May 12, 2011
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Have More Babies & Go USA! on NPR / California Report
This morning after my jog, I discovered an interesting ”new” feature of the iPod Nano that my son gave us for Christmas 2010: a radio!
How novel! My first reaction was to check out NPR KQED 88.5 on the ipod radio “dial”. I caught these two interesting stories, which by the way are today’s lead stories on the California Report for May 12, 2011.
The first report was on the growing aging population of California and that there are 250 million fewer children between 5 and 14.
http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201105120850/a
Recommendation: Make Mo’ Babies California!!! But maybe this is a good thing that people are not having kids here, the educational system is desparate need of reform and improvement. I still want to watch Waiting for Superman to help solidify that idea.
I couldn’t find the actual 2010 California census data on the overall population, but found this link: http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/2010_census/cb11-cn68.html interesting to see that there are roughly 2 million people between San Jose and San Francisco. I finally found out that there’s 9.8 million people in Los Angeles County. Still clueless about the actual population number of California, which I assume is around 35 million.
The second segment was on Rare Earth elements, which are used in different high tech gadgets like SmartPhones and Hybrid car batteries.
http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201105120850/b
It’s interesting to note that 97% of Rare Earth elements come from China. California is home to 1 of 2 mines which are outside of China. Looks like there’s one mining company that can stand up against China’s dominance in this market. Feels like David versus Goliath. Go USA! Oddly, the report states that of the 300 jobs that could be created directly from this venture and reopening of the mine, many would go to folks in Las Vegas, Nevada, which is the nearest city to the mine at Mountain Pass. MolyCorp (MCP $65.16) is the company that is responsible for the mine. I no longer have any positions in precious metals, this looks like it could be a potential candidate after some investigation. Ideally, I’d like some physical gold, silver, and oil but that’s ridiculously impractical. I guess I’ll have to stick to stocks for the companies involved in the production of these commodities.
Other Errata: Google is releasing it’s own NOTEBOOK! http://www.google.com/chromebook/chromebooks.html (time to contemplate which direction the GOOG ($535.05) stock will go…)
On a completely separate note, I had a great lunch with Badri! Thanks for stopping by the office for some chow, froyo, and a nice chat!
