You would think that with one of the weakest economic recoveries on record, President Obama would be desperately searching for ways to promote economic growth. It is, after all, an election year. Most pundit and pollsters agree that it’s the economy stupid.
But instead, Obama used his State of the Union speech to rail on about fairness, inequality, and redistribution. The Obama strategy is simple: Tax the rich because they don’t pay enough.
The problem is, they do pay enough. According to the Tax Foundation, Americans making $1 million or more pay a 25 percent average tax rate….
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Jan
28
2012
 
How Amazon Could Split Netflix and iTunes to Win Streaming VideoPosted by: wiredtechbiz in Wired Tech BizEveryone knows that Amazon wants to extend its digital media offerings. Its executives know the long-term trends for sales of DVDs, Blu-Rays and their players. The company that dominates e-book and e-reader sales was already ?beaten first to digital music by Apple. Jeff Bezos never wants that to happen again.
Jan
27
2012
Twitter Censorship Move Sparks Backlash: Is it Justified?Posted by: wiredtechbiz in Wired Tech BizInternet scorn for Twitter’s announcement that it would censor tweets was swift and unforgiving. But even free-speech and other experts were divided on the service’s move that it might censor tweets if required by law in “countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression.”
After years of speculation and anticipation on Wall Street and across Silicon Valley, Facebook may file for its initial public offering as soon as Wednesday of next week, according to a report citing people familiar with the matter.
Jan
27
2012
U.S. Economy Grows 2.8% in Q4, But Not Enough to Keep the Rally GoingPosted by: yahootechticker in Yahoo Tech TickerThe Fed’s announcement it will leave rates at zero until “at least” the end of 2014 makes a bit more sense in light of Friday’s advanced fourth-quarter GDP report. The U.S. economy grew 2.8% in the fourth quarter, the strongest since the second quarter of 2010 and up from 1.2% in the prior three quarters. [...]
Jan
27
2012
STEVE ROACH: Recovery? Oh, Please. We’re Screwed.Posted by: yahootechticker in Yahoo Tech TickerProvided by Business Insider: I had breakfast yesterday with Steve Roach, one of Wall Street’s most respected economists. Steve is now the chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and a professor at Yale. In addition to getting Steve’s latest take on the global economy (gloomy), I learned that he is married to my second grade teacher, [...]
Jan
27
2012
Dysfunctional Politics Tops Investor Concerns in 2012, But Byron Wien Thinks Congress Will Get It TogetherPosted by: yahootechticker in Yahoo Tech TickerFollow Yahoo!’s The Daily Ticker on Facebook here! There seems to be no end in sight for the dysfunctional manner in which our elected Congressional officials have chosen to run the United States of America. Whether or not to give President Obama the authority to raise the debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion is just the [...]
Jan
27
2012
Oil Prices Will Surprise Markets in 2012: Blackstone’s Byron WienPosted by: yahootechticker in Yahoo Tech TickerFollow Yahoo!’s The Daily Ticker on Facebook here! Blackstone Vice Chairman Byron Wien released his 27th annual market predictions list and the most “surprising” prognostication centers on oil prices. He tells The Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task that oil could drift to $85 a barrel, about a 15 percent drop from oil’s current price. Many economists [...] I have recently started reading Clayten Christensen’s new book, Innovators DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators, and the core thesis is extremely powerful – we can learn how to innovate. As you may have gathered from the title of the book there are in fact five skills that make people innovative. This runs counter to the generally held view that innovation is something some people are simply good at, whilst others are not. The authors arrived at their thesis empirically, after interviewing dozens of “inventors of revolutionary products and services as well as founders and CEOs of game-changing companies build on innovative ideas." They also include what they learned from Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, and Howard Schultz (whom they did not interview) whose innovative thinking has transformed entire industries. I think the study alone was pretty robust, but, as further evidence that innovation is a learnt skill the authors cite research by Reznikoff, Domino, Bridges and Honeymon which studied creative ability in 117 pairs of identical twins and found that only 30% of performance in creative tests could be explained by genetics. The corresponding figure in intelligence tests was 85%. The takeaway: geniuses are born, innovators are made. The authors list the five skills of innovation as:
I nearly titled this post ‘Anyone can learn to innovate’, but I don’t think that is quite true, as to me it seems that one can learn to be questioning, be observant, network effectively and experiment well, but associative thinking is maybe more akin to intelligence, i.e. an ability you either have or you don’t. What Christensen and his co-authors do make clear, however, is that much of innovation can be learnt, and they show us the skills we should focus on if we want to become more innovative. This work also shows the characteristics startups should look for in new hires if they want to remain innovative, and the behaviours that should be encouraged to maximise the innovative potential of existing staff. Related articles
Jan
26
2012
Dueling Ghosts of Past Economic CalamitiesPosted by: realclearmarkets in RealClearMarketsThe IMF is clearly not satisfied with the current state of affairs in Europe. Not only has the global “agency” reduced growth forecasts across the board, it is predicting a global contraction absent comprehensive solutions to the PIIGS problems. Setting aside the obtuse idea that the world’s economic problems only reside within the PIIGS, the stakes are very high in the manner and method that Greece pioneers before its March zero hour. The entire banking structure awaits some kind of agreement, knowing full well that this is the test case that decides how the multi-trillion…
Jan
26
2012
Byron Wien Sees the Bright Side of the Fed’s 2014 PledgePosted by: yahootechticker in Yahoo Tech TickerFollow Yahoo!’s The Daily Ticker on Facebook here! The day after the Fed’s surprise promise to keep rates low until the end of 2014 “at least,” a lot of market watcher as still scratching their heads. As is so often the case, most of the reaction is tilted toward the negatives, and can be grouped [...]
Jan
26
2012
The Davos Daily Dispatch: Day One ReflectionsPosted by: yahootechticker in Yahoo Tech TickerFollow Yahoo!’s The Daily Ticker on Facebook here The Daily Ticker’s Henry Blodget and Daniel Gross report in from the first day of the World Economic Forum at Davos. Watch the video to see who they spoke to, heard speak and what rock star Henry ran into at an after party.
Jan
26
2012
Fed’s Running Out of Tools to Boost Economic Growth: Cato’s O’DriscollPosted by: yahootechticker in Yahoo Tech TickerFollow Yahoo!’s The Daily Ticker on Facebook here! The FOMC’s decision to keep interest rates near zero until late 2014 — at least — signifies two things: 1. Credit will remain cheap for consumers and businesses. 2. The Fed may know something about the economy that U.S. markets and investors do not. At least that’s [...]
Jan
26
2012
Apple’s ‘Secret’ Recipe for Success: Tech Giant Is Like the CIA, Lashinsky SaysPosted by: yahootechticker in Yahoo Tech TickerThe power of Apple’s business model was on full display this week, when the company reported astonishingly strong fiscal first-quarter results. The company’s shares surged on Wednesday, bringing Apple’s market cap to over $416 billion, just a hair below ExxonMobil’s as the world’s most valuable company. (See: STAY STOKED APPLE FANS: This Should Be One [...]
Jan
26
2012
New mobile advertising data – market growing fast, Google and search dominatePosted by: theequitykicker in The Equity Kicker
For those of you who are sceptical about analyst forecasts eMarketer published a table which shows how different firms see the mobile advertising market. The eMarketer figures are roughly 2x the lowest estimates. The new information for me was which companies have the leading market share and how the market breaks down between different advertising formats. Search accounted for 45% of the market in 2011 ($653m) and the share of search is expected to rise to around 50% in the coming years. Google dominates search with around 95% market share. I’m not sure I’ve ever done a mobile search with a search engine other than Google. Display was 31% of the market in 2011 ($445m) and the share of display is expected to rise to 37% over the next five years. Google also has the largest market share in display, but at 25% their position is not unassailable. Millennnial Media (who recently filed for IPO) and Apple’s iAd are equal second, each with around 18% market share. If you’ve been reading this blog over the last week or so you will have seen that DFJ Esprit recently invested in StrikeAd, which plays in the display segment of the mobile advertising market. The interesting sub-trend within that market is the shift towards exchange traded media. As far as I’m aware there are no analysts forecasts for how mobile display splits between exchanges and ad networks but from our work we estimate that around 10% of mobile impressions are currently exchange traded, but we expect that to rise to around 50% of impressions over the next year or two. Related articles
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