I haven't listened to this yet, but for those who found this talk interesting Bruce also appears on the upcoming episode of Econtalk (www.econtalk.org). Those with a hacker mindset should be able to figure out that the episode is already up and accessible, just pay careful attention to how Econtalk names its episodes.
The TheCommandline.net podcast is approximately 30 minutes and the Econtalk.org is about 60 minutes and covers more topics like surveillance and terrorism in the end.
Bruce is very consistent in using his metaphors and very enjoyable in both podcasts, if you can't guess it, this one makes a good teaser.
The normal reason for paying large premiums is that shareholders aren't interested in selling at the current market rate (otherwise in a liquid market they already would have). If you offer a small premium of say 10% investors might just think there is a better deal out there. Consequently the market value of the company may jump by 15% forcing you to make a new offer of 20% which the market still doesn't accept etc.. until you finally reach a negotiated price. From the numbers side of things this looks better for the buyer because you may end up with a lower buying price. However this way of buying a company takes time and is very messy, giving competitors room to organize to make competing bids or convince the board to split of specific parts of the company.
Adding to the normal premiums are the current market conditions and the vast sums of liquid assets large tech companies are sitting on. Firstly the general market is down which usually means shares of healthy companies are "undervalued" (difficult to tell if they really are, but that's the consensus). Secondly liquid assets are "expensive" to own at the moment, some banks are charging negative interest on large deposits and bonds are sitting at around 0%. If you're a tech company sitting on huge piles of cash this means you want to spend that money on anything as long as it gives more than 0% interest. Shareholders know that companies have a lot of money to spend so they can demand very high premiums.
Google bought Motorola mobility at a 63% premium so HP buying at 79% isn't all that strange. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple and Microsoft aren't also considering some big takeovers (GIGAOM reported that microsoft was also considering buyingMotorola) because this is the time to get get rid of those big piles of money they have.
This sounds good and perhaps you have some financial experience to back this up, but I fundamentally disagree. At some point even a complex sale is just that...a sale, and this one is so questionable that anyone ignoring details like you put forth anyone would question this. Let alone the rumors of AU being a house of cards- in this market, HP should have walked and probably could have purchased AU for under $5B and the AU management would have run for the hills with the cash. Bottom line- it's a total enigma...time will tell!
1. Like others said this is in comparison to a flat non tracking solar panel, the tree configuration would lose out significantly against a tracking panel.
2. Fairly disingenuous graph on the second page, but then again professionals in business and science do this all the time as well.
3. With the current state of solar technology this patent is useless. But if someone invents solar cells who are so cheap that they cost less than the solar tracking equipment, this could become quite a lucrative patent.
4. I wasn't aware you could patent things which are this directly copied from nature. I was under the impression that you could say patent a mechanism which emulates the motion of a specific fish but not the motion itself, or can you ?
" although surprisingly this confirmation did not give any detail on which patent office or how the Duck story came to its attention"
This may come as a surprise to some, but in the Netherlands certain comics are considered respectable literature and have been for a very long time. Donald Duck, Kuifje (Tintin), Olivier B Bommel and Suske en Wiske are read by people of all ages and social classes. For example Donald Duck magazine is still one of the most popular magazines for college students.
