![\"NikeBuisnessWeek\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/NikeBuisnessWeek.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI don’t understand why BusinessWeek found it necessary to fake up the size of the sneakers. I don’t think Nike is a buy at these high prices. But it sure is getting a lot of buzz.<\/p>\n
On Friday, I bought a little more SGOL — my favorite gold ETF.<\/p>\n
More on watches as investments.<\/strong> <\/span>I like watches. I’d love to own this “complications” because it’s so beautiful. These days you can buy a lot of expensive watches with oodles of bling. Some have so much bling you can’t tell the time — but that’s why they made cell phones.<\/p>\n On Friday I schlepp to TimeCrafters, an exhibition of watches in the Park Avenue Armory. There are lots of books written about art and about watches. One draws my attention:<\/p>\n There are a lot of fake watches, it seems. Visit Chinatown, you can buy a Rolex for $20. You know it’s fake by its price, though from the outside it looks pretty real. It turns out the world’s watch counterfeiters are going upscale and making fake old watches. There’s obviously a business in these things, since Christie’s worldwide watch sales reached $134 million in 2013, “reaching,’ said Christie’s “new heights for watch auction prices.” I’m sure Sotheby’s is doing well with its watch sales also. It turns out the counterfeiters are doing such a great job that it’s almost impossible to tell if you have a real or a fake watch — certainly not from the outside. Some fake watches have been making into auctions, sneaking by the auction houses “experts.” I asked the book’s publisher what happens if you buy at auction a fake watch, thinking it’s real. Apparently the auction house will refund your money and swear you to secrecy. Fake watches are not good for business.<\/p>\n For now, I’m sticking with my Timexes, which tell the time and only\u00a0 have value on eBay.<\/p>\n These guys are our friends.<\/strong><\/span> Can you believe this? From the weekend’s Economist:<\/p>\n Human rights in Saudi Arabia<\/strong>. An even longer way to go<\/strong> AS LIFE gets just a little easier for women, another slice of Saudi society is finding it harder. The kingdom has never much tolerated public expressions of dissent. Lately it has tightened the screws.<\/p>\n Consider the case of Raif Badawi, a 32-year-old internet campaigner. In 2008 he co-founded a website as a platform for open debate on religion. Banned from travel in 2009 after criticising the official Wahhabist doctrine, he has been in prison since 2012 under a law that bans the “production, preparation, circulation or storage of content that undermines public order, religious values, public decency or privacy.” On May 7th he was sentenced to another ten years in jail, plus 1,000 lashes. Perhaps he is lucky: the public prosecutor, accusing Mr Badawi of apostasy, had sought the death penalty.<\/p>\n Though he may appeal, Mr Badawi must find a new lawyer. His current one, Waleed Abulkhair, one of the brave few to specialise in human rights, is himself in jail. Already banned from travel for several years and facing a series of charges, including “disobeying the rightful ruler” and “inciting international hostility against the kingdom,” he was remanded in custody on April 15th.<\/p>\n These two cases are among a string of arrests and prosecutions of human-rights defenders, would-be reformers and various other critics. A new “anti-terrorism” law passed in February allows for prolonged periods of arbitrary detention. Vague offences such as “destabilising society” and “offending the nation’s reputation” now count as terrorist acts. So, according to a separate recent government decree, do such things as “calling for atheist thought” or “contact with any group hostile to the kingdom”.<\/p>\n In an adjoining story, the Economist reported:<\/p>\n \u00a0For every step forward, the kingdom appears to take one back. Last month the local media reported that a woman had been sentenced to 150 lashes and eight months in jail for the crime of driving a car.<\/p>\n \u00a0How not to raise money for your new startup. <\/strong>My phone rings:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Caller: Are you ready to write me a check?<\/em><\/p>\n Harry: No.<\/p>\n Caller: Why not?<\/em><\/p>\n Harry: It’s hard to talk on this cellphone connection.<\/p>\n Caller: I’ll buy you lunch when I’m next in New York. <\/em><\/p>\n Click.<\/strong><\/p>\n Harry’s Rule: Never tell why you don’t want to invest. If you do, they’ll argue endlessly with you, waste oodles of your time, but not change your mind.<\/p>\n I instance this phone call, because the first pitch to me was to become an “advisor” to the company, and to be paid options for my brilliance. That’s flattering. But when the time came all they wanted was my money, not my brain. Surprise. Surprise.<\/p>\n Images for old geysers.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n This is brilliant marketing. Read the sign carefully.<\/p>\n
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\nPolitical dissent is still being crushed<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nToo bad for brave Badawi<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n