The future

Remember when there was only one internet?
Now everyone knows what everyone else is doing all the time.
Now that there is a way that computers can automatically e-mail you about where people are, where they are going, and when they have gotten there.
For example, if you arrange to meet someone at a certain time-- for example, you e-mail them "hey, let's meet at 6 for dinner at Y bar," your computer will automatically put that into a central calendar that you can choose for anyone to access and it can link to a map so all your friends know where you are and when. It just makes communication richer so you don't have to talk about logistical things-- they are built into the system, like concrete in the roads.

So now you have a phone that goes everywhere with you and can double as a half-decent camera and radio/music machine. And it also has your calendar and access to the internet, and you have a social networking site that gets updated with the latest information about you, where all of your friends, family, co-workers, and acquaintences are on, and you can set it up so that the GPS in your phone updates your location live on the web, and record a video that instantly goes live if you want. And you can communicate with everyone at once if you want. So basically, everyone is a star to someone, or some group of people. You can produce a television show while you are walking down the street, and interview other people who are walking down it with you, and all the technology and know-how to do this is built right into your phone, the thing you carry all around with you anyway.

The Fed Will Not Lower Rates

The Economic Outlook--speech by Jeffrey Lacker of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond to the Charlotte Risk Management Association in Charlotte, North Carolina on Aug. 21, 2007 at 12:30pm.
Basically, he said don't look for the fed to cut the federal funds rate soon.
However, that may be just as believable as William Poole's comments that only a "calamity" would justify an interest rate cut, the day before the Fed cut the discount rate.

Countrywide Up on Rumor, Down on News?

Thrifts Hit by Housing Market Problems
The good news obscured by the headline:

Mortgage defaults are slamming the savings and loan industry, although thrifts should be able to weather the housing market downturn, federal regulators said Tuesday.

CFC is a thrift.
US regulator says watching Countrywide very closely

The Office of Thrift Supervision is very closely monitoring events at Countrywide Financial Corp and has had a consistent onsite examination presence at the California company since it converted to a thrift charter in March 2007, an OTS spokesman said on Monday.

Stocks to Watch: Capital One, Countrywide, KKR, Target, Viacom

Countrywide Financial's (CFC) stock fell 7.6% despite the company's attempts to reassure depositors that their funds were safe at the company's Countrywide Bank savings bank unit

My opinion? Countrywide will fall when Buffet says he's not buying.

Their timing couldn't be any better...

China Prepares to Dump US Dollars

CFC the next sacrificial lamb?

First Wells Fargo:
Wells Fargo to close non-prime mortgage unit

Now Capital One:
Capital One to Close Mortgage Unit

And
Countrywide announcing layoffs

As someone on Yahoo finance said, CFC now in Baghdad Bob mode

Flagged for future reference

JIM,
I'll say this 1 more time....the HYBRID system
is going to fail us and we will have a giant
crash...might not be this year or next but it
will happen. That and the new no downtick rule
is crazy.
I'm a trader and I see this happen daily in a
ton of different stocks and it will happen in
the overall market. What say you? They need to
do something about this and they need to, at a
minimum, have a backup plan that they don't tell
anyone else about....because they don't want to
look like clowns. We need specialists or a
different system....I can move CAT a point with
no volume if I wanted to. This is the only
thing scaring me about this selloff!!!!!!!
Asked by jnorine

I dont disagree with any of this. The difference is
that i am the only one in the nation willing to go on
national t.v. and say it and then no one backed me up.
Answered by Jim Cramer

Update on the NYSE's hybrid system