- Microsoft (MSFT) insists one of its top priorities is to bring a Windows-based tablet to market sooner than later. Sounds straightforward. The problem is, [Microsoft] doesn’t always manage to do things really right,” Digital Daily blogger John Paczkowski says. “Certainly, it didn’t manage it with Windows Vista. Or Windows Mobile. Or Zune. Or, more recently, Kin. Who’s to say this time will be any different?”
- Tough to get true read on what’s happening in the stock market these days. “The cross-currents lately are absolutely cartoonish — back-to-back-to-back triple digit rallies while each morning we are treated to fresh evidence of ‘Slouching Housing, Hidden Consumer,’” Joshua Brown writes at The Reformed Broker.
- Hank Paulson says government policies promoting homeownership should be blamed as a major cause of the financial crisis, but FusionIQ CEO Barry Ritholtz disagrees, saying the former Treasury secretary ignores facts and is rewriting history. “His commentary is thinly veiled attempt to rewrite what actually occurred, and to shift his own sad role from conductor of the theft, to hapless victim of long standing government policy. If this exercise wasn’t such a transparent attempt at self-exoneration, it would be amusing.”
- Facebook isn’t planning to go public until 2012, Bloomberg reports. “That certainly sounds plausible,” MediaMemo blogger Peter Kafka says, especially considering Facebook likely doesn’t need to raise cash for operations. And if Facebook doesn’t IPO anytime soon, expect social games giant Zynga to face less pressure to go public too.
- “There is good news and bad news,” Ryan Avent writes at Economist’s Free Exchange blog, regarding 2Q GDP report. “Underlying growth looks quite weak, and in quarters to come the contribution from both government and inventory shifts will fall, or turn negative. All indicators suggest that second half growth will be no faster than first half growth.”
- GDP growth rate of only 2.4% isn’t nearly enough for the economy to properly recovery. “This shows clearly that Congress and the Fed should have taken a more aggressive posture already, not doing so was a mistake, and it’s a clear signal that the economy still needs more help,” Mark Thoma writes at MoneyWatch.
- But NYT’s Floyd Norris still thinks the recovery will pick up steam in near future. He notes this was third-straight quarter in which private sector investment rose at an annual rate of more than 25%. “The last time that figure rose as rapidly was in 1984, in the midst of a very strong recovery,” Norris says. “To be sure, private investment is coming off a very depressed level. But it is worth recalling that 1984′s recovery was also widely doubted.”
- As the Fed grapples with methods to support flagging economic growth, Monument Securities economist Stephen Lewis says (via Alphaville) that central bankers “seem close to recognizing” that their actions don’t determine the economy’s performance. “They can no longer demonstrate, or credibly claim, the omnipotence attributed to them by credulous markets in the era of the Greenspan cult.”
- Slate Group, the Washington Post’s (WPO) online unit, is shutting The Big Money, a business site it launched in September 2008, Kafka reports. “The problem, in a nutshell, is that the site is not pointed toward profitability on a fast enough timetable,” Slate said.
- “The global corporate-bond boom is gathering steam as companies rush to take advantage of some of the lowest borrowing costs in history,” WSJ says.
