Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
"unable to locate tracert name http:// etc"
ok...I printed your post out & will try it...thanks
click start button
click "Run"
type "command" into the dialogue, without the quotes and hit enter.
You should get a DOS prompt. If it fills up the whole screen, hold down the ALT key and hit enter and it will resize small.
Then type "tracert http://207.38.23.66" again without the quotes and it will show where the connections are successful. If you get nothing but *'s, give up.
nah...TRIXIE don't like them...
oh, yikes, you're as bad as derf, lol.
do you know how to run a tracert? might help Matt or Grub sort out the problem.
I did the temp file thingy but if I delete my cookies, I will never be able to logon anywhere cause I don't remember my passwords...lol
You do the purge all temp files, delete cookie, flush cache routine?
I still can't get in
And I was able to get in on on one computer but not on the other and the two computers are sitting next to each other both wired to the same router.
what's weirder is that earlier this AM, TRIXIE couldn't get in but I could. Now she is in & I am out...hmmm....lol
Weird. I would think a direct ip address would get around a DNS problem.
thanks...still no go..."This page cannot be displayed"...weird...
try this
http://207.38.23.66/ then click link to ragers page.
grrr...I'm moving...still can't get it to work here
It works for Americans!
Working here too.
Works on this end. I had to flush out my DNS.
OK, we're up.
http://news.ocsecurities.com
ATR folks:
Flipped servers last night. news.ocsecurities.com didn't provision yet, but will shortly.
Completely different setup, so after it provisions, may need to play with directory structure a bit.
Post away... #msg-6930335 and luv is...
or
broken heart burn
alien heart traps
:o)
What's "Whats's"..... don't knoww, maybe gremlins at work.
I agree, financial news board. I was disagreeing with "Whats's the best car?". It may very well be the best car stock in the world. By the way, where did the word "Whats's" come from?
I agree to the point that this is not a "car" board,
however it IS a Financial News board.
Over ten years Porsche's stock is up 1,700%, which comes to 35% annualized...
Here is the same article on a car bord: http://investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=6925261
Post away......
Having owned a Porsche I would vehemently disagree. I will never own another. I could go into a litany of reasons but it would be boring and this isn't one of the "car" boards.
The World's Best Car Company
Jerry Flint
07.04.05, 12:00 ET
Whats's the best car, the one you want if you can have only one? Related questions:
What's the best car company in the world? The best auto executive? The runner-up in this competition might be Toyota, with its super-reliability and a great profit machine. BMW? It's the ultimate driving experience. Honda is more fun than Toyota. Nissan is great because it's a great comeback story. Chrysler is a dark horse. All five are very profitable.
But my answer is Porsche. Are there any of you out there who wouldn't want to own a Porsche or Porsche stock?
Over ten years Porsche's stock is up 1,700%, which comes to 35% annualized if you include dividends. No big auto company comes close to that
No, Porsche is not small. Any company making a billion euros a year counts for me. Porsche Group's pretax profit in its last fiscal year (ended July 31, 2004) was the equivalent (at today's exchange rate) of $1.3 billion. That came to 17% of revenues, the best profit margin in the auto world.
For the six months through Jan. 31 pretax profit at Porsche was $272 million, up 7%, on revenue of $3.6 billion, up 3.9%. Porsche predicts a record year in unit sales for fiscal2005, at least 80,000. Toyota profit in the latest quarter was down 17%.
Nobody's perfect. Porsches are so expensive that the mere mention of the brand conjures up an image of an arrogant owner, probably someone on Wall Street. (Q: What's the difference between a porcupine and a Porsche? A: A porcupine has the pricks on the outside.) Porsche ranks 32nd on the new J.D. Power Initial Quality Study, ahead of only VW, Land Rover, Mazda and Suzuki (note that foreign nameplates dominate the bottom of the list).
But Porsche owners love their cars, and love is deaf to a few squeaks. I recall a review of the Carrera GT in AutoWeek, which read: "I am stunned by the realization that it is merely the greatest car ever made. Earlier I had assumed it was the single greatest item in the history of the known and knowable universe." The Carrera price was $449,000 as tested: "It's the best bang for the buck ever made. It just takes more bucks. Go buy one." That's love.
Porsche ignores rules. No globalism. This is a German company building German Porsches. It doesn't pay homage to anyone. The company even got kicked out of a German exchange index because it doesn't want to report quarterly.
The strategy revolves around the famous 911 and variations on the theme: 911 Carrera, 911 Carrera S, 911 Turbo S coupe, 911 Turbo S cab. But when its customers go someplace else, Porsche is willing to take the risk to follow. The Cayenne SUV made the point. It may be an SUV, but it's still a Porsche, 450hp for the Turbo (and $90,200 list).
In the U.S. Porsche sells four 911 models running from list prices of $69,300 to $141,200; two Boxsters from $43,800; three Carreras from $69,300 and the GT at $440,000; and three Cayennes running from $42,200 to $90,200. Coming: the Cayman, which starts with a Boxster cabriolet and adds a roof and power. Another vehicle, maybe even a four-door sports sedan, is under study. Expect howls of indignation from Porsche traditionalists, but believe me, if it comes, it will be something wicked.
The history of the company is instructive. Ferdinand Porsche, designer of the VW Beetle, and son Ferry started the company in 1948, and it is still controlled by the descendants. Porsche nearly died after the 1986 boom year, when 54,000 were built. Business collapsed to 14,000 in 1993 as the muscular deutsche mark crippled U.S. sales.
In those desperate days Porsche hired a string-bean engineer as chief executive, 38-year-old Wendelin Wiedeking. He had managed the paint-and-body shop at Porsche and gone on to head a German auto parts maker. I think he's the best auto executive in the world.
Wiedeking, now 52, hired Japanese experts and took their advice. He rebuilt the entire Porsche production system, slashing costs and raising quality. He got the unions and suppliers to join in. He was willing to take risks and expand the line with new products, and he is still taking risks.
Now for the point of all this: When Porsche hit bottom, the directors hired someone who knew something about building a better company, not just juggling a balance sheet. He understood change had to come from inside, not by squeezing down the prices of partsmakers. The key people are product engineers who want to build the best product in the world, not just M.B.A.s. It's not easy to remake an auto company, but Wiedeking did it.
Jerry Flint, a former Forbes Senior Editor, has covered the automobile industry since 1958.
Visit his homepage at www.forbes.com/flint.
Coolest Technologies Of Tomorrow
2005
Glenn Derene
For the second year in a row, we are pausing from our coverage of the here and now to give you a little glimpse of the not here yet.
It is one thing to review TVs or laptops that are currently on the market, but gazing over the technological horizon is a tricky business--there are a lot of "next big things" in the world of technology. Some of them are hype, some of them are the products of solid research and development, and most of them are equal parts of both.
Slide show of ten of the coolest technologies of the future:
http://www.forbes.com/2005/06/21/cx_gd_0622featslide.html?thisSpeed=90000&boxes=custom
What's more, the industry moves at a lightning-fast pace. It seems that every time a new and interesting technological advance is introduced, we in the world of techno-journalism are left with barely enough time to ponder its usefulness before we are teased with the promises of a version 2.0. But despite those caveats, the world of gadgets and gizmos has a fertile future.
What has caught our eye? Holographic discs that store information in three dimensions, TVs that talk back to you and devices that let you print in three dimensions.
http://www.forbes.com/collecting/2005/06/22/lifestyle-gadgets-futuretech-cx_gd_0622feat.html&par....
Prosecutors name 7 in Citigroup probe 2 hours, 3 minutes ago
MILAN (Reuters) - Rome prosecutors have named seven Citigroup employees in a probe into a controversial trade in euro zone government bonds carried out by the U.S. banking group last year, a legal source said on Friday.
Citigroup was not immediately available for comment.
On Aug. 2, Citigroup sold bonds worth 12.4 billion euros ($14.8 billion), causing sharp price swings, before it quickly bought back 3.8 billion euros' worth of debt. Much of the trade was completed over Italy-based bond trading platform MTS.
Prosecutors are investigating possible breach of Italy's market-rigging laws.
The Rome inquiry began in February when market regulator Consob sent documents about the trade to prosecutors.
Citigroup has said it regretted the trade because it did not meet the company's standards. It has said it did not manipulate the market. ($1=.8397 Euro)
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=580&e=5&u=/nm/20050708/bs_nm/financial_citigro...
Au contraire, mon frère. OCS is becoming very Canuck-friendly.
Guests, like fish, begin to stink by the 3rd day.
call 1-866-232-3920 (ask for Val)
The number you have called cannot be reached from your calling area...waaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!
Methinks OCS is a xenophobic firm...
Orange County - July 7 -- mmMary homeowners association
today announced it is developing a brochure for prospective homeowners
featuring a "scratch-n-sniff" panel to acquaint them with the smell of cows.
President Tweedy said her group hopes to lower the volume of complaints
it receives when Orange County farmers fertilize their fields with cow pies.
To receive a complimentary scratch-n-sniff postcard greeting...
call 1-866-232-3920 (ask for Val)
MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) ...suing U.S. for $300 million
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/07/04/deep.impact.sues.reut/index.html
A Russian astrologist who says NASA has altered her horoscope by crashing a spacecraft
into a comet is suing the U.S. space agency for damages of $300 million.
I have an itchy feeling, and I'm not liking it!
I have a big problem with China buying up US Assets! Just like the recent articles have stated, it just plain doesn't FEEL RIGHT!
Those too young to know need to understand that China wrongfully bought into the Communist Doctrine way too late in the Commmunist game.
Since then, the Berlin Wall has been destroyed and even Russia (formerly USSR !) has become "somewhat" democratized.
The "game" is no longer political. It's merely economical now.
For the record, I am clearly against CNOOC buying out UNICAL. It's a ridiculous idea to even think about.
If the Chinese Government wishes to become democratic finally, let them become democratic first and decry their communistic misgivings.
Then, and only then, will sensibilities of economy prevail.
Until that happens, it's likely a safe bet to continue to NOT buy products proclaimed to be "MADE IN CHINA".
The Big Tug of War Over Unocal
By STEVE LOHR
July 6, 2005
As the lobbying heats up in Washington over Unocal, a midsize American oil company, the battle lines in the takeover contest are now drawn clearly, if oddly, by its suitors.
In one corner stands the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, or Cnooc, a company controlled by a Communist government. Despite that, its pitch is straight out of the capitalist playbook: just let markets work, free of political meddling. And, yes, we have the higher bid, at $18.5 billion.
In the other corner is the American oil giant, Chevron, whose capitalist credentials date back to its days as part of the Rockefeller Standard Oil Trust. Its pitch is that the American government should get involved because the upstart has an unfair edge from Chinese government financing.
The state company, Chevron adds, would be likely to hoard Unocal's oil and gas for Chinese consumption. The strong suggestion is that America's energy security would be better served by the lower bid of Chevron, at $16.8 billion.
"They're not playing by commercial rules; it's not fair trading," Peter J. Robertson, the vice chairman of Chevron, said in an interview last week. "We will produce more oil and gas, and put it into the world supply."
Chevron, the sixth-largest corporation in America, has an established presence in Washington to make its case, with a sizable internal team and outside lobbyists and policy advisers like Wayne L. Berman, a principal of the Federalist Group who served in the administration of the president's father and has been a leading fund-raiser for President Bush. (Mr. Berman's wife, Lea, is the White House social secretary.)
Working for Chevron as well is Drew Maloney, the Federalist Group's chief lobbyist for House Republicans, who formerly was the legislative director for Tom DeLay of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the House.
To counter Chevron's home-field advantage, the Chinese newcomer, Cnooc, has moved quickly to enlist lobbyists, policy and media advisers of its own. It has signed up the law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, whose partners include major fund-raisers for President Bush like Alan D. Feld and James C. Langdon Jr. Another major Bush fund-raiser, Bill Paxon, a former Republican representative from New York, is a senior adviser to Akin Gump.
The media adviser for Cnooc's takeover fight is Public Strategies, whose vice chairman is Mark McKinnon, who guided President Bush's media campaign in the 2000 and 2004 elections.
The Chevron side is certainly winning the early rounds in Washington. The House of Representatives, by huge majorities, passed two measures last Thursday that protest the Chinese bid - an amendment to cut off funding for any government review that might allow the Chinese offer to proceed, and a nonbinding resolution that lists objections to the bid and calls on President Bush to order an immediate investigation on national security grounds.
The competition for Unocal, to be sure, touches a host of American anxieties about China that have little to do with the merits of the bids by Chevron and the Chinese oil company. China's rapid rise as an economic power, its military ambitions and American jobs lost to efficient Chinese manufacturers are among the concerns.
"What we're seeing in Washington shows the hysteria about China," noted William A. Reinsch, a former trade official in the Clinton administration who is a member of United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an advisory group to Congress.
"It means that any deal like this is going to be debated in a red-hot rhetorical atmosphere."
Raising the decibel level in Washington works to Chevron's advantage. But with its global reach, including investments in China, Chevron has to be careful.
"This isn't about bashing China," Mr. Robertson of Chevron said. "But we've got to compete for this asset."
Exploiting the political qualms created by the Chinese bid is part of the game plan. Asked why Chevron's lower bid should be more appealing, Mr. Robertson emphasized the risk in the Chinese offer. "There's no certainty that they can get through the regulatory and political process," he said.
Uncertainty also helps Chevron because it moved first for Unocal in April, and the Unocal board has approved Chevron's offer. To open up a bidding war, Unocal shareholders must reject the Chevron stock-and-cash offer in a vote scheduled for Aug. 10. Cnooc made its higher, all-cash bid on June 23.
The Cnooc side says it offers the cool reason of the market, a higher bid, while portraying Chevron as fanning populist prejudice. "It's a lot easier to raise political uncertainty than to raise cash," said Mark Palmer, managing director of Public Strategies, who is the former head of public relations for Enron.
At Akin Gump, the Cnooc team is led by Daniel Spiegel, the partner in charge of the firm's international practice. Lobbying on behalf of Cnooc appears to be an uphill struggle so far. Take, for example, the House resolution last Thursday evening stated that allowing the Chinese oil company to buy Unocal would "threaten to impair the national security of the United States." It passed 398 to 15.
The Cnooc side, Mr. Spiegel said, has been trying to talk to as many people in Congress and in policy research organizations as possible. "We're just telling them the facts, something that is in short supply," he said.
The Cnooc talking points are that 70 percent of Unocal's oil and gas reserves are in Asia, and mostly under long-term contract to Asian nations like Thailand and Indonesia; Unocal's American oil and gas production accounts for less than 1 percent of American consumption, and Cnooc has pledged that United States production will remain in the United States market; and Unocal jobs in America will not be cut, if Cnooc takes over.
Representative Jim Moran, a Virginia Democrat, was one of the 15 who voted against the House resolution, which he called "wrongheaded." Such moves, Mr. Moran said in an interview last Friday, risk "retaliation" from China, which holds vast investments in United States Treasury bonds as China recycles dollars it holds because American consumers buy so many goods made in China. Without the Chinese buying bonds, interest rates in the United States would rise, which in turn would probably increase inflation, threaten the booming housing market and depress consumer spending.
"If the Chinese are not going to be allowed to turn over $18.5 billion in return for stock in Unocal, they are going to be less inclined to invest their money in U.S. Treasury bonds," Mr. Moran said.
Yet Mr. Moran is in the minority in Congress these days.
With his resolution, Representative Richard W. Pombo, Republican of California, said in an interview last Friday that he wanted to "send a message to the administration about the depth of Congressional concern" about the Cnooc bid.
Mr. Pombo agreed with the Chevron complaint that about a third of the financing for the Cnooc bid came from low-interest or no-interest loans from Chinese banks, and that the financing was an unfair government subsidy. "But my biggest concern is the preservation of Unocal's energy assets in friendly hands," he said. "If a company is owned by a foreign government, its loyalty is going to be to that government."
Chevron's headquarters in San Ramon, Calif., is in Mr. Pombo's district. He is an advocate for the oil industry in Congress, and Chevron donated $10,000 to his campaign in 2004 (of the $1.5 million he raised).
Mr. Pombo said he did talk to a Chevron lobbyist before he wrote a letter of concern to President Bush in mid-June, when rumors of a Cnooc bid first circulated.
But Mr. Pombo said he had not talked to Chevron representatives in the last two weeks, and Chevron was not involved in drafting his resolution last week. His interest, said Mr. Pombo, who is chairman of the House Resources Committee, stems mainly from his belief that oil is a strategic asset.
By contrast, he said he saw no public policy issue with the recent $2.5 billion bid by Haier, a Chinese appliance maker, for Maytag, which he regarded as similar to the Japanese buying Rockefeller Center at the end of the 1980's.
"I didn't like it, but it was no big deal," Mr. Pombo said.
Many economists and oil experts question whether owning oil and gas in the ground really does increase a nation's energy security because there is a deep global market for buying it by the barrel or by the tanker. But that is a subject of lively debate, and the potential strategic significance of oil is why the Chinese bid for Unocal has stirred such interest.
"A lot of this is corporate self-interest and local politics, but there is also a legitimate question to ask," said Larry M. Wortzel, a former military attaché to the American Embassy in Beijing and a member of the Congressional United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission. "Do we want a foreign power, whose military intentions in the long term are not clear, to own energy assets inside our border?"
The answer to that question, if a Cnooc bid proceeds, will probably be made by President Bush, after an investigation by a multiagency group, the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States.
The Chinese government has begun some lobbying of its own. At an energy conference in New Orleans last week, Zhang Guobao, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission in China, declared: "To spread the 'China threat' and try to curb China's progress and starve its energy needs is not in the interest of world stability and development. Such attempts are doomed to fail."
In an angry statement on Monday, the foreign ministry chided Congress for its "mistaken ways" and told it to "stop interfering" in the takeover contest. "Cnooc's bid to take over the U.S. Unocal," the ministry statement said, "is a normal commercial activity between enterprises and should not fall victim to political interference."
Edmund L. Andrews contributed reporting from Washington for this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/06/business/worldbusiness/06lobby.html?dlbk=&oref=login&pagew...
London to stage 2012 Olympics
By Paul Radford
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - London beat favorites Paris in a showdown for the right to host the 2012 Olympics after Moscow, New York and Madrid were eliminated in a nail-biting International Olympic Committee vote on Wednesday.
London, bidding for the first time to stage sport's biggest event, started as outsiders but their strenuous and imaginative campaign carried them past a French bid which had long seemed destined for victory at Paris's third attempt.
London staged the Games in 1908 and 1948 but were awarded them each time without bidding. The British capital becomes the first city to hold the Summer Olympics three times.
"It's just the most fantastic opportunity to do everything we ever dreamed of in British sport. This was the most splendid team performance," bid leader and former twice Olympic champion Sebastian Coe said on Wednesday.
"We are taking home the biggest prize in sport."
Olympic athletes threw their arms in the air in delight and hugged each other in London's Trafalgar Square as they watched the announcement in Singapore on a huge screen.
Champagne was sprayed around under Nelson's Column and thousands danced in the streets after the announcement was made.
No official ballot figures were given immediately but leading IOC member Thomas Bach said London won 54 votes in the final round to 50 for Paris.
Paris bid unsuccessfully for the 1992 and 2008 Games.
Their bid leader Philippe Baudillon said: "We are very, very disappointed but it was a very good competition. We thought we could win but obviously we did not. Ah well, that's life."
POLITICAL HEAVYWEIGHTS
Moscow were eliminated in the first round of voting, New York in the second and Madrid in the third.
Earlier the five cities all had their hour in the spotlight before the IOC session.
London and Paris both sent their political heavyweights to Singapore to help turn the vote in their favor.
French president Jacques Chirac took part in the French presentation in person to make an impassioned plea to the IOC. "The heart of Paris and the heart of France are beating in unison in the hope of becoming Olympic ground in 2012.
"Dear friends ... I shall vouch for this. You can put your trust in France, you can trust the French, you can trust us," he said.
Chirac flew off immediately afterwards to join the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, hosted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair who spent two days in Singapore promoting the London bid.
Blair left for home late on Tuesday after attending the formal opening of the IOC session. He and Chirac, at odds over both political and rival candidature issues in recent times, were seen shaking hands amicably at the post-opening party.
Blair made his pitch in a video clip. "Our vision is to see millions of young people participate in sport and improve their lives," he said. "London has the power to make this happen."
The London victory will undoubtedly be seen as an outstanding personal triumph for Blair and Coe.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20050706/ts_nm/olympics_final_dc
Chinese dragon awakens June 26, 2005
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Part one of two
China is building its military forces faster than U.S. intelligence and military analysts expected, prompting fears that Beijing will attack Taiwan in the next two years, according to Pentagon officials. U.S. defense and intelligence officials say all the signs point in one troubling direction: Beijing then will be forced to go to war with the United States, which has vowed to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack. China's military buildup includes an array of new high-technology weapons, such as warships, submarines, missiles and a maneuverable warhead designed to defeat U.S. missile defenses. Recent intelligence reports also show that China has stepped up military exercises involving amphibious assaults, viewed as another sign that it is preparing for an attack on Taiwan... Richard Fisher, vice president of the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said that in 10 years, the Chinese army has shifted from a defensive force to an advanced military soon capable of operations ranging from space warfare to global non-nuclear cruise-missile strikes. "Let's all wake up. The post-Cold War peace is over," Mr. Fisher said. "We are now in an arms race with a new superpower whose goal is to contain and overtake the United States."
http://washingtontimes.com/specialreport/20050626-122138-1088r.htm
(Second of two parts)
Thefts of U.S. technology boost China's weaponry
June 27, 2005
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
China is stepping up its overt and covert efforts to gather intelligence and technology in the United States, and the activities have boosted Beijing's plans to rapidly produce advanced-weapons systems. "I think you see it where something that would normally take 10 years to develop takes them two or three," said David Szady, chief of FBI counterintelligence operations. He said the Chinese are prolific collectors of secrets and military-related information. "What we're finding is that [the spying is] much more focused in certain areas than we ever thought, such as command and control and things of that sort," Mr. Szady said. military area, the rapid development of their 'blue-water' navy -- like the Aegis weapons systems -- in no small part is probably due to some of the research and development they were able to get from the United States," he said. The danger of Chinese technology acquisition is that if the United States were called on to fight a war with China over the Republic of China (Taiwan), U.S. forces could find themselves battling a U.S.-equipped enemy...
http://washingtontimes.com/specialreport/20050627-124855-6747r.htm
Sasser computer worm author confesses in trial
Sven Jaschan confessed on the first day of his trial to creating the Internet Sasser...
Tue Jul 5,10:52 AM ET
BERLIN (Reuters) - The man on trial for writing the Sasser computer worm which wreaked havoc in big businesses and homes across the world last year has confessed to all the charges against him, a German court said on Tuesday.
Katharina Kruetzfeldt, judge at the court in the western town of Verden, said Sven Jaschan, 19, admitted to data manipulation, computer sabotage and interfering with public corporations in one of the biggest Internet attacks of its kind.
After emerging around May last year, versions of the Sasser worm went on to knock out an estimated one million computer systems among home users and companies by spreading on the ubiquitous Microsoft Windows operating system.
Sasser victims ranged from the British Coastguard to the European Commission, Goldman Sachs and Australia's Westpac Bank. Some security firms called it the most destructive worm ever.
State prosecutor Silke Streichsbier said she was "highly satisfied" with progress made at the trial, which is closed to the public as Jaschan was still a minor when some of the offences took place. A verdict is expected on Thursday.
Jaschan, who had previously confessed to having created the worm to police, could face a maximum sentence of five years in prison as well as having to pay compensation to his victims.
Prosecutors said damages amounting to some 130,000 euros ($154,600) had so far been reported by victims of the worm, but the figure could spiral into millions if everyone affected worldwide were to report financial losses caused by the worm.
How the 19-year-old was expected to pay such compensation was not immediately clear.
Jaschan, described by authorities as a "computer freak," was identified as the author after Microsoft offered a reward of $250,000 for information leading to his arrest.
It is believed he began creating programs, including the Netsky virus, to seek out and destroy other viruses.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/crime_germany_sasser_dc;_ylt=AizK_z_a46qy8fKWpI6upQLDr7sF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW....
The Mall That Would Save America
Christoph Niemann
NYtimes.com
By AMANDA GRISCOM LITTLE
Published: July 3, 2005
Robert Congel, a commercial real-estate developer who lives in upstate New York, has a plan to 'change the world.'
Convinced that it will 'produce more benefit for humanity than any one thing that private enterprise has ever done,' he is raising $20 billion to make it happen. That's 12 times the yearly budget of the United Nations and more than 25 times Congel's own net worth.
What Congel has in mind is an outsize and extremely unusual mega-mall. Destiny U.S.A., the retail-and-entertainment complex he is building in upstate New York, aspires to be not only the biggest man-made structure on the planet but also the most environmentally friendly.
Equal parts Disney World, Las Vegas, Bell Laboratories and Mall of America -- with a splash of Walden Pond -- the 'retail city' will include the usual shops and restaurants as well as an extensive research facility for testing advanced technologies and a 200-acre recreational biosphere complete with springlike temperatures and an artificial river for kayaking.
After a false start in 2002, countless changes of plan and a storm of local opposition, Congel is finally breaking ground again, with a projected completion date of 2009. Later this month, bulldozers powered by biodiesel are scheduled to begin leveling the site, a rehabilitated brownfield in Syracuse, Congel's hometown. Whether Congel's firm, the Pyramid Companies, can maintain the cash flow and political support needed to complete the project is a subject of much local debate. Also disputed are Congel's goals of creating 200,000 jobs regionally and making Destiny nothing less than 'the No. 1 tourist destination in America.'
More mind-boggling than the sheer scope of Destiny is its agenda. Congel emphasizes that renewable energy alone will power the mall, with its 1,000 shops and restaurants, 80,000 hotel rooms, 40,000-seat arena and Broadway-style theaters. As a result, Congel says, Destiny will jump-start renewable-energy markets nationwide with its investments in solar, wind, fuel cells and other alternative-energy sources. But if Congel does manage to erect his El Dorado, will it really help cure our country's addiction to scarce and highly polluting fossil fuel? Or will it just be a cleverly marketed boondoggle that may create more environmental problems than it solves?
All by itself, the mall would boost America's solar-electric power capacity by nearly 10 percent. 'On every level, this project astounds,' Senator Hillary Clinton said in April, claiming that the mall could make the area a hub for clean technologies and deliver a shot of adrenaline to upstate New York's ailing economy. To help foot the bill for Congel's project, Clinton and other politicians successfully persuaded Congress to provide financial incentives for mega-scale green development projects. (Destiny, of course, will face little competition to reap those benefits.)
An avid Bush supporter who already has 25 shopping malls to his name, Congel himself is not a man you would expect to entertain an eccentric clean-energy vision. It first seized him in 2001, soon after 9/11 -- and after the project was under way -- during a visit to the D-Day beaches in Normandy. 'There I was looking at those pure white graves of tens of thousands of kids that died for freedom,' Congel reflects, sitting on the veranda of his 6,000-acre farm just outside Syracuse, where he has imported Russian wild boar and other exotic game for hunting. 'Today our kids are dying in a war for oil. Petroleum addiction is destroying our country, our economy, our environment.'
Several months after returning from Normandy, Congel announced that not a drop of fossil fuel would be used in the making of Destiny. Almost overnight the mission of the project changed. It went from the mall that could save the depressed economy of Syracuse to the mall that could save America by establishing a new model for green commercial development. But will shoppers actually want to travel from far and wide to a little-known city's eco-friendly mall? And even with the green tax benefits, it is vastly more expensive to power Destiny with renewable sources than with conventional grid energy -- so where's the financial logic?
Here's where Congel's schemes to create 'monster profits' come in. Intel, Clear Channel, Cisco, Sony and Microsoft are among the brands that Destiny has recruited to supply its retail, entertainment, security and energy technologies. Many suppliers are planning to build local offices that will aid the Syracuse economy, and all have agreed to participate in the on-site development of new technologies that could be tested on the captive audience of mall-goers. (Congel will be a co-owner of the patents on all inventions.) A group of companies hopes to perfect a new wireless radio frequency identification technology to enable customers to purchase items instantly without waiting in line. The Department of Homeland Security and A.D.T., a home-security company, have discussed testing new devices that will track all visitors entering and leaving the mall.
Some locals, however, question Congel's promises of economic benefits to the region, arguing that Destiny may be an elaborate charade. 'He is legally bound to build only a fraction of the square footage of his plan,' says John DeFrancisco, a state senator and a leading critic of the mall. 'Congel could reap extraordinary tax benefits without actually meeting his goals. There is no guarantee that won't happen.' And while many environmentalists embrace Congel's grand ideas, others are skeptical. 'How do you reconcile the glaring paradox of an ostensibly fossil-fuel-free development that requires tremendous amounts of fossil fuels to transport visitors to the site?' asks Ashok Gupta, an energy economist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Moreover, there is something eerily postmodern, even postenvironmental, about the whole of Congel's project: the mega-mall is located on the fringes of the Adirondacks, but visitors will experience only virtual meadows, faux ponds, a river replica and a five-story imitation of a mountain peak.
While environmentalists are often regarded as doomsayers, Congel is without question an optimist: he is certain that America and its great commercial endeavors can thrive in a post-fossil-fuel era. A similar conviction is represented in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign to put solar installations on a million California rooftops and in the agreement by the mayors of more than 165 American cities to honor the Kyoto Protocol and help develop renewable energy. Although Destiny is still years away from opening, Congel's executives have already held talks with Schwarzenegger about exporting the franchise and have excited interest from developers in England and China. Of course, Destiny's success could be bittersweet to some: if Congel has his way, the road to eco-paradise will not only be paved; it will be glassed-in, climate-controlled and lined with shops.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/magazine/03PHENOM.html?
Cool way to wish a Happy 4th! You too.
http://news.ocsecurities.com/index.shtml
A Scary Crash, a Thwarted Deal and Then Plan B
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN
July 1, 2005
When Bruce L. Hammonds, the chief executive of the MBNA Corporation, stepped into the company's Sikorsky S76C at the heliport at 34th Street in Manhattan with five senior executives on Friday afternoon two weeks ago, the mood was jovial.
The executives had spent the day secretly negotiating to sell their company, one of the nation's largest credit card issuers, to Wachovia, the big bank. Both sides had agreed to the outlines of the deal; the only thing left to settle was the final price.
But then the unthinkable happened: the helicopter carrying the MBNA executives back to the Delaware headquarters plunged into the East River less than a minute after takeoff. Despite several harrowing moments trapped underwater in the copter, the executives managed to escape largely unscathed.
Their deal with Wachovia was not so lucky. Four days later, Wachovia's board voted against pursuing a purchase, deciding that the asking price was too high.
At the time of the widely covered crash, the company said the executives were in Manhattan for a routine business meeting. But the mystery of what they were up to did not become clear until yesterday: Mr. Hammonds and his colleagues, who returned to work and a series of marathon conference calls only 24 hours after the accident, were scrambling to sell their company, ultimately reaching a deal with Bank of America for $35 billion.
Executives involved in the talks and that helicopter ride reconstructed the behind-the-scenes maneuvers that led to the sale of MBNA.
The helicopter crash on that hot, humid Friday put an unwanted spotlight on MBNA, which was hoping to keep its "for sale" sign under wraps. That did not stop the rumors among an astute group of investors who frequent online message boards.
On Yahoo, the questions started almost immediately. One message was "Top execs together on 1 helicopter???" Another said, "wht were 6 executive doing in chopp." A user with the logon name kennyrbowman seemed to know exactly what had happened. In a message titled, "Reason they were all in NYC to start with ... ," he explained that the MBNA executives were having "a big pow-wow with Wachovia trying to figure out how to word the takeover/buyout."
The potential leak was particularly troubling to Louis J. Freeh, MBNA's general counsel, according to the executives. Mr. Freeh, who was the director of the F.B.I. from 1993 to 2001, instructed the lawyers to monitor the message boards and news wires.
When MBNA held a conference call with journalists the day after the accident to try to reassure investors, Mr. Freeh and only one other executive spoke. They chose their words carefully and kept Mr. Hammonds and the other executives who had been aboard the helicopter from taking part in the call to avoid slipping up about the potential deal.
But by Wednesday morning, June 22, keeping the deal with Wachovia a secret was moot. That morning, MBNA's negotiators learned that Wachovia's board had scuttled the deal.
MBNA's top management and its advisers, led by Michael E. Martin and Olivier Sarkozy of UBS, Edward D. Herlihy of the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Joseph R. Perella, the veteran deal maker who left Morgan Stanley amid the firm's turmoil in April, huddled to consider Plan B: trying to sell the company to Bank of America.
Mr. Herlihy, a longtime corporate lawyer who has worked on some of the biggest deals, picked up the phone and called Kenneth D. Lewis, the chief executive of Bank of America, with his pitch.
By the next night, Mr. Hammonds, 57, and Mr. Lewis, 58, who had each long eyed the other's company but had never met, were making a handshake deal over a two-hour dinner at the Wilmington Club, a meeting place for Delaware's corporate elite. Mr. Hammonds is a member.
"I had not crossed paths with Bruce before," Mr. Lewis recalled yesterday. "I don't go to the Financial Services Roundtable. Bruce and I had not met before."
Last Friday morning, an army of bankers and lawyers converged on Wachtell Lipton's offices in the CBS building on 52nd Street in Manhattan, to begin a weekend sprint to give Bank of America the opportunity to review MBNA's records and negotiate the details of the transaction.
The deal was especially important to Wall Street's firms. The deal's enormous value would catapult them in the so-called league tables, the closely followed ranking that investment banks use for luring prospective clients and for bragging rights on the golf course.
The transaction catapulted UBS to the second spot behind Morgan Stanley and moved Bank of America to No. 4, ahead of Goldman Sachs, according to Thomson Financial, which tracks deal data. Goldman Sachs had been representing Wachovia.
Perhaps the biggest lift came to two surprise entrants: Keefe Bruyette & Woods, a boutique bank that worked for Bank of America, and the one-man show that is Mr. Perella. The two ranked No. 8 and No. 9 for the quarter, ahead of banking giants like Citigroup, Lazard and Bear Stearns. All the firms stand to make several million dollars each in fees.
The deal was sweet for Mr. Perella, who became involved after leaving Morgan Stanley because of a long friendship with Randy Lerner, the son of Al Lerner, who founded MBNA. The transaction will raise his profile - and fill his wallet - as he and Tarek F. Abdel-Meguid, the former head of investment banking at Morgan, try to start their own firm. Both are also being courted to return to Morgan Stanley by their former colleague, John J. Mack, who was named chairman yesterday.
For Mr. Perella, the deal may be even more poignant because at the time the MBNA helicopter crashed, he was aboard another helicopter bound for East Hampton.
As Mr. Hammonds recounted yesterday: "Anything can happen at any time and you have to make the most of everything. You try to make the most of every minute."
Eric Dash, Julie Creswell and Landon Thomas Jr. contributed reporting for this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/01/business/01dealmakers.html?pagewanted=print
House votes to block China-Unocal Deal
Fri Jul 1,12:30 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly voted to block the Bush administration from approving a Chinese company's attempt to acquire U.S. oil and gas producer Unocal Corp. (NYSE:UCL - news)
The House approved the measure 333-92 and attached it to a spending bill for the departments of Treasury, Transportation and other agencies for the fiscal year that starts on Oct. 1.
The House also voted 398-15 for a nonbinding resolution calling on the Bush administration to immediately conduct a review of the possible takeover. The resolution also states that a CNOOC takeover of Unocal could threaten U.S. national security.
China's CNOOC Ltd. (0883.HK) recently offered $18.5 billion in cash to acquire California-based Unocal. That bid topped a $16 billion-plus cash and stock offer that Unocal had already accepted from Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CVX - news).
Unocal has said it is discussing the offer with CNOOC and planned to update shareholders before an Aug. 10 vote on the Chevron deal.
"This is not the time to now sell our ninth largest oil refinery to a Chinese company," said Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick (news, bio, voting record), a Michigan Democrat who pushed the amendment through the House.
Under Kilpatrick's proposal, which has not been debated by the Senate, the Treasury Department would be barred from spending any money to recommend approving a takeover of Unocal by CNOOC.
The Bush administration has said it would conduct an economic and security review if the deal is consummated. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency committee chaired by the Treasury secretary, is charged with reviewing such acquisitions.
During a short House debate on the proposal, lawmakers expressed concerns about the skyrocketing U.S. trade deficit with China, China's financing of American debt and national security worries.
Rep. James Moran (news, bio, voting record), a Virginia Democrat, called on the House to defeat the anti-China amendment.
"It is far better to diversify their holdings. If they don't buy American oil companies or Western oil companies ... where are they going to go?" Moran asked.
"They're going to go to Iran and other countries not in our interest and we are going to start contributing to a bipolar world again," Moran said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050701/bs_nm/energy_unocal_congress_dc;_ylt=AtC5B4ZnKEUKBpDehDhGC92573Q...
Well we're talking two entirely different things here. It appears that with respect to Citigroup at least they effectively played a hedge and caught everyone by surprise. My bet is that would have been legal in the states.
GVRP is a little more complicated in the fact that you had REG SHO in place. I won't buy off on the conspiracy theory because that has been used so many times in the past with other POS stocks.
I do think someone screwed up, probably the MM in not making sure shares were actually out there to trade. Somewhere an alarm should have sounded. (Even though this was imo a scam to dump off an empty shell to begin with and screw the original shareholders.)
If my broker (I did not buy) had sold me shares that did not exist I would pick a bone with him first. Writing to the SEC is like sending letters to the White House. lol.
Bull there are many unwritten rules on Wall Street that BDs follow either by respect or wisdom. There are unwritten rules on respecting the SEC, the NASD and trading and dealing with MMers. Broker Dealers either abide by these unwritten rules or they and their trades get little respect in the financial world and quickly go out of business.
GVRP is a good example, people believe there is a big conspiracy between the brokers, SEC and GVRP to not trade in the stock. When the simple truth is BDs are wise enough to know that a commission of 8 dollars or even 80,000 dollars is not worth buying or selling something of unknown value or quantity.
Question to you Bull, even though the halt on GVRP is over, if you own a BD would you risk your firm trading in a stock of unknown value or quantity for a $8 commission, for a $80 commission or even a $80,000 commission?
I believe the SEC guided the BDs to the unwritten law which says, "don't be stupid" and that unwritten law trumped their own personal greed.
Followers
|
10
|
Posters
|
|
Posts (Today)
|
0
|
Posts (Total)
|
971
|
Created
|
03/29/05
|
Type
|
Free
|
Moderators |
Volume | |
Day Range: | |
Bid Price | |
Ask Price | |
Last Trade Time: |