bb2018

Apple does a lot of things well with app purchases. You have to give your password to confirm each time and the information is obvious and they send an email.

However, it boggles me the number of steps you need to go through to cancel subscriptions. Why is there no "subscriptions" in Settings or at least directly in "iTunes and App Store"? You have to click on the id which is 100% non-obvious unless you search online. The answer is obvious but seems to undermine the rest of their consumer friendly stance.

It would be great if a superior alternative existed but other search engines don't come close. I love Google Search and imagine every internet user in the English speaking world does.

What are the issues with Google search (other than privacy concerns) that are talked about at length?

Technologically maybe - but I think it did define the idea of a social network being primarily (if not entirely) phone/camera based. I had been off social media for years but found Snapchat fun and interesting enough to rejoin (for a few years)

The number is still a bit confusing for an outsider though, no?

Twitter is worth 20B. Facebook is worth just five times this and also has Instagram and Whatsapp. Is this worth as much as Instagram which has a huge and wealthy audience?

A few favorites that come to mind.

- Betting on Zero. A documentary on the billion dollar short on Herbalife and whether or not Herbalife is a pyramid scheme. It is definitely biased towards making Bill Ackman look good (the guy who made it is friends with Ackman) but nonetheless is very interesting and if you are anti-MLM it will fit your view.

- Dirty Money. I wouldn't say it is straight finance but shows a variety of business stories that are very interesting. I thought the one on the payday loan guy was the most interesting. It is produced by Alex Gibney (who did the Enron doc) so if you liked that one then this will be up your alley too.

- The China Hustle. Highlights some difficult in investing in Chinese companies and how they differ in terms of standards and reporting.

Agree to disagree! Maybe no one will buy them because the business plan is crap!

The flaw to that argument (from my perspective) is that if a company wants more capital they can find lenders, issue bonds, or even issue new shares. If Kodak has a real way to pivot they could have raised money. Instead, it is pretty clear their business was dying and they had no way to compete against larger tech companies who could provide a better product with cheaper costs to consumers.

Could you provide an example where this was the case? I'm not familiar with any companies with a sound business model that were hurt by shorts.

I think you are right but when combined with the loan issue commented above it adds to the cost. If students had the choice between dorms and living at home with 15 extra k many would choose to live at home. However, because it is part of the student loan the 15k is not really seen and no one is trying to negotiate lower costs.

None.

If you're relatively young, have an emergency fund, and have a job I'm not sure there is any real value in keeping any funds in cash or low-return assets.

That was my instinct too.

Yeah exactly - everything they were proposing (either directly or indirectly) through marketing suggested they were making a device that could take a drop of blood, analyze all results, and give results almost immediately. If it didn't fit in the "existing lab model" it is because it was supposed to replace it. Of course, if it was real, it would have had no problem printing money as the value would be enourmous.

No. Just invest some of your paycheck whenever you get paid. Over the years you will achieve average results (which is very good - close to 7%)

If you have a lump sum and little to no money currently invested AND you are nervous then split it up into smaller chunks and invest every few weeks.

I am not a fan of Warren or Bernie would do have some practical questions for how this might function for someone who believes this is a good idea. I am skeptical but open-minded.

- Does every employee get an equal vote? Is it weighted at all by seniority, hours worked, salary? In a company like Starbucks where most employees are baristas what would stop them from joining forces with a small number of investors and looting the company's assets?

-Do employees get a vote if they are contractors? Could a company simply set up hundreds of shell corporations and hire those corporations to prevent employee votes? If not, would you get a vote at every company you contract for?

-Is there any concern that this could lead to a slowdown of new hiring? Right now a company may make 1B in income in a year and decide to invest the majority of it to open new locations or expand business. Do we think this would ever happen under this system - or would that money be given as short term profit? Would employees not want expansion which could possible benefit "the corporation" in the long run because it would cut into their bonus that year.

Black Edge is on one the largest insider trading cases ever prosecuted. There was no real hacking or advanced cyber crime (maybe just some social engineering) but was an interesting case of how some bad hedge funds operate.

There are some great books on this thread! I've read a bunch of them and going to come back for more.

I'm not sure exactly why buybacks get so much more hate than dividends. If these stock buybacks didn't happen the profits would have been returned to investors in the form of dividends. This would not have increased worker wages either. Any argument against buybacks can also be made of dividends.

I agree 100% with this.

Maybe there are some slight advantages in some edge use cases - but if someone came out with a company that was "modified public SQL database technology" would people be investing their money and declaring it important to the future of technology? The answer would be no.

As others have noted the number for Jackson seems wildly inflated. I suppose that figure and also the $7100 for cost of a spot lead me to believe this is either a poorly done study or a study done by someone with a vested interested in getting high numbers here.

Perhaps the largest issue is with the statistic in the study named "parking cost per household". This figure suggests strongly this cost is somehow a cost which is a burden to each family's taxes or own money. However, this study includes all parking spots. This leads me to believe the majority of these spots are in parking garages which in almost all cases are privately funded (and those public may still have fees which pay for themselves).

It's not quite that simple for some of the games. This one was able to slip in codes for some rather significant games: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/investigations/...

He gave the tip to his brother. Being able to shield your identity would make fraud both more tempting and less likely to be caught.

A judge in NH recently ruled that the winner of the lottery doesn't need to come forward and be a part of lottery press and therefore their name does not need to be released. The reasoning is good on the surface that people who just won a life changing amount of money shouldn't have to have their personal details flashed on the news.

However, it seems like being named in public is the best way to prevent fraud. Many of these scams are through second counsins' friends and weird sources. Now an insider could just go through their best friend and no one would ever be able to connect the dots.

I'm a bit confused by a lot of the metrics in this piece.

First, it tries to use city population as a metric to get per capita cost. It seems to suggest that households are on the hook for a significant portion of these spots. First, a city like Jackson Wyoming is mostly tourists and therefore the spots pay for themselves easily. Second, most spots are privately funded.

Second, the estimate of "cost of replacement" is pretty silly. It used 7100 as an estimate per spot. I doubt the large parking spots in a ski lodge base are going to cost anywhere close to 7100. And even if a spot in a city actually cost 7100 to pave, if it then lasted 20 years is the cost anywhere close to what the article suggests? Doubtful.

It's a pretty sizable miss. And it's not like people think it's not valuable - it's still up more way more than 50% in the year.

Sure - but is anyone complaining that companies are getting rich off options?

Buybacks increase the share price and that is why board of directors prefer them over dividends (since their bonuses may be tied to them) but this is simply an aligning of preferences. If I own a company I want it's value to go up.

If I could choose between my $100 stock going to $110 or my $100 going to $105 with a $5 dividend I'd choose the first since it is more tax efficient.

I'm always a bit unclear on how stock buybacks get reported so badly, though I suppose it is in the complexity of the transaction. If that $437B was in dividends I doubt anyone would think twice about it, yet that is in essence what they are.