Why do public companies still report their earnings either before the market opens or after it closes? This practice allows those with access and familiarity with after-hours trading to benefit to the exclusivity of the small investor who typically trades during market hours.

In response to a comment on the Orbitz post on how DSBPI would remedy the Orbitz situation: DSBPI would fix Orbitz by offering two fares, one with the $5 surcharge and one without. Perhaps the default is "with." If you pay the $5 surcharge you get access to 24-hour customer care, 24hrs to refund your ticket and points on Orbitz toward coupons and free flights/hotels. If you don't pay, you just get the ticket.

For all the good that Orbitz has done for the budget traveler, and the DSBPI staff, we can't help but think that it now sucks. Not totally, but just in the buying tickets part. It is still a great search engine (even if you have to originate in the US). But the $5 surcharge for each ticket booked on Orbitz is too easily avoided by just calling an airline directly or hopping over to an airlines own website after Orbitz shows you the lowest fare. Orbitz is trying to position itself as a slightly value-added online travel agent, with 24-hour customer care, etc. Right now, it is just the best search engine.

Google is going public. (Disclaimer: Google owns Blogger.) There are rumors that the offering may be conducted by online auction, versus the usual back room process. The investment banks must be split on this idea. They know that if they are not "forward thinking" enough in their pitch to Google, they will be out of the running for the most exciting IPO of the century (so far). But if they allow this online, democratic hooey to go forth, not only will fees suffer on this deal, but a breach in the favored-client-status distribution policy will endanger the fee monopoly going forward.

Let's watch.

DSBPI analysts often argue about what time period will see more change, the last hundred years or the next hundred years. Despite the disconcerting news about the demise of supersonic air travel, the consensus usually falls to the next hundred years side of the debate. That the pace of change is itself getting faster, the change delta as our team says, is a consequence of change itself; namely, the technological inventions of the last hundred years is making new technological inventions faster and easier to create. Communication technology speeds collaboration, simulation technology speeds prototyping and faster processing power puts it all into overdrive. But that is the stuff of evolutionary change. What about revolutionary change, that is, something that is beyond the scope of our ability to predict? DSBPI thinks that any such revolutionary change will come not from the field of information technology (as perhaps it did over the last hundred years) but from biotechnology and genomics. That in the next hundred years, we will look back at the way we practiced medicine at the turn of the millennium and find it closer to the practicioners of the middle ages than the year 2100. This articleabout extending worm lifetimes by 6x the normal sparked this thought.

The DSBPI would like to highlight the limited edition Snapple apple pie flavored drink.

DSBPI applauds Lieberman's decision to skip the Iowa caucus, denying Dean his due on the day after. DSBPI wonders if Lieberman would go the VP route again, perhaps to a Clark presidency?

It is not Bush's fault that history will mark his presidency as the beginning of the decline of America's global hegemony. The policies of one administration does not topple a superpower, no matter how much an affront the US national security program is to the rest of the world. Rather, a concatenation of global political and economic shifts will cause the US to suffer a fate similar to that of UK, where few thought in the 1920s that the British empire, by the 1990s, would be no more.

While the Bush administration's bravado may have accelerated the union of European volk, the European Union itself set the stage for a resurgence on the continent that has been crowned by the ongoing strength of the Euro. The Euro is now a legitimate alternative for countries to hold foreign reserves and price commodities (see Russian oil); it is also flourishing on the black market, a sign of real strength. The day may come (in the next hundred years) where the US will not enjoy the luxury of denominating all of its foreign borrowing in its own currency and instead have to issue Eurobonds to investors.

The US is also losing its leadership in Asia Pacific as China continues to plug itself into the global economy. As the largest market (4mm new cellphone users every two weeks), Asian countries are increasingly finding China to supersede the US in its commercial priorities and eventually its political alliances.

Over time, as China and the EU rise, the US sphere of influence will diminish and be more focused on the Americas. When our great grandchildren read their history books, the turn of the millennium will be highlighted by an account of the "Decline of US Superpower."

The Malaysian PM let the cat out of the bag at the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) summit on Thursday, stating that Jews rule the world by proxy. Perhaps it is time to put Zoolander back in action.

Syria is surrounded by countries that are no longer in its "camp." Iraq, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon are not the friendly regimes they once were -- a consequence of Saddam's fall that has not gone unnoticed by the Israelis. In sending fighter planes "deep" into Syrian airspace, Israel is taking advantage of Assad's weak hand and relying on Bush's preemptive doctrine so abhorred by the UN leadership.

Instead of busting a gut, the boyz at State should sense the shifting balance of power on Israel's northern border and call Assad to the negotiating table.

Any DSBPI subscribers in Cali -- please write in to describe the mayhem!

DSBPI, in support of the previous post, notes the latest employment report. From NYT:

"Employment rose by 57,000 last month, the first increase since January, and the unemployment rate held steady at 6.1 percent, the Labor Department reported yesterday. But the increase in jobs was still not large enough to match the growth of the population, and the percentage of adults with jobs fell to the lowest level in 10 years."

Signs of light.

DSBPI notes that The Economist's GDP growth projections for 2004 show the US as the fastest growing of the developed nations. Jobless recovery, balderdash. The jobs will come as the economy expands, despite so called "productivity" growth. There are only so many subs one worker can fix at a time.

Bush should get the drums out and not be defensive on the economy.

Bush should start spending some of his war chest. No matter how Clintony it may feel to campaign early in the election cycle for reelection, Bush needs to unleash some magic now instead of waiting for the dems to choose their man. The constant browbeating the President is receiving from the cacophony of dems and the Bob Herberts of the world (see today's NYT) continues to hit Bush's numbers.

But W's weakness is not just an issue for Rove's office, but makes a difference for the country -- in its ability to negotiate with allies abroad, and keep the government running productively at home.

The DSBPI firmly believes that things in Iraq are better than they seem. The DSBPI firmly believes that the world is better without Saddam in power. The DSBPI sees the economy bouncing back (perhaps in time for the next president to get credit). The Bush ad wizards need to get on the air and start battling back, for the sake of the candidate and the nation.

Why are there still states in the US? What would be a better way to organize the population politically?

DSBPI at TLV airport sees headline in IHT; Consultant to US contractors in IRAQ has ties to Bush administration. Why is this a story? Maybe if the word "no" was inserted between "has" and "ties" there would be something to discuss.