Yeah. Any day now! Who'd want one of those one-button mice, anyway.
Apple, the maker of iPods, iPhones and iPads, overtook Microsoft, the computer software giant, on Wednesday to become the world’s most valuable technology company.
In intraday trading shortly after 2:30 p.m., Apple shares rose 1.8 percent, which gave the company a value of $227.1 billion. Shares of Microsoft declined about 1 percent, giving the company a market capitalization of $226.3 billion.
The only American company valued higher is Exxon Mobil, with a market capitalization of $282 billion.
I've often lambasted just about everyone who makes a car these days for failing to get it, primarily because the companies in question are largely not run by car people.
Evidently someone at Dodge finally figured out how to make a good ad, at least. Not much, but I'll take it.
The NYT finally goes tits up and ceases foisting this kind of nonsense on otherwise calm people.
The cliffs notes:
1) College student takes on ~$100,000 in student loans, so she can go to a "good school" and achieve a basket weaving degree with no real job prospects, and hence "has trouble" paying back the loans.
2) This is somehow the fault of Citibank for giving her the money.
The relevant blood-boiling excerpts:
Sallie Mae gets a pass here, in my view. A responsible grownup co-signed for its loans to the Munnas, and the company eventually cut them off.
But what was Citi thinking, handing over $40,000 to an undergraduate who had already amassed debt well into the five figures? This was, in effect, a “no doc” or at least a “low doc” subprime mortgage loan.
Right. So we're clear: Government run loan company giving unqualified borrowers tens of thousands of dollars: No problem.
Private (mostly) bank giving unqualified borrowers tens of thousands of dollars: Exploitation!!!111oneone.
Now let us review exactly why it is so difficult for this poor, exploited student to repay her loans:
Her mother can’t help without selling her bed and breakfast, and then she’d have no home. She could take her daughter in, but there aren’t good ways for her to earn a living in Alexandria Bay, in upstate New York.
Cortney could move someplace cheaper than her current home city of San Francisco, but she worries about her job prospects, even with her N.Y.U. diploma.
She recently received a raise and now makes $22 an hour working for a photographer. It’s the highest salary she’s earned since graduating with an interdisciplinary degree in religious and women’s studies.
Yeah, can't go live somewhere cheap, because evidently there are no photographers outside of San Francisco. Can't make more money, because the "super-mega-awesome degree from a prestigious university" is in Basket Weaving and carries with it absolutely no marketable skill set what so ever.
And all of this, mind you, is the fault of the eeeevil bank for giving her the loans, and the eeeevil university for not managing her finances for her.
