The Latest Bulletin Of Financial Doom

In Private, Bernanke Tells Horror Stories

People wondering why Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke suddenly moved to reduce the bank borrowing rate by three quarters of a point should know that in private he has expressed growing pessimism about the economy. Whispers has learned that has told people in recent weeks that the economic situation some see falling into recession will be much worse than he has admitted to publicly.

Emphasis added by me.

Remember what Alan Greenspan never said in public.

Now go out and buy something. Sure, it’ll mean less money in your pocket when it all hits the fan, but in the meantime think of the good you’ll be doing for the economy.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke Thinks He Has The Winning Case

Everex Cloudbook: The Guy Behind The OS

The 22-year-old behind Everex CloudBook’s Linux OS

A little more than a year ago, David Liu was sitting in a lecture hall at UCLA. After graduating, Liu worked as an IT contractor for several months before starting Good OS.

Today, the young native of West Covina (a suburb 30 miles east of Los Angeles) is heading development for a flavor of the Linux operating system that is, in its own small way, throwing down a big challenge to Windows Vista.

It will be interesting to see what happens with this. And yet I have a suspicion than most people will ditch the gOS and install — the irony! — a flavor of Windows.

Except for those sickos who will try to put the Asus EeePC OS on it! That’s just unnatural!

The Secret History Of The PDA?

Judie Lipsett over at Gear Diary sent me an email about this fellow named Judah Klausner who has been engaged in a variety of lawsuits against several different companies defending patents he allegedly owns.

Well, she piqued my curiosity with this link that contained this bit:

Klausner, inventor of the standard Electronic Organizer/PDA, including the Sharp Wizard and Palm Pilot

I mean, what? Who is this guy? Why haven’t I heard of him before? And what’s this about him inventing the Sharp Wizard and Palm Pilot?!

Well, it turns out this Klausner guy actually had something akin to an electronic organizer before anyone else!

Apple challenger Klausner: Real inventor, not a troll!

Klausner and Hotto licensed their design to Toshiba, but were turned down by General Instruments and Hewlett-Packard. Apple had its chance, too! Hotto recalled meeting Steve Jobs at the Trenton (N.J.) Computer Festival, but said that Jobs only wanted to talk about the Apple II and wouldn’t listen to anything else. If things turned out different, Apple could have had a PDA a dozen years before the Newton was even a concept, and the companies might be allies today instead of courtroom foes.

Yeah, it’s nothing more than electronic retrieval of contacts — but he managed to get a real product out first!

These are the details of the product.

As for his connection to the Sharp Wizard and Palm Pilot, that’s stretching a point to infinity, I think. That’s like saying the guy who invented the alphabet also wrote everything that others did while using “his” letters.

As for the rest, I leave the battles to the lawyers. Let them get the ulcers. That’s what they’re paid to do.

They Just Took Away My Food!

Drudge reports a personal nightmare:

What the bloody hell is there left for me to eat?!

R.I.P.: Heath Ledger

Oh, you don’t know who he is? Hint:

He was just 28 years old.

The Question Everyone Is Afraid To Ask

Stock Tumble Drives 43 Benchmarks Into Bear Market (Update1)

UBS AG and Bank of China Ltd. led financial companies lower after banks lost more than $100 billion on credit investments. Bang & Olufsen A/S and Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB were among consumer stocks that tumbled amid signs the world’s biggest economy is shrinking.

Emphasis added by me.

Now here is the Question:

What happens when the U.S. is no longer “the world’s biggest economy?”

What happens when the middle classes expand in both India and China?

What happens when some corporate numbers geek in a ginormous company based overseas crunches some figures and a light goes off in his head displaying the following sign:

We Don’t Need The U.S. Anymore!

What happens when that inevitable day arrives?

Meanwhile In The Real World …

Yeah, how about that last headline, eh?

Stunning jump in foreclosures

Lenders repossessed 31,676 residences in California in the October-November-December period, according to DataQuick Information Systems, a La Jolla research firm. That was a dramatic 421.2 percent increase from 6,078 in the year-ago quarter.

In the Bay Area, foreclosures rose an equally stunning 482.5 percent to 4,573 in the fourth quarter, compared with 785 a year ago. Contra Costa County, with 1,558 foreclosures, up 533.3 percent from a year ago, had the most, followed by Alameda County with 1,026 (a 514.4 percent increase) and Solano County with 704 (up 528.6 percent).

“Foreclosure activity is closely tied to a decline in home values,” DataQuick President Marshall Prentice said in a statement. “With today’s depreciation, an increasing number of homeowners find themselves owing more on a property than its market value, setting the stage for default if there is mortgage payment shock, a job loss or the owner needs to move.”

“31,676 residences” — that’s like erasing an entire town!

Replacement town

Martians!

Life on Mars? Amazing photos from Nasa probe reveal image of mystery figure on Red Planet

But space and science fiction enthusiasts are convinced there is more than meets the eye, and after years of studying the images, have found what appears to be an alien figure walking downhill.

Yeesh.

Reference: Map Of The Market

Map of the Market

If all that red was blood, the market would be dead.

I Eated Yur Likwiditee

Dow Drops 465 Then Gains Most of It Back

“It’s just not enough yet. The Fed has got to do a lot more than just lower rates. They’ve got to inject more liquidity,” said Harry Clark, president of Clark Capital Management in Philadelphia.

All Your Liquidity Am Belong To Me!