Search Results for: dollar tree

My Marketmax Tale

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I worked at Apple Computer from April 1987 until February 1990 (a story unto itself), and I left Apple after having a falling-out with a boss over some, shall we say, ethical lapses on his part (yet another story unto itself). Happily, I had a job offer waiting for me which had three big things going for it: (a) it was a startup; (b) it was financial technology; (c) I would have a cool title – Vice President of Technology. All at the age of 24!

Cooler still, it was located in San Francisco’s financial district in the city’s most iconic building, the Transamerica Pyramid. Since my working life has been spent in jeans, khakis, and polo shirts, I was excited at the prospect of being a honest-to-God grown-up, putting on a suit, getting on a train, and heading to the big city each morning.

And that, my friends, was the high point of my entire stint with this new company, TriStar Market Data. The prospects were exciting, the (inflated) title was impressive, the pay was (at the time) excellent, and I had finally left the big corporation of Apple for a startup. This was no garage, however. TriStar was a seven-person outfit that had been put together by Montgomery Securities, a regional investment bank, based on technology it had bought from a firm in Chicago. (For those deeply in-the-know, Avram Grey was the original creator of this aforementioned system).

The product that TriStar owned was a Macintosh-based trader’s platform called MarketMax. Take note of that critical phrase: Macintosh-based. In 1990, approximately nobody on Wall Street used the Macintosh. That computer was the domain of desktop publishers, graphic artists, and other weirdos. It isn’t something you had on your desk at JP Morgan. Anyone who traded used Sun. Period. (more…)

The Shot Heard Round The Valley World: WORRY

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The greatest issue facing Silicon Valley is the one thing many newly minted and aspiring entrepreneurs have taken for granted: the money.

Many believe this gravy train of a never-ending Venture Capital/Angel Investor class will not only always be there, but the ranks will swell becoming even larger with burgeoning pocketbooks filled with their own newly minted IPO greenbacks.

Problem is for a great many, they have never seen the real Jeckyll and Hyde personality of “investor funding.” (more…)

The 4C’s That Never Happened – And Those That Did

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We didn’t get what I first postulated yet, what we did might be even more illuminating.

In my earlier article the 4C’s I set up the premise that if a Yes vote took place in Scotland there were possible ramifications within the markets than what was being expressed, as well as reported, throughout the financial media.

Well it turns out the cause for any worry has now been voted and booted away so far down the road it would make a can envious. However, what did we really get?

In my opinion we might have been shown there is even far more need to be concerned, for once again, the powers that be have seemingly demonstrate they truly are – the one’s in control. (more…)

Beware of Int’l Financiers and Global Dirigisme

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Courtesy of the SlealthFlation Blog:

Like many of our readers, I clearly have a very hard time reconciling a U.S. stock market making new all-time-highs almost daily, especially in the face of what most economists consider to be a relatively weak domestic economy with negligible growth prospects.  Moreover, when you layover the thoroughly stalled and certainly weaker overall global economic picture with the largest economic bloc on the planet in a near depression, it’s even harder to rationalize. Finally, throw into the mix the gravity of threatening geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and Russia, the two nations with the largest stockpiles of tactical nuclear weapons on earth, as well as the completely disintegrating Middle East mayhem, and the market actually welcomes it?  Something majorly does not add up, well, to this idiot anyways. (more…)

The Great Deformation

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This is going to be a review of David Stockman’s 768-page tome The Great Deformation, and 0831-deform
although I never thought it was possible, it makes me angry to write this book review.

I’m not angry because I don’t like the book. On the contrary, this is the best economics book I’ve ever read. Indeed, it may be the best and most influential book I’ve ever read in my life. I only wish I had read it the moment it was published in April 2013. I only finished reading it today, and for the entire time I’ve been plowing through it, I’ve been trying to think of what I would say in this review.

Why am I angry, then, to write this? Bluntly stated, because nothing I can say will make what I want a reality. And what I want is for every literate person in the United States to read this book, cover to cover. I want them to read it. I want them to understand it. I want them to agitate for the changes that it recommends. (more…)