Does China need Bush's Tax Rebate

I look forward to the $1800 tax rebate promised by the US government next month. (I have two kids so am qualified for $1800.) When I get the rebate check, I won't rush out to Walmart to spend it, sorry George W. Instead, I need to send the money to China to pay off a personal loan. A rich relative in China lent some money to Yang and me so we could buy a property in Shanghai.

The tax rebate will simulate the economy, the Chinese economy. Ironically the Chinese economy is growing too fast and requires some cooling.

Actually, I won't be too different from an average American. The stuffs that we buy from Walmart are made in China, and the rebate money will be sent to China one way or the other. It's faster and more direct in my case.

Jerry Yang: Here is how you can get $47 per share for Yahoo! (YHOO)

What should Jerry Yang do about Yahoo! (YHOO) ? The prediction is that he will eventually sell to Microsoft, perhaps getting one or two dollar extra per share for Yahoo! shareholders. That is a reasonable outcome.

There is a better way though. The one that Jerry Yang will never do. Here is my proposal: break up Yahoo! three ways to maximizing shareholder values:

• Search, onSearch, advertising: Sell this to Microsoft (MSFT). As lame as Yahoo!'s search platform, Microsoft is even worse. Microsoft can benefit from some technology and market share from all of Yahoo!'s search traffics including vertical search services such as Yahoo! Image, Yahoo! Video, Yahoo! Local, Yahoo! News, and Yahoo! Shopping Search.
  
• Communication: This part includes Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo! Personals, Yahoo! 360, Flickr and Yahoo! Buzz. A merger with a big social network player, such as Facebook or News Corp will fetch good return. Microsoft, Google or AOL won't be interested in these properties; there are simply too many overlap. On the other hand, Facebook lacks the functions, expertise and users in these areas. They may buy instead of build themselves.
• Content, commerce, small business, Yahoo! Next: These pieces are perfect fit for Google. They don't need better search or advertising, or Mail. But Google need more content, services, and more talent from Yahoo! Next.
• International: Most properties are independent. The shares should be distributed to Yahoo! shareholders.
  

Overall, Microsoft may pay $25-27 per share for the search and advertising. Communication will get $5-10 per share, and other $5-10 for the pieces that go to Google. So the deal will get shareholders $35 - $47 per share instead of $31 offer from Microsoft.

What will Jerry Yang do?

High and Higher

That is the Bay Area gas prices, not the pile of cash that each of us has.



This chart shows the price that I paid for the last two years. It's heading toward four dollars per gallon, quickly and surely.

I don't know about you, but it doesn't feel right that the big oil companies are making record profit while we are paying more and more. I can understand their higher revenue numbers due to the high oil price, but they seem to be taking advantage of the American people. Forgive my cynicism, but do you remember Enron, and what they did to California? (If you don’t know, you should watch the movie The Smartest People in the Room. http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_7016.html )

What can we do about this?

Ben Bernanke Must Go!

Bernanke seems to be a nice guy, and I liked his initiatives to make Fed more transparent. He is just incompetent for the big job and must resign right away!

Let's look at his scorecard:

• Heathy Growth of the US economy: He gets an F-. The economy is in a recession, and will be for a long time because his inaction last year and messy, panic moves this year. He bailed out the Bear Sterns last Friday. Is this guy a Socialist for wealthy people?
  
• Low inflation: He does better, gets an F. Whatever the inflation numbers the government released, just ignore them. I'm paying 20-30% more each month for everything that I eat and use. How much more do you spend each month? I don't even go out for dinner anymore.
  
• Sound underline economy structure for future growth: He gets an F again. Subprime mess. No problem. Just pumping more money into the money. Does this guy learn any lesson? Victor knows that if he got into trouble by doing something, he won't do it again. Learn something from a four year old.
  
• Economical opportunity for everybody: F-. (And he will argue that it's not his job!) The income gap between billionaires and low-income people is growing. Ben doesn't care and won't do anything.

Ben Bernanke acted cool last year, and missed by a mile. Now he is in a constant panic mood, dancing to the tunes of the Wall Street. He cut rate in a conference call after the Asian market tanked during the weekend. He will cut rate again tomorrow. I doubt that it will change anything.

Overall, he get an big F-. Time to find another job!

Just to be fair: Alan Greenspan is an egomaniac. He needs to shut up, for good.

(Oh well, what's all this has anything to do with our family blog? Good question…)