Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is still working on that security flaw

Private photos belonging to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg were revealed as a result of a recent glitch in the system used to report inappropriate images on the social network. They got attention after being uploaded to an album on photo-sharing service Imgur.

(Mr. Sunshine) Warren Buffett goes solar

Despite being rocked by scandal and corruption industry-wide (see: George Kaiser: Oil Magnate and Crony Capitalist) billionaire Warren Buffett has decided to take a shot at the solar industry.

Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings utility has agreed to buy the $2 billion Topaz project in Southern California, thus, branching into solar power after the industry has been battered by poor stock market performance.

Leon Cooperman bottom fishes with RIM

Ex-Goldman Sachs honcho, and current Omega Advisors hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman has taken a bullish position on RIM - Research in Motion. [RIM is down 73% YTD 2011]

Our Think Billions research department has yet to determine if old' Leon Cooperman owns a cell phone or knows how to spell smartphone or even thinks that RIM is still IN MOTION.

"RIM could rise again when it finally gets its new QNX operating system. It’s still got a hell of a user base. “We think the new operating system is constructive,” Cooperman told CNBC. “RIM has over 70 million users. … There is tremendous intellectual property and the possibility they could resurrect themselves and go on a better track. We took a speculative position.”

A $100 billion IPO for Facebook in 2012

Facebook Inc., the private social networking service located in Palo Alto, California will be going IPO in 2012 (initial public offering).

Will you be an investor?

Facebook, currently, is targeting dates between April 2012 and June 2012 for an initial public offering of its common stock. The company would raise approximately $10 billion in an IPO that would result in Facebook being valued at more than $100 billion.

Wow! A proposed billion dollar casino for Miami

From the 11/29/11  WSJ:

A Malaysian gambling company wants to build what could be the world's largest casino on prime land along Miami's waterfront. It has spent about $450 million on real estate, pledged to help rebuild part of an interstate highway and hired 23 lobbyists to press for a new Florida law. The focus of Genting Bhd.'s costly campaign is a proposed $3.8 billion casino resort with six towers, 50 restaurants and a shopping mall overlooking Biscayne Bay.

The Economist Hates both Meg Whitman and HP

What can one say when a "business" magazine (like The Economist) becomes far less a business magazine and far more like an entertainment news weekly which emphasizes the sizzle rather than the steak. One could say many things.

Sounding ever so much like shill advertising for or a regurgitated version of Jim Collins' Good to Great with strong warnings against charismatic corporate leaders, The Economist recently sounded off on Meg Whitman and the HP decision to bring her in as CEO [The Economist, October 1, 2011, p.74.]

Let us count the ways.

The Economist doesn't like what Meg did at eBay, doesn't like she lost the race for governor of California, just doesn't like her period.

Not once does The Economist recognize Meg Whitman's smart decision to review the decision to cancel the proposed sale or spin-off of its $40 billion PSG business. This decision was made, in haste, by the previous administration.

Not once does The Economist recognize the critical need for replacing the incompetent CEO, who had held the job for only 11 months, known as Leo Apotheker. Perhaps it is because Leo is a former European hero of the magazine, by way of as the CEO of SAP, the huge software company based in Germany.

 Sometimes software and hardware do not mix well.

Not once does The Economist recognize the need for sound business research.

The Think Billions blog wishes Meg Whitman well at HP.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg: Get out of my Park!

UPDATE! A court order has emerged allowing Occupy Wall Street protesters back into New York's Zuccotti Park only a few hours after the group was forcibly evicted from the encampment by police in a pre-dawn raid.

Steve Wynn: Pro Growth billionaire

"I am watching my employees standard of living drop off because of deficits. I think that the American public is beginning to make the connection between deficits and their own loss of the standard... I say right now that the Democratic agenda of spend and bribe the public has bankrupt this country, and until it stops, the citizens of this country are in for more hard times. And fancy speeches aren't going to change that. Only a fundamental realization that citizens are going to have to take real, sophisticated responsibility for how we allocate the resources of this country."

Polo Ralph Lauren: How Real is this Momentum Play?

What a momentum play Polo Ralph Lauren (NYSE: RL) has been during 2011 so far.

This retailer thinks it is a dot.com from the Web 1.0 days.

Currently trading at about $ 155 per share, it is up a cool 37 % so far in 2011.

Investors, speculators and fashionable people around the world are looking at RL and asking whether it can continue. Well can it? The answer is no Polo Ralph Lauren (NYSE: RL ) carries over a billion of goodwill and other intangibles on its balance sheet. Not a good sign. Other issues such as global consumer spending in Europe is raising red flags. Enjoy the lofty values with RL while they last.

There are OTM put options on RL that are surprisingly not that expensive.

Bill Gates: Tax Me and Tax Me Again

At a recent talk at the University of Washington, software billionaire Bill Gates explains why he is an enthusiastic "tax and tax again" billionaire.

(After all, it is all very cool talk these days, this "tax me" stuff; since very few billionaires like Mr. Gates were even close to being greedy billionaires on the way up. Correct? So, these billionaire public relations tours are just all very, very cool to listen to if you enjoy listening to a re-writing of U.S. business history.)

Gates gave a talk at the University of Washington's computer science building regarding a whole ranges of subjects. He commented:

"I didn’t start out with the dream of being super-rich. And even after we started Microsoft, and the guys who ran Intel -- Gordon Moore and those guys -- were billionaires, I was like, 'Wow, that must be strange.' And so -- it is, it's quite strange."

Jee, Bill, wow.

"So I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars, because there's meaningful freedom that comes with that. But once you get much beyond that -- you know, I have to tell you, it's the same hamburger. Dick's has not raised their prices enough. But, you know, being ambitious is good. You just have to pick what you enjoy doing."

Yeah, hamburgers.

"In terms of the very rich ... Warren Buffett and I are the two wealthiest Americans -- are certainly believing that the rich should be taxed a lot more...and the rich should give away more wealth than they currently do. And we've certainly been willing to speak out about that."

Speak out! And and reach out, Bill! Keep reaching out.

Billionaire Donates $18M to Andre Agassi's Charter School

Billionaire Donates $18M to Andre Agassi's Charter School

Mr. Greene goes to #OWS

Real estate billionaire Jeff Greene, who enjoys some truly interesting Hollywood friends such as Oliver Stone, Heidi Fleiss, and Mike Tyson, recently got a chance to visit New York City and Occupy Wall Street.

These are some of the things he discovered and commented on: 

"To me Occupy Wall Street is symbolic ... right now it's like a college sit-in"

"It looks like a street fair to me ... people are buying cookies, musicians are singing"

"To me it's much ado about nothing ... they complained about the 1% versus the 99% and how the 1% rules government, and I said that it only takes 51% to put the person you want in office." 

> Undercover Billionaire Forbes: November 7, 2011; p.22

Mayor Mike Bloomberg: Get off my street!

"I don't appreciate the bashing of all the hard working people who live and work here and pay the taxes that support our city." 


 "The city depends on Wall Street. Let's not forget, those taxes pay our teachers, pay our police officers, pay our firefighters. Those taxes we get from the profits companies and the incomes, they go to pay for this library."

Raj Raj gets 11-year sentence in fraud case

Raj Rajaratnam sets a record for the longest prison term in U.S. history for insider trading. Raj Rajaratnam, the hedge fund billionaire at the center of one of the largest insider trading cases in history, was sentenced Thursday to 11 years in prison, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan.

George Kaiser: Oil Magnate and Crony Capitalist

The George Kaiser Family Foundation in Tulsa, OK was the largest shareholder in the now-bankrupt solar [waste project] company, Solyndra.

Kaiser, a Harvard MBA, is just another one of those rich oil guys you read about who's latest billionaire brainstorm idea was to put his guilty [oil]  conscience to rest by putting taxpayers on the hook for his pet solar cause. He is famous for saying things like:


"There's never before been more money shoved out the government's door in world history ... And our selfish parochial goal is to get as much for Tulsa and Oklahoma as we possibly can."

Only when George Kaiser speaks of "Tulsa and Oklahoma" - he really means The George Kaiser Family Foundation and crony capitalism.