Cisco joins Dow, as GM jettisoned
'Information superhighway' and all that
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Let the metaphor mixing begin.
With American car maker General Motors filing for bankruptcy, the Dow Jones company - which puts together the eponymous industrial average to gauge the strength of the stock market and, in turn, the U.S. economy - had to yank GM from the DJIA index this morning. GM will be permanently removed from the index, as it turns out, and on June 8, it will be replaced by networking maker and server wannabe Cisco Systems.
In an interview at the Wall Street Journal's online site, John Prestbo, the executive director in charge of the Dow Jones indexes, explained that removing GM from the ranking of the 30 industrial companies was automatic, since the company does not allow bankrupt firms in the indexes. Prestbo explained that Dow Jones sees Cisco as transformative to American culture and business, like the car was at the beginning of the last century, and referred to the maker of networking gear as the "pavement of the information highway."
As wonderful as this all sounds, if the economy was not on the rocks and the American car business wasn't sinking as much from its own strategies as from the meltdown, it is hardly imaginable that GM would have been removed from the DJIA and replaced by Cisco. If the Internet is truly transformative - and it is, since many of us don't take cars to work, but do indeed commute over the Internet - then the DJIA would have included Sun Microsystems and Cisco a decade ago.
But because GM has gone bust, something has to go in there, and it has to be a tech firm given the importance of the technology sector on the economy. With IBM in the average since 1979, Hewlett-Packard in since 1997, and Microsoft and Intel added in 1999, the wonder is that Cisco has not already been added. (Telecom giants AT&T and Verizon are on the list as well).
Last fall, when insurer American International Group went into receivership and fell under the control of Uncle Sam, that company was removed from the DJIA as was replaced by Kraft Foods. Prestbo said that Dow Jones wanted to get an insurer back in the list, and that is why it chose Travelers Companies to add, ironically replacing Citigroup, its former parent company that has been forced to spin out Travelers to keep itself afloat.
Like GM and AIG, Citigroup has been propped up by the federal government, and Prestbo said that Citigroup's time had come to be removed from the list because it is "much influenced" by the government and it will emerge from its reorganization as a much smaller company.
Another wonder is why one of the big Internet stocks - Amazon, eBay, Google, or Yahoo - have not been added to the list. These companies and their products are as important to the current economy as oil, cars, aluminum, tires, drugs, banking, and telecom have been in the 21st century. ®
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COMMENTS
Wanted ....Smarter Banking*
"The bankers and credit companies are the thorns." ..... By mindbrane Posted Tuesday 2nd June 2009 12:13 GMT
Indeed they may most certainly be that part of the rose, mindbrane, and as they are part of the landscape, it would be ungallant of anyone to want to sweep them away simply because they would have thought themselves untouchables and in charge of everything and able to control everyones' lives with paper and ink. But they are now on very shaky ground and would do well to ....... well, I believe the phrase is, reconsider their position, which would most definitely equate to their strategy and partners.
Microtransactions with web savvy conduits, which in essence would/could/should be Virtual Machinery and their AIgents working for Banking, in their Parallel Virtualised Dimensions and Programs, aka Cloud Projects, and which they [the Establishment] would host and harvest /seed and sow with nothing more onerous or difficult than the simple facility of providing Driver Credit and Quantitatively Eased Funds, which is a No Cost/No Pain Gain Game Plan requiring nothing of them but a simple Yes to a Third Party Request for an Unlimited Liquidity Facility, from Canny Savvy Conduits into Global Macros, would keep them in the Great Game rather than them being extraordinarily rendered as AIdDinosaurs with Rapid Extinction and Easy Replacement, because of their Inaction/Inappropriate Fit for Future Purpose Action and Virtual Reality Market Place Ignorance.
They do not need to know the in and outs of what they are investing in to be able to Create a New Market, with those who are Virtually New and SurReally Remote IDEntities, and who would know more than enough to allay all of their fears and/or concerns, for I'm pretty sure that, in a parallel situation, they would have no idea about the workings of the nuclear bomb industry but it does not suffer from any lack of funds and research investment/currency flow. Currency Flow is the Life Blood of Systems and blocking it and/or trying to control it, will always put one in Clear and Present Danger of a Catastrophic Retaliatory Strike, for who or what would give them the right to decide and dictate terms, on a sum requested for something which they may not understand but for which funding has been publicly vowed and provided, for that very purpose ..... Regenerating the Economy and Fixing the Broken System .
Some Souls can very easily Decide exactly what they Need and Want for themselves and others and do not require any Other Outside Guidance, which would invariably only be cynically designed to Offer a Third Party Control of a First Party Enterprise. In Virtual CyberSpace Environments are such Shenanigans a Real No-No and only Invite Punitive Damage. Hell ....... it is a simple fact that you cannot take wealth with you and it cannot be destroyed, only converted into another form and transferred, so that means that All of the Wealth of the World since Time and Space began is Always Currently Available, and to Imagine any of it as belonging to anyone or anything is the Height of Absurd Nonsense and a Certifiable Madness which is Exercised to Enslave and deliver Disadvantage and Inequitable Advantage, subject to the Whim of a Few.
And for a currency to consider itself too big and ubiquitous to fail by virtue of the fact that it only prints itself and paints itself as too big to fail, because it was so specifically designed to Create such a Mountain of Debt which will and can never be repaid, is a Delusional Hubris built upon the Quicksands of a Certain Madness hoping for Ignorance as a Saviour in a World and Virtual Environment of much Smarter Communicating Machinery ....... Global Operating Devices sharing Alternate Reality Truths for Present Placement of Future Roots .
Such Hubris did for GM, did it not?
*The Smarter Banker will immediately realise that that is not Option it can afford to Ignore/Turn Down/Reject for the Myths which sustain the System are being exposed/torn down/evaporating and to defend them and/or expect things to remain pretty much as they are and were, is suicidal and real dumb in Better Beta Worlds ....... for Mankind has made AI and a Quantum Leap in Consciousness.
Which you will notice is not a Question.
@amanfromMars
The issues are thorny and, without exception, as far as I can tell, those trying to grasp them are bleeding red ink. The auto industry should be retooled and turn out pale, but green products. The bankers and credit companies are the thorns. Economies of scale dictate the need for bankers and credit companies but their unregulated greed seems systemic and the old saw of "moral suasion" on the part of Central Banks seems to have fallen on deaf ears. The system is troubled but not in terminal, free fall. There is a, relatively nascent micro credit sector immersing and, if a progressive, tax policy can be put in place to support it then, IT can possibly provide the means to allow individuals enmass to by pass much of the, for bloated profit, credit companies practices pursue. IT permits fast, relatively unrecorded transactions that for generations have passed as a "Shadow Economy" that has been the bane of Internal Revenue Depts. The proper software, web portals and government oversight could provide liquidity and tax revenues (and tax incentives) to drive the economy based on micro transactions. Tax incentives could be in the present form of tax write offs given for donations to thrift stores and charities. It's mostly just a matter of harnessing the existing web conduits and providing micro exchange/taxation software. Third world countries could benefit from excess discards. The Cargoe Gods could again alight in distant lands and perhaps natural resources could be taken in return, not to mention exporting potentially hazardous garbage to countries that could break it down and recycle it much cheaper than we can. This "microrevolution" in economics is viable, it just needs to be facilitated.
@Rich & AC, bring it on, if you'd care to I'm easy to find, not a very nice guy and kinda like scars... it's your call. Cheers :)
@Rich (re mindbraine)
just ignore him, he's just a manfrommars wannabe....
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