Baltbear on Finance markets are like marshmallows

“In 2005, Nicholas Negroponte  — co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab — unveiled a prototype of a $100 laptop for children in the developing world. India rejected that as too expensive and embarked on a multiyear effort to develop a cheaper option of its own.

Negroponte’s laptop ended up costing about $200, but in May his nonprofit association, One Laptop Per Child, said it plans to launch a basic tablet computer for $99.

Sibal turned to students and professors at India’s elite technical universities to develop the $35 tablet after receiving a “lukewarm” response from private sector players. He hopes to get the cost down to $10 eventually.”

MIT’s Media Lab should be one of America’s “elite technincal universities.” One upon a time it was–and still, probably, is.

In comments about this cited news release, at yahoo, the overwhelming response from Americans was that noting is made in America, this device will suck, it’ll be a cool toy. that last comment was the most intelligent, because those who made it usually said that their buying one would support the project.

Evidently, based on pure numbers, pure quant, pure “science” says that MIT made too many decisions that supported profits for the “cool people”.

The MIT  project depends on $100 per unit subsidy from taxpayers of some kind.
:”India plans to subsidize the cost of the tablet for its students, bringing the purchase price down to around $20.” That’s not a difference of just $85 per unit, it is a critical difference of 60% vs 100%.
There is an obvious Forex-like arb in currency conversion, but the % is what it is, and nothing else.

This device from India probably won’t have the panache and real world support of an i-Pad.
Assuming it works 1/3 as well, a retail buyer can get 5 of them, and run them til they break,
and be a full 50% ahead of buying an i-Pad.

But, without cultural changes, they won’t be “cool people.”

America is becoming a nation of “cool people” who have nothing but their self-absorption, living on borrowed money.  o, wait–it always was. the “money” was first the entire capital wealth of the first natrions people from the Quahog to the Lakota. Then it was the entire prodictive output of 100,000,000 slaves and “push” delivered “immigrants” (as opposed to the African slaves who were “pull” delivered.)

and then, in a “better” world, leaving people where they were, and importing their capital assets–neo-colonialism–and then, for the past generation, just importing their money–at interest.

What has America exported to balance this? belief systems it didn’t want. these were workable belief systems, as India, China, and others have shown. but they just weren’t cool anymore.

When the prudent speculator sees some stem cell stock going overseas to get work done, this is not because the USA can’t do it…but because the insiders at that puppy are working for “coolness”–profits on the books. the question then is where does this coolness flow: to the insiders or to common stock. The easy way to measure is whether the non-USA partners are putting skin in the game, or is the “foreign outreach” based on tax scams and buddy-buddy “cool people” partnerships.

Posted under business

Prudent speculators will often be accusede of all kinds of things.

Here’s an example of a simple baltbear being accused (in a rd person remark)
“. I personally think he has an agenda which I have told him directly and the negativity toward the investments of ISCO”

readers familiar with my pov on isco will note i have 2 clients in isco.ob at this time. They got there “because I said so.”

But i expect isco to head towards 2 1/2— a near double… and then drift towards 4… after it >proves< something.

That gives me an “agenda.”

and there it is….
new readers are invited to note a poster or 6 here and there muttering about prices north of 4…without having read the filings that formed isco in the first place….this same alleged heavy duty hitter thought isco.ob was ipo’d on its own name. Thinking such a thing means they have never read the filings, which shiw it being a double reverse merger shell property.

There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Such a procedure can save thousands of dollars in useless fees to lawyers and other scum. But since this is not exactly ancient history, and is publy available from the sec, >not knowing it<< is a signal of something–specifically, lack of prudence.

i say this is a place to start nibbling, isco.ob because 2 1/2 is coming back… and that’s “negative” in the minds of those who, over and over, say “it’s different this time” whther this time is real estate, the internet, stem cells, “plastics” –going back to “tulips.”

when everyone agrees it’s time to look for the koolaid pitcher that is feeeding it. those who doubt this are cordially invited to read the chaerts of aig, fnm, wamu (o wait, it’s wamu>>q<<) citibank, et al.

personally and professionally i don;t think >>anyone<< is without an agenda.
the issue is…what >>is<< the agenda, and do you benefit or suffer by working for/against it…

as an example of objectivity let’s taqke this statement about the market size for synthetic corneas :”going blind or had vision problems that could be rectified by a pair of corneas, I would pay just about anything.”

uhuh…so, that only says u have $$.

it is a fundamental law of econ that u cannot spend more than u have + what others think u can pay back…unless you steal.

so,tards dd, what % of “10mm people need corneas” can get their hands on …let’s call it, just to be as long as possible on isco…. $3000????

data? source of data?

i can cheeerfully see isco licensing the tech so that somebody in bumphreakistan gets eyesight, and isco gets
~$15 per event.
that might be 3mm custoimers over 10 years @ let’s go conservative and say 50mm o/s….. 9 cents a share >>>straight to the bottom line<<<<…

and people get to see. and isco gets to have a reasonable “fair value” of 4-6…

but pumpers don’t get houses by the lake.

and that is why so many voices here see me as a “basher.”

when somebody wants you to listen to their investment strategy, ask for their agenda. If they say they have none….run away.

mine is based on observing this item of “laws of a baltbear”
“some want to be sharks, some want to be dolphins–nobody wants to be tuna.”

if you are nobody–feel free to see if i’m available for consultation.

fd: 2 clients long isco.

Posted under business

In a day or three, depending on how the euro is doing as people begin to realise that false claims of progress will always be undone by inefficiencies and corruption, i’ll be talking about the most dangerous words in the speculator’s environment: “it’s different this time”.

recall the crazy valuations in the days of the net bubble?

at the time, it was “different this time.”

recall the “artificial blood” stocks of 98-99?

at the time it was “different this time.”

recall mortgage deals of 2005-2008 as the real estate industry sold off its assets??

at the time it was “different this time.”

i recently picked up a reasonable enough fee for explaining to a guy managing a fair chunk of other people’s money what “the big deal” is with stem cell stocks, from gern to isco.obb.

and is different about pricing them for speculation than is true about f, or ge, or mot…and what was the same, because the ojne thing always true for the prudent speculator is that it is never different this time.

Posted under business