"Investing in a buggy whip after Henry Ford created the Model T was not going to be fruitful no mater how good a buggy whip it was."

Back to Basics (Part Three) - Potential [ThinkBlog]

Roger Ehrenberg (the guy talking to Gasparino) and Buster, separated at birth? (Like especially while trying to stifle giggles when Ratigan and Charlies yell at each other? God, that is so Buster.)

The whole mortgage meltdown situation—don’t much get it, don’t much care. Per usual, we’re not really interested in delving a lot further than “Who’s to Blame?” but apparently, we can’t even do that right. Previously, we (in cahoots with Bear Stearns, who’s always in cahoots with someone) had sent singing telegrams dripping with vitriol and pipe bombs to the poor and Alan Greenspan. Over the weekend, we found out that represented a grave error in judgment on our part (conveniently, we—meaning me—were able to atone for our misguided sins against the country’s underprivileged/that crazy old guy. Carney, having no such get out of jail free card, will be going to hell).

As a guest on Rupert Murdoch’s “Forbes on Fox,” Richard Karlgaard, publisher of the magazine, was asked by host David Asman “what’s the deal” with home foreclosures, the economy, etc. His response, if you’re not Jerry Falwell taking part in this dialogue from the grave, may surprise you:

Well, what I think is that we're seeing the first generation of home buyers who, in school, were taught to put condoms on bananas instead of learning about compound interest. This is not a good thing, but, ah, we have to work our way through it and the only way the market can clear, as Neal [Neal Weinberg, a senior editor at Forbes] said, is for the foreclosures to happen.

Other horrible events you can trace back to schools teaching kids to put condoms on bananas include but are certainly not limited to: 9/11, the theory of evolution and Global Alpha’s disastrous August (which actually hinted toward Sex Ed. being to blame in an earlier version of its letter to the investors).

Incidentally, if this was meant to be a preview for what we can expect from the Fox Business Network, color us excited. High school health classes have been getting a pass for TOO LONG.

The Publisher of Forbes Magazine, a Regular on Fox, Blames the Mortgage Meltdown on Sex Ed [News Hounds]

Anyone else catch the article from today’s Journal about the invasion of instant messenger in the workplace? It was in a new pull-out section called "We think you’re dumb. And considering that this is a newspaper, and you can’t leave comments, you’re really in no position to prove us wrong."

Ohbabyitsbess: hey…when you’re back from your abs class, I have a ?

UKKeith14: yo, I’m here, took the early morning one, my obliques are BURNING

Ohbabyitsbess: cool, you can eat without punishing yourself today! Anygay…my ? is this—when you were at JP Morgan, did you use IM much?

Ohbabyitsbess: like, as in, instant messenger? IM?

UKKeith14: que?

Ohbabyitsbess: what we’re doing right now…?

UKKeith14: what’s instant messenger?

Ohbabyitbess: Instant-messaging programs allow users to organize contacts into "buddy lists" and see who is online and available to chat at any given moment, world-wide. With most IM programs, users can start real-time conversations with one or more contacts, including multiple participants simultaneously. Sending a message opens up small windows on the participants' screens where users can type their chats. Most programs also offer file-sharing, voice and video features. IM can be used on computers and on wireless devices like cellphones. Many employees use popular consumer-level IM applications, such as AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo Messenger.

UKKeith14: I’m not following...wait, let me grab a protein shake

Ohbabyitsbess: ok...say you had a bar chart that was the wrong color scheme and needed to make things right. if you had to rely on email and phone to fix the problem, it would've taken several weeks, as opposed to just IMing your associate and getting R'd real time instead of going back and forth with mark-ups, and you could rectify things w/in the hour.

UKKeith14: oh. we had an in-house program to do that.

Ohbabyitsbess: ok but if you didn't. you could just do it on IM

UKKeith14: what's IM

Ohbabyitsbess: what we're talking on right now

UKKeith14: what are we talking on right now

Ohbabyitsbess: Instant-messaging programs allow users to organize contacts into "buddy lists" and see who is online and available to chat at any given moment, world-wide. With most IM programs, users can start real-time conversations with one or more contacts, including multiple participants simultaneously. Sending a message opens up small windows on the participants' screens where users can type their chats. Most programs also offer file-sharing, voice and video features. IM can be used on computers and on wireless devices like cellphones. Many employees use popular consumer-level IM applications, such as AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo Messenger.

UKKeith14: ok, but what's the diff between email and IM?

Ohbabyitsbess: Unlike email, instant messaging offers "presence" -- a snapshot of which colleagues are available at a given moment, world-wide. Together with allied Internet technologies such as blogs and wikis, it is "changing the way people collaborate," says Andrew McAfee, an associate professor at Harvard Business School. Companies "increasingly react to situations and problems on the fly, not solely by hierarchy," he says.

Jfcarney has invited you to Thirty, Flirty and Dirty

Jfcarney: guys

Jfcarney: GUYS

Jfcarney: I’ve brought you here to discuss 2 things- 1. Lindsay Lohan’s second DUI and b. what I believe will be today’s answer to the Crash of ’29. I’m about to move into my safe zone where I’ve stock piled bottles of water, but, unfortunately, don’t get much wireless. So this is goodbye for now, possibly forever.

Instant Messaging Invades the Office [WSJ]

Wouldn’t it suck if you paid $50,000 for a cell phone/iPod combo and then couldn’t activate it? Perhaps we should ask the 2% of iPhone purchases who suffered such a fate, which, according to estimates by Steve Jobs, translates to roughly 1 billion people.

Jay Gurfein bought his mobile Friday night at an Apple store in Nassau County (…). As of Sunday afternoon, he hadn’t been able to use the device. And just to make things interesting, when the Jay-man-LI initially tried to activate his service, AT&T immediately ended service on his existing BlackBerry, leaving him alone in the world for “more than 45 hours.”. By late Sunday night, AT&T, having had a spark lit under its ass by iGod himself, had gotten Gurfein’s phone on and given him a $150 credit for ruining his life.

In Louisiana, pretty much the same deal happened to Jaci Russo, except she also dropped two calls. In Murray Hill, one disgruntled user reported his iPhone’s failure to get him laid, even after whipping it out Joshua Tree and asking several female patrons if they’d like to touch it. Steve Jobs—sleep with one eye open.

Some iPhones Are Stuck on Hold [WSJ]

Private equity’s scorching hot these days and the Cerberus is a pretty, pretty, pretty badass name, so it should stand to reason that all you M.B.A.’s, bloggers and small mouth bass fisherman alike should want to go to work for Cerberus Capital Management. And why shouldn’t you? The three-headed dog’s got $26 billion in capital, counts Dan Quayle as a spokesman emeritus, and owns Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC, a manufacturer and distributor of guns based in Windham, Maine. Who are you kidding? You’ve been dreaming about this for years. The idea that one day, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not the next day, but one day, you will go to work for Stephen Feinberg is all that keeps you going in this god forsaken world. You’re hanging on by a thread and that thread is whispering, “Cerberus.” We feel you. We are you.

Unfortunately, Deal Journal, because their goal in life is to crush dreams and facilitate suicides, reports that your dream is never going to happen. Since November 2006, CCM has hired only 110 people, according to operations chief W. Grant Gregory, from 2,500 interviews. A 4.4% hiring rate from among just those asked to come in, not the other 100k trying to belay themselves down the Park Ave. headquarters and into a side window.

The phenobarbital-vodka punch and plastic bags are on us.

MBAs Take Note: Your Odds of Landing at Cerberus are Slim [Deal Journal]