Markham Lee

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  • Detroit: Please Bring Back the Stripped Car
    I understand your point of view Bob, however I shouldn't have to buy a product I don't find appealing just to support Detroit. This is America after all.

    I drive American cars all the time when I travel for work and I'm always quite happy to get back into my German sedan, it's not about the name plate it's the way the car performs.

    If America catches up they can get my money.
    Jan 08 05:17 am |Rating: 0 -1 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Detroit: Please Bring Back the Stripped Car
    There is one major flaw in this argument: in the 1980s cars weren't as reliable as they are now, and the used market wasn't as strong. In other words there is no point in buying a stripper Malibu when I can get a used Accord for the same price.

    That's the real problem Detroit faces as far as resale a lot of consumers would rather have a used import than a brand new American car.

    I know this consumer (I've always bought Japanese or German) would rather have a 4 year old import than a brand new American car, and to be honest it isn't really about longevity - it's the simple fact that I like the styling, performance, interiors, etc, a lot better.

    Speaking of which:

    I would buy a Ford Mondeo if I was looking at a midsized family car, too bad it isn't sold in the U.S. and some dolt at Ford thought that the American consumer would prefer the Fusion...

    ...even though European customers are buying Mondeos instead of Accords.

    -M
    Jan 08 05:14 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The Negative Equity Phantom Menace
    If people always know what their home is worth, then how do you account for the recent surveys that indicate that most people think their home is worth more than it is?

    E.g. the Zillow surveys indicating that a large % of people think that their home has either retained or gained value, despite the fact that the opposite is true?

    Either way, thanks for reading


    -M
    Nov 25 09:38 am |Rating: +1 -1 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The 28-33% Mortgage Payment Rule: Confronting Reality
    It doesn't do anyone any good to use taxpayer funds to enable cash strapped borrowers to live in homes they couldn't afford in the first place, it would make more sense to help these people become financially stable renters.
    Nov 17 17:42 pm |Rating: +2 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Buy a GM Car, Get 50 Shares Free?!
    Car_guy:

    What say you to the fact GM was offering employee discount pricing last month in an effort to prop up sales? Isn't that the largest incentive a car company can offer?

    Toyota may have been offering 0% financing to a few select customers, but let's not forget that Toyota turns a profit per car sold and GM wasn't doing that BEFORE their deep discounts.

    How about the fact that you can still lease a Japanese or German car and the American car makers are discontinuing their leasing programs?

    If the demand for the Malibu is so high that it is selling for a higher price than the Camry (I've seen no evidence of this), how do you explain the fact that the Camry is outselling the Malibu by nearly 2.5:1? Per a recent WSJ article GM sold 16k Malibus in July and Toyota sold 42k.

    I seriously doubt recent numbers would show much of a difference.....

    You may find my articles to be poorly researched, however I don't see any data that supports your view of the world and would be happy to review it if you would point me to it.

    As always, thanks for reading


    -M
    Oct 22 16:48 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Weighing the Government Action Options
    The real option should be cash infusions from the Government in exchange for preferred shares that pay HIGH I mean Tony Soprano high dividends.

    That money should go towards infrastructure projects (50%) and the rest given to taxpayers as a special refund.

    The banks (as r3ph said) should also just start raising the yields to 7-8% to raise capital, because at this point they're subprime borrowers so they should have to pay subprime rates for cash.

    In fact the 7-8% interest rates on CDs coupled with unlimited FDIC insurance would basically solve the problem as investors would run towards that kind of yield right now.

    I know I would.

    Thanks for reading everyone.

    -M
    Oct 10 19:02 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • A Satirical Breakdown of the Bailout Plan's Expenditures
    Security forces to protect them from angry citizens? LOL
    Oct 02 17:04 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Bailouts: Misunderstanding the Moral Hazard
    In my opinion if things are 1/10 as bad as Paulson would lead us to believe, then the banks are desperate and will happily participate punitive damages or no.

    Besides in my view the situation should be handled like FDIC receivership: "Sorry but we're MAKING YOU do this, you will suffer greatly, get over it"

    But maybe I'm just being an overly Calvinist bear again, it's happened before

    -M
    Sep 25 09:30 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • The Weekend American Capitalism Died
    sr9web

    As an armchair QB I'm not saying that the Government shouldn't have stepped in, because Fannie & Freddie collapsing would've had a cataclysmic impact on our economy. What I am saying that is that various policies/actions have been killing capitalism for decades, the takeover of the Mortgage GSEs was merely the sign, not the cause per se.

    SO what would I have done different?

    Managed the GSEs better and reigned them in years ago especially during the credit crunch, as opposed to recent policies that had them expanding their investment activities despite their suspect capitalization levels.

    Better managed the banking system during the housing boom, especially with respect to lending standards.

    The credit crisis could've easily had been prevented if people had been willing to make inconvenient decisions, as opposed to telling taxpayers how great things are and celebrating faux housing wealth.

    -M
    Sep 09 13:16 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Browser Wars: What Are They Good For?
    For those that say the browser wars are about money, I ask again: did the winner of the last browser war benefit financially from it? Back in the '90s the expectation was that the winner of the browser war would effectively "own" the Window to the Internet, and as a result would easily be able to monetize that advantage.

    This turned out to be a pipe dream as the winner of the browser war didn't benefit financially in the end, and now finds itself investing more in the browser to keep up with an upstart.

    The newest entrant in the war has other things in mind and could "conceivably"... benefit, but what is more likely to happen is that multiple companies will spend tens of millions of dollars to develop products that will converge (in a sense) in terms of capabilities and in the end, see little benefit.

    14 years after Netscape and no software company has really been able to show the financial advantage of having the dominant browser.

    My techie side is excited in terms of seeing new technology, but my more practical investor side is rather unimpressed.


    -M
    Sep 04 16:29 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Record Companies Starting to Shun iTunes
    Quick thoughts:

    1) If the record companies die then we won't have any music to buy.

    2) I've personally supervised the production of CDs in runs of less than 1,000 for small artists, where the cost was under $1/CD often in the $0.80 range.

    If you're running off millions of CDs, have your own facilities, etc, the cost is undoubtedly lower.

    3) The analysis is a hypothetical to be sure, but it does illustrate why many artists and the record companies prefer to sell albums.

    It would be different if iTunes sold more albums than single songs or a given artists, as the $7/sale the record company received would be close to a CD sale and would be "good enough" to keep everyone happy.

    4) I don't disagree with the fact that many people prefer to buy singles and it does favor the consumer, just noting that eventually it could kill the producer of the content you're paying for.

    5) The Camry example is meant to indicate order of magnitude i.e. selling 200k CDs generates more $ than 2.2 million digital downloads of single track.

    Anyway, we all agree a new model is needed, we all agree that selling albums is more profitable, we agree that consumers prefer track downloads.

    BUT

    What kind of model allows the record companies to survive and make consumers happy at the same time? Right now both goals are at odds with each other.

    And if the record companies die?

    There won't be much of anything new to download

    I suppose I should probably point that I've never bought a digital download in my life, I use rhapsody to listen to music at work or occasionally drop a song on my Mp3 player, but to buy a digital track?

    Never.

    I always buy CDs prefer I like the sound quality better, but I suppose that's a topic for another discussion.


    As always thanks for reading.


    -Markham
    Aug 29 14:58 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Record Companies Starting to Shun iTunes
    My cost assumptions were a rough estimate from when I worked as an audio engineer, like I said an independent artist can get a run of 1,000 CDs for about $0.80/CD, so with the scale the record companies work with...even when you add in the things you mentioned, their costs are relatively small compared to the cost of the CD.

    Digital Equipment Helps a lot to be sure to the point where it reduces costs so that selling on iTunes isn't a problem? Doubtful.

    Can you record an album with a cheap digital set-up that is no more expensive than the average home studio?

    Yes.

    But the top end digital equipment, converters, mixers, microphone pre-amps, monitors, microphones, etc, that you'll find in a top studio are still vary pricey. So for most big artists I doubt the price has come down that much.

    Especially many people still like to record in Analog or some form of hybrid analog/digital set-up.

    -M
    Aug 29 12:07 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Record Companies Starting to Shun iTunes
    The real issue is that compared to the CD model selling music on iTunes is mathematically analogous to Toyota having to sell Camrys for $2.5k instead of $25k.

    What company can survive when the economics change so drastically, especially when your production costs aren't getting cheaper by a similar order of magnitude?

    It's easy to talk about a "new model" but quite frankly I haven't seen anyone suggest one that enables the record companies to survive. The CD model may be dead, but digital music is killing off the record companies. If selling 250k CDs generates more profits than 2.2 million downloads and the market is heading towards the latter, the record companies are going to die off.

    At this point is pretty simple math yes iTunes favors the customer and that's great, but at some point you'll have fewer record companies (if any), which means fewer producers of the music we all love.

    I prefer Jazz and Classical, most people my age prefer Hip-Hop and Pop music, but we all love the music we listen to.

    Record companies die off, we all wind up with fewer choices - because the indie channel won't be able to generate as much exposure for artists nor will it be able to market a pop artist (a musical commodity of sorts).

    It's great to put on our "music snob" hats (I've been guilty of this too) and say that no one should listen to pop music, and all artists should work it like Ani Difranco and tour a lot, put out their own CDs, etc, etc....

    but.......

    That's a myopic perspective, yes I happen to love Ani's music, but most music buyers aren't interested nor will they ever be. The top songs on iTunes are all pop music and the people who listen to it ENJOY IT, and the money generated by those pop stars has helped subsidize artists like Jeff Buckley, Tori Amos, the big labels Jazz and Classical labels, etc.

    If the pop stars go, we lose a lot of the stars we music snobs like too.

    I think there are a lot of unforseen consequences that people aren't thinking about.

    For me this argument isn't about pop vs. jazz, or greed or the death of the CD model, it's about the fact that no company can survive if the price of their product drops by 90%, when their production costs are the same.


    -M
    Aug 29 09:51 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Oil Majors Exiting the Gas Station Business
    Dan your point on higher gas prices impacting the convenience store business is a solid one, I recall back in 98-'01 I would go to my local convenience store and fill-up my tank, buy the NY Times, a Gallon of Milk and Donuts for my girlfriend and I for under $20.00.

    Nowadays it's close to $70.00 for the Gas, the Milk is a LOT more expensive, but hey, at least the Donuts are close to the same price.

    -M
    Aug 28 13:47 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Oil Majors Exiting the Gas Station Business
    I think it's a situation where in order to sell gas profitably they have to more or less become convenience store operators and/or run a car wash, provide oil changes, etc, and it's just too much of a distraction from their core business/not worth the investment.

    Despite living in a fairly affluent area there have been multiple gas station closings near me lately, and it seems like the ones that survive are the ones that not only have fairly extensive convenience store operations that also sell fresh sandwiches (and even wine) they also have car washes too.

    It's not that different a model than my local Safeway: "sell gas and hope to break even, while making our profits from other things".


    Thanks for reading.


    -M
    Aug 28 09:29 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article

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