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CEO gloom at record highs

Peter Cohan — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 08:30:00 EST

Filed under: Economic Data, Recession, Financial Crisis

Every year, the world's elite converge on Davos, a Swiss mountain village, to discuss the world and what they want to do to it. We're not invited but we end up paying the price for the mistakes that Davos Man makes. This year, Davos Man is feeling weepy. Let's hope that doesn't lead to a year of inaction on the world's pressing problems.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), which is now famous for not catching a fraud of epic proportions at Satyam Computer Services (NYSE: SAY), has done a survey of Davos attendees which gives a flavor for just how pessimistic they are. It found that only 20% of 1,124 CEOs in 50 nations said they were very confident about prospects for revenue growth in 2009, down from half last year, and 25% said they were pessimistic -- this is the most gloomy result since PWC began tracking the CEO outlook in 2003.

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CEO gloom at record highs originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 28 Jan 2009 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Our tax dollars buy Citi a $50 million French jet

Peter Cohan — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:48:00 EST

Filed under: Citigroup Inc. (C)

I am reaching the limits of my ability to stand more waste of our money. Today, I learned that Citigroup (NYSE: C) is taking delivery of a $50 million corporate jet from French manufacturer, Dassault. (For that kind of money, it could have at least bought from an American manufacturer).

I know the U.S. invested $45 billion worth of taxpayer money with no strings attached -- but is it really possible that Citi does not get that buying a corporate jet with that money is blazingly stupid?

There is some irony on this front. This evening Maria Bartiromo conducted an interview with John Thain who was deposed last week for various sins. Bartiromo was in Davos, but Thain was not -- although one of his sins was that he had accepted an invitation to attend Davos. But back in 2007 -- almost exactly two years ago -- it was Bartiromo who got in some hot water for taking Citi's corporate jet with then Citi-executive Todd Thomson.

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Our tax dollars buy Citi a $50 million French jet originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bill Gates says TV is dead within five years

Brian White — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:42:00 EST

Filed under: Rumors, Management, Insiders, Microsoft (MSFT)

We've heard this all before -- the 'death of the TV' is coming, mostly due to the internet. While the physical television set is not going anywhere for a long, long time, the distribution of content and the way we use that television screen -- err, HDTV screen -- is probably changing beneath our feet. Current Microsoft Corp.(NASDAQ:MSFT) executive Bill Gates agreedwith this position at the Davos World Economic forum last week in Switzerland.

The Download Squad posted a piece on what Bill Gates had to say last week, and the detail was interesting. When Gates said "Certain things like elections or the Olympics really point out how TV is terrible. You have to wait for the guy to talk about the thing you care about or you miss the event and want to go back and see it," I had to chuckle.

That scenario is already changing due to digital video recorders like TiVo. Content producers are slowly losing control over when the content is watched, how advertisements are watched (or not) and where consumers are watching content (think Slingbox). So, while Bill thinks that the TV is dead within five years, I say that the material coming into those TVs is what's changing -- not the TV itself.

Bill Gates says TV is dead within five years originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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