up in the bullpen.
Can we wait? What can we do?
And before January, this place is going full-on, all-out Roman-style sacking of major cities.
My God. That all starts tomorrow.
EB,
Bought to find out. Forgot to update Nvidia drivers.
sm_landlord,
Yes. I have a PFY, and he's quite devious. But damned talented.
Also web/c#/Pearl programer, and a Hell desk guy.
Weeeeeeeeee!
Knurd!
Nostrovia,
I actually had the Cisco idea for restaurants and nightclubs years ago, so you could party with your friends across the country. Thought it would be pretty cool.
Don't think it needs to cost that much, either, though.
But then again, it makes people miss all the fun of traveling, really getting to know their business partners, going out and getting drunk together, etc...
And we held teleconferences and online business meetings 30 years ago, so it's really not a big new deal. Sometimes it's more fun to be able to have them while you're in your underwear and fuzzy slippers. ;^)
And before January, this place is going full-on, all-out Roman-style sacking of major cities.
My God. That all starts tomorrow.
Currently Smoking Cannabis | Homepage | 11.06.08 - 7:53 pm | #
Remember the population will need a reason to congregate. What events will bring people out of their homes to one location?
If you believe you will have small roving gangs of people looting then what is the impetus for them to gather?
Dollar collapse? Just in time food delivery fails? A great crime being revealed by the elites?
I just don't see it. Anything is possible though.
"What if [sic] their was peak food' what would prices do? Would they go up and down as much as oil?"
My counterexample to the idea that oil prices are a futures-driven phenomenon are the much larger rises in commodities with no futures market at all...
This was something I wrote about back in July, hence the prices. Picking out 3 years of data and cherrypicking some notable outperformers:
Crude oil - $50 to $125, vs.
Cobalt - $12 to 45
Chrome - $0.50 to 2.50
Magnesium - $0.60 to $2.40
Manganese - $0.25 to $1.50
Tin - $3 to $11
Scrap iron's quadrupled in 3 years. Molybdenum prices have fallen back now, but they were an 8-bagger from 2003 - 2004. You'll never hear the term used, but the US probably passed peak phosphorus in 1988.
This is industrial and agricultural demand. You and I just haven't needed to give a shit about moly and phosphate prices because, well, that's someone else's problem for now.
Did I say Cisco to $5.00 today a few times?
yarn sales are up for knitting sweaters when the fuel bill does not get paid and for the knitted presents to everyone over the holidays. Go long yarn and sheep.
If we get to "peak food", we won't have to worry about "prices" anymore b/c their won't be any kind of friendly trade.
Nature doesn't owe us anything.
their/there...I owe myself a lesson in standard english, however.
In answer to the question about $12.00/barrel oil in '98, I think it was caused by Saudi's taking the price so low it would drive the Russians out of the business. It did the trick for a few years, as the Russians stopped drilling, and skipped maintenence. Made a mess of their oil ecomomy. Of course, we prodded the Saudis a little bit too. Played hell with the domestic drillers though.
dollar up, demand down.
sounds like a good year for cheap tech gadgets for the holidays.
wonder what a terabyte drive will go for in december. or january.
I'll bet Arnold would like some of that automobile tax that Ex-Gov. Davis wanted.