Monthly Archives: April 2012
Facebook is a phenomenal company. Mark Zuckerberg is a remarkable man and an astonishing entrepreneur. He’s created something sensational — something genuinely world-changing — and he’s young enough to be my son. But Facebook the company is one thing. The mooted valuation of Facebook is quite another. I admire the first, and […]
Let’s not be too hard on George Osborne. He came into office with what was arguably a more difficult bundle of challenges than any incoming Chancellor had ever faced. Facing a challenge: George Osborne Flaky banks, a hideous deficit, soaring debts, public services that had become hooked on ladlefuls of new cash, and an economy […]
President Sarkozy to Press: ‘See You Tomorrow, Pedophile Friends’
by Mitch Feierstein about 11 years 10 months ago
There’s a theory that you can’t trust any message conveyed by a person’s most public expressions and gestures. Instead, the theory runs, you have to study the fleeting look, the involuntary movement. The micro-expression that lasts a second or two, before the welcome smile is fixed in place. That theory sounds good to me — […]
Five weeks ago, the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, was a happy man. He said, ‘The [Greek] problem is solved. How happy I am a solution to the Greek crisis … has been found.’ Which is good. Everyone, even presidents, deserves a little sunshine. Looking on the bright side: France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy should not think […]
The largest, oldest living thing? Blue whale? Giant redwood? Some kind of deep sea critter? No, no and no. The right answer is the honey mushroom. You’ll see the thing growing out of trees in Oregon and Washington. It doesn’t look particularly creepy, or at least no creepier than these things normally do. Except it […]
Regular readers of Planet Ponzi will remember that I’ve got a thing about inflation. You know: inflation is bad, printing money makes more of it, isn’t it about time we stopped making a bad problem worse? Trouble is, though, constant repetition of a theme gets boring after a while. Yes, fuel prices are up. Yes, […]
Apple Inc. is a phenomenon. One of the most remarkable companies in history. It makes products which I personally adore. It has revolutionized so many consumer markets, it’s hard to overstate the company’s effect on our lives. Steve Jobs once said he wanted to put a ding in the universe. And, in his unkindly shortened […]
Hometrack, a property analytics business, recently reported a 0.2% increase in British house prices, the first such rise in 20 months. The company’s peculiar response to that unimpressive piece of data is that prices will continue to hold firm in the coming months, though, in a brief spasm of honesty, the company goes far enough […]