Jason Kaneshiro

Allen Stern will unsubscribe from this just like he unsubscribed from me for saying the economy is bad. - Robert Scoble

Why does the telegraph have headlines at odds with the content? that was kind of a realistic/optimistic view, not a chicken little argument like the headline makes out. - Michael Neale

Wow. Take-home point: Phil "America is a nation of whiners" Gramm wrote the legislation that deregulated credit default swaps, and snuck it into an 11,000-page appropriations bill the day before the Christmas break in 2000. The same Phil Gramm who also deregulated the financial services industry. The same Phil Gramm who was, until July 2008, McCain's senior economic advisor. The same John McCain who was found guilty of "poor judgment" in the Savings & Loan crisis. - Karim

The show says "this cannot be laid at the feet of Phil Gramm," because it was voted for by Republicans and Democrats, and signed into law by Bill Clinton. - Karim

Yea. There's no need to argue. There's enough blame for both parties. - Kevin D. White

Party aside... one wonders what history will have to say about Phil Gramm. The Commodity Futures Modernization Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...) *and* the GLBA? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...) One deregulated credit default swaps; the other contributed to the subprime mortgage crisis. Throw the Enron loophole and his job at UBS and it doesn't paint a pretty picture. - Karim

People like to lay the credit or blame for things at the feet of individuals. Vint Cerf gets called "father of the Internet," even though many dozens of people were involved. Edward Teller said he hated being called "father of the hydrogen bomb" because so many other people were involved. Just makes me wonder... - Karim

Next thing you know, people are going to be calling Paul "father of FriendFeed". - Gabe

Add Plaxo, as well, to the list of ultimately successful companies that were born in the lean post-Bubble times. (The company was founded in 2001.) I continue to believe we are on the cusp of another big wave of innovation. Need to organize my thoughts this weekend and cook up a nice, optimistic post to get the week started on a positive note. - John McCrea

Great read... this is realistic - not doom and gloom or disingenuous hype. Thank you. - ChangeForge | Ken Stewart

John, I almost put Plaxo, when I mentioned LinkedIn. Blame the twins. They're distracting. - Louis Gray

Louis, no worries! I've been distracted myself playing Disney Princesses on the Wii with my five-year-old daughter. :) - John McCrea

We're also fortunate to have achieved an exit that was good for employees, investors, members, and the acquiring company, with a deal that closed in June. :) - John McCrea

John: that's looking more and more brilliant. If this thing goes all to hell I might have to sleep on your couch, OK? :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert, you are welcome to sleep on one of our couches anytime! Which raises a question that could make for a good blogpost. If the downturn gets really bad, like Great Depression bad (not that I'm predicting that), will all of the "friends" we've declared on various social sites be there for us in a time of need? In other words, will the definition of "friend" get tested by adversity? Please discuss... - John McCrea

John: in my social media network there are friends and then there are friends. You're one of the real ones. :-) - Robert Scoble

@John, the answer is absolutely. In 2001, a friend from AAPL discussion boards crashed with me for three days, just to attend MWSF. And just yesterday, I checked in on Corvida to see all was well. You bet I would follow up my online friending with real-world help. - Louis Gray

@Robert, ditto! @Louis, I am a big believer in a somewhat lofty notion that this Social Web we are all building is part of the evolution of humanity. It is at one level a collective database bordering on collective consciousness. And on another, it is a community fabric layer. If the downturn is severe, we will all be FriendFeeding, Twittering, LinkedIning, Facebooking, and Plaxoing to find our social safety net. - John McCrea

John: I can't put 21,000 people onto my couch. :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert: ROTFL. - John McCrea

I give up. Make room. Next flight to Half Moon Bay ... - Charlie Anzman

Charlie: it's really great weather right now. We're doing a meetup on Tuesday night at the Ritz. I'll loan you a Google Tent. :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert: In Re Tuesday Meetup: I am planning to come up, but will need a hotel room. Any suggestions? - Mark VandenBerg

Mark: the Ritz has rooms. AIG had to cancel its shindig! :-) But, seriously, want to stay here? I have a guest a room. - Robert Scoble

If you don't want to stay here, the Holiday Inn Express on Hwy1 is pretty good and has decent rates. - Robert Scoble

Mark gets the guest room and I get the Google tent? You're blocked :) - Charlie Anzman

While I appreciate the offer, and I am sure it would work out fine, I would feel a little funny about it having never actually met you or Maryam. Your call. Email me Mark (at) Latviangoatporn (dot) com or give me a call (616)502-7207 - Mark VandenBerg

Mark: Maryam feels a little funny about it too. She told me "hell no" but I've overridden her before and it's always worked out great. :-) I'm at +1-425-205-1921. In the morning, watching a movie right now. - Robert Scoble

I see Robert's Maryam index falling quite a bit in the near future :-) - todd

todd: the funny thing is if Mark turns out to be a bad guest I'll get to tell you all about it here. So there's quite a bit of social pressure to be a nice guy (both ways, too!) - Robert Scoble

I'll call you tomorrow. 9 ish And you are correct about the social pressure... - Mark VandenBerg

I am sure that will placate Maryam :-) - todd

todd: Maryam can be bribed with pancakes in the morning. :-) - Robert Scoble

عجب وبلاگ زیبایی. تقدیم به فرزاد زمانی و تمام اقتصادیهای فرندفید رونوشت به میلاد. شاندیز اخر و عاقبت تو و سلما همینجوریه ها :) - mhmazidi

I like these. I feel their pain. - Ryan

Friends o/h said there were grown men crying all week... - Vicky Pearce

People with looks of "Oh SH*T I didn't see this coming" on their faces are not the people I want responsible for my retirement. I think I'll look after my own money from now on, thank you very much. - Alan Cheslow

haha, alan, that's very true. - Corie "Viper" Jones

Palm Pilots - Jason Brooks

this is hilarious... i gotta share this... by the way, it was either Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart who showed a composite graphic with such photos for a few seconds one or two nights ago... thanks - Mason Wong

sad moments - Farz∂d Zam∂ni

Here's another - http://sadguysontradingfloors.... - Alan Cheslow

lmao @ Akiva - Lindsey Smith

Akiva, don't post anything for the rest of the night. - Monique(boring) via fftogo

Amen! - JMakesAwesomeSauce

I guess I'm subscribed to the right people. I'm not seeing any of this stuff. - Rochelle

:( - Akiva Moskovitz

akiva! ha. - edythe

LOL!!! Awww...Akiva :) - Rah™

This really belongs in the Bitch room. :) - Bored

I don't know if they told you this about me, Christopher, but I'll cut a mutha fucka... - Monique(boring) via fftogo

lol @ monique - Lindsey Smith

:P got to find me first. - Bored

Monique, did somebody whinge earlier? - Sally Church

Sally: yes, and had the nerve to do it directly in the person's thread. - Monique(boring) via fftogo

Monique, wow - Sally Church

Let the church say "Amen!" There are plenty of filtering tools on friendfeed,etc. so put ya big kid draws on and use them and quit whining. - Kristasphere

thanks for the hint, I couldn't see it otherwise. - Rob Diana

Was the other way... took me a moment to see the frog - Sally Church

can't see a horse no matter what I do :) - Rebkin

There's something wrong with me -- all I see is a pitcher and 2 faces. - Sprague D

Rebkin, yeah, I'm in the same boat. - Alex "Chameleon" Scoble

what?? - Shey

look at this the wrong way and it looks like a disembodied moose snout. What? - Mark Dykeman

I can't see the horse!! - Mona N.

I can see em both :) - Mattb4rd

Clever - Rodfather

pretty cool - Carmen

I even turned the monitor sideways and couldn't see the horse. Don't forget that I'm the guy who can read regardless of orientation of writing in relation to my eye/head. - Alex "Chameleon" Scoble

Ack! You hacked my brain! - zoblue (Zulema)

First the frog, then after a few seconds the horse... Love these! - Holger Eilhard

Turning my iPhone sideways just switches the screen view! I do see the horse though! x - Joe Dawson

turn your head to the right...the dark part on the bottom is the horse's mane...the dark dot on the frog is the horse's eye...the frog's head is the horse's mouth/nose. - Corie "Viper" Jones

Thanks Corie, now I see it. - Alex "Chameleon" Scoble

i didn't have to turn my head to see it, but that's an ugly horse. - Faboo Mama

lol - Shey

You're welcome, Alex. :) Yeah, it's definitely not the prettiest horse...the face is a little deformed. hehe - Corie "Viper" Jones

That's a great horse-frog. - Morton Fox

Oh my...I can see the horse =D for the longest time I could only see the disembodied moose snout.. - Rebkin

Gods... okay, /tilt/ head sideways and I see's it. I kept turning my head so I'd look out of the corner of my eye and couldn't see the horse. Now I know the orientation of the horse, I can see both at the same time. - Arlan Koizumi

ok i can see the frog, and i think i see the horses eye, but can't figure out his orientation from that. help! - Monique(boring) via fftogo

If you tilt your head towards the right, the horse is looking left. The frog's rear legs are its ears. The shadow below it is the horse's mane as someone said above. - Arlan Koizumi

oh! see it now! - Monique(boring) via fftogo

Robert.. start talking to Om.. he seems to be doing well. - Bored

You are lucky scoble, you are well known enough to always land on your feet, even if fastcompany scraps .tv - Mark

Christopher: Om started doing his own business long before I did PodTech. And, "doing well" means "he just got funded." I knew I wouldn't have gotten funded when I left PodTech because I had no team to build out anything and no way to do that before a downturn hit. - Robert Scoble

John: because I saw a downturn coming and wanted to hook my brand onto a stronger brand -- building a media company going into a downturn didn't sound like a great idea. I'm happy with my choices. - Robert Scoble

Mark: FastCompany can't easily scrap TV -- at least not in 2009. :-) - Robert Scoble

@scoble: funny to hear you talk like this-- I think you're underselling your brand. In any case, did you ever think about TV? Get an agent to see if you could get a show? Somehting like that??? Bring the message to the masses????? - john conroy

John: TV is going to see a bloodbath next year. Why would I want to be on TV? By the way, that's not me saying that. That's Harry Fuller who used to run KPIX for 20 years (channel 5 in San Francisco). He called that six months ago and it's looking very true. - Robert Scoble

TV would be bad for Robert. Too many restrictions and they would force Robert to change the way he does things. - Bored

Robert: Hang in there man...It's almost surreal watching this happen. I've never earned a lot of money, and I've been in and out of jobs off and on (I have major ADD and no health insurance), so I probably won't feel the pinch for a while. This is a time when I'm thankful for not having a mortgage and for my landlords being family. Hope things start going better for you folks on the West Coast. - Sean McGee

Sean: the thing is that this isn't just a coastal thing. It's going to affect almost every community. That's what makes it different than the last downturn, which mostly was a tech downturn. - Robert Scoble

Respectfully, Robert, I don't think the last downturn was "mostly a tech downturn". It started out that way, maybe, but the response to the terrorist attacks slowed down everything - travel... tourism... you name it. - Louis Gray

Today: 8,579.19. Predictions? I came up with the number 5000 for some reason. - Paul Buchheit

i thought we'd end the week @9k and the month @8k. now, not so sure. i just hope nobody does a press conf (Paulson on Wed) or releases an econ report (JDPower on Thur) @3P again and tanks the DOW at the close! - MikeAmundsen

I thought the Dow was supposed to be at 36,000. I want my money back. - Jim Norris

I was thinking around 7700, because that's about where things ended up after the dotcom crash. I keep seeing these two mountains when I look at the ten-year graph. Also, if you draw a straight line between when it started going up in the 80s through around '94 when it started to rise drastically, it comes out in that range. Of course, it could over-correct, which would be in the 5000 range. - Chris White

these charts aren't brilliant for one thing: it's not an apple and oranges comparison due to GDP growth/ size of the economy. That we're not at historic lows yet doesn't mean that the lows aren't bad in the context that the economy is sizably bigger today - Duncan Riley

Chris, it bottomed at 7286 in 2002. My thinking is that this may be worse than whatever happened in 2002, so it is likely to go below that (especially if we all expect it to...). - Paul Buchheit

MikeAmundsen, President Bush has a press conference scheduled for 10am tomorrow. Paul, I got my figure from using the Google Finance app by sliding along the graph, which is probably not the most exact way of calculating. :) - Chris White

Maybe the Treasury is going to buy the entire market. Free money for everyone! - Paul Buchheit

Federal Reserve eat world. - Morton Fox

I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!! - Tad - the Meme Maker

If you won't invest, we'll do it for you. - Chris White

@Chris: yipes! i'll have to keep an eye out in the AM. big probl i have is the foreign markets. i'm on a crash course to figure out how we're affecting each other now. never thought i'd be monitoring the econs of Iceland and Pakistan, et al like i am now. - MikeAmundsen

@Paul: i used to figure on 30% correction, but the panic is more than i'd accounted for. but 5k - sheesh, that's deep. - MikeAmundsen

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=... - Jason Brooks

TYPO: Sept 17, 2000 8920 The biggest one day fall (685 points) ... It should be 2001, not 2000. Bush not Clinton. - david beckwith

most recent hedge fund numbers + investor letters from some top names http://dealbreaker.com/2008/10... - david A

I was looking at the history of the DOW and wondered what the current number would be if you took the average growth rate between inception and 1980. By eyeballing it it looks like it would be between 5K and 6K. Not sure we'll dive that low but history can be telling. - AJ Kohn

Yeah, that's roughly how I picked out 5000, which I think is reasonable since there is a tendency for people to overreact. - Paul Buchheit

yeah, i reviewed the 1929 thing and did a bald overlay against 2008. would mean 6k by jan-2010, dead-cat bounce of 9k in may-2010. then, if you take that to it's end, would mean DOW hits very bottom @1200 in July-2011. - MikeAmundsen

is anyone else buying stock (in smallish chunks)? if so what are you buying. - paulm