1689 Nuts

A couple of odds and ends today.
Imagine this dialogue:
"What's the one nut that everyone's allergic too?"
"Cashew?"
"Gesundheit"
Thank-you-very-much. I'm here all week.
So I was reading an article the other day about the Facebook Initial Product Offering and how much the business world thinks narcissistic gossip is worth (answer, $500 Billion) and I came across this interesting factoid. Last year Facebook reported 845 million users and a profit of one billion dollars. Sounds pretty impressive until you realize that in a whole year Facebook managed to gain a whopping profit of $1.18 a user.
Let's just hope your local coffee shop isn't run that way. Or Boeing factory. America would come to a grinding halt faster than you could post a Mayan calendar to a wall.
One question: Where can I buy that stock before the bubble bursts?
Talk about much ado about nothing. So how about much nothing about an ado. Great Britain's got it. Seems the former head of the Bank of England had to face some pretty rough consequences for his part in the run-up to the 2008 financial meltdown. Yep, they're stripping him of his knighthood.
Oooh. That is so harsh. Now no one will be able to call him "Sir"... Those English really know how to punish folks. I hope they don't unfriend him on the royal Facebook page too.
Lastly, big news from Amazon. Not content to be the most successful online store ever, they plan to open a brick-and-mortar store in Seattle later this year. Wow. Nothing like adding real estate, building maintenance, personnel, heating and power costs to your bottom line.
Worse, now folks can “showroom” them.
Odd move. Maybe they're trying to bring their profit structure in line with Facebook.
It's just plain nutty.
America, ya gotta love it.