Watch Out For Barclays

Hat tip to Steve Hsu for this interesting pic, showing the flow of human capital from defunct firms:

Barclays seems to have gotten the lions share of employees from those companies.

I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Does it mean they are geared for growth or did they just get a lot of shitty employees that helped cause the financial crisis?

The iPad will go bust

I don’t get it.

What exactly does the iPad offer that you can’t find in the iPhone?

This whole excitement over it being used as a electronic reader is dumb, because e-ink is only reason the Kindle works as a reader. The iPad will have the same glaring backlit screen as the iPhone.

I think it would be cool if it had a miniature projector. Then it could be used in business for presenting Powerpoint slides, and recreationally to watch movies in makeshift home theatres. But who knows if that’s possible or would even be as cool as I am envisioning it.

So far Apple has navigated the economic downturn shrewdly. I had not expected a company that makes discretionary consumable products to fare so well.  But all good things come to an end, especially improbable ones, and I am hereby predicting the iPad will end Apple’s winning streak in convincing fashion.

Toyota gets with the program

This is the latest hysteria the Government has been trying to whip up.  Obama wants to protect his Detroit auto union buddies so his administration is hyping this story to the press and launching a “special investigation”. Where is the special investigation of Ford, Chrysler and GM for the tons of shitty cars they’ve produced?

Toyota has have a much better track record than US automakers, but they are not politically connected so they are held to a different standard.  Fortunately, they have now learned their lesson. Bill Gates learned his lesson with the big antitrust case also. Now he supports a cornucopia of liberal pet projects. Maybe Toyota should start protesting Japanese whaling or something, then liberals in the US might start to like them.

I would like to be able to support US automakers but a workforce of primitive, entitled, low IQ dropouts just do not make the quality product that the Japanese do.  Sorry.