ThoughtsOnThinking

eBay Stock Devaluation, 101

Bingo:

But in an attempt to give users a more consistent and professional experience—professional as in free shipping, 24-hour customer service and instant purchases—is eBay abandoning everything that made it work, everything that made it the world’s largest and best garage sale?  Sure, garage sales might be more efficient if they had self-checkout and kiosks that listed all of the merchandise and networked POS units ringing up orders while they update your POS card, but that’s not likely what you went to a garage sale for.

This comment is not to suggest that free shipping and 24-hour customer service are not good services, but that understanding why customers come to you is much more important. If eBay becomes just like Amazon, why would this be good news for eBay fans?

It's obvious to the point now, that someone has even written a book about it.  Analysts are even finally catching on to the real issues behind this:

Oct 12, 2007: $39.90 per share
Feb 23, 2009: $11.53 per share

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Update: Four days later, eBay shares hit their lowest price in seven years. 

Entrepreneurial DNA

I found this comment from Michael Olenick on this WSJ article (title: "So, You Want to Ben an Entrepreneur") funny, mostly true, and telling:

If you should start your own business you've probably already tried a few times by now: you can't help yourself. People cut out to make businesses do just that, and there's no stopping them. They sometimes end up at larger organizations -- especially if a prior business was acquired -- but there they'll naturally either fall into the new business group or find they're a bad cultural fit. It's just one of those things baked into people.

I have two dogs, brother and sister. One is a fanatical fetcher: she's not doing you a favor by bringing the ball back, you're doing her a favor by throwing it. She'll play fetch anywhere, anytime and for anybody -- if you woke her up in the middle of the night to play fetch she'd be happy. The other has no interest in fetching and just ignores all the fetch toys. Despite that they're together constantly he just doesn't show any interest.

Entrepreneurs are basically the same way: you either have it or you don't. I remember reading somewhere that Ben & Jerry started something like seven businesses before coming up with their ice-cream stores: that's the spirit you'd need. If you don't, you may want to be careful investing your life savings starting a business because you'll be competing with those that do, and they're (we're) basically workaholic maniacs who will blow through any obstacle the world -- or our competitors -- might throw at us. And with that rant, I'm finished lunch and back to coding/selling/bookkeeping/managing ... just after I take a moment to empty my own trash bin.

The 2000-Year Advance Payment

Let's just say, at this price tag, I sure hope it works:

If nothing else, the plan is a striking return of big government. It also symbolizes continuing partisanship, despite Mr. Obama’s promise of new cooperation. No House Republican voted for the measure, and the three in the Senate who did are viewed as renegades by their party’s leadership.

Whatever the result, future generations will get the bill.

“This is so much money that if someone had begun spending $1 million a day — $1 million every day — when Christ was born,” said Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, “we would not yet be in 2009 to the full cost of this bill.”

(emphasis added)

...and this, from the  "smaller, faster" version of the bill.

Essentials Of "Economic Stimulus"

My basic economic/political belief is that the government is and will never be as efficient a means to "creating wealth" as private enterprise.  I would even go so far as to say that "creating wealth" and "creating jobs" isn't even in the purview of what the government is here for.  It's here to provide services that can't or shouldn't be privatized (military and police being two good example), and to reasonably ensure that people "play by the rules" that are required for a healthy, functioning society.

That said, I"m skeptical at best, of the ability of government to "rescue" our economy, especially by bailing out capital markets which have gotten where they are primarily by behaving badly.

I'm no economist though, and as such, I appreciated the WSJ's nice summary (via an opinion piece) of some of these dynamics here:

A dollar doled out in jobless benefits may well be spent by the worker who receives it. That $1 of spending will count as economic activity and add to GDP.

But that same dollar can't be conjured out of thin air. The government has to take that dollar away from someone else -- either in higher taxes, or by issuing new debt in the form of a bond. The person who is taxed or buys the bond will have $1 less to spend. If the beneficiary of that $1 spends it on something less productive than the taxed American or the lender would have, then the net impact on growth will be negative.