Verizon

As creativity dies, so will the usefulness of the US cellular carrier.

AT&T holds the key to the trend in Apple's cash cow product

Senator Frank Church's Prophetic Warning in 1975

• Current account surplus recycling goes global: BRICS demand bigger IMF role before giving it cash (Reuters)
• Obama oil margin plan could increase price swings (Reuters)
• Britons Abandoning Pensions Amid ‘Outdated’ Rules (Bloomberg)
• Hedge-Fund Assets Rise to Record Level (WSJ)
• Way to restore confidence: SEC considers case against Egan-Jones (FT)
• Qatari wealth fund adds 5% Tiffany stake  (FT)
• "Do we file?" Dewey Pitches Plan for Rescue (WSJ)
• French president slips further behind Socialist challenger Hollande (ANI)
• Nine U.S. Banks Said to be Examined on Overdraft Fees (Bloomberg)
• Capital Rotation: Investors fret on emerging markets and look to U.S. (Reuters)
• Verizon's Answer to iPhone: Windows (WSJ)

George Orwell was right. He was just 30 years early.

In its April cover story, Wired has an exclusive report on the NSA's Utah Data Center, which is a must read for anyone who believes any privacy is still a possibility in the United States: "A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks.... Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.”... The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013." In other words, in just over 1 year, virtually anything one communicates through any traceable medium, or any record of one's existence in the electronic medium, which these days is everything, will unofficially be property of the US government to deal with as it sees fit... As former NSA operative William Binney who was a senior NSA crypto-mathematician, and is the basis for the Wired article (which we guess makes him merely the latest whistleblower to step up: is America suddenly experiencing an ethical revulsion?), and quit his job only after he realized that the NSA is now openly trampling the constitution, says as he holds his thumb and forefinger close together. "We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state."

Listen up you Muppets!!!!! I'm rehearsing from my Goldman Interview, applying for retail stock broker, pushing Apple inventory :-)

• Brazil declares new ‘currency war’ (FT)
• Postal Cuts Are Dead Letter in Congress (WSJ)
• China state banks to boost selected property loans (Reuters)
• ECB Says Overnight Deposits Surge to Record (Bloomberg)
• Van Rompuy confirmed for 2nd term as EU Council president (Reuters) - you mean dictator
• BOJ Shirakawa: Japan consumer prices to gradually rise (Reuters)
• IMF Says Threat of Sharp Global Slowdown Eased (Reuters)
• Eurozone delays half of Greece’s funds (FT)
• BOJ Openings Can Shape Monetary Policy (Bloomberg)

• BOJ Adds to Monetary Easing After Contraction (Bloomberg)
• EU to punish Spain for deficits, inaction (Reuters)
• Obama, China's Xi to tread cautiously in White House talks (Reuters)
• Global suicide 2020: We can’t feed 10 billion (MarketWatch)
• Greece rushes to meet lender demands (Reuters)
• Obama Budget Sets Up Election-Year Tax Fight (Reuters)
• Foreign Outcry Over ‘Volcker Rule’ Plans (FT)
• Moody’s Shifts Outlook for UK and France (FT)
• France to Push On With Trading Tax (FT)

• Merkel Seeks to Reassure China (FT)
• German-IMF Rift Stalls Greece Deal (WSJ)
• Survey of Banks Shows a Sharp Cut in Lending in Europe (NYT)
• Bernanke to testify on economy and deficit (AP)
• House votes to freeze congressional, federal pay (WaPo)

Why Do We Write Again and Again About SOPA?  Because It Would Kill the Internet and Free Speech ...

A amazing as Apple's growth was last quarter during the iPhone release on Verizon's network, Google's Android still gained market share and the two main Android handset vendors doubled and tripled Apple's handset growth. It's fair to say that Android is to Google in 2013 as Windows is to Microsoft in the '90s. Network effect, y'all hear?

Some 18 months ago, Verizon wired the Village of Croton-on-Hudson, New York, for FiOS, the fiber optic service that supposedly includes telephony, Internet access and, yes, high-speed HD television. But despite the fact that the Village of Croton has been wired for fiber for more than a year, no TV. Indeed, it now appears that VZ may be thinking of dumping the TV offering entirely.

This is unbelievable. Verizon thinks math is a matter of opinion.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCJ3Oz5JVKs&hl=en&fs=1]