I just had the following experience:

I was reading a 30 page PDF report on my computer screen.  At page 9, I decided that I wanted to finish reading this report somewhere else other than in front of my computer screen and possibly at a later time.  I decided the best thing to do was to print out the report, so I could take it with me and also note that I was in the middle of page 9.

Not counting the time I spent printing it and stapling it together, the cost at about 5 to 10 cents per page for the printer, the paper, and the ink was a total of $1.50 to $3.00.

If you add these instances up over a year, how much would it be worth for me to have a device that would allow me to avoid the printing cost and wait time yet allow me to take the article and read it at a place and a time of my choosing.

At some point in the future that I cannot predict, the price of the device will drop below how much it would be worth to me.  At that point, I will be a grateful customer of the company that sells the device at a cost below its worth to me.

Follow this link to the above musing that I posted as a comment to an article about Amazon’s Kindle epaper device.

By the way, the 30 page report was the one discussed in my blog post Is Stenographer the Right Role For The Press?

Follow this link to a discussion on a report that said “The Media’s Decision to Play the Stenographer Helped Opponents of Climate Action Stifle Progress”

Follow this link to the actual report by Eric Pooley titled How Much Would You Pay to Save the Planet? The American Press and the Economics of Climate Change.

Follow this link to the comment that I made about the old saw that you should always believe the people who disagree with the consensus view because once in a blue moon they are right.

Follow this link to see how David Letterman has rated Dick Cheney’s performance as VP.

Follow this link to the AP story about SEC Chair Mary Schapiro saying new short-selling rules are a priority.

What a difference 100 days make.  It was in 2007, that the Bush appointed SEC chairman helped rescind the 60 year old uptick rule that some want to see re-instated.

The article is careful to point out that short selling is legal.  What I find odd is that there is no mention of enforcing rules about naked short selling.  This practice is supposed to be illegal, but breaking of these rules is widely flaunted.

Schapiro says that there is no “specific empirical evidence” that the absence of the uptick rule fueled abnormal market volatiliy.  However, abnormal market volatility is not the only ill that brings forth calls for enforcement of the rules.

Even if a small number of viable companies were driven out of business by naked short selling attacks, then the law ought to be enforced and the violators punished.  This is a completely different issue from statistical measures of the overall volatility of the market as a whole.