{"id":21691,"date":"2013-08-26T09:17:19","date_gmt":"2013-08-26T13:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=21691"},"modified":"2013-08-26T10:43:13","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T14:43:13","slug":"great-weekend-with-family-one-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=21691","title":{"rendered":"Great weekend with family. A few simple ideas."},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"yass_top_edge_dummy\" style=\"width: 1px; height: 1px; padding: 0px; margin: -11px 0px 0px; border-width: 0px; display: block; text-align: left;\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"yass_top_edge\" style=\"background-image: url('chrome:\/\/yass\/content\/edgebgtop.png'); background-attachment: scroll; background-position: center bottom; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px -10px; border-width: 0px; height: 0px; display: block; width: 1px; text-align: left;\"><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 10px; text-align: left;\">NLY is picking up. Now yielding 15.7%. Worth a nibble. Still searching for other nibbles. Interest rates are skyrocketing. Important to be careful. Don&#8217;t touch bonds or treasuries unless you fluke a miracle.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 10px; text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Steve Ballmer&#8217;s miserable legacy. <\/strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He became MSFT CEO in January, 2000. Since then MSFT&#8217;s stock has fallen 35%. Ballmer bought 149 companies including a $6 billion one &#8212; aQuantive &#8212; that was a complete failure. Ballmer also missed some minor trends &#8212; like mobile, social networking, tablets (like the iPad), ebooks, music, search and the cloud. In the next few months names for possible CEO replacements will float around. Maybe that will add some bounce to MSFT&#8217;s desultory shares? Maybe. Personally I&#8217;d like to see Bill Gates take over. The New York Times had a couple of pieces on Saturday that tell all:<\/span><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">+ Anything-but-ordinary succession for company at a crossroad. Click <a title=\"Succession at Microsoft\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/08\/24\/technology\/questions-for-microsoft-as-it-nears-a-crossroad.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=0\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">+ A tenure of constant acquisition and one deal that didn&#8217;t close. Click<a title=\"Steve Ballmer's tenure of constant acquisition\" href=\"http:\/\/dealbook.nytimes.com\/2013\/08\/23\/ballmers-greatest-hits-and-misses-as-microsofts-chief-deal-maker\/\" target=\"_blank\"> <strong>here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">+ Old article at Vanity Fair. Microsoft&#8217;s lost decade. Click <a title=\"Microsoft's lost decade \" href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/business\/2012\/08\/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer?mbid=social_twitter\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">+ From the New Yorker, &#8220;Why Steve Ballmer failed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px; text-align: left;\">Steve Ballmer, the C.E.O. of Microsoft, finally figured out a way to make some money for himself: he quit. This morning, Ballmer announced that he will retire within the next twelve months. The company\u2019s stock surged; Ballmer is now worth about a billion dollars more than he was on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">Click <a title=\"Why Steve Ballmer failed.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/currency\/2013\/08\/why-steve-ballmer-failed.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Got grown-up children?<\/strong> <\/span>Please encourage them to watch this piece on planning for retirement. It&#8217;s Cramer, but it&#8217;s actually very good. Michael, my son, has watched it twice. In it, Cramer explains how you should approach 401(k)s and IRAs. And what young people should invest in for their retirement &#8212; mostly\u00a0 equities. Basic message:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">+ Max out your 401(k) contributions based on the &#8220;free&#8221; money you get from your company.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">+ Put most of your savings in an IRA.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">+ Invest in equities &#8212; or even an S&amp;P index fund or ETF, if you&#8217;re too busy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">+ Don&#8217;t invest much in the stock of the company you work for. You already have that gamble by working there.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The video is <a title=\"Cramer's video on planning for retirement.\" href=\"http:\/\/video.cnbc.com\/gallery\/?play=1&amp;video=3000193352\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>35 innovators under 35 &#8212; from MIT. <\/strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Neat list. Click<strong> <a title=\"35 innovators under 35 -- chosen by MIT Technology Review\" href=\"http:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/lists\/innovators-under-35\/2013\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">here.<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Check. Check. Check. <\/strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The most powerful motto ever invented.<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">+ Check the the zinc roof you specified is actually zinc, not aluminum. (Just discovered by a local architect on his roof.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">+ Check the green material on your tennis court is really Har-Tru, not some fake stuff from a cheap quarry in Vermont. (Happened to me.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: left;\">+ Check that limit on your credit card advances is set to $0. If not, you&#8217;ll be hacked and will enjoy several hours of fun while you have to alert all your vendors that your credit card was changed. Some may have already cut you off and then you&#8217;ll be scrambling for a new vendor. (It happened to me.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>The U.S. Open Tennis begins today<\/strong><\/span>. It will be on The Tennis Channel, ESPN2 and CBS.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/HarryNewton.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-21218\" alt=\"HarryNewton\" src=\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/HarryNewton.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/HarryNewton.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/HarryNewton-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nHarry Newton who had a lovely weekend with family and friends, but no tennis. The eye is almost perfect. The constant drops are a pain. A big joy: Cranking up the size of the type on my laptop&#8217;s screen by 25%. Much easier to read. Control Panel\/Display. Probably designed for people between 71 and death. Heh, that&#8217;s me. Who&#8217;s complaining? The alternative doesn&#8217;t appeal.<\/p>\n<div id=\"yass_bottom_edge\" style=\"background-image: url('chrome:\/\/yass\/content\/edgebgbot.png'); background-position: 0px 0px; position: absolute; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px; height: 0px; left: 0px; top: 0px; width: 100%; display: block;\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NLY is picking up. Now yielding 15.7%. Worth a nibble. Still searching for other nibbles. Interest rates are skyrocketing. Important to be careful. Don&#8217;t touch bonds or treasuries unless you fluke a miracle. Steve Ballmer&#8217;s miserable legacy. He became MSFT CEO in January, 2000. Since then MSFT&#8217;s stock has fallen 35%. Ballmer bought 149 companies [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}