Things are definitely going to change. For example, Flash is dead. Videos play great with HTML 5 only. Sites will optimize to be used on Safari.

While evolutionary compared to the iPhone, the iPad is an innovative media platform.

• Keybaord is hard to use.
• Camera takes lower quality photos and video.
• Dropped calls.
• Ghetto app store.
• No Google Docs.
• Slow browser.
• No multitouch.
• Sluggish at times.
• Crackly speakerphone.
• Weak audio/video player experience.

There were a few PROS:

• Nicer Gmail.
• Removable battery!
• A flash.
• Clearer screen.
• Some UI niceties, like persistent status and system updates.
• Turn-by-turn navigation.
• The constant singing of “droid.”

OVERALL: INFERIOR PRODUCT to the iPhone.

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Explanation of Sub-prime:

The world has changed because it was broken. It could not continue. We spent money wrong. We ate wrong. We built wrong. We lived wrong. We have wreaked catastrophic environmental devastation that rivals multi-million year mega-events. A correction was overdue.

Everything that we took for granted just a few weeks and a few months ago has changed. Now, the world is in shock. We are still fighting to revive a failed system. Soon, it will change. Many are betting that lives will “return to normal.” They will not. Everything will be different. It will be better.

The real question is how difficult will the transition be.

A giant economic reset is taking place that will bankrupt thousands of companies worldwide. Millions of terminated employees will be selling their stocks and demanding benefits that will cause the Niagra Falls of equity liquidation. Governments worldwide will continue to spend like drunken sailors piloting barrels over the precipise, and that stream of money will buy inflated food and other key staples, not equities. Worse, the firehouse of cash will likely be spent in all the wrong ways, fattening overpaid union “sweepers” and mid-level bankers who collectively sell no products to no customers. Meanwhile, the average person will be slammed with spiralling taxes and declining personal wealth.

Owning stock is fast becoming a luxury of the few, versus a money management strategy of the masses. Get ahead of the curve before the DOW makes 8,000 look like a high water mark.

I’ll let this picture talk ( that’s my business… )

I had just returned from Israel a few days before the war broke out, speaking at a conference. There was definitely tension in the air. For example, my guide was packing. Here are a couple other photos from the trip:

We all know that fundamental change is long overdue. For many of us, we thought that 1999 and 2000 would bring about this change.

The reality is that the abusive power structures were both healthy and in control during these previous troubling times. The greed and abuses at the top brought about the 2009 collapse, and those who control the system are now suffering. It’s about time.

Let’s raise our glass and toast to a new beginning that is log overdue. We know better than abuse our potential.

This is interesting, since “safe” diversification investment strategies with “low risk” have tanked. If you ask a banker for a safe portfolio and if you lose 50%, who is to blame? No wonder bankers are getting called. It’s also interesting that “safe” loans, the basis of some investment returns, are defaulting.

Problem: Extensive deregulation coupled with low interest rates in the US caused the largest financial collapse in over 50 years.

Reality: Government knee jerk reaction will be to over-regulate all aspects of banking and finance.

Solution: Increase SBA activity, overhaul Sarbanes-Oxley, and strictly regulate (1) bank asset leveraging, (2) interest rates, and (3) insurance products.

Problem: Bad economic policies in the US allowed for economic warfare with Europe in contrasting central banking policies that eventually caused related regional recessions.

Reality: Governments from around the globe are closely collaborating (G20) on solutions that may formalize into centralized central banking and monetary policies.
Solution: Create a treaty of independent and democratic nations to collaborate on economic policy, similar to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (yet better).

Problem: Third and second world nations are facing serious civil unrest as the unraveling world economy creates extreme poverty and desperation (Zimbabwe, Thailand, and India).

Reality: The increasing formalized global collaborative government will start to centralize military-esque agencies to stop civil unrest that spill over borders (Pakistan to India, Zimbabwe to South Africa, North to South Korea, etc.).
Solution: Integrate disenfranchised societal elements by supporting and experimenting with alternative notions of government, economy, and living.