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**Master Shake** · December 21, 2008, 07:10 PM

Re: The Dead Pool

Originally posted by Mega View Post

Ok Gang, what i am after here is a list of companys that are going to get stuffed BIG time or Die:-

Apple?...........All those crappy pods & phones.
Starbucks.........Sugar laced brown water hot crap.
GM.............The People whom bought you the Pontaic Astzc.

Your thoughs
Mike

My thoughts? How is this "News?" It's a vanity post and not a very good one.

**D-Mack** · December 21, 2008, 07:10 PM

Re: The Dead Pool

Ipod to save New York and Wall Street?

New York faces 'iPod tax'

New Yorkers may soon be paying more to download music, with the state's governor proposing an "iPod tax" to raise cash to tackle a budget crisis.

The 4 percent tax proposed by the US state's governor will also apply to eBooks, videos and photographs bought and downloaded online, the Guardian reported.

The collapse of Wall St has eroded the state's tax base, leaving it with a US$15.4 billion shortfall.

Also on the cards is an 18 percent "obesity tax" on surgary soft drinks, which would raise US$400 million each year, the Guardian said.

The neighbouring state of New Jersey already taxes digital downloads.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4798233a28.html

**Basil** · December 24, 2008, 12:52 PM

Re: The Dead Pool

Originally posted by Master Shake View Post

My thoughts? How is this "News?" It's a vanity post and not a very good one.

Didn't GM and Starbucks already get slammed? AAPL less so, but I do think that AAPL will get hit. I may be just about ready to short COF and TIF.

**sunskyfan** · December 24, 2008, 01:58 PM

Re: The Dead Pool

The new American lifestyle will be centered on the village idea. Starbucks will adapt and join a crowded field of value oriented community shops. Apple will introduce some clever product to facilitate. GM will build Trucks, Busses, and electric cars.

**Slimprofits** · December 24, 2008, 06:41 PM

Re: The Dead Pool

Originally posted by sunskyfan View Post

The new American lifestyle will be centered on the village idea. Starbucks will adapt and join a crowded field of value oriented community shops. Apple will introduce some clever product to facilitate. GM will build Trucks, Busses, and electric cars.

Megaregions.

**GRG55** · December 24, 2008, 08:08 PM

Re: The Dead Pool

Originally posted by Mega View Post

Ok Gang, what i am after here is a list of companys that are going to get stuffed BIG time or Die:-

Apple?...........All those crappy pods & phones.
Starbucks.........Sugar laced brown water hot crap.
GM.............The People whom bought you the Pontaic Astzc.

Your thoughs
Mike

Apple? This is the company that single handed took over the portable music player market when they knocked Sony's Walkman into the dustbin of history. And being a "computer company" they weren't even considered a competitor of Sony. :eek:

Sony is still trying to recover from that.

I would be loathe to count Apple out of whatever economy eventually evolves in the USA and globally.

**FRED** · December 24, 2008, 08:38 PM

Re: The Dead Pool

Originally posted by GRG55 View Post

Apple? This is the company that single handed took over the portable music player market when they knocked Sony's Walkman into the dustbin of history. And being a "computer company" they weren't even considered a competitor of Sony. :eek:

Sony is still trying to recover from that.

I would be loathe to count Apple out of whatever economy eventually evolves in the USA and globally.

We have been long fans of Apple. The company's key differentiating strength -- integrated OS and hardware for high reliability and quality user interface -- were a hazard during the corporate PC boom but a boon during the consumer electronics boom.

That said, the consumer boom is over for a while. In what future markets will tight OS/hardware integration pay off?

Military? :eek:

**mcgurme** · December 24, 2008, 08:44 PM

Re: The Dead Pool

Originally posted by FRED View Post

We have been long fans of Apple. The company's key differentiating strength -- integrated OS and hardware for high reliability and quality user interface -- were a hazard during the corporate PC boom but a boon during the consumer electronics boom.

That said, the consumer boom is over for a while. In what future markets will tight OS/hardware integration pay off?

Military? :eek:

I heard rumors that Apple was working on an electric car.

And I'm not kidding, either.

**Jam** · December 24, 2008, 09:22 PM

Re: The Dead Pool

Also on the cards is an 18 percent "obesity tax" on surgary soft drinks, which would raise US$400 million each year, the Guardian said.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4798233a28.html

Love the "obesity tax."

Come to think of it, it provides double benefit: first as tax income to the state, and second, healthier population, which means lower health-care cost. Way to go! Should be made national with targeted products.

**GRG55** · December 24, 2008, 09:52 PM

Re: The Dead Pool

Originally posted by Jam View Post

Love the "obesity tax."

Come to think of it, it provides double benefit: first as tax income to the state, and second, healthier population, which means lower health-care cost. Way to go! Should be made national with targeted products.

Wouldn't it be easier to tax everything except for the three things in the average American diet that pose no direct health risk...the Starbucks paper cup, the wooden stir stick, and the cardboard heat sleeve?

**santafe2** · December 24, 2008, 11:06 PM

Re: The Dead Pool

Originally posted by FRED View Post

We have been long fans of Apple...That said, the consumer boom is over for a while. In what future markets will tight OS/hardware integration pay off?

I agree, Apple will be fine. Their next profit center will be the creation of firmware and conduit controls for video download. If one is not familiar with this current offering, here's a link:

http://www.apple.com/appletv/

The dead pool will be populated by the current winners in the video transmission market; Direct TV and Dish Network. Between terrestrial competitor's ability to drop prices and improve performance and the average subscribers need to cut costs, they're both on life support.

**Slimprofits** · December 25, 2008, 01:02 AM

Re: The Dead Pool

Originally posted by Mega View Post

Ok Gang, what i am after here is a list of companys that are going to get stuffed BIG time or Die:-

Apple?...........All those crappy pods & phones.
Starbucks.........Sugar laced brown water hot crap.
GM.............The People whom bought you the Pontaic Astzc.

Your thoughs
Mike

did you see this?

Sunday Times
UP to 15 national retail chains are predicted to go bust before the middle of January, forcing thousands more shopworkers onto the dole. The prediction came from insolvency expert Begbies Traynor as well-known retail chains clamour to sell enough goods to meet their quarterly rent payments on Christmas Day. Nick Hood, partner at Begbies Traynor, said: “I would not be surprised if between 10 and 15 national and regional chains collapsed before the middle of January.” Hood refused to name specific store groups, but this weekend it emerged that The Officers Club, a 150-strong national menswear chain, had been put up for distressed sale through KPMG, while the specialist tea retailer, Whittards, and music store Zavvi remained on the critical list. According to the accountancy firm Price Waterhouse Coopers, if only 10% of national retailers get into financial difficulty in the next 12 months, that would bring about 4,000 empty shop units onto the market.

In the U.S. I can't imagine Crocs, Inc. (CROX) or Radio Shack (RSH) surviving this downturn. How the heck did Radio Shack survive the Tandy brand? Crocs are the kind of thing that can only exist in a credit happy market. Ugly and useless. And Radio Shack sells in shopping Malls vastly overpriced audio, video and computer equipment that should be purchased online.

Any company that depends solely on selling cell phones should be looked at. I don't know how it is anywhere else, but in the U.S. in many places you can't travel 100 yards without passing two stores that only provide cell phones and accessories. Only half jokingly, I think cell retailers were the third biggest job creators between 2003 and 2007, behind governments and real estate.

**c1ue** · December 25, 2008, 02:07 AM

Re: The Dead Pool

Originally posted by GRG55

Apple? This is the company that single handed took over the portable music player market when they knocked Sony's Walkman into the dustbin of history. And being a "computer company" they weren't even considered a competitor of Sony. :eek:

Sony is still trying to recover from that.

I would be loathe to count Apple out of whatever economy eventually evolves in the USA and globally.

Apple did outdo Sony in its normal home turf - consumer electronics.

But the way it was done was not very original: take Sony's original winner, the Walkman, and build into a next generation digital offering.

Oh, and most importantly sucker the entire music industry into accepting iTunes.

Apple is the single greatest accelerator for the decline in CD sales in the past few years.

A simple mathematic analysis of the number of iTunes sold vs. number of iPods sold yields something like 93% of all music on iPods is technically illegal.

http://www.viewfromsiliconvalley.com/id227.html

One RIAA-related site suggested January 3, 2006, iTunes is, "hurdling towards one billion a-la-carte downloads." They estimated 980M paid downloads as of February 6, 2006. Ignoring the 30-day mis-match in duration, let's take 42M iPOD units sold vs. 980M downloads sold and cipher out 23.3 downloads per iPOD. Just to make the numbers easier to work with, let's round it up to 25 iTunes per iPOD user.

In turn, Apple claims 1Gigabyte is enough capacity for 240 songs. A full-up 20GByte hard-disk-based iPOD therefore holds 4,800 songs.

Let's make an arbitrary assumption the "average" iPOD in the hand of a consumer today holds 2GByte (matching the new Nano introduced 4Q05). The result is our "average" iPOD user has capacity for 480 songs of which only ~25 are from iTunes.

This works out to 5.2% of the capacity occupied by content acquired via RIAA-approved processes. If the "average" iPOD is 80% full, our "average" iPOD user then has 360(!) songs from non-iTunes sources. Said differently, ~93% of the contents of the "average" iPOD are ripped CDs and/or pirated content. (Even if you cut down to a 1GByte device and double to 50 iTunes per user and you still get 74% non-iTunes content.)

So, where else is there a sucker industry willing to accelerate its own decline for Apple's benefit?

Clearly the video content owners aren't going for it.

I also strongly believe that the downturn in both the world economy and the FIRE economy is going to adversely impact those industries paying the high salaries of the iXXX groups: tech, FIRE, digital artists/advertising

**D-Mack** · December 25, 2008, 08:36 PM

Re: The Dead Pool

Originally posted by c1ue View Post

Apple did outdo Sony in its normal home turf - consumer electronics.

But the way it was done was not very original: take Sony's original winner, the Walkman, and build into a next generation digital offering.

Oh, and most importantly sucker the entire music industry into accepting iTunes.

Apple is the single greatest accelerator for the decline in CD sales in the past few years.

A simple mathematic analysis of the number of iTunes sold vs. number of iPods sold yields something like 93% of all music on iPods is technically illegal.

http://www.viewfromsiliconvalley.com/id227.html

So, where else is there a sucker industry willing to accelerate its own decline for Apple's benefit?

Clearly the video content owners aren't going for it.

I also strongly believe that the downturn in both the world economy and the FIRE economy is going to adversely impact those industries paying the high salaries of the iXXX groups: tech, FIRE, digital artists/advertising

I have an ipod and I hate itunes, I have severel free codes to download music / audiobooks and will probably never use them.

I imagine it's easy to buy something from itunes and a lot of computer illiterate people buy apple products, who like things to be easy. So you get a lot of people who will buy one track online instead of buying a CD with all tracks.

I bought it because it had so much hd space for great money. Thanks to Designed in Cupertino Made in China

I listen mostly to all kinds of radio shows offline, 1 year of shows takes maybe 8 GB.

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