Greece finally is getting a bit more skilled in their international relations. They are asking for reparations from Germany regarding Hitler and World War II.
Any good, mind controlling guilt induction, needs to be sort of believable. Everyone knows how bad Hitler and Germany was thanks to the Jews, so why not ride that wave of condemnation for billions of dollars?
In my opinion, Germany asked for it. Forcing BS austerity onto Greece 4 years ago under the lie that it was going to make things so much better was cold. It didn’t make things better. It made things worse.
A champion of austerity, the IMF, has gone on an apology tour regarding austerity admitting they were wrong. They said the calculations were much more complex than what they originally thought and that for every $1 cut from government spending, it resulted in $1.50 lost in the economy.
Most people in Greece hate the euro and that they can’t inflate their way out of debt like the U.S. They also hate Germany for forcing austerity down their throat in order to get financial aid. I can’t think of a better way that little old Greece can counter Germany’s BS than to lay down a massive guilt trip on them by asking for reparations from World War II.
3D Systems (DDD), the makers of 3D printers, has announced a two for three stock split payable as a 50% dividend. In this episode, I talk about what this means and why the Board of 3D Systems is most likely doing this.
The popular dating site eHarmony told Yahoo Finance today that New Jersey told them to add gay and lesbian dating to their website or else they would no longer be allowed to do business in the New Jersey. I give you my controversial take on this very controversial issue.
The IMF is finally saying that they were wrong about austerity. This is something I said over a year ago.
The whole argument that countries budgets were like someone’s personal budget was like comparing apples to oranges. The argument was that if you have expenses and you go too far in debt, what happens? You have to control your spending or you go bankrupt. A country should be the same way. But it’s not.
A country has a private sector and a public sector. An individual does not. Like I said, that fact alone makes it like comparing apples to oranges. When the private sector can not provide enough jobs for a growing population, the government needs to step in and provide the jobs. When the economy starts going good again and the private sector is supplying plenty of jobs, the government needs to cut back and have its spending cut. It’s like a see-saw back and forth between the private sector and the public sector. This is what leads to economic cycles and sector rotation.
It didn’t take a noble prize winning economist to figure out that if you cut government spending and government jobs during a time of high unemployment in the private sector, the economic contraction would be worse and last much longer. In fact, it’s put Europe into a double dip recession.
After 4 years of austerity, the IMF is now saying that they were wrong to push austerity and that it has actually made the problem worse.
The sad thing is, the IMF pushing austerity has caused intense suffering and even suicides in countries around the world. These are the guys that are suppose to be the financial experts. There really just idiots.
In this episode I blast the IMF for being so stupid.
Apple dropped nearly 10% in after hours trading today pulling the NASDAQ down in pre-market trading.
Apple has fallen from $700 a share all the way down to $460 today in after hours trading.
Let’s just be honest. Steve Jobs is dead. Apple will never be able to replace the visionary Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is a once in 50 to 100 years genius. Apple has lost its visionary leader and hence it’s not innovating like it once was. Instead of having cutting edge products like the iPods, iPhones, and iPads, we now have… AppleTV. What a joke. The market doesn’t want an AppleTV anymore than it wanted a GoogleTV, AOLTV, or MicrosoftTV. That’s not a need people have. It’s like trying to force 3D TV on everyone. People don’t see a need for it so stop trying to create an artificial need.
The Debt Ceiling was officially put off another 4 months today. What’s weird is that 4 months from now will be May, as in “Sell In May and Go Away” and the start of the worst 6 months of the year for the stock market. Just a coincidence that Republicans wanted to put off the Debt Ceiling debate until when the stock market seasonally sells off anyways? Perhaps. But this reinforces the idea that we should look to exit this market sometime in April or May.
The truth is that neither the rich nor small business are job creators. If that was the qualifying factor for job creation, i.e. being rich or being a small business, we would have had job creation over the last 12 years but we haven’t. Lower taxes don’t create jobs! Open your eyes, look around, free your mind from the stupid Republican propaganda. George Bush lowered taxes on the rich and small business 12 years ago! President Obama extended those tax cuts then added even more! For 12 years we’ve lowered taxes on the rich and small business and it hasn’t created jobs! You have to update your world view and philosophy with reality folks.
Why don’t lower taxes create jobs? Because small business doesn’t hire because of a once a year tax break! I run a small business. I wouldn’t hire because of a once a year tax break. My wife runs a small business, she doesn’t hire because of a once a year tax break. No business owner that truly understands business hires because of a once a year tax break. The last 12 years of economic data have proven this point once and for all. The Republican ideology of lower taxes causes small businesses to hire has been proven wrong to everyone. We have over a decade of data now to say that this once sacred belief has been conclusively proven wrong.
Why do small businesses hire? There’s only one reason that a small business will hire, greater demand for their goods and services which means that consumer demand is what causes business to higher, not tax breaks. The rich and small business are not job creators, consumers through the mechanism of growing consumer demand are the job creators. Just because some guy works for a company and its his job to hire someone, that doesn’t mean he’s a job creator. Consumers are the job creators through increased consumer purchases and consumption of a businesses good and services.
Stop being a Republican ideologue and just repeating the same old BS. Use your brain and think for yourself. People above $250,000 a year should be given no more credit for job creation than the American consumer. To say people making above $250,000 a year are the job creators is nothing less than class warfare with the implication being that everybody who makes less than $250,000 a year are not job creators but instead moochers, surfs, feeding off the good will of the job creators.
Republicans position in the Fiscal Cliff negotiations that if rich people are taxed more, then everybody should be taxed more, as somehow being justified because we don’t want to tax some magical class of people called the job creators is stupid. Stop living in Republicanarnia, on BS mountain, where magical creatures called job creators fly around above everyone else.
The Republican party is proving that they are not the party of lower tax rates, at least not for 90% of the American public.
When you examine, from a logical point of view, the position of Republicans in Fiscal Cliff negotiations, you realize that they are really stupid.
What they are saying is that they are for lower taxes but if rich people’s taxes go up, then they want everyone’s taxes to go up. They are trying to hold 90% of tax payers hostage to 10% of the richest tax payers.
In this episode, I talk about how stupid this position is and how Plan B is nothing more than Republicans playing political games.
I am sick and tired of hearing people talk about austerity and debt reduction as if that’s the magic way to pull out of this recession.
Folks, Germany, the champion of the austerity movement, just announced a rise in their unemployment rate today. For the first time since 2009, the German unemployment rate is rising. What happened to your precious austerity programs Germany? Hmmm?
You see folks, this is Europe’s austerity recession. It is man made and it is the result of austerity programs.
Why should you and I in the U.S. care? Because a recession in the world’s fourth-largest economy (Germany), combined with a recession in the sixth-largest economy (Britain), combined with a recession in the fifth-largest economy (France), combined with a recession in the third-largest economy (Japan), combined with the current slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy (China), means trouble for the world’s largest economy, the U.S.
In this episode I look at the very complicated subject of austerity and explain it in an easy way. I also take to task those who think austerity is good and something the U.S. needs.
The battle rages on between Bulls and Bears of Vringo (VRNG) stock over the VRNG Vs Google patent infringement case.
The latest Bear attack involved an anonymous poster that goes by the handle Modernist on Seeking Alpha (see Seeking Alpha article entitled Vringo’s Alpha Is Set To Reverse
The anonymous poster Modernist writes, “But Vringo’s victory is far from likely, and there is an immediate chance of the stock declining… Google Could Win A Summary Judgment Dismissal Based On Prior Art”.
Modernist goes on to site his source that Google could get a dismissal based on prior art as the Enhydris Private Equity Blog. However, if someone was to actually click on the link and go to the Enhydris article, they would quickly realize that Enhydris (which discloses they are long VRNG) believes the request for dismissal is nothing but a “dirty legal trick” that is likely to be thrown out. Enhydris writes:
It is our opinion that Google may very well lose this ruling because it is in fact a dirty legal tactic. Vringo has stated in its motion for Discovery Sanctions that Google et al. knew of this Prior Art before the Markman hearing, and purposely withheld it. The fact that Google didn’t bring up these patents in the Markman hearing does speak to how their own lawyers view this case in our opinion. If this Prior Art clearly and unequivocally invalidated the Vringo patents, they surely would have laid it out at the Markman hearing and subsequently moved for a dismissal. Why continue to mount up legal fees and possibly annoy the Judge when the case could have been concluded quickly? This tactic of “surprising” Vringo with Prior Art post-Markman and less than two months from trial is nothing less than a delay tactic in our opinion.
Defining Google’s request for a summary judgment dismissal as a “dirty legal tactic” has merits. This is not the first time Google has used this legal strategy. On December 13th, 2007 BID for Position, LLC filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google, Inc., AOL, LLC and Microsoft, Inc. This lawsuit claimed that the Konia patent awarded to BID, LLC in 2007 was being infringed upon by Google Adwords and its customers. Google won this very similar suit on summary judgment using prior art.
The Modernist article uses this previous win by Google using prior art as strong evidence that Google will win using this same strategy against VRNG. The problem with Modernist’s logic is that when Google won with this strategy, it was the first time it had been used. This is important because in this win, Google claimed that they did not have this knowledge prior to the Markman Hearing. However, when Google tried to use this strategy again versus Oracle, the courts were ready for it and prohibited the prior art post-Markman information from being used in court.
As Seeking Alpha member Asia24 wrote in a blistering critique of Modernist’s article:
Google knows the way the game is played and had their day in court. Now Judge Jackson is forced to re-exam evidence take time from an already decided hearing and answer. It can cause delays and as everyone knows this is a “rocket docket” case. He should immediately dismiss this situation and hold to the decision he made.
This is working against Google right now because they tried this in the Oracle vs Google trial and it was not allowed in. They gave 6 prior arts which VRNG wasn’t scared about, Another 3 wont matter just a stall tactic. The ruling about these to be thrown out would put Google in a deep hole. If they allow them in it might stall the start date because VRNG will need time to cross examine the prior art. (not sure this court will allow it.)
This tactic, unfortunately, is characteristic of Google. In Oracle America, Inc. v. Google Inc., Case No. 10-cv-03561, 2011 WL 3443835 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 8, 2011), Google likewise delayed in disclosing its prior art invalidity theories. There, as here, Google waited until after Markman to make its disclosure. There, as here, Google knew of the prior art months before disclosure. There, as here, Google’s tactics created unjustifiable prejudice to the patentee. There, the untimely prior art was stricken as a discovery sanction. The same result is appropriate here.
On January 24, 2012, Google and its co-defendants served joint Preliminary Invalidity Contentions, which included element-by-element claim charts showing how six prior art references supposedly anticipated or rendered obvious the patents-in-suit. On February 13, 2012, Google’s counsel stated that “Google produced all of the prior art it has identified on December 16, 2011.”
As a result of a meet and confer, Google agreed to supplement its Preliminary Invalidity Contentions by no later than March 2, 2012. Google did not supplement its invalidity contentions on March 2, however. Instead, in a footnote of a four page letter summarizing her recollection of a meet and confer the previous day, Google’s counsel stated “there is no further art for us to identify in our invalidity contentions today.” I’m sure judge Jackson wont be looking to favorable at the Google attorneys another time round.
Fast forward to the present, this is the third time Google will be trying to use the prior art argument with discovery after the Markman Hearing legal tactic. The crux of this argument is that Google has to prove they did not know about these prior art patents until after the Markman Hearing. However, this being the third time that Google is using this exact same legal strategy, it’s impossible to argue that they “did not know about these prior art patents” ahead of time.
I’m long VRNG September calls at $4. I’m starting to think I should have purchased the October calls or later.
In this episode, I look at the latest legal drama surrounding Vringo (VRNG) Vs Google.
