Mark Pincus Blog

More on why 5 star hotels still rate 3

Could someone clue them in on the fact that post 911, travelers need toothpaste in their room more than any other item? Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

How will $15 per gallon change our lives?

While higher oil prices has been good for my portfolio, I'm curious what impact it will have on us outside of potentially driving inflation and recessionary pressures.

I wonder whether it will accelerate a long trend towards re-urbanization as people see commuting as too expensive or will it drive more people to suburbs that have direct train access. Will companies have to relocate around public transport depots? Maybe in 10-20 yrs we live and work in giant malls like logans run all served by electric trains and moving walkways.

Will driving an suv or truck become a gas fueled status symbol (that you can afford it) or a social stigma like watering your lawn in vegas? (Probably latter).

Will we move back to our roots and travel less? Will people live closer to home as flights get prohibitive?

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Obama and Israel

        Here are 2 very interesting articles on Barack’s strongly pro-Israel views:         (1)        Jeffrey Goldberg’s 5/12/08 Atlantic interview with Barack, including Barack’s statements that:

* [I have] enormous emotional attachment and sympathy for Israel, mindful of the hardship and pain and suffering that the Jewish people have undergone, but also mindful of the incredible opportunity…when people finally return to a land.
* The idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea…[providing a] sense of confidence and security…that the Jewish people can take care of themselves no matter what happens.
* The need to preserve a Jewish state that is secure…should be supported here in the U.S. and around the world.
* In my early political life in Chicago, one of the raps against me in the black community is that I was too close to the Jews.
* Hamas is…a terrorist organization and I’ve repeatedly condemned them…we should not be dealing with them until they recognize Israel, renounce terrorism, and abide by previous agreements.
* My commitment…to Israel’s security is non-negotiable.
* I was very adamant about Israel’s right to defend itself…there’s not a nation-state on Earth that would tolerate [what Hezbollah and Hamas have done and are doing].
* Nobody should mistake [my desire to open dialog with Iran] for a softer stance…you will not see, under my presidency, any slackening in commitment to Israel’s security.         (2)        Martin Peretz’s 5/13/08 New Republic article, including Marty’s statements that:

* [Part of the] campaign against Barack Obama [has been]…based on ridiculous and ridiculously false accusations.
* Obama’s own personal history and his political convictions predisposed him towards Israel.
* [Obama knows] there is a strong will to peace in Israel and among the Israelis.  What is yet to be proven, Obama believes, is that there is a will, deep and wide, among the Palestinians. Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

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Interesting that I find myself disagreeing with forbes publisher rich karlgaard on almost everyone of his new investment/portfolio ideas (may 5, forbes, p.29).

He lays out defensive actions people can take if housing prices drop further (which I'm generally in agreement on). These ideas may be from a fellow forbes writer, gary shilling. Wasn't totally clear. Either way I'm baffled.

Overall, I disagree with the americentric view that any recession will hit the rest of world worse.

* he says short commodities, I say go long. Based on his belief that worldwide demand will fall. I think that worldwide demand will keep rising as developing countries like china and india increase stds of living and experience growing demand for key economic inputs like oil and steel. Commodities should also gain as the dollar continues to fall.

* he says short emerging mkts while I'm neutral. I believe they will outperform us but may not deliver much as worldwide growth slows.

* he says buy US dollar, while I say sell. With the fed lowering interest rates and general demand for US assets declining I don't see what could prop the dollar up. My only question is how fast it declines as it will be buffetted by problems in other economies too. Should decline most drastically against china (if the govt allows) and other asian currencies, also against all countries with large oil exports like brazil, sweden, arab countries and possibly mexico.

* he says sell US stocks. Agree completely, with exception of oil and oil rig leasing cos.

* he says sell your house fast. Agree!

* says sell commercial real estate. I'm neutral. Rents could go up with inflation while amounts owed on mortgages are fixed.

* he says buy long treasury bonds which I disagree with. Seems that US rates will have to go up at some point in order to attract capital, esp once expected annual dollar declines get factored in.

Will be fun to see how this plays out. Wish I had the time and hedge fund to act on my macro beliefs:) Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

Disagreeing with Forbes on macro outlook

Interesting that I find myself disagreeing with forbes publisher rich karlgaard on almost everyone of his new investment/portfolio ideas (may 5, forbes, p.29).

He lays out defensive actions people can take if housing prices drop further (which I'm generally in agreement on). These ideas may be from a fellow forbes writer, gary shilling. Wasn't totally clear. Either way I'm baffled.

Overall, I disagree with the americentric view that any recession will hit the rest of world worse.

* he says short commodities, I say go long. Based on his belief that worldwide demand will fall. I think that worldwide demand will keep rising as developing countries like china and india increase stds of living and experience growing demand for key economic inputs like oil and steel. Commodities should also gain as the dollar continues to fall.

* he says short emerging mkts while I'm neutral. I believe they will outperform us but may not deliver much as worldwide growth slows.

* he says buy US dollar, while I say sell. With the fed lowering interest rates and general demand for US assets declining I don't see what could prop the dollar up. My only question is how fast it declines as it will be buffetted by problems in other economies too. Should decline most drastically against china (if the govt allows) and other asian currencies, also against all countries with large oil exports like brazil, sweden, arab countries and possibly mexico.

* he says sell US stocks. Agree completely, with exception of oil and oil rig leasing cos.

* he says sell your house fast. Agree!

* says sell commercial real estate. I'm neutral. Rents could go up with inflation while amounts owed on mortgages are fixed.

* he says buy long treasury bonds which I disagree with. Seems that US rates will have to go up at some point in order to attract capital, esp once expected annual dollar declines get factored in.

Will be fun to see how this plays out. Wish I had the time and hedge fund to act on my macro beliefs:) Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

Fair wage for US presidents?

After reading about how much money the clintons made, I started thinking we should just pay presidents as equivalent comp to a F500 ceo. Seems like $20 million per year is even on the low end.
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I'm still a closet non-voter

At the risk of raising mass wrath I have to admit that this election is shaping up to be yet another where I just don't feel like I can vote for any candidate.

At a recent bfast in chgo, several old friends admitted that while they hated mccain's social policies like being pro life (anit choice), they would have to vote republican to save the economy.

While universal healthcare sounds like an awesome concept for our country to head towards, it seems odd to make that a central selling point for both hilary and obama at a time when we face historical financial meltdowns aned the potential for a serious depression on the level of what japan faced for the past 20 yrs.

Does anyone else have twilight zone feelings when listening to candidates debating everything other than saving the economy? Balanced budgets, Healthcare, Raising taxes. What do any of these have to do with making the us economy strong. If they were talkiing about balancing the budget through reduced govt spending I might start to perk up.

I have to admit I haven't bothered to listen to mccain much lately but have always viewed him as a reformer.

I can't vote for him either though as I've met him and found him to be a serious hot head and not totally stable. Didn't seem like the guy you want manning the big red button.

A friend recently handed me an awesome button that read, "republicans for hillary" with the implication that only barack could win.
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5 is definitely the new 3 stars in hotels

How can a 5 star hotel ask you to pay $10 for the first 3 minutes and $2 for each additional? That is what the peninsula in chgo charges. Its offensive that a 5 star hotel charges more than a motel 6 to make phone calls. Where is the service in that? It sure helps them that cell phones conveniently don't work here. Maybe some mba at peninsular realized this was lost revs and put up cell blocking on floors.
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There's a great piece in last wk's barrons about how these hedge fund mgrs, paul and lee, argue that commodities will go way up in dollar terms only because of a drastic continued decline in dollar purchasing power. I totally agree with this view which is why 80 pct of the money I manage is either in commodity funds or oil drilling stocks (like transocean and diamond offshore).

I've searched for the best ways to bet against the dollar and have yet to find an idea I like outside of commodities. I would buy chinese yuan if I could though that's a bet on when they let it move to its real level against the dollar. (China only raised it 5 pct all of last year.)

I can't see how the dollar can't decline given that the fed is dropping rates to save the economy and counter tightening credit markets; meaning rates paid on dollar fixed income deposits will go down relative to other worldwide oppts. It seems that at some point the federal govt will have to start offering higher rates on t-bills as noone will be willing to buy its paper at low these rates.

So what happens when the fed is lending cheap and borrowing high? Seems like that spirals deficits even faster which btw contribute to obama's calls to raise taxes and 'pay our fair share'.

Where does this all go? Seems only outcome is higher taxes and interest rates along with record inflation as the dollar dives and real assets esp commodities skyrocket. Assuming that the rich give their money to hedge fund managers who are smart enough to bet on these trends, we end up with even greater concentration of wealth as a very small few avoid the economic landslide and increase wealth while the majority share a fairly equal misery.

I'm normally an optimist and remain hugely optimistic about the future, however, lately I've had trouble seeing how we avoid a serious widespread depression and how we come out of it.

The one saving grace is that we remain the country driving tech and net innovation which in addition to creating jobs and wealth in the US drives massive gains in knowledge worker productivity (why I can blog on a late flt rather than reading the inflight mag). These gains seem to keep saving our economy in the face of massive tax revenue paid to the worlds most corrupt, bloated and inefficient corporation.
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Zynganomics.com tracks myspace app growth

We have posted our internal tracking tool for anyone to use at www.zynganomics.com. Its basic but does a nice job of showing hourly growth of myspace apps with daily graphs.
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Zynga Launched Myspace Poker. Currently biggest app!

zynga has launched poker on myspace.

check it out!

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=337470839

Fw: Newsflash: Jill's talk live + 'Best of TED08' disks coming

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-----Original Message----- From: "Chris Anderson (TED)"

Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:32:24
To:mark@markpincus.com Subject: Newsflash: Jill's talk live + 'Best of TED08' disks coming

TEDizens, a quick heads up!

For those of you looking to spread some of the excitement from Monterey, here are two ways:
1) Jill Bolte Taylor's amazing talk about her stroke is here live  on ted.com. Email it, blog it, share it. By general consensus, this is one of the most memorable TED talks ever. (Craig Venter's news-making talk and the World Wide Telescope demo are also up, with more to come next week.)
2) As I mentioned briefly on stage, this year we're creating a special "Best of TED2008" set of Blu-Ray disks, enabling you to share the best of your TED experience from Monterey. It's specifically designed for those of you who want to organize your own mini-TED salons -- for an evening, or a full day or more. This set will be available the first week of April (a few weeks ahead of the complimentary DVD archive that attendees now receive) and will feature:
- the top 30 rated talks and the top 20 rated mini talks from the conference.
- beautiful high-definition footage, as seen in Monterey and Aspen (our standard DVD sets aren't HD)
- menu listings for each presentation, so you can make your own pick as to which to share on a "play and pause" basis
- chapter markers for both the intros given in Monterey, and the start of the talk itself (so you can do your own speaker introductions if you prefer).

The set contains about 12 hours of top-rated material... with all the house-keeping announcements, stage prizes, etc, cut out. To cover the costs of producing and manufacturing these, we are charging $500/set. (That's based on the understanding that you yourself are not charging admission to your salon; if you want to do a paid-for event, you should contact us separately.)
We do think there's an opportunity here for some of you to share TED2008 while the excitement is still in the air, and before the majority of the talks go online.

(We don't have an exhaustive list of included talks at this stage... still reviewing attendee feedback. Overall, the talks appear to be the highest rated ever.)

If you're interested in reserving a set, please email katherine@ted.com and we can simply bill the credit card we have on file for you, and fed-ex you the disks as soon as they're available. If you don't have access to a Blu-Ray player, please request an ordinary DVD version of "Best of TED2008" instead. This set is *only* available to attendees of TED2008.  And remember, there's no need to take action here unless you specifically want this special disk set to do an early salon. By the end of April you should have a full TED2008 archive in standard DVD format mailed you free of charge.
Once again, thanks for your time and enthusiasm in Monterey.  

Best wishes,

- Chris

P.S. Please do make sure Pangea Day is on your calendar. May 10, 2008. A four-hour program commencing 2pm New York Time.  Broadcast details and more available soon.
Chris Anderson • TED Curator




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Who let libya join the un security counsil?!

In the category of 'now I've heard everything', todays nytimes reports that the un security counsel failed to condemn the hamas terrorist attack on an israeli yeshiva (religious school) because the libyan rep wouldn't approve.

Now that's the nuttiest thing I've ever heard. The UN actually put libya on its security counsil?? And we wonder how terrorism runs rampant? The only country to ever get convicted in court for sponsoring a terrorist attack (blowing up the flt over lockerbie) is now trusted with world security?

Is there something I'm missing here? Maybe the UN thought that by recruiting the terrorists it might do a better job of policing, kind of like hiring hackers? Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

Most inspiring TED session

Was seeing/hearing a man with cerebral palsy conducting a self created symphony with his forhead. He used a device created by the MIT media lab. before this he was trapped to live in silence in a mass state hospital. Unbelievable that he had symphonies trapped inside!

This event was the best testament to the real value of tech and new media in our lives.
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I'm back to blogging!

Now that I managed to register my new blackberry with typepad, my web voice is back on.

In line at the dmv for whole afternoon. Realizing communism is still alive in the free world. And the written questions are hard!

Would be a funny curb your enthusiasm if larry got caught cheating by emailing his manager for answers.
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Fw: Macro outlook - thinking out loud

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Inputs

- the dollar - can't see how it goes anywhere but down. Fed is lowering rates which reduces the amt paid to dollar deposits at same time trade balances and federal debt climbing rapidly. Ultimately, foreign deposits may stop as confidence in dollar and rates are inferior to oppts abroad. Asia should move faster and further than europe as china is artificially low.

- the economy - no more consumer spending engine. No more obvious wealth effect at top. Govt about to increase taxes which will drain money supply at same time demand is weak too.

- inflation - should be pretty high with dollar falling and cost of real world inputs from oil to clothing going up. normally economists can count on increases in unemployment to hold labor costs down but that may have been different as labor was a bigger component of us cost base. Also, overall employment may stay pretty high.

+ productivity - this has been the real underlying economic driver that has been propelling our economy for past 18 yrs. Most white collar workers have blackberries and can be more productive more of the time. Obviously, the internet has been both an industrial boon and productivity driver for the past decade with big room left to drive efficiencies in how we live and transact.

My gut tells me that while there are very negative near term inputs that should keep us assets like equities and real estate down for the next 18 months, overall productivity gains will overwhelm these.

This feels a bit like 1989-1993 where we lacked clear direction for real economic growth. Even during that time we were benefitting from an IT revolution that (some claim) drove 80 pct of new job creation for the next decade.

As I find myself on a surprisingly relaxing and well run swa flt on sunday march 2nd, 2008, I realize that I'm still an optimist, still sold on this net revolution.

If I had the time I would reorient my portfolio towards real commodities like gold and oil that can maintain world based pricing and away from all assets priced in dollars esp us equities.

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Got zinga a bluberry facial.

Got zinga a bluberry facial. luv wag hotel!