The Big Problem
New web product rollouts across the industry are very similar. They generally include – last minute development and fixes, a mad scramble to get everything pushed and configured on the proper servers followed by an immediate influx of critical bugs shortly after go-live.
At S3, we just rolled out a completely new web portal that allows our multinational Fortune 100 client to automate a very complex process that used to be managed on excel spreadsheets. Over 20 different user roles, over 300 possible user/status combinations, hundreds of users worldwide, not a simple product by any means.
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The Danger of Madoff style “Clawbacks”
Think back to Enron. Many investors made large sums of money off Enron stock in the late 90’s, gains that in retrospect were at least partly due to fraud being committed by executives at Enron. Many investors (and employees) lost large sums of money on the same Enron stock in 2001 as the aforementioned fraud unraveled. Should those investors who sold at the peak in 2000 have to give part of their gains to investors and employees who were either unwilling or unable to sell their shares? Read more…
My thoughts on the SEC's short sell proposals
A few of my thoughts (and others) on the SEC’s new proposals
Reuters – Reuters – Short ETFs under microscope as SEC pounces
Dallas Morning News – Experts sound off on SEC’s potential curbs on short-selling
The Promise of Twitter
Imagine a world where you, as an everyday investor with a 401k and an ETrade account, could have direct and unfettered access to what many of the world’s top traders are thinking and trading; in real time; and for free. Now take that example and extrapolate it across any industry, hobby or event, no matter how esoteric. This utopia has been promised to us many times before, but I believe it is finally here. Read more…
Bernanke Goes Nuclear
While Congress spent another day playing political “Clue” — Senator Dodd — with the red pen — in the backroom, Ben Bernanke reminded us once again why the Federal Reserve is currently the most powerful institution on the planet. Many of us have been led to believe that the foundation is being laid for economic recovery, however recent acts by the Fed amount to a significant escalation in our war against deflation and are additional indications that our economic situation may be more grave than most of us believe. Read more…
Our Culture of Arrogance and Isolation
Jim Cramer, Nadya Suleman, Bernie Madoff, John Thain, Alex Rodriguez, Rush Limbaugh – these 6 names (or their peers) consume an inordinate percentage of current media coverage. Why are we as a culture obsessed with a former hedge fund manager turned financial-entertainer, a woman who had octuplets, a ponzi scheme operator, a disgraced CEO of Merrill Lynch and a professional athlete who admitted to taking steroids? Read more…
The Mythical Manufacturing Job
Much has recently been made of the decline of manufacturing as a percent of GDP in our country. Along with being a pivotal issue during the election in the traditional battlefield states of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and the rest of the rust belt, it’s a rare article about the cause of our current economic issues that fails to lament the decline of “good manufacturing jobs that have been shipped overseas”. Read more…
Too Big to Succeed
The constant creation and destruction of companies, industries, and ideas is a force known as creative destruction and is a cornerstone of capitalism. Without the risk of failures like bankruptcy, where is the incentive to work harder, to develop a better product, to improve efficiency, to take chances? Bankruptcy also provides another important function: it frees up capital and talent to pursue better opportunities. Think of Google’s parabolic growth over the past eight years. How many of those new employees were from companies that had failed when the dot-com bubble burst? Would there have been money to fund the next round of companies like YouTube or Facebook if venture capitalists had not allowed many of their earlier investments to fail, instead of continually throwing good money after bad? Read more…
