Name	CNBC
Logofile	CNBC.svg
Logosize	150px
Branding	CNBC
Launch	April 17, 1989
Picture format	480i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV)
Share
Network	NBC
Owner	NBC Universal
Slogan	"First in Business Worldwide"
Country	United States
Language	English
Broadcast area	United States Canada
Headquarters	Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Sister names	CNBC WorldMSNBCNBCWeather Channel
Callsign meaning	Consumer News and Business Channel
Web	CNBC.com
Sat serv 1	DirecTV (U.S.)
Sat chan 1	355 (SD/HD)
Sat serv 2	Dish Network (U.S.)
Sat chan 2	208 (SD/HD)9439 (HD)
Sat serv 3	C-Band
Sat chan 3	AMC-10, Channel 101 (Transponder 13)
Sat serv 4	Shaw Direct (Canada)
Sat chan 4	504
Cable serv 1	Available on most US and Canadian cable systems
Cable chan 1	Check local listings for channels
Cable serv 2	In-House (Washington)
Cable chan 2	Channel 13
Sat radio serv 1	Sirius
Sat radio chan 1	129
Sat radio serv 2	XM
Sat radio chan 2	127
Adsl serv 1	AT&T; U-verse
Adsl chan 1	Channel 216 (SD)Channel 1216 (HD)
Adsl serv 2	Verizon FiOS
Adsl chan 2	102 (SD) 602 (HD)
Iptv serv 3	Bell Fibe TV (Canada)
Iptv chan 3	Channel 509
Online serv 1	CNBC Plus
Online chan 1	(US$9.95/month or US$99.95/year)

CNBC (officially the Consumer News and Business Channel until 1991) is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBC Universal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers around the world. In 2007, the network was ranked as the 19th most valuable cable channel in the U.S., worth roughly $4 billion. It is headquartered in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

History

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The CNBC channel originally had its beginnings around 1980 as the Satellite Program Network (SPN), showing a low-budget mix of old movies, instructional and entertainment programs. The channel later changed its name to Tempo Television. After initially signing a letter of intent to acquire Tempo, NBC eventually opted for a deal to lease the channel's transponder in June 1988. On this platform, and under the guidance of Tom Rogers, the channel was relaunched on April 17, 1989 as the Consumer News and Business Channel. NBC and Cablevision initially operated CNBC as a 50-50 joint venture, choosing to headquarter the channel in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

CNBC had considerable difficulty getting cable carriage at first, as many providers were skeptical of placing it alongside the longer-established Financial News Network. By the winter of 1990, CNBC was only in 17 million homes - less than half of FNN's potential reach - despite having the muscle of NBC standing behind it.

However, around this time, FNN encountered serious financial difficulties. After a protracted bidding war with a Dow Jones-Westinghouse Broadcasting consortium (the former's assets would be used to build a rival channel almost two decades later), The deal increased the distribution of the newly enlarged network to over 40 million homes. With the full name "Consumer News and Business Channel" dropped, the network's business programming was at first branded "CNBC/FNN," although this was phased out before the mid-1990s.

Under Rogers' leadership, CNBC began to grow during the 1990s, launching Asian and European versions of the channel in 1995 and 1996 respectively. In 1997, CNBC formed a strategic alliance with Dow Jones, including content sharing with Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal and the rebranding of the channel as "a service of NBC and Dow Jones". CNBC's international channels were then merged into a 50-50 joint venture with their Dow Jones-owned rivals, London-based EBN (European Business News) and Singapore-sited ABN (Asia Business News) in 1998, while ratings grew on the U.S. channel until the new millennium's dot-com bubble burst in 2000.

The new millennium also brought changes to the network, moving its world headquarters from Fort Lee to Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey in 2003, which features completely digital video production and studios made by PDG Ltd of Beeston, Nottinghamshire and the FX Group of Ocoee, Florida.

NBC Universal reacquired full control of loss-making CNBC Europe and CNBC Asia from Dow Jones at the end of 2005. The licensing agreement between Dow and CNBC U.S. remained intact, however.

Today, CNBC provides business news programming from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk shows, investigative reports, documentaries, infomercials, and other programs during the evening and early morning. A rolling ticker provides real-time updates on share prices on the NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX, as well as market indices, news summaries, and weather updates by NBC Meteorologists (prior to March 27, 2006, all of CNBC's weather reports were provided by AccuWeather). A rotating top band of the screen rotates provides real-time updates on index and commodity prices from world markets.

CNBC is the only NBC network whose abbreviation, while containing NBC, stands for another name: the Consumer News and Business Channel. The moniker was simply shortened to CNBC when the former was dropped.

Programming

Present shows

CNBC provides a variety of programs throughout the business day presenting reports on U.S. businesses, updates of stock market indices and commodities prices, interviews with CEOs and business leaders, and commentary from many investment professionals. The following is the usual "business day" (term used by CNBC hosts and announcers) lineup (as of February 26, 2009 all times Eastern):

{| class=wikitable |- ! width=55 | ET || width=100 | Program || Hosts || Description |- |

4a-6a || Worldwide Exchange || Nicole Lapin, Ross Westgate, Christine Tan || first word on movements on futures exchanges and trading in Europe and Asia |- | 6a-9a || Squawk Box || Joe Kernen, Carl Quintanilla, Rebecca Quick || provides a mix of business news and commentary |- | 9a-11a || Squawk on the Street || Mark Haines, Erin Burnett (both live from NYSE), David Faber || broadcasts live from above the New York Stock Exchange trading floor |- | 11a-12p || The Call || Larry Kudlow, Trish Regan, Melissa Francis || focuses on real-time market coverage |- | 12p-12:30p || The Strategy Session || David Faber, Gary Kaminsky || in-depth perspective on financial issues |- | 12:30p-1p || Fast Money Halftime Report || Melissa Lee || fast-paced review of stocks for short-term trades at the mid-point of the trading day |- | 1p-2p || Power Lunch || Tyler Mathisen, Sue Herera, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, || examines the companies, people, and trends influencing Wall Street, plus real-time market coverage at the midway point of the trading day |- | 2p-3p || Street Signs || Erin Burnett || focuses on trends, world events affecting stock markets, and real-time market coverage |- | 3p-5p || Closing Bell || Maria Bartiromo, co-hosted with rotating set of anchors for the 3-4pm hour || covers the close of the trading day and real-time market coverage |- | 5p-6p || Fast Money || Melissa Lee (host), Pete Najarian, Guy Adami, Tim Seymour, Karen Finerman (panelists)|| fast-paced roundtable discussion of stocks for short-term trades |- | 6p-7p || Mad Money || Jim Cramer || a fast-paced show offering stock advice to callers, interviews with guest CEOs, and discussions on the technical details of the stock market. |- | 7p-8p || The Kudlow Report || Lawrence Kudlow || provides market, economic and political commentary and interviews |- | 8p-11p || CNBC Specials || various anchors || special business documentaries and reality television programs |- |} outside broadcast, hosted by Rebecca Quick.]]

Since 17 September 2007 the network has also run hourly CNBC.com News Now update segments during business day programming. These short bulletins, which are around 30 seconds in length (similar to ESPN's SportsCenter Right Now), air before the start of the network's programs from Squawk on the Street through The Kudlow Report.

CNBC has experimented with non-business programming during primetime hours with a mixed record of success, including a talk show hosted by Dennis Miller. The channel has at times rebroadcast several NBC programs, including Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Deal or No Deal, The Apprentice, , and 1 vs. 100. CNBC's current primetime lineup features The Big Idea With Donny Deutsch, re-airs of NBC programs The Apprentice, Deal or No Deal and 1 vs. 100, along with its own documentaries and talk shows including Mike on America, American Greed and Conversations with Michael Eisner. Prior to 20 April 2006, programs in primetime hours were shown with a 'scroll' featuring news headlines and weather updates at the bottom of the screen.

Infomercials are typically aired from 2 am to 4 am ET and throughout most of the day at the weekend. Since the September–October 2008 financial crisis, the network has begun to place a paid programming bug on the top right corner of the screen during all airings of infomercials.

On January 24, 2007, the network launched a long-anticipated monthly newsmagazine called Business Nation, which is anchored by award-winning journalist David Faber. Each edition of the program covers three stories; a mixture of profiles, investigative pieces and features. The format of the show is structured similarly to HBO's Real Sports.

CNBC's breakout hit among its original series is Mad Money. Hosted by money manager Jim Cramer, the hour-long show gives stock advice to viewers who call to the program. The show also has a popular segment called "The Lightning Round". In August 2007, Cramer's on-air tirade about the weakening economy, which was seen during the "Stop Trading" segment on Street Signs, received national attention and helped galvanize widespread support for the Federal Reserve Board to cut interest rates.

Other special or weekend programming includes CNBC on Assignment (for example, The Age of Wal-Mart), Cover to Cover, The Suze Orman Show, On the Money and The Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo.

In May 2010, CNBC announced that it would be adding business and financial-themed movies to its Friday night lineup under the name "CNBC Cinema."

Past shows

Among the shows that have been canceled are:

Weekdays

Weekly, weekend and other programming

National Geographic Explorer (moved to MSNBC and then to the National Geographic Channel)

Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street (ended its run on New Year's Eve 2004 at Louis Rukeyser's request)

Market Week with Maria Bartiromo (renamed After Hours with Maria Bartiromo and then Special Report with Maria Bartiromo -- cancelled in 2004)

Tim Russert (moved to MSNBC)

American Le Mans Series races (inaugural 1999 season only, as part of agreement with NBC Sports)

PGA Champions Tour

{| |- valign ="top" |width=200px|

The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch

Management Today

How to Succeed in Business

Strictly Business

Weekly Business

Inside America's Courts

CNet News.com

Ushuaia

|width=200px|

Weekend Squawk Box

Topic [A] with Tina Brown

World Business Reports

Consumer News

Smart Money

Media Biz

Business Wrapup

|width=200px|

Business View

Media Beat

Your Portfolio

Money Talk

Money Shack

Money Today

Opinions

|width=200px|

McLaughlin

Real Story

Real Life

Real Personal

The Dick Cavett Show

Tom Snyder

Outside the Box

|}

Personalities and coverage

.]] , where CNBC's market updates and the show Fast Money are hosted.]] HQ]]

Much of CNBC's on-air talent has been with the network for some time: Sue Herera and Scott Cohn joined CNBC at its inception, and remain on the air co-hosting Power Lunch and as senior correspondent respectively. Some personalities who joined CNBC from FNN in 1991, such as Ron Insana, Bill Griffeth and Joe Kernen, are also still with the channel. The network has of late sought to increase the profile of its on-air team with the launch of rival business station Fox Business Network - although CNBC's best known personality, Closing Bell host Maria Bartiromo, has for some time made regular appearances on other NBC News broadcasts such as The Today Show and has anchored the syndicated Wall Street Journal Report, other CNBC hosts such as Jim Cramer and Erin Burnett have also been used increasingly across NBC's output.

In addition to its roster of program anchors, CNBC employs a team of reporters who contribute across the network's business day programming, the majority of whom are based at CNBC's global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs. In addition, CNBC has staff permanently based at bureaus in Midtown Manhattan, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and San Jose (the latter referred to on air as "CNBC Silicon Valley"). Cost-cutting at NBC Universal's news divisions has seen some of these offices merged with those of NBC owned-and-operated stations: the Silicon Valley facility was moved from Palo Alto to the KNTV (NBC 11) newsroom in San Jose in January 2007 (occasionally KNTV reporters Scott Budman and Scott McGrew will now correspond for CNBC), while the Chicago bureau now shares a home with WMAQ (NBC 5). The network also has reporters posted at the New York Stock Exchange (where CNBC also has a set used for broadcasting Squawk on the Street, The Call and Closing Bell), NASDAQ MarketSite, NYMEX and the Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange each day.

Ratings

There is a fairly clear long-term correlation between the performance of global stock markets and the audience ratings of CNBC. The network had a difficult time attracting viewers in the first half of the decade, but has seen viewership increase from a 2005 bottom to record highs in 2008, coinciding with the subprime mortgage crisis. CNBC continues to possess the wealthiest audience (in terms of average income) of any television channel in the United States.

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, CNBC's ratings were increasing sharply along with the stock market, often beating those of CNN during market hours. In 2000, daytime viewership of the network peaked at 343,000, around the time the Nasdaq Composite crossed 5000. However, when the dot-com bubble began to burst later that year, CNBC's viewing figures declined in tandem. The network's ratings steadily fell quarter after quarter, year after year, until bottoming in Q1 2005, with an average viewership of 134,000 during the day. From the bottom, the network, along with the markets, rebounded significantly—average daytime viewership (6 am to 6 pm) reached a 7-year high of 310,000 viewers in the first quarter of 2008. Although the figures remain considerably less than those achieved by Fox News and CNN today, it has still had a 210% increase in viewership since the beginning of 2005. Despite the viewership slump at the turn of the decade, CNBC has remained extremely profitable: average annual revenues top $510 million while profits for the network exceeded $333 million in 2007, resulted in its best ratings week since the market crash after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, with Kudlow & Company, Mad Money, and Fast Money recording their best ratings ever in the coveted 25-54 demographic. When the financial crisis wraecked havoc in the worldwide equity markets, CNBC recorded some of the highest ratings in the network's two-decade history. For the week ended September 19, 2008, the network averaged 502,000 viewers during the "business day" (defined by the network as 5 am to 7 pm). During this week, Squawk Box, Closing Bell, Fast Money, Mad Money and Kudlow & Company recorded their best viewership figures ever. On September 29, 2008, when the markets faced their worst single session performance since the crash of 1987, CNBC saw its best ratings day ever, with an average 726,000 viewers tuning into the network during the business day.

While daytime viewership has rebounded from its 2005 lows, primetime ratings remain weak relative to those of other news networks and CNBC continues to try and rejuvenate its evening lineup. Along with developing new program formats such as Fast Money and Mad Money, the network operates a "checkerboard" programming approach, airing various genres of shows including documentaries, town-hall style discussions and repeats of some NBC output.

When discussing the network's ratings, CNBC management and press releases regularly suggest that considerable viewership, particularly during the daytime, is done "out of home" in places such as offices and hotel rooms. As this demographic is not covered by Nielsen ratings, CNBC claims that the network's true viewership is considerably higher than what is measured.]] On 15 November 2006, CNBC's 'crystal' gray logo bug was changed to color revealing the rainbow's peacock's normal NBC colors. On 2006-11-28, the new smaller CNBC color bug (similar to the one used in the revamped ticker) began to show up on CNBC's non-business related primetime programming (where the ticker is not shown, except Mad Money and Fast Money), replacing the much bigger 'crystal' bug.

On 1 March 2007, CNBC's Squawk on the Street and Closing Bell both started using a new countdown clock (shown in minutes:seconds:tenths-of-a-second format) on the graphics' lower-third of the screen. On 27 July 2007, it moved to the lower right of the screen, where the CNBC color bug is usually seen. The countdown clock is used for the "Opening Bell Countdown" segment on Squawk on the Street, and for the "Closing Countdown" segment on Closing Bell, along with presidential debates, the announcement of some monthly consumer indexes, and Federal Reserve Bank interest rate changes.

1995 revamp

Used from 1 January 1995 to 31 December 1997.

1998 revamp

This was used from January 1998 to May 1999. Majority of the lower-thirds and the live bug was coloured blue with the left side of the lower thirds and upper part of the live bug coloured red. The background for its charts was animated with majority of the background being blue and a narrow green strip running at the right side of the screen resembling a stock ticker. When the major maker indexes hit a new record, the green strip is tweaked to reflect "DOW RECORD", "S&P; RECORD" or "NASDAQ RECORD." It is also tweaked during the holiday season. (Note: The image rightward doesn't contain the ticker part.)

1999 revamp: "Red" turns "Green"

The 1998 graphics scheme was slightly tweaked in May 1999 where the once red parts of the lower thirds (seen on the left of the blue strip of the lower thirds) and the "LIVE" bug's upper part turned green. The font was also modified. The green strip at this time is also tweaked during earnings season. Graphs also started having the CNBC logo was behind them and included grids. On 3 April 2000, CNBC Asia has used this scheme only for its charts but a month later CNBC Europe used it for its charts and lower thirds as well. This package was in place until 29 September 2000 on CNBC, until 31 December 2000 on CNBC Asia and until mid-January 2001 on CNBC Europe. Show titles however remained the same as the 1998 package.

2000 revamp

Used from 2 October 2000 to 13 September 2002. In January 2001, CNBC Asia and CNBC Europe both followed up to use the same graphic package, making some changes to the lower thirds and the charts respectively (for example, removing the animation on and off screen). This marked the first time that the three main CNBC channels had used the same graphics scheme in their entirety for all daytime shows. In February 2002 however, while most programme titles largely remained the same on the CNBC US channel, two new shows, Morning Call and Closing Bell used the titles which were originally for Street Signs and Market Watch respectively (the latter two were cancelled at the same period as well).

2002 revamp

Used from 16 September 2002 to 10 October 2003. This package saw an evolution of the graphics introduced in 2000, with program titles and chart formats remaining the same. The lower thirds were, however, completely revamped with the lower half of it coloured red and text was centre-justified, and a new background animation and colour scheme was introduced for charts and other on-screen data. The font was also tweaked. The titles in the lower thirds were centre-justified. CNBC Asia used a similar lower thirds effective 2 January 2003 except that the lower thirds was entirely light blue and the text was still aligned to the left. CNBC Europe adopted the same chart backgrounds in use by CNBC US later in 2003 as well but used a different lower-thirds.

2003 revamp

Used from 13 October 2003 to 16 December 2005. In this revamp, CNBC added an independent space to the lower thirds to show the "topic title" to indicate the subject being discussed (i.e., "money to burn" in the rightward photo). This formerly shared space with the program logo on the left-hand side of the lower thirds.

CNBC also added another animation to the lower thirds: when showing stock charts, the lower thirds would move down vertically, keeping just the "topic title" visible above the ticker. When charts were removed from the screen, the whole lower thirds would move vertically up again.

The "LIVE" sign was also moved from the left-top corner to the right-top corner, along with the location (which was formerly included on the lower thirds) at this time.

CNBC Asia adopted this graphics scheme in 2004 but on CNBC Europe's next graphics revamp in the same year, it chose to create its own graphics scheme for charts, lower-thirds and titles.

December 2005 revamp: from 2D to 3D

Used from 19 December 2005 to 12 May 2006. On 19 December 2005, CNBC unveiled a new on-air look, replacing that which had been used since October 2003. This included a new look for all the graphics, new logos for all business day programs, and the relocation of the index and commodity prices from the stacked bug in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen to the bug bar across the top of the screen.

Since then, the ticker has shown full company names (and full commodity names used in the commodity summary, which runs at the 1s of each hour) instead of just ticker symbols.

The "LIVE" and location graphics were moved back to the top-left of the screen from the top-right corner at this time.

This graphic package was created by Randy Pyburn of Pyburn Films (that also designed the WNBC's 2003 graphic package, KYW-TV's 2004 package & WPSG's 2005 package) and also designed earlier CNBC graphic packages. The estimated cost of the 2005-2006 package was about $2 million.

Mid-2006: revamped bug and lower thirds

On 15 May 2006, CNBC made a slight change to its lower thirds, adding a blue block to the right-hand side. Occasionally this space was used to display the title of the topic being discussed. This format was abandoned on 18 December 2006.

On 6 September 2006, CNBC unveiled a revamped bug, which now has a similar resemblance to that of CNBC Europe. On the same day, the network launched a slightly modified ticker with a narrower font (to allow more quotes to stream by within a period of time). CNBC Asia adopted a revamped bug of its own on 26 March 2007 as part of its graphics package revamp.

December 2006: new lower thirds

Used from 19 December 2006 to 26 February 2010. On 19 December 2006, exactly one year after its relaunch, CNBC revamped its on-air graphics package, replacing the old lower thirds that were previously used from 19 December 2005-18 December 2006. The current graphic package was created in-house.

In this revamp, CNBC cancelled the independent space for the "topic title", which once again shares space with the program logo on the left-hand side of the lower thirds.

CNBC Asia adopted the similar lower thirds on 26 March 2007, but unlike its US version, the "topic title" does not share the space with the program logo. Its European sibling (CNBC Europe) finally debuted its own lower thirds on 7 January 2008, and like its US version, the "topic title" shares space with the program logo on the left-hand side.

On 23 April 2007, the data bug was slightly tweaked, with the titles of the securities now displayed in yellow and the numbers still being displayed in white.

On 26 July 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 300 points, CNBC stayed on the story and put a live shot of the trading board in the NYSE to show the status of Dow above the lower thirds during the Closing Bell to track the markets.

* (Note: The screenshot rightward comes from CNBC Asia, so the style of the top bug and the ticker are different from the package of CNBC US.)

On 28 February 2008, the chart was slightly tweaked, when showing session is more than two days, CNBC put up the % of the session performance, just like CNBC Europe.

March 2010 revamp: almost back to 2D

On March 1, 2010, CNBC debuted a whole new graphics scheme across most of its networks, including its U.S. HD+ feed. This replaced the previous graphics package which had been used since 19 December 2005 and the lower thirds that were used since 19 December 2006. The data bug now shows the securities in white and the numbers in green (indicating up) or red (indicating down), along with triangles (green for higher and red for lower).

Ticker

The CNBC Ticker is a computer simulation of ticker tape shown on the lower part of the screen during the network's live business programming, containing security and index symbols along with movements in their value. At the top of the screen, a rotating band, partitioned into three segments, provides index and commodity prices.

History

When CNBC first aired in 1989 until approximately 1991, the original CNBC Ticker only had one band, displaying NYSE stocks. After a 20 minute period when the ticker was off-air one day, as announced by anchor Ted David, did CNBC finally decide to include the NASDAQ in a new format at the time, creating the two-band system used ever since. FNN did use a two-line ticker design (with white and blue bands, quotes listed during trading without price changes and a market summary on the bottom band during trading) prior to the merger with CNBC in 1991, and many of these features were subsequently adopted by the newly merged channel. Here's an example of FNN ticker circa 1987.

CNBC had another ticker format, mainly a font variation on the ticker, for a short time before the 1995-1997 photo on this page.

"Profit From It" (1998–2002)

"First in Business, Worldwide" (1996–97)

"First in Business, First in Talk" (1995)

"Information that hits home." (1992–95)

Music

The music used from October 2003 to December 2005 was produced by 615 Music of Nashville, Tennessee. This music (though only edited versions of the arrangements for Street Signs and Closing Bell) continues as of February 2009 to be used by CNBC Europe, although CNBC Asia ceased using it in March 2007. CNBC Europe continued also to use "CNBC Anthem" a.k.a. "Bold & Grand", which was composed by Edd Kalehoff and used by CNBC US between 2000–2002, for its main channel ident until a relaunch on 30 September 2008 - however, it is still used for its "Europe Update" segments during US programming. The current music package is composed by James Ryan of Rampage Music New York, a company that has also created music for co-owned WNBC, also in New York. Ryan also composed the network's 2002 music package. Willie Wilcox composed the themes for The Big Idea, Mad Money, Conversations with Michael Eisner and currently Fast Money.

Announcer

CNBC's main voice-over announcer is Jim Birdsall, who also works for NFL Films, and is heard as the voice in commercials for CiCi's Pizza. Also, Brian Lee is used for certain promos for certain shows.

Partnerships

Dow Jones & Company

Since December 1997, the network has held a strategic alliance with the publishing and financial information firm Dow Jones & Company. CNBC's current deal with Dow Jones expires in 2012, and its continuation has been the subject of some uncertainty following the 2007 acquisition of Dow by News Corporation, parent company of rival financial network Fox Business, which had been started just two months prior and whose resources have been used to build up Fox Business. News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch has stated that the current agreement "covers actual news and access to reporters on business news" only, and that Fox and Dow Jones are free to cooperate on other issues. Under the agreement, CNBC has access to the business coverage of the Times, while video from CNBC.com is featured on the Times' website. and, as of May 2008, AOL Money & Finance.

The network's live market prices, economic data and other statistics are largely provided by Thomson Reuters (Reuters and Thomson Financial prior to their 2008 merger). Since September 2006 CNBC has operated its own stock market index in conjunction with London's FTSE Group. The FTSE CNBC Global 300 includes the fifteen largest companies from each of the sectors of the Industry Classification Benchmark as well as the thirty largest companies from emerging markets.

On December 14, 2010, CNBC and CarryQuote announced a development and marketing collaboration that resulted in the release of CNBC PRO, a mobile and desktop financial application for individual investors. CNBC PRO provides its subscribers with real-time financial data from more than 100 stock exchanges worldwide, plus CNBC news and streaming video..

International channels

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CNBC has operated international versions of its channel since 1995, when CNBC Asia originally launched. CNBC Europe followed in 1996. On 9 December 1997, Dow Jones & Company and NBC announced the merger of their international business news channels. This resulted in a merger of CNBC Europe with Dow Jones' European Business News, and likewise of CNBC Asia with Asia Business News. From then (until January 2006) the international CNBC services carried the tagline "A Service of NBC (Universal) and Dow Jones" (or depending on other local partners, a variation of this tagline). Correspondents from Dow Jones Newswires contribute to the channels. CNBC Europe is headquartered in London, and CNBC Asia is headquartered in Singapore. On 31 December 2005, the sale by Dow Jones of its interests in the international CNBC channels took effect. From 1 January 2006, the "A Service of NBC Universal and Dow Jones" tagline was removed from the international CNBC channels, in line with this. In 2007, CNBC Asia dropped the word "Asia" from its channel idents, on 30 September 2008, CNBC Europe similarly dropped the word "Europe" from its logo. This means the big three CNBC channels - US, Europe, and Asia - are all on-screen known as simply CNBC.

Besides CNBC Europe and CNBC Asia, the network also operates a number of local business news channels in association with other companies. These channels include Class CNBC in Italy, CNBC-e in Turkey, CNBC Arabiya in the UAE, Nikkei CNBC in Japan, CNBC-TV18 and CNBC Awaaz in India, CNBC Pakistan in Pakistan and TVN CNBC in Poland.

CNBC Europe and CNBC Asia are rebranded in some parts of the world with tickers containing local financial information. Examples include CNBC Nordic, CNBC Singapore, CNBC Hong Kong and CNBC Australia (CNBC Australia and Singapore also produce five minute updates at 12:55 pm, 5:55 pm and 9:55 pm for free-to-air network, SBS TV). In addition, CNBC Europe airs Strictly Money for UK and Republic of Ireland viewers only.

In North America, CNBC World airs business programming from CNBC Europe and CNBC Asia, as well as weekly magazine programs provided by CNBC-TV18 and the United Nations.

In Central America and the Caribbean, CNBC Latin America retransmits live programs from CNBC and CNBC World.

In Canada, CNBC can be seen with most of the programming identical to the US counterpart. However, due to Canadian programming rights, the 9 pm slot which shows television programming such as Deal Or No Deal, The Apprentice, 1 vs. 100 and Heads Up Poker, as well as any and all Olympic Games coverage, are replaced by CNBC World programming. However, documentaries are shown in Canada. This had the making of a major problem, as a highlight episode of The Apprentice 5 that aired April 23, 2006, was assumed to not be available anywhere for Canadians due to these blackouts. While the first airing at 9:00 pm ET was blacked out, the second airing at midnight ET was accidentally shown. Blackouts on episodes that originally air on NBC and Global are likely to continue. However, occasionally, the television shows are shown and are not blacked out, possibly due to a mistake in transmission.

CNBC's most recent international spinoff is CNBC Africa. With roughly $600 million spent on advertising in South Africa alone, the network sees great potential in grabbing a potential share of that pot. Initially, CNBC Africa has bureaus in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa and produces 9 hours of local programming per business day. The network was launched on 2007-06-01.

The launch of the Korean language channel SBS-CNBC in January 2010 will mark the fifteenth CNBC-branded channel worldwide.

CNBC.com

CNBC.com] is the companion website to the financial network. It was launched in 1996 with minimal content, other than show program grids, host biographies and basic network images (on the internet, business news then was handled by the website of CNBC's sister channel, MSNBC). The site gradually progressed alongside internet technology, giving investors more useful information such as stock quotes, news bulletins, in-depth programming information and a whole host of other data.

In August 2001, CNBC.com merged with MSN's Moneycentral.com, creating "CNBC on MSN." This new partnership allowed the two parties to meet two objectives: #provide richer content to visitors, with expanded news offerings, a wider array of stock tools (including interactive charting, free online portfolio managers) plus more in-depth market coverage and # more effectively compete with other finance related websites, such as Marketwatch.com and Yahoo! Finance.

During this period the editorial content on the CNBC.com site was controlled by Microsoft Corporation. CNBC.com officially ended its relationship with MSN in mid-November 2006.

CNBC.com was relaunched on 4 December 2006. The website provides new online tools for investors and better integration of the website with daytime programming. Some of the new features include:

exclusive online interviews (the first being with Chicago Fed President Michael Moskow)

live market updates from CNBC personalities three times per day during the trading day (discontinuing the "Market in a Minute" updates in June 2007)

a streaming desktop ticker, real-time data and the network's "tick-by-tick" charts (for major indices)

themed blogs by various correspondents (i.e., "Tech Check" with tech reporter Jim Goldman)

unedited, full-length interviews from CNBC specials or other on-air interviews

free video of recent on-air segments, interviews, features etc.

an exclusive "CNBC.com" set built at CNBC's U.S. headquarters where the market update segments (among other things) are taped from

blogging from on-air personalities about the various "goings-on" within the network

an original show to air exclusively online with Maria Bartiromo, Bill Griffeth and Joe Kernen (yet to debut)

top-of-the-hour summary of business news entitled CNBC.com News Now which is also seen during the trading day on CNBC TV.

Content on the new website is edited 24 hours a day during the business week. CNBC U.S. updates the content from 6 am to 7 pm ET, CNBC Asia then takes over from 7 p.m to 2 am, and CNBC Europe handles the (North American) overnight hours from 2 am to 6 am.

In April 2007, the site was able to attract 662,000 unique visitors to the website, ranking it #22 amongst all financial news websites.

CNBCplus

"CNBCplus"

As of March 2008, CNBCplus had signed up 15,000 regular subscribers to its service.

CNBC PRO

On December 14, 2010, CNBC and CarryQuote announced a development and marketing collaboration that resulted in the release of CNBC PRO, a mobile and desktop financial application for individual investors.

CNBC PRO provides its subscribers with real-time financial data from more than 100 stock exchanges worldwide, plus CNBC news and streaming video.. For the introductory price of $24.99 per month, or $269 per year, a user can access this information from his or her computer or Blackberry, with access from iPhone, iPad, and Android to follow in 2011.

In December 2010, CNBC migrated its 16,000 users of CNBCplus to CNBC PRO.

High definition

CNBC HD+ is a 1080i high-definition enhanced simulcast of CNBC which was launched on October 10, 2007. For all standard definition programs, the feed (which remains in 4:3 480i upscaled to 1080i) is pushed to the left of the screen, with resulting sidebar used for additional content, such as statistics and charts, and a wider ticker with more room. A window in the corner also displays video content from CNBC.com, which can be switched to using the SAP function. Non-trading day programming (such as documentaries) produced in HD are shown in their normal format.

DirecTV was the first carrier to add it, and other providers soon followed.

Competitor Fox Business Network HD uses the same format, as well as sports channels ESPNews HD and NFL Network HD, although those networks use full high definition video for their iterations of enhanced HD channels.

Airport "stores" or "bureaus"

]] CNBC holds stores (can be called bureaus) called "CNBC News" in many airports across the USA. The stores sell limited CNBC merchandise, along with newspapers, magazines and a small selection of snacks and drinks. Locations include:

Columbus, Ohio (CMH)

Detroit, Michigan

Fort Myers, Florida

Houston, Texas (IAH)

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Providence, Rhode Island

Salt Lake City, Utah

San Francisco, California

Tulsa, Oklahoma

Kansas City, Missouri

Criticism

CNBC has been criticized for allegedly amplifying bull and bear markets, particularly in the run-up to the Dot-com bubble and the subprime crisis. In response to these criticisms, CNBC anchors have pointed to the size of the market and noted that influencing it is "a little out of our reach." Despite the lack of direct comments by the network, several personalities have defended their predictions and comments. CNBC was accused by the Obama administration of "cable chatter" -- the excessant and sometimes brutal discussion on a particular topic, often one-sided. James Cramer's stock picks on his CNBC show Mad Money were found by Barron's magazine in 2007 to have underperformed the S&P; 500 stock index over the previous two years. Barron's stated that "his picks haven't beaten the market. Over the past two years, viewers holding Cramer's stocks would be up 12% while the Dow rose 22% and the S&P; 500 16%." CNBC disputed the magazine's findings.

Tea Party movement (2009)

In a what was described by CNBC as a "rant" delivered from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli reinvented the term "tea party", and a national protest movement, known as the Tea Party movement, followed amidst much media attention."

See also

Bloomberg Television

Fox Business Network

List of DirecTV channels

List of Dish Network channels in the United States

References

;Notes

External links

CNBC US

*NBC Cable Networks - NBCCableinfo.com - CNBC

*CNBC page at MSNBC.com

*CNBC Video at MSN Money

*CNBC weekly U.S. TV Schedule

*CNBC Anchors and Reporters (scroll down page for list)

*Photos of the New Jersey CNBC facility

DeBartolo, Anthony HydeparkMedia.com "CNBC: Viewer Discretion Advised" Chicago Reader article

CNBC PRO

Category:Business-related television channels Category:CNBC Category:CNBC global channels Category:XM Satellite Radio channels Category:Sirius Satellite Radio channels Category:Digital only radio stations Category:Stock market Category:Television channels and stations established in 1989 Category:NBC Universal networks Category:DuPont-Columbia Award recipients Category:U.S. Route 9W Category:Orphan initialisms Category:24-hour television news channels in the United States Category:English-language television stations in the United States

Name	Ron Paul
Image name	Ron Paul, official Congressional photo portrait, 2007.jpg|thumb|Paul's Congressional portrait
Birth date	August 20, 1935
Birth place	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
State	Texas
District	14th
Term start	January 3, 1997
Preceded	Greg Laughlin
State2	Texas
District2	22nd
Term start2	January 3, 1979
Term end2	January 3, 1985
Preceded2	Robert Gammage
Succeeded2	Tom DeLay
Term start3	April 3, 1976
Term end3	January 3, 1977
Preceded3	Robert R. Casey
Succeeded3	Robert Gammage
Party	Republican (1976–1988)Libertarian (1988 Presidential Election)Republican (1988–present)
Spouse	Carolyn "Carol" Paul
Children	Ronald "Ronnie" Paul, Jr.Lori Paul PyeattRandal "Rand" PaulRobert PaulJoy Paul-LeBlanc
Alma mater	Gettysburg College (B.S.)Duke University School of Medicine (M.D.)
Profession	Physician, Politician
Residence	Lake Jackson, Texas
Religion	Baptist
Website	U.S. House of Representatives Office of Ron Paul
Signature	Ron Paul signature.svg
Branch	United States Air ForceUnited States Air National Guard
Serviceyears	1962–19651965–1968

Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American physician and Republican Congressman for the 14th congressional district of Texas. Paul serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Joint Economic Committee, and the Committee on Financial Services, where he has been an outspoken critic of American foreign and monetary policy. He has gained prominence for his libertarian positions on many political issues, often clashing with both Republican and Democratic Party leaders. He is the Chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy. Paul has run for President of the United States twice, first in 1988 as the nominee of the Libertarian Party and again in 2008 as a candidate for the Republican nomination.

He is the founder of the advocacy group Campaign for Liberty and his ideas have been expressed in numerous published articles and books, including End The Fed (2009), and (2008). According to a 1998 study published in the American Journal of Political Science, Paul has the most conservative voting record of any member of Congress since 1937. His son Rand Paul was sworn in as a Senator for Kentucky in 2011, an event with made the elder Paul the first Representative in history to serve alongside a son or daughter in the Senate.

Personal life

Paul was born in Pittsburgh to Howard and Margaret (née Dumont) Paul. As a junior at Dormont High School, he was the 220-yard dash state champion. After earning an M.D. degree from the Duke University School of Medicine, he was a U.S. Air Force flight surgeon during the 1960s.

Paul has been married to Carol Wells since 1957. They have five children, who were baptized Episcopalian: Ronald, Lori, Rand, Robert, and Joy. Paul's son Rand is senator-elect of the state of Kentucky. They also have eighteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. He has four brothers. Two of them, including David Paul, are ministers. Wayne Paul is a Certified Public Accountant.

Early congressional career

While still a medical resident in the 1960s, Paul was influenced by Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, which led him to read many works of Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises. He came to know economists Hans Sennholz and Murray Rothbard well, and credits to them his interest in the study of economics. He came to believe that what the Austrian school economists wrote was coming true on August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon closed the "gold window" by implementing the U.S. dollar's complete departure from the gold standard. and welfare, Paul became a delegate to the Texas Republican convention and a Republican candidate for the United States Congress. In 1974, incumbent Robert R. Casey defeated him in the 22nd district. When President Gerald Ford appointed Casey to head the Federal Maritime Commission, Paul won an April 1976 special election to fill the empty seat. Paul lost some months later in the general election, to Democrat Robert Gammage, by fewer than 300 votes (0.2%), but defeated Gammage in a 1978 rematch, and was reelected in 1980 and 1982.

Paul was the first Republican representative from the area; he also led the Texas Reagan delegation at the national Republican convention. His successful campaign against Gammage surprised local Democrats, who had expected to retain the seat easily in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Gammage underestimated Paul's support among local mothers: "I had real difficulty down in Brazoria County, where he practiced, because he'd delivered half the babies in the county. There were only two obstetricians in the county, and the other one was his partner."

House of Representatives

Paul proposed term-limit legislation multiple times, at first in the 1970s in the House where he also declined to attend junkets or register for a Congressional pension while serving four terms. His chief of staff (1978–1982) was Lew Rockwell. In 1980, when a majority of Republicans favored President Jimmy Carter's proposal to reinstate draft registration, Paul argued that their views were inconsistent, stating they were more interested in registering their children than they were their guns. Also in 1976, the foundation began publication of the first monthly newsletter connected with Paul, Dr. Ron Paul's Freedom Report (or Special Report). It also publishes monographs, books, radio spots, and (since 1997) a new series of the monthly newsletter, Ron Paul's Freedom Report, which promote the principles of limited government.

On the House Banking Committee, Paul blamed the Federal Reserve for inflation, it is now available from the Ludwig von Mises Institute, to which Paul is a distinguished counselor.

In 1984, Paul chose to run for the U.S. Senate instead of re-election to the House, but lost the Republican primary to Phil Gramm. He returned to full-time medical practice In his House farewell address, Paul said, "Special interests have replaced the concern that the Founders had for general welfare. Vote trading is seen as good politics. The errand-boy mentality is ordinary, the defender of liberty is seen as bizarre. It's difficult for one who loves true liberty and utterly detests the power of the state to come to Washington for a period of time and not leave a true cynic."

1988 presidential campaign

In the 1988 presidential election, Paul defeated American Indian activist Russell Means to win the Libertarian Party nomination for president. Paul placed third in the popular vote with 432,179 votes (0.5%), Paul was kept off the ballot in Missouri, and received votes there only when written in, due to what the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called a "technicality".

As the "Libertarian standard bearer", Paul gained supporters who agreed with his positions on gun rights, fiscal conservatism, homeschooling, and abortion, and won approval from many who thought the federal government was misdirected. This nationwide support base encouraged and donated to his later campaigns.

According to Paul, his presidential run was about more than reaching office; he sought to spread his libertarian ideas, often to school and university groups regardless of vote eligibility. He said, "We're just as interested in the future generation as this election. These kids will vote eventually, and maybe, just maybe, they'll go home and talk to their parents."

After the election, Paul continued his medical practice until he returned to Congress. He also co-owned a coin dealership, Ron Paul Coins, for twelve years with Burt Blumert, who continued to operate it after Paul returned to office. He spoke multiple times at the American Numismatic Association's 1988 convention. In 1985 Ron Paul & Associates began publishing The Ron Paul Investment Letter and The Ron Paul Survival Report; it added the more controversial Ron Paul Political Report in 1987. Many articles lacked a byline, yet often invoked Paul's name or persona.

After his unsuccessful presidential bid in 1988, Paul returned to private medical practice and continued to allow the newsletters to be published bearing his name. For 1992, RP&A; earned $940,000 and employed Paul's family as well as Lew Rockwell (its vice-president and seven other workers. Murray Rothbard and other libertarians believed Rockwell ghostwrote the newsletters for Paul; Rockwell later acknowledged involvement in writing subscription letters, but attributed the newsletters to "seven or eight freelancers".

Paul considered running for President in 1992, but instead chose to support Pat Buchanan that year, and served as an adviser to his Republican presidential campaign against incumbent President George H. W. Bush.

Later congressional career

Campaigns

1996 campaign

In 1996, Paul was re-elected to Congress after the toughest campaign race he had faced since the 1970s. As Republicans had taken over both houses of Congress in the 1994 election, Paul entered the race hopeful that his Constitutionalist policies of tax cuts, closing federal agencies, and curbing the U.N. would have broader support than in the past. The Republican National Committee focused instead on encouraging Democrats to switch parties, as Paul's primary opponent, incumbent Greg Laughlin, had done in 1995. The party threw its full weight behind Laughlin, including support from House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas Governor George W. Bush, and the National Rifle Association. Paul responded by running newspaper ads quoting Gingrich's harsh criticisms of Laughlin's Democratic voting record 14 months earlier. While Paul was able to paint Morris as a tool of trial lawyers and big labor, Morris ran numerous ads about Paul's advocacy of federal drug law repeal.

Morris also accused Paul of authoring questionable statements in past newsletters, Paul's congressional campaign countered the statements were taken out of context. and that voters might not understand the "tongue-in-cheek, academic" quotes out of context. Further, the campaign rejected Morris' demand to release all back issues.

Paul went on to win the election in a close margin. It became the third time Paul had been elected to Congress as a non-incumbent. In both campaigns, the national Democratic Party and major unions continued to spend heavily on targeting Paul. On December 11, 2001, he told the independent movement that he was encouraged by the fact that the petition had spread the message of Constitutionalism, but did not expect a White House win at that time. Further prompting in early 2007 led him to enter the 2008 race.

Unlike many political candidates, Paul receives the overwhelming majority of his campaign contributions from individuals (97 percent in the 2006 cycle), and receives much less from political action committees (PAC's) than others, ranging from two percent (2002) to six percent (1998). The group Clean Up Washington, analyzing from 2000 to mid-2006, listed Paul as seventh-lowest in PAC receipts of all House members; one of the lowest in lobbyist receipts; and fourth-highest in small-donor receipts. He had the lowest PAC receipts percentage of all the 2008 Republican presidential candidates.

Paul was re-elected to his tenth term in Congress in November 2006. In the March 4, 2008, Republican primary for his Congressional seat, he defeated Friendswood city councilman Chris Peden, obtaining over 70 percent of the vote. On the 2008 ballot, Paul won his eleventh term in Congress running unopposed. In the 2010 Republican primary for his Congressional seat, Paul defeated three opponents with 80 percent of the vote.

Relationship with district

, which is larger than Massachusetts.]] After 2003 Texas redistricting, Paul's district is larger than Massachusetts, with of Gulf of Mexico coastline between Houston and Rockport, Texas, covering some 22 counties. Even so, Paul opposes programs like federally funded flood insurance (typically supported by coastal and rural representatives) because it requires those outside flood zones to subsidize those within, but prohibits those within from choosing their own insurers. In an overwhelmingly rural region known for ranching and rice farms, Despite his voting against heavily supported legislation like farm bills, Paul's devotion to reducing government resonates with 14th district voters:

Paul adds his own earmarks, such as for Texas shrimp promotion, but he routinely votes against most spending bills returned by committee. Earmarks permit members of Congress, rather than executive branch civil servants, to designate spending priorities for previously authorized funds directed otherwise. In , Paul states his views on earmarks this way: "The real problem, and one that was unfortunately not addressed in the 2007's earmark dispute, is the size of the federal government and the amount of money we are spending in these appropriations bills. Cutting even a million dollars from an appropriations bill that spends hundreds of billions will make no appreciable difference in the size of government, which is doubtless why politicians and the media are so eager to have us waste our time on [earmarks]."

Paul also spends extra time in the district to compensate for "violat[ing] almost every rule of political survival you can think of,"

In March 2001, Paul introduced a bill to repeal the 1973 War Powers Resolution (WPR) and reinstate the process of formal declaration of war by Congress. Later in 2001, Paul voted to authorize the president, pursuant to WPR, to respond to those responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks. He also introduced Sunlight Rule legislation, which requires lawmakers to take enough time to read bills before voting on them, after the Patriot Act was passed within 24 hours of its introduction. Paul was one of six Republicans to vote against the Iraq War Resolution, and (with Oregon representative Peter DeFazio) sponsored a resolution to repeal the war authorization in February 2003. Paul's speech, 35 "Questions That Won't Be Asked About Iraq", was translated and published in German, French, Russian, Italian, and Swiss periodicals before the Iraq War began. After a 2005 bill was touted as "slashing" government waste, Paul wrote that it decreased spending by a fraction of one percent and that "Congress couldn't slash spending if the members' lives depended on it." He said that in three years he had voted against more than 700 bills intended to expand government.

Paul has introduced several bills to apply tax credits toward education, including credits for parental spending on public, private, or homeschool students (Family Education Freedom Act); for salaries for all K–12 teachers, librarians, counselors, and other school personnel; and for donations to scholarships or to benefit academics (Education Improvement Tax Cut Act). In accord with his political positions, he has also introduced the Sanctity of Life Act, the We the People Act, and the American Freedom Agenda Act.

List of bills sponsored and cosponsored

The following tables link to the Congressional Record hosted by the Library of Congress. All the specifics and actions taken for each individual bill Ron Paul has either sponsored or cosponsored can be reviewed further there. "Original bills" and "Original amendments" indicate instances where Ron Paul had pledged to support the legislation at the time the bill was initially introduced rather than at some other point during the legislative process of the bill. {| class="wikitable sortable" style="margin:1em auto 1em auto; font-size:90%; border:0; text-align:left; line-height:150%;" |+ Rep. Ron Paul – U.S. House of Representatives – [R-TX-14] |- !Years Covered !All bills sponsored !All amendments sponsored !All bills cosponsored !All amendments cosponsored !Original bills cosponsored !Original amendments cosponsored !Bill support withdrawn !Amendment support withdrawn |- |1997-98 |32 |7 |223 |0 |76 |0 |0 |0 |- |1999-00 |51 |8 |316 |0 |119 |0 |0 |0 |- |2001-02 |64 |4 |323 |0 |104 |0 |1 |0 |- |2003-04 |68 |8 |354 |0 |150 |0 |0 |0 |- |2005-06 |71 |8 |393 |0 |141 |0 |0 |0 |- |2007-08 |70 |0 |443 |0 |160 |0 |0 |0 |- |2009-10 |41 |0 |120 |0 |69 |0 |0 |0 |}

Note: The numbers for the current session of Congress may no longer reflect the actual numbers as they are still actively in session.

Affiliations

Paul serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee (having been on the Western Hemisphere and the Asia and Pacific subcommittees); the Joint Economic Committee; and the Committee on Financial Services (as Ranking Member of the Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade and Technology subcommittee, and Vice-Chair of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee).

Paul was honorary chair of, and is a current member of, the Republican Liberty Caucus, a political action committee which describes its goal as electing "liberty-minded, limited-government individuals". Paul also hosts a luncheon every Thursday as chair of the Liberty Caucus, composed of 20 members of Congress. Washington DC area radio personality Johnny "Cakes" Auville gave Paul the idea for the Liberty Caucus and is a regular contributing member. He remains on good terms with the Libertarian Party and addressed its 2004 convention. He also was endorsed by the Constitution Party's 2004 presidential candidate, Michael Peroutka.

Paul was on a bipartisan coalition of 17 members of Congress that sued President Bill Clinton in 1999 over his conduct of the Kosovo war. They accused Clinton of failing to inform Congress of the action's status within 48 hours as required by the War Powers Resolution, and of failing to obtain Congressional declaration of war. Congress had voted 427–2 against a declaration of war with Yugoslavia, and had voted to deny support for the air campaign in Kosovo. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that since Congress had voted for funding after Clinton had actively engaged troops in the war with Kosovo, legislators had sent a confusing message about whether they approved of the war. Paul said that the judge's decision attempted to circumvent the Constitution and to authorize the president to conduct a war without approval from Congress.

Committee assignments

Rep. Paul serves on the following committee and subcommittees.

Committee on Financial Services

*Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology

*Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade

*Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

Committee on Foreign Affairs

*Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight

*Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere

Joint Economic Committee

2008 presidential campaign

Liberty Forum.]] in Manchester.]]

Republican primary campaign

Paul formally declared his candidacy for the 2008 Republican nomination on March 12, 2007, on C-SPAN. His campaign had intense grassroots support—his supporters were said to "always show up"—and he had dozens of wins in GOP straw polls.

Paul's campaign showed "surprisingly strong" fundraising with several record-breaking events. He had the highest rate of military contribution for 2008, and donations coming from individuals, aided significantly by an online presence and very active campaigning by supporters, who organized moneybomb fundraisers netting millions over several months. Such fundraising earned Paul the status of having raised more than any other Republican candidate in 2007's fourth-quarter. Paul's name was a number-one web search term as ranked by Technorati, beginning around May 2007. He has led other candidates in YouTube subscriptions since May 20, 2007.

Paul was largely ignored by traditional media, including at least one incident where FOX News did not invite him to a GOP debate featuring all other presidential candidates at the time. One exception was Glenn Beck's program on Headline News, where Beck interviewed Paul for the full hour of his show.

Though projections of 2008 Republican delegate counts varied widely, Paul's count was consistently third among the three candidates remaining after Super Tuesday. According to CNN and the New York Times, by Super Tuesday Paul had received five delegates in North Dakota, and was projected to receive two in Iowa, four in Nevada, and five in Alaska based on caucus results, totaling 16 delegates. However, Paul's campaign projected 42 delegates based on the same results, including delegates from Colorado, Maine, and Minnesota.

In the January Louisiana caucus, Paul placed second behind John McCain, but uncommitted delegates outnumbered both candidates' pledged delegates, since a registration deadline had been extended to January 12. Paul said he had the greatest number of pledged Louisiana delegates who had registered by the original January 10 deadline, and formally challenged the deadline extension and the Louisiana GOP's exclusion of voters due to an outdated list; he projected three Louisiana delegates. The Super Tuesday West Virginia caucus was won by Mike Huckabee, whose state campaign coordinators reportedly arranged to give three Huckabee delegates to Paul in exchange for votes from Paul's supporters. Huckabee has not confirmed this delegate pledge.

Paul's preference votes in primaries and caucuses began at 10 percent in Iowa (winning Jefferson County) and eight percent in New Hampshire, where he had the support of state sovereignty champion, State Representative Dan Itse; on Super Tuesday they ranged from 25 percent in Montana and 21 percent in North Dakota caucuses, where he won several counties, to three percent in several state primaries, averaging under 10 percent in primaries overall. After sweeping four states on March 4, McCain was widely projected to have a majority of delegates pledged to vote for him in the September party convention. Paul obliquely acknowledged McCain on March 6: "Though victory in the political sense [is] not available, many victories have been achieved due to hard work and enthusiasm." He continued to contest the remaining primaries, having added, "McCain has the nominal number ... but if you're in a campaign for only gaining power, that is one thing; if you're in a campaign to influence ideas and the future of the country, it's never over." Paul's recent book, , became a New York Times and Amazon.com bestseller immediately upon release. His newest book, End the Fed, has been released.

On June 12, 2008, Paul withdrew his bid for the Republican nomination, citing his resources could be better spent on improving America. Some of the $4 million remaining campaign contributions was invested into the new political action and advocacy group called Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty. Paul told the newsmagazine NOW on PBS the goal of the Campaign for Liberty is to "spread the message of the Constitution and limited government, while at the same time organizing at the grassroots level and teaching pro-liberty activists how to run effective campaigns and win elections at every level of government."

Newsletter controversy

Controversial claims made in Ron Paul's newsletters, written in the first person, included statements such as "Boy, it sure burns me to have a national holiday for that pro-communist philanderer Martin Luther King. I voted against this outrage time and time again as a Congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day." Along with "even in my little town of Lake Jackson, Texas, I've urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming." Another notable statement that garnered controversy was "opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be" An issue from 1992 refers to carjacking as the "hip-hop thing to do among the urban youth who play unsuspecting whites like pianos." In an article title "The Pink House" the newsletter wrote that " "Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities."

Shortly afterwards, The New Republic released many previously unpublicized quotations attributed to Paul in James Kirchick's "Angry White Man" article. Kirchick accused Paul of having made racist, sexist, and derogatory comments geared towards African Americans, women, and the LGBT community. Kircheck also accused Paul of possessing "an obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry." CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer that the writing "Didn't sound like the Ron Paul I've come to know." Later, Nelson Linder, president of the Austin chapter of the NAACP, also defended Paul.

Reason republished Paul's 1996 defense of the newsletters, and later reported evidence from "a half-dozen longtime libertarian activists" that Lew Rockwell had been the chief ghostwriter.

Paul had given his own account of the newsletters in March 2001, stating the documents were authored by ghostwriters, and that while he did not author the challenged passages, he bore "some moral responsibility" for their publication.

Support for third party candidates

On September 5, 2008, the Constitution Party of Montana removed Chuck Baldwin from their presidential ticket, replacing him with Ron Paul for president and Michael Peroutka for vice president. Paul made an announcement stating that he "was aware that the party planned to do this, and has said that as long as he can remain passive and silent about the development, and as long as he need not sign any declaration of candidacy, that he does not object." stating that that he did not "seek nor consent" to the Montana Constitution Party's nomination. stating that the request was sent to them too late. On September 4, 2008, a list of electors in Louisiana using the label "Louisiana Taxpayers Party" filed papers and paid $500 with the Secretary of State's Office. The congressman had reportedly invited presidential candidates Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr, Cynthia McKinney, and Ralph Nader to the press conference, leading some to speculate that they would endorse Paul running for president on the ticket of either the Constitution, Libertarian or other third party.

On September 10, 2008, Paul confirmed his "open endorsement" (CNN) for the four candidates at a press conference in Washington D.C. He also revealed that he had rejected a request for an endorsement of John McCain. He later appeared on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer with Nader where they presented and briefly laid out the four principles that all the independent candidates had agreed on as the most important key issues of the presidential race. On September 22, 2008, in response to a written statement by Bob Barr, Paul abandoned his former neutral stance and announced his support of Chuck Baldwin in the 2008 presidential election.

In the 2008 general election, Paul still received 41,905 votes despite not actively running for the seat. He was listed on the ballot in Montana on the Constitution Party label, and in Louisiana on the "Louisiana Taxpayers Party" ticket, and received write-in votes in California (17,006), Pennsylvania (3,527), New Hampshire (1,092), and other states. (Not all U.S. jurisdictions require the counting or reporting of write-in votes.)

Post presidential campaign activities

On February 26, 2009, Ron Paul was a key speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., speaking for 20 minutes on topics including monetary theory and policy in the United States, in addition to the War in Iraq, and international foreign policy. Paul's Campaign for Liberty sent 140 volunteers to CPAC 2009 to distribute materials, and significantly increased that number the following year.

In the 2009 CPAC Presidential Preference straw poll for the 2012 election, Paul tied 2008 GOP Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin for third place with 13% of the vote, behind fellow former candidate Mitt Romney and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. However, in the 2010 CPAC straw poll, he came out on top, decisively winning with 31%, followed distantly by Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, among others. In the 2010 Southern Republican Leadership Conference straw poll, Paul finished second place with 24% of the vote (438 votes), behind only Mitt Romney (with 439 votes). An April 2010 Rasmussen poll found that Ron Paul and President Obama were nearly tied for the 2012 presidential election among likely voters, although later polls showed him trailing significantly. He also trails in polls for the Republican presidential nomination, typically behind Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Newt Gingrich.

Speculated 2012 presidential run

There is speculation among pundits and journalists regarding the prospect of Paul running for president again in 2012. When Paul's wife, Carol, was asked if he would run in 2012 her response was "If you would ask him now he would probably say 'no', but he did say...things are happening so quickly and fast in our country, if we're at a crisis period and they need someone...with the knowledge he has...then he would do it."

Jesse Benton, Senior VP of Campaign for Liberty, has said of the prospective run: "If the decision had to be made today, it would be 'no', but he is considering it very strongly and there is a decent likelihood that he will. A lot of it depends on things going on in his personal life and also what's going on in the country."

As part of an effort to encourage Ron Paul to run for president in 2012, a Tea Party moneybomb has been set up with the aim of repeating the 2007 Ron Paul Tea Party moneybomb, which gave Paul's 2008 presidential campaign over $6 million in one day. The goal of The Ron Paul Tea Party is to have 100,000 people donate $100 each on December 16, 2010 to kick off Paul's 2012 presidential run, should he decide to run.

Political positions

Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, June 15, 2007.]]

Paul has been described as conservative, Constitutionalist, and libertarian. reflects both his medical degree and his insistence that he will "never vote for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution." One scoring method published in the American Journal of Political Science found Paul the most conservative of all 3,320 members of Congress from 1937 to 2002. Paul's foreign policy of nonintervention made him the only 2008 Republican presidential candidate to have voted against the Iraq War Resolution in 2002. He advocates withdrawal from the United Nations, and from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for reasons of maintaining strong national sovereignty. He supports free trade, rejecting membership in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization as "managed trade". He supports tighter border security and opposes welfare for illegal aliens, birthright citizenship and amnesty; he voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006. He voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks, but suggested war alternatives such as authorizing the president to grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal targeting specific terrorists.

Paul adheres deeply to Austrian school economics; he has authored six books on the subject, and displays pictures of Austrian school economists Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and Ludwig von Mises (as well as of Grover Cleveland) he cast two thirds of all the lone negative votes in the House during a 1995–1997 period. and states he has never voted to approve a budget deficit. Paul believes that the country could abolish the individual income tax by scaling back federal spending to its fiscal year 2000 levels; financing government operations would primarily come through the corporate income tax, excise taxes and tariffs. He supports eliminating most federal government agencies, calling them unnecessary bureaucracies. Paul also believes the longterm erosion of the U.S. dollar's purchasing power through inflation is attributable to its lack of any commodity backing. However, Paul does not support a complete return to a gold standard, instead preferring to legitimize gold and silver as legal tender and to remove the sales tax on them. He also advocates gradual elimination of the Federal Reserve System.

Paul supports constitutional rights, such as the right to keep and bear arms, and habeas corpus for political detainees. He opposes the Patriot Act, federal use of torture, presidential autonomy, a national ID card, domestic surveillance, and the draft. Citing the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, Paul advocates states' rights to decide how to regulate social matters not directly found in the Constitution. Paul calls himself "strongly pro-life", "an unshakable foe of abortion", and believes regulation or ban on medical decisions about maternal or fetal health is "best handled at the state level". He says his years as an obstetrician led him to believe life begins at conception; his abortion-related legislation, like the Sanctity of Life Act, is intended to negate Roe v. Wade and to get "the federal government completely out of the business of regulating state matters." Paul also believes that the notion of the separation of church and state is currently misused by the court system: "In case after case, the Supreme Court has used the infamous 'separation of church and state' metaphor to uphold court decisions that allow the federal government to intrude upon and deprive citizens of their religious liberty."

He opposes federal regulation of the death penalty, of education, and of marriage, and supports revising the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy to focus on disruptive sexual behavior (whether heterosexual or homosexual). As a free-market environmentalist, he asserts private property rights in relation to environmental protection and pollution prevention. He also opposes the federal War on Drugs, and thinks the states should decide whether to regulate or deregulate drugs such as medical marijuana. Paul pushes to eliminate federal involvement in and management of health care, which he argues would allow prices to drop due to the fundamental dynamics of a free market. He is an outspoken proponent for increased ballot access for 3rd party candidates and numerous election law reforms which he believes would allow more voter control. Ron Paul has also stated that “The government shouldn't be in the medical business." He is also opposed to government flu inoculation programs.

Paul takes a critical view of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, arguing that it was unconstitutional and did not improve race relations.

Books authored

Other contributions

References

External links

Ron Paul's Personal Website, books, articles, links to political sites connected with Ron Paul

RonPaul.com speeches, essays, interviews, photos and videos

Ron Paul Library articles and speeches by Ron Paul

Ron Paul Forums

;Congress

U.S. House of Representatives Office of Ron Paul

Congressional campaign website

;Organizations Founded

Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty

Ron Paul's Liberty PAC

Ron Paul's F.R.E.E. Foundation – The Foundation for Rational Economics and Education

;Presidential campaign

NOW on PBS "Ron Paul and Internet Politics". Also, a September 2008 NOW on PBS interview with Ron Paul

PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer — Vote 2008: Ron Paul

Category:1935 births Category:Living people Category:American anti-Iraq War activists Category:American foreign policy writers Category:American libertarians Category:American physicians Category:American political writers Category:American writers of German descent Category:Baptists from the United States Category:Classical liberals Category:Conservatism in the United States Category:Drug policy reform activists Category:Duke University alumni Category:Gettysburg College alumni Category:Internet memes Category:Libertarian Party (United States) presidential nominees Category:Libertarian theorists Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Texas Category:Military physicians Category:People from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Category:People from Brazoria County, Texas Category:Physicians from Texas Category:Politicians from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:Texas Republicans Category:Texas Libertarians Category:United States Air Force officers Category:United States presidential candidates, 1988 Category:United States presidential candidates, 2008 Category:University of Pittsburgh people

Name	Steve Jobs
Caption	Jobs holding a white iPhone 4 at Worldwide Developers Conference 2010
Birth name	Steven Paul Jobs
Birth date	February 24, 1955
Nationality	American
Occupation	Chairman and CEO, Apple Inc.
Alma mater	Reed College (dropped out in 1972)
Salary	US$1
Networth	$6.1 billion (2010)
Religion	Buddhism
Spouse	Laurene Powell (1991–present)
Children	4
Signature	Steve Jobs signature.svg

Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is an American business magnate and inventor. He is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple. Jobs also previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, following the acquisition of Pixar by Disney. He was credited in the 1995 movie Toy Story as an executive producer.

In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula, and others, designed, developed, and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven graphical user interface which led to the creation of the Macintosh. After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1984, He remained CEO and majority shareholder until its acquisition by the Walt Disney company in 2006. Jobs is currently a member of Disney's Board of Directors.

Jobs' history in business has contributed much to the symbolic image of the idiosyncratic, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of design and understanding the crucial role aesthetics play in public appeal. His work driving forward the development of products that are both functional and elegant has earned him a devoted following.

Jobs is listed as either primary inventor or co-inventor in over 230 awarded patents or patent applications related to a range of technologies from actual computer and portable devices to user interfaces (including touch-based), speakers, keyboards, power adapters, staircases, clasps, sleeves, lanyards and packages.

Early years

Jobs was born in San Francisco and was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs (née Hagopian) of Mountain View, California, who named him Steven Paul. Paul and Clara later adopted a daughter, who they named Patti. Jobs' biological parents – Abdulfattah Jandali, a Syrian Muslim graduate student who later became a political science professor, and Joanne Simpson, an American graduate student – later married, giving birth to and raising Jobs' biological sister, the novelist Mona Simpson.

Jobs attended Cupertino Junior High School and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California, In 1972, Jobs graduated from high school and enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one semester, he continued auditing classes at Reed, such as one in calligraphy, while sleeping on the floor in friends' rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple. Jobs later stated, "If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts." During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life". He has stated that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not fully relate to his thinking.

Career

Beginnings of Apple Computer

at the fifth conference (D5) in 2007.]]

In 1976, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, with later funding from a then-semi-retired Intel product-marketing manager and engineer A.C. "Mike" Markkula Jr., The following year, Apple aired a Super Bowl television commercial titled "1984." At Apple's annual shareholders meeting on January 24, 1984, an emotional Jobs introduced the Macintosh to a wildly enthusiastic audience; Andy Hertzfeld described the scene as "pandemonium." The Macintosh became the first commercially successful small computer with a graphical user interface. The development of the Mac was started by Jef Raskin, and eventually taken over by Jobs.

While Jobs was a persuasive and charismatic director for Apple, some of his employees from that time had described him as an erratic and temperamental manager. An industry-wide sales slump towards the end of 1984 caused a deterioration in Jobs's working relationship with Sculley, and at the end of May 1985 – following an internal power struggle and an announcement of significant layoffs – Sculley relieved Jobs of his duties as head of the Macintosh division.

NeXT Computer

Around the same time, Jobs founded another computer company, NeXT Computer. Like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation was technologically advanced; however, it was largely dismissed by industry as cost-prohibitive. Among those who could afford it, however, the NeXT workstation garnered a strong following because of its technical strengths, chief among them its object-oriented software development system. Jobs marketed NeXT products to the scientific and academic fields because of the innovative, experimental new technologies it incorporated (such as the Mach kernel, the digital signal processor chip, and the built-in Ethernet port).

The NeXTcube was described by Jobs as an "interpersonal" computer, which he believed was the next step after "personal" computing. That is, if computers could allow people to communicate and collaborate together in an easy way, it would solve many of the problems that "personal" computing had come up against.

During a time when e-mail for most people was plain text, Jobs loved to demo the NeXT's e-mail system, NeXTMail, as an example of his "interpersonal" philosophy. NeXTMail was one of the first to support universally visible, clickable embedded graphics and audio within e-mail.

Jobs ran NeXT with an obsession for aesthetic perfection, as evidenced by such things as the NeXTcube's magnesium case. This put considerable strain on NeXT's hardware division, and in 1993, after having sold only 50,000 machines, NeXT transitioned fully to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP/Intel.

Pixar and Disney

In 1986, Jobs bought The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm's computer graphics division for the price of $10 million, $5 million of which was given to the company as capital.

The new company, which was originally based at Lucasfilm's Kerner Studios in San Rafael, California, but has since relocated to Emeryville, California, was initially intended to be a high-end graphics hardware developer. After years of unprofitability selling the Pixar Image Computer, it contracted with Disney to produce a number of computer-animated feature films, which Disney would co-finance and distribute.

The first film produced by the partnership, Toy Story, brought fame and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released in 1995. Over the next ten plus years, under Pixar's creative chief John Lasseter, the company would produce the box-office hits A Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Cars (2006), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009) and Toy Story 3 (2010). Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E and Up each received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, an award introduced in 2001.

In the years 2003 and 2004, as Pixar's contract with Disney was running out, Jobs and Disney chief executive Michael Eisner tried but failed to negotiate a new partnership, and in early 2004 Jobs announced that Pixar would seek a new partner to distribute its films once its contract with Disney expired.

In October 2005, Bob Iger replaced Eisner at Disney, and Iger quickly worked to patch up relations with Jobs and Pixar. On January 24, 2006, Jobs and Iger announced that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. Once the deal closed, Jobs became The Walt Disney Company's largest single shareholder with approximately 7% of the company's stock. Jobs's holdings in Disney far exceed those of Eisner, who holds 1.7%, and Disney family member Roy E. Disney, who held about 1% of the company's stock and whose criticisms of Eisner included the soured Pixar relationship and accelerated his ousting. Jobs joined the company's board of directors upon completion of the merger.

Jobs also helps oversee Disney and Pixar's combined animation businesses with a seat on a special six-man steering committee.

Return to Apple

, San Francisco, January 11, 2005.]]

In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $429 million. The deal was finalized in late 1996, bringing Jobs back to the company he co-founded. He soon became Apple's interim CEO after the directors lost confidence in and ousted then-CEO Gil Amelio in a boardroom coup. In March 1998, to concentrate Apple's efforts on returning to profitability, Jobs immediately terminated a number of projects such as Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc. In the coming months, many employees developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding in the elevator, "afraid that they might not have a job when the doors opened. The reality was that Jobs' summary executions were rare, but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize a whole company." Jobs also changed the licensing program for Macintosh clones, making it too costly for the manufacturers to continue making machines.

With the purchase of NeXT, much of the company's technology found its way into Apple products, most notably NeXTSTEP, which evolved into Mac OS X. Under Jobs's guidance the company increased sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac and other new products; since then, appealing designs and powerful branding have worked well for Apple. At the 2000 Macworld Expo, Jobs officially dropped the "interim" modifier from his title at Apple and became permanent CEO. Jobs quipped at the time that he would be using the title 'iCEO.'

In recent years, the company has branched out, introducing and improving upon other digital appliances. With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company made forays into consumer electronics and music distribution. In 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touch display cell phone, which also included the features of an iPod and, with its own mobile browser, revolutionized the mobile browsing scene. While stimulating innovation, Jobs also reminds his employees that "real artists ship", by which he means that delivering working products on time is as important as innovation and attractive design.

Jobs is both admired and criticized for his consummate skill at persuasion and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the "reality distortion field" and is particularly evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially known as "Stevenotes") at Macworld Expos and at Apple's own World Wide Developers Conferences.

In 2005, Jobs responded to criticism of Apple's poor recycling programs for e-waste in the U.S. by lashing out at environmental and other advocates at Apple's Annual Meeting in Cupertino in April. However, a few weeks later, Apple announced it would take back iPods for free at its retail stores. The Computer TakeBack Campaign responded by flying a banner from a plane over the Stanford University graduation at which Jobs was the commencement speaker.

Business life

Wealth

As of October 2009, Jobs owned 5.426 million shares of Apple, most of which was granted in 2003 when Jobs was given 10 million shares. He also owned 138 million shares of Disney, which he received in exchange for Disney's acquisition of Pixar. Forbes estimated his net wealth at $5.1 billion in 2009, making him the 43rd wealthiest American. Jobs has been criticized for his lack of public philanthropy despite his wealth, particularly in recent years as other billionaires (such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet) have pledged significant portions of their fortunes to charity. As of 2006, Jobs had not appeared on national tallies of charitable donations totaling $1 million or more, as compiled by Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy. Although he may well have donated significant sums anonymously, some have doubted this assumption, given Jobs' equally poor track record on corporate philanthropy; after resuming control of Apple in 1997, Jobs eliminated all corporate philanthropy programs as a temporary cost-cutting measure until profitability improved. Despite the company's record-breaking profits and $40 billion cash on hand, Jobs has not reinstated a philanthropic division at Apple.

Stock options backdating issue

In 2001, Steve Jobs was granted stock options in the amount of 7.5 million shares of Apple with an exercise price of $18.30, which allegedly should have been $21.10, thereby incurring taxable income of $20,000,000 that he did not report as income. This indicated backdating. Apple overstated its earnings by that same amount. If found liable, Jobs might have faced a number of criminal charges and civil penalties. Apple claimed that the options were originally granted at a special board meeting that may never have taken place. Furthermore, the investigation is focusing on false dating of the options resulting in a retroactive $20 million increase in the exercise price. The case is the subject of active criminal and civil government investigations, though an independent internal Apple investigation completed on December 29, 2006, found that Jobs was unaware of these issues and that the options granted to him were returned without being exercised in 2003. On July 1, 2008, a $7 billion class action suit was filed against several members of the Apple Board of Directors for revenue lost due to the alleged securities fraud.

Management style

Much has been made of Jobs' aggressive and demanding personality. Fortune wrote that he "is considered one of Silicon Valley's leading egomaniacs." Commentaries on his temperamental style can be found in Mike Moritz's The Little Kingdom, one of the few authorized biographies of Jobs; The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, by Alan Deutschman; and , by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon.

Jef Raskin, a former colleague, once said that Jobs "would have made an excellent king of France," alluding to Jobs' compelling and larger-than-life persona.

Jobs has always aspired to position Apple and its products at the forefront of the information technology industry by foreseeing and setting trends, at least in innovation and style. He summed up that self-concept at the end of his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007 by quoting ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky:

Floyd Norman said that at Pixar, Jobs was a "mature, mellow individual" and never interfered with the creative process of the filmmakers.

In 2005, Steve Jobs banned all books published by John Wiley & Sons from Apple Stores in response to their publishing an unauthorized biography, . In its 2010 annual earnings report, Wiley said it had "closed a deal ... to make its titles available for the iPad."

Personal life

Jobs married Laurene Powell, on March 18, 1991. Presiding over the wedding was the Zen Buddhist monk Kobun Chino Otogowa. The couple have a son, Reed Paul Jobs, and two other children. Jobs also has a daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs (born 1978), from his relationship with Bay Area painter Chrisann Brennan. She briefly raised their daughter on welfare when Jobs denied paternity, claiming that he was sterile; he later acknowledged paternity.

In 1982, Jobs bought an apartment in The San Remo, an apartment building in New York City with a politically progressive reputation, where Demi Moore, Steven Spielberg, Steve Martin, and Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, daughter of Rita Hayworth, also had apartments. With the help of I.M. Pei, Jobs spent years renovating his apartment in the top two floors of the building's north tower, only to sell it almost two decades later to U2 frontman Bono. Jobs had never moved in.

In 1984, Jobs purchased a , 14 bedroom Spanish Colonial mansion, designed by George Washington Smith in Woodside, California, also known as Jackling House. Although it reportedly remained in an almost unfurnished state, Jobs lived in the mansion for almost ten years. According to reports, he kept an old BMW motorcycle in the living room, and let Bill Clinton use it in 1998. Since the early 1990s, Jobs has lived in a house in the Old Palo Alto neighborhood of Palo Alto. President Clinton dined with Jobs and 14 Silicon Valley CEOs there August 7, 1996.

He allowed the mansion to fall into a state of disrepair, planning to demolish the house and build a smaller home on the property; but he met with complaints from local preservationists over his plans. In June 2004, the Woodside Town Council gave Jobs approval to demolish the mansion, on the condition that he advertise the property for a year to see if someone would move it to another location and restore it. A number of people expressed interest, including several with experience in restoring old property, but no agreements to that effect were reached. Later that same year, a local preservationist group began seeking legal action to prevent demolition. In January 2007 Jobs was denied the right to demolish the property, by a court decision.

He usually wears a black long-sleeved mock turtleneck made by St. Croix, Levi's 501 blue jeans, and New Balance 991 sneakers. He is a pescetarian.

His choice of car is a silver 2006 Mercedes SL 55 AMG, which has no licence plates. That is, according to Jobs, because they always got stolen.

Jobs had a public war of words with Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, starting when Jobs first criticized Dell for making "un-innovative beige boxes." On October 6, 1997, in a Gartner Symposium, when Michael Dell was asked what he would do if he owned then-troubled Apple Computer, he said "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." In 2006, Steve Jobs sent an email to all employees when Apple's market capitalization rose above Dell's. The email read:

Health concerns

In mid-2004, Jobs announced to his employees that he had been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his pancreas. The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually very grim; Jobs, however, stated that he had a rare, far less aggressive type known as islet cell neuroendocrine tumor. Jobs apparently did not require nor receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy. During Jobs' absence, Timothy D. Cook, head of worldwide sales and operations at Apple, ran the company. together with his choice to delegate significant portions of his keynote to other presenters, inspired a flurry of media and internet speculation about his health. In contrast, according to an Ars Technica journal report, WWDC attendees who saw Jobs in person said he "looked fine"; following the keynote, an Apple spokesperson said that "Steve's health is robust."

Two years later, similar concerns followed Jobs' 2008 WWDC keynote address; Apple officials stated Jobs was victim to a "common bug" and that he was taking antibiotics, while others surmised his cachectic appearance was due to the Whipple procedure. During a July conference call discussing Apple earnings, participants responded to repeated questions about Steve Jobs' health by insisting that it was a "private matter." Others, however, opined that shareholders had a right to know more, given Jobs' hands-on approach to running his company. The New York Times published an article based on an off-the-record phone conversation with Jobs, noting that "while his health issues have amounted to a good deal more than 'a common bug,' they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer."

On August 28, 2008, Bloomberg mistakenly published a 2500-word obituary of Jobs in its corporate news service, containing blank spaces for his age and cause of death. (News carriers customarily stockpile up-to-date obituaries to facilitate news delivery in the event of a well-known figure's untimely death.) Although the error was promptly rectified, many news carriers and blogs reported on it, intensifying rumors concerning Jobs' health. Jobs responded at Apple's September 2008 Let's Rock keynote by quoting Mark Twain: "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated"; at a subsequent media event, Jobs concluded his presentation with a slide reading "110 / 70", referring to his blood pressure, stating he would not address further questions about his health.

On December 16, 2008, Apple announced that marketing vice-president Phil Schiller would deliver the company's final keynote address at the Macworld Conference and Expo 2009, again reviving questions about Jobs' health. In a statement given on January 5, 2009 on Apple.com, Jobs said that he had been suffering from a "hormone imbalance" for several months. On January 14, 2009, in an internal Apple memo, Jobs wrote that in the previous week he had "learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought" and announced a six-month leave of absence until the end of June 2009 to allow him to better focus on his health. Tim Cook, who had previously acted as CEO in Jobs' 2004 absence, became acting CEO of Apple, with Jobs still involved with "major strategic decisions." Jobs' prognosis was "excellent". and a Jefferson Award for Public Service in the category "Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under" (aka the Samuel S. Beard Award) in 1987.

On November 27, 2007, Jobs was named the most powerful person in business by Fortune Magazine.

On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Jobs into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.

In August 2009, Jobs was selected the most admired entrepreneur among teenagers on a survey by Junior Achievement.

On November 5, 2009, Jobs was named the CEO of the decade by Fortune Magazine.

In November 2009 Jobs was ranked #57 on Forbes: The World's Most Powerful People.

In December 2010, the Financial Times named Jobs its person of the year for 2010, ending its essay by stating, "In his autobiography, John Sculley, the former PepsiCo executive who once ran Apple, said this of the ambitions of the man he had pushed out: 'Apple was supposed to become a wonderful consumer products company. This was a lunatic plan. High-tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product.' How wrong can you be".

In popular culture

Jobs was prominently featured in three films about the history of the personal computing industry:

Triumph of the Nerds — a 1996 three-part documentary for PBS, about the rise of the home computer/personal computer.

Nerds 2.0.1 — a 1998 three-part documentary for PBS, (and sequel to Triumph of the Nerds) which chronicles the development of the Internet.

Pirates of Silicon Valley — a 1999 docudrama which chronicles the rise of Apple and Microsoft. He was portrayed by Noah Wyle.

Jobs has also been frequently parodied: Mad Magazine — a feature called Calvin and Jobs, a parody of Calvin and Hobbes, starring Steve in the role of Hobbes and his attempts to explain to Calvin his job.

Jobs was also parodied in "Mypods and Boomsticks", a 2008 The Simpsons episode which features an adventure into the 'world' of Mapple, MyPods, and "Steve Mobbs".

30 Rock parodied Jobs's keynote presentation style, turtleneck and all in the episode "Cutbacks". Jobs was also parodied on Mad TV and Saturday Night Live.

See also

Apple Inc.

Pixar

The organization of the artist

Notes

References

Bantam Doubleday Dell. ISBN 0-385-48684-7. Chapter 28

External links

"Thirty Years of Innovation at Apple: Jobs on the Job". Time. 2007.

Steve Jobs' executive profile at Apple.

YouTube video of first Jobs' Macworld keynote in 1997, when he returned to Apple, where he announced partnership with Microsoft.

Jobs’s commencement address at Stanford University, June 12, 2005 (YouTube video).

"Thoughts on Music" by Steve Jobs, February 6, 2007.

"Thoughts on Flash" by Steve Jobs, April, 2010.

Bloomberg Game Changers: Steve Jobs A 48 minute video on Steve Jobs by Bloomberg

Articles

Anecdotes from Steve Jobs' early days in Apple as reported by Andy Hertzfeld. Folklore.org.

Interviews

 — April 20, 1995.

Steve Jobs: The Rolling Stone Interview, Rolling Stone – December 3, 2003.

The Seed of Apple's Innovation, BusinessWeek — October 12, 2004.

How Big Can Apple Get?, Fortune — February 21, 2005.

, Newsweek — October 15, 2006.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (video and transcript of on stage interview), All Things D – May 30, 2007.

Videotaped Deposition of Steven P. Jobs in front of the Securities and Exchange Commission  – March 18, 2008

Category:Articles with inconsistent citation formats Category:American billionaires Category:American Buddhists Category:American chief executives Category:American vegetarians Category:Businesspeople in software Category:Businesspeople from California Category:Computer designers Category:Computer pioneers Category:Directors of Apple Inc. Category:Disney people Category:Internet pioneers Category:National Medal of Technology recipients Category:NeXT Category:Organ transplant recipients Category:Pancreatic cancer survivors Category:People from the San Francisco Bay Area Category:Reed College alumni Category:American people of Syrian descent Category:American people of Arab descent Category:American adoptees Category:1955 births Category:Living people

Name	Rick Santelli
Birth date	January 12, 1953
Birth place	Chicago, Illinois
Occupation	CNBC commentator, Derivatives trader

Rick Santelli is an American on-air editor for the CNBC Business News network.

In the course of his normal production schedule at CNBC Business, Santelli appears on-air approximately 12 to 16 times a day.

Early life

The grandson of four Italian immigrants, Santelli was born near Taylor Street in Chicago's old Italian neighborhood and at age 6 moved with his family to Lombard, Illinois. After graduating from Willowbrook High School in Villa Park, Illinois,

During the time he spent as a financial trader and executive, Santelli worked for Drexel Burnham Lambert as the Vice President of Interest Rate Futures and Options. and in 1999, accepted a full-time job with CNBC. Some subsequent protests in American cities, dubbed Tea Parties, may have drawn inspiration from Santelli's outburst, but were not directly associated with him. During a White House press briefing, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about Santelli's comments and expressed skepticism over whether Santelli had actually read the government's plan.

In response to the attention he received from the media and the Obama administration, Santelli clarified his comments and addressed concerns that the event was staged. Criticism of Santelli's remarks continued, and a response from Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart resulted in additional criticism towards CNBC in particular.

CNN.com reported that some compared Santelli to fictional reporter Howard Beale, the protagonist of the 1976 satirical film Network. Santelli has said, "I think that this tea party phenomenon is steeped in American culture and steeped in the American notion to get involved with what’s going on with our government. I haven’t organized. I’m going to have to work to pay my taxes, so I’m not going to be able to get away today. But, I have to tell you — I’m pretty proud of this."

On April 20, 2009, Santelli participated as a panel member in an Economic Leadership Forum hosted by the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation at Texas A&M; University.

On November 4, 2010, the Tea Party Patriots, confirmed in an email to their members, that Santelli's comments did in fact start the Tea Party movement.

"Tea Party Patriots wishes to extend a special thank you to Rick Santelli for his rant on February 19, 2009, which started this entire movement. Without Rick's rant, this movement would never have started. Many others will try to take credit but don't be fooled. He was the spark that began this fire. "

Personal life

Santelli lives with his wife and three daughters in Chicago's western suburbs near Wheaton, Illinois.

References

External links

Rick Santelli bio on CNBC.com

Original speech by Rick Santelli on CNBC.com

Santelli's speech and White House response

Category:American television reporters and correspondents Category:American business journalists Category:Living people Category:University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign alumni Category:Drexel Burnham Lambert Category:1953 births Category:People from Wheaton, Illinois

Caption	Ferrell in May 2009
Birth date	July 16, 1967
Birth name	John William Ferrell
Birth place	Irvine, California, U.S.
Spouse	Viveca Paulin (2000–present)
Years active	1995–present
Occupation	Comedian, impressionist, actor, writer

John William "Will" Ferrell (; born , 1967) is an American comedian, impressionist, actor, and writer. Ferrell first established himself in the late 1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, and has subsequently starred in the comedy films Old School, Elf, , , Stranger than Fiction, Blades of Glory, Semi-Pro, and The Other Guys. He is considered a member of the "Frat Pack," a generation of leading Hollywood comic actors to emerge in the late 1990s and the 2000s including Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Steve Carell, Vince Vaughn, and brothers Owen and Luke Wilson.

Early life

Ferrell was born in Irvine, California, the son of Betty Kay ( Overman), a teacher who taught at Old Mill School elementary school, and Roy Lee Ferrell, Jr., a guitarist for The Righteous Brothers. His parents were both natives of Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, and moved to California in 1964; Ferrell also has Irish ancestry. He first attended school at Turtle Rock Elementary, and later attended Rancho San Joaquin Middle School, both in Irvine. He attended University High School in Irvine, and was a kicker for the school's varsity football team. He told the Orange County Register that the dullness of Irvine contributed to the growth of his humor:

Growing up in suburbia, in safe, master-planned Irvine, there was no drama so we had to create it in our heads. My main form of entertainment was cracking my friends up and exploring new ways of being funny. I didn't have to have the survival mode instinct like other comics, who grew up in tough neighborhoods. I had the opposite. For me, I grew up in Mayberry, and the humor broke the boredom. And there was a lot to make fun of.

He enrolled at the University of Southern California, where he studied Sports Broadcasting and graduated with a degree in Sports Information. He is also a member of Delta Tau Delta Fraternity. After graduating in 1990, he developed his improvisation skills as a member of the comedy group The Groundlings.

Saturday Night Live

Ferrell joined Saturday Night Live in 1995 and left in 2002 after a successful seven-year tenure. He returned to host twice (both in season finales), and once in the cold open of the final episode of Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday

During his time on SNL, Ferrell made a name for himself with his impersonations, which included:

U.S. President George W. Bush

Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray,

Singer Robert Goulet (crooning a cappella pieces of music by Sisqó, Baha Men, and Notorious B.I.G.),

Singer Neil Diamond,

Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton (who was quoted several times to favor Ferrell's impersonation),

Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy,

United States Attorney General Janet Reno,

Convicted Unabomber Ted Kaczynski,

Game show host Alex Trebek,

Fictitious black private detective Shaft,

Professional wrestler-turned-Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura,

U.S. Vice President Al Gore (Darrell Hammond took over once Ferrell started playing Bush),

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein,

Cuban President Fidel Castro.

His original characters included "Morning Latte" co-host Tom Wilkins, Ed the Horse's twin brother Ned, fictional Blue Öyster Cult member Gene Frenkle (physically modeled after Blue Öyster Cult vocalist Eric Bloom), music teacher Marty Culp, Spartan cheerleader Craig Buchanan, Dale Sturtevant from "Dissing Your Dog", Hank of the Bill Brasky Buddies, David Leary from "Dog Show", and night clubber Steve Butabi in a sketch that went to the big screen in 1998's A Night at the Roxbury.

Ferrell returned to Saturday Night Live as a guest host on , 2005, and , 2009. Both times, he reprised his role as Alex Trebek in the "Celebrity Jeopardy" sketches. On the appearance, Ferrell reprised his role as Robert Goulet in a fake commercial advertising a series of crooned ringtones and, during the performance of the song "Little Sister" by musical guests Queens of the Stone Age, Ferrell came on stage playing the cowbell.

Ferrell became the highest paid cast member of Saturday Night Live in 2001 with a season salary of $350,000.

Film

During his time on Saturday Night Live, Ferrell appeared in several movies: , A Night at the Roxbury, Superstar, The Ladies Man, Dick, Drowning Mona, , Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and Zoolander.

His first starring role came after his departure from SNL with Frank "The Tank" Richard in Old School (2003). The film "belongs to Mr. Ferrell," declared the New York Times, which described how he "uses his hilarious, anxious zealotry to sell the part." Old School was a major success and Ferrell received an MTV Movie Awards nomination for Best Comedic Performance.

The title role in Elf (2003) followed, as did another MTV Movie Awards nomination. Ferrell continued to land comedy roles in 2004 and 2005 in films such as Melinda and Melinda, , Starsky & Hutch earning himself a place among Hollywood's Frat Pack. In 2005, Ferrell earned . In 2006, Ferrell starred in Stranger Than Fiction and ; both received critical and box office success. Ferrell's performance in Stranger Than Fiction introduced audiences to the dramatic potential of Ferrell's acting talents. On , 2006, 'The Magazine' named Ferrell as one of its three actors of the year in their 2006 year in review issue.

, December 2007]] Ferrell appeared as part of a pre-game video package for the Rose Bowl along with Texas alum Matthew McConaughey. Ferrell also sang a song at the ESPY Awards in 2006 about Lance Armstrong and Neil Armstrong. He and John C. Reilly also did a spot during the 2008 ESPY Awards where they made demands in order for them to appear at the ESPYs like asking Portland Trail Blazers' center Greg Oden to tuck them in at night and tell them stories of the old times or to bring back the Cold War so the Olympics can be interesting again.

Ferrell participated in a 79th Academy Awards musical-comedy performance with John C. Reilly and Jack Black, wherein they sang a song about comedies being snubbed by the voters in favor of dramas.

In May 2009 it was announced Ferrell is in talks to star in Neighborhood Watch, a comedy about an urbanite who moves to the suburbs and uncovers a conspiracy. In negotiations to direct is David Dobkin, who gave Ferrell a cameo in Wedding Crashers. In August 2009, Ferrell decided not to do the film. In the summer of 2009, Ferrell did a large amount of filming with several young actors. He helped out on a film entitled Making a Movie, which is now on DVD.

In June 2009, Land of the Lost was released. It was a commercial and critical flop after earning on opening weekend, about two-thirds of what the studio expected.

In 2010, he was the executive producer and star of The Other Guys, a buddy cop film, which also has an ensemble cast which consists of Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes, Michael Keaton, Steve Coogan, Ray Stevenson, Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson. Unlike Land of the Lost, the film was a commercial success, earning over $140 million, and was positively reviewed by critics.

Voice acting

Ferrell has worked as a voice actor in several animated television programs, including his portrayal of Bob Oblong, a 1950s-style father with no arms or legs, in the short-lived animated television series The Oblongs. He has had several guest appearances on Family Guy, where he played the Black Knight in "Mr. Saturday Knight", as well as Fat Greek Guy and Miles "Chatterbox" Musket in "Fifteen Minutes of Shame". Ferrell also starred as Ted (a.k.a. The Man in the Yellow Hat) in the movie Curious George and guest voiced on an episode of the FOX sitcom King of the Hill as an overly PC soccer coach. He voiced the title character in the 2010 DreamWorks Animation film Megamind.

Funny or Die

In April 2007, Ferrell launched "Funny or Die", a streaming video website where short comedy films are uploaded and voted on by users. The site features The Landlord, starring Ferrell and Funny or Die co-founder Adam McKay. Ferrell's character is harassed for the rent by his landlady, a swearing, beer-loving, two-year-old girl (played by McKay's daughter, Pearl). Child psychologists have criticized Ferrell and the McKay family for child exploitation, to which McKay responded: }} They followed with the release of a video entitled "Good Cop, Baby Cop" which also starred baby Pearl; the end of the video stated that this would be her final appearance and wished her a happy "baby retirement."

In September 2008, Ferrell released another video entitled "Will Ferrell Answers Internet Questions" where he takes some pressing questions and comments from his fans.

Other Ferrell's appearance on "Funny or Die",

Eastbound & Down

Ferrell co-produces (with Adam McKay) an HBO show starring Danny McBride called Eastbound & Down. He also has a recurring role as car dealer Ashley Schaeffer.

Personal life

In August 2000, Ferrell married Swedish actress Viveca Paulin, whom he met in 1995 at an acting class. They live in New York City and in Orange County, California and have three sons, Magnus Paulin Ferrell, born , 2004, Mattias Paulin Ferrell, born , 2006, and Axel Paulin Ferrell, born , 2010.

In 2006, I-Newswire.com, a site that accepts submissions from readers and publishes them as "press releases", reported that Ferrell had died in a paragliding accident. The hoax was published before its factual inaccuracy was noticed. The story was further propagated when it appeared on Google News.

Ferrell is a fan of USC Trojan football. At USC, Ferrell was a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity and is now an active alumnus. Ferrell has worked with former head coach Pete Carroll to do motivational stunts for the players during the season. Ferrell represented Chelsea as honorary captain in the coin toss before the Chelsea v Inter Milan match at The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on , 2009.

Ferrell enjoys running and has participated in several major marathons such as the Boston, New York and Stockholm Marathons. He also raises money for charity, including his Scholarships for Cancer Survivors campaign through Crowdrise; a social networking community for volunteers and a micro-donations fundraising platform.

In 2007, Autograph magazine named Ferrell the worst celebrity autographer. Its editor stated, "What's so frustrating about Will Ferrell being the worst autograph signer this past year is that he used to be so nice to fans and collectors and a great signer. What makes him so bad is that he'll taunt people asking for his autograph." In response, Ferrell has stated, "I don't know how I got on the list. I sign a lot of autographs," but has admitted to taunting autograph-seekers: "I do. I really do. I'm like, 'How badly do you want this autograph?' 'Are you sure?' 'You say you're my biggest fan, really, prove it.' I'll do things like that. They have to earn it."

Ferrell had noted that, although he was well known for his SNL impersonation of President George W. Bush, he chose, for both professional and political reasons, not to meet the President on several occasions, unlike his SNL predecessor Dana Carvey's famous chummy relationship with George H. W. Bush: "I declined, partly out of comedic purposes, because when I was on the show Saturday Night Live at the time, it didn't make sense to really meet the people that you play, for fear of them influencing you. And then the other side of it is, from a political standpoint, I don't want to meet that guy."

Ferrell made a comical debut as a relief pitcher for the Round Rock Express, the Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros, on , 2010. He was introduced as "Billy Ray 'Rojo' Johnson", and was brought in to relief pitch for the sixth inning. He then entertained the fans by bringing a sack of beer cans to the mound, as well as being ejected and getting chased by the opposing batter. He revealed himself to the fans when his moustache fell off during the chase. The appearance was cooked up by Ferrell and the Express, who sent out a press release announcing Johnson's "signing", to promote The Will Powered Golf Classic the following day at the nearby Cimarron Hills Country Club, which benefits Cancer for College, an organization that provides scholarships to cancer survivors.

Awards and nominations

Emmy Awards

Nominated:

2001: Outstanding Individual Performance In A Variety Or Music Program (for Saturday Night Live)

ESPY Awards

Won:

2007 ESPY Awards, Best Sports Movie (for )

2008 ESPY Awards, Best Sports Movie (for Semi-Pro)

Golden Globe Awards

Nominated:

2006: Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (for The Producers)

2007: Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy (for Stranger than Fiction)

James Joyce Award

2008: James Joyce Award from University College Dublin's Literary and Historical Society in recognition for "excelling in his field".

MTV Movie Awards

Won:

2007: Best Kiss for (with Sacha Baron Cohen)

Nominated:

2003: Best Comedic Performance (for Old School)

2003: Best On-Screen Team (with Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughn for Old School)

2004: Best Comedic Performance (for Elf)

2005: Best Comedic Performance (for )

2005: Best On-Screen Team (with Paul Rudd, Steve Carell and David Koechner for )

2005: Best Musical Performance (with Paul Rudd, David Koechner and Steve Carell for )

2007: Best Comedic Performance (for Blades of Glory)

2007: Best Fight (for Blades of Glory)

Razzie Awards

Nominated:

2005: Worst Actor for Bewitched and Kicking & Screaming

Satellite Awards

Nominated:

2006: Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical (for Stranger Than Fiction)

Spike TV Guys' Choice Awards

Won:

2007 Spike TV Guys' Choice Awards, Funniest Mo-fo

2007 Spike TV Guys' Choice Awards, Most Viral Video

Teen Choice Awards

Won:

2007: Choice Movie Actor - Comedy for and Blades of Glory

Nominated:

2004: Choice Comedian

2004: Choice Movie Actor - Comedy for Elf

2005: Choice Comedian

2005: Choice Movie Actor - Comedy for and Kicking & Screaming

2005: Choice Movie Hissy Fit for Kicking & Screaming

2005: Choice Movie Rumble for

2005: Choice Movie Sleazebag for Kicking & Screaming

2007: Choice Comedian

2007: Choice Movie Chemistry (with Jon Heder), for Blades of Glory

2007: Choice Movie Dance (with Jon Heder), for Blades of Glory

2007: Choice Movie Hissy Fit for Blades of Glory

2008: Choice Comedian

2008: Choice Movie Actor - Comedy for Semi-Pro

2009: Choice Movie Actor - Comedy for Land of the Lost

Tony Awards

Nominated:

2009: Best Special Theatrical Event (for You're Welcome America. A Final Night with George W. Bush)

Filmography

{| border="2" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%;" |- style="background:#b0c4de; text-align:center;" !Year !! Movie !! Role !! U.S. gross !! Notes |- |rowspan="2"| 1995 || Bucket of Blood || Young Man || || Made for TV |- | Criminal Hearts || Newscaster || || |- |rowspan="2"| 1997 || || Mustafa || US$53.9 million || |- | Men Seeking Women || Al || || |- |rowspan="2"| 1998 || A Night at the Roxbury || Steve Butabi || US$30.3 million || Also Writer |- | The Thin Pink Line || Darren Clark || || |- |rowspan="4"| 1999 || Superstar || Sky Corrigan/God || US$30.6 million || |- | Dick || Bob Woodward || US$6.2 million || |- | || Mustafa || US$206 million || |- | The Suburbans || Gil || US$11,130 || |- |rowspan="2"| 2000 || The Ladies Man || Lance DeLune || US$13.6 million || |- | Drowning Mona || Cubby the Funeral Director || US$15.4 million || |- |rowspan="2"| 2001 || Zoolander || Mugatu || US$45.2 million || |- | Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back || Federal Wildlife Marshal Willenholly || US$30.1 million || |- | 2002 || Boat Trip || Brian's Boyfriend || US$8.6 million || Uncredited |- |rowspan="2"| 2003 | Old School || Frank "the Tank" Ricard || US$74.6 million || |- | Elf || Buddy || US$173.4 million || |- |rowspan="5"| 2004 || Melinda and Melinda || Hobie || US$3.8 million || |- | || Ron Burgundy || US$84.1 million || Also Writer |- | || Ron Burgundy || || Straight-To-DVDAlso Writer |- | Starsky & Hutch || Big Earl || US$88.2 million || Uncredited |- | Oh, What a Lovely Tea Party || Himself || || |- |rowspan="6"| 2005 | The Producers || Franz Liebkind ||US$19.4 million || |- | Wedding Crashers|| Chazz Reinhold || US$209.2 million || Uncredited |- | Winter Passing || Corbit || US$101,228 || |- | Bewitched || Jack Wyatt/Darrin || US$62.3 million || |- | Kicking & Screaming || Phil Weston || US$52.6 million || |- | The Wendell Baker Story || Dave Bix || US$127,144 || |- |rowspan="3"| 2006 | Stranger Than Fiction || Harold Crick ||US$40.1 million || |- | || Ricky Bobby ||US$148.2 million || Also Writer/Executive Producer |- | Curious George || Ted/The Man in the Yellow Hat || US$58.3 million || Voice Role |- || 2007 | Blades of Glory || Chazz Michael Michaels || US$118.2 million || |- |rowspan="2"| 2008 | Semi-Pro || Jackie Moon || US$33.4 million || |- | Step Brothers || Brennan Huff || US$101.1 million || Also Writer/Executive Producer |- |rowspan="3"| 2009 |Land of the Lost || Dr. Rick Marshall || US$49.4 million || |- | || Craig McDermott || US$15.1 million || UncreditedAlso Producer |- |SpongeBob's Truth or Square || Himself || || |- |rowspan="4"| 2010 |The Other Guys || Detective Allen Gamble || US$140 million || Also Executive Producer |- |Megamind || Megamind || ||Voice Role |- |Hubworld || Himself || ||Guest starSeason 1, Episode 1 |- |Everything Must Go || Nick Halsey || || |- |rowspan="2"| 2011 |Casa De Mi Padre || || || |}

Television work

Saturday Night Live (cast member from 1995 to 2002, host in 2005 and 2009)

Cow and Chicken (1997–2001, voice in various episodes)

Saturday Night Live: Presidential Bash 2000 (2000)

Family Guy (as the Black Knight, 2001)

Undeclared (guest star)

The Oblongs (Bob Oblong, 2001–2002, voice)

King of the Hill (as Coach Lucas, 1999, voice)

The Tom Green Show (guest star)

Family Guy (as himself, 2005)

The Naked Trucker and T-Bones Show (guest star)

Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway (voiceover and guest)

Eastbound & Down (BMW Dealership Owner Ashley Schaeffer)

You're Welcome America: A Final Night With George W. Bush

Man vs. Wild (guest star)

Live with Regis and Kelly (co-host)

''63rd Tony Awards (2009), 2009 MTV Movie Awards and 2009 TV Land Awards

'' The Merrick & Rosso Show (as himself, 2009)

SpongeBob SquarePants (as himself, 2009)

Strangers with Candy (2000)

Funny or Die Presents (2010)

Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job (2010)

30 Rock (2010)

Salary

(2006) $20,000,000

Bewitched (2005) $20,000,000

Kicking & Screaming (2005) $20,000,000

(2004) $6,900,000

References

External links

Will Ferrell's High Five Hollywood

Will Ferrell's profile on Funny Or Die

10 Best Will Ferrell Skits

Will Ferrell Interview for 'Everything Must Go'

Will Ferrell Interview

Maxim Rated Top SNL performer

Will Ferrell at Complex Magazine

HBO's Special Event page for Will Ferrell You're Welcome America: A Final Night with George W Bush

Crowdrise Scholarships for Cancer Survivors Fundraising Campaign

Category:1967 births Category:American comedians Category:American film actors Category:American impressionists (entertainers) Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American screenwriters Category:American television actors Category:American television producers Category:American television writers Category:American voice actors Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:Actors from California Category:The Groundlings Category:American comedians of Irish descent Category:American writers of Irish descent Category:Living people

Category:People from Irvine, California Category:People from Orange County, California Category:University of Southern California alumni

Name	Warren Buffett
Caption	Buffett speaking to students from the University of Kansas School of Business, May 6, 2005
Birth name	Warren Edward Buffett
Birth place	August 30, 1930Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of Pennsylvania University of Nebraska–Lincoln Columbia University
Occupation	Investor
Salary	US$100,000
Networth	US$45 billion (2010)
Spouse	Susan Thompson Buffett (1952–2004)Astrid Menks (2006–present)
Children	Susan Alice BuffettHoward Graham BuffettPeter Andrew Buffett
Signature	Warren Buffett Signature.svg

Warren Edward Buffett (; born August 30, 1930) is an American investor, industrialist and philanthropist. He is widely regarded as one of the most successful investors in the world. Often called the "legendary investor, Warren Buffett", he is the primary shareholder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people. He was ranked as the world's second wealthiest person in 2009 and is currently the third wealthiest person in the world as of 2010.

Buffett is called the "Oracle of Omaha" or the "Sage of Omaha" and is noted for his adherence to the value investing philosophy and for his personal frugality despite his immense wealth. Buffett is also a notable philanthropist, having pledged to give away 99 percent of his fortune to philanthropic causes, primarily via the Gates Foundation. He also serves as a member of the board of trustees at Grinnell College.

Early life

Buffett was born in 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska, the second of three children and only son of businessman & politician, Howard Buffett, and his wife Leila (née Stahl). Buffett began his education at Rose Hill Elementary School in Omaha. In 1942, his father was elected to the first of four terms in the United States Congress, and after moving with his family to Washington, D.C., Warren finished elementary school, attended Alice Deal Junior High School, and graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1947, where his SR yearbook picture read: "likes math; a future stock broker."

Even as a child, Buffett displayed an interest in making and saving money. He went door to door selling chewing gum, Coca-Cola, or weekly magazines. For a while, he worked in his grandfather's grocery store. While still in high school, he carried out several successful money-making ideas: delivering newspapers, selling golfballs and stamps, and detailing cars, among them. Filing his first income tax return in 1944, Buffett took a $35 deduction for the use of his bicycle and watch on his paper route. In 1945, in his sophomore year of high school, Buffett and a friend spent $25 to purchase a used pinball machine, which they placed in the local barber shop. Within months, they owned several machines in different barber shops.

Buffett's interest in the stock market and investing also dated to his childhood, to the days he spent in the customers' lounge of a regional stock brokerage near the office of his father's own brokerage company. On a trip to New York City at the age of ten, he made a point to visit the New York Stock Exchange. At the age of 11, he bought 3 shares of Cities Service Preferred for himself, and 3 for his sister. While in high school he invested in a business owned by his father and bought a farm worked by a tenant farmer. By the time he finished college, Buffett had accumulated more than $90,000 in savings measured in 2009 dollars.

(1894–1976)]] (1907–2004)]]

Buffett entered college in 1947 at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (1947–49). After two years he transferred to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where in 1950, at the age of nineteen, he finished his studies for a B.S. in Economics. Buffett enrolled at Columbia Business School after learning that Benjamin Graham (author of "The Intelligent Investor" - one of his favorite books on investing) and David Dodd, two well-known securities analysts, taught there. He received a M.S. in Economics from Columbia Business School in 1951. Buffett also attended the New York Institute of Finance. In Buffett’s own words:

The basic ideas of investing are to look at stocks as business, use the market's fluctuations to your advantage, and seek a margin of safety. That’s what Ben Graham taught us. A hundred years from now they will still be the cornerstones of investing.}}

Career

Warren Buffett was employed from 1951–54 at Buffett-Falk & Co., Omaha as an Investment Salesman, from 1954–1956 at Graham-Newman Corp., New York as a Securities Analyst, from 1956–1969 at Buffett Partnership, Ltd., Omaha as a General Partner and from 1970 – Present at Berkshire Hathaway Inc, Omaha as its Chairman, CEO.

In 1950 (20 years old) Buffett had made and saved $9,800. In April 1952, Buffett discovered Graham was on the board of GEICO insurance. Taking a train to Washington, D.C. on a Saturday, he knocked on the door of GEICO's headquarters until a janitor allowed him in. There he met Lorimer Davidson, Geico's Vice President, and the two discussed the insurance business for hours. Davidson would eventually become Buffett's life-long friend and a lasting influence and later recall that he found Buffett to be an "extraordinary man" after only fifteen minutes. Buffett graduated from Columbia and wanted to work on Wall Street, however, both his father and Ben Graham urged him not to. He offered to work for Graham for free, but Graham refused.

Buffett returned to Omaha and worked as a stockbroker while taking a Dale Carnegie public speaking course. Using what he learned, he felt confident enough to teach an "Investment Principles" night class at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. The average age of his students was more than twice his own. During this time he also purchased a Sinclair Texaco gas station as a side investment. However, this did not turn out to be a successful business venture.

In 1952 Buffett married Susan Thompson at Dundee Presbyterian Church and the next year they had their first child, Susan Alice Buffett. In 1954, Buffett accepted a job at Benjamin Graham's partnership. His starting salary was $12,000 a year (approximately $97,000 adjusted to 2008 dollars). There he worked closely with Walter Schloss. Graham was a tough man to work for. He was adamant that stocks provide a wide margin of safety after weighting the trade-off between their price and their intrinsic value. The argument made sense to Buffett but he questioned whether the criteria were too stringent and caused the company to miss out on big winners that had more qualitative values. That same year the Buffetts had their second child, Howard Graham Buffett. In 1956, Benjamin Graham retired and closed his partnership. At this time Buffett's personal savings were over $174,000 ($1.2 million inflation adjusted to 2009 dollars) and he started Buffett Partnership Ltd., an investment partnership in Omaha.

In 1957, Buffett had three partnerships operating the entire year. He purchased a five-bedroom stucco house in Omaha, where he still lives, for $31,500. In 1958 the Buffett's third child, Peter Andrew Buffett, was born. Buffett operated five partnerships the entire year. In 1959, the company grew to six partnerships operating the entire year and Buffett was introduced to Charlie Munger. By 1960, Buffett had seven partnerships operating: Buffett Associates, Buffett Fund, Dacee, Emdee, Glenoff, Mo-Buff and Underwood. He asked one of his partners, a doctor, to find ten other doctors willing to invest $10,000 each in his partnership. Eventually eleven agreed, and Buffett pooled their money with a mere $100 original investment of his own. In 1961, Buffett revealed that Sanborn Map Company accounted for 35% of the partnership's assets. He explained that in 1958 Sanborn stock sold at only $45 per share when the value of the Sanborn investment portfolio was $65 per share. This meant that buyers valued Sanborn stock at "minus $20" per share and were unwilling to pay more than 70 cents on the dollar for an investment portfolio with a map business thrown in for nothing. This earned him a spot on the board of Sanborn.

As a millionaire

In 1962, Buffett became a millionaire, because of his partnerships, which in January 1962 had an excess of $7,178,500, of which over $1,025,000 belonged to Buffett. Buffett merged all partnerships into one partnership. Buffett invested in and eventually took control of a textile manufacturing firm, Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett's partnerships began purchasing shares at $7.60 per share. In 1965, when Buffett's partnerships aggressively began purchasing Berkshire, they paid $14.86 per share while the company had working capital of $19 per share. This did not include the value of fixed assets (factory and equipment). Buffett took control of Berkshire Hathaway at the board meeting and named a new president, Ken Chace, to run the company. In 1966, Buffett closed the partnership to new money. Buffett wrote in his letter: "... unless it appears that circumstances have changed (under some conditions added capital would improve results) or unless new partners can bring some asset to the partnership other than simply capital, I intend to admit no additional partners to BPL."

In a second letter, Buffett announced his first investment in a private business — Hochschild, Kohn and Co, a privately owned Baltimore department store. In 1967, Berkshire paid out its first and only dividend of 10 cents. In 1969, following his most successful year, Buffett liquidated the partnership and transferred their assets to his partners. Among the assets paid out were shares of Berkshire Hathaway. In 1970, as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett began writing his now-famous annual letters to shareholders. However, he lived solely on his salary of $50,000 per year, and his outside investment income. In 1979, Berkshire began the year trading at $775 per share, and ended at $1,310. Buffett's net worth reached $620 million, placing him on the Forbes 400 for the first time.

In 1973, Berkshire began to acquire stock in the Washington Post Company. Buffett became close friends with Katharine Graham, who controlled the company and its flagship newspaper, and became a member of its board of directors. In 1974, the SEC opened a formal investigation into Warren Buffett and Berkshire's acquisition of WESCO, due to possible conflict of interest. No charges were brought. In 1977, Berkshire indirectly purchased the Buffalo Evening News for $32.5 million. Antitrust charges started, instigated by its rival, the Buffalo Courier-Express. Both papers lost money, until the Courier-Express folded in 1982.

In 1979, Berkshire began to acquire stock in ABC. Capital Cities' announced $3.5 billion purchase of ABC on March 18, 1985 surprised the media industry, as ABC was some four times bigger than Capital Cities was at the time. Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett helped finance the deal in return for a 25 percent stake in the combined company. The newly merged company, known as Capital Cities/ABC (or CapCities/ABC), was forced to sell off some stations due to FCC ownership rules. Also, the two companies owned several radio stations in the same markets.

In 1987, Berkshire Hathaway purchased 12% stake in Salomon Inc., making it the largest shareholder and Buffett the director. In 1990, a scandal involving John Gutfreund (former CEO of Salomon Brothers) surfaced. A rogue trader, Paul Mozer, was submitting bids in excess of what was allowed by the Treasury rules. When this was discovered and brought to the attention of Gutfreund, he did not immediately suspend the rogue trader. Gutfreund left the company in August 1991. Buffett became Chairman of Salomon until the crisis passed; on September 4, 1991, he testified before Congress. In 1988, Buffett began buying stock in Coca-Cola Company, eventually purchasing up to 7 percent of the company for $1.02 billion. It would turn out to be one of Berkshire's most lucrative investments, and one which it still holds.

As a billionaire

Buffett became a billionaire on paper when Berkshire Hathaway began selling class A shares on May 29, 1990, when the market closed at $7,175 a share. In 1998, he acquired General Re (Gen Re), (in a rare move, for stock). In 2002, Buffett became involved with Maurice R. Greenberg at AIG, with General Re providing reinsurance. On March 15, 2005, AIG's board forced Greenberg to resign from his post as Chairman and CEO under the shadow of criticism from Eliot Spitzer, former attorney general of the state of New York. On February 9, 2006, AIG and the New York State Attorney General's office agreed to a settlement in which AIG would pay a fine of $1.6 billion. In 2010, the federal government settled with Berkshire Hathaway for $92 million in return for the firm avoiding prosecution in an AIG fraud scheme, and undergoing 'corporate governance concessions'.

In 2002, Buffett entered in $11 billion worth of forward contracts to deliver U.S. dollars against other currencies. By April 2006, his total gain on these contracts was over $2 billion. In 2006, Buffett announced in June that he gradually would give away 85% of his Berkshire holdings to five foundations in annual gifts of stock, starting in July 2006. The largest contribution would go to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2007, in a letter to shareholders, Buffett announced that he was looking for a younger successor, or perhaps successors, to run his investment business. Buffett had previously selected Lou Simpson, who runs investments at Geico, to fill that role. However, Simpson is only six years younger than Buffett.

Late 2000s recession

Buffett ran into criticism during the subprime crisis of 2007–2008, part of the late 2000s recession, that he had allocated capital too early resulting in suboptimal deals. “Buy American. I am.” he wrote for an opinion piece published recently in the New York Times. Buffett has called the 2007—present downturn in the financial sector "poetic justice". Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway suffered a 77% drop in earnings during Q3 2008 and several of his recent deals appear to be running into large mark-to-market losses.

Berkshire Hathaway acquired 10% perpetual preferred stock of Goldman Sachs. Some of Buffett's Index put options (European exercise at expiry only) that he wrote (sold) are currently running around $6.73 billion mark-to-market losses. The scale of the potential loss prompted the SEC to demand that Berkshire produce, "a more robust disclosure" of factors used to value the contracts.

In 2008, Buffett became the richest man in the world dethroning Bill Gates, worth $62 billion according to Forbes, and $58 billion according to Yahoo. Bill Gates had been number one on the Forbes list for 13 consecutive years. In 2009, Bill Gates regained number one of the list according to Forbes magazine, with Buffett second. Their values have dropped to $40 billion and $37 billion respectively, Buffett having (according to Forbes) lost $25 billion in 12 months during 2008/2009.

In October 2008, the media reported that Warren Buffett had agreed to buy General Electric (GE) preferred stock. The operation included extra special incentives: he received an option to buy 3 billion GE at $22.25 in the next five years, and also received a 10% dividend (callable within three years). In February 2009, Warren Buffett sold part of Procter & Gamble Co, and Johnson & Johnson shares from his portfolio.

In addition to suggestions of mistiming, questions have been raised as to the wisdom in keeping some of Berkshire's major holdings, including The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) which in 1998 peaked at $86. Buffett discussed the difficulties of knowing when to sell in the company's 2004 annual report:

That may seem easy to do when one looks through an always-clean, rear-view mirror. Unfortunately, however, it’s the windshield through which investors must peer, and that glass is invariably fogged.

In March 2009, Buffett stated in a cable television interview that the economy had "fallen off a cliff... Not only has the economy slowed down a lot, but people have really changed their habits like I haven't seen". Additionally, Buffett fears we may revisit a 1970s level of inflation, which led to a painful stagflation that lasted many years.

In 2009, Warren Buffett invested $2.6 billion as a part of Swiss Re's raising equity capital. Berkshire Hathaway already owns a 3% stake, with rights to own more than 20%. In 2009, Warren Buffett acquired Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. for $34 billion in cash and stock. Alice Schroeder author of Snowball stated that a reason for the purchase was to diversify Berkshire Hathaway from the financial industry. Measured by market capitalization in the Financial Times Global 500 Berkshire Hathaway as of June 2009 was the eighteenth largest corporation on earth.

In 2009, Buffett divested his failed investment in ConocoPhillips, saying to his Berkshire investors,

I bought a large amount of ConocoPhillips stock when oil and gas prices were near their peak. I in no way anticipated the dramatic fall in energy prices that occurred in the last half of the year. I still believe the odds are good that oil sells far higher in the future than the current $40-$50 price. But so far I have been dead wrong. Even if prices should rise, moreover, the terrible timing of my purchase has cost Berkshire several billion dollars.

The merger with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF), closed upon BNSF shareholder approval in 1Q2010. This deal is valued at approximately $34 billion and reflects an increase of a previously existing stake of about 22%.

In June 2010, Buffett defended the credit rating agencies for their role in the US financial crisis, claiming that:

Very, very few people could appreciate the bubble. That's the nature of bubbles – they're mass delusions.

Personal life

Buffett married Susan Buffett née Thompson in 1952. They had three children, Susie, Howard and Peter. The couple began living separately in 1977, although they remained married until her death in July 2004. Their daughter, Susie, lives in Omaha and does charitable work through the Susan A. Buffett Foundation and is a national board member of Girls, Inc. In 2006, on his seventy-sixth birthday, Warren married his never-married longtime-companion, Astrid Menks, who was then sixty years old. She had lived with him since his wife's departure in 1977 to San Francisco. It was Susan Buffett who arranged for the two to meet before she left Omaha to pursue her singing career. All three were close and holiday cards to friends were signed "Warren, Susie and Astrid". Susan Buffett briefly discussed this relationship in an interview on the Charlie Rose Show shortly before her death, in a rare glimpse into Buffett's personal life.

Warren Buffett disowned his son Peter's adopted daughter, Nicole, in 2006 after she participated in the Jamie Johnson documentary, The One Percent. Although his first wife had referred to Nicole as one of her "adored grandchildren", Buffett wrote her a letter stating, "I have not emotionally or legally adopted you as a grandchild, nor have the rest of my family adopted you as a niece or a cousin." He signed the letter "Warren."

His 2006 annual salary was about $100,000, which is small compared to senior executive remuneration in comparable companies. In 2007, and 2008, he earned a total compensation of $175,000, which included a base salary of just $100,000. He lives in the same house in the central Dundee neighborhood of Omaha that he bought in 1958 for $31,500, today valued at around $700,000 (although he also does have a $4 million house in Laguna Beach, California). In 1989 after having spent nearly 6.7 million dollars of Berkshire's funds on a private jet, Buffett sheepishly named it "The Indefensible". This act was a break from his past condemnation of extravagant purchases by other CEOs and his history of using more public transportation.

He remains an avid player of the card game bridge, which he learned from Sharon Osberg, and plays with her and Bill Gates. He spends twelve hours a week playing the game. In 2006, he sponsored a bridge match for the Buffett Cup. Modeled on the Ryder Cup in golf, held immediately before it, and in the same city, a team of twelve bridge players from the United States took on twelve Europeans in the event. He is a dedicated, lifelong follower of Nebraska football, and attends as many games as his schedule permits. He supported the hire of Bo Pelini following the 2007 season stating, "It was getting kind of desperate around here". He watched the 2009 game against Oklahoma from the Nebraska sideline after being named an honorary assistant coach.

Warren Buffett worked with Christopher Webber on an animated series with chief Andy Heyward, of DiC Entertainment, and then A Squared Entertainment. The series features Buffett and Munger, and teaches children healthy financial habits for life. Buffett was raised Presbyterian but has since described himself as agnostic when it comes to religious beliefs. In December 2006 it was reported that Buffett does not carry a cell phone, does not have a computer at his desk, and drives his own automobile, a Cadillac DTS. Buffett wears tailor-made suits from the Chinese label Trands; earlier he wore Ermenegildo Zegna.

Lineage

Buffett's DNA report revealed that his paternal ancestors hail from northern Scandinavia, while his maternal ancestors most likely have roots in Iberia or Estonia.

Recognition

In 1999, Buffett was named the top money manager of the twentieth century in a survey by the Carson Group, ahead of Peter Lynch and John Templeton. In 2007, he was listed among Time's 100 Most Influential People in the world. In 2010, the White House announced that President Barack Obama would be awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Most recently, Buffett, along with Bill Gates, was named the most influential global thinker in Foreign Policy's 2010 report.

Politics

In addition to other political contributions over the years, Buffett has formally endorsed and made campaign contributions to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. On July 2, 2008, Buffett attended a $28,500 per plate fundraiser for Obama's campaign in Chicago hosted by Obama's National Finance Chair, Penny Pritzker and her husband, as well as Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett. Buffett backed Obama for president, and intimated that John McCain's views on social justice were so far from his own that McCain would need a "lobotomy" for Buffett to change his endorsement. During the second 2008 U.S. presidential debate, candidates John McCain and Barack Obama, after being asked first by presidential debate mediator Tom Brokaw, both mentioned Buffett as a possible future Secretary of the Treasury. Later, in the third and final presidential debate, Obama mentioned Buffett as a potential economic advisor. Buffett was also finance advisor to California Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger during his 2003 election campaign.

Writings

Warren Buffett's writings include his annual reports and various articles. Buffett is recognized by communicators as one of the great story-tellers, as evidenced by his annual letters to shareholders. He warned about the pernicious effects of inflation:

In his article The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville, Buffett refuted the academic Efficient-market hypothesis, that beating the S&P; 500 was "pure chance", by highlighting a number of students of the Graham and Dodd value investing school of thought. In addition to himself, Buffett named Walter J. Schloss, Tom Knapp, Ed Anderson (Tweedy, Brown Inc.), Bill Ruane (Sequoia Fund, Inc.), Charles Munger (Buffett's own business partner at Berkshire), Rick Guerin (Pacific Partners, Ltd.), and Stan Perlmeter (Perlmeter Investments). In his November, 1999 Fortune article, he warned of investors' unrealistic expectations:

Wealth

In 2008 he was ranked by Forbes as the richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of approximately US$62 billion. In 2009, after donating billions of dollars to charity, Buffett was ranked as the second richest man in the United States with a net worth of US$37 billion with only Bill Gates ranked higher than Buffett. His net worth is up to $47 billion in the past 12 months.

Philanthropy

The following quotation from 1988 highlights Warren Buffett's thoughts on his wealth and why he long planned to re-allocate it:

From a NY Times article: "I don't believe in dynastic wealth", Warren Buffett said, calling those who grow up in wealthy circumstances "members of the lucky sperm club". Buffett has written several times of his belief that, in a market economy, the rich earn outsized rewards for their talents:

His children will not inherit a significant proportion of his wealth. These actions are consistent with statements he has made in the past indicating his opposition to the transfer of great fortunes from one generation to the next. Buffett once commented, "I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing".

In June 2006, he announced a plan to give away his fortune to charity, with 83% of it going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He pledged about the equivalent of 10 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (worth approximately US$30.7 billion as of 23 June 2006), making it the largest charitable donation in history, and Buffett one of the leaders of philanthrocapitalism. The foundation will receive 5% of the total donation on an annualised basis each July, beginning in 2006. (Significantly, however, the pledge is conditional upon the foundation's giving away each year, beginning in 2009, an amount that is at least equal to the value of the entire previous year's gift from Buffett, in addition to 5% of the foundation's net assets.) Buffett also will join the board of directors of the Gates Foundation, although he does not plan to be actively involved in the foundation's investments.

This is a significant shift from previous statements Buffett has made, having stated that most of his fortune would pass to his Buffett Foundation. The bulk of the estate of his wife, valued at $2.6 billion, went to that foundation when she died in 2004. He also pledged $50-million to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, in Washington, where he has served as an adviser since 2002.

In 2006, he auctioned his 2001 Lincoln Town Car on eBay to raise money for Girls, Inc. In 2007, he auctioned a luncheon with himself that raised a final bid of $650,100 for a charity. On 27 June 2008, Zhao Danyang, a general manager at Pure Heart China Growth Investment Fund, won the 2008 5-day online "Power Lunch with Warren Buffett" charity auction with a bid of $2,110,100. Auction proceeds benefit the San Francisco Glide Foundation. The following year, executives from Toronto-based Salida Capital paid US$1.68 million to dine with Buffett.

In a letter to Fortune Magazine's website in 2010 Buffett remarked:

This statement was made as part of a joint proposal with Bill Gates to encourage other wealthy individuals to pool some of their fortunes for charitable purposes; in August 2010, Buffett and Gates spearheaded The Giving Pledge, inviting the wealthy to donate 50% or more of their wealth to charity.

Public positions

Buffett's speeches are known for mixing business discussions with humor. Each year, Buffett presides over Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting in the Qwest Center in Omaha, Nebraska, an event drawing over 20,000 visitors from both United States and abroad, giving it the nickname "Woodstock of Capitalism". Berkshire's annual reports and letters to shareholders, prepared by Buffett, frequently receive coverage by the financial media. Buffett's writings are known for containing literary quotes ranging from the Bible to Mae West, as well as Midwestern advice, and numerous jokes.

Buffett and tobacco

During the RJR Nabisco, Inc. hostile takeover fight in 1987, Buffett was quoted as telling John Gutfreund:

Speaking at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s 1994 annual meeting, Buffett said investments in tobacco are:

Buffett and coal

In 2007, Buffett's PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of his MidAmerican Energy Company, canceled six proposed coal-fired power plants. These included Utah's Intermountain Power Project Unit 3, Jim Bridger Unit 5, and four proposed plants previously included in PacifiCorp's Integrated Resource Plan. The cancellations came in the wake of pressure from regulators and citizen groups, including a petition drive organized by Salt Lake City commercial real estate broker Alexander Lofft and directed at Buffett personally. The 1,600 petitioners, who described themselves in a letter to Buffett as "a collection of citizens, business owners and managers, service professionals, public servants, and organization representatives ... your friends and new customers here in Utah," explained that, in their view, any further expansion of coal generation in Utah would "compromise our health, obscure our viewsheds, shrink and contaminate our watersheds, and thin out our most beloved snow pack," concluding that "our attractiveness as a place to live and work is also threatened, and so is our economic competitiveness as a major metro area and a state, compromising our recent gains in income and property values".

Klamath river

American Indian tribes and salmon fisherman sought to win support from Warren Buffett for a proposal to remove four hydroelectric dams from the Klamath River. He had David Sokol respond that the FERC would decide the question.

Trade deficit

Buffett views the United States' expanding trade deficit as a trend that will devalue the US dollar and US assets. He believes that the US dollar will lose value in the long run, as a result of putting a larger portion of ownership of US assets in the hands of foreigners. In his letter to shareholders in March, 2005, Warren Buffett predicted that in another ten years’ time the net ownership of the U.S. by outsiders would amount to $11 trillion.

Americans ... would chafe at the idea of perpetually paying tribute to their creditors and owners abroad. A country that is now aspiring to an ‘ownership society’ will not find happiness in — and I’ll use hyperbole here for emphasis — a 'sharecropping society’.

Author Ann Pettifor has adopted the image in her writings and has stated: "He is right. And so the thing we must fear most now, is not just the collapse of banks and investment funds, or of the international financial architecture, but of a 'sharecropper society, angry at its downfall".

Dollar and gold

This induced Buffett to enter the foreign currency market for the first time in 2002. However, he substantially reduced his stake in 2005 as changing interest rates increased the costs of holding currency contracts. Buffett continues to be bearish on the dollar, and says he is looking to make acquisitions of companies which derive a substantial portion of their revenues from outside the United States. Buffett emphasized the non-productive aspect of a gold standard for the USD in 1998 at Harvard:

It gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.

In 1977 Buffett was also quoted as saying about stocks, gold, farmland, and inflation:

Stocks are probably still the best of all the poor alternatives in an era of inflation — at least they are if you buy in at appropriate prices.

Taxes

Buffett stated that he only paid 19% of his income for 2006 ($48.1 million) in total federal taxes (due to their being from dividends & capital gains), while his employees paid 33% of theirs, despite making much less money. On the other hand in 2008 Berkshire Hathaway paid $1.9 billion in federal corporate income taxes on $7.5 billion in earnings (more than 26% in federal taxes alone). “How can this be fair?” Buffet asked, regarding how little he pays in taxes compared to his employees. “How can this be right?” Buffet added:

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Buffett favors the inheritance tax, saying that repealing it would be like "choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics". In 2007, Buffett testified before the Senate and urged them to preserve the estate tax so as to avoid a plutocracy. Some critics have argued that Buffett (through Berkshire Hathaway) has a personal interest in the continuation of the estate tax, since Berkshire Hathaway has benefited from the estate tax in past business dealings and had developed and marketed insurance policies to protect policy holders against future estate tax payments. Buffett believes government should not be in the business of gambling, or legalizing casinos, calling it a tax on ignorance.

Expensing of stock options

He has been a strong proponent of stock option expensing, on the Income Statement. At the 2004 annual meeting, he lambasted a bill before the United States Congress that would consider only some company-issued stock options compensation as an expense, likening the bill to one that was almost passed by the Indiana House of Representatives to change the value of Pi from 3.14159 to 3.2 through legislative fiat.

When a company gives something of value to its employees in return for their services, it is clearly a compensation expense. And if expenses don't belong in the earnings statement, where in the world do they belong?

Investing in China

Buffett invested in PetroChina Company Limited and in a rare move, posted a commentary on Berkshire Hathaway's website stating why he would not divest from the company despite calls from some activists to do so, due to its connection with the Sudanese civil war that caused Harvard to divest from the company in 2005. He did, however, sell this stake soon afterwards, sparing him the billions of dollars he would have lost had he held on to the company in the midst of the steep drop in oil prices beginning in the summer of 2008.

In October 2008, Buffett invested in new energy automobile business by paying $230 million for 10% of BYD Company (), which runs a subsidiary of electric automobile manufacturer BYD Auto. In less than one year, the investment has reaped him over 500% return of profit.

Books about Buffett

Numerous books have been written about Warren Buffett and his investment strategies. In October 2008, USA Today reported that there were at least 47 books in print with Buffett's name in the title. The article quoted the CEO of Borders Books, George Jones, as saying that the only other living persons named in as many book titles were U.S. presidents, major world political figures, and the Dalai Lama. Buffett said that his own personal favorite is a collection of his essays called The Essays of Warren Buffett, which he described as "a coherent rearrangement of ideas from my annual report letters" as edited by Larry Cunningham. Alice Schroeder, . (Written with Buffett's cooperation.) Mary Buffett and David Clark, Buffettology and four subsequent books. (Combined sales of more than 1.5 million copies.) John Train, The Midas Touch: The Strategies That Have Made Warren Buffett 'America's Preeminent Investor'. Andrew Kilpatrick, Of Permanent Value: The Story of Warren Buffett. (The longest of the books about Buffett, with 330 chapters, 1,874 pages and 1,400 photos, weighing 10.2 pounds.) (Includes step-by-step stock-picking method based on Buffett's approach) Janet M. Tavakoli, Dear Mr. Buffett: what an investor learns 1,269 miles from Wall Street, John Wiley and Sons, 2008, ISBN 9780470406786

Bibliography

The Essays of Warren Buffett : Lessons for Corporate America, Warren Buffett and Lawrence A. Cunningham, The Cunningham Group; revised edition (April 11, 2001), ISBN 978-0966446111

The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America, Second Edition, Warren E. Buffett and Lawrence A. Cunningham, The Cunningham Group; 2nd edition (April 14, 2008), ISBN 978-0966446128

See also

Forbes list of billionaires

References

External links

Berkshire Hathaway official website

Latest Holdings In Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio, Dynamically Updated

Buffett Partnership Letters

Berkshire Hathaway SEC 13F Filings

Everything Warren Buffett unofficial blog

Category:1930 births Category:American agnostics Category:American billionaires Category:American chief executives Category:American financiers Category:American investors Category:American money managers Category:American philanthropists Category:Berkshire Hathaway Category:Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation people Category:Businesspeople from Omaha, Nebraska Category:Businesspeople in the insurance industry Category:Columbia Business School alumni Category:Equity securities Category:Grinnell College people Category:Living people Category:Nebraska Democrats Category:Stock traders Category:Wharton School alumni Category:University of Nebraska–Lincoln alumni Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients

Name	Peter Schiff
School tradition	Austrian School
Color	firebrick
Image name	SchiffSpeaking.png
Birth date	March 23, 1963
Nationality	United States
Field	Financial Economics
Religion	Jewish
Alma mater	U.C. Berkeley (B.B.A.), 1987 Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Paul Krugman, Christopher Dodd, Barack Obama,
Signature

Peter David Schiff (; born March 23, 1963) is an American investment broker, author, financial commentator, and was a candidate in the 2010 Republican primary candidate for the United States Senate. and CEO of Euro Pacific Precious Metals, LLC, a gold and silver dealer based in New York City. He frequently appears as a guest on CNBC, Fox News, and Bloomberg Television and is often quoted in major financial publications and is a frequent guest on internet radio as well as the host of the former podcast Wall Street Unspun, which is now broadcast on terrestrial radio and known as The Peter Schiff Show. Schiff graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987 with a Bachelor's degree in finance and accounting. In 1996 Schiff and a partner acquired a small brokerage firm that had been founded in 1980, reincorporated it in California and renamed it Euro Pacific Capital. The company today has more than 15,000 clients and six offices nationwide, with its headquarters in Westport, Connecticut.

According to a 2005 article in The Advocate of Stamford, Connecticut Schiff relocated the firm to Darien, Connecticut to find brokers "who think like him". The New York Metropolitan Area, Schiff says, has the biggest concentration of brokers in the country, making it easier to recruit employees. The company has offices in Newport Beach, California as well as in Scottsdale, Arizona, Palm Beach, Florida, Los Angeles and New York. Euro Pacific Capital also holds the exclusive rights to broker some Perth Mint gold products in the United States.

Economic forecasting

Schiff attributes his economic forecasts to an understanding of the Austrian School, a school of economic thought generally categorized as heterodox (or non-mainstream). Schiff voices strong support for the Austrian School, and says it was first introduced to him by his father, Irwin Schiff.

U.S. bear market

In his 2007 book, Crash Proof, Schiff writes that the current United States economic policies are fundamentally unsound, and predicts that in the future the United States dollar will lose much of its value. As a remedy Schiff favors increased personal savings and production which he says will stimulate economic growth. Schiff cites the U.S.'s low personal savings rate as one of the causes of the its transformation from the world's largest creditor nation in the 1970s to the largest debtor nation in the year 2000. Schiff attributes the low savings rate to higher inflation and the artificially low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve.

In a 2002 interview with Southland Today, Schiff predicted that the economic downturn triggered by the bursting of the stock market bubble would lead to a bear market likely to last "another 5 to 10 years." until reversing course in 2008, when the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P; 500 began a decline to less than half of their peak 2008 values, followed in 2009 by the Dow climbing 61% from its low point over the following year. After interviewing Schiff in 2009, journalist and finance author Eric Tyson, referenced various Schiff predictions during the 2000s and stated that "On all of these counts, Schiff wasn't just wrong but ended up being hugely wrong." Schiff later released a video stating that, "When I gave that interview in 2002, I had no way of knowing how irresponsible the Fed was going to be ... But I recognized that early: back in 2003 and 2004 I changed my forecast ... if you look at what happened to the Dow in terms of gold [and not U.S. dollars], my forecast was extremely accurate." On December 31, 2006 in debate on Fox News, Schiff forecast that "what's going to happen in 2007" is that "real estate prices are going to come crashing back down to Earth". to indeed be contributing factors to the housing crisis of 2007-2009. On December 13, 2007 in a Bloomberg interview on the show Open Exchange, Schiff further added that he felt that the crisis would extend to the credit card lending industry. Following this observation, it was soon reported on December 23, 2007 by the Associated Press that "The value of credit card accounts at least 30 days late jumped 26 percent to $17.3 billion in October from a year earlier at 17 large credit card trusts examined by the AP... At the same time, defaults -- when lenders essentially give up hope of ever being repaid and write off the debt -- rose 18 percent to almost $961 million in October, according to filings made by the trusts with the Securities and Exchange Commission."

Since 2007, Schiff has stated many times that if the government doesn't change course there will be hyperinflation in the US. Schiff is one of a minority of economists credited with accurately predicting the financial crisis of 2007–2010 while "nearly all [macroeconomists] failed to foresee the recession despite plenty of warning signs". In his book Crash Proof, he described several aspects of the U.S. economy that would lead to a recession. The video consists of a compilation of clips of his many appearances on various financial news programs from networks including CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC and Bloomberg, most of which took place from 2005 to 2007. In the segments Schiff explains specifically the fundamental problems he saw with the United States economy at that time. Schiff's warnings of a coming economic collapse earned him the moniker "Dr. Doom." and in late 2008, he predicted the automotive industry crisis and the crisis in the banking and financial markets. Schiff does weekly video blogs on youtube which are closely followed by over 30,000 subscribers. His videos can usually receive 45,000 views within a week's time. In addition, he does a weekly radio show that is streamed on the web. Due to his extreme popularity and fans calling for more airtime in late 2010 early 2011 Schiff will begin doing a daily radio program in Connecticut for 2–3 hours with plans to syndicate it nationwide.

Investment advice

Despite predictions regarding the housing bubble and automotive industry difficulties coming to fruition, as early as 2009 Schiff was receiving criticism due to the performance of some of his client's accounts in 2008, as well as controversies over the predictions themselves. In January 2009, economic blogger and investment adviser Michael Shedlock reported, "I have talked with many who claim they have invested with Schiff and are down anywhere from 40% to 70% in 2008." Other criticisms followed, including the aforementioned Eric Tyson post

The Director of Communications at Schiff's investment firm responded to the original Shedlock piece by saying, "While it is true, that our accounts have suffered badly in 2008, a fact that we have never disputed or ran from, [Shedlock's] estimates for the size our of typical client losses are exaggerated and unfair." Schiff personally responded to Shedlock's criticism by saying, "to examine the effectiveness of my investment strategy immediately following a major correction by looking only at those accounts who adopted the strategy at the previous peak is unfair and distortive" and called Shedlock's blog entry "nothing more than an overt advertisement (and a highly deceptive one at that) to use my popularity to advance his career," adding that losses were felt mostly by recent clients and not by others.

Schiff responded similarly to criticisms made by Wade Slome of Sidoxia Capital Management, LLC. in a September 2009 blog entry entitled, "The Emperor Schiff Has No Clothes." Schiff stated not only were the losses suffered by his clients in 2008 highly exaggerated, but also that most of those losses have already been recouped, stating that many who where down then are now up, and most long-term clients were never down at all, but merely temporarily lost some of the profits they had earned over the years. The Wall Street Journal also published a letter written by Schiff in response to his critics saying: "My central investing premise, a weakening dollar and safety in gold, commodities and foreign stocks, didn't materialize in 2008. But all the ingredients were (and remain) present for those movements to occur. Over the past year, market reactions that I didn't foresee—massive global deleveraging, a knee-jerk 'flight to quality' into U.S. Treasuries and a sharp counter trend rally in the U.S. dollar—have kept the scenario from playing out."

In a November 2009 videoblog, Schiff said that five stocks he picked for Fortune Magazine in January 2009 had gained a total of 360%.

In a March 2009 speech Schiff said that it would be impossible for the U.S. debt to China to be repaid unless the U.S. dollar's value is substantially diluted through inflation.

Gold predictions

In September 2009 Schiff said that "I would not be surprised to see [gold] at $5,000 over the next several years" and that the 2009 stock market rally was a "bear market rally".

Political career

Schiff was an economic adviser to Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign. In support of Paul's economic revitalization plan, he said: "We need a plan that stimulates savings and production, not more of the reckless borrowing and consumption that got us into this mess in the first place. Ron Paul's plan is the only one that amounts to a step in the right direction. If you want meaningful change—for the better that is—Ron Paul is the only candidate capable of delivering it."

In 2008, Schiff also endorsed Murray Sabrin for the U.S. Senate seat in New Jersey.

In an interview in February 2009, Schiff's position was summarized as a nonpartisan critique of American policymakers, comparing former presidents George W. Bush to Herbert Hoover and President Barack Obama to former president Franklin D. Roosevelt, with neither of the more recent incumbents comparing favorably to the earlier ones.

Schiff supports the reduction of government economic regulation, and is concerned that President Obama's administration may increase such regulation.

Schiff says that the current economic crisis provides an opportunity to transition from borrowing and spending, to saving and producing. Schiff is critical of the U.S. government's efforts to "ease the pain" with economic stimulus packages and bailouts. According to Schiff, the U.S. government's approach of replacing "legitimate savings with a printing press" could result in hyperinflation.

2010 U.S. Senate campaign

In December 2008, Connecticut citizens created a website encouraging Schiff to campaign against the incumbent Senator Christopher Dodd. Approximately 5,000 people made campaign contributions using the web site. In a May 2009 video blog, Schiff said that he was seriously considering a run for the senate and when questioned by a Washington Post reporter, he said the chance of him entering politics was “better than 50-50". In June 2009 Schiff commissioned a poll of likely voters which indicated that he trailed Dodd in popularity by four percentage points. On July 9, 2009, Schiff launched an exploratory committee and an official campaign website. Schiff officially announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination on September 17, 2009, during the MSNBC Morning Joe show. By October 2009 Schiff had received more than 10,000 telephone calls and letters

In the Republican primary, held on August 10, 2010, Schiff lost the nomination to Linda McMahon.

The results were:

49% Linda McMahon

28% Rob Simmons

23% Peter Schiff

Ultimately, the election was won by the Democratic Party primary winner, Richard Blumenthal.

Books

Peter Schiff is the author of five books published by John Wiley & Sons. His book, Crash Proof 2.0, appeared on both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists.

Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse, February 2007, ISBN 978-0-470-04360-8 1

The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets: How to Keep your Portfolio Up When the Market is Down, 2008, ISBN 978-0-470-38378-0 2

Crash Proof 2.0: How to Profit From the Economic Collapse, 2nd Edition, September 2009, ISBN 978-0-470-47453-2 3

The Little Book of Bull Moves, Updated and Expanded: How to Keep Your Portfolio Up When the Market Is Up, Down, Or Sideways, 2010, ISBN 0470643994 4

How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes, 2010, ISBN 978-0-470-52670-5 5

Notes

References

External links

Euro Pacific Capital US Brokerage Firm Website

Euro Pacific Precious Metals Coin Company Website

Schiff for Senate Official Campaign Website

Peter Schiff Online, Official book site for Peter Schiff

Peter Schiff Blog

Peter Schiff radio, Schiff's daily radio show

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Name	James J. Cramer
Known for	Hosting Mad MoneyChairman of TheStreet.com, Inc.
Alma mater	Harvard College (B.A.)Harvard Law School (J.D.)

James "Jim" J. Cramer (born February 10, 1955) is an American television personality, a former hedge fund manager, and a best-selling author. Cramer is the host of CNBC's Mad Money and a co-founder and chairman of TheStreet.com, Inc.

Family

Cramer married Karen Backfisch-Olufsen, a trader with Steinhardt's firm in 1988.

Early years

Cramer was born in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. One of his first jobs was selling ice cream at Veterans Stadium during Philadelphia Phillies games. Cramer went to Springfield Township High School in Montgomery County.

Biography

Education and early career

Cramer graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with a B.A. in government. Cramer later earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School. His plans to become a prosecutor were dashed when he was denied employment with the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, headed at the time by Rudy Giuliani, because his law school grades were not good enough. Cramer was admitted to the New York State Bar Association in 1985, but he is currently not a member.

Investing

Cramer started investing in the stock market during his time at law school. division. Cramer's success in this position led him to found his own hedge fund, Cramer & Co. (later Cramer, Berkowitz, & Co.), in 1987. The fund operated out of the offices of hedge fund pioneer Michael Steinhardt's Steinhardt, Fine, Berkowitz & Co., and early investors included Eliot Spitzer (a Harvard classmate, one of his oldest friends, and former Governor of New York), Brill, and Peretz.

Cramer's fund had one year of negative returns from 1988–2000 while he ran it, in 1998, a year that included the 1998 Russian financial crisis. The fund finished down 2–3%. The fund did not charge a management fee that year to their clients. In 1999 the fund returned 47%, and in 2000 28%, beating the S&P; 500 by 38 percentage points.

In 1996, Cramer co-founded TheStreet.com, Inc. with The New Republic editor Martin Peretz, one of his hedge fund's original clients. Cramer is currently a market commentator and adviser to the TheStreet.com, and is its second largest shareholder. Cramer also manages a charitable trust stock portfolio which is tied to TheStreet.com through a paid subscription service called the Action Alerts PLUS Portfolio.

Cramer currently works on a new project as part of TheStreet.com called MainStreet.com. An earlier project, TheRoad.com, was not successful.

TheStreet.com stock has declined over 90% since its first day of trading after its IPO in 1999. In 2009, Cramer received earnings of $461,276 from The Street.com. He is The Street.com's second largest shareholder and largest individual shareholder.

After being a frequent guest commentator on CNBC in the late 1990s, Cramer co-hosted CNBC shows America Now and Kudlow & Cramer with Lawrence Kudlow in the early 2000s.

Cramer hosted a one-hour radio show, Jim Cramer's Real Money, until December 2006. "Take the money and run" by the Steve Miller Band was the opening intro to each of his radio shows. The show was similar to his Mad Money TV show. He also guest-hosted in the slot caused by the cancellation of Imus in the Morning (MSNBC and WFAN/Westwood One) in May 2007.

On November 13, 2005, Dan Rather did a sit-down interview with Cramer on 60 Minutes. Among the topics of discussion were Cramer's past at his hedge fund; for example, his violent temper, and what finally led him to come to his senses and "calm down." Footage of Cramer at his family home with his daughters and wife was also included. On November 15, 2005, Cramer mentioned on his program that he received hundreds of e-mails after his 60 Minutes interview. This report was taped before Cramer's radio show, Smart Money with Jim Cramer moved to WOR and became syndicated under the CBS Radio banner.

In 2005, Cramer appeared as himself in two episodes of the television series Arrested Development. He appeared to first announce that he had upgraded Bluth Company stock to a "Don't Buy" from a "Triple Sell", and then to say that the stock was not a "Don't Buy" anymore, but a "Risky".

Cramer has also made appearances on NBC's Today, NBC Nightly News, Live with Regis and Kelly, ESPN Classic's Cheap Seats, NBC's Late Night With Conan O'Brien, Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart & The Colbert Report, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Show with David Letterman, ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live and NBC's The Apprentice (U.S. Season 7) called "The Celebrity Apprentice".

Cramer also appeared in the 2008 motion picture Iron Man spoofing Stark Industries on his show Mad Money. and appears in the movie .

On March 12, 2009, Jon Stewart interviewed Cramer on The Daily Show.

On November 3, 2009, Cramer appeared on the Martha Stewart Show to promote his new book,Getting Back to Even. While baking wholewheat bread, he stated that it is a great time to invest in real estate and that he has recently purchased the Debary Inn in Summit, NJ.

Selected controversies

Fox News Channel lawsuit

In 2000, Cramer settled a lawsuit with Fox News Channel in which Fox had claimed Cramer reneged on a deal to produce a show for them. Their conflict began when Fox complained that Cramer promoted TheStreet.com's stock on the air.

Market manipulation

In March 2007, a December 2006 interview from TheStreet.com's "Wall Street Confidential" webcast stirred controversy after it appeared on YouTube.com. In the video, Cramer described activities used by hedge fund managers to manipulate stock prices – some of debatable legality and others illegal. He described how he could push stocks higher or lower with as little as $5 million in capital when he was running his hedge fund. Cramer said, "A lot of times when I was short at my hedge fund...When I was positioned short—meaning I needed it down—I would create a level of activity beforehand that could drive the futures." He also encouraged hedge funds to engage in this type of activity because it is "a very quick way to make money". Cramer described a variety of tactics that hedge fund managers use to affect a stock's price. Cramer said that one strategy to keep a stock price down is to spread false rumors to reporters he described as "the Pisanis of the world". The comment was a reference to CNBC correspondent Bob Pisani, who reports from the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. "You have to use these guys," said Cramer. He also discussed giving information to "the bozo reporter from The Wall Street Journal" to get an article published. Cramer said this practice, although illegal, is easy to do "because the SEC doesn't understand it." During the interview Cramer referred to himself as a "banking class hero."

SEC subpoena

In February 2006, an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into allegations of collusion between short-sellers and a stock research firm led to the serving of subpoenas to TheStreet.com and Cramer, as well as journalists for Dow Jones and Marketwatch.com. The SEC then began to back away from the subpoenas, indicating it had no intention of enforcing them after lawyers for Dow Jones said they would not comply. SEC Chairman Christopher Cox rebuked the SEC's staff attorneys for filing subpoenas on two Dow Jones reporters without first consulting him or the other top commissioners. Cox issued a statement saying neither he nor any of the SEC's four other commissioners were aware of the subpoenas, which he called "highly unusual."

The allegations had been raised publicly and in a lawsuit against Gradient by Overstock.com chief executive Patrick M. Byrne. In May 2007, it was revealed that the SEC had subpoenaed Byrne in May 2006, in connection with an investigation of the company.

Performance of stock picks

Cramer is the founder, former owner and Senior Partner of Cramer Berkowitz, a hedge fund where Cramer reported a compounded annual "rate of return of 24% after all fees for 15 years" at Cramer Berkowitz. He retired from his hedge fund in 2001, where he finished with a self reported 36% return in 2001.

On September 15, 2008, Cramer invited Robert Steel, the CEO of Wachovia on his show, Mad Money, in order to recommend the stock to potential investors. Cramer agreed with CEO that the company was fundamentally sound and that the ratio of good loans to bad loans was low. Cramer would recommend the stock to his viewers before Citi announced their intentions to acquire Wachovia's banking operations. Cramer stated that Wachovia was part of the "Fortress Five" in relation to having a fortress balance sheet stating "It's now the 'Fortress Five'... thanks to the leadership of Bob Steele, who I believe will be able to split WB into a good bank and a bad bank, and lead it much higher... Now that the stock was up today a couple of smackers... have a little pullback... knowing this market, you're going to get one." On Monday, September 29, Wachovia's share prices dropped over 95% in the pre-market and over 80% in market hours following news of a possible Citi acquisition. Prior to this, Cramer had stated, "This is run by Bob Steel. He's as close as we're going to get to a great banker. I think he's going to make this a great company. " Eventually, Wells Fargo would purchase Wachovia for $15.1 billion in an all stock deal leaving Wachovia shareholders with 0.1991 shares of Wells Fargo for every share of Wachovia stock, resulting in a large decline in stockholder value. In 2008, Wachovia shares declined 88 percent.

On August 3, 2007, Cramer made a plea (some call a rant) for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to cut interest rates supposedly because of comments he was getting from investment banks, and their concern about adjustable-rate mortgage borrowers increasing loan rates.

On July 8, 2008, in an article on TheStreet.com entitled, "Look At The Facts" Cramer said, "The losses are increasing, the auction-rate preferreds are now biting, the mortgage implode-a-meter now measures how many home-builders are going under."

On "Hardball with Chris Matthews" for September 19, 2008, Cramer stated "It's not too late to be on the pom-pom...the sideline" in regards to home teaser loans. Cramer spoke again on the Today Show on October 6, 2008, suggesting to investors, "Whatever money you need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market."

On September 22, 2008, Wall Street Journal best-selling author Eric Tyson, criticized Cramer's stock picks and his performance in general.

An August 20, 2007, article in Barrons stated that within the select time frame of the previous two years, "his picks haven't beaten the market. Over the past two years, viewers holding Cramer's stocks would be up 12% while the Dow rose 22% and the S&P; 500 16%." CNBC disputed the magazine's findings.

On September 28, 2009, Cramer told subscribers to buy CIT. One month later the company went bankrupt.

Action Alerts charitable trust

In the timeframe of 2002 until May 2009 the performance of Cramer's charitable trust "Action Alerts PLUS" outpaced the S&P; 500 and the Russell 2000; while the charitable trust accumulated a return of 31.75%, the S&P; 500 had a return of 18.75% and the Russell 2000 has a return of 22.51%. On an annual basis, the trust outperformed the S&P; 500 by 7.35% and the Russell 2000 Index by 3.33%.

Bear Stearns recommendation

On the March 11, 2008, episode of Cramer's show Mad Money, a viewer named Peter submitted the question "Should I be worried about Bear Stearns in terms of liquidity and get my money out of there?" Cramer responded "No! No! No! Bear Stearns is not in trouble. If anything, they're more likely to be taken over. Don't move your money from Bear."

Some say that the viewer was asking whether he should keep his investment in Bear Stearns common stock (NYSE: BSC), because anything other than the assumption that Bear Stearns would remain independent and in business based on Cramer's statement would be absurd, i.e. how can someone say keep your money as a customer at Bear Stearms even though Bear Stearns might go bankrupt? Some also say that Cramer was advising the caller not to sell the stock in the belief that a company would pay a premium to acquire Bear Stearns. Over the next few days BSC stock fell 92%, on news of a Fed bailout and $2/share takeover by JPMorgan. The final price for acquiring Bear Stearns's shares would be $10/share.

Others say the comments were clear and unambiguous, and that the viewer was asking whether he should withdraw money he had held in a brokerage account at Bear Stearns. In other words, the caller wanted to know if it was possible that the liquidity crisis at Bear was so bad, that the viewer would be unable to get his money out of his Bear Stearns account if it went under. On March 17, 2008, Cramer claimed he meant the latter explanation, rather than the previous one. Cramer states he was not recommending the common stock but allaying concerns about the account holder's liquidity held in a Bear Stearns brokerage account. Cramer later wrote about the incident: "I did tell an emailer that his deposit in his account at Bear Stearns was safe, but through a clever sound bite, (Jon) Stewart, and subsequently (Frank) Rich—neither of whom have bothered to listen to the context of the pulled quote—pass off the notion of account safety as an out-and-out buy recommendation. The absurdity astounds me. If you called Mad Money and asked me about Citigroup, I would tell you that the common stock might be worthless, but I would never tell you to pull your money out of the bank because I was worried about its solvency. Your money is safe in Citi as I said it was in Bear. The fact that I was right rankles me even more."

Michael Lewis, a journalist for the U.K.-based Evening Standard news Web site, states that TheStreet.com listed Bear Stearns as a "Buy" at $62 per share on March 11, 2008, which was the same day as the caller's question and a day before the collapse of Bear Stearns. However, TheStreet.com--the web site quote that shows the ratings history for actual changes that Cramer makes—indicates that Cramer changed Bear Stearns rating to a "Sell" on February 5, 2008. On his March 12, 2009 appearance on the Daily Show, Cramer admitted he made mistakes on his Bear Stearns calls.

Cramer's responses to criticism

The White House

On March 2, 2009, Cramer drew the attention of some critics after his evaluation of President Obama’s spending plans and the administration’s handling of the banking crisis. Cramer’s name came up on March 3 during a White House press briefing after Cramer said that Obama was responsible for “the greatest wealth destruction I have seen by a president.” An offended White House shot back. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, "If you turn on a certain program it's geared to a very small audience. I'm not entirely sure what he's pointing to make some of the statements." When pressed further by NBC's Tom Costello, Gibbs said, "You can go back and look at any number of statements he's made in the past about the economy and wonder where some of the backup for those are, too."

On March 5, 2009, Cramer responded to the White House. He said, "Huh? Backup? Look at the incredible decline in the stock market, in all indices, since the inauguration of the president, with the drop accelerating when the budget plan came to light because of the massive fear and indecision the document sowed: Raising taxes on the eve of what could be a second Great Depression, destroying the profits in health care companies, tinkering with the mortgage deduction at a time when U.S. house price depreciation is behind much of the world's morass and certainly the devastation affecting our banks, and pushing an aggressive cap and trade program that could raise the price of energy for millions of people."

Cramer questioned criticism he received which he explained makes him "uncomfortable being in the crosshairs of columnists and comedians I enjoy." Cramer asked, "So, why after toiling in the cable wilderness for four years with Mad Money am I the target of the wrath of the Obama clan, and the darling, albeit surely momentary, of the Obama-critics? After all, my criticism of Obama's handling of the economic crisis is a lot less pointed than my withering August 2007 'They Know Nothing' meltdown against Ben Bernanke and the previous administration's handling of the economic crisis."

Frank Rich

Referring to March 8, 2009, charges leveled against Cramer by New York Times columnist Frank Rich, Cramer said that he does not understand how Obama and his staff plan to raise taxes, institute cap-and-trade limitations and rework the health-care system all during a recession. The article says: "It isn’t that Cramer disagrees with Obama’s vision for the country – he even agrees with taxing the rich – but now is not the time to put those plans into action. The president needs to solve our housing, employment and financial problems, and only then turn his attention to health care and changing the mortgage deduction."

Jon Stewart

On March 12, 2009, Cramer appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Stewart reiterated earlier claims regarding the CNBC host's "silly and/or embarrassing and/or stupid financial observations." Moreover, he claimed CNBC shirked its journalistic duty by believing corporate lies, rather than being an investigative "powerful tool of illumination." For his part, Cramer disagreed with Stewart on a few points, but acknowledged that he could have done a better job foreseeing the economic collapse: "We all should have seen it more."

Stewart also discussed how short-selling was detrimental to the markets and investors. Cramer admitted to Stewart that short-selling was detrimental, stated his opposition to it, and claimed that he had never engaged in it, which contradicts earlier statements in which he described going short while managing a hedge fund. [Need quotation] He said, "I will say this: I am trying to expose this stuff, exactly what you guys do, and I've been trying to get the regulators to look at it." However, Stewart played several video clips from 2006 where Cramer discussed the spreading of false rumors to drive down stock prices and encouraged short-selling by hedge funds as a means to generate returns. At one point in a clip from December 22, 2006 he said, "I would encourage anyone in a hedge fund to do it." He called it a very quick way to make money and very satisfying. He continued, "By the way, no one else in the world would ever admit that, but I don't care, and again, I'm not gonna say it on TV."

Response to criticism for his Wachovia call

On March 9, 2009, during a segment on Mad Money, Cramer said Frank Rich "chastised me for endorsing Wachovia's stock after then-CEO Bob Steel came onto Mad Money and spoke positively about the bank." After the bank collapsed, Cramer reminded viewers that he is the first person to admit when wrong. Cramer mentioned, "Look, I was taken in, the guy pantsed me. I made a mistake. The SEC is investigating Steel's appearance on the show for truthfulness, though. I made a mistake, but they're investigating him to see if he lied. Bigger issue. Sometimes you just get had."

Response to pundits

"The pundits," Cramer explained on March 9, 2009, in a MainStreet article, "who haven't paid attention to anything I have been saying or writing for the past 18 months are all over me." Cramer said the pundits "won't engage in the merits of, say, favoring Tier 1 capital for the banks vs. common equity, or forbearing on the banks to work the situation out over time because the banks can be profitable if we have some patience. They just attack me." Cramer suggested, "It's time to get serious. It's time to take the issue from the pundits and from the left and right, and put it where it belongs: serious non-ideological debate to put out the real firestorm, the collapse of the economy from Wall Street to Main Street and the ensuing Great Wealth Destruction for all."

Bibliography

Jim Cramer's Getting Back to Even ISBN 978-1439158012

Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer) ISBN 978-1416558859

Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich ISBN 1-4165-3790-2

Jim Cramer's Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World ISBN 0-7432-2489-2

Confessions of a Street Addict ISBN 0-7432-2487-6

You Got Screwed! Why Wall Street Tanked and How You Can Prosper ISBN 0-7432-4690-X

Notes

References

External links

Biographies

Jim Cramer biography on CNBC.com

Jim Cramer biography on TheStreet.com

Notable Cramer sources

Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer Madcap Recap

Mad Money TV show recapped Nightly Verbatim Recaps

TheStreet.com, Cramer's investment website.

Stockpickr Stock market social networking site.

Articles written by Jim Cramer on MainStreet.com

In the Money, continued, Balance Sheet, article about Cramer and other law alumni, from the online Harvard Law Bulletin

Betting on the Market – PBS Frontline interview with Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer's Picks at Seeking Alpha

To The Moon

Maxim: Ask Jim Cramer, Maxim's interview with Cramer, and Top 2 Chinese Stocks Right Now

Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2009 – Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer on the Iraqi Dinar - on DinarProfits.com

Category:1955 births Category:American broadcast news analysts Category:American columnists Category:American finance and investment writers Category:American infotainers Category:American investors Category:American money managers Category:American talk radio hosts Category:American television personalities Category:American business journalists Category:Goldman Sachs people Category:Harvard Law School alumni Category:Hedge fund managers Category:Living people Category:New York lawyers Category:People from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Category:People from Union County, New Jersey

Name	George Hotz
Birth date	October 02, 1989
Birth place	United States
Alma mater	Bergen County Academies

George Francis Hotz (born October 2, 1989), alias geohot, million75 or simply mil is known for working with other people to unlock the iPhone, allowing the phone to be used with other wireless carriers, contrary to AT&T; and Apple's intent. He is also noted for jailbreaking the Playstation 3 OS. In response to Sony disabling the "OtherOS" feature on the PlayStation 3 , he developed a method for restoring that functionality and researched several other security measures.

Hacking Apple iDevices

According to Hotz's blog, he traded his unlocked 8GB iPhone to Terry Daidone, the founder of Certicell, for a Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones. Hotz said he wanted to give the iPhones to the other members of the team who created the hack with him. Hotz's hardware based unlocking technique has largely been replaced by software unlocking that does not require dis-assembly of the iPhone.

On February 8, 2008, Hotz developed the software unlock for the iPhone's new Bootloader Version 4.6 that was previously only achievable with a "testpoint based hardware unlock".

On July 3, 2009, Hotz announced purplera1n, the first public software exploit for jailbreaking the iPhone 3GS. Details were posted on his blog.

On October 11, 2009, at 3:33AM Hotz released blackra1n, a jailbreak for all iPhones and iPod Touches. The only caveat was that the iPod touch third generation would need a "tethered jailbreak" to work.

On October 25, 2009, Hotz released Blackra1n RC2, an update to his previous blackra1n utility. This version allows MC Model iPod Touch 2G (8GB iPod Touch third generation) and new-bootrom iPhone 3GS users to jailbreak their iPod touches as well. (tethered jailbreak only)

On October 31, 2009, Hotz announced the impending release of Blackra1n RC3, this version will include blacksn0w which will allow SIM unlock of all iPhones using Blacksn0w RC1. Blacksn0w was originally scheduled for release on November 4, 2009, but due to positive test results it was moved to the 3rd. Blacksn0w was the #1 trending topic on Twitter as requested by GeoHot only moments after its release.

On March 27, 2010, Hotz established a website for his newest jailbreak software, limera1n. Limera1n was rumored to be his newest jailbreaking tool and was released, however, it was later found that Hotz registered another domain at the same time, rubyra1n.com. It is still unknown if rubyra1n will ever be released.

On June 24, 2010, Hotz wrote on Twitter that he had no plans to release a new jailbreak. He has told people looking for a jailbreak release to 'keep an eye on Spirit, the currently used program for 3.1.x jailbreaking, which lead to the belief there are plans to update the software to allow iOS 4.0 jailbreaking. This however has not had a release date confirmed.

On July 10, 2010, Hotz published that he had been able to jailbreak an iPhone 4 running iOS 4.0. As evidence, he provided a picture of the device executing Cydia. This post has since been edited and blocked from public view, in which Hotz stated that the picture was "quite obviously fake", addressing himself to "the haters".

On July 13, 2010, Hotz announced his retirement from iDevices hacking, saying that it's not fun as it used to be, and people were taking too serious something he used to do just as a distraction.

On October 8, 2010, Hotz confirmed he was releasing a Jailbreak on 10/11/10; one day after the release of GreenPois0n. He also posted a picture of limera1n running on an iPhone 3G S, iPod Touch fourth generation, iPhone 4 and on the iPad.

On October 9, 2010, Hotz released limera1n Beta 1 - without support for the 3GS (due to a problem with the bootrom). Additionally, the exploit has been found to be moderately buggy, even on supported devices. This suspended the release of the SHAtter exploit in the form of greenpois0n, due for release the next day. On the limera1n website, he claims this was to make the Chronic Dev team "do the right thing" - presumably implying that they should save their jailbreak exploit for fifth generation devices. He later went on to release three more betas, containing support for iPhone 3GS models, along with various bug fixes and other stability enhancements.

On October 11, 2010, Hotz released what appears to be the final version of his a console widely regarded as being the only fully locked and secure system of the seventh generation era. Hotz opened a blog to document his progress, and five weeks later, on January 22, 2010, he announced that he had successfully hacked the machine by enabling himself read and write access to the machine's system memory and having hypervisor level access to the machine's processor. Hotz also detailed the many things his work could allow, such as homebrew and PlayStation 2 emulation (a feature removed by Sony in newer revisions of the console to tackle production costs).

On January 26, 2010, Hotz released the exploit to the public. It requires the OtherOS function of the machine, and consists of a Linux kernel module and gaining control of the machine's hypervisor via bus glitching. Hotz wrote that "Sony may have difficulty patching the exploit". On March 28, 2010, Sony has responded by announcing to release a PlayStation 3 firmware update that removes the OtherOS feature, a feature that was already absent on the newer Slim revisions of the machine. This generated an uproar by the PlayStation 3 community. Hotz had then announced plans of a custom firmware, similar to the custom firmware for the PlayStation Portable, to enable Linux and OtherOS support, while still retaining the features of newer firmwares.

As of April 7, 2010, Hotz had posted a video on the internet detailing his supposed progress with custom firmware on the machine, and showing a PlayStation 3 running and having the OtherOS feature enabled on firmware 3.21. He had named his custom firmware as 3.21OO, and said it may work on newer Slim models of the console, as the feature was removed altogether with the launch of the newer revision. However, he had never announced a release date for the alleged firmware nor had he mentioned whether he was working on the same hack for the latest firmware version of 3.41.

On July 13, 2010, Hotz posted a message on his Twitter account stating that he was giving up trying to crack the PS3 any further.

On January 6, 2011, he shows a demo of running homebrew applications on PS3 firmware 3.55 without using any jailbreak usb dongles, based on the discovery of the security exploit by the fail0verflow team.

On January 7, 2011, he showed off a demo video running homebrew applications on PlayStation 3 custom firmware 3.55.

On January 11, 2011, Sony filed a temporary restraining order (TRO) against Mr. Hotz in the US District Court of Northern California.

Sony lawsuit

On January 12 , 2011, Sony sued Mr. Hotz on 8 counts for violation of the DMCA. In response, Carnegie Mellon University professor David S. Touretzky mirrored Hotz' writings and issued a statement confirming that Hotz' publication is within his right to free speech.

Other accomplishments and recognition

Hotz was a finalist at the 2004 ISEF competition in Portland OR with his project "Mapping Robot". Recognition included interviews on the Today Show and Larry King. Hotz was a finalist at the 2005 ISEF competition, with his project "The Googler". Continuing with robots, Hotz competed in his school's highly successful Titanium Knights battlebots team. George also worked on his project, "Neuropilot," in which he was able to read EEG signals off his head with hardware from the OpenEEG project.

Hotz competed in the 2007 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a science competition for high school students, where his project, entitled "I want a Holodeck", received awards and prizes in several categories. Hotz has received considerable attention in mainstream media, including interviews on the Today Show, Fox, CNN, NBC, CBS, G4, ABC CNBC, and articles in several magazines, newspapers, and websites, including Forbes, and BBC.

The Forbes article said Hotz hopes to go into neuroscience: "hacking the brain," he called it. In March 2008, PC World magazine listed George as one of the top 10 Overachievers under 21.

He entered the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2007, quickly after gaining notoriety for hacking the iPhone, but quickly flunked out and withdrew from the school. In December 2007, Hotz travelled to Sweden to attend the Stockholm International Youth Science Seminar and talk about his 3D imaging invention (called Project Holodeck) that netted him a $20,000 Intel prize earlier that year.

Personal life

Hotz grew up in Glen Rock, New Jersey, where he attended the Bergen County Academies, a magnet public high school. He was in AEDT (Academy for Engineering and Design Technology).

References

External links

;Additional Reading

geohot OtherOS issues

GeoHot Released PS3 Exploit - By TheTechJournal.com

The New Video of Unlock (blacksn0w)

YouTube Video of Hotz's Unlocked iPhone

YouTube Video demo of PlayStation 3 CWF 3.21OO

Hotz's Website (through Internet Archive)

NJ teen unlocks iPhone + YouTube Video

GeoHot's guide to iPhone unlocking

Apple ios4 jailbreak video

Category:1989 births Category:American bloggers Category:Living people Category:People from Bergen County, New Jersey Category:Rochester Institute of Technology Category:IPhone Category:American Internet personalities Category:American people of Asian descent

Name	Daniel Lyons
Caption	Dan Lyons holding up an Apple turtleneck for size
Birth place	Massachusetts
Occupation	Columnist

Daniel Lyons (born 1960) is an American writer. He was a senior editor at Forbes magazine and is now a writer at Newsweek.

Early life

Daniel Lyons was born in Massachusetts.

Career

He has written a book of short stories, The Last Good Man (1993), a novel, Dog Days (1998), and a fictional biography, (2007). He also writes The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, a popular blog and parody of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, under the pseudonym Fake Steve Jobs.

Fake Steve Jobs

Lyons began blogging as Fake Steve Jobs in 2006. He was able to maintain anonymity for just under a year, despite speculation.

Before the identity of Fake Steve Jobs was revealed by New York Times technology correspondent Brad Stone on August 5, 2007, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs was referenced by numerous online and print media such as Engadget, BusinessWeek, Forbes, Der Spiegel, El Mundo and CNET. Fake Steve Jobs ranked 37th in a Business 2.0 article entitled "50 Who Matter Now."

Previous guesses as to the blog's author included Leander Kahney of Wired (particularly at some of Fake Steve Jobs's Briticisms), Eric Savitz of Barron's Magazine, John Paczkowski of All Things Digital, and Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times. Another suggestion was that Jack Miller, the webmaster/blogger of the As the Apple Turns website, which was seemingly abandoned in 2006, but which is still live, could possibly be Fake Steve Jobs.

At the Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital technology conference, the real Steve Jobs was quoted as saying, "I have read a few of the Fake Steve Jobs things recently and I think they’re pretty funny." During a later joint interview, Bill Gates quipped that he was not Fake Steve Jobs.

In October 2007, and 2008 Lyons released the book , under the pseudonym "Fake Steve Jobs". Although based largely upon previous material published on the The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog, the book creates a more cohesive narrative focusing especially on the stock options backdating scandal looming over Steve Jobs in late 2006 and early 2007.

On July 9, 2008, Dan Lyons announced on the Fake Steve blog that he will be launching a new site under his own name and discontinuing writing in a faux Jobs style. He later announced his decision to place the Fake Steve blog on indefinite hiatus was out of respect for the real Steve Jobs' health:

"I began hearing a few months ago that Steve Jobs was very sick. I wasn't sure if these rumors were true or not. Then I saw how he looked at [the Worldwide Developers Conference in early June, 2008] and it was like having the wind knocked out of me. I just couldn't carry on."

The blog was continued after news broke that Jobs had recovered from a liver transplant.

Work as technology analyst

Before Fake Steve Jobs, Dan Lyons was a senior editor at Forbes magazine, covering enterprise computing and consumer electronics. He was also the author of the Forbes cover article, "Attack of the Blogs", where he claimed that blogs "are the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective", claiming that Groklaw was primarily created "to bash software maker SCO Group in its Linux patent lawsuit against IBM, producing laughably biased, pro-IBM coverage".

Between 2003 and 2007 he covered the SCO cases against IBM and against Linux. He published articles like "What SCO Wants, SCO Gets", where he stated that "like many religious folk, the Linux-loving crunchies in the open-source movement are a) convinced of their own righteousness, and b) sure the whole world, including judges, will agree. They should wake up."

In 2007, Dan Lyons admitted being "Snowed By SCO": "For four years, I've been covering a lawsuit for Forbes.com, and my early predictions on this case have turned out to be so profoundly wrong that I am writing this mea culpa." "In March 2003, SCO sued IBM claiming that IBM took code from Unix—for which SCO claimed to own copyrights—and put that code into Linux, which is distributed free. Last month a judge ruled that SCO does not, in fact, own the Unix copyrights. That blows SCO's case against IBM out of the water. SCO, of Lindon, Utah, is seeking bankruptcy protection."

References

External links

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs

Real Dan Lyons Web Site

Personal blog Dan Lyons

A video interview of Daniel Lyons about Fake Steve Jobs on Microsoft's Channel 10

Unabridged interview with Lyons by Wallstrip's Lindsay Campbell on the release of his book, Options, October 28, 2007

Daniel Lyons speaks at Google about his blog, his book, and the real Steve Jobs

Daniel Lyons Speaks at Cody Books in Berkeley, CA

Farewell, Fake Steve Jobs - by Stanley Bing for Slate Magazine

Category:Living people Category:1960 births Category:American bloggers Category:Fictional versions of real people Category:Steve Jobs Category:Internet memes Category:American technology writers