Wal-Mart Worker Dies for Savings

This is a pretty sad statement when it comes to consumers in the US.

Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help the man were also getting trampled by the crowd, Fleming said. Witnesses said that even as the worker lay on the ground, shoppers streamed into the store, stepping over him.

Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like "savages."

"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling 'I've been on line since yesterday morning,'" she said. "They kept shopping."

Yes, these scum actually stepped over a dying man and were angry they had to leave the store due to this mans death. So basically this employee died so people can get cheap flat screen TVs and DVD players. I hope they study the security camera footage and charge everyone that knocked the guy down and stomped on him with capital murder.

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Obama's White House Changes: To be the "Green" House and Homework in the Lincoln Bedroom

Hmm, it seems this may be a Presidency for "Change" at least when it comes to the White House itself. The first daughters will not be waited on hand and foot and will have chores in the White House. I guess that means no maids to pick up their toys and put away their books. Also one of the girls will be doing her homework at Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation desk.

Obama, who is known to be an avid reader of Lincoln history, said his daughter told him "I'm going to sit at that desk, because I'm thinking that will inspire big thoughts."

Maybe the Ghost of Lincoln will help her with her civics homework. This part will be an interesting change I think.

Obama will be sworn in on Jan. 20, and he said he wants to work quickly to make the White House "green."

The president-elect said he plans to sit down with the chief usher for the presidential mansion and do an evaluation of its energy efficiency.

I think he should put a big Solar Panel on the roof of the White House to show more adoption of the technology. Even if they use it to heat water I still think it would be a nice gesture to show Americans how easy it would be to adopt that technology. He can even spend the tax rebate check on something nice for the family.

I think getting rid of the t-ball field that Bush put in and putting in a nice vegetable and fruit garden would be an interesting touch as well. It would be a nod to sustainable living and organically grown produce. It would be cool for the President to say "I grew these squash myself" when a foreign dignitary or a Congressman visits.

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Memristors May be a Boon for HP Stock in the Next few years

It seems that HP (HPQ) is working on a new type of transistor that can remember what resistance it was in even if the juice is turned off.

After rediscovering Chua's work, researchers at HP Labs built the first working memristor in May of this year. And last week, at the first ever Memristor and Memristor Systems Symposium, in Berkeley, CA, the same team showed how memristors can be integrated into functioning circuits. Their circuits require fewer transistors, allowing more components (and more computing power) to be packed into the same physical space while also using less power to function.

The idea is that if they can get these things to increase the computing power of HP chips as well as reducing the amount of electricity that they use it could be great for their bottom line. Also these memristor/transistor chips may be used in future HP computers. This should lead to costs savings since HPs supply chain will be vertically integrated.

HP might even become a big player in the semiconductor market even if they don't build the chips themselves (I'm not sure they would want to get into the serious manufacturing side of the business.) They might just farm out the manufacture of the chips to Taiwan Semi or someone like that on the Fab side.

This also provides some real high margin business on the licencing side of things. I can see Intel using some of these things in future netbook CPUs since they seem to seriously sip power and may lead to an instantly bootable machine. HP can also licence this technology to Flash memory makers who can use it to reduce their costs as well. I think this memristor breakthrough might provide a lucrative revenue stream for HP in the years ahead.

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Obama Third Press Conference in as Many Days: Strikes an FDR tone

Well I guess him showing up with the "Office of the President-Elect" seal day after day is reassuring someone since the market is rallying quite nicely.

"Help is on the way," he proclaimed at his third news briefing on the economy this week. Fifty-five days away from taking office, he declared he would have an economic plan ready for action "starting day one."

Investors' improved spirits kept pace. The Dow Jones industrials were up about 200 points near the end of the trading day.

I guess that is the Obama jawbone effect. I do like his talk on the stimulus package since it is helping the stock of construction companies like Fluor (FLR) and Jacobs Engineering (JEC.) Also it would help Caterpillar (CAT) at a time when Chinese equipment spending seems to be slowing. I think these companies are cheap but will reap the lions share of the billions in government cashola to fix broken streets and upgrade our energy infrastructure.

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The FED Starting to Nationalize Some Mortgages

I think some rappers need to take a page out of the FEDs book. They are just throwing massive piles of money around and seeing what happens.

Rolling out powerful new weapons against the financial meltdown, the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve pledged $800 billion Tuesday to blast through blockades on credit cards, auto loans, mortgages and other borrowing. Total bailout commitments, loans and pledges of backing neared a staggering $7 trillion.

Yeah that is trillion with a T. They also seem to be diamonds out of the trash when it comes to loans they are plucking from the corpse of Fannie and Freddie.

As for Tuesday's actions, the mortgage-backed securities the Fed will buy will be investment-grade assets � not the toxic mortgage-related assets that the administration initially had said the $700 billion financial rescue program would buy.

By focusing on investment-grade securities, the Fed will be able to help provide a functioning secondary market. It will pay the prices for these securities that are being set by the market. Had the Fed needed to buy bad assets, it would have had to develop a mechanism to properly price assets that weren't being traded.

So they are able to nationalize the good loans and leave the bad stuff on the books of the GSEs. They are also making a market in these securities and setting the price as well. I guess the "Lender of Last Resort" has just become the "Mortgage Bank of Last Resort." Now they can slowly destroy the bad debt at the GSEs and take over these foreclosed homes if they want. Perhaps they can then sell the houses or use them to house low income families or something.

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Obama Keeps Gates at Defence

It seems that Obama is really trying to fashion a Lincoln-like government by keeping Gates on at Defence for at least a year or more.

Gates and retired Gen. James Jones would bring decades of experience to the administration of a 47-year-old commander in chief who campaigned on a pledge to redeploy combat troops in Iraq within 16 months while simultaneously ramping up the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.

Obama is picking the right man for the job over and over again in his Cabinet. Even Joe Lieberman agrees.

"Everything that President-elect Obama has done since election night has been just about perfect, both in terms of a tone and also in terms of the strength of the names that have either been announced or are being discussed to fill his administration," Lieberman said during a visit to Hartford.

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A Solar Investors Primer from Forbes

It seems that the Solar Industry has some interesting trends starting to develop in it. I'm convinced that solar will be the best growth industry going forward once things shake out a bit. Here are some key points from the article.

1.) Thin film versus crystalline silicon-based cells-based cells. Some companies are staking their money on one technology or the other. First Solar (FSLR) is the thin film leader while SunPower (SPWRA) leads in home and utility installation of crystalline silicon. Thin film takes up less materials to build and thus should be cheaper

2.) New solar technology called organic solar cells which are being developed by companies like Konarka. (which isn't publically traded)

These solar cells are made of carbon molecules that figure to be cheaper, more flexible, lighter and more customizable than silicon or thin-film. In some cases they might even be disposable.

They could be the game changing technology that could conceivably get the cost closer to parity with other forms of energy. If we have an office building made with windows that double as solar cells then this organic solar cell technology will be what they use. There might be a time when every window in your house will double as sun harvesting device.

3.) A new business model is being developed to securitize the solar power system into a fixed income security. This defrays the high upfront costs and spreads the project risk to multiple investors. I think they do this through securitizing the solar incentive tax credit but the article doesn't say.

4.) Solar companies are starting to become vertically integrated. They are basically making the solar cells, designing the setup, and then building the solar plants using this securitization model mentioned in 3. This would be quite lucrative if they can sell their electricity at a cost basis that can compete dollar for dollar with a coal/oil power plant.

Here government intervention from Obama will really be a boon. If he put caps on carbon that raises the costs for oil/coal plants ,or provides incentives for utilities to use solar generated energy, then these vertically integrated solar companies will really take off. In the meantime they can control costs and receive a steady income from selling the electricity into the grid at market rates. This could be the so-called "Solar Utility" model going forward.

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Cisco to Shut Down for 5 Days

It seems that companies are cutting back on tech buying this quarter and into next year.

"In particular, this will help lower payroll and facility expenses," wrote Nikos Theodosopoulos, analyst with UBS, in a research note Tuesday. "We believe it is prudent for Cisco's management team to plan for cushion in the event of weaker than expected revenues."

That seems like a pretty extreme measure in order to lower their expenses. I guess capital spending on networking equipment is being deferred to quarters where the buyer can afford it. I mean most companies can get by with their old equipment for a few years long before they need to upgrade anything.

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FED Now Buying Bad Debt

The FED is still spending like a drunken sailor.

Under the new mortgage program, the Fed will buy up to $100 billion of debt issued by government-sponsored mortgage enterprises Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks. It will also buy up to $500 billion of mortgage securities backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae.

I must be nice to just print more money when you have a need for it. I guess this is just more US debt that China gets to hold.

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Public Utility Spending Should Carry Solar

I like how public utilities may be what carries solar companies like Sunpower through the next few quarters.

"In our view, SunPower's track record for successfully developing and executing some of the world's largest photovoltaic projects gives it a major edge when competing for utility contracts," he said, adding that he reaffirms SunPower's rating of "Strong Buy."

Now we need Obama to offer some higher tax incentives that get utilities to switch over from oil power plants to natural gas and solar. I am envisioning a time when the worlds deserts blossom with millions of solar panels that go right into the power grid. I mean the sun is simply baking the sand there now and should be harnessed to power our electric cars.

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Obama and Bush Work Together in Transition

It seems that Bush and Obama are really working together quite well now that the hand-over of power is assured. It seems that Bush made a decision on the Citigroup bailout Obama was informed soon afterward.

His statement took only two minutes, but it included this paean to his successor: "I talked to Obama about the decision we made. I told the American people, and I told the president-elect when I first met him, that anytime we were to make a big decision during this transition, he will be informed, as will his team."

About an hour and a half later, Obama unveiled his economic team at a Chicago news conference and mentioned that he'd spoken to Bush and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke earlier Monday.

I really like the dignified hand-over of power from Bush to Obama. I'm pretty sure all of the keyboard keys will stay on the keyboards (not like the vandalism that occurred when Clinton handed over power to Bush) once Obama takes control in January. I like this new dignified, principled politics instead of the "Pit-Viper, kill-or-be-killed" Bush/Clinton derangement disorder politics of the last 16 years.

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The USA is Now Long CitiGroup?

I guess it is one bad stock after another that the US government keeps buying in order to keep these sad companies afloat. They better break up Citi and unlock some of the value in that company.

ClusterStock's John Carney lays out terms of the $306 billion in loans:

• The first $29 billion of losses from the portfolio will be absorbed by Citi entirely.
• The Treasury Department will take 90% of the next $5 billion of losses, with Citi taking the rest.
• The FDIC will step in and take 90% of the next $10 billion of losses while Citi absorbs the balance.
• Losses beyond that will be taken by the Federal Reserve in the 90% government role. "Note that Citi is still supposed to take the remaining 10% at this stage but it's hard to believe that anyone really thinks Citi would be able to take any more losses once it had written down $40 billion more in this portfolio," Carney writes.

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Automakers Plan Stunt at their next begging Session

I guess cheap theatrics will be replacing sound business plans when the Automakers shake their tin cups next month. I guess you can call it the "Million Poorly Made Car" March:

The Detroit area's auto industry, whose livelihood depends on the health of Chrysler LLC, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. spent the weekend e-mailing and discussing how to set up a giant car caravan to seek help from Congress.

I think the idea of them flying to the begging session in separate corporate jets shows how messed up these guys were. It made the car makers look like they are going to panhandle in a Rolls Royce. If even one of them showed up in a car made by their company then they would have looked a lot better then they had. Like if the GM CEO drove a Chevy Volt there then it would have looked like they were serious about electric cars. Instead they looked like clueless plutocrats.

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Carbon Dioxide Found on Planet 65 Light Years Away

Great, now we have the gas that causes global warming on HD 189733b just like we have on earth. It is cool to find out all sorts of new things about these planets though.

"This is the first detection of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet, which means that three of the Big Four biomarkers for habitable/inhabited worlds have now been seen: water, methane, and now carbon dioxide," explained Alan Boss, a planet-formation theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington who was not involved in the finding. "The only one that has not yet been detected is oxygen/ozone."

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What GM needs to Do to Survive

This is a great rundown on what GM and Chrysler needs to do in order to save their miserable hides since Congress is not going to help them.

Lawmakers also rapped the automakers' high labor costs and particularly the jobs bank, in which laid-off workers get 95 percent of their pay plus benefits even though they aren't working.

The United Auto Workers said it has cut the jobs bank and placed time limits on it in new contracts signed with the companies last year. Still, more than 3,500 workers are getting paid for not working, and that number is sure to rise as the companies continue to cut jobs.

Yes only in the auto industry do you get paid to not work. Plus the number of these unpaid, unproductive workers will suddenly grow as they start to close plants to save money. Talk about a case-in-point on the power of unions in American industry. Plus I found this just mind boggling:

Initially the UAW said it already gave up a lot in the new contracts, agreeing to lower wages for new hires and to shift the companies' huge retiree health care costs to a union-administered trust.

That means GM is currently paying into a trust that their own Union runs? So they have no control over their own health care payouts? So in other words they need Union permission to cut the contributions into the trust, try to shrink its size, or even collect fees from running the thing.

I figured that they cut contributions into this trust as soon as they started to take those multi-billion dollar losses earlier in the year. I think GM needs to go into Chapter 11 simply to rewrite these contracts in order for them to compete with the Japanese. I'm pretty sure Toyota dosen't have the UAW running any part of their business.

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