Happy As A Hippo

The Facebook stuff will still stay, no doubt there…

However, I have shifted my blog to my other URL www.haah.bz. Please use it in the future. Note you might have to wait 24 hours before the DNS figures things out. In the meantime try slashinvestor.blogspot.com. It is a blogger hosted site and I have chosen to use the new UI that allows you the reader to view my website as a magazine if you so desire. I know as a tablet user that is a good idea.

So I was informed that my RSS and Atom feeds don’t work properly anymore. I looked at the problem and realized that extra empty lines are being generated. Yes it is a bug with wordpress and its extensions. There are solutions, but when I looked closely at those solutions I thought, “oh you have got to be kidding me.” Thus I needed a new RSS feed. One solution was to move my content to blogger.com. Well the export and import worked all the way to 2008, and the rest could not be imported. Great!

I then decided to take a step back… This is a social era, right? So I should be social, right?

Looking closer at the various social networking sites I realized that Facebook has a page concept, and on that page concept there are RSS feeds. So my new feed is going to be facebook. Or put more accurately, I will try and see how it goes.

The facebook RSS feed is here.

I thought the Greek’s PM call for a referendum was a brilliant move. Here is what I think happened.

Last Friday everything seemed ok, and the market was happy. But then on the weekend the Greek government received its tax collection numbers. Those numbers were bad because the Greek citizens are refusing to pay their taxes and the collectors are refusing to collect taxes. In other words a fiasco. The Greek finance minister seeing this has a “stomach” problem and is sent to the hospital. The Greek PM sees what happens to his friend and says, “ok fuck them! Now we are playing hardball.” The Greek people, the opposition and everybody else has to make a decision. It is not longer maybe, sort of, it is black or white.

I applaud the Greek PM for this move.

So how is it going down with the people? Pretty badly and hypocritical. The Greek people are “irritated” because they have to make a decision. Some citizens are calling it bluff, others are calling it black mail.

WAKE UP YOU GREEK NUTTERS! This is about your future and your inability to accept your future!

Viele Griechen fühlen sich in die Enge getrieben, überfordert mit einer Entscheidung: Stimmten sie für das Rettungspaket, träten weitere massive Sparmaßnahmen ein. Votierten sie dagegen mit Nein, droht Mitte Januar wohl der Staatsbankrott, wenn die erste Hilfszahlung von acht Milliarden Euro aufgebraucht sei. Deshalb sei das Referendum nichts anderes als Erpressung, sagt Yannis Aggelou, Verkaufsmanager einer Stahlfirma. “Was hier auf dem Spiel steht, ist sehr kompliziert. Wie sollten wir also mit einem einfachen Ja oder Nein antworten?”, fasst Taxifahrer Nikos Panagialas das Dilemma zusammen.

I find it hilarious on how the taxi driver said, “the situation is complicated how are we to decide yes or no”. Sorry the Greek people are not paying their taxes and it has become a yes or no decision.

 Es werde offensichtlich versucht, die Verantwortung von den Abgeordneten auf die Schultern der Stimmberechtigten zu übertragen, so das Blatt weiter.

One paper is complaining that instead of the politicians doing their job they are putting the responsibility onto the Greek citizen. Well NO SHIT EINSTEIN! The Greek people keep on demonstrating and keep on not paying taxes, what is left for the politicians to do? If the government authorities are refusing to do their job, and the citizens are refusing to do their duty there is NO OTHER OPTION!

The article is saying a No is the most likely outcome. Does this mean that the Euro will collapse? Well no, I am very pessimistic and don’t think that the Greeks will say yes. As the saying goes you can take the horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. This is the Greek mentality right now.

I don’t think that this is the end of the Euro for a single reason Dexia. Noticed how quickly Dexia was solved? One day down, the next day gone from the papers. The Euro zone can move fast, no doubt. But it moves slowly when it wants to get its point across. And in the case of Greece this what is happening with the delays and such. But here is how the no vote will unfold:

1. Greece runs out of money.
2. Greece declares bankruptcy.
3. The Greek banks become illiquid.
4. Banks write off their losses and are recapitalized, but it is not as severe as thought  since the European banks have been slowly getting rid of their holdings and moving it to the ECB.
5. CDS’s come due.
6.  Most of the CDS’s are written by Greek banks and since they are illiquid the CDS market collapses.
7. Greece collapses and there is panic
8. Greece is kicked or leaves the EU (not just Eurozone) as they are unable to meet their obligations
9. More panic in Greece
10. Spain, Italy and Portugal sees the mess and the citizens decide, “no, that will not happen to me.”
11. Markets go crazy, but settle down

Patrick Allen one of the nutters from CNBC, wrote the following:

Just five days later and the plan is already facing huge criticism and the market, fueled by the collapse of MF Global on Monday is showing Angela Merkel and Co exactly what it thinks.

Excuse me, BUT…  This is the collapse of an AMERICAN institution, not Euro institution! In other words an AMERICAN institution has yet again showed how irresponsible it is. But hey, it gets better.

Federal regulators have discovered that hundreds of millions of dollars in customer money has gone missing from MF Global in recent days, prompting an investigation into the brokerage firm, which is run by Jon S. Corzine, the former New Jersey governor, several people briefed on the matter said on Monday.

MF Global was doing a prop trade using the client’s money. For fuck’s sake what is wrong with Wallstreet? Why on earth did MF Global gamble with client’s money?

I think Patrick Allen is an idiot because this collapse is the result of bad risk management by an AMERICAN (I will keep harping this) financial corporation. It was the AMERICAN financial system with its securitization that brought the world to collapse, and it is the AMERICAN ratings agencies that were asleep at the wheel.

Remember before this little episode S&P ratings gave MF Global a speculative non investment grade rating. However, countries like Greece are rated the worst of the worst on this planet. Who went bankrupt first? Yes I am furious because the fucken AMERICAN financial system is yet again showing how stupid it is. They are not looking at their own backyard to see the mess they are in. Instead they keep poking around everybody else’s mess! They keep aggravating a market that does not need aggravation.

But you want to know what bothers me the most? Where was Zerohedge? I thought these guys actually knew something in the industry? I thought they had some insight? No this sad little group of individuals are nothing more than a bunch of sensationalists who would preach the doom and gloom than do actual reporting. I am really furious as the world is grinding to a halt because of the AMERICAN financial system, and its media. People are jumping and being gleeful about when things are collapsing. But I want to remind you of the following if you agree with people like this, there is NO SAFE HAVEN! Go back to my post on safe havens. There is NO SAFE HAVEN! When there is collapse the correlation is 1! There is NO SAFE HAVEN! And if you think shorting or hedge is a safe haven, forget it since you can only collapse once. What do you do after that?

So what I say to you the reader is, “smarten up” the world is not coming to an end! We need to do the following:

1. Force our governments to implement transparency rules. No more OTC, and anybody that trades while holding people’s money needs to disclose its positions.
2. We need regulation on any financial institution that is larger than 100 million. No more hidden closets.
3. Finally we need a transaction tax. If the market is going to gamble then let them cover their own costs.

Read at the following:

The plan’s shortfalls may be intentional. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Central Bank officials blocked the only credible option, which was backed by French PresidentNicolas Sarkozy: an open promise from the ECB that it stands ready to buy trillions of euros in government bonds. Before anything of the sort happens, the Germans and the ECB want mechanisms in place that ensure the central bank won’t end up financing more irresponsible government spending. As outgoing ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet put it in a speech last week, European authorities need the power “to take direct decisions” on economic policy in countries that fail to keep their finances in order.

Read that statement and think about. The market talks about how Europe should get its house in order. But think about the statement and the market sell off.

The German government, and the ECB is ready to buy bonds once the governments have taken the steps necessary to clean up their balance sheets. The market should cheer about that because Europe is doing what needs to be done. YET the market is not cheering?

What gives? Oh yeah the market just wants the ECB to print, print, print… So what you have people is a market that says one thing, but wants another. They say fiscal discipline, but want free money. In other words stupid!

I was reading the following headline:

John Carney wonders whether MF Global might turn out to be simply the first of many banks to go bust in a European financial crisis.

MF Global? First Bank to go bust into the European Financial Crisis? I thought Huh? WTF?

So I decided to dig deeper into the matter:

MF Global Holdings Ltd., the futures broker run by Jon Corzine, was suspended from conducting new business with the New York Federal Reserve today after posting a record loss.

And the further I dug the further I realized that this is what is wrong with the American financial system and why I am glad I am with the broker I am.

Point 1: For crying out loud why is MF Global hostage to Corzine?

Corzine made some bets that his bonds would get bailed out and they were wrong. So he loses money, as is the case with anybody who is in the market. But why on earth is his company going down? Did MF Global or Corzine make this bet? Simply put Corzine in the name of MF Global made this bet, and he bet capital from his clients. Does that sound familiar? Hello, prop trading!

Point 2: Why on earth did he leverage himself that much?

What a freaken idiot, he leveraged himself to the point of risking his money and the money of his clients. Rule number 1 is never to let a trade take you down. Things always happen, and you need to be prepared for it.

Put the two points together and what you get is what is wrong with the financial system. They still have not learned to manage risk. It is still a casino for them. And this is why the European crisis just does not end. It is not that there is a crisis in Europe, but traders making bad trades and then having to pay for them. Is this not what capitalism is all about? Making bad trades and then having to pay for them?

Over the years I have developed my software using Microsoft technologies. I remember I was one of the first MSDN subscribers, when MSDN was a simple set of help CD’s. I remember the time when I was at the University of Waterloo studying engineering and bought QuickC because it was the most affordable IDE. I even became a Microsoft Windows tester when at the time the Microsoft employee asked, “you want to test our unfinished software?” That was 1990! We are now over 20 years later.

In 2000 I was a Microsoft Regional director and had a meeting with the then Visual Studio Manager. I said that if you don’t change your behavior open source is going to give you problems to the point where things become painful. I was listened to and then promptly ignored.

I adopted Open Source at the time because I could not afford the Microsoft server software as a single developer. Throughout the years I managed to use .NET because Microsoft had a Visual Studio version called Standard. Standard was around 300 USD and it allowed me to use extensions. Windows was mostly affordable and there was this edition of Office called Student/Teacher edition.

Now we are at 2011 and Microsoft you are about to embark a dramatic change called Windows 8. I don’t think Windows 8 is bad technology. But Microsoft I cannot afford to upgrade my computers. I have plus or minus a few 10 computers. 4 are running Windows 7, and the remainder Windows XP. I am using Office 2007, and one license of Windows Server 2008. I need to upgrade! I need to upgrade to Visual Studio 2010, or even potentially 2011. I need to upgrade my Office to 2010. I need to upgrade my machines to Windows 8.

Microsoft…  I have come to the conclusion that I can’t afford you anymore.

Let’s go through the costs; To get an edition of Windows 8 I will have to pay around 100 USD per machine, which equals 1,000 USD. I will need to upgrade my Windows 2008 server to Windows Small Business Server and that with client licenses will cost 1,500 USD. I will need to upgrade my Microsoft office editions which will cost about 500 USD. I will need an upgrade of my IDE, which will cost about 1,300 USD. Add all of this together and we will get a grand total of over 4,000 USD!

Microsoft who do you think I am? Sure you can say, “but hey here is MSDN universal” But that will cost me around the same amount of money. Except you are taking the money in “easy” yearly payments!

Microsoft I have no choice but to say “adieu!” I need to use Linux! Maybe even OSX. Sure I will still develop in C# using Mono, but my use of Windows will be limited to one or two machines. And I will be using VMWare to run Windows XP for the next decade.

It is sad that after over 20 years that we part company, and I know that I am not the only one in this boat. But your costs are too high!

Microsoft let me remind you of something. In 1990 I wanted to develop Windows software. Since I thought OS/2 was the future I went to an IBM rep and said, “how much would it cost for me to develop for OS/2?” The answer was nearly 1,500 CDN! I asked why so much? The answer was that you get real software with real documentation and real support. Well Microsoft I went to you because you were the contender with a much cheaper price! Learn that lesson since I am leaving!

I am not coming back because I can’t, I repeat I can’t afford you. You can say that you offer a free cut down edition of Visual Studio that is great for toy projects. I want to add Visual Studio extensions. A low cost, but cut down edition of Office, and Windows. But you competition is not sleeping, they are giving away full editions for much cheaper.

Microsoft your stock has become a sell because your squeezing of the client is coming to an end. There are other options available. And with your abandonment of the .NET API’s or “evolution” of WinRT will only raise more questions…

What’s the solution?

Break yourselves up! It will save Microsoft… Otherwise Microsoft the mainframe will go down in history very much like Wang Computers.

I am not trying to be melodramatic, but with the death of Steve Jobs the PC era has officially ended. I wish his family well.

I am 43 years old and I grew up with the PC era. That was my time! It was an interesting time as is now, but it was different. Most of you young readers will not even remember these names:

• Philipe Kahn: The crazy frenchman who founded Borland! With him people began programming C++ in earnest and was introduced to the IDE that most programmers use.
• Ray Noorda: The guy from Utah who made Novell synonymous with networking! Thank him and his team on today’s networking.
• Bill Gates: Need I say more?
• Mitch Kapor: The inventor of Lotus 123, and the common spreadsheet that you use today.
• Wayne Ratliff: Dbase and the idea that databases could be personal

The list goes on and on, but each of these individuals has disappeared from the scene. The last person standing, literally, was Steve Jobs. He moved from the PC era to the mobile era. My hats off to him. But I am sad, not only for his wife, and family. But for the fact that the PC era has officially ended.

In the PC era things were very different. Computers worked (mostly). You could actually take a soldering gun and tweak your PC. You could develop your own micro-processor board! We used to talk at the assembly level with interrupts. Ahh remember interupt request IRQ…  That was multi-tasking back in the good ol’days. I am not saying that it was better.

I am saying that in the good ol’days you could pop open the hood of a car and actually fix it. Now you pop open the hood of a car or computer and you see computer junk (yes in a car) and you can fix nothing. The computer has become disposable, but at the same time you can actually get things done.

I remember when I started highschool our network was based on the muppet protocol. No, I am not talking muppets like Kermit the frog. I am talking muppet the protocol. You could share a floppy drive or printer among many people. But here is the catch, you had to physically tell people not to read or write to the device because there was no sharing. The system just received bytes and used them. It did not care where the bytes came from, it just did its thing. It was a sure fire way to corrupt printers and drives. How did we manage the exclusive access? On the chalkboard we had to sign in and sign out, and yell, “I AM PRINTING or WRITING”

It is not that I want to go back to those days. I am glad that network just works. I am glad that I can carry my data and not have to worry about bending the floppy drive. I am glad that my computer does not look like a suitcase. I am all glad that we have progress! But I am sad that an era and a set of personalities are gone. Because with their disappearance I am sure history will repeat itself since people will have forgotten the history…

RIP in Steve…

All you heard about with Greece is let it default, let it default! Yet I said multiple times a default SOLVES NOTHING! Greece is dysfunctional, and that is the real problem. It appears that MAYBE, just MAYBE some other analysts in the market are coming to the same conclusion.

“If there was a deus ex machina tomorrow and you halved Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio overnight, there’d obviously be a huge benefit in terms of cash flow,” said George Magnus, senior economic adviser to UBS in London.

“So you can alleviate the financial stress on Greece quite quickly and effectively, but I don’t think that in and of itself means the economy is going to grow,” he said.

…

“Greece has large structural bottlenecks to growth, and the sustainability of the public finances is only one of the bottlenecks,” he said.

Like I said letting Greece default is like getting liposuction. Sure you are thinner, but if you don’t change your habits nothing is fixed… I have been following this Greece situation closely and thought that Greece was finally going to unshackle its economy. Ha, it did not happen. However, this time the Euro zone is not falling for this game. They are going draw blood and going to force the Greeks to unshackle its economy. The FDP that I have been critiquing for ages has come up with the idea that it is the Eurozone that creates a structured vehicle to sell and unshackle the economy. I can buy that, and so can most Eurozone members.

Greece can function, and Greece can pay back its debt. I have said it before and I will say it again Greece is a rich country! It is dysfunctional that is its major problem. And to become functional again there will be hardship and pain.

BTW why is Germany letting this grind on and on, and on? Very simple unless the knife is drawn to the throat of Greece while drawing a bit of blood, NOTHING will happen. I am just surprised that Greece is letting it go this far…

This week I was at the Basta, which is a Microsoft technology conference. Ironically it was this week that Microsoft became the third most valuable tech company after Apple, and IBM. I think that has to smart when two of its arch competitors leap frog over Microsoft.

At the Basta I decided to talk to people about the new Windows 8. Here is what I heard:

• Maybe I should learn Objective C. This is something that stunned me in that Microsoft developers are thinking the unthinkable in that they want to learn about Apple and its development environment.
• Windows 8 is nice, but not enough to stop the Apple floodgates. Nobody said that Windows 8 sucked. Nobody said that Windows Phones are not nice. Everybody was in agreement that Microsoft is bringing out some nice stuff, but it was just good enough, not great, fantastic, super duper fantastic. That is the piece that is missing.
• The unthinkable was said, “Maybe Microsoft’s time is over”. I will not name who said this, but this individual is very influential and they said the problem is that we always think Microsoft will make it back. What if they can’t? What if this time they become a has been? This person was not saying this would happen. But that this time that thought cannot be ignored.

Again I repeat people are not uninterested in the new technologies. They are interested, but they see what the competition is offering and it is a very stiff competition. Take for example cloud storage. Dropbox is dead easy simple! Ubuntu One is dead easy simple for Linux and Windows users. Microsoft cloud storage? Well not so simple, and only Windows, and only with a 25 GB limit.  People looked at that and just laughed their heads off.

Another trend that I saw is that smaller companies are taking the Google Apps infrastructure for serious. As was told to me, it makes email and documents easy! These companies are tired of paying for the admins, and the software. This is another item I saw in that there is software licensing fatigue. While reading on the ZDNet articles on Microsoft’s fallback into third there was a comment that ever since Microsoft introduced software assurance and per computer licensing software revenue for Microsoft has stagnated with little growth.

This correlation with software assurance, and revenue is very interesting because for myself as well I have reigned back my Microsoft purchases. I cannot afford all of the licenses that I would have to pay. That is why until now many machines remained without upgrades and ran nearly 10 year old software (Windows XP). Now that I need to upgrade to newer software I decided to bypass Windows all together and switched to Linux. It appears I am not the only person who is thinking that software costs too much.

And my last experience was the following. I wanted to experiment with the Windows tablet. First off it felt bad in the hands because it was heavy and had fan vents when I held the tablet in the vertical position. I mostly hold my tablets vertically. Then I wanted to surf to a website, but because the browser “crashed” I could not find the toolbar and could not enter a new url. So I shook the device many times, and tried to pull down the bar, with no avail. A Microsoftie then took it from me and said you need to use a special sideways gesture. Lo and behold that worked. At that point I asked, is this the only special feature? He replied well no, we have different ways of doing things and you might need a tutorial? I replied, “Ok I understand that, but since when did Apple products need tutorials?” He looked at me and said people did not know how to use the Apple things right from the start. My thought was, “ah yes revisionist history because people did know how to use Apple tablets and phones from the start as they were completely well thought out.”

This is why I am sad to say, Microsoft is a sell! Microsoft needs to fire Ballmer, and its top brass. This company needs a major shakeup!

As one developer said to me, “Christian look on the bright side, if Windows Phone, and Windows 8 are lackluster WinRT will be shelved and us .NET developers will have a second lease of life!” I just looked at him and did not know whether to cry or laugh…

NOTE: I still remain to this day a C# and .NET developer!