Robert Worstell

Point here is that all the MSM "Chicken Littles" have some reworking to do. Note that no major news network said how big a success Cyber Monday was. Makes you wonder whose pocket they are in... Not their advertisers, or maybe they have their advertisers over a barrel... - Robert Worstell

Ebay shooting it's traditional market in the foot. Welcome to only Big Box stores making profits on eBay. - Robert Worstell

Humphrey is doing a local vertical market by subscription - selling locations for $1K a pop. Makes sense, doesn't it... - Robert Worstell

"The big post-Thanksgiving shopping day known as Black Friday wasn’t as awful for retailers — at least for online retailers — as some had feared, according to new data from comScore. That’s a good sign for the online economy, since Black Friday is usually seen as an indicator of how the rest of holiday shopping season will go. Online shoppers spent a $534 million on Friday, up 1 percent from last year. That’s not a dramatic increase, but at least it’s growth. PayPal did even better — it told Reuters it saw almost 34 percent more transactions on Black Friday this year than last year. In comparison, for the first 28 days of November, online spending is down 4 percent overall." - Robert Worstell via Bookmarklet

I find it so interesting that online deals for Black Friday were better than Cyber Monday. I heard a lot of people saying that because Cyber Monday wasn't great that Christmas would be doomed. This data is encouraging. - Ryan Twomey

"I called up an acquaintance that makes her living buying and selling on eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY). She answered the phone sounding like she had just spent the last 48 hours on a runaway treadmill. She was tired and grumpy. “So how did Cyber Monday treat you,” I asked. “It was insane. I have more orders than I can handle,” I think she replied. In her tired and mumbling tone, it was hard to know exactly what she said. I do know she cursed and hung up on me when I told her to hang on to her hat with Green Monday and its huge shopping volumes on the way. Experts are predicting it will be the biggest online retailing day of the year." - Robert Worstell via Bookmarklet

"Cyber Monday online retail spending totaled $846 million, up 15% from a year earlier, according to new data from ComScore. The market research firm says that while online spending for the November 1-December 1 is down 2%, spending from Thanksgiving on is up 12% from a year earlier. Online spending was up 6% year over year on Thanksgiving Day; up 1% on Black Friday; and up 19% on the subsequent weekend. Meanwhile, eBay (EBAY) says that PayPal saw a 27% increase in online payment volume on Cyber Monday versus last year; volume was up 60% from Black Friday. The company noted that the most searched for product on eBay across the holiday weekend was the Nintendo Wii, selling for an average price of $349. Next highest searches were for Nintendo Wii Fit and the Apple iPhone." - Robert Worstell via Bookmarklet

List of interesting bloggers. - Robert Worstell

"“But the reason I would not want to talk to anyone is because our safety was actually compromised by CNN, which broadcast where we were. “The terrorists were watching CNN and they came down from where they were in a lift after hearing about us on television. For that reason I would appeal to the media to be very careful about what they broadcast. “When we left Mumbai there were still around 100 people trapped there.” She added: “People talk to one another on mobile phones and that gets broadcast and the terrorists knew from that.”" - Robert Worstell via Bookmarklet

typical. network that brought on Deepak - Ⓝ〄ⒶⒽ ⒹⒶⓋⒾⒹ ⓈⒾⓂ〄Ⓝ

"In a 2004 paper, Harold L. Cole of UCLA and Lee E. Ohanian of UCLA and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis argued that the Depression would have ended in 1936, rather than in 1943, were it not for policies that magnified the power of labor and encouraged the cartelization of industries. These policies expressed the New Deal premise that the Depression was caused by excessive competition that first reduced prices and wages, and then employment and consumer demand. In a forthcoming paper, Ohanian argues that "much of the depth of the Depression" is explained by Hoover's policy -- a precursor of the New Deal mentality -- of pressuring businesses to keep nominal wages fixed. Furthermore, Hoover's 1932 increase in the top income tax rate, from 25 percent to 63 percent, was unhelpful. And FDR's hyperkinetic New Deal created uncertainties that paralyzed private-sector decision-making." - Robert Worstell via Bookmarklet

"The vice presidential office's role, which expanded tremendously during the Bush administration. Dick Cheney is viewed by many as the most powerful vice president in American history and as a chief architect of the war in Iraq. The office's role will likely shrink back to something closer to its usual size after Obama takes office. Biden famously called Cheney "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history." But his criticism of Cheney's interpretation of the office perhaps offers the most telling clues about the kind of vice president Joe Biden will be. In another dig at Cheney during the vice-presidential debate in October, Biden cited Article I in the Constitution to say that the vice president has no legislative authority except to be the tie vote in the Senate. "And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vi" - Robert Worstell via Bookmarklet

"The phrase "separation of church and state" actually comes from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1802 to the Danbury Baptists. He told them that no particular Christian denomination was going to have a monopoly in government. His words, "a wall of separation between Church & State," were not written to remove all religious practice from government or civic settings, but to prohibit the domination and even legislation of religious sectarianism. Proof that Jefferson was not trying to rid government of religious (specifically Christian) influence comes from the fact that he endorsed the use of government buildings for church meetings and services, signed a treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians that allotted federal money to support the building of a Catholic church and to pay the salaries of the church's priests, and repeatedly renewed legislation that gave land to the United Brethren to help their missionary activities among the American Indians. Some might be completely surprised to discover that just " - Robert Worstell via Bookmarklet

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." FDR - a politician who built (and ended) his career through inept handling of these fears. - Robert Worstell

There's economics to this. You can't have feel-good legislation which runs counter to natural laws. Slaughterhouses are a form of humane euthanasia for unwanted horses. That legislation needs to be overturned - or given loopholes. - Robert Worstell

#mumbai - To the contrary of fears, this may solidify peace between Pakistan and India. These terrorists are promulgating true hate crimes and, like any belligerent minority, will need the rule of law (and perhaps military action) enforced. - Robert Worstell

Point here is that it follows traditional Bell Curve data, used by spammers as well, that 2-5% of all offers will be taken up. What makes social media different is that you have to give good comments and participation in order to get response. Also, you have to make it easy to find you. Having your link in the twitter profile is such. - Robert Worstell

"The next president and Treasury secretary should make clear their intention to exit their new interventionist role in favor of private capital, and that the revenues from premiums, dividends, asset sales and profits on investments will not be used to fund pet projects and new initiatives. We must not sow the seeds of what will be, a decade on, the next government social engineering fiasco, with regulation, mandates, subsidies, taxes and spending. Unfortunately, the same political forces that socially engineered a disastrous mortgage market now have other industries in their sights: pharmaceuticals, health care, energy. Barack Obama enthusiastically endorses such policies; John McCain less so. The big risks are higher taxes, protectionism, regulatory micromanagement, vast new spending, subsidies and mandates. Recall that the stock market crash of 1929, and the ensuing recession, were turned into the Great Depression by tax increases and protectionism (and bad monetary policy)." - Robert Worstell via Bookmarklet

Wait a second. Are we revising history here? As I remember learning it, things starting getting better once FDR got into office and started the New Deal. Also, Boskin says that we are in this mess of poor regulation (which was made by Republicans primarily). So now the solution is no regulation? I am confused. Also note that the author is a "Hoover Institution senior fellow and economic adviser to Sen. McCain." Trickle-down economics? Sounds great!! - Robert Felty

Robert, the bad monetary policy and tax increases were done by Hoover, and his predecessors. The policies are not necessarily political, but it is still bad policy to flood markets with liquidity because it creates bubbles, and to raise taxes in the face of recession, because it creates depression. - Chris White

Do your research for yourself. Handouts and "bailouts" with increased taxes to pay for them only ever, ever make a bad economic situation worse. But research it for yourself. - Robert Worstell