Salesforce (CRM) is holding
Two statistics about Dreamforce blew me away.
+ 140,000 people are registered to attend in person.
+ 10 million are registered to watch it online.
I bought more CRM this morning.
PayPal’s main business is exploding. It also owns Venmo — a free digital wallet that lets you make and share payments with friends. You can easily split the bill, cab fare, etc. I’ve used Venmo. It works. And easily. It’s also exploding.
I bought more PayPal this morning.
I have now officially sold Expedia and Priceline. The world has now passed them by. Everyone and their uncle has figured out they will save 15% if they deal directly with their chosen hotel. . They’ll get treated better if they buy their airline ticket directly. And … car rentals…. the jury’s out on them.
Square (SQ) continues its climb. I no longer know why. But I like my good fortune.
Others we own are doing handsomely — Tencent, Nvidia, Google, Apple and Honeywell.
Don’t do stupid
This is the 58-story Milennium Tower in San Francisco.
It’s sinking and leaning because the architect “anchored” it on sand, not bedrock. As result its pricey million dollar apartments are now valueless. The lawyers are getting rich. The cartoonists are having a ball:
How you get hacked
This is an amateur phishing. I received it yesterday. It doesn’t even look genuine. But people will click on the link and infect their company’s computer.
More tomorrow on what you can do when you and/or your company gets hacked. Not IF, but WHEN.
Saudi Arabia’s Game of Thrones
The Crown Prince, 32, has grabbed all the major economic, political, security, and royal court portfolios. He’s arresting all his rivals, consolidating his absolute power. He wants to “modernize” Saudi, moving it away from oil and attracting foreign investment. In the process, he’s moving to Saudi Arabia to an absolute dictatorship. I personally wouldn’t invest a nickel with him. I think of Russia, Venezuela, and most countries in Africa.
Saudi Arabia makes for lousy investing, but great reading:
+ The Saudi Royal Purge-with Trump’s Consent. Click here.
+ Saudi Crown Prince’s Mass Purge Upends a Longstanding System. Click here.
How hyperinflation begins
Venezuela has introduced a new 10,000-bolivar note. The note is worth less than $2.50 on the black market.
This is an actual bank note, which was used until hyper-inflation made it worthless.
It sells on eBay for a few bucks as a souvenir — a reminder of what can happen — if you do REAL stupid
Favorite recent cartoons
How to check your dog’s IQ
A Canadian psychologist is selling a video that teaches you how to test your dog’s IQ.
Here’s how it works: If you spend $12.99 for the video, your dog is smarter than you.
Harry Newton, who’s voting today. In our local community we get to vote for the guy who fixes our roads — the local Highway Superintendent. I’m voting for Bobby Meehan. Bobby does a good job. I bet he could do a great job with North Korea. But right now, the dirt road outside our country palace is more important.
There is clearly something strategically more significant going on. There can be little doubt that there was coordination between the Saudi regime and the Trump administration regarding Saturday’s actions. The Obama administration wanted to ditch traditional Sunni allies in favor of an alliance with the Iranian regime. Mohammed arrested some 30 senior Wahhabist clerics and intellectuals. He has been promoting clerics who espouse tolerance for other religions, including Judaism and Christianity. He has removed the Saudi religious police’s power to conduct arrests and he has taken seemingly credible steps to finally lift the kingdom-wide prohibition on women driving. http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Our-world-Saudi-purges-and-duty-to-act-513535
Harry, after the Trump tax plan passes you will lose most of your money and that makes me smile.
Smile, then. But surely you have better things to do than write hate emails?