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72.8 million in profits for all of 2011, on 6.35 billion of revenue

I wouldn't be too concerned about Foxconn taking over IT any time soon.

Where sustainability is concerned, you must not extract more energy than is coming back from the interior of the earth - completely independent on whether or not you could extract more than that - because you can.

Japan is on the Ring of Fire. There's far more heat coming up than you think, at least according to every scientific survey I can find online. And since the existing Japanese geothermal plants are already pulling more heat from the earth than you say is possible, I think your math has been empirically shown to be incorrect.

But we don't have to argue theory - the Japanese are going to put our opposing claims to the test. Check this out:

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-03-22/markets/31224074_1_japan-s-fukushima-nuclear-reactor-plant

And more in the works, too. Energy farming is the growth industry of our time - sustainably harvesting resources instead of permanently depleting them.

Zuckerberg got his billion

Why would u buy?
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebooks-zuckerberg-thiel-sell-shares-2012-05-22

This link is much better and gets right to the point: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/morgan-stanley-goldman-got-53-of-facebook-shares-2012-05-18

1% of Apple:

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/aapl/financials

and, total revenue = 1/7th of Microsoft's 2010-2011 growth:

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/msft/financials

I love Linux (lowercase l), and RedHat does good things - worthy of being a going-growing concern. "Winning the war", they are not.

1% of Apple:

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/aapl/financials

and, total revenue = 1/7th of Microsoft's 2010-2011 growth:

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/msft/financials

I love Linux (lowercase l), and RedHat does good things - worthy of being a going-growing concern. "Winning the war", they are not.

And finally some, like Skype are simply legacy users that were using this codec before it was open sourced (V7 in this case) and have since actually partially moved away from it (h.264 for HD chat).

Rather than moving away from it, Skype has been adding support for VP8 over the last year:

http://gigaom.com/video/skype-vp8-video-conferencing/
http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/08/one-to-one-vp8-video-calling-now.html

If H.264 Baseline is not offered under a royalty-free licence before the 15th of March 2012, then VP8 will be the required video codec for WebRTC. See the the Video Codec Requirements section of the WebRTC IETF draft: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-cbran-rtcweb-codec-01. This is why semiconductor companies are keen to promote their WebM support:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/verisilicon-releases-new-generation-of-hantro-video-ip-products-to-promote-webm-and-webrtc-2012-02-22

Of course, it's unlikely that H.264 Baseline will be royalty-free before the 15th so VP8 will likely be the required video codec. Still, it could happen and if it does then everyone can implement support for H.264 Baseline in their browsers without issue.

Coincidentally, I saw this today (old, but new for me)

China’s economy will surpass the U.S. in 2016

In this video interview with Neil Young, he states that dominant digital audio formats are inadequate and 'some rich guy' needs to build a new iPod that will play up to 30 albums. I don't think he's heard of flac or the Sansa Clip+ (or MOST Android devices).

Apples a bit late to the automobile integration game.

It's no secret that RIMs QNX car application platform *actually* powers over 20 million vehicles on the road. They've already taken integration to a whole new level:

QNX lets BlackBerry PlayBook become in-car controller

The QNX car app platform can power your vehicle’s in-car monitors, including the speedometer and the entertainment unit. [...] you can easily bring things like Pandora or even YouTube to you in-car entertainment unit as well as have realistic maps or song album covers overlaid next to your speedometer.
[...] The BlackBerry PlayBook can then be used to control the climate in the car and you can also get the media from the device over to your car’s entertainment unit with just a few clicks.
QNX also showed off how BlackBerry Traffic can be integrated into the in-car unit via Bluetooth and this provides live, turn-by-turn navigation with an emphasis on how long it will actually take you to get there

RIM's strong relationship with Porche is no secret either (see the Porche designed BlackBery 9981) Concept Porsche Shows Off RIM QNX

QNX shows off its versatility, powers OnStar accessories

Police are also starting to use RIM's in-vehicle technologies: Cop Conference Features BlackBerry PlayBook As Law Enforcement Tool Some details: Serving and Protectingwith a BlackBerry PlayBook

It keeps getting better New QNX Platform to Transform the Automotive Experience

You could say that less than impressed with Siri in the Mercedes after seeing what RIM is doing in the same arena with their technology.

the company profits are well on par with Ubisoft and EA.

Oh really? You might want to reconsider that comment.

Zynga recent earnings and prospects

EA recent earnings and prospects

The numbers between these two aren't even close, neither in revenue or earnings.

It was a non story. They were probably being moved to the Apple line and were pissed :-)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/microsoft-foxconn-say-dispute-in-china-resolved-2012-01-11.

The software giant said in a statement that the protest erupted over "staffing assignments and transfer policies, not working conditions" at the facility, where Foxconn reportedly manufactures the Xbox game console. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said workers at the plant manufactured hardware products but didn't specify which ones.

In a separate statement, Foxconn said about 150 workers staged a protest after the company announced all workers in their business unit were being transferred to another unit within the Wuhan manufacturing campus. Foxconn described the change as "a shift in production lines."

A.) Not all magazines are also available online in any form at all, as this recent article points out. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-newspaper-that-said-up-yours-to-the-internet-2012-01-20

B.) Even the ones that are sometimes have different content in dead tree and online editions.

C.) Speaking as a print publisher who's sick of your kind of parasitism, bugger off.

I don't normally respond to -1 posts (this post is not offensive, it's just strongly-worded) but your example is pretty special. Private Eye occupies a unique place in UK publishing.

Sounds like you need to look at a way of making money from online content. I suggestion online subscriptions and do it properly with an easy-to-use website.

Oh, we're doing an experiment, all right. Unfortunately, if it pans out the way the vast majority of the scientific community, the military, the disease control folks and the insurance industry thinks it will, we're all pretty much screwed.

In other words, all the folks whose job it is to make predictions about what could go wrong and prepare for those things think that we're running such an experiment, and that it won't end well.

Not everyone is cut out for school. Not every school is worth the tens of thousands in loans it takes to go there. Now That is there the look for a piece of paper get's you.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-years-resolutions-for-uncle-sam-2011-12-30?link=MW_story_investinginsight

I know it's offtopic, but Aptera went defunct a few days ago and they're the ones with the better design. How does a 200 mpg diesel (Gen0) sound or a 120-mile range EV for under $27000 (Nissan Leaf MSRP - $35200) with the lowest drag coefficient of any production vehicle and a top speed of 100+mph? It was a commuter car for the masses.

GM's bailout cost over $20B while Aptera was seeking $0.15B in funding. Aptera was denied and closed last week.

Aptera Employees Destroy Futuristic Vehicles After Shutdown.

WTF guys?

Someone should buy Aptera's assets and reboot the company. It goes up for sale on Dec 20th-21st.

Or by March 2012, tops.

Personally, I'd rather take the estimates of people doing their best to fix the problem...

Plant managers at Nidec Corp. (6594), which makes motors for disk drives and also has a factory at Rajana, decided not to wait for the water to subside at its seven flooded factories. According to company spokesman Masashiro Nagayasu, they cut a hole in the roof of the Rajana factory, sent divers into the toxin-laden waters to unbolt some heavy equipment, and lifted it onto waiting boats. Some of the equipment is now being used in Nidec factories in China and the Philippines.

...than of CEOs like Seagate's Stephen Luczo who are gleefully rubbing their hands together at the price hike, predicting a year-long shortage of hard-drives.

"People are going to appreciate the complexity of this business," he says.

We have good empirical evidence that cap and trade works....Yes, we need to get China and India in on these as well. But guess what- climate change affects them too. Get a decent global solution and they'd probably be pretty happy.

Know how I know you're either ignorant or knowingly lying?

In the run-up to the international climate negotiations in Durban later this month, China has responded to efforts to ban the trading of widely discredited HFC-23 offsets by threatening to release huge amounts of the potent industrial chemical into the atmosphere unless other nations pay what amounts to a climate ransom.

Don't worry. No one would ever think of using that sort of system as blackmail.

I certainly do not like all the fees that banks have, but didn't B of A drop their plans for the fee? http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bank-of-america-to-drop-debit-card-fee-report-2011-11-01

Thats strictly a paper loss, the Wilpons profited from their relationship with Madoff. They deposited about $700 million and withdrew about a billion over the course of 5 years, their only losses were the ficticious profits they hadn't yet withdrawn. A recent ruling limited their liability to only what was invested in the last 2 years, and likely only the profit they made of about $83 million.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/business/mets-ruling-may-reduce-payout-to-madoff-victims.html
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/madoff-ruling-a-big-win-for-mets-owners-2011-09-28

Apple net income FY 2010 (ended Sept 2010) = $14.01 Billion
Microsoft net income FY 2010 (ended June 2010 using your link above) = $18.67 Billion
18.76 / 14.01 = 1.34 (134%), so what you meant is that for FY 2010, MS was 34% more profitable than Apple, not 65%.

But wait, those aren't for the same time period, they're FYs are off by 3 months. Let's compare the 4 most recent quarters reported for each company.
Apple's July 2010-June 2011 profit = Q4'10 = $4.31B + Q1'11 = $6B + Q2'11 = $5.99B + Q3'11 = 7.31B = $23.61B (each from Apple's website)
MS July 2010-June 2011 (FY 2011) profit = $23.15B (again, from your link above)
So, what you really meant is that MS is almost as profitable as Apple.

Your point that MS is making money, lots of it, is completely valid. However, you should be more careful with your comparisons.

Really, I own a small business and take credit cards.

The restriction is what banks can charge the NEXT company down the procession down the line.

The merchant in many cases is NOT seeing the relief unless they change processors or threaten to

"Although this legislation was designed to provide business owners relief from card processing costs, some processors have publicly announced that they will keep the funds to bolster their own profits. The industry encountered a similar situation in 2003 with the Wal-Mart settlement that lowered debit interchange rates by approximately one-third. Rather than pass the savings through to their merchants, many processors kept the savings to boost their own profits."

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heartland-payment-systemsr-credits-merchants-durbin-dollar-savings-from-debit-swipe-fee-reform-2011-10-03

What the article doesn't point out is that is that there is a strong possibility of a class-action lawsuit on the payouts of shares, as the Board of Directors of NETL did not properly hold the sales process and shop it out.

It seems that $50 for what was a $30 share a few days ago is quite generous, but there's a rather long legal history of boards that breach their fiduciary duties getting into serious legal trouble.

The fact that something like a dozen law firms are already trying to get involved the second this happened shows something is quite fishy about it. Some snippets from google news:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/harwood-feffer-llp-announces-investigation-of-netlogic-microsystems-inc-2011-09-12
http://www.pr-inside.com/netlogic-microsystems-inc-takeover-under-r2806236.htm
http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20110912006442/en/netlogic/NASDAQ%3A-NETL/netl

"Apple has 50% of profit share from smartphone makers, can’t hear the haters behind huge wall of cash"
Apple crowned No. 1 with biggest market cap

I wish I could fail as well as Apple does.

Yeah, because a signature reliably ensures that the person signing a document is who they say they are.

This post is timely, but omits the information that makes it timely.

The King Center just announced a few days ago that it plans on launching a website with comprehensive digital access to the written and audio-visual archival materials it controls.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/jpmorgan-chase-co-and-the-king-center-announce-the-king-center-imaging-project-an-unprecedented-joint-digitization-initiative-2011-08-25?reflink=MW_news_stmp

They could always emulate ADPTCO, the former Adaptec corporate shell -- which sold off all their existing business lines including the Adaptec name, and started buying up "youth sports businesses" a year later after what I presume was some serious research: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/adpt-corporation-acquires-the-show-2011-08-16

The former premier SCSI adapter vendor now believes they can make more money trading baseball cards than selling hardware.

http://cleantechnica.com/2011/05/29/ge-solar-power-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-in-5-years/

Compressed air, thermal storage in molten salts, and pumping water are all workable solutions for storing power, as are improving batteries and hydrogen production. There are solutions. The big issue is that we don't make coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear pay the true cost for pollution costs, health damage, defense costs, climate change, or meltdown risk.

So, for example, I can't eat fish caught locally in the North East US because of mercury pollution from coal burning power plants in the Midwest US. So, I've lost something valuable, for what in exchange? US Republicanism in practice is the worst sort of socialism -- privatizing gains but socializing costs (not to say US Democrats are often that much better). Thirty years of this worst sort of socialism has done a lot of damage to the USA (might as well have real "socialism" instead, IMHO, because it is hard to imagine everyone having medical care and free college and reliable infrastructure would make things worse at this point):
"Reagan insider: 'GOP destroyed U.S. economy'
Commentary: How: Gold. Tax cuts. Debts. Wars. Fat Cats. Class gap. No fiscal discipline"
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/reagan-insider-gop-destroyed-us-economy-2010-08-10

Not to say we were not warned, like by Jimmy Carter:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/carter-crisis/
"We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure. All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem."

Update: Google buying Motorola Mobility (handsets) for $40/share (a markup of 63% on last weeks closing price). Interesting move, but they acquire all of the old Motorola's IPR in the deal, so conceivably get a chunk of ammunition for these Android law suits.

FCC stopped EchoStar from merging with DirectV. Otherwise Dish and DirecTV would be the same company. But that did allow NewsCorp to step in and buy DirecTV instead. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/echostars-directv-bid-blocked-by-fcc

"All you need to know about rating agencies is that in May 2010 Moody’s still rated Greece triple-A." - Mark Steyn

I don't doubt that Mark Steyn said that, but what he said is false. In April 2010, Moody's lowered Greece's rating from A2 to A3, which is definitely not the same as Aaa. It is closer to "junk" rating than a triple-A rating. It is also worth noting that less than two months later, in June, Moody's cut the rating all the way to junk status, Ba1.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/insiders-selling-at-unusually-fast-pace-2011-07-28

I'll add this one of the debt ceiling:
* US debt ceiling (1980-> Including presidents and who was in control of the house and senate.)
(Source: http://blogs.marketwatch.com/fundmastery/2011/07/31/the-u-s-treasury-will-not-default-2/)

+ 6 trillion in three years? Sure it doubled 1980 to 1986 but doubling then was 1 trillion ..

Nothing to worry about.
(US debt to GDP since 1929, source Deutsche Bank, picture taken from Q2 2011 report of Brummer & Partner Zenit hedge fund.)

Meanwhile:
* Profits share of GDP
* Wages share of GDP
(http://www.marketwatch.com/story/corporate-profits-share-of-pie-most-in-60-years-2011-07-29)

Nothing to worry about.
(US debt to GDP since 1929, source Deutsche Bank, picture taken from Q2 2011 report of Brummer & Partner Zenit hedge fund.)

Meanwhile:
* Profits share of GDP
* Wages share of GDP
(http://www.marketwatch.com/story/corporate-profits-share-of-pie-most-in-60-years-2011-07-29)

... would be jobs/megabuck moved. To maximize that measure, we should replace all thoss ATMs with human tellers.

Right?

Ah, I see. Mea culpa. Apparently I was being quite lazy with my language and I should certainly know better.

As for how I would claim monetization, I say this because of the risk of QE3. Nor is Bernanke the only one who favors a bit more easing (I cannot help but note the irony of the gas tank analogy in this article, given that gas is not counted in most inflation numbers). Certainly the Fed denies that it does not want to monetize debt in order to quell fears of inflation, but they are making a bad habit of using open market operations to solve political problems. As for interest rates, the first article above speaks of committing to several years of low interest rates (which, one might speculate means at the very least keeping them constant) or even lowering them.

Above all, I would point back to the political argument. To cut spending either on war or on entitlements is anathema. To raise taxes is verboten. Even to go into deeper debt is, increasingly, politically dangerous (though I expect that option in the near future). Our political class faces impossible choices not unlike those faced in Europe. Like Europe, the only politically safe option may well be to monetize the debt. The Fed will come to the rescue of the political class and, in return, we can expect the political class to be ready to stimulate the banking class yet again.

Don't be a douche.

Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-your-google-bid

The cost of the meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant could be between 5.7 trillion and 20 trillion yen ($70.1 billion-$246 billion), according to a report published Wednesday. The Nikkei business daily, citing data from the Japan Center for Economic Research, reported that the projections assume that only evacuees within a 20 kilometer radius of the plant receive income support, and that the government buys land within that area.

(link).

Do you have a source for that? Every car company I am aware of makes money on its small cars. Here is an article about Ford making their Focus even more profitable after standardizing globally on a common chassis. There are companies selling profitably in the sub $5k market in China and India.

I know the transition was painful for many domestic carmakers because they ended up with a lot of SUV stock and plants that weren't needed, and the profit on an expensive SUV is larger than on an inexpensive compact.

Stupid arguments over how revenue is being booked are completely irrelevant. ...do we really think that we are so smart that we've noticed this and not one of the investors at IPO will?

You can ask AOL investors about how the way revenue is booked matters. They were recording revenues in a way the was eventually deemed fraudulent, several times in the company's history, in different ways each time, with warnings from accounting and financial regulators issued to investors well before the fraud was discovered. Each time the fraud was confirmed and revealed to the public the stock price dropped drastically.

You might want to pick up a copy of Financial Shenanigans. The chapter on AOL's revenue reporting is assigned in the Level 2 Chartered Financial Analyst curriculum. Time Warner is feeling the brunt of the latest AOL revenue fraud now.

So yeah, the IPO investors may all be missing something. And the people that noticed either a) got early access to the IPO with a preferential price and sold to the next sucker with a hefty same day return b) underwrote the IPO for a fee with no investment risk OR c) never bought the stock of Groupon. Your kind of thinking is what the investment bankers and institutional investors depend on to help them get their $10 Million+ bonuses.

The 2011 tech bubble could very well help Groupon raise money.

What 2011 tech bubble? The Nasdaq is down overall this year.

With an estimated cleanup cost of $250 billion http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nuclear-crisis-could-cost-japan-29-trillion-yen-2011-05-31 and a 35 year 4 GW run that come to a vast supply of minimum $0.20/kWh electricity. Not a pretty price. What benefit do you see in that?

Do you know how many people are employed in authoring, navigating, collecting, and enforcing our complex tax system?

Well, the IRS alone employs over 100,000 people IRS Employees and there are somewhere around 800,000 tax preparers Tax Preparers. So lets say 1,000,000 people are employed "doing taxes". This number is probably really low, considering all of the tax attorneys, consultants, etc. If you factor in tax educators, accountants, investment advisers, etc., you might get 2 or 3 million people employed by "doing taxes". There are around 150,000,000 people working in this country. Workforce So if we instituted a really simple flat tax, we would "unemploy" between 1 and 3% of our workforce. That would send us into an instant recession. So a simple flat tax won't work if instituted immediately. Even if the computer just simplified the code somewhat, it would still reduce employment. That would reduce the income generated by taxes and, as a result, nullify the work of the computer. So, I propose that the tax code be made so complex that it employs 100% of the US workforce. People work all day every day calculating taxes. This is a sure fire way to reduce unemployment!

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/imf-bombshell-age-of-america-about-to-end-2011-04-25?pagenumber=2
    "Commentary: China's economy will surpass the U.S. in 2016 [based on PPP] ...
    This is the result of decades during which China has successfully pursued economic policies aimed at national expansion and power, while the U.S. has embraced either free trade or, for want of a better term, economic appeasement.
    "There are two systems in collision," said Ralph Gomory, research professor at NYU's Stern business school. "They have a state-guided form of capitalism, and we have a much freer former of capitalism." What we have seen, he said, is "a massive shift in capability from the U.S. to China. What we have done is traded jobs for profit. The jobs have moved to China. The capability erodes in the U.S. and grows in China. That's very destructive. That is a big reason why the U.S. is becoming more and more polarized between a small, very rich class and an eroding middle class. The people who get the profits are very different from the people who lost the wages."
    The next chapter of the story is just beginning. ..."

See also:
    http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
    http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
    http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html
    http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation

What tinkerers related to science and technology can do though?
    http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php
    http://pesn.com/2011/01/17/9501746_Focardi-Rossi_10_kW_cold_fusion_prepping_for_market/

Before you criticize anyone, try RTFA first. Buffet has said that Google's moat is pretty good. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/buffett-munger-praise-googles-moat

Marketwatch had an editorial on this as well.

Who regulates this-- the FCC or the FTC?

As it ain't pure water, you end up with slightly more radioactive matter with a half-life which is more like minutes than seconds, so less desirable, somewhat radioactive gas results, which is harmless well before it travels that 30km.

Tokyo is hundreds of km away and is up 23 times. Not a dangerous amount, but I doubt the wind can travel 240 km in seconds or minutes. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tokyo-radiation-levels-23-times-normal-officials-2011-03-15-04540

Secondly, there appears to be a breach in containment at reactor 2, although the radiation release could also be due to a fire, now out, at reactor 4's spent fuel pool (remember, reactor 4 was completely shut down before the quake). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12745186

400 milli-sieverts/hr measured briefly (reportedly, though trust is an issue) at the plant is a lot: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-japan-radiation-factbox-idUSTRE72E14R20110315

Airline crew flying the New York-Tokyo polar route are exposed to 9 mSv a year.

Seems like you fall in the overly-confident underly-prudent category.