The next wave of web-ready tablets represents a great leap forward in mass communication and may rescue the industry from commercial obsolescence. But any real progress will take genuine collaboration between content providers, aggregators, advertisers, and hardware designers — along with the courage to cannibalize an antiquated 19th century business model and dive head-first into the 21st century…

Words of cautious wisdom from the celebrated biographer of risk, back in November of 2007…
Crazy Little Thing Called Risk
By PETER L. BERNSTEIN
BACK when I was managing other people’s money, I had a client, a doctor, who enjoyed giving away money to his daughters. He was lucky, because an extended bull market was under way with only minor interruptions. The more he gave away, the more the market replaced what he had parted with. As generosity appeared to be a cost-free form of recreation, he considered the whole thing a riskless enterprise.

As financial institutions continue to navel gaze in the aftermath of the credit crisis, confidence in their ability to self-regulate continues to decline. With little trust in their assets, their markets, or even their peers, these global banking titans have sworn off their independence and, like disenchanted teens, are returning home to be cared for by risk-averse, populist policy-makers and their never-ending pool of taxpayers’ dough. The danger here is that both sides are still reacting to deeds already done, and nobody has yet proposed a solution to avoid similar financial chaos going forward. With threats to global income in the order of nearly a trillion dollars, whoever ultimately grabs this hot potato better have pretty thick skin…

“That’s what Chess is all about,” insists renegade Grandmaster Bobby Fischer. “One day you give your
opponent a lesson, the next day he gives you one.” In a world of anarchic intra-state relations, the question of governing dynamics has inspired countless political scientists since Machiavelli first reflected on the lessons of power. Perhaps not surprisingly, the lessons of chess provide a useful analogy in that never-ending debate…
Check republics
Sally Feldman in New Humanist
This summer the Iraq Chess Federation’s annual tournament took place at Kufa, near Najaf. It was a serious contest, attended by regional champions from all over the country. Between games there was feasting and rejoicing as a ray of optimism briefly shone through the prevailing bleakness.
The event was especially significant …

Since their earliest days a rogue asset class — a breakaway tax haven from the archaic world of REITs — income trusts have drawn the ire of free-market economists and the capital of free-wheeling investors alike. The former see the structure as an anti-competitive perversion of natural capital flows, while the latter flock to invest in a sea of premium yields. Traditionally, policy makers have been hamstrung by this natural dichotomy, but with their latest Halloween trick, Flaherty and the Tories have taken a bold step toward a fair and open capital market. Baby boomers may cry foul over their lost pot of gold, and socialists may applaud their conservatives counterparts for a rare shot across the bow of a …

Often referred to as a ‘private CIA,’ Stratfor just released an update on their coverage of the escalating violence in Iraq, the threat of another Sunni-Shi’a Civil War, and the challenge of unbridled Iranian imperialsm. Definitely worth a read if you haven’t been following the not-so-mainstream news…

In an attempt to explain the subtle but important distinction between cash flow, revenue and income, this article is the first in a series on basic investment strategy, and can serve as a primer for anyone interested in a more “rational” approach to financial research and analysis…
The first thing most people do when they hear about a new company is follow the ever-popular “share price” line of simple deductive enquiry (“Where’s it trading?” “Where was it trading?” Where will it be trading next week?”). In essence, these people are making the fairly respectable gamble that it really is “good news” that drives share prices up, and it really is “bad news” that drives them back down again. To be sure, …

generation one: firepower
with the advent of gunpowder, modern military strategy made its impressive entrance into the arena of armed conflict resolution. can you imagine being a fighter in that very first army without guns, staring across the battlefield with your broadsword in hand at a wall of fully loaded muskets? in all likelihood, you wouldn’t even have time to spoil your polished chainmail britches before taking that first metal bullet in the face. as you can imagine, there weren’t many of these early lop-sided slaughters, but the resulting shift in combat tactics was actually quite enormous.
during that first generation of war, all that really mattered was: 1) access to gunpowder, and 2) access to manpower. the guy with the most …