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The new iPad coming out in March 2012 will be priced at $499, with the prior version being priced now at $399. Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, says the iPad sales in the 4th quarter of 2011 surpassed sales of PC's by any individual manufacturer. To give some idea of the impact Apple's sales of $9.5 billion for iPads in the 4th quarter were twice the sales revenue made by Microsoft for Windows software and close to the total revenue of Google during the quarter. This third generation iPad looks like the previous one. It has an A5X quad-core chip for faster processing and a higher resolution screen with 2,048 by 1,536 pixels. The new iPad also works on the new cellphone network technology called LTE. It works on AT&T and Verizon's networks. Users can dictate e-mail on this device.

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The tech boom bust since 2000 that has hurt America and Europe and which also laid the foundations for the loss of manufacturing and technology to China, ceding American leadership and critical advantage, is shown here in the WSJ. The role of the finance sector  is explained here. That has added one more factor to the factor of endless wars in the Middle East, where American and European investment in healthcare, education and new infrastructure was somehow diverted away, and much of America's and Europe's resources wasted- or not turned to the benefit of the people of America or Europe.  One financial firm that rode the tech boom to the hilt finds itself with unacceptable losses except in a severe recession. Tiger Global Management was using tens of billions of dollars from pensions, endowments and rich clients riding on some of Silicon Valley's hottest stocks.  With the plunge in tech stock values including startups in which Tiger pushed into aggressively now facing large losses after hyper valuations, Tiger's hedge fund which managed $23 billion at the end of 2021 was down 52% in 2022. Another of its funds that managed $11 billion has lost 62%. WSJ says this wiped out two thirds of the gains Tiger has made in the tech stocks since its founding. In addition large writedowns are expected on its venture funds valued at $64 billion at the end of 2021, says WSJ.  WSJ says cheap money (money somehow diverted from infrastructure and funding manufacturing in China instead of the US now goes by the misnomer cheap money) reshaped Silicon Valley in the last decade, as pension funds, rich investors and celebrities turned to well connected money managers such as Tiger to put money in tech stocks and startups. This WSJ report says compared to Sequoia Capital and an earlier generation of venture companies Tiger Global is simply not interested in management of companies it invests in, taking a broad brush approach, using Bain Capital for research, and trying to haul in a large load of fish like trawlers at sea hoping for some companies to make big gains. Many pension funds such as Calpers California's public pension fund invest in Tiger with a $400 million investment. WSJ also reports that Tiger Global's venture funds do not reflect the realities of the tech business as venture stocks will reflect the drop over 2022 and 2023, including its ByteDance Chinese tech investment which will need larger writedowns. Tiger has also not hesitated to get into cryptocurrency which has loss of about $1.5 trillion dollars. It is of interest to note that Julian Robertson, hedge fund manager of the 2000 period (when Clinton-Bush were US presidents) who ran Tiger Management provided the impetus for Mr. Coleman, then 25 years old, for the start of Tiger Global. Julian Robertson closed his fund in 2000 during the dot com bust. Coleman hired a Blackstone analyst and started on the next cycle of tech with social media platform Facebook now Meta, followed by China's JD.com as investments in a new China boom were started. The end result is that during a period of Middle East wars under Bush and Obama, and building dependence on Russian oil and gas supplies under Schroeder and Merkel, China was the gainer as the US and EU lost much of its manufacturing and technology to China. During this period US and Europe neglected investment in infrastructure that would benefit the people of America in ease of living and quality of life. Just as money was wasted in wars much of the tech investment was wasted. The companies that added value over time were started long before and relied on sales growth and new products that revolutionized their field such as Apple with smartphones that started well before the nineteen eighties, Amazon with logistics and its own style of management, Microsoft from an even earlier era. Tech monopolies Facebook, Google, and others would not be missed much in terms of real progress for the people of America. The cost is many decades of ceding manufacturing and technology advantage to China by US and the EU led by Germany. China 2030 and the war in Ukraine with China's support have shown how fragile the foundations have been with weak political leadership and a finance sector running backwards in terms of America's and Europe's strengths in new infrastructure, better healthcare, services and education for the people of America and Europe. Leaving it to the Biden administration and a new coalition of Greens and Scholz in Germany to begin the task of rebuilding America and Europe on strong foundations, including the dignity of the workers and families, that makes who we are and what we believe in, and why the free world believes in us. ...

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The U.S. Department of Labor says it has evidence of "systemic compensation disparities" against women at Google in violation of federal employment laws. A regional solicitor for the Department of Labor says the government analysis shows this "discrimination against women at Google is quite extreme, even in this industry." Google's own diversity statistics show 31% of employees were women in 2014, with whites making up 59% and Asians 32%.

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Issues about how many more jobs are supported by Apple beyond the 47,000 employees in the U.S. Estimates of job creation in China and overseas through supplier networks for iPads, iPhones and other products are as high as 700,000. Apple says it has "created or supported" 514,000 jobs in the U.S. Experts say it is hard to say how many jobs are supported. Of the jobs Apple counted in this number, the consulting group doing the estimate included 257,000 jobs at companies such as Corning that makes the glass for the iPhone, UPS, and a Samsung plant in Texas. The number was generated using a formula of the federal government's Bureau of Economic Analysis and how much money Apple spent on goods and services in the U.S. An additional 210,000 jobs were generated by companies making apps for Apple devices. The consulting company estimated that 45% of the 466,000 app related jobs in the U.S. -using the estimate of such jobs from TechNet- were for Apple apps. Apple released these figures on its website as criticism from the industry and outside mounts about whether Apple is doing enough for jobs in the U.S. Intel's Andy Grove is one of the industry executives who has pointed out that there is much scaling up at home that U.S. companies need to do....

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Jet Blue's new Terminal 5 at Kennedy cost $750 million and ready to handle the 28 percent of passengers of the 47.7 million who used Kennedy airport last year. Security should take no more than 10 minutes with the 20 lanes and ample space provided. Its designed from scratch to be comfortable and to look and be minimally intrusive and offer a better experience to passengers.

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Norris quotes Senator John McCain who said that when corporations such as Apple and Google do not pay their share of taxes, other companies in the U.S. and ordinary taxpayers have to make up the difference.

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Toutiao and the growing mobile segment for news aggregated from thousands of sources for tech, politics, and other local news. Toutiao and Tencent QQ are taking advantage of the growing need for news in China. Toutiao's algorithm targets new internet users in rural areas and small towns who are looking for news and do not need the use of global news sites as is done by Google and Apple. The deep learning of computers is used to study user habits such as learning about the main soccer teams, watching funny videos,as habits of users. Beijing Bytedance Technology has come up with the new site. The highest growth rate is now for news on mobile, growth is 73% year over year far surpassing travel and mobile video, according to QuestMobile.

China restricts use of Google and Facebook News and other sites and favors local content and news sites to give international news, and news about China.

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The Economist points out that China's total debt of government, corporate and households has grown by about 100% of GDP since 2008. The 2009 crisis led to rapid increase in debt. It is now about 250% of GDP, according to the Economist. Slower growth of below 7% risks reducing China's ability to service this debt. About half of this debt is owed by state owned companies and property developers. China can use its sovereign reserves to continue supporting bank and state owned companies. Investor's are pricing bank shares to reflect about 10% of this debt as bad debt even though government estimates are much lower. The reserves provided China time to fix the banking system since 2008, yet the debt keeps growing and China has failed to take strong action in the last 6 years. Complacency is a problem, and the incentives for local governments to continue prior practices that increase debt continue. As Krugman and other experts have pointed out at some point the rules of finance will apply to China as they have for other countries that faced a debt crisis- Japan in the late 1980's, South Korea and other Aisan countries in 1997, and the U.S. in 2008. Even without a crisis through deft managemen and use of reserves China risks zombifying the economy as old loans are backed up by new loans, with the further risk of misallocation of capital or poor use of capital. This lowers productivity of capital and hurts development. With poor statistics such as the figure of 1% of debt being bad debt cited here, the problems of complacency can be magnified, as there is less reason for a strong response....

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The Federal Trade Commission says food companies in the U.S. spent $2.3 billion in 2006 for advertising to children. With the epidemic in childhood obesity in the U.S., this raises serious questions about how product packaging, images and themes affect the eating behaviour of children. New guidelines have now been written at the request of Congress. They were written by the F.T.C., the Food and Drug Administration, the Agriculture Department, and the Centers for Disease Control. The regulatory agencies say they will take comments and consider changes before submitting a report to Congress. The guidelines call for foods advertised to children to include healthy ingredients such as whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, or low fat milk. The foods cannot contain unhealthy amounts of sugar, saturated fat, trans fat and salt. The sugar requirement would have cereals contain no more than 8 grams of added sugar per serving. Fruit Loops for example contains 12 grams of sugar per serving. The guidelines apply to both children and teenagers. However these guidelines are voluntary. At this time an industry led effort has not produced results. The Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, which is operated by the industry, lets each company set its own nutritional criteria. The regulatory agencies see the need for the food industry to follow a uniform set of standards. Without serious action on this issue the U.S. healthcare system will continue to be burdened with high rates of obesity related illnesses in the general population, and out of control costs. And the U.S. will continue to face the urgent problem of a lack of healthy eating habits of children teenagers, and adults....

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The Journal's Jeff Bennett talks with Rodney O'Neal, the CEO of Delphi Automotive. O'Neal says Delphi's success depends on focussing on advanced technologies where emerging market producers are less able to compete. He has focussed on 33 product lines which are 'green,' safe' and connected.' If it doen't create value then revenue and cost numbers are wrong, is O'Neal's lesson from the bankruptcy filing. He likes the chaotic discussion coming form strong debate, where views are expressed with passion and counterpoints made, and he takes this debate seriously, because as he sees it choosing the right course is a significant task in itself, which takes much time to correct if wrong. There are major improvements in emission and fuel economy ahead and a high tech future for the automobile industry. He see America's future in high-tech where America can do better than emerging market producers, and ensuring that the steady flow of exceptional American talent continues to be channelled properly....

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Consumer Reports is published by nonprofit advocacy group with 640 employees. It is based in Yonkers, New York, and was founded in 1936. It takes no advertising and answers only to buyers of the magazine and to consumers. Its labs based in Yonkers test a whole range of products and Consumer Reports does not hesitate to put a "Don't Buy" rating on products. In June it pointed out the defect in the Apple iphone that made it lose reception when the left corner was touched by a user. It tested the Lexus 460 a few months ago, and when it found that it was a rollover risk, Consumer Reports gave it a "Don't Buy: Safety Risk" rating. The magazine has come up with new contraptions that test different products. In the 50's it created a smoking machine that accumulated what was left of a smoker's inhalations in a container device. And it was credited by the Surgeon General's Report in 1964 warning of the dangers of smoking, as having done some of the serious research on the subject of smoking dangers. The magazine suffered a loss in 2001 of $9.4 million, but has since recovered under the leadership of Guest, who had earlier served as chairman. Guest moved the testing to more expensive products like Lexus cars and made another important decision. He expanded testing so that when it came to laptops, cell phones and flat screen TV's (which were becoming rapidly popular in the market), the testing would be ongoing. Guest moved announcements and postings of new product results to the internet and online subscriptions have tripled in the last 7 years. As a result the company has been profitable since 2003. Other decisions have been to add user opinions and comments, buying Consumerist.com which puts up reader opinions, and to attract younger readers. And though initially feared by scientists at Consumer Reports, who preferred to avoid user opinions and stick with the scientific facts, the moves have not affected its credibility. About 7 million subscribers subscribe to Consumer Reports, and about half of these subscribers pay $26 a year for access to its website, ConsumerReports.org. This makes it one of the handful of information publications that have paid digital subscribers, including the Wall Street Journal Online, which has only a fraction of the subscribers of Consumer Reports....

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The NASDAQ index reached 5000 by April 2015, a level reached in the stock market boom in 2000. Yet investment strategists who were wary of the stock market in the period before the 2000-2002 collapse of the market see this market differently. The NASDAQ itself is not what it was in 2000, with the 2015 NASDAQ component stocks being different for the most part, and the healthcare and other sectors better represented in the index. Only three of the stocks in the top ten in 2000 are in the top ten today, including Microsoft. The S&P 500 trades in April 2015 at 18.5 times its company earnings for the past 12 months, compared to an historical average of 15.5, according to research firm Bespoke. A big part of the difference today is the investment climate of low inflation, which gives the U.S. Federal Reserve flexibility in raising rates. Low rates make bonds with lower yields less attractive, and increase the present value of future earnings. The yield of the 10 year U.S. Treasury was 1.917% on April 25, 2015. In April 2000 it was 6%, and in mid 2007 it was 5.3% before the financial crisis in the two periods. James Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management oversees $347 billion in fund investments. He also was wary of the U.S. stock market in 1999, yet he does not see the similiar kind of risks today, and sees a long term bullish trend. The scenario he envisages is more of a pause or temporary decline. Paulsen has shifted money to European markets, as U.S. stocks are becoming more expensive relative to their European counterparts, a strategy that is being followed by other money managers since 2014. Higher price volatility is seen in the markets in 2015, with the S&P 500 up 2.9% for the first four months of 2015, and the Dow up 1.4%. ...

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Pearlstein raises the question, are there business leaders who believe that what's good for America, is good for business, rather than the other way around. Google, like other technology companies, pays much less in taxes than the corporate tax rate suggests. Research by the Washington Post shows this to be 18%, not 35%, for 2009.

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AT&T had 4.3 million iPhone activations in the first quarter of 2012, down 43% from the prior quarter. Of the most valuable subscribers who signed up for 2 years AT&T showed 187,000 additions. All but 7000 of these were in tablets. . This indicates that the smartphone market in the U.S. is being saturated. AT&T used the iPhone introduction in 2007 as a way to take subscribers from Verizon and Sprint. That advantage is now fading.