Three Americans won the Nobel Prize for medicine. They are Elizabeth Balckburn, Jack Szostak and Carol Greider. Balckburn is with the University of California, San Francisco, Greider is with Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore and Szostak is at the Harvard Medical School.

Continue reading U.S. trio wins Nobel Prize for Medicine; Merck to develop vaccine

U.S. trio wins Nobel Prize for Medicine; Merck to develop vaccine originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Princeton professor and New York Times op-editorialist, Paul Krugman, just won the Nobel Prize in economics "for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity." This award comes at a time when he has been weighing in on the debate as to how best to fix the financial crisis. And I found inspiring his suggestion that governments should inject capital into ailing banks -- an idea that has taken hold in the U.K. and may also prevail here.

Why did Krugman win the Nobel? His work bolstered a branch of economics called strategic trade theory which argues that countries can subsidize certain industries to gain global market share. Others have praised his work on the development of clusters of related industries and his equations that measure how economic shocks affect the current account, exchange rates and capital flows.

The official name of Krugman's prize is "The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel." He'll get $1.4 million, a gold medal and a diploma. I've agreed and disagreed with him but if his ideas about how to fix the financial crisis take hold, maybe he'll be able to find a safe bank in which to deposit his winnings.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.

Paul Krugman wins Nobel Prize. Can he safely deposit his $1.4 million check? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

2007 Nobel Prize Winner and 2000 Presidential election winner Al Gore has another notch on his belt -- partner at Silicon Valley's most prestigious venture capital firm -- Kleiner Perkins. (Thanks to the Supreme Court, Gore -- who won the 2000 Presidential vote -- did not serve.)

But he handled the disappointment well. His work on the documentary An Inconvenient Truth -- easily the highest payoff PowerPoint presentation ever made -- has helped make the world aware of the threat it faces from global warming and what people can do about it. Gore insightfully points out that climate change is a matter of war and peace. It has created conflict -- the drying up of a lake in Sudan contributed to genocide there and the melting of the polar icecap has set off an international sea grab at the top of the world.

So what's the deal with Gore at Kleiner Perkins? According to the New York Times, President-elect Gore's part-time job at Kleiner will be to assess the potential of alternative energy companies and to opine on whether Kleiner Perkins should invest in them. Gore plans to donate his salary from the venture to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit policy foundation. But he was not clear about whether he'd get the partner's share of the 2% of assets under management and 20% of the profits from successful "exits."

He was clearer about his political aspirations -- noting "I don't expect to be a candidate again."

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.

Will President-Elect Gore make green at Kleiner Perkins? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

"If you want what you never had, then do what you have never done."

I don't know to whom to attribute that quote. It was on a T-shirt my niece was wearing when we went to her home for Christmas dinner. When I saw it, it hit me like a warm balmy breeze on a cold December day. Those are the simple words which I have never condensed into such a simple statement, yet they are representative of the dynamics which have colored my life. Yes, I'm that guy you never really got to know when you worked with him or went to school with him. I'm that guy who was "over there". I'm that guy who fights against conventional wisdom. It's not because I can't buy into the concepts of what already works. It's a matter of a bull headed refusal to be limited by a blind acceptance of the status quo. What already works isn't always good enough to satisfy me.

That's my position on eBay, Inc. (NYSE: EBAY). As a matter of fact, what already works over there doesn't seem to be working so well these days. I received an unofficial report today that as of Dec. 24, 2006, eBay listing count has dropped below 10 million. If that's true, it equals an over 30% decrease of average listing volume in the last quarter. This does somewhat mimic historical performance over the last three years.The most up-to-date figures that I can get which I trust are from medved up to Dec. 16, which show eBay listing volume at about 14.3 million on that date. In any case, based on my tracking of the numbers, things aren't really too good on eBay for overall listing quality and volume. The numbers over the next 30 days will tell the story as to the true effects of the eBay "revolutionaries" on that site and their future. If there is not a significant jump in listing volume beginning in January, be ready for some heads to roll.

Continue reading How should eBay grow now?

How should eBay grow now? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 24 Dec 2006 17:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Economist and Nobel Prize Winner passes away originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 16 Nov 2006 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.