rkbabang

A different business model. Panera Bread Co. opens nonprofit restaurant where customers can pay what they want --Eric

One time I wanted to report vandalism to my property, so I grabbed the phone book and looked up the number for my local police. They listed 2 numbers, a "business" number for the police station and "emergency call 911". I called the business number, got the police station, and was told to report a crime I had to hang up and dial 911. This is a small town, nothing like Oakland, so maybe the procedure is different elsewhere. --Eric

Anyone living unarmed in Oakland is nuts (even before this). --Eric (gun nut), RKBAbang.com I've never stockpiled food though.

OMG, that is exactly what it sounds like. He's going to pay himself by the terms of the incentive agreement whether the shareholders approve or not. I've already sold most of my BH, but I kept a hundred shares figuring I'd let them ride, vote them against the proposal, and see what happens. I'm thinking about getting out completely now. This guy just can't be trusted. --Eric

It sounds to me that he is doing just that. I still don't understand how the journalist didn't talk to this guy for about 3 minutes and move on. And how an editor let this through, and with that headline. --Eric

I agree. It's one thing to be an unambitious lazy bum that wants his parents to support him his whole life unless the perfect job (whatever that is) is thrown into his lap from the sky. It's another thing to want the New York Times to broadcast that fact to the world. What an idiot. Now no one who does a quick google search on his name and reads this story is going to hire this loser. And what's the matter with the reporter? In this economy he really couldn't find a truly sad case to write about? Things must be better than I thought. --Eric

Maybe that's a Canada thing for them, because I don't think the Wendy's near me (Massachusetts) have carpet nor padding on chairs. If they do, I've never noticed them and I think I would if they were dirty or in bad repair. The few times I've been in any BK for instance in the last 5 years or so I've been grossed out by how disgusting the places were. I've never had that happen to me at a Wendy's. --Eric

I'm surprised to hear that. All of the Wendy's in my area are very well maintained, clean, and seem very well run. --Eric

There is too much here to respond to all at once, but do you live on the same planet that we do? Let's start with food in 1970 Americans spent 14% of there income on food, in 1980 13.4%, now it is about 9%. And the food quality is immeasurably better today than it was 30 years ago in every possible way. It is fresher, more available, more variety, more affordable. 30 years ago people ate mostly canned produce where as today people eat fresh produce. Do you remember going into a grocery store 30 years ago and what it looked like compared to today? You obviously don't. Go into a Whole Foods if you want to see what most stores will look like in the near future. People also spend less as a percentage of income today on clothing, shelter and transportation as well. And that is world wide not just the U.S. And saying technology hasn't improved our lives is an asinine statement if I ever heard one. Do you remember what it was like being out and needing to make a phone call (god forbid a long distance call) 30 years ago? How bad cars were (at any price) 30 years ago? What houses were like then compared to now. My kids live, dress, eat, and play like royalty compared to the way I grew up, in every possible measure - tangible and intangible. To say that the standard of living hasn't improved enormously in the last 30 years isn't being a "glass-half-empty" person you need to be a person who looks at a half-full glass and scream that it is completely empty and you are dieing of thirst. --Eric

That's where the libertarians have an understanding of the real world that the liberals and conservatives are both out to lunch on. The conservatives don't get it at all, as you pointed out, they don't even recognize that the problem exists. And the liberals don't realize that these problems are worse now then they would be under a free market, because it is the state that creates the problem to begin with. Currently it is the state that limits the liability of large corporations and their owners. Get rid of the concept of limited liability and of corporate personhood and the problem goes away. Yes, I do realize that investing in stocks would become a bit more risky endeavor if the owners of a company could be held liable for the actions of said company. This would have the advantage of discouraging blind speculating and thoughtless stock buying. If you are buying shares in a company you better know a good deal about what it is doing and if a company you own starts doing something risky you better either sell or become active with your fellow shareholders to stop it. People want their profits without the liability, you can't have your cake and eat it too, this creates moral hazard which causes disasters (financial, medical, environmental, etc...). I state again: neither conservatives nor liberals understand the issue of externalities (what causes them, what exacerbates them, how to mitigate them). --Eric

I almost forgot to comment on this. My thoughts about a statist system with the power to regulate is that there will be lots of abuses and social problems as the powerful people who control the system twist it to their own ends at the expense of the rest of us. Statist regulations in the real world protect large corporations from competition from small business and from being held liable for the damage that they may cause, that is all. The way the system is set up that is all regulation will ever accomplish regardless of who you vote for. How’s All That Progressive Regulatory Stuff Workin’ Out For Ya? "... this is the most "progressive" president, with the largest Democratic majority, likely to be elected in a generation. If this guy lacks the political will to make full use of the powers available to him in holding a dirtbag like Hayward accountable in a smoking gun case like this, what good's a regulatory state?...In the real world, government is a lot more apt to protect the corporations against you than vice versa." And while BP is dumping god knows how much oil into the Gulf of Mexico every single day for months, with the government capping its liability at an astoundingly low amount, so-called regulators are going to allow them to increasingly pollute the great lakes too: BP gets break on dumping in lake "Under BP's new state water permit, the refinery -- already one of the largest polluters along the Great Lakes -- can release 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge into Lake Michigan each day. Ammonia promotes algae blooms that can kill fish, while sludge is full of concentrated heavy metals." Only the market can protect natural resources, government entities across the globe have always been the largest polluters of our planet. The USSR was an environmental nightmare. Even in this country the largest messes are the government's or done with government's OK and/or grants of protection from liability. --Eric

I tend to do better associating with liberals than conservatives as well, only because I can stand a tolerant person with no understanding of economics, but I can't stand a religious-bible-thumping-bigoted-racist jerk even one that does understand economics. But I consider myself to be on the market-anarchist side of libertarian. I too answered all questions correctly. As for Q4, there are "clear cases" of almost everything you can think of, it isn't the norm though. There are clear cases of cannibalism and satanic/ritual murder in the world, but most people don't do those things. If there was a question "Are human beings satanic murdering cannibals?" I would answer strongly disagree. For the most part the "enlightened" answer is correct. --Eric

As far as I know there is only one company for which all discussion is verboten. The first letter is a pronoun referring to oneself and the last 3 letters are the first 3 letters of the state where the Alamo is located. --Eric

Indeed, you are correct. I don't support a government "gold standard" any more than a government run fiat debt created currency like the dollar. This article is pretty much in line with my thinking: The Money of Your Choice Some pertinent quotes from the above article: "any attempt, well-meaning or otherwise, to create an official gold "standard" - imposed or administered by government or by anybody else - should be resisted just as vigorously as the present system, if we are truly interested in preserving freedom of individual choice, and building a genuinely free market for money and for everything else." "In the 16th century, the economy of Spain was more or less destroyed when conquistadors brought home tons of gold they'd looted from the New World. The value of gold, relative to other things, plummeted because the more there is of anything, the less any of it is worth, a phenomenon economists refer to as the "Law of Marginal Utility". Spain ceased to be a world power and became, instead, the first "sick man of Europe". In many ways, it has never recovered." "The future of monetary standards based on precious metals lies in the stars, or, more accurately, in the Asteroid Belt, where roughly a third of the millions of rocks circling the Sun between Mars and Jupiter are composed of metals, mostly iron and nickel. Other metals are present in lesser amounts: it has been said that a single metallic asteroid a mile in diameter contains more gold than has ever been mined on Earth, lying within relatively easy reach of the asteroid's surface." "Thanks to the Law of Marginal Utility, importing that much gold would halve the perceived value of the gold we already possess. Given a future that offers relatively easy and inexpensive means of importing gold and other metals from space - current proposals for "space elevators" present just such an opportunity - within this century, the entire future global economy could be affected in exactly the same way that Spain's was 500 years ago, if America (and humanity) relies on gold and gold alone as a monetary standard. On the other hand, allowing the market to decide, and to constantly re-decide, what is money - and what is not - would prevent such a catastrophe." "The lesson, in all of this, is that money needs to be based on something of real value, and that the market must be open and flexible enough that it can adjust to changes" --Eric

"Printing money" is absolutely a figurative statement. The government only actually prints a tiny fraction of the money that is in circulation. Money is like anything else, the greater the supply, the less it is worth. When government spends money that it has created out of thin air it spends it at current value. It is the rest of us that sees our money inflated as the new money works its way into circulation. Some good reading if your interested: What You Should Know About Inflation - PDF The Case Against the Fed - PDF, EPUB The Creature from Jekyll Island : A Second Look at the Federal Reserve - Amazon.com --Eric

"...they're very intelligent, and may be capable of savings and investment..." Those clever dolphins! Sorry for the off topic post, I just thought the last line was hilarious. --Eric

"What struck me about the proposed merger, was that this move was likely to have been driven by the board to further squash the Biglari Holdings takeover attempt ... any remote possibility of Biglari pulling in enough votes for a takeover has surely disappeared." Biglari Holdings Takeover of Fremont Michigan is Dead in the Water

Quoting my own post: Sub-$100 netbook running Android: World's first $99 laptop goes Android --Eric

This type of moat should hold for a 6 months or a year, but no longer if Apple misses the boat on the next generation devices, it will hold for a little longer if it doesn't. But regardless, it won't hold forever. Every generation of devices (every 10-12 months or so) is another chance to slip up. They can't win in this environment forever, no one can. --Eric

This is flat out incorrect. For a period after the 1930s, Coca-Cola slipped behind Pepsi in terms of sales when Pepsi decided to increase the size of their packaging while maintaining the same price. Furthermore, Coca-Cola has improved/modified their formula over the years with small iterations. The company could have been behind even more, had it not been for Roberto Goizueta. I believe Warren Buffett's own investment in Coke only occurred after the changes guided by Goizueta. I'm reading a book about Coke at the moment and would be happy to provide you with passages and page numbers. I think you just made all the relevant points to reinforce what he said, and what I've been saying, quite well. 1) Coke's products have undergone small iterative changes over more than a century, whereas Apple's products need revolutionary and radical changes every year. 2) Even Coke has occasionally slipped up in an industry where it is infinitely easier to protect your brand than the in tech industry. 3) Bad management can kill any company even Coke. The difference is that in the tech industry bad management can kill a company in months rather than years or decades. --Eric

Buffett has said that the test of a moat is whether a determined competitor with as much money as needed can knock you off. I see Apple as having a narrow moat around iTunes and a narrow and shallow moat in the iPhone business. Once Jobs is gone or he stops producing hits, look out below. You hit upon the other reason Apple can't be compared to Coke. Coca-Cola (the product itself, not the company) has changed very little in the last 100+ years, but Apple needs to constantly and consistently come up with the "next big thing" again and again, year after year, or else. This isn't possible to pull off forever while staying on top. I see Apple as having the largest moat I've seen in any tech company since Microsoft circa 1990's, but even Microsoft isn't what it used to be back then. It is being attacked on all fronts from every direction. I see a time in the very near future when Microsoft is irrelevant, where most computer OS's are not Microsoft, and the average user doesn't even know what an OS is. I think you will see many different OS's, including Google Chrome OS (linux based), many flavors of Linux or BSD re-branded by Dell, HP, Sony, Acer, Toshiba, etc running their laptops, in the same manner that Apple took BSD and re-branded it OS-X, and Android (another Google linux based OS) may evolve to become common on laptops as well as mobile devices. Office software is already free from openoffice.org and online google docs tools. Microsoft's moat is suffering massive erosion and it is only a matter of time. Think of the media frenzy that was the release of Windows 95 and the big yawn that was the release of Windows 7 or Windows Vista. I don't hate Apple, they have some pretty cool devices, even if I think some are overpriced, I just don't think they can remain top-dog forever. Yes, Apple is on top now....for now. --Eric

That isn't the reason at all. I mentioned Buffet as an example of someone else who has the same opinion as I do, not that I blindly follow him. I'm in the industry and I can't predict when a product is going to be a success or not, or when someone's successful product is going to be wiped out by a competitor. These things are completely unpredictable even for time periods as short as 3-6months from now, never mind years. I can predict that no one will crush Coca-Cola with a competing product in the next 5 years, but I can't say that confidently with anyone or any product in the tech sector, not even Apple. Also I don't invest in tech in general, but I don't always stick to my rule. I've owned NFLX in the past and I still own some ISRG. I just get nervous investing in tech, it feels more like gambling to me than investing sometimes. I find myself doing less and less of it as time goes on and I think that is a trend that will continue. It is difficult to predict the future of technology in the short term and no one can predict the future of technology in the medium term, never mind the long term. It is just unknowable. You can guess, but putting money on a guess is gambling. --Eric

Realize these three statements acknowledge the existence of a moat. The ability to sustain higher than average market prices over several years looks like a moat to me. Think of Apple as a luxury product maker, not unlike BMW. You don't buy a BMW on pure utility value. Same with Apple products. IMHO, of course. I'm not saying they don't currently have a moat. I'm just saying that in technology the moats are never as wide or deep or as easy to maintain as in other market segments. Coke will still have its moat 10 years from now, Apple may not. Coke will still have its moat 30 years from now, Apple will almost certainly not. --Eric

Sony walkman didn't have a lock on the cassette format. Nor was there a distribution moat since you couldn't connect to them all via the network. Here's the thing. Apple has 3 big businesses: Computers, iPods, iPhones. The first it owns 3-5% marketshare, the second it dominates, the third it has a lot of smartphone market share, but that's a small small percentage of the total mobile market share. ie. In spite of it's size, there's still room for growth. Apple doesn't have a lock on the mp3 format. I have a creative ZEN mp3 player and I have 1400 songs on it, none of which were purchased from Apple. They certainly don't have any lock on either the hardware nor the music formats. I regularly listen to audiobooks and podcasts on my ZEN without a problem. In fact I don't think I've ever regretted not paying more for an iPod. Especially since buying my kids iPods recently and seeing that they don't do anything my ZEN doesn't. I've owned creative mp3 players for about 5 years now, my current one is my 3rd. Every time I look to buy a new one, they are always cheaper than iPod. As for computers I have the best of both worlds, a dual boot system running Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP. I do almost everything on Linux and I have winXP running on that same machine for when there is something I need windows for. For instance, I prefer photoshop to Gimp and the software my company requires me to use to work from home only runs under Windows (which is strange, because my machine at work that I log in to runs Red Hat Linux). Anyway buying a Mac would mean spending many hundreds more on a machine that would be quite a bit less functional than my current set up. I understand that for some, form>function, and these people are willing to pay more for boutique-type products that look good. That is a legitimate market niche that Apple has taken advantage of. It isn't for everyone though, and they certainly don't have a "lock" on anything. And you represent like what -- 1% of the population? Most people I know aren't using Ubuntu or Zen mp3 players. I'm know for sure that there is a segment of the population that refuses to drink carbonated beverages, does that make Coca-Cola's moat weaker? No, because most people drink some kind of coke product. The fact remains that Apple has leading market shares in mp3 players and smart phones. In addition to that, they pretty much monopolize content distribution for those devices. Yes, you can hack other solutions out, but most people do not do that. That is the big difference between what Apple is doing versus what the Walkman had. The Walkman was purely a music player, they didnt get a cut of the content. Actually I only represent about 0.00000001493% of the population of this planet, as do you. But I was just saying that they have a lot of market share, but they don't have a lock on anything. It is appropriate that you used Coke as an example. No one would say they have a lock on the beverage industry. Like Apple, they have a strong brand with large market share, but that is all, anyone who wishes can drink carbonated beverages their entire lives without ever drinking a Coca-cola product. All it would take to bring it down is a few years of poor management or, in Apple's case more than Coke, a change in technology that the company was late implementing. Steve Jobs isn't going to be around forever, and Apple almost disappeared the last time they lost him. Also, holding on to your brand in the rapidly changing technology sector is a completely different thing to holding on to it in soft drinks. When is the last time you saw an Admiral TV? W.E.B. doesn't invest in tech companies, because of the unpredictability. I'm a digital ASIC design engineer and I don't invest in tech companies either for the same reason, not even the one I work for. --Eric

Sony walkman didn't have a lock on the cassette format. Nor was there a distribution moat since you couldn't connect to them all via the network. Here's the thing. Apple has 3 big businesses: Computers, iPods, iPhones. The first it owns 3-5% marketshare, the second it dominates, the third it has a lot of smartphone market share, but that's a small small percentage of the total mobile market share. ie. In spite of it's size, there's still room for growth. Apple doesn't have a lock on the mp3 format. I have a creative ZEN mp3 player and I have 1400 songs on it, none of which were purchased from Apple. They certainly don't have any lock on either the hardware nor the music formats. I regularly listen to audiobooks and podcasts on my ZEN without a problem. In fact I don't think I've ever regretted not paying more for an iPod. Especially since buying my kids iPods recently and seeing that they don't do anything my ZEN doesn't. I've owned creative mp3 players for about 5 years now, my current one is my 3rd. Every time I look to buy a new one, they are always cheaper than iPod. As for computers I have the best of both worlds, a dual boot system running Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP. I do almost everything on Linux and I have winXP running on that same machine for when there is something I need windows for. For instance, I prefer photoshop to Gimp and the software my company requires me to use to work from home only runs under Windows (which is strange, because my machine at work that I log in to runs Red Hat Linux). Anyway buying a Mac would mean spending many hundreds more on a machine that would be quite a bit less functional than my current set up. I understand that for some, form>function, and these people are willing to pay more for boutique-type products that look good. That is a legitimate market niche that Apple has taken advantage of. It isn't for everyone though, and they certainly don't have a "lock" on anything. --Eric