FYI: 'Karma Banque' - Bad Karma Kompanies Targeted!

The thing is, however, short-selling can easily bite one in the ass. Furthermore, if they target large companies, it's hard to put pressure on the stock by the action of a small group of activists. I hope they know what they're doing.

Interesting stuff.

--
Ziggy (a former securities analyst when I was a ravid capitalist -- I'm reformed ;-)

good point. still, the bigger they are the harder they fall. and dang, those biguns get some momentum going!

The short-selling can work once the fundamental reasons for selling are understood -- and that's why sharing information is so important.

I think MSFT should be a $30 stock, not $53.

Case in point, Microsquish. As Open Office gathers momentum it will surely squeeze profit margins at MSFT -- the OO product works, and it is free. Includes a drawing program, spreadsheet, presentation and Word-compatible wordprocessor that can generate and accept a variety of data formats (can create web pages too.) The spreadsheet can read database files, so if you have mysql, you're in business once you install ODBC. And that's just the start because the OO data file format for saving is XML, so it can be connected to other applications in the future. Now, MSFT gets something like 1/3 of their profits from Office, but if people upgrade their computers to 256 MB, and fast little microprocessors that are dirt cheap, they can run a chubby like Open Office, no problem. Same deal with Mozilla -- a free web browser and web page editor, plus IRC chat, email, address book etc. And potentially fewer security flaws (definitely fewer given MSFT's history of adding 2 for every 1 removed!)

And this is just the start! Programmers all over the world, displaced by monopolist and corporate hegemony, restrictive laws, yada yada, are joining a 'gift economy'. Opponents call it communism, but in a way maybe it is more like love (or sex): the more you give, the more you get. In any case, this is going to squeeze Microsoft. And it could even squeeze Intel because you don't need an Intel microprocessor to run Linux, the poster boy of Open Source software.

I even found a few software system for doing algebra and other math: YACAS. Check it out at Sourceforge. Still being improved, but from what I see so far, pure genius. And free.

Seems to me that Microsoft has made a ton of money by forcing people to re-buy the same software every time they get a new computer, even though software has no moving parts and doesn't wear out. Those days are over. Like the movie, "Fall down, you're dead!" I don't know how this happened, but guys like Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds precipitated the new era. The root cause is basically that MSFT pissed off too many people, monopoly or not. Karma time for them...and good stuff for the people (I am really excited about this -- people all over the world that cannot afford to pay $500 or $1000 every year or two to MSFT will now have access to state of the art knowledge tools, assuming they can obtain the hardware!)