Power Chips? July 24, 2013July 24, 2013 One of the many reasons to have been a Borealis skeptic all these years is their claim to have multiple breakthrough technologies, not just one (and to have a small fortune in mineral wealth besides). And yet its Chorus Motors technology really has powered commercial jets around the tarmac, and so seems to be real. Alone, and just for airplanes — via the WheelTug subsidiary — that technology could be worth billions. (And what if it found application in cars? forklifts? elevators?) What if some of the other technologies were real, too? From yesterday’s weekly update: Avto Metals/Cool Chips/Power Chips Our University Research Facility has finished the construction of the structures needed to test the Ev for these structures. The structures look very good, the build was very successful. We had months of the usual problems associated with such builds. The Avto Metal™ devices are now in the hands of our lead in-house researcher and they are off to be tested at another University facility. This is the culmination of about 18 years of work for our scientific teams in facilities around the world. If the tests show a significant reduction in work function, confirming earlier work that was repeated thousands of times in several laboratories, we will first build additional structures to increase our understanding of the Avto Effect and then proceed to build test PowerChips™. This will be followed by the building sufficient quantities of PowerChips to build probably 100 watt prototype devices, that can be scaled up, to be initially 1000 KW devices and larger. With any luck Power Chips can be a money spinner in probably 30 months, which in this business is tomorrow. We would like to thank Dr. Hans J. Walitzki for staying with the project for many years and directing the research for the past few years. Dr. Walitzki’s work is much appreciated. It is now a question of properly testing the Avto Metal Structures to increase our understanding of the Avto Effect and then to build working, standalone prototype devices. We will see if the last two decades of work and millions of dollars have been wasted in the next couple of months. This is show time for many of our technology companies. Well, you never know. (Technically, Power Chips is a public company, another of the Borealis subsidiaries . . . but it hasn’t traded in — forever.) One thing for sure: Where they say, above, “with any luck,” it would be more accurate to say, “with enormous luck.”
Reader Feedback July 23, 2013March 28, 2017 THAT 1987 INTERVIEW Bill S.: “I watched the Werner Erhard tape with great interest. It was amusing to hear you lament how 30 year Treasury rates were only 9% after hitting 15% five years back. I liked your suggesting keeping assets in cash just weeks before the Black Monday crash. (I also liked hearing you joke that folks believing you are holding back on the big stock tip that will make them rich. I kept thinking of BOREF in that segment and how if that stock ever hits its perceived potential you will never be accused of keeping that one to yourself.)” PLUMOGRANATES Brooks Hilliard: “Was at Trader Joe’s yesterday afternoon and bought some of these. You are absolutely right (‘I just had my first plumogranate! Oh . . . joy!‘) . . . they’re GREAT!!!” ☞ And lest you think I recommend my hybrids lightly — that I’m some kind of fruit-novelty pushover — let me say I have tried the “grapple” — those apples cross-bred to taste like a grape — and they’re just weird. If grapple were a stock, I’d be short. BALANCE Cat: “So, let me start by saying I’m a lesbian and a Democrat. And glad to be both! However, one thing that kills me about the the political debate is how extreme both sides can be. The whole ‘polarized’ thing we hear about all the time. Your impassioned post yesterday paints a clear and vivid picture that seems impossible to refute. But I’d be willing to bet there’s some equally passionate Republican out there painting his or her own equally vivid picture. I have a, well, suspicion of anything so strongly, clearly, unimpeachably, rigidly one-sided. Kinda a knee-jerk ‘what isn’t he telling me’ reaction. Cherry picking examples, which everyone does all the time (even avowed unbiased sources), is inherently unbalanced. We do it to prove a point, make a case, counterbalance the other guy, etc. That’s fair enough. But my fairness streak (a mile wide and 2 miles deep), leads me to challenge you: write a similar, passionate, well thought out defense of the other guys. You needn’t publish it, or even share it, but the exercise might be insightful, even for an experienced hand like yourself. I suppose balance and reason (oh, and civilized discourse and compromise) don’t get us very far these days, and certainly the other guys stack every deck they can get their paws on, but still … I don’t mean to say that you are unbalanced or unreasonable or that your discourse is uncivilized. Only to acknowledge that voices that don’t take the extreme ‘flatten the fly with a sledge hammer’ approach tend to get drowned out. Does this make any sense?” ☞ It makes a lot of sense. I’m a big fan of fairness streaks and hope my own surfaces from time to time. I guess the other side of the general case you’re making – with which I agree – is the case against “false equivalence.” The notion that if someone makes an impassioned case for racial cleansing, or for denying lesbians the right to civil marriage, or for the earth’s being – quite obviously – flat . . . and someone else makes an impassioned refutation, then the truth presumably lies someplace in between. To me, the positions and tactics of the new Republican Party – the S.O.P., as I see it – are extreme and needlessly hurtful to our collective prosperity. I don’t see “the other side” to voter suppression. Or to remaining the only industrialized country without universal health care. Or to not putting people eager for work to work doing things like repairing tens of thousands of bridges that will become orders of magnitude more expensive to repair once they collapse. Or to not reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. Or to not closing the gun show loophole. Or to paying banks to make student loans when they take none of the risk of extending those loans. I do often know the other side’s argument – e.g., that without photo ID, there will be significant voter fraud, or that we can’t afford to put people to work modernizing our infrastructure, or that allowing gays to marry poses a great threat — but it’s hard for me to give much weight to the impassioned Republicans making these arguments because I no more buy them than I believe that the earth is flat. Study after study – and the failed concerted efforts of the Bush Administration to find more than a statistically insignificant number of examples – and common sense – all tell me that people do not go to the polls in any significant numbers impersonating others. And I believe we can’t afford not to put people to work modernizing our infrastructure – that by blocking this, I believe, the Republicans are adding to our economic woes and long-term deficits. And I believe the advances we’ve made toward LGBT equality enrich, rather than threaten, our national commitment to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And on and on. So I love your email and fairness streak. And I take your point generally. And I hope that when I make an unfair, extremist argument, you will call me out.
Race, Health Care, and the S.O.P. July 22, 2013July 21, 2013 Did you get to watch (or at least read) the President’s remarks on race? (Or, for that matter, his recent remarks at Morehouse College discussing race, fatherhood, and responsibility?) By the very fact of his having been elected and reelected, but also by the way he has governed, it seems to me, he has helped us move a little further down the eggshell-strewn path toward a more harmonious multi-racial society. Not that, as he acknowledged, we’re anywhere close to “post-racial.” But with each generation, we make progress. This is an area not easily scored or discussed — though important. In areas that are easily scored, the progress has been at least as great. I would note that the stock market, having more than doubled, is at record highs — that CAFE standards have been doubled — that tens of millions of people now have or are about to have better access to health care — that the Federal deficit as a percentage of GDP is likely to be less than half what it was the year he took office (more like 4% than 10%) — that LGBT Americans have made huge strides (at no cost to anyone else) — that we have wound down two wars — that there is a Credit Card Bill of Rights and a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — that stem cell research is now encouraged rather than impeded — and lots more. Standing against most of this progress has been the new Republican Party — the one that considers Eisenhower and Nixon to have been socialists and through whose primary process Ronald Reagan, were he running today, probably could not make it to the nomination. It’s the party doing all it can to keep African Americans and young people and poor people from voting (watch the Chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party and one of his colleagues in the legislature all but copping to this — just one example of many). The one mandating vaginal ultrasounds and government-written scripts doctors must read their patients. The one that filibustered its own proposal for a bi-partisan deficit commission once the President signed on — one of more than 400 filibusters Harry Reid has faced as Majority Leader (versus just one when Lyndon Johnson had the job). It’s the party that torpedoed the American Jobs Act that would have renewed our economy by investing in infrastructure. The party that passes subsidies for corporate farmers but nixes food stamps for hungry families; that fights to hold down the minimum wage but zero out the tax on billionheirs; that repealed the assault weapons ban and rejects universal background checks. The party voting, 40 times now, to repeal Obamacare. Once the “Grand Old Party,” it has become the the Selfish Old Party. The S.O.P. Yes, of course, there are some terribly selfish Democrats — and some wonderfully generous Republicans. But c’mon: when you watched that amazing Tammy Duckworth clip linked to a couple of weeks ago — where the government-contractor was so shamelessly milking the system — what odds would you have given he was a Democrat, what odds a Republican? Watch the clip and take your guess! Sure enough: a max-out Romney donor. However generous individual Republicans may be, the ones serving in Congress vote to make life easier for the rich and powerful, harder for everyone else. And so naturally they want to kill Obamacare. From the widest perspective, here’s what Obamacare does: it taxes the best off — by adding a 3.8% tax on investment income for high-earning individuals — so virtually everyone can get decent health care. Democrats favor that trade, Republicans (or at least those in Congress) oppose it. It does a lot of other things, too, of course. But the way it can provide so many “goodies” — near-universal access, an end to “lifetime caps,” an end to “pre-existing conditions” — yet still lower the federal deficit is that simple: it asks the best off to chip in more. (Though at a rate still lower than we were paying at the end of Ronald Reagan’s second term.) Beyond that, it is filled with pilot programs aimed at improving the quality and efficiency of care, and — and of special importance to our global economic competitiveness — mechanisms to drive down costs (or at least stunt their growth). And it looks as though it may do just that. Insurers can’t keep more than 15% or 20% of premiums for their overhead and profit, and those that do have to refund the difference — already 8.5 million refund checks have gone out. And as the White House reports: For those Americans who already have health insurance – the vast majority – the only changes you will see under the law are new benefits, better protections from insurance company abuses, and more value for every dollar you spend on health care. If you like your plan you can keep it and you don’t have to change a thing due to the health care law.For the uninsured or those who don’t get their coverage through work, a key component of the Affordable Care Act will take effect on October 1, when the new Health Insurance Marketplace open for business, allowing millions of Americans to comparison shop for a variety of quality, affordable plans that best meet their health care needs. Preliminary data shows that the competition and transparency that these marketplaces will create for individual and group insurance will result in health care plans that are both higher quality and more affordable. We have already seen evidence of this in states like California and Oregon and now New York, where the State just announced its health insurance plan rates for insurers seeking to offer coverage through New York’s Health Insurance Marketplace. According to the State, not only will new insurers be entering the market to offer more choices to consumers, the premiums will be below what the Congressional Budget Office projected. This is despite the fact that the state’s health care costs are much higher than the national average. Additionally, a new analysis being released today by the Department of Health and Human Services shows that the preliminary premiums for plans offered to individuals in these new Marketplaces will be lower than expected. Specifically, the HHS analysis finds that that: In the eleven states for which data are available, the lowest cost silver plan in the individual market in 2014 is, on average, 18 percent less expensive than the HHS estimate of the premium that was assumed by the Congressional Budget Office. . . . Now if only we could pass the American Jobs Act to employ people who want to work modernizing our badly decaying national infrastructure, we could really see things begin to hum. All that’s keeping us from doing this is our not doing it. (So please plan to vote in 2014 even if you normally sit out the mid-terms.)
Still Being With Money July 19, 2013 Yesterday, this site’s host was down for several hours. Sorry if the page kept “timing out” on you. Then, as part of coming back on line, it seems to have lost its mind. Sorry if it sent you several random columns from the distant past. No one has any idea why it did this. Please take the rest of the day off by way of my apology — and because Thursday’s column included this 90-minute video from September, 1987 — “Being With Money” — that even I haven’t yet found time to watch in its entirety. See you Monday.
Being With Money July 18, 2013March 28, 2017 But first . . . I just had my first plumogranate! Oh . . . joy! And now . . . This has suddenly shown up on the Internet — I have no idea why — and so . . . in the spirit of Nick at Nite . . . I offer you an hour and a half of my thoughts from September, 1987, a month or so before the Crash of 1987 . . . an interview conducted by Werner Erhard for participants who had paid I think $600 each to be part of this televised lecture series. Watching it now, I naturally focus mainly on my hair. And whether I’ll ever brush the clump that seems to have fallen down back up into place. (I got distracted about half way through watching, so actually don’t know how it turns out. If I said anything particularly regrettable in the second half, chalk it up to youthful exuberance.) About eighteen minutes in, I note that Ford Motor stock is up 10-fold over the past few years and farmland down by about two-thirds, so a thirty-fold shift in the relative value of a share of Ford versus and acre of soil so — I said — maybe it was time to sell Ford and buy farmland. (I also suggested that stocks in general seemed a bit toppy.) With hindsight, you could have done worse. But much of it is just the platitudes for which you have all paid me so well over the years (thank you very much), and which may be as true today as they were in Aesop’s and Ben Franklin’s day. Anyway, it being summertime — when even “60 Minutes” is in re-runs — this quarter-century old re-run seemed as good an excuse as any for me to go for a swim. Watch?
Seriously? July 17, 2013July 16, 2013 TRAYVON I was so pleased when Judge Nelson advised the jury — over the defense’s objection — that they could consider the lesser charge of manslaughter. Suddenly, a difficult decision seemed easy: surely they would grab this middle ground. But they didn’t. P-FAW’s Michael Keegan reflects: Less than three weeks ago, the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a key enforcement provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, saying that the Act had worked so well that its provisions designed to confront ingrained institutional racism were no longer necessary. Just this weekend, a Florida man was acquitted for shooting an unarmed African American teenager walking to his father’s house armed with only a bag of Skittles. The verdict was heartbreaking, not just because it left Trayvon Martin’s family without justice, but because it illustrated so clearly what so many Americans already know. Our criminal justice system, like our voting system, is stacked against people of color. . . . Contrast Zimmerman’s going free — with his gun, no less, after pursuing (and killing) a boy he had been instructed by police not to — with this African-American woman‘s getting 20 years for firing a warning shot (that hurt no one) after being threatened by an abusive husband. Both in Florida. Seriously? HOPE This three-minute clip makes me hopeful. Despite Washington’s gridlock, there is a bright generation of young future leaders eager to make progress. Including the 2013 DNC Hope Institute participants on the clip. (And while I’m being partisan, can anyone guess, if young Malala — the 16-year-old Pakistani girl whose UN speech I posted Monday — had to chose between the two American political parties, which party she’d favor?) SIGA And speaking of hope, our SIGA jumped slightly on this “news” yesterday of an impending $79 million payment from Uncle Sam. (I put “news” in quotes because the payment was expected.) That kind of money may not sound like much to you — perhaps you’re considering a bid on this just-listed $190 million Connecticut waterfront home* — but to me, or, more to the point, to little SIGA, with its current $180 million market cap, a $79 million check is more than a footnote. My current plan is to hold on for a year or two for a significantly higher stock price. Though only (cue the chorus) with money I can truly afford to lose. RIP Long-time readers will recall that I went through an extended “estimable” phase. I would frequently refer to many of you, when I used one of your comments on this page, as “the estimable” this or “the estimable” that. It’s not, by the way, that any of you have become even the slightest bit less estimable — quite the contrary — but at some point the “estimable” thing seemed to be getting a bit old, so I largely stopped doing it. Well, yesterday morning we lost the estimable Alan Rogowsky . . . as gentle and good-hearted and cheerful and constructive a soul as there was. So just in case he’s still reading this (giving new meaning to The Cloud), I just wanted to say: thanks for 40-some years of friendship, and numerous contributions to this page.
She Also Pioneered VLSI* July 16, 2013July 15, 2013 Yesterday, two brave women — one just 16, the other a former battle-scarred Navy SEAL — both speaking out, in different ways, for individual dignity and the freedom to pursue one’s own happiness. Today, Lynn Conway’s story. No Navy SEAL she — all she did, before being fired by IBM in 1968 for being transgender (she was born Robert), was invent “dynamic instruction scheduling,” an underpinning of supercomputing. That story is updated briefly here, as she and her husband walked into the White House last month to celebrate LGBT Pride with the President of the United States. Is this a great country, or what? *Very Large Scale Integrated Circuits. Lynn was “the hidden-hand behind the VLSI microelectronics revolution in Silicon Valley — a revolution that’s changed the world forever.” Read her whole story here. Meanwhile, eQualityGiving founder Juan Jover — formerly of Bell Labs — writes: “As a former participant in the computer chip industry, I can tell you that all of us who built computer chips for the last 30-plus years did it using the new methods created in Lynn Conway’s1980 textbook (I am holding a copy signed by her as I write this). The revolution of packing so much computer power in smaller devices (like smartphones) is all due to computer chips that use Lynn’s methods. Frankly, it is difficult to overemphasize Lynn’s contribution. But this is not all, after MIT, Robert Lynn worked for IBM, where he made contributions so ahead of its time they could not be implemented for decades. After being fired for her gender identity, and transitioning to Lynn, she had to re-start her career from scratch for fear of being found out. Linking this to ENDA: How much did Lynn’s firing, and her not creating her computer chips design revolution there, cost IBM’s shareholders? Had VLSI design revolution been proprietary to them, they would have killed Intel, among others. [By the way], Lynn has perhaps the most influential website on transgender issues, lynnconway.com. It is translated into 20 languages, providing role models about successful transitions across the world.”
Two Brave Women July 15, 2013July 14, 2013 MALALA Did you get to watch Malala’s speech to the UN last week? If you don’t have 17 minutes — or somehow don’t know who this astonishing 16-year-oild girl is (oh! the one shot in the head by the Taliban for demanding that girls be allowed to go to school!) — here’s the story. And here’s the transcript. . . . I remember that there was a boy in our school who was asked by a journalist, “Why are the Taliban against education?” He answered very simply. By pointing to his book he said, “A Talib doesn’t know what is written inside this book.” They think that God is a tiny, little conservative being who would send girls to the hell just because of going to school. The terrorists are misusing the name of Islam and Pashtun society for their own personal benefits. Pakistan is peace-loving democratic country. Pashtuns want education for their daughters and sons. And Islam is a religion of peace, humanity and brotherhood. Islam says that it is not only each child’s right to get education, rather it is their duty and responsibility. . . . Who says there’s no hope for the future in the Muslim world? “One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world.” KRIS I don’t want to take more than 17 minutes of your day — or even the three minutes it would take you to read the transcript. So today’s post may be tomorrow’s post as well. (Summertime . . . and the living is laaaaaaazy.) But I spent the weekend with a former Navy SEAL who served for 20 years, deployed 13 times, awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star — a completely amazing woman! She was Chris — a man — at the time (much of it with a giant beard to blend in with the locals), but always knew she was a woman trapped inside a man’s body. It sounds weird, condensed like that, but when you read the full story, as I did Saturday — and understand that perhaps a million of your countrymen-and-women are faced with similar gender dysphoria — you find yourself pleased but not at all surprised when his boss and mentor, former SEAL and astronaut (commander of Expedition 1, the first crew on the International Space Station), Bill Shepard, reacted as he did when Chris broke the news he was now Kris: “You know I’ve been depressed and struggling with PTSD for a while now and I have some other issues as well,” Chris said and after a brief hesitation he spit it out, “I also have a gender identity disorder.” Shep paused in silence and then answered, “Chris, you know I love you like a son! With all you’ve done for our country, your dozens of tours and all you’ve done for me, you do whatever you need to.” “Okay, thanks boss!” Chris answered, his voice breaking with emotion. “Listen Chris, why don’t you come in later this afternoon and we can talk things over,” Shep suggested. “Uh, Shep,” Chris answered, hesitating a few seconds, “I can come in, but I’m wearing a dress.” “I don’t care if you were wearing a clown suit! I care what’s inside.” Later that day, Shep smiled seeing Chris in a very demure yet elegant dress when they met outside the restaurant. “Chris you look really good. You look happy!” Shep exclaimed. And pulling open the door Shep added with a half smile, “Ladies first!” The emails from fellow SEALs are equally great. E.g.: “Brother, I am with you… Being a SEAL is hard. This looks harder. Peace.” It’s a very short book . . . (inexplicably, un-copyedited) . . . and a very brave woman . . . and heart-warming (if you ask me): at the end of the day, we’re all just doing our best. Or most of us are, anyway. Chris/Kris certainly has been. And we’re all in this together.
Superhydrophobia (expialidocious) July 12, 2013July 12, 2013 BRAVE NEW WORLD – Pt 56 This stuff. Spray it on and you’re a duck’s back. Is it time to short umbrella makers? Shower with your smart phone? BRING BACK GLASS-STEAGALL I signed up with John McCain and Elizabeth Warren . . . here. WELCOME Jacob: “Agribusiness pork = yes. Food assistance to poor Americans = no. I have been meaning to switch party affiliations for a while, and this was the last straw. I’m now a registered Democrat.” AND SPEAKING OF DEMOCRATS Here’s one I love, Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth. Watch her shame a phony disabled vet sucking off the teat of the government. She does not mention it, but I checked him out on Opensecrets.org. Sure enough: judging from the $2,500 he gave Mitt Romney, he’s a Republican. I mean — really? You’ve got to watch. Have a great weekend.
NLRB / SIGA / BOREF July 11, 2013 In listing the various Republican wars-on yesterday I forgot the war on labor. The National Labor Relations Board has been effectively shut down for eighteen months. Oh — and the war on consumers. The Republicans refuse to confirm anyone to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. SIGA If you own SIGA, this may be of interest: a fanciful letter to Vice Chancellor Parsons — fanciful in the sense that he probably will never see it — that helps lay out the issues in the case. Our hope is that the stock is undervalued even if the new award is no less onerous than the first one Delaware’s Supreme Court rejected. But, oh, how nice it would be if the writer, our own Glenn Hudson, has it right. BOREF I ended my last post: As always: naysayer comments welcome. If I’m missing something here, I’d be eager to know what it is. One of the smartest investors I know responded: “There is almost zero chance this management can/will do what they’ve said they can do. Why have folks put $8 million into private placements of WheelTug stock at a $600 million valuation? Whoever did that believed in the technology, obviously. But companies with no future raise that kind of money every day of the year. . . . Meanwhile, If I came to you and promised to revolutionize one industry, you would evaluate my project on the merits and would consider investing in it. If I came to you and promised to revolutionize four industries, but had been in business a couple of decades and had only $36 million in cumulative losses to show for it, you would quickly conclude that I had a long track record of over-promising and under-delivering.” They are the world leaders in grandiose projections. No question. Yet against tremendous skepticism they did actually “deliver” a nose wheel motor that ran a commercial jet around the Prague airport — even in slippery conditions when it started to snow — as if it were a golf cart. No one else in the world has been able to do that. And they have forged partnerships with serious, established companies, both on the airline side and on the “production” side. My scary smart friend may prove right; but he has thus far not persuaded me there isn’t a tremendous opportunity for some company here. Or that — astonishingly — Borealis won’t prove to be that company.