YahoooOOooo! revisited

Though I liked Yahoo! much before. Now I am beginning to dislike it. Mainly because of its current CEO, Jerry Yang. He's an idiot. If a company goes public, it no longer belongs to the founder. It is owned collectively by each and every shareholder. Just because one individual (Yang) is an ardent MSFT hater, shouldn't affect the dynamics of the lucrative online search/ad market.

Yahoo! survives till now because of its mail. Its a legacy system. You can not get rid of it. I created my first email account with yahoo. So had to put up with it till now. Just because I had to visit its home page each time when I sign in/sign off, i got hooked into their finance & movie section which I very much like. But never used their search engine though.

Google dominates the search market. Yahoo & MSFt are distant second and third. Many don't realize that Google is becoming a bitch like MSFT in 90s with their arrogant monopoly. Google's sole income is through advertising, driven by their search engine. With so much cash in their hand, they are releasing so many free products killing many small industries. So an alliance between MSFT-Yahoo! would atleast bring in a viable competitor against Google. On top of averting a merger with MSFT, it struck a deal with Google. What a fucking shame!

What the fuck is happening to the economy?

What the fuck is happening to the economy? One bubble after another is bursting in this decade. First was the tech bubble at the beginning of this decade and then the housing bubble. None other than Greenspan ( ex-Fed chairman) should be blamed for this. He reduced the interest rate dramatically to 1% and made people to look at mortgage as a better investment as soon as the tech bubble burst. He was responsible for the over inflated housing market ('02 - '05). SEC should also be blamed for this. They should be regulating the financial institutes. All the financial institutes were given a free hand in the subprime mortgage sector.

Even after 2 bubbles people don't realize that if one entire sector of the market goes bullish its a fucking bubble. The commodities sector is way too much over priced. Blame it on the speculators twisting the supply-demand theory. Oil and food prices are soaring sky high because of the "sudden" increase in demand in growing markets like China/India. Just 5 months before, Oil was trading under 80$/barrel. Then the speculator jumped in and inflated the price now to 140$. I don't understand how the demand could increase in just 5 months.

Bernanke followed the footsteps of Greenspan and decreased the interest rates from 5 to 2%. Thank god, he, unlike Greenspan, realized that inflation is also a factor that should be considered. Look at Europe, they didn't cut back on the interest rates to ease a problem and making Euro a stronger currency. None of the presidential candidates talked about the real issue of this financial mess, except for Ron Paul. He was demanding an answer from Feds for artificially fluctuating the interest rates. Though Ron Paul is a Republican, I liked his ideas. Unfortunately he could not get the presidential nomination.

Many lessons should be learned in this decade. Few

1. Don't touch the interest rates, unless it really necessary.
2. A general body to strictly regulate the financial institutes and their lending practices.
3. Eliminate speculators.