Gongol.com Archives: March 2014
Amazon delivers a big test in demand elasticity
By hiking the price of Amazon Prime from $79 a year to $99 a year -- and doing it with a week's notice -- they're really going to test whether consumers care a lot about that $20. Bold move. But Amazon isn't a very profitable company -- they lost money in 2012, and shares currently sell for more than 600 times last year's profits per share. Remember: A sky-high stock price can be totally disconnected from profits. Perhaps this is an effort to jolt some profit-making into the bottom line.
We've been underestimating the risk of a giant earthquake in northern California
Business planning for the long term
A BBC report observes that the lack of quarterly reporting by Chinese companies may free their managers to concentrate on the long term. But the decision whether to build ultra-long-term business plans isn't really shackled by whether the SEC requires the filing of paperwork on a regular basis.
Violent flare-up in Venezuela is a reminder we've ignored Latin America for too long
Northwestern seeks to raise $3.75 billion
In part for a lakefront football practice facility "likely to exceed $220 million"
Is online education actually still being stigmatized?
If so, then we're idiots. Obsessing over how an education is physically delivered is like caring whether your milk comes in a carton or a jug. It simply doesn't matter.
The world's power companies are considering 1200 new coal-fired electric plants
China crackdown on social messaging
A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have
California starts work on driverless-car regulations
Smart move; they're coming soon, and governments rarely act quickly
