Wall Street loves Facebook

28/01/2012

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As Facebook prepares to launch itself on the stock market stock fever could take hold. Facebook is such a phenomenon that it is expected to excite the markets in a way that has not been seen for many a year. What it will mean for Facebook users may not be so favourable.

In the long run it could be that personal data is less secure than it is now. It is not that secure now. It could result in an abuse of information depending on who owns the largest share of Facebook. If that becomes the case we, the fickle public, could soon, wave bye bye to Facebook. Not so long ago many of us loved MySpace. Last year it was sold for a relative pittance as people moved over to Facebook and left MySpace behind.

Whilst buying stocks in Facebook in the short term should be a good investment, long term it could be a different matter. According to the LA Times, "Facebook is expected to raise $10 billion in the offering, giving it a market capitalization of $100 billion. Google, by comparison, raised $1.9 billion in its IPO in 2004". Big bucks indeed.

Founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, still only aged 27, will join the ranks of the richest men in the World after the stock floatation. Trading is expected to be fast and furious on the day with many hoping to make money almost immediately.

Facebook's wealth lies in the users personal information and its value to advertisers and the like. Although the day of the stock market float is still not known it is predicted that it will be before April 2012, due to US Federal financial rules.
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Occupy London protesters set up camp outside of St Paul's Cathedral

16/10/2011

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The Occupy Together protests of yesterday, October 15, 2011, had a mixed response. In Italy a runaway contingent of trouble makers were blamed for a heavy police response. Some of the 951 cities affected world wide saw thousands of people demonstrating whilst others experienced hundreds.

In London some protesters claimed that the police became heavy handed unnecessarily.
After trying to protest in the financial district of London protesters made their way back to St Paul's where they hoped to set up camp. The police had a different idea in mind. A police spokesperson has since said that they were trying to protect the fabric of the building.

Today the Minister at the cathedral asked the police for calm. It seems that true Christian spirit is alive in at least one person. Perhaps he was remembering Jesus and his response to the money lenders in church?

Last night a few thousand protesters were outside the cathedral and today about 500 remain. These are setting up camp. It is early days for these protesters and it could go either way. One young man raised a smile with TV news readers as he said he would have to leave by Monday to go to work. However this just proves that dismissing the protesters as lazy no-hopers is totally wrong.

He is lucky to have a job and sensibly is looking after it. That is not to say that his future is assured. Far from it.

Protest in the capital of the Tyrol region, Austria

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Mainstream media tries ignoring OWS movement

11/10/2011

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Occupy Harvad contingent
The Occupy Wall Street protest movement has managed to ruffle a fair few feathers, even though in many ways the mainstream media have tried to ignore it.

Funny how media sources, who were so quick to portray every vestage of protest in the Middle East now shy away from reporting on protests in their own lands.

It may even be a concerted effort to withhold publicity, which as we all know often incites others to take part in events or can even incite violence. Is it that such media sources did not care about the extent of violence in the Middle East, as it was not on their doorstep, and also that it had a valuable resource, namely oil, up for grabs?. It all smack of hypocrisy to this author.
In spite of this virtual media black-out the protests continue to gather momentum.They may have started close to Wall Street, New York, but are now occurring in places such as Los Angeles, Hong and Kong and Boston. Early today, October 11, 2011, police decided to take action against the Occupy Wall Street protest members who have been camped out for more than a week.

Authorities had told the group to move from a green area it was occupying downtown. Whether they wanted them to move to an area where it would be "out of sight and out of mind" is unclear. However the police had told them that they must return to Dewey Square, where a tent city is rapidly growing. I guess it will be easier to contain the protesters, if they are all in one place. Sitting ducks springs to mind.

The authorities maintain that for hours they had tried to persude the protesters to stay put in the Square. Police had given the reason of potential damage to recently planted trees, for their decision to bar the protesters from the green area.

In what ultimately made for spectacular viewing the police descended on the break away protesters. It has been reported that a group of Veterans were stood between the police and the protesters. The Vets all carried American flags. That made not one iota of difference. It must have almost been reminiscent of a scene from Dr Zhivago set in the Russian revolution.

When the police swooped, many vets were pushed to the ground. A protester said, “If they wanted to arrest us they could have done that without pushing us...without tramping the flag.” Good publicity and fuel for the cause of the protesters and bad publicity for the authorities. That said, if the media continue to scarcely report on such events it will be neither.

Another protester said, “We’re being seen as a legitimate organization. People are panicking and trying to get us out of here.” Yes it certainly seems that way. It seems that the west is keen to inflame and incite protests in foreign lands but cannot stand the heat when they occur at home.

The protesters banner perhaps displayed their anger and maybe the voice of the pordinary man and women saying, “Apathy isn’t working, Raise your voice”. A couple of the accompanying chants were “Fund education, not corporations” and “We got sold out. Rich got bailed out.” Ain't that the truth.

In the end around 50 protesters were arrested and soon bailed. The Occupy Boston Protest is now considering how to raise the bail money. Some repots list the number arrested as higher. There have also been reports of huge finanical rewards being paid in overtime to police officers who are policing the protests in the US.

The arrests were made around 1.30 in the morning when the eyes of the world were closed. This meant minimum publicity and reporting.
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