Thursday, June 27, 2002

The United States of Enron From realmoney.com: Moody's is threatening to downgrade the ratings of certain U. S. Treasury bonds unless Congress moves to raise the debt ceiling soon. Wow. The single most stable financial instrument in the world is under fire because of absolutely absurd tax cuts for the rich that, true to form, have us back in a deficit in less than 16 months. Should be an exciting day on the markets tomorrow. Nice work, W! 4:11:43 PM     Bush, that Big Government Liberal Indeed, it's not too hard to imagine what the radio shouters and the more combustible Republicans would be saying if the Florida shoe had pinched the other foot and the Department of Homeland Security were now being proposed by President Gore. Look at these Democrats—it's just like them to set up a gigantic new bureaucracy, name it after the problem, and call it a solution. Just like them to take refuge in shuffling boxes on an organization chart. Just like them to cook the whole thing up in secret—shades of Hillary's health plan!—and then time the announcement to divert attention from some woman's embarrassing testimony before a congressional committee. From The New Yorker The Republicans aren't partriots and don't work in the best interests of the country or it's people:  They work in the best interests of the Republicans. While Cheney et. al. have tried to dampen any piece of criticism -- on intelligence, home land security, even Enron, -- as being anti-patriotic since 9/11, you know that the rabid attack dogs of the right, led by Delay and Armey and the legion of foaming anti-governments they trail behind them, would have been second-guessing each and every decision -- whatever they had been -- the Gore administration would have made.   4:08:24 PM     TVs with Built-In Microsoft Connectors Wow. I dfon't know what is proprietary about this connector, but i's certainly more interesting for Microsoft's future strategy around this space than the possibility of lots of well-heeled game heads going out and buying a Thomson TV just for this connector. They are staking their place in the living room space, saying, in effect, that our claim on your TV time will be just as critical as yoru cable and DVD inputs. As a business opportunity, I glad of it, I just wish the entire gaming industry weren't such a lowed common denominator load of crap for children and young adults. 11:29:15 AM     So Much for the Silicon Revolution From SG Cowen today, on AMD: AMD shares are where they were in 1983, returning 0% over the past 19 years. Wow, a tech investment on which you haven't lost money (except to inflation). There's something to be said for that. We should all take our hats off to AMD. While the company and it's shareholders have not benefitted, can you imagine how much Intel chips would cost, and how many interations we'd be behind, if AMD hadn't been chasing them on price and performance all these years? It's a numbing statement on how ruthless the markets can be. 10:50:00 AM

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