Eideard

Lots of normal people would pay $23 for a book. But $23.7 million (plus $3.99 shipping) for a scientific book about flies!?

This unthinkable sticker price for “The Making of a Fly” on Amazon.com was spotted on April 18 by Michael Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and blogger.

The market-blind book listing was not the result of uncontrollable demand for Peter Lawrence’s “classic work in developmental biology,” Eisen writes. Instead, it appears it was sparked by a robot price war…

Eisen watched the robot price war from April 8 to 18 and calculated that two booksellers were automatically adjusting their prices against each other.

One equation kept setting the price of the first book at 1.27059 times the price of the second book, according to Eisen’s analysis, which is posted in detail on his blog.

The other equation automatically set its price at 0.9983 times the price of the other book. So the prices of the two books escalated in tandem into the millions, with the second book always selling for slightly less than the first.

The incident highlights a little-known fact about e-commerce sites such as Amazon: Often, people don’t create and update prices; computer algorithms do.

Individual booksellers on Amazon and other sites pay third-party companies for algorithm services that automatically update prices. Some of these computer programs purportedly work very well, getting sellers up to 60% more sales because they underbid the competition automatically and repeatedly…

“It’s pretty much like the stock exchange. What you see there is the prices changing all the time — but they never change drastically. Sometimes it’s a dollar here a dollar there — maybe $10. For a book, it probably would be pennies.”

Often producing as much useless “value” as many of the computer trades made for hedge funds and mutual funds. All you can hope for as a retail investor is to focus on what you calculate is the real value of equity over time – and let the rest of the market spin wheels in artificial endless loops.

Our stock markets will not do anything about it. I doubt Amazon will do anything about the same absurdity in their own mosh pit.



The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) has notified three members, Reps. John Campbell (R-Calif.), Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) and Tom Price (R-Ga.), that it was recommending the ethics committee further review their fundraising activities surrounding the Dec. 11, 2009, vote on the financial services measure. The OCE dismissed the cases against the other five members, according to a new report by the Sunlight Foundation.

See, you can use the words Congress and Ethics in the same sentence.

The OCE informed the members who received dismissal notices why they were getting cleared of wrongdoing and provided a rationale for why the three others are still under the microscope.

Crowley left during the Dec. 10 debate over amendments to the legislation in order to attend his holiday fundraiser at financial industry lobbyist Julie Domenick’s home, which is also her office. He then came back and voted against amendments that would have strengthened the bill…


Price’s fundraising luncheon took place on Dec. 10 and was specifically aimed at the financial services sector, the report noted. 

Price’s lunch was at the Capitol Hill Club and was headlined by Financial Services Committee ranking member Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.). He also held a fundraising breakfast there on Dec. 2, the same day the bill was voted out of committee.

It’s unclear, however, why Campbell is still under investigation because his fundraising does not appear to be connected to the financial industry, according to the report. One of the two events he held on Dec. 9 was at the home of defense industry lobbyists Christopher Perkins and Fleming “Mike” Legg.


Campbell held two fundraisers on Dec. 9: a “California Wine Tasting” headlined by Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and a lunch with Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif). Both were held at the Capitol Hill Club, a private GOP club that also houses the offices of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Campbell and Price, who both serve on the Financial Services Committee, issued statements Tuesday denying any wrongdoing and expressing confusion over the OCE’s decision.

All three Congress-critters have expressed outrage over being investigated and say they are perplexed over questions of wrongdoing.

As we all know, our Congress has spent a great deal of time over the last couple of decades assuring us that the beds they share with corporate lobbyists have nothing to do with how they vote. I guess it’s just Great Sex.

Toyota, which has dominated the market for gasoline-electric cars so far, is looking to take back the crown after Honda’s new Insight became the first hybrid ever to top the best-sellers’ list in Japan last month.

“The hybrid market is going to be one of the fastest-growing segments in the world,” said JPMorgan Securities auto analyst Takaki Nakanishi. “With the global economy in a recession, luxury and large cars are not selling but fuel-conscious cars are in fact growing. Toyota’s earnings performance is hurting right now, and they can’t afford to lose the lead in this market”.

Introducing the third-generation Prius, Executive Vice President Akio Toyoda said the upgraded model…costs about $3,000 less than the previous version…

Although gasoline prices have nearly halved since peaking last July, automakers expect growing interest in the fuel-saving technology with consumers continuing to trade in big SUVs in favor of small cars, even in the United States.

By 2018, JPMorgan Securities expects roughly one in every 10 cars to be a hybrid, with global sales reaching 9.96 million vehicles as more brands such as Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen, as well as General Motors Corp’s plug-in Chevy Volt, join the market…

The new Prius will start at $21,620, or at least 300,000 yen less than what executives had originally said the car would cost.

With an eye on competing with the Insight, Toyota will also take the unprecedented move of…selling the entry-level grade of the previous Prius in Japan at the same price as the Insight’s $19,190.

The about-face came after Honda’s Insight became an instant hit after going on sale in Japan in early February. Honda sold nearly 10,500 Insights in April, more than double its target of 5,000 units a month.

Competition is good. Competition is fun. Competition is something that both Honda and Toyota know all about.

True – it ain’t going to be a bed of roses for management-types; but, it should help out us ordinary garden-variety consumers and that’s who I really care about.

Information Age Prayer is a site that charges you a monthly fee to say prayers for you. A typical charge is $4.95 per month to say three prayers specified by you each day.

“We use state of the art text to speech synthesizers to voice each prayer at a volume and speed equivalent to typical person praying,” the company states. “Each prayer is voiced individually, with the name of the subscriber displayed on screen.”

Prices, however, are dictated by the length of the prayer. As noted in the Information Age Prayer FAQ, “A discounted prayer will cost less than other prayers of similar length.”

I agree with Bill Christensen the writer of this piece – “Bow your head and click, that you might see the story more clearly.”

First Solar appears to have reached an important and, for many solar companies, elusive target: grid parity, or the point where photovoltaic electricity is as cheap as conventional electric power.

Pacific Crest analyst Mark Bachman ran some calculations on First Solar’s 12.6 megawatt solar system for Sempra Generation, a subsidiary of California utility Sempra Energy. Instead of focusing on the cost per watt, which Bachman said investors have put too much emphasis on, he looked at the cost per kilowatt-hour.

Bachman priced the Sempra plant at 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour, which is below the U.S. grid parity price of 9 cents per kilowatt-hour. First Solar’s plant didn’t rely on subsidies, he notes.

The industry leaders will be those companies that can deliver electricity at or below grid parity pricing without the aid of subsidies while also delivering superior return to shareholders. Currently, only First Solar can claim these achievements, in our view.

Other companies are also pushing for the grid-parity goal. Greentech Media reported that Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers said: “that power from crystalline silicon solar panels will be cheaper than coal power by 2012 when transmissions lines, utility bureaucracy and other factors are added in. ‘We are zeroing in on parity,’ Rodgers said. ‘We’re going to match PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) by 2012. Within a couple of years, the price of solar will be just as cheap.’ “

Bravo. The best news I’ve heard since Election Day.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures

Somewhere in Japan, Shigeru Miyamoto and Satoru Iwata are clinking together crystal glasses of premium liquor, adjusting their monocles and belly-laughing until their top hats fall off.

They have reason to be merry in this economically depressed holiday season: NPD reported last week that Nintendo made off like bandits in November, selling 3.61 million pieces of hardware in North America. The impossibly popular Wii sold 2.04 million units alone, twice the amount it did last November, when the economy was robust.

Meanwhile, that other Japanese gaming giant, Sony, suffered through a miserably disappointing month: Its flagship console, the Playstation 3, sold only 378,000 units, fewer than half the number of the second place console, the Xbox 360. This was supposed to be the flagging console’s breakout year; instead, after last month’s debacle, Sony executives have to be wondering how things turned so bad.

Sony’s poor performance is certainly not due its game library…The PS3 has boasted unmatched technical sophistication since its release, but it was only recently that those claims bore fruit attractive enough to demand the attention of hardcore gamers.

Instead, much of Sony’s poor performance has been to attributed to price. Former Sony Executive Ken Kutaragi infamously urged people to “work more hours” to afford the PS3’s bloated price tag; instead, consumers have decided to ignore the console altogether.

While Sony never really had a chance to grab the insanely lucrative casual market away from Nintendo, the company bungled away its chance to win the hearts and minds of the American hardcore by refusing to lower the console’s price beyond $399. That’s far above the price threshold of the two groups crucial to a console’s success: cash-strapped college students and Christmas shopping parents.

I’m not a gamer; but, I would have to be more thick than a Bush Republican to ignore the reality of what gaming hardware [and sometimes software] contributes to the health and development of computing. I hope Sony hasn’t shot themselves anywhere higher up than the foot – and wait and watch for marketing sense to return to the venerable giant.

The oil price will shoot back through $100 a barrel as soon as economic conditions return to normal, and will break through $200 threshold by 2030, say officials at the International Energy Agency.

“While market imbalances could temporarily cause prices to fall back, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the era of cheap oil is over,” says the IEA in the World Energy Outlook report, obtained by the Financial Times ahead of its release next week.

Oil prices have endured a rollercoaster ride this year during some of the most volatile trading on record. Crude climbed relentlessly from $96 a barrel in January to a record $147 by mid-July, spelling misery for drivers.

Households also suffered as wholesale gas and electricity prices – which are linked to those of oil – soared to record levels and were swiftly passed on in higher fuel bills. Oil’s rise was also a main driver for soaring inflation in the UK, which doubled in six months to nearly 5%. But the intensification of the financial crisis this autumn has depressed the oil price to $60-$70 a barrel…

But the IEA cautions the low oil price will be short-lived. It expects oil to trade at an average of more than $100 a barrel between now and 2015 as supply shortages become a reality.

I can see the history-challenged reacting in predictable fashion to short-term phenomena. American automobile manufacturers will crank up for big V-8′s and barely green-washed SUV’s. And the dumbest semi-employed drug dealers in town will buy ‘em.

Consumer groups and travel agents have hit out at budget airline Ryanair after it emerged the company plans to cancel thousands of travel tickets bought by customers through third-party websites…

The so-called screenscraping sites allow customers to buy tickets without directly visiting the Ryanair website. They are thought to account for around 0.5% of bookings made with the Irish airline.

From Monday Ryanair will cancel all tickets bought through these sites, which could mean thousands of customers a day do not get seats on the flights that they want.

Those who book tickets via third party sites will get their money back, but they will have to rely on the site to let them know their flight has been cancelled.

It is not clear how long this will take, which means some people booking last-minute trips may turn up at the airport to find their ticket has been cancelled.

Phew! I guess Ryanair is betting the whole farm on discounting price and doesn’t give a hoot in Hell about how many consumers they screw in the process? Good luck with that business strategy.

First, Ryan Gibbons bought a Hyundai so he would not have to drive his gas-guzzling Chevy Blazer to college classes. When fuel prices kept rising, he cut expenses again, eliminating two campus visits a week by enrolling in an online version of one of his courses.

Like Gibbons, thousands of students nationwide, including many who were previously reluctant to study online, have suddenly decided to take one or more college classes over the Internet.

“Gas prices have pushed people over the edge,” said Georglyn Davidson, director of online learning at Bucks County Community College, where Gibbons studies, and where online enrollments are up 35 percent this summer over last year.

The vast majority of the nation’s 15 million college students — at least 79 percent — live off campus, and with gas prices above $4 a gallon, many are seeking to cut commuting costs by studying online. Colleges from Massachusetts and Florida to Texas to Oregon have reported significant online enrollment increases for summer sessions, with student numbers in some cases 50 percent or 100 percent higher than last year.

Although some four-year institutions with large online programs — like the University of Massachusetts and Villanova — have experienced these increases, the greatest surges have been registered at two-year community colleges, where most students are commuters, many support families and few can absorb large new expenditures for fuel.

Hey, it works. It also makes it easier to get into the school and courses you’d really rather have – even if they’re on the other side of the country.