Apple just announced that iPhone and iPad users of its upcoming iOS 9 operating system will get a disruptive new app by the name: “News.” With the Apple Watch slumping fast, Taylor Swift torpedoing Apple Music, and the “News” looking like a “wanna-be” New York Times, the first three post-Steve Jobs era products seem to indicate in the words of the immortal BB King that for Apple, “The Thrill is Gone.”
The economic crisis in Greece is playing out with political and economic ramifications that are causing, and will continue to cause, damage across Europe.
When Breitbart News reported in ‘FAA Proposes Commercial Drone Licenses To Anyone Paying $200 Fee,’ we commented that, “By next Christmas, aerial drones will be all the rage.”
The audaciousness of EIon Musk to challenge bone-headed establishment thinking is on maximum display this month as his SpaceX organization helps launch the design competition for a “sub-scale” Hyperloop prototype pod train. Unlike the California High Speed Rail, that no
If Robin Leach visited the headquarters of Fibit, Inc. in San Francisco today, it would be all “champagne wishes and caviar dreams” as the leading wearable fitness tracker raised $793.5 million at a stunning valuation of $4.1 billion in the largest initial public offering (IPO) by any consumer electronics company in history.
In what may the most expensive employee labor claim in history, the California Labor Commission ruled Wednesday that an Uber California drivers is an “employee,” rather than an “independent contractor.” Uber could potentially be on the hook to pay about $200 million in employee taxes and benefits for 2014 alone.
Six weeks ago, the Huffington Post’s lead article was “Why Hillary Can’t Lose.” But the S.S. Clinton campaign that steams into southern California on Friday increasingly looks like the arrogant crew of the Titanic that continued to run full-throttle after hitting an iceberg, because their ship was “Practically Unsinkable.”
Billionaire “greenie” Tom Steyer is demanding that candidates for president support the one tax increase Republicans like: namely, eliminating the limousine liberal’s “carried interest” loophole that allows uber-wealthy hedge fund moguls to pay a lower tax rate than Americans earning over $36,900. Calling income inequality an “urgent” issue, Steyer wants to dump the loophole that made him rich.
California may be on the cusp of an oil fracking boom along its 1,750-square-mile Monterrey Shale Formation, which is potentially the richest shale oil reserve in the United States.
For over 100 years, the American public viewed labor unions in a positive light. But after unions were body-slammed in battles against three not-so-free trade agreements negotiated by Democrat Presidents, manufacturing jobs plummeted and public opinion of unions went negative for the first time during Obama Administration.
The media silence was deafening on Friday as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launched “Net Neutrality” regulations–possibly the most far-reaching and intrusive regulatory action of the 21st century.
The “gig economy” is the term for corporations embracing the “on demand economy,” “collaborative consumption” and “sharing economy” bandwagons to restructure “work” into small projects of limited duration so that big business can justify legally dumping employees and hiring contractors. With employee benefit costs exceeding 46 percent of wages and workplace litigation spiking, “employees” don’t exist in the future of work.
Over the last decade, California has lost half of the 35,000 Boeing employees who were working at very good jobs at very good wages. Despite labor troubles, there was always hope that another military spending cycle would eventually fill Boeing’s cavernous aircraft assembly plant in Long Beach. But the dream is about to expire, as Boeing starts auctioning off all the plant’s equipment.
With Tuna Crabs overrunning San Diego beaches in the first signs that an El Niño weather condition is bearing down on the Western United States, the Obama Administration raised this year’s federal emergency drought funding for the seven Western states to $300 million. After limited aid during two years of inaction, the Obama Administration is going all-in for drought relief, just as El Niño’s torrential rains will soon arrive.
Stanford University President John Hennessy just announced that he will resign next year after a 15 year run, shortly after the Stanford Business School was rated number one on the planet. By conversations on the web, Stanford is by far the most mentioned university, because most of the captains of Internet industry are its graduates.
Dick Costolo was ousted as Twitter’s CEO on Thurday, after a disastrous year that saw active users stagnate and the company make earnings promises it could never have met.
Following Tesla Motors, Inc.’s (TSLA-NASDAQ) big award of California tax credits for promising to add 4500 jobs, the all-electric automaker just signed a lease to occupy the cavernous 500,000 square feet Solyndra plant at 901 Page Ave. in Fremont, California.
Both houses of the California legislature have agreed to a budget deal to forward to Governor Jerry Brown by the June 15 deadline. The ball is now Governor Brown’s court to use his line-item-veto to decide how much he wants to protect taxpayers from irresponsible spending.
On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law and enrolled former President Harry Truman as its first beneficiary. But today, federal unfunded liabilities are catastrophic for future taxpayers and economic growth. The US Debt Clock lists federal unfunded liabilities at $97 trillion. That equals about $818 thousand per taxpayer; about three times average U.S. net worth; and 131 percent of world GDP.
To buy peace with climate change activists after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that oil fracking does not poison water, President Obama has signed an executive order tripling the size of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, just north of San Francisco. The order bans oil drilling in the area Obama renamed the “Greater” Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. The move is merely symbolic, since there are no oil reserves in the area.
The Silicon Valley Business Journal is reporting that “Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors is on track to win $15 million in new tax breaks as part of the final round of this year’s California Competes tax credit.” According to Governor Brown’s GO-Biz website, tax credits are awarded to businesses that come or stay and grow in California. With much of his $13.3 billion net worth coming from tax subsidies, Musk may celebrate his latest gift of “government cheese” from Reno, where Tesla’s highly-subsidized $5 billion giga-factory is being built.
San Francisco prides itself on its image as a bastion of diversity and progressive politics. But according to a new study by the San Francisco Foundation, the city’s policies are rapidly ejecting blacks, Latinos and Asians to become a “lily white” island in a heavily diverse region over the next 25 years.
California’s premier pollster, Mervin Field, passed away Monday at his home in Marin County at the age of 94 after what was described as a brief illness. He was one of the architects of modern polling and focus groups that grew up along with the rise of modern media marketing.
The global shock from the release of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) long-postponed draft report stating that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has not had a “widespread, systemic impact on drinking waste” caused “cheap” natural gas prices to collapse another 16 percent.
The Blue Bottle Coffee, the Bay Area foodies’ favorite coffee house, merged with the Tartine Bakery and Café in April. Now, the combined artisan food company has raised $70 million in venture capital to be the “next big thing.”
