MBAM

"At Microsoft, Bill periodically visited college campuses to talk with students about applying science and technology to drive new waves of innovation. Next week he is headed back to school for a booster shot of youthful energy and ideas, this time as part of his work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation." - Frankie Warren from Bookmarklet

"Twitter will unveil on Tuesday a much-anticipated plan for making money from advertising, finally answering the question of how the company expects to turn its exponential growth into revenue." - Frankie Warren from Bookmarklet

"James Tsai is the sort of MBA corporate recruiters covet. He went to a good prep school, earned a degree with honors from Middlebury College, and made vice-president in Bank of America's international wealth management group at the age of 26. Today, Tsai is about to graduate, straight A's in hand, from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, a top-rated program in America. And he's hustling to land his first post-MBA job — in China." - Frankie Warren from Bookmarklet

"Social networking website Facebook has capped a year of phenomenal growth by overtaking Google’s popularity among US internet users, with industry data showing it has scored more hits than the search engine. In a sign the web is becoming more sociable than searchable, research firm Hitwise said the two sites accounted for 14 per cent of all US internet visits last week. Facebook’s home page recorded 7.07 per cent of traffic and Google’s 7.03 per cent. It is the first time Facebook has enjoyed a weekly lead over Google." - Frankie Warren from Bookmarklet

"The Hitwise figures only cover visits to the Google.com site, meaning that services such as Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps and searches carried out in a box in a browser toolbar are excluded." - Frankie Warren

"Josefa Garcia Rojas walks through the eerily barren streets of Potosi, a small Venezuelan city where she lived most of her 84 years, amid the skeletons of trees and groups of curious onlookers. This is the first time she's stepped foot here since she and a thousand other residents were forced to flee their homes to make way for a hydroelectric dam being built to block the water of a river that ran through town. It's been 26 years since then, but due to an unprecedented drought in the region, Petosi has reemerged from the murky depths. While it may bring some nostalgic comfort to Josefa and others to see the town's old church once again--there's the creeping sense that all is not well." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"One hypothesis is that many of the employees left the financial industry. According to the LinkedIn data set, that just isn’t true. There are a handful of people that did transition to other industries and start new careers, but most stayed in the financial space. To be specific, other than two acquiring companies (Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch and Nomura acquired Lehman Brothers’ franchise in the Asia Pacific region), Barclays was by far the biggest beneficiary, scooping up 10% of the laid off talent, followed by Credit Suisse at 1.5% and Citigroup at 1.1 %." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"They call it potbelly hill, after the soft, round contour of this final lookout in southeastern Turkey. To the north are forested mountains. East of the hill lies the biblical plain of Harran, and to the south is the Syrian border, visible 20 miles away, pointing toward the ancient lands of Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent, the region that gave rise to human civilization. And under our feet, according to archeologist Klaus Schmidt, are the stones that mark the spot—the exact spot—where humans began that ascent." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, told Congress on Wednesday that the central bank did not intend to start raising short-term interest rates anytime soon, saying the economic recovery would remain halting for many more months." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"O.K., the beast is starving. Now what? That’s the question confronting Republicans. But they’re refusing to answer, or even to engage in any serious discussion about what to do. For readers who don’t know what I’m talking about: ever since Reagan, the G.O.P. has been run by people who want a much smaller government. In the famous words of the activist Grover Norquist, conservatives want to get the government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”" - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"Negative equity continues to be concentrated in five states: Nevada, which had the highest percentage negative equity with 70 percent of all of its mortgaged properties underwater, followed by Arizona (51 percent), Florida (48 percent), Michigan (39 percent) and California (35 percent). Among the top five states, the average negative equity share was 42 percent, compared to 15 percent for the remaining 45 states. In numerical terms, California (2.4 million) and Florida (2.2 million) had the largest number of negative equity mortgages accounting for 4.6million, or 41 percent, of all negative equity loans." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"Twitter and Facebook users could see their home insurance premiums rise by as much as 10 percent in the coming years, says Confused.com, a site that allows users to compare the cost of insurance across different providers. Confused.com argues that social media services like Foursquare and Buzz can increase the risk of theft by alerting burglars to times when people are out of their homes, thus leading to home insurance hikes." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"Los Angeles-Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today joined the California Department of Real Estate (DRE) and the State Bar of California in warning Californians to avoid forensic loan audits, the loan-modification industry's latest "phony foreclosure-relief service," in which homeowners pay up-front fees for a forensic review of their lender's practices, but are provided no actual foreclosure relief. "Forensic loan audits are yet another phony foreclosure-relief service hawked by loan-modification consultants trying to cash in on the desperation of homeowners facing foreclosure," Brown said. "The foreclosure-relief industry continues to be long on promises, but short on results."" - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"The retail giant is among several that have no physical presence in the state. Legislative Democrats think a levy on them could bring in up to $150 million annually." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"Government data released Friday showed that a closely watched measure of inflation fell in January for the first time since 1982, potentially giving the Federal Reserve more leeway to keep interest rates at ultra-low levels." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"The credit bubble allowed home buyers to get in over their heads, to buy more house than they could afford. Once prices came down and the refi pipeline closed down, it was game over for many of these buyers. The latest estimates are for another five million delinquent mortgages to go through foreclosure (or alternatively, short sales) over the next few years. Currently, there is an estimated 7.7 million households in some stage of pre-default delinquency." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"One of the nation’s top financial credit services Wednesday issued a negative outlook for Los Angeles, which is struggling with a $212-million budget gap. The move could lead to a lower credit rating for the city and ultimately increase Los Angeles' cost of borrowing money. Moody’s Investors Service took the action because of delays by the city in addressing the budget shortfall, which is expected to grow to $485 million in the 2010-11 fiscal year. The service also expressed doubts that proposed layoffs and service cutbacks under consideration by the City Council would deliver the promised savings." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"Ken Starr, Duane and Kelly Roberts Dean of the Pepperdine School of Law, has been named the 14th president of Baylor University. The appointment is effective June 1." - Frankie Warren from Bookmarklet

"Giving a presentation is a nerve-wracking experience for most people, so delivering a smooth, end-right-on-time presentation is a tall order for a lot of us. Take a cue or two from popular author and speaker Malcolm Gladwell to give a stronger presentation." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"When he won the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama said he was "absolutely certain" that future generations would remember it as "the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless ... when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal ... when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth."" - Frankie Warren from Bookmarklet

"encouraging risk-taking means tolerating failure -- provided we learn from it. If we want to be a leader in new industries such as green energy, we have to accept that some of our investments won't pan out. Show me a program with a 100 percent success rate, and I'll show you one with 0 percent innovation." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"Mortgage lenders are trying to arrange smoother departures for distressed homeowners who can’t be saved by loan modifications — and discourage them from trashing the homes on their way out. CitiMortgage, a unit of Citgroup Inc., announced Wednesday a pilot project that will let some delinquent borrowers remain in their homes without making mortgage payments for six months if they voluntarily transfer ownership to the bank." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"On Tuesday, I attended the Front End of Innovation conference in Amsterdam. It was good to see innovation leaders from a wide range of companies in attendance — to me it was a small but important sign of an increasingly stable global economy. I provided a few thoughts in the morning, and then heard a fascinating presentation from Patrick O'Riordan — global director of innovation at Anheuser-Busch InBev. Here are some of his lessons for innovators" - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"Google on Wednesday introduced a plan to offer ultra-high-speed Internet access to consumers in a test intended to showcase the potential new uses of broadband networks once such speeds become commonplace." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"John Thain, the ousted chief of Merrill Lynch & Co., was named to lead CIT Group Inc., the commercial lender that emerged from bankruptcy in December, after almost a four-month search for a replacement." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"According to SI's research, the swimsuit franchise has earned the magazine, a property of Time Warner (TWX 27.33, +0.41, +1.51%) , more than $1 billion in revenue since its inception in 1964. Last year, there were more than 46 million video views of SI Swimsuit worldwide, and the issue reaches more than 60 million people. It boasts the second-largest audience in sports, trailing only the Super Bowl." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"Bank of America and two former top executives were charged with securities fraud by New York's attorney general Thursday on allegations they misled investors about rising losses at Merrill Lynch so stockholders would approve the 2009 acquisition of the firm. The civil charges came as the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a new $150 million settlement with the bank on allegations based on similar issues. The settlement requires approval by a federal court judge, who rejected an earlier $33 million deal to end the SEC case." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"The ratings agency reduced the rating of Berkshire- which owns (re)insurance giants Geico, Gen Re and National Indemnity- by one notch to 'AA+' with a stable outlook. "We are taking these rating actions in anticipation of BRK's acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF)" said Standard & Poor's credit analyst John Iten." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

"Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made the comment today to stop driving recalled Toyotas.  As the owner of General Motors, would it be too cynical to think that there is a small ulterior motive in being especially harsh on Toyota?  Probably.  These days, you can never be too cautious, and the government is just making sure it covers all of its tracks.  At any rate, the conspiracy theorists will likely be all over this one.  TM shareholders have been getting crushed lately.  As shown below, the stock is down from $92 to $72 in just a couple of weeks." - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

""It was really a special moment in time that I'm going to always remember that the President of the United States trash-talked Magic Johnson," said Johnson. "And me restraining myself not to come back at him. He was the only man on earth that ever trash-talked me and I (didn't) say anything ... it was a great moment."" - Bryan Zirkel from Bookmarklet

Haha, summer interns didn't get to go to that one :) - Frankie Warren

"Row 44 of Westlake Village has landed a contract with Southwest Airlines to provide Wi-Fi service on the airline’s fleet of more than 540 planes. It is a tremendous boost for the small, 25-employee firm, which had been in a testing phase with Southwest since last year. Southwest said it would begin installing Row 44’s equipment in the second quarter at a rate of 15 to 25 aircraft per month." - Frankie Warren from Bookmarklet