i feel lucky

just started reading the book i feel lucky which chronicles life at google from 1999 – 2005ish. yeah this book came out last year. but since it’s packed with stuff on marissa mayer–new ceo of the trainwreck that is yahoo, we thought it might be worth a read. why? because the book was published in 2011 so it’s probably a bit more honest about who marissa mayer really is and could provide insight into her leadership capabilities and sort out whether or not being the ex-girlfriend of larry page helped or hindered her ascent at google.

at the moment we are on page 104. and can see that marissa mayer analyzes stuff from multiple angles and tries to anticipate what angles others might proffer. while larry page and sergey (whose last name i can never remember) are able to make snap decisions based on gut instincts. and say things like ‘that sucks’ or ‘i think you need to go back to the drawing board.’ or something along those lines. so our question is does mayer suffer from the female gene which john kerry also has? you know, the one whereby one has to overthink stuff and asks for loads of input out of fear of making the wrong decision?

who are the occupy wall streeters and is their gripe valid

we took the time to gaze deeply at the official occupy wall street website. and we’ve decided that the dude or dudette who authored the homepage neither works in financial services nor studied economics. but he or she was seemingly a social sciences major from some leafy liberal arts college on the east coast.

first, we’d like to know how the organization was able to finagle a .org address. and since they are supposedly anti-capitalists, why are they asking for donations? or is that a sign of anti-capitalists and socialists, that everyone else is expected to work and pay taxes? all cynicism aside let’s pick one of their arguments apart. that neoliberalism has destroyed the economies of spain and greece.

the spanish economy (like that of california) is built on real estate and tourism. tourism took a bit of a hit in 2008 because everyone in europe felt less well off. but that’s bounced back a bit. but tourism only makes owners rich. –like hotel owners or shop owners. but it only creates low level service jobs like cashier and tour guide, which tend to pay poorly.

like ireland, the spanish people bought a lot of property they couldn’t afford. but unlike ireland, for a while this was OK because people around the world were keen on buying houses and apartments in the warm country.

but this lead to a property boom which benefited construction companies, construction workers (hired by construction companies), concrete makers, and persumably all the way down to the local cabinet maker. and when the property boom went bust, everything caved in with it.

the problems in the u.s. are somewhat more complex. yes there are mortgages and real estate involved. but the u.s. economy (minus california’s) has never completely revolved around real estate. it’s actually more diverse.

the u.s.’s non-recovery has more to do with small business owners being spooked about the future. the future that is the healthcare law that u.s. president obama signed into law last year.

the rise of brazil

cash righ brazilian company jbs is set to take over sara lee and follow in the footsteps of the partially owned brazilian company, inbev, that took over the ‘iconic ‘beer’ company anheuser busch in 2008.

u.s. unemployment death spiral

it’s unfortunate that with the exception of the economist, the u.s. media has failed to finger the real culprit that is keeping the u.s. unemployment rate high. the conservative media outlets repeatedly finger barack obama and nancy pelosi. while the liberal outlets keep tossing up question marks and suggest that corporate schmoes are sitting on vast wads of cash and refusing to hire new workers.

let’s do a quick recap of 2010. in january, scott brown, a republican, was elected to the senate in the very blue state of MA (we use the abbreviation because we couldn’t be bothered to check the spelling on this unwiedly name), filling the cold seat occupied for 40 years by the recently deceased ted kennedy. brown got that seat by swearing his would be the vote that would stop obamacare in the senate.

well, pelosi and obama figured out a go around against a potential senae fillerbuster and passed obamacare at the end of march. up until the end of march, the u.s economy was adding jobs at breakneck speed. real clear markets, from the dudes that brings us real clear politics, in may 2010 made the connection. noting that ‘But, come 2014, the new health care bill will make it harder for employers to hire low-skill workers. And, as workplaces around the country prepare to implement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, employers are considering how best to comply. For some companies, that means that low-wage and part-time jobs will start to go, not in 2014, but now.’

in march 2010, the small business section of the foxbusiness channel reported that the u.s. chamber of commerce, which is against obamacare–which is not analagous to being against all americans having access to affordable healthcare, mind you, is quoted as saying, ‘A mandate that employers provide health insurance or pay a fee will devastate many small businesses that operate at a loss or with low profit margins. These businesses will have to lay off workers and lower head counts,’

has google found a way to lock out women and minorities?

according to anonymous sources, google won’t even look at a resume by anyone who doesn’t have a computer science degree. yes, the elephant in the room is that women and minorities in the u.s. end to study computer science in smaller numbers than guys. –and that goes for women worldwide. so is this just another way to prop up the old boys club?

3M pocket projector

3m’s mp180 pocketprojector is the slide protector of the 21st century. who needs an ipad –that doesn’t even work in direct sunlight, when for the same amount of money you can get a device that lets you store stuff like music and PDFs and has USB?

u.s. jobs not coming back for ages

a recent article in the st. louis post-dispatch explained that the job situation in the u.s. won’t recover to pre-2008 levels until 2014. well, that’s about the time the healthcare law fully kicks in.

it’s clear to any small business owner or the cfo of a large organization that there’s no point in hiring warm bodies until one figures out exactly what’s in that 1000 page healthcare bill. in fact, one could only imagine that the aforementioned people are thinking, perhaps it makes more sense to cut head count.

did the democrats anticipate this when they signed off on the bill? was this not anticipated because nobody in the present white house has ever run a company? more thoughts later.

the guardian uses protracted recession and depression in the same sentence

the economic gloom in the uk looks like it goes on. and in the u.s. in atlanta, georgia, 30,000 people turned up just for an application to put themselves on what could be an 8 year waiting list for subsidized housing for the poor.not that both of this information is directly related. but it just proves that things are suckie outside of the uk too. the 24 hour u.s. cable news channel, cnbc has also started tossing the ‘d’ word around.

vladimir obama

the economist this week refers to barack obama in its cover story article as vladimir obama due to the recent governmennt shakedown of BP. has the u.s. government gone too far by insisting BP handover the u.s. government 20B dollars in an escrow account that BP will have zero control over?

tony hayward, ceo of BP, who was treated really badly by the u.s. congress last week, is on his way to bow at the feat of vladmir putin and dimitry medvedev to reassure him and russian industry that BP won’t go belly up. this is important as russia supplies 25% of BP’s oil.

u.s. senate votes 85 – 13 against vat

the u.s. senate, led my john mccain, has voted 85-13 against the u.s. taking paul volcker’s advice and introducing a value added tax. unfortunately, this is a non-binding resoltuion. according to the hill rag. but hopefully it has sent the president a message.