New Yorkers Favor Cuomo over Kennedy

At least they are favoring someone that was actually elected to a political post and actually ran for governor but failed and not just selected due to being "American royalty" like Caroline Kennedy.

Voters favored Cuomo over Kennedy, 31 percent to 24 percent, with 29 percent divided among others, according to the poll. Forty-eight percent said Kennedy isn�t qualified for the job, while 37 percent said she is. Kennedy is the daughter of former President John F. Kennedy and has never held public office.

I mean if Kennedy spent a few years as City Councilwoman or any other political post then she would have a leg to stand on. But since she has barely voted in the past few years this should disqualify her.

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Steve Jobs Takes Medical Leave for 6 months?

It seems that a minor hormone problem may have been much more serious then he has led us to believe. 6 months of medical leave sounds like a bad deal to me.

Jobs, 53, said in a letter last week that he would remain at Apple's helm despite the hormone problem, and that he had already begun a "relatively simple and straightforward" treatment. But in an e-mail to employees Wednesday, Jobs backtracked.

"During the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought," he wrote.

Of course this tanked the stock after hours. All together the stock dropped almost 8 points for the entire day. I think he really needs to seriously think about his succession plan so that some of the uncertainty about the stock is cleared up. All this secrecy about his health is not good for shareholders. In the meantime we may see the stock settle into the high 60s or so since I have read that a healthy Jobs is worth about 30 points to the stock.

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Funny Comcast Options Trades

I was reading the Fast Money recap and this part caught my eye.

Pete Najarian noted unusually bullish options activity in Comcast(CMCSA Quote - Cramer on CMCSA - Stock Picks). He said company is seeing a growing number of people staying at home watching TV and an increasing number of people upgrading their Comcast functions.

So I checked and there was a strange trade at the Jan 09 30 Call in which someone bought 20,000 of them for .01 each. Also there was another 1,892 of the Jan 09 35 Call this time at .05 cents. This is a strange trade considering how far out of the money it is since the stock is only trading at $15.33. You figure it wouldn't double with just 3 days until expiry like that. All I can think of is that it could have been an error since it is such a round trade like that.

However there was 10,858 Feb 09 17.50 Calls traded on the same day which was almost more then the entire Feb Open Interest combined. These were bought at $0.60. So someone is anticipating some good news at the company going into their earnings on Feb 18 to the tune of $600K.

Maybe channel checks are saying they might guide higher or something. I think Najarian's speculation that more people are staying home and upgrading their cable has some legs to it. It might even be a play on the Analog to Digital Switchover happening on Feb. 18. I mean maybe lots of people will switch over to cable instead of either upgrading their TV (too expensive in a recession) or buying a converter box (I mean the $40 coupons have just run out.) Unless the FCC jumps in and extends to deadline we may see millions of new cable subscribers.

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Now that Didn't Take Long

Welcome to the effigy burning club Mr. President-Elect. This one is courtesy of our pals the Mullahs of Iran.

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Obama Throws his Weight Around even to the Dems on TARP money

Obama might go against his party right out of the gates depending on what they do when it comes to allocating the 2nd half of the Bailout money.

Tested before taking power, President-elect Barack Obama privately delivered a pre-inauguration veto threat to fellow Democrats on Tuesday, saying they would not deny him use of the remaining $350 billion in federal bailout funds.

I like to see Obama taking a strong stand on helping homeowners with that 2nd $350 billion. It would be interesting to see what Geithner is going to do with the money. I hope he buys some of those foreclosed homes to get them off of the market. If they can get the supply and demand picture in line they can start the recovery again.

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Geithner Didn't Pay Self-Employment Taxes Promptly: So What?

He said he wrote a check for the taxes and made an honest mistake.

Timothy Geithner paid most of the past-due taxes days before Obama announced his choice in November, according to materials released by the Senate Finance Committee. He had paid the remainder of the taxes in 2006, after the IRS sent him a bill.

The still-unpaid taxes were discovered by Obama's transition team while investigating Geithner's background. Obama's staff told senators about the tax issues Dec. 5.

Why didn't the IRS discover these irregularities and send him a bill? The Obama people had to audit his taxes and ended up finding out that he owed extra money. Geithner wrote the check and paid his dues so this shouldn't even be an issue. If the GOP blocks Geithner because of this then they really have lost all sense of reality.

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Tech Spending to Be Down in 2009 but Up by 2010

It seems that the recession may drop tech spending into the negative catagory for the first time since the aftermath of the tech bubble bursting in 2002.

Global business and government spending on computer, software and communications products and consulting services is expected to decline 3 percent this year, Forrester Research said in a report due out Tuesday.

It seems that some companies will be doing better or worse depending on what they sell. Software companies will probably grow slightly since companies have to pay those licensing fees no matter what. They may even check out add-ons that could improve their efficiency and save on costs.

However hardware sales will be down since most companies can run most of their stuff on their current setup and are waiting for Windows 7 before they make an upgrade. Companies will also think about doing away with desktops all together and go to cheap Netbooks and Blackberries for their worker connectivity. This might mean more cloud computing as well. This should be bad for Intel for a while since their Atom chips have a lower margin then their other chips.

Also server sales will probably lag due to virtualization. You don't need 10 boxes when you can fit 10 virtual servers on one box. I think as virtualization gets more robust the server farm as we know it might cease to exist.

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Technocrat Genachowski to Lead FCC

I think the Obama team may have landed another big winner as the FCC chairman. He has an impressive resume in many different fields that should serve him well in an agency that is partly responsible for much of the tech landscape in the US.

The 46-year-old Genachowski is no stranger at the FCC. He cut his political teeth at the agency in the mid-1990s as a top aide to two Democratic chairman during the presidency of Bill Clinton.

Before becoming Obama's chief technology adviser, Genachowski co-founded a pair of venture capital firms that invest in technology startups. He also spent eight years as a senior executive at IAC/InterActiveCorp., a large media and Internet company with diversified holdings.

Perhaps just as important, Genachowski spent one year as clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and two years as clerk at the Supreme Court. Some of the most contentious FCC rulings end up being challenged in those courts and the agency has suffered more than a few high-profile losses.

So that means he has government experience, business experience, and even legal experience as well. I like that IAC and tech venture capital background because he may be the guy that kicks the cable companies in the ass and gets us Korean, Japanese and European broadband speeds. It is unconscionable that the country that invented the Internet is 15th when it comes to broadband.

I'm also really hoping he will be more interested in keeping the US moving forward as a tech power then with trying to censor Janet Jacksons boobs. From reading his resume and his close ties as an Obama friend since law school I think this may be the best FCC chairman they could have gotten for the job.

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Hillary Talks Tough During Confirmation Hearing

At least she is saying that all options are still on the table when it comes to Iran getting the bomb.

Clinton responded: "The president-elect has said repeatedly it is unacceptable. It is going to be United States policy to pursue diplomacy � with all of its (tools) � to do everything we can to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapon state. As I also said, no option is off the table."

She said the new administration would pursue a broader approach to the problem of Islamic extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I'm not sure what a broader approach to Islamic extremism is but if it calls for more troops in Afghanistan and a joint operation with Pakistan into those tribal areas then I am all for it.

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Bush Prevented Attack on Iran

It seems that Iran was almost attacked by Israel but the US put the kibosh on it.

The interviews also indicate that Mr. Bush was convinced by top administration officials, led by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, that any overt attack on Iran would probably prove ineffective, lead to the expulsion of international inspectors and drive Iran�s nuclear effort further out of view. Mr. Bush and his aides also discussed the possibility that an airstrike could ignite a broad Middle East war in which America�s 140,000 troops in Iraq would inevitably become involved.

This part probably shouldn't have been published.

The covert American program, started in early 2008, includes renewed American efforts to penetrate Iran�s nuclear supply chain abroad, along with new efforts, some of them experimental, to undermine electrical systems, computer systems and other networks on which Iran relies. It is aimed at delaying the day that Iran can produce the weapons-grade fuel and designs it needs to produce a workable nuclear weapon.

Why does the New York Times print the existence of covert programs against Iranian nuclear ambitions? All I can think of is that this is a way of letting the Iranians know that they are being watched by the CIA. Perhaps the hacks are in place and the moles are already embedded so there really isn't any reason to be secretive about the existence of the program.

Now Obama needs to come out and say that they are cancelling the program but continue it in secret. If he is called on it he just says that he changed his mind and kept the thing running after he made the statement. I think preventing Iran from getting the bomb is foreign policy job one.

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New York Times Declares Obama a One Term President

I thought they would wait until after the inauguration to declare him a one term President like this.

If his stimulus plan "doesn�t work out, he may very well be a one-term president,� said Jeff Zeleny, who covered Obama�s campaign. �It�s hard to imagine that he could be reelected if the economy�s in the exact same position four years from now.�

I would actually be harder to imagine that the economy will be in the *exact same position* 4 years from now no matter what Obama does. I would agree that if Obama does exactly nothing for 4 years then he won't be reelected. I do know, however, that Obama and his aides are a lot smarter than that.

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Obama To Tap 2nd Part of Stimulus

I guess they are after that second $300 billion in order to stabilize the housing market.

The letter says Obama intends to use the Troubled Asset Relief Program to help community banks, small businesses, consumers and homeowners as well as large financial institutions. It says Obama intends to launch a "sweeping effort" to mitigate foreclosures.

I wonder if they are going to use some of that money to by foreclosed homes in order to get some of the supply off of the market. Once supply and demand evens out in the housing market then we will start seeing a real recovery.

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Bush's Last Press Conference

I think this one statement kind of sums up the President:

"I'm a Type A personality. I just can't envision myself, you know, the big straw hat and a Hawaiian shirt sitting on some beach," he said. But, he added, it would probably be a pretty low-key day with him and his wife, Laura, at his ranch in Texas. "I wake up in Crawford on Tuesday morning � I mean, Wednesday morning, and I suspect I'll make Laura coffee and, you know, go get it for her."

Yup he messed up the day he is going to leave office. But you can take the measure of the man by saying he messed it up too early instead of too late. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy that is so drunk with power he cannot give up the office. I hope he now gets the chance to be baseball comissioner like he always wanted.

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AMT relief Suddenly Added to Obama Plan

Now this is an interesting development from the Dems.

Further, Democrats sought inclusion of relief for upper middle-class families hit by the alternative minimum tax. The so-called AMT was originally designed to make sure the very wealthy did not escape taxes, but it now hits many more people because of inflation, despite measures by Congress every year to prevent it from reaching tens of millions of middle-income families.

I think a lot of the jockeying from the Congress is for them to put their stamp on this bill instead of Obama getting all the credit for it. The bad part is that someone like Pelosi is actually tasked with running financial matters:

� Even before Obama�s plan was formally unveiled, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made plain her displeasure with parts of Obama�s emerging fiscal plan, which she believes does not move fast enough to raise taxes. �I couldn't be more clear,� she said Thursday at her weekly news conference. �Put me down as one in favor of repeal [of the Bush tax cuts] as soon as possible.�

In other words put me down as Herbert Hoover who raised taxes during a recession in order to make it deeper and more pronounced. I think Pelosi needs to listen to Obama's economic team who were able to talk him out of raising taxes until we are actually clear of the recession. Any tax hikes in the next 2-3 years are going to put us right into the 2nd Great Depression.

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Blagojevich is one funny guy

You have to admit that this guy is on another level when it comes to living in a fantasy world. This quote is case in point:

Rod Blagojevich says the Illinois House's decision to impeach him was no surprise because he's been engaged in a struggle with lawmakers since his re-election in 2006. The governor spoke to reporters Friday in Chicago hours after members of the House voted 114-1 to impeach him.

Blagojevich says his efforts to improve health care and cut property taxes for Illinois residents are related to his impeachment because members of the House resisted those moves.

I think the part about extorting money from that hospital and trying to auction off Obama's Senate seat and his 100 other crimes had something to do with it as well. I mean this guy can put any Tammany Hall boss to shame.

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