The Big Picture

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• Questions for Doug Kass Fireside Chat
• Customer Acquisition through Infographics
• Podcast: Jonathan Miller & Ritholtz
• QOTD: Cult of Ignorance
• Science and the Public: Why Every Lab Should Tweet
• Can the S&P500 Clear the Red Zone?
• Steve Jobs, 1955-2011
• Mercedes Gullwing 300 SL
• My short ode to Steve Jobs
• Spiegel: Obama “like a doctor caught prescribing performance-enhancing drugs”

Questions for Doug Kass Fireside Chat Posted: 06 Oct 2011 03:31 PM PDT One of the highlights of the 2009 Big Picture conference was the Q&A session with Doug Kass of Seabreeze Partners Management. For  the BP Conference 2011, we are bringing Doug back for a fireside chat — questions asked by audience members, both on line and live and in person. What question would you ask Doug? What do you want to hear him discuss? ASK HERE

Customer Acquisition through Infographics Posted: 06 Oct 2011 01:30 PM PDT Customer Acquisition through Infographics View more presentations from visually

Podcast: Jonathan Miller & Ritholtz Posted: 06 Oct 2011 10:00 AM PDT > I did an extensive interview with Jonathan Miller of Housing Helix Tuesday before leaving for Vermont. This interview is notable for a number factors — not just the economic and housing discussion, but for someone somewhere along this chat calling Larry Summers “the biggest asshole in America.” Enjoy: > Part I > Part II

QOTD: Cult of Ignorance Posted: 06 Oct 2011 09:00 AM PDT Our Quote of the Day is over 30 years old: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” - Isaac Asimov, column in Newsweek (21 January 1980).

Science and the Public: Why Every Lab Should Tweet Posted: 06 Oct 2011 09:00 AM PDT Science and the Public: Why Every Lab Should Tweet View more presentations from Christie Wilcox

Can the S&P500 Clear the Red Zone? Posted: 06 Oct 2011 05:30 AM PDT Some rally!  Almost 70 S&P points or 6.4 percent from yesterday's low to today's close.  Makes us feel we're back in the 1990′s trading Brazilian and Russian defaulted sovereign debt.   So where to now? The next 60 points are going to be much harder as the S&P500 has to clear the "red zone" — 1175 to 1195 — which will be full of 300 pound Bear linebackers, who can bench press  400 lbs..  Yikes!   Halfway into the zone is the 50-day moving average at around 1183, which will also be stiff resistance. Now that the bulls are on offense, however,  here's what we think it will take for the next 60 yard [point] gain: 1)  The Shanghai (closed this week) and Heng Sang will need to confirm this move; 2)  No fumbles from the Eurozone backfield.  European banks need to continue to rally and the Eurocrats have to give the impression they're moving toward a comprehensive debt solution.   The bank recap will have to done as not to adversely affect the sovereign credit of the home governments; 3) No big penalties from the U.S. data.  A significant economic slowdown has been priced, in our opinion, but not a recession nor a -1ooK jobs report. Earnings and guidance will also be key and are priced for a 5-yard off-side setback, but not a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty — i.e, big miss and large downward revisions. 4) No team infighting.  No Fugly politics in the U.S. and Europe.  No demonstrations turning into riots.   Peace, love, soap! There will be setbacks and quarterback sacks, however, but the bulls are hungry and know time is running out in the 4th quarter.  They need performance to get paid.  If they can clear the red zone at 1295, we sense performance panic can generate a further rally to 1260, which will move the S&P500 into green for the year.   We'll focus on the Dick Butkus and Michael Singletary at 1230 when we get there.    Now let's hope the backfield of Merkel and Sarkozy can hold onto the football. A smart bull is like Cub fan who never gives up hope, but never bets the ranch.   The bulls lose the ball again at 1101 and the season at 1075.   Enjoy the game!

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011 Posted: 06 Oct 2011 04:40 AM PDT

Mercedes Gullwing 300 SL Posted: 06 Oct 2011 04:30 AM PDT Inspired form and revolutionary function come together in the Mercedes Gullwing SL at number 6." "It’s such a work of art. It really is, you know, it’s stunning. It’s better than any Picasso." "The lines of the Gullwing are pretty much perfect. The frame of the car has its wonderful torch shape and yet has really voluptuous curves, but they’re not the voluptuous curves that, like the Chevy Corvette, which are a bit over the top and brazen and showy. These curves are kept in check and you know that the car has been designed to be super aerodynamic and yet it’s hugely glamorous at the same time." "Driving a car and then the doors got up a little gas struts was really Christ, but if you wanna make a steer in those days you arrive in a Gullwing, you’ve made it." "Certainly, the Gullwing is a milestone car, aesthetically, technologically. I mean it stunned the world when it came out. Everybody just went, "Holy Mack! Look at the technology that is put in that thing."" "Its tubular space frame made the Gullwing extra rigid, crucial for control at high speeds, and at only 82 kilograms, the frame was as light as a feather, but those same tubes took up a room where the bottom of the doors would go, so instead, they would hinge on the roof and lift up as opposed to out." "It was a practical piece of design, but warmed up becoming the car’s exotic signature." "I mean those doors were just unbelievable. They really look like a bird with the window—- with the doors open, and when you pull them down, you’re in this cocoon." "You know what [unk]." "Getting out is more difficult because you actually gotta get your bottom on the ledge back up from the seat and swing out, but you see Mercedes gentlemen are so clever. [time-0:02:00] They have to think of all these things because what happens if a woman is driving wearing a skirt." "There’s a bar under the steering wheel. When you pull it out, the steering wheel goes out like that, so now you can raise yourself, flip your legs over. See, the gentlemen think of everything, damn them! Yet another innovation. This was the first production car in the world to use fuel injection. It was one of the most important high-tech advancements in the history [time-0:02:30] of sports cars and yet the concept of fuel injection is deceptively simple." "With a carburetor, you got pressure from the fuel tank barrel pumped, but it’s low pressure and when you put your foot on the accelerator, the fuel falls into the manifold like that, mixes with the air, explosive mix, and the car accelerates." "With fuel injection, it’s different because the fuel is actually propelled at high pressure into its cylinder, [time-0:03:00] mixed with the air, and it’s the exact amount of fuel, so it’s efficient. It is the most combustible fuel-air mix so that you get the biggest explosion, and therefore, the greatest amount of acceleration and no wastage." "Well-renowned the world over for its glamorous looks and technical achievements, it wasn’t always the easiest car to drive." "Driving it, it’s a truck. You know, it’s a big heavy thing. The brakes, you’ve gotta [time-0:03:30] push your, you know, the pedal through the floor to get it to stop." "And the exhaust ran right underneath the car, so the floorboard gets really, really hot. It will melt your tennis shoes, and it has big swing axle in the back, so when you really got a hole in the butt, you could get it squarely very easily, so it was sort of like riding the bull." "It was unpredictable on the corner and the suspension wasn’t actually very good. We should push it ’cause the rest of it is brilliant. [time-0:04:00]" "It’s not the nicest engine, no. It’s not the nicest looking. It’s not the nicest interior, but as an overall package, it is one of the greatest."

My short ode to Steve Jobs Posted: 06 Oct 2011 04:07 AM PDT As I’ve said in the past, AAPL is its own asset class but it’s more than that. It is its own economy, its own ecosystem, its own government. Apple’s success is not due to the whims of central planning politicians and bankers everywhere but because it did something very simple, it made amazing products that people wanted at a price they can afford. So, when we hear that government officials need to do something to jump start the economy, things that usually inhibit, discourage and misallocate resources, think of Steve Jobs and realize they need to do nothing because it’s the private sector’s job to run the economy and we have a great history that it works extraordinarily and insanely well.

Spiegel: Obama “like a doctor caught prescribing performance-enhancing drugs” Posted: 05 Oct 2011 10:00 PM PDT Go no further than the Der Spiegel piece, Why Europe Is Right and Obama Is Wrong, to understand the fundamental differences between American and German thinking on fiscal and monetary stimulus. Michael Sauga, the author, writes, American economists, central bankers and fiscal policy makers have reinterpreted British economist John Maynard Keynes's clever idea that government spending is the best way to counteract a serious economic downturn — and have turned it into a permanent prescription. In their version of the Keynesian theory, declining growth or tumbling stock prices should prompt central banks to lower interest rates and governments to come to the rescue with economic stimulus programs. US economists call this "kick-starting" the economy. Laying the Groundwork for the Next Crash The only problem is that this method of encouraging growth has not stimulated the US economy in recent years, but in fact has put it on a crash course. From the Asian economic crisis to the Internet and subprime mortgage bubbles, economic stimulus programs by monetary and fiscal policy makers have regularly laid the groundwork for the next crash instead of encouraging sustainable growth. In the last decade, the volume of lending in the United States grew five times as fast as the real economy. It gets better, Cheap money created the fertilizer for the excesses of the US financial industry. Low interest rates seduced mortgage providers into talking even the homeless into taking out mortgages. And the same low rates made it easier for investment banks and hedge funds, using increasingly risky loan structures, to transform the once-leisurely insurance and bond markets into casinos. Now the bubble has burst. This has not, however, prompted the US government to conclude that its prescriptions could have been wrong. On the contrary, now it wants to increase the dose. Obama plans to follow the largely unsuccessful 2008 economic stimulus program with a new program this year. Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says that he intends to flood the economy with cheap liquidity — for years, if necessary. The "prescriptions could have wrong…and now it wants to increase the dose."   Sound familiar?  Here's the upshot, The real problem, though, is a different one. The US economy doesn't lack money. Rather, it lacks products that can compete in the global marketplace. The country has a deep trade deficit, yet the Obama administration is borrowing money at the same rate as near-bankrupt Greece.

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