You knew, deep in your heart (and the dark recesses of your mind), that sooner or later, Apple [AAPL] would start selling their popular iPhone 3G smartphones online, preferentially their own online Apple Store. It’s been later rather than sooner, as the iPhone 3G has already made the rounds with the usual suspects of retailers [...]
USA
Things that make you go, “Hmm…” Today is Mother’s Day in the US, but it’s strangely difficult to believe that it has been a year since the last one. Last year, I mused about the origins of the US version of the holiday, and I also discussed what I was wandering about doing. This year, [...]
A few minutes ago, Barack Obama began announcing that Chrysler enters Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but with the support of the agreeable lenders and shareholders, with JP Morgan, Fiat [FIATY], Daimler (Mercedes-Benz) [DAI], the Canadian government, Chrysler management, and the unions onboard with the announcement. This is certainly interesting: there is a hoped-for accelerated reorganization that, [...]
After days of intense haranguing, negotiations, tirades, tentative agreements, and lots of other drama, it seems that there are a few key money lenders in Chrysler that are refusing to deal with the federal government, the unions, Fiat, other shareholders, and other interested parties. Thus, it appears that, without that last minute change-of-heart, Chrysler will [...]
Here’s a curious statement made to me at a local Starbucks yesterday: “I got hit hard by the stock market over the past two years, but I’m getting some money back from the IRS.” Wow. So was any of this money from that consumer stimulus package? Apparently not; it was from the taxpayer having overpaid [...]
A Little Bit: Today is declared by the U.S. State Department to be “Passport Day in the USA”, which launches a new outreach program to encourage U.S. citizens to acquire and/or update their travel documents, as part of the larger Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Additionally, appointments and “expedite passport” fees are waived for today only. [...]
I managed to catch part of the broadcast of Obama’s town hall meeting earlier today. It was quite interesting in the response from the public, especially those who were leveraging the Internet to tap into it and, in some cases, actually pose questions for the President to answer. The town hall meeting was touted by [...]
At first, it sounded like Donald Trump was just getting a bit fed up with dealing with the Trump Entertainment Resorts [TRMP] board of directors. Something about having to struggle with the company’s bondholders. So he quit, as reported on February 13, 2009. All right. But then, today (the next day) Donald finalizes his purchase of the [...]
During today’s interview of Geithner by the Senate panel for the upcoming financial fixes, Mark Warner (D-VA) made a notable comment about how there should be a strong expectation that Geithner and his department must provide transparency quickly to the public about how the TARP monies have been spent and how the new heavy-duty econo-package [...]
