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In 2013, GE Capital accounted for 40% of GE's overall earnings. However by 2015, GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt says that GE Capital should account for 30% of GE's overall earnings. Why the deliberate move to redefine the revenue streams and reduce exposure in the financial segment? |
The financial segment -- GE Capital -- requires a significant amount of leverage to achieve the same return on equity when stacked against the industrial sector. So, reduced exposure to the financial segment allows GE to reduce the amount of debt it takes and in effect improve its return on equity, allowing it to compe... |
The impending Synchrony Financial IPO and consequent full spin-off of the segment thereby serves to increase GE's return on equity and overall attractiveness to investors. In addition, it has its own unique set of benefits that if critically analyzed, are telling of the wider strategy at play. |
First, let's look at the structure of the spin-off. GE will initially issue an IPO for 20% of Synchrony. Then in 2015, it will spin off the remaining 80% stake that it holds, effectively relinquishing its entire position in the operation. |
Here is the catch: The Synchrony Financial IPO will be priced in such a way that there is some substantial upside to the stock post-IPO. As such, GE's 80% stake in the business will be deemed more attractive after the IPO. Ideally, GE should be able to spin off the 80% stake in 2015 at a good premium compared to the IP... |
GE is focusing on creating shareholder value to drive up demand for its shares and allow it to more easily raise capital through the equity market, which is safer and allows for flexibility when compared with the debt market. Unlike the case with capital sourced from debt instruments, a company doesn't necessarily have... |
Why does GE have an insatiable need for capital, particularly 'safer' capital from equity markets? |
All roads lead to oil and gas production infrastructure |
By reducing overall downside risks, GE will be able to attract investors in the equity market, giving it 'safer' capital needed to throw its full weight behind the industrial segment, particularly oil and gas infrastructure. |
As my colleague Isaac Pino argued in a previous article, GE is putting a lot of emphasis on innovation and efficiency, including pushing forward with efforts to reduce its new product introduction cycle by 30% over the next few years in order to present first-to-market solutions to its customers. |
This renewed interest in innovation is slowly pushing GE into the epicenter of America's shale boom narrative. GE has identified a huge problem with fracking -- the technology behind America's oil production resurgence. |
Shale output declines faster than output from unconventional plays. One estimate from the International Energy Agency says that it will take up to 2,500 new wells a year to sustain output of 1 million barrels per day in North Dakota's Bakken shale. In stark contrast, Iraq could comfortably do the same with 60 wells. |
This means that for the U.S. to increase its output at a faster pace, it will need to engage in more drilling and production when compared with other countries that pursue conventional plays. But there is a downside. Fracking is not only cripplingly expensive relative to conventional methods reduced production in the o... |
General Electric is advancing a capture-use-recapture system that uses CO2 instead of water for fracking. The CO2 is recycled. This reduces overall costs and limits carbon emissions. In addition, the CO2 reduces the need for water, conserving current supplies. |
Foolish takeaway |
Overall, GE's capture-use-recapture CO2 system should be a game changer in the oil and gas production sector as producers are looking for cheaper and greener ways to produce oil and remain competitive. This new fracking solution, if properly explored, will allow GE to widen its revenue streams from the industrial secto... |
This explains the reduced exposure in risky highly leveraged segments such as GE Capital as well as the deliberate attempt to make GE's shares more attractive in order to rope in more investors in the equity markets. |
Immigration in the Aftermath of Berlin |
The Mirror has an article up about the Berlin Christmas Market Terror attack sounding all the superficially right notes about how to react to it. I agree with the overall sentiment, but since immigration is rapidly becoming the Issue of the Year, broad outlines aren’t enough. This is an issue we need to start talking a... |
It does more or less what you’d expect. (1) It does whatever it can to point out that Anis Amri was a criminal long before he was a jihadist. (2) It notes that the Polish driver of the truck – who apparently fought back and quite possibly managed to blunt the impact of the attack1 – was also an immigrant, and that any ... |
There is nothing to disagree with in any of that. In particular, (4) and (5) are points worth keeping in mind. To the extent "western values" have anything to say about this kind of incident, it’s that guilt-by-association isn’t a principle of law. The law can only punish you if you do something illegal – and neither b... |
Nevertheless, articles like this are overly simplistic. Let’s take each of these arguments in turn and show how. |
1. Anis Amri was a criminal long before he was a jihadist. That is probably true of most jihadists, actually. There’s nothing magic about the Koran such that reading it hypnotizes anyone into being a psychopath. We know from research done on kill rates during WWII (primarily by S.L.A. Marshall) that most people aren’... |
2. The Polish driver of the truck was also an immigrant. So? There really isn’t a problem with selective immigration restrictions and quotas. Virtually every country in the world already has these in place. Polish culture isn’t infected with jihadist ideology. Polish culture is highly similar to German culture. Polis... |
3. The filtering system worked in Amri’s case. This is probably their worst argument, both because it is largely untrue, and also because even to the extent it is true (which isn’t very much), the very external factors the Mirror argument wants you to forget are the ones that prevented it from being effective. Those ... |
4. Treating muslims as a monolithic group plays into terrorists’ hands. That’s correct, as far as it goes. The problem is that this argument cuts both ways. Completely embracing muslims plays into terrorists’ hands too, by giving them an easy conduit to their pick of Western targets. This is the most sensitive part o... |
5. Open societies don’t preemptively jail people for what they might do, only for what they do. Acting as though this is an issue raised by this incident is the one truly disingenuous argument in the piece. Let’s get this much out of the way: a prohibition on jailing people preemptively on mere suspicion is at the co... |
Merkel’s immigration policy may have been motivated by the best of intentions, but it is a failure, and failures are things that rational people learn from. The effect of this policy has been to demonstrate why there need to be country-based limits on immigration. I am not German, but if I were, I would be comfortable ... |
1. by grabbing the wheel and steering the truck away from the crowd, right before he was shot to death (there’s no way to prove this is what happened, of course, but there’s some suggestive evidence) |
2. The permanent CDU/CSU coalition is often called "Union" as a shorthand in the German political press. |
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Add a Separator |
This plugin adds a separator between the intro text and the extended (more…) text of the content of a post. It simply replaces the span id more tag with the separator that is set in the plugins php file. |
Some separator samples are given there. |
Upload into the /plugins directory and activate it in the Plugins Menu. |
Fixed a bug that forced WordPress Adminmenu to show a white blank page. |
Initial Release |
• See a short part of the code |
1. Upload add-a-separator.php to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory |
3. Edit the $separator variable in the add-a-separator.php to change your separator |
Can i change the separator? |
Yes, simply change it in the plugin php file to your needs! |
Contributors & Developers |
“Add a Separator” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin. |
Translate “Add a Separator” into your language. |
Interested in development? |
Monday, June 30, 2014 |
A profound difference in Canadians and Americans |
Last Thursday, in a unanimous 8-0 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada granted declaration of aboriginal title to more than 1,700 square kilometres of land in British Columbia to the Tsilhqot'in First Nation, the first time the court has made such a ruling regarding aboriginal land. |
Last week's decision by Canada's Supreme Court certainly surprised me; but nothing surprised me more than the public support for it among Canadians. Just read a few of the comments to the CBC report cited above. They are overwhelmingly in favor of the natives; many thanking the natives for standing up to the governme... |
Canada's First Nations, our aboriginal citizens, enjoy two bodies of rights that are recognized in Canada's Constitution. The first is called their "inherent rights", rights they have as the original inhabitants of this land; the most important inherent right (under law) is that of self-governance. The other set of r... |
And that is a major difference in Canada and the US. In the US, even though the Constitution of the United States says, explicitly, that "all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land," treaties made with the American native peoples have all b... |
Not only do Canada and the US differ in their application of law to their respective aboriginal populations, but look at the difference in the attitudes of the people in the two countries. Americans, by and large, are learning to accept a "tyranny of the majority" (to borrow John Adams' famous phrase). Where Canada ha... |
What most Canadians recognize, still, is the concept of individual rights that supersede the will of the majority. And, ironically, it just doesn't get more "American" than that. Canadians realize that they protect the rights of every individual by defending the rights of the minority; not by enforcing the dictates o... |
You want to protect your own right to free speech? Then stand for the right of another to express a view with which you strongly disagree. Some of you can start with me. |
You want to protect your right to be free from indefinite imprisonment without trial? Defend the rights of those who have been held in prison for 12 years without a single shred of evidence of any wrong-doing ever presented to a judge. |
You want to protect your right to practice religious expression? I think you know what to do. |
As Ron Paul said in his 1987 book Freedom Under Siege, "Government by majority rule has replaced strict protection of the individual from government abuse." |
Not necessarily so in Canada. Not yet, anyway. |
Thank you, Tsilhqot'in Nation! |
Fears of tech addiction in kids living 'digital childhood' |
Internet is now more popular than TV and 25% of toddlers have their own media device, new research finds |
Posted by Hannah Vickers | September 13, 2017 | E-safety |
ofcom, internet, technology-addiction, survey, tech-and-play, onbuy, digital-childhood |
Over the years, children’s entertainment has transformed significantly, with children today being more likely to use the internet frequently than adults. OFCOM (Office of Communications) reports that internet usage has overtaken TV for the first-time as the top media pastime for children around the UK. Researchers stud... |
According to a survey by Tech and Play (2015), 25% of under threes have their own media device, such as a tablet or games console, and 37% of three to five year olds. The remainder of children share use with friends and other family members, as a large number of household’s own tablets. Older children, between five and... |
Research conducted by OFCOM has shown that the use of technology amongst children has increased considerably, particularly amongst young children. In 2015, toddlers aged around three to four years old spent on average 6 hours and 48 minutes per week on electronic devices, which soared to 8 hours and 18 minutes last yea... |
It is unsurprising that children today are becoming addicted to technology when the number of apps available for children to play on the Apple ‘App Store’ and Android’s ‘Google Play’ are on the rise. According to statistics released by Statista, in the space of two years (January 2015 to 2017), apps on the App Store gr... |
OFCOM research has suggested that, due to the increase in technology use among young children, only one in 10 toddlers of the so-called “iPad generation” are labelled as being ‘healthy’ by paediatricians. The Nightingale Hospital, located in central London, has treated children as young as 12 years old for ‘technology ... |
Children who spend the majority of their childhood online tend to have less of an ability to focus than youngsters who use technology minimally |
Furthermore, starting at a screen, such as an electronic device, can arguably have adverse effects on the brain and concentration. Technology has a profound impact on the way young children think and feel, and since technology is full of stimuli and often requires paying attention to a number of things at the same time... |
In a survey by Onbuy.com, a sample of parents with children aged from zero to 15 years old were asked series of questions regarding technology. 64% of the parents questioned said that they would prefer money to be spent on children’s television rather than on electronic apps, to avoid children from becoming addicted to... |
When Onbuy.com asked parents why they allowed their children to play on tablets and game consoles for long periods of time, parents had four main responses: |
· They didn’t allow children to play on electronic devices for long periods of time (14%) |
· They only allowed use for educational purposes (29%) |
· For entertainment, socialising and winding down (22%) |
· Convenience; for parents to keep their child entertained and quiet whilst they complete chores, cook or work (33%). |
Due to the rise in technology, there has been a noticeable decline in children’s programming times on popular television channels, such as ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. In 1998, repeats of children’s TV shows made up just 38% of children’s television, whereas in 2011, the figure rose sharply to 91%, according to OFCOM ... |
According to the BBC, over the last six years, children’s viewing of TV programmes has dropped by more than a quarter. In an attempt to revive the children’s sector, last month, the BBC unveiled it will invest more money into children’s television as part of the BBC's first Annual Plan. The new investment will see the ... |
Connective Knowledge |
From P2P Foundation |
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Connective Knowledge = A property of one entity must lead to or become a property of another entity in order for them to be considered connected; the knowledge that results from such connections is connective knowledge. |
From Stephen Downes, at |
Connective knowledge "is more than just the existence of a relation between one entity and another; it implies interaction. A relation - such as 'taller than' or 'next to' - is a type of quality. It describes a property of the object in question, with reference to a second object. But the fact that I am, say, 'taller t... |
This is why it is incorrect to represent distributed knowledge merely as a type of probabilistic knowledge. The logic of probability implies no connection between correlated events; it merely observes a distribution. A connected system will exhibit probabilistic characteristics, but it is not itself probabilistic. |
Probabilistic knowledge is a type of quantitative knowledge. It is based on the counting of things (or events, or whatever) and of comparisons between one count and another (one needs only to read Carnap to see this clearly). A poll, for example, gives us probabilistic information; it tells us how many people would vot... |
Connective knowledge requires an interaction. More to the point, connective knowledge is knowledge of the connection. If Janet votes a certain way because I told her to, an interaction has taken place and a connection has been established. The knowledge thus observed consists not in how Janet and I will vote, nor in ho... |
Connective "Emergence" |
From Stephen Dowes, at |
"First, we may perceive an actual set of connections linking a group of entities as a distinct whole. For example, when one domino topples another, and so on, in turn, and we observe this from a distance, we may observe what appears to be a wave moving through the dominos. The wave that we observe can be said to be an ... |
Second, we may perceive something as a distinct whole and interpret this as a set of connections. For example, when we look at the image of Richard Nixon on the television, we do not perceive the individual pixels, but rather, the image of a person. But our inference goes beyond merely the observation of the person; if... |
Emergence is fundamentally the result of interpretation. " ( |
Characteristics of Connective Knowledge |
Is the widest possible spectrum of points of view revealed? |
Were the individual knowers contributing to the interaction of their own accord, according to their own knowledge, values and decisions, or were they acting at the behest of some external agency seeking to magnify a certain point of view through quantity rather than reason and reflection? |
Is the knowledge being produced the product of an interaction between the members, or is it a (mere) aggregation of the members' perspectives? |
Is there a mechanism that allows a given perspective to be entered into the system, to be heard and interacted with by others? (George Siemens) |
Zizo: using a pattern database |
Philip Howard |
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