Professor Elam

Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M

recent posts

about

  • Professor Elam

    Apple on Campus

    Thursday Dec 17 2009

    The Apple site has two interesting stories about Abilene Christian University and Univ of Washington using iPhone and iTouch to connect with students. The story says that the Univ of Washington app has been downloaded in 33 countries. The electronic book wars are heating up with 

    Barnes and Noble Nook

    Amazon Kindle

    Sony Reader

    Apples' to be released tablet, probably March

    We discuss strategy in cost class so let's discuss it here. Apple is looking to leap from the popularity of its iPod, over 100 M sold world wide, to iPhone to iTouch, to Tablet to Mac computers. By the way the biggest gripe about iPhone is that the ATT servers in NYC are over loaded with traffic from the iPhone. Cigarette makers used to target young people, no one starts smoking later in life though many former smokers start again, Pepsi coined the pepsi generation. Apple is doing the same, if you get hooked on the igeneration as a college freshman, you are likely to stay with Apple.  THis is all concurrent with my ongoing advocacy of incorporating design into a curriculum. Apple has done this stunningly well, the best Dell can do is to color the outside of their laptops. 

    Anyway, take a look, please sound off on what you would like to see on this campus. 

  • Professor Elam

    Pittsburgh’s Fair Share Tax

    Pittsburgh's City Council is proposing a 1% tax on the have nots, the city's college students, to fund the pensions of retired city employees.  It is brazenly called the Fair Share Tax. And it is referred to as 'an untapped revenue source.'

    Let's follow the logic here. The City makes promises to city union employees that cannot be kept. Rather than just say no, or raise contributions from exisitng employed union workers, the City looks elsewhere. Would you go to college in Pittsburgh and pay more for a retired city employee?  

    The latest Barron's quotes some financial planners that are putting clients into municipal bonds since 'taxes are going up.'  No question taxes are going up. But I doubt this sort of tax increase will be gladly born by the taxpayers.  The looming municipal fiscal crisis is simply another postponed train wreck. THe Barron's article noted that in the Great Depression only the state of Arkansas defaulted. This is not a valid analogy. In the 1930s we did not have union shop states and cities promising beanstalk to the sky pensions that the stock markets now cannot hope to fund. This is a time bomb that will eventually take some cities to default just as the unions took New York City to default in 1976. 

  • Professor Elam

    Meet the Picture Phone, right on your Laptop

    Fairs and such decades ago used to feature elaborate displays on what the future would hold. One staple of things to come was always the 'picture phone.'  A lady would be pictured calling a friend and each could, wow, see one another while they talked. Considering the strides in television and gosh what good is that sputnik thing anyway, it seemed realistic but then they stopped talking about it at the end of the 1960s. Well wait no longer, SKYPE.com is here. At the skype website you can down load the software to turn your pc or mac (if yours has a web cam) into the long awaited picture phone.  And yes it is free. 

    Josh has an accounting club get together planned next Monday night and I would like to visit by skype. So, anyone game for this?

  • Professor Elam

    Intellectual Property Rights and the Internet

    Tuesday Dec 15 2009

    The Visual Science Lab posted some interesting comments concerning ethics and the internet. This was his post for Monday Dec 15. He deconstructs a Tom Friedman column. As he says, will Friedman think this is such a great idea when the NYT starts outsourcing his column to anyone that bids cheaper?

    This is a hot issue, and one that deserves discussion in the Ethics class this spring. 

  • Professor Elam

    Who is Pointing Fingers Now?

    President Obama is to meet with 'fact cat bankers who caused the problems' (his phrase not mine). Yet two days ago we noted he has loaded his administration with CITI and Goldmand types who did what he is saying. The idea that Larry Summers is criticizing Wall Street is rather like the mob organizing a Neighborhood Watch Group.

  • Professor Elam

    AIG Fuels Derivative Speculation

    Monday Dec 14 2009

    A WSJ article this weekend reveals the extent of Goldman's causing AIG to assume more and more risk in insuring default swaps.  This adds to the evidence that Goldman will be blamed when the next meltdown in markets occurs.

  • Professor Elam

    Pelham 123

    Instead of the latest Tony Scott version, rent the original with Robert Shaw (Jaws, From Russia with Love) and Walter Mathau (yes that Walter Mathau, Out to Sea, The Odd Couple). The newer version has lots of camera motion and even more bad language whether needed or not. Interestingly the original was released in 1974, at the bottom of the stock market.  New York City indeed, was held hostage by its garbage worker union. Less than two years later, the City was broke.  The famous headline as Mayor Abe Beame begged for Federal help, President Ford to CIty, Drop Dead.  Those same scenes are now being played out all over the country and the world, no wonder this movie was re made.

    The film has John Travolta making a bet that stocks will plunge and
    gold soar on the hi jacking of a subway car and threats to kill the
    passengers. However, it was more than a stretch that the stock market would plunge 450 points or that gold would go to, did I see $87,000?  surely not but again the Director was moving the camera more than necessary. I did mention in class that someone did buy near $2 M of puts on Bear Stearns nine days and $30 out of the money before Bear went broke, the bet paid 159x to one. Now that's a heist.

     It is not however a stretch to suppose that the planners of the 9/11 WTC attack did in fact buy puts on stocks, all over the world, in fact, I simply cannot imagine that someone as shrewd as bin Laden did not do that, financing his schemes for years into the future.

  • Professor Elam

    WSJ Reflects on Tiger

    The Tiger We Thought we Knew

    is an interesting reflection on the personna that up to a recent point, Tiger Woods had projected. As the author says, a political future after golf was a certain possibility. But now….We will be discussing such falls from grace in ethics this spring.

    The Wall Street Journal is always an interesting read on the weekend. Take a trip to the newest restaurants in the Topkapi Palace on the Bosphorous for example.

  • Professor Elam

    IPhones iTouch at ACC

    This article describes how Abilene Christian is using iPhones and such instead of dorm room computers. 

  • Professor Elam

    Tigergate Update

    Nike was nothing in golf until they signed Tiger for $60M. The bet paid off. Since then Nike has sold $800M of golf related items. Advertisers simply went dark on Kobe Bryant during his problems and will probably lay low on Tiger, he has been off television since Nov 29.  His knee surgery absence  however decreased tv golf viewership by 50%. Look for the advertisers to monitor his time off but not to dump someone who has been valuable in moving product. 

    And as the other golfers are noted, now someone else has a chance to win for a while.