The Panelist Therapist Website Design and Mental Health Topics
The New York Times (NYT) announced today that they are ending "TimesSelect" – the password protected site that only paying subscribers can access. The Op-Ed and news columns dating back to 1987 are now free for all Internet users, and only the complete archives (dating back to the first issue in 1851) are limited to…
Chubb (CB – $52.95) has been dead money for the last two years. I think it's the best managed of the insurers. But I usually wait for some kind of disaster to push the market down before I buy a property and casualty insurer. People hate this sector right now because property and casualty rates…
How am I positioning for the Fed Interest Rate Cut? I continue to buy overweight financials, especially the big ones like Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC), JP Morgan Chase (JPM), Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs (GS) and Lehman Brothers (LEH). I'm even short some puts on the Financials ETF (XLF). In the short term, financials…
“The car has become… an article of dress without which we feel uncertain, unclad, and incomplete.” – Marshall McLuhan Last weekend as my partner and I picked up our rental car to drive out to the Berkshires, I laughed upon seeing the Subaru (7270) sitting in the stall. Do straight people know that Subarus are…
Is it fair that America, with 4% of the world’s population, uses 25% of global energy? As a South African, I don’t think so. I am excited about the prospect of economic growth in my home country, but I sometimes wonder where the energy will come from if America keeps unfairly extracting energy at the…
If you read enough SRI marketing literature, you will come to recognize that everyone expects market rate returns. "Obviously," you must be muttering, "who would advertise in any other way?" Even if some investors are willing to overtly take a cut in returns on their investment in order to invest "responsibly", most are not, or…
Will the fact that oil prices continue to rise actually hurt Big Oil?
Petroleos de Venezuela SA (also known as PDVSA – PVZ.YY), the state-run oil company (and parent of the U.S. Citgo) of Venezuela is being instructed to switch its accounts from U.S. dollars into euros. This is just another country in a line of countries that are steering oil from the U.S. dollar and requesting that…
Can green mortgages help the lending industry overcome the subprime market crash?
Yesterday, the World Bank said that China has the capacity to absorb the impact of the recent international financial market turmoil if it spreads to its robust economy. “Even if the financial crisis brings about a global economic slowdown, it will help China to adjust its pace of economic development,” said Louis Kuijs, senior economist…
In the Valley of Elah is a new film from Paul Haggis (director and writer of Crash, writer of Million Dollar Baby, among others). I should say at outset I am ambivalent about Haggiss work. In previous films, he tends to write on the nose, choppy, emotionally overwrought scenes that shove their message directly at…
As a symbol of our cultural moment, the MTV Video Music Awards program Sunday September 10 was unexpectedly complex. I tuned in mid-Sarah Silverman, who was already deconstructing Britney 2.0, who had just gotten offstage. MTV (VIA), where the target demographic has drifted down to tween girls (largely because of the influence of Britney 1.0)…
MEMC Electronic Material (WFR – Last trade $58.82) reported last week that a construction incident at its Pasadena, Texas, polysilicon facility resulted in a power outage to the entire site. Although the power was eventually restored later that day, the unplanned and abrupt shutdown of high temperature and pressure chemical operations caused considerable complications. The…
Photo:peterandringa, Creative Commons, Flickr I come from a family of construction and real estate gurus, so naturally the panel on green buildings at the AlwaysOn GoingGreen conference not only intrigued me, I even knew a little bit about the subject. Luckily it took place on the first morning of the event. The take-away is simple.…
Most presenters at AlwaysOn’s GoingGreen conference agreed that we are just beginning to scratch the surface of green opportunities out there, whether referring to distributed power generation or water innovation. And there are many, many smart people scratching, scraping and digging away at the opportunities. While many of the presented ideas were longer term solutions…
I’d consider myself moderately “green.” I do what I can, when I can. I recycle. I choose environmentally friendly products like Method to clean my home (quick disclaimer: I also worked there). I have a local, organic farm share of fruits and vegetables delivered weekly to my apartment. I write to you from my abysmal…
Is Big Oil truly ready to take on what the future holds?
Every now and then, Congress discusses the need for a change in our currency. Oftentimes, these debates turn political and lead to discussions about whether or not the actor who played Ronald Reagan should be featured on the dime. Recently, a different type of debate has evolved/been intelligently designed in the halls of Washington. Due…
The founder of The Body Shop, (now part of L'Oreal Group – LRLCY.PK) Anita Roddick died yesterday in England. She was one of the real pioneers in a business that tried to treat animals, the planet, their workers, their producers and shareholders in a fair way and still make a profit. I think she has…
“On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.” – Thomas Jefferson Kristina Dell at Time noted the Real-World Problems of Second Life when shoppers at American Apparel were gunned down by a group called the Second Life Liberation Army last year. The act, albeit it virtual, probably…
The NYTimes is featuring an article today on Bjorn Lomborg's take on climate change. While the content won't be unfamiliar to most people who follow the issue, let me quote the gist of it: “Wealth is a more important factor than sea-level rise in protecting you from the sea. You can draw maps showing 100…
Felix Salmon at Portfolio.com has rightly trounced me for buying Countrywide Financial earlier this summer. I thought it was a good bet at the time, but I got out in August once things started to get confusing. I knew CFC would have to recognize losses from their higher funding rates and portfolio markdowns. But it…
Photo:slopjop123, Creative Commons, Flickr It is human nature to look towards religion or a higher power to help us overcome circumstances that are beyond our control. History is rich with examples where gods have been created to try to understand the mysteries of nature. As long as we believe that there is a higher power…
The Money Warrior is here to kill you some money.
Photo:ASurroca, Creative Commons, Flickr So the ethanol industry continues its uphill battle. United States-based ethanol pureplays such as Aventine Renewable Energy (AVR), VeraSun Energy (VSE), and USBioEnergy (USBE) continue to receive a blind eye from investors as their stock prices languish. In previous postings, we have discussed how the ethanol industry is at an inflection…