Finance Geek

The $7.7 million sale of The Pirate Bay spells its end as a file sharing maverick.

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In a recent poll, a majority of Americans surveyed said they wanted health care reform to include some kind of public medical plan that would compete with private insurers to hold down costs. Somehow, the respondents felt, adding a government-sponsored option would discipline the marketplace and keep costs in line.
The only way that will happen, however, is if government reverses course after nearly half a century in which it has been one of the biggest drivers of health care expenditures in the country. The public sector already pays half of all health care bills and has been subject to…

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A Texas carpet shop changes its controversial name, but the haggling goes on and on. Now the store is advertising ‘total liquidations.’

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There are thousands of stocks and practically an infinite number of inputs that can potentially move the market. But John Roque, managing director of WJB Capital Group, believes there are just six bellwethers that can tell you pretty much all you need to

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From The Business Insider, June 30, 2009: Every politician (except Michael Dukakis) has campaigned on some
version of “no new taxes” and most ended up breaking that promise.
It’s how we do things in America, and as voters we’ve come to accept

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The stock market slumped midday Tuesday but the S&P 500 is still on track for its best second-quarter since 1998, up about 15%. The question, of course, is what the rest of the year looks like.John Roque, managing director of

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From The Business Insider, June 30, 2009: The new hallucination for most strapped McMansion owners is that they’ll “rent the house for a year and then sell when the market comes back. …

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HAMPTON — The location for the proposed casino in Franklin County has been changed.

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MOLINE, Ill. — About 800 salaried employees will be leaving Deere & Co. as part of a voluntary separation program it announced in April.

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From The Business Insider, June 30, 2009:Good news! The rate of the price decline in the housing crash has finally begun to ease.
Bad news! Prices are still falling 18% year over year.
Specifically, in April, according to the Case Shiller index, the
ra

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Bernie Madoff’s victims cheered when U.S. District Judge Denny Chin handed down the maximum150-year sentence Monday. But Madoff’s investors are far from satisfied and many are giving a Bronx cheer to Federal regulators for falling to stop the Ponzi scheme

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Up until now wealthy players of virtual worlds and MMOGs like World of Warcraft have been able to expedite their progress through the game by spending real money to acquire levelled up players and other in-game virtual goods in a grey market largely supplied by Chinese labour.  According to Information Week China has now banned the trade of virtual goods and services for real money, so this practice will largely come to an end – or maybe move to Africa….

This little talked about aspect of the MMOG ecosystem is actually quite important because it makes the games much more attractive to time poor but cash rich players, which are exactly the type of punter that everyone wants in their worlds.

I have been writing much less about this sector recently because it has become clear that virtual worlds are very difficult businesses to make a success of, much more difficult than I had thought.  On top of the difficulty and expense of building a good virtual world it has transpired that cost effective customer acquisition has been beyond most startups in this category – largely because of poor conversion from visitor to active player and monetisation.  This development will make monetisation more difficult still.

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Lenders might be monitoring your behavior via your credit card spending — and certain purchases could cost you.

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