Berkshire’s Charles Munger: Housing Bubble Caused By ‘Megalomania, Insanity, And Evil’
July 4, 2011 No Comment
Charles Munger, the always-quotable vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, wasn’t mincing words on Friday. “The bubble in America was caused by some combination of megalomania, insanity and evil in, I would say, investment banking, mortgage banking,” Munger said at a conference in Pasadena. In assigning responsibility for the housing bubble that precipitated the financial-sector collapse of 2008, and ushered in a period of prolonged economic contraction, Munger also took issue with the accounting industry, calling it “contemptible” for its role in the debacle. And he had particular scorn for Richard Fuld, the former chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers. “I would guess that Dick Fuld has not a single ounce of contrition wherever he sits today,” Munger said. Munger was speaking at a “Morning with Charlie” event, held in lieu of the annual shareholder meeting of Wesco Financial, a Berkshire company that Munger had chaired. Berkshire Hathaway recently acquired Wesco’s remaining stock, removing the company from public trading. Munger chose to make a public appearance anyway, though he said in April that the event would only be “for hard-core addicts.” Munger is known for his blunt, often combative pronouncements. In April, he opined to a group of shareholders that Greece was in trouble because its citizens “don’t want to pay taxes or do much work.” In 2009, he called cap and trade “monstrously stupid.” Around the same time, he said of Wall Street pay, “A man does not deserve huge amounts of pay for creating tiny spreads on huge amounts of money. Any idiot can do it. And, as a matter of fact, many idiots do do it.” At Friday’s meeting, Munger endorsed Coca-Cola stock, calling it “one of my favorites” and an “easy choice” for investors. He praised Elizabeth Warren, President Obama’s appointee to oversee the Consumer Financial protection Bureau, according to Bloomberg. He had a qualified compliment for former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, whom he called “a smart man” but one who “totally overdosed on Ayn Rand at a young age.” And he gave a wry nod to his own fanbase. Noting that Friday’s meeting would be the last of its kind, Munger told the crowd, “You all need a new cult hero.”
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NewsBusters wishes all of its readers a Happy Independence Day. In honor of the event, the following is from HBO's docudrama “John Adams”:
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Bummed about the myriad issues surrounding the original Foursquare app for Windows Phone 7 ? The troublesome program was pulled due to lacking features and a rather sub-par user experience, leaving mayors everywhere unable to verify their credentials for hard-earned discounts. Well fret no more, friends. A new version of the mobile check-in application has been released, showing off a retooled interface that takes full advantage of Microsoft’s panoramic UI . Among other features are live tile, tap-and-hold check-in, and a map that shows friends’ check-ins alongside nearby specials. Version 2.0, as it’s being called, is now available in the Windows Phone Marketplace — your Twitter followers have probably missed all of your Taco Bell Fourthmeal check-ins anyway. Windows Phone 7 Foursquare app re-released, tweet counts rise rapidly originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jul 2011 09:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Group loosely connected to hacker collective says it took control of Twitter feed to claim President Obama assassinated A group loosely connected to the hacker collective Anonymous says it took control of the Fox News Politics Twitter account to claim that President Obama had been assassinated while campaigning in Iowa. The Fox News Politics account – @foxnewspolitics – was used to put out a number of fake tweets saying that President Obama had been shot in the head and died, and that vice-president Joe Biden had been installed in his place. The tweets went out at around 2am Pacific time (5am EST, 10am BST). Obama is in fact thought to be in Washington at the White House, where his schedule shows he is due to give a speech in the Rose Garden at 6.30pm. A representative of the group ‘Scriptkiddies’ said in an interview with Stony Brook University’s Think Magazine : “We are looking to find information about corporations to assist with antisec [a concerted hacker attack on corporate and government security]. Fox News was selected because we figured their security would be just as much of a joke as their reporting.” He warned too that Fox News might see more attacks: “I’ve looked into their security, and site defacement does not seem to be an option. Everything else is fair game.” The Script Kiddies representative added: “I would consider us to be close in relation [to Anonymous], two of the members of our group were members of Anonymous … I was a member of Anonymous. We hope to be working with them soon.” ‘Script kiddie’ is a generally insulting phrase used by hackers about inexperienced would-be hackers who used ready-made programs to attack sites. The group’s name here plays on that. The attack is the latest in a rapidly growing list of attacks this year on the online presence of corporations and governments since Sony’s PlayStation Network was hacked in April, exposing the details of more than 75 million users. Since then many other game and company sites have been hit, with varying degrees of disruption. The Script Kiddie representative told Think Magazine: “It will be a never-ending battle. The names change from time to time, like LulzSec and Anonymous or Script Kiddies. But there will always be a group of people that need to stand up for everyone else and attempt to keep the government in balance with its people. Without groups like Anonymous, what is there to prevent corruption?” The group tried to create a number of Twitter accounts, but they had all been suspended wtihin hours of being created. Meanwhile, “AnonymousIRC” – thought to be composed of some of the leaders of LulzSec – has continued to attack web systems belonging to the Arizona police. They also leaked the user names and encrypted passwords to a survey system belonging to Apple, saying: “Apple could be [a] target, too. But don’t worry, we are busy elsewhere.” Hacking Twitter Internet Blogging Fox News TV news Television industry US television industry Fox United States The news on TV Barack Obama Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk
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Venezuelan president touches down in Caracas a month after leaving to undergo treatment in Cuba Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, has made a surprise return to Caracas nearly a month after leaving the country and undergoing surgery for cancer in Cuba. “This is the beginning of the return,” Chávez told the state-controlled television channel VTV shortly after stepping off a plane at Venezuela’s Maiquetia airport, just outside the capital, in the early hours. “We are very happy to be back home.” “Greetings to the Venezuelan people with my whole heart; 1m kisses and 1m hugs,” added Chávez, who only admitted to having received treatment for cancer last Thursday night after weeks of secrecy and speculation. Within hours of touching down, Chávez was back on Twitter and preparing to make his first public appearance since the start of June. “So I am back at home and very happy,” said a message on his @chavezcandanga account. “Good day my beloved Venezuela. Good day my beloved people. Thank you my God. This is the start of the Return.” Authorities in Caracas invited supporters to congregate outside Venezuela’s Miraflores Palace at 5pm local time, when Chávez is expected to make a public address. “We are delighted the president is home,” the vice-president, Elías Jaua, told state television. Political analysts had harboured suspicions that Chávez might attempt a high-profile homecoming to coincide with Venezuela’s independence celebrations on Tuesday – although those chances appeared to have faded last Thursday after Chávez’s admission that he had been diagnosed with an unspecified form of cancer. “This could be an opportunity for Chávez to change his image, create some kind of emotional link with his supporters, and help him reconnect with the rest of the country,” the Barclays analysts Alejandro Grisanti and Alejandro Arreaza noted last month. Chávez denied he would make an appearance to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Venezuela’s independence from Spain. “I don’t think I will be able to join you tomorrow for the official celebrations. But I am with you, back in my command post,” he said. “I am back at the epicentre of Bolivar,” Chávez said, in a reference to Simon Bolivar, the South American liberator and inspiration for the socialist leader’s 21st-century “revolution”. Hugo Chávez Venezuela Tom Phillips guardian.co.uk
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Actor who won a string of awards – including a Bafta – for her stage and TV work died on Sunday after suffering from cancer The veteran actor Anna Massey has died at the age of 73, her agent said. Massey won a string of awards for her stage and TV roles, including a Bafta for her performance as a lonely spinster in the 1986 TV adaptation of Hotel du Lac. Her agent said in a statement: “Actress Anna Massey CBE passed away peacefully on Sunday 3rd July, with her husband and son by her side. “She will be remembered as a loving wife and mother, a cherished grandmother, a generous colleague and, always, a consummate professional. She will be greatly missed.” Massey had been suffering from cancer, her agent said. Her film work included roles in Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy, Possession with Gwyneth Paltrow and an adaptation of The Importance Of Being Earnest. Massey was well-known for her supporting roles, often playing a spurned or repressed maiden aunt. She received a CBE for services to drama at Buckingham Palace in 2005. Divorced from the late actor Jeremy Brett, she was alone for 27 years until she met the Russian scientist Uri Andres at a dinner party and married him three months later. Massey’s TV period dramas included Tess Of The D’Urbervilles in 2008, Oliver Twist in 2007, and the BBC’s version of Anthony Trollope’s He Knew He Was Right in 2004. Most recently, she appeared in Poirot and Midsomer Murders in 2009. In 2006, she played Baroness Thatcher in the TV film Pinochet In Suburbia. Massey was born into the business – both of her parents were actors and her godfather was the veteran director John Ford. guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media A group of tea party Senators plans to filibuster over raising the debt ceiling, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) announced in an interview that aired on C-SPAN Sunday . “I was part of a group this week that said, ‘No more,’” Paul explained. “We’re tired of talking about extraneous issues. We’ve had not one minute of debate about the debt ceiling in any committee. We haven’t had a budget in two years. We haven’t had an appropriations bill in two years.” “So I’m part of the freshman group in the Senate that’s saying, ‘no more.’ We’re not going to let them go to any issue if we have a say in it. We will filibuster until we talk about the debt ceiling, until we talk about proposals, and many of us in the conservative wing are going to present our own proposal next week. And that is to raise the debt ceiling. We will actually vote in favor of raising the debt ceiling next week if we can but it will be contingent upon passing a balanced budget amendment.”
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Ever feel like your WiFi devices’ battery-lives are better off when not surrounded by peers and passersby? According to Duke University grad student Justin Manweiler and assistant professor Romit Roy Choudhury, this phenomenon is due to gadgets constantly fighting to retrieve the same data. Their Systems Networking Research Group has created a program dubbed SleepWell to alleviate the congestion; it puts WiFi to rest until the path is clear for accessing the specific data it needs, and provides improved power management all the while. The tech was shown off at MobiSys 2011 this past week and reportedly works well “across a number of device types and situations.” Notably, Microsoft and Nokia (amongst others like Verizon) are backing up the project, which makes us cautiously optimistic that it could be headed for WP7 (or Windows 8, for that matter) in due time. There’s no info on whether SleepWell will ever be distributed commercially, but may we suggest an LTE version to help out big V’s poor ol’ T-Bolt ? SleepWell forces WiFi to wait its turn, keeps gadgets well-rested originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jul 2011 08:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …VIDEO: “Just ask them to give their fair share. That’s all these middle class people are saying.”
July 4, 2011 No Comment
Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) got an earful at a town hall meeting. Seems the real “real America” is pretty pissed off at corporate and wealthy America about all those tax bonuses they get at the expense of those who can’t … Continue reading → Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : The Political Carnival Discovery Date : 04/07/2011 00:42 Number of articles : 2
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