Motley Fool Money - Motley Fool Money: 07_02_2010

Episode Date: July 2, 2010

What do the latest jobs numbers mean for investors? Will Google's Droids capitalize on the new iPhone's bad reception? Will Ryanair's vertical seats catch on with U.S. airlines? And will Hulu's new service catch on with viewers? On this week's Motley Fool Money Radio Show, we discuss those stories, share three stocks on our radar, and talk with Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to Motley Fool Money. Thanks for being here. I'm your host, Chris Hill, and I'm joined by Motley Fool senior analyst, Seth, Jason, James Early, and Shannon Zerring. Guys, happy Independence Day weekend. And to you, Chris. On this week's show, Google's Big Buy, Steve Jobs' rumor hysteria, a different way to fly and what the internet is doing to your brain.

But we begin with Friday's jobs numbers, which did not impress the stock market. The unemployment rate fell to 9.5%. That's down from 9.7%. But that was because 650,000 people gave up their job searches and left the labor force. So they're no longer counted as unemployed. The private sector created just 80,000 new jobs, much lower than expected. Seth Jason, I know there's a lot there, but what did you think of the next? news. Well, everybody out there should remember that the news is pretty complex around this and often

misleading. So this is kind of, these numbers, can I just call them lame? When you say the unemployment rate goes down, yet there are fewer jobs and people have given up. You're essentially saying, hey, you know what? You gave up looking for work. Congratulations. You're no longer unemployed. And that's obviously completely bogus. So I would call this a pretty weak report. And I wouldn't be excited, but I'm going to freak you all out and say that there's actually some decent news in here. Some of the meager job growth came in places where I believe we'd like to see it, transportation, warehousing up, health care up, not quite so much, mining up, manufacturing up. A lot of the losses or a lot of the negative was construction, which is odd. Isn't that where the stimulus was

supposed to go? Although I'm a little bit up in the air on the 28,000 jobs created in the finger quotes here, amusements, gambling, and recreation portion. It's Vegas, baby. Yeah, I'm not sure. that's where we need people to be hired. We also got some grim housing numbers, the pending home sales index down 30%. Now, Shannon Zimmerman, a few months ago, you were talking about what could happen after the first time

home buyer tax credit expired. Are you surprised by what's going on in housing? I'm surprised by the magnitude of the miss. I mean, so the street was expecting about 10% decline and it's 30%. That's dramatic. It's hard to believe that all that is attributable to the expiration of the home buying credit, but

But, you know, people are motivated to buy expensive things with a little bit of sop from the government, I suppose. Seth, Jason, to what extent is the housing market a barometer for the broader economy and for the stock market? I don't know that it's that great a barometer. People have looked at past recessions and said, well, typically the housing market, by which I mean the folks who make houses, we need to wait for an upturn there and that that's an indicator that we're coming out of a recession. but remember this recession, unlike just about any other I can think of, was caused by a bubble in that very market. So it's tough to say that that will be a leader. Now, last month, we also got news late last month that new home sales were down 30%. That's a smaller problem than this pending home sales index dropping 30%. But I'm actually, as much as I hate the National Association of Realtors, which is the social disinformation.

You're on record. Several places, I think. These are the people who have their handout. They want 6% of every real estate. transaction in the USA. But they do have data, and even if you can believe a bit of their spin this time around, I think, which is that if people believed that this $8,000 giveaway was going to disappear, that you probably did pull some activity forward from a couple of months in order to pay for the last month or two.

So I don't think that things are quite as bad as this number looks like, but I don't think they're great either. Well, one of the piece of data, though, is the mortgage rates are historic lows, So it's remarkable this precipitous to climb when people can get mortgages at less than 5%. There are fixed mortgages. That's a pretty incredible metric to have in mind when you think about the drop, too. Guys, one last big macro item. We had a sharp drop in consumer confidence in May.

Now, we're all, obviously, consumers. So on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being you're really confident, and all you want to do is go out there and consume. And one being you're locked in your basement with bottled water and ramen noodles. And guns and ammo. Exactly. Where are you in terms of your consumer confidence? I'm actually flashing back now to a girl I dated in high school whose father was a survivalist, and it was canned ham.

That was a big item for him. I don't know. I'm a five or a six, I guess. To me, the consumer confidence report is always overblown. What are people doing? Are they making more money? Are they spending more money? That's where you measure the real confidence.

James Early? You know, I'm probably a four or five. But I see low confidence is almost a good thing because I think we, grossly overspinned as Americans in retail items and things we don't need. So long-term good, short-term bed. Seth, Jason? I'm probably a five or so, but I bet I peak at seven or eight, you know, if that's if I'm pretty drunk.

Moving on, Apple has been hit with a number of class action lawsuits over antenna problems with the iPhone 4. At issue, reports that holding the phone with your fingers covering the three black lines on the phone's edge and the bottom left corner caused a big drop-off in reception. According to reports, the ever-helpful Steve Jobs told one disgruntled iPhone user to, quote, avoid holding it that way. Jobs also called the reports, quote, rumor hysteria. So Seth, Jason, let's add to the hysteria. What did you think? Aren't you glad we have these law firms out there that care so much about that they're engaging in these lawsuits? The class action lawyers?

The best anyone can hope for here is they'll get you a discount on a vinyl glove to wear while you're using your iPhone. The important thing to me here isn't that Apple has screwed up and I think they probably have. It's that it hasn't mattered. This is their record setting product. They are, I like to think of them right now in the position of somebody like Madonna. It doesn't matter how crummy her album is. People are going to buy it. Or think of the late Michelangelo, who never finished anything. Or the late Michael Jackson. Yeah, or the late Michael Jackson. Nobody cared as long as you could say, I'm employing Michaelangelo. That was fine. I bought the Madonna album. Who cares if it's terrible?

Yeah, not only does it not matter that Apple screwed up, Steve Jobs seems to be enjoying it. It's a funny line. Their word is now that the signal has never been measured correctly in the first place. That's right. That's the beginning of iPhones. Yeah, that's a separate issue on the bars, I think. And they're saying that that explains all of the video and everything we're seeing on the Internet, but I don't know that it does because people are using applications to run download speed tests using data streaming in.

And unless these people are doctoring these videos, it's a pretty impressive drop. It's a head fake. It's a separate problem. And it's good that they're going to fix it, but it doesn't really address the real issue. Well, sticking in the smartphone space, Bloomberg and others are reporting that Apple may release a Verizon iPhone sometime next year. Motorola's new Droid X is getting good reviews. So can the droids compete with Apple if Apple teams up with Verizon? The Verizon thing is like the zombie hope that can never be killed.

It keeps coming back again and again. Maybe it will happen. Eventually it'll happen, but yeah. To me, the thing for Android is, what will the App Store do? That's the thing that has made iPhone, such a transformative device, and it seems to be burgeoning now, if that platform gets an app store like Apple does. Thank you very much. Then sure, it can compete, I think. I don't know if it can.

And first of all, this new droid phone, I saw some pictures of it with either the person holding it had Hobbit hands or this thing is as big as like a piece of French toast. It's enormous. But the problem Android is going to have is the same problem that Windows had with its mobile operating system that Apple doesn't have, which it has much tighter control of the quality of the apps that come through. And so it makes for a more seamless experience. And what I've seen of droid apps is that they look pretty snazy and everything. But droid phone makers are kind of putting a lot of what you might consider bloatware or crapware.

It's often called on these phones. and that is going to hurt them when Apple seems to be giving everybody exactly what they want, even if they give them a half-busted iPhone. Yeah, and that's just the latest manifestation of what the real difference is between Google and Apple. It's sort of the open source versus the boutique. And right now the boutique is winning. People want to be told what to like and what to buy, and Apple do that. What do you think is the biggest misconception about Apple?

That they care deeply about having the absolute best hardware and software experience. I mean, the antenna issue, I believe they knew about it, and they just... And said, ship it anyway? Did it ship it anyway because everyone will just buy one of those weird condoms for the phone and find. I've got to admit, I'm a little jaded, Chris, about how they're handling this. I was kind of an Apple cult follower. Kind of. What do you mean, kind of? You're totally in the tank for Apple.

But I'm a little disappointed. You're listening to Motley Full Money. We're going through some of the big stories of the week. Google announced that it's buying travel software company ITA for $700 million. It's Google's fourth largest acquisition, and it may raise some regular. regulatory concerns. ITA already licenses its technology to travel booking sites and airlines, as well as Microsoft's Bing search engine. Seth, Jason, you're the biggest Bing fan around here. How much trouble is... I love that Bing homepage. That flight stuff they have is actually pretty

interesting. I don't see how this works out because I think the feds are going to give it a pretty hard look because here you'd have Google responsible for feeding data to a lot of people who are competing in this field, I don't know that that works out, but it's kind of an example of where Google has been forced to go lately for its much lauded innovation. The innovation has largely been sort of through the pocketbook and making acquisitions. It's just the ongoing effort to hoover up every company under the sun except for Apple. Coming up, the financial benefits of whiskey, and you'll never guess what they're renting in China. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Full Money.

Welcome back to Motley Full Money. Chris Hill here in the studio with Seth, Jason, James Early, and Shannon Zerman, as we dig into some of the companies making headlines this week. European Discount Airline Ryanair is planning on selling $7 standing room-only tickets. Passengers would stand in vertical seats with seatbelts and pay an additional $1.50 to use the bathroom. James Early, you're a travel enthusiast. How much are you loving this idea? Well, first of all, Chris, an adult diaper cost only $0.99, so I don't see it.

I think I see a business opportunity there. An arbitrage. I actually like it. I think we're in a world of reality-based pricing. The Internet has made information more accessible. We know what things cost and companies make margins on things. And I think this makes sense. Seth, Jason, you're a cheapskate.

You love this idea. You know, I wanted to be able to really crack wise about it. And then I thought about it for a second. I said, wait a minute, there's no idiot in front of me bashing their seat. I have pretty long legs into my knees. And you're probably safer. You're going to have a shoulder belt, according to what I've seen. So you probably bounce around less in the airplane.

This actually looks like a pretty good idea on short flights. I think this opportunity is supplemental flight insurance. You know, most people are injured through turbulence. The airline crashes, of course, get all the big headlines. But people actually, they bump their heads. They break their arms up. I bet this is going to happen more often as a result of this. You know what?

I don't think so. I bet people standing there are going to want to strap in, whereas if they're in the seat, there, yeah, no big deal. And then you hit that big drop and you're up in the overhead bin. there with the maggotty meat that we read about this week. Which airline was that? USA? USA? Yeah, somebody brought maggot-filled meat and put it in an overhead bin and it fell on people.

It was awful. You know, I saw that email thread. I didn't even click the link. On a show brought to you by a USair. On a more serious note, if you're Southwest Airlines or JetBlue, how hard are you looking at this as something you might follow? I understand that Southwest is thinking of strapping people on the wings now. That's going to be next. Stacking them up.

I think they may have to, but Ryanair does things that airlines of the U.S. have not done. They're very, very extreme on the cost cutting. It goes from everything from charging people for everything, pillows, peanuts, breathing the air, as well as things that make an awful lot of sense, like having seats that don't recline because then they can't break, seats without that seat back pocket, because you have to pay people to clean it out. So a lot of what Ryanair succeeded on seems pretty ridiculous at first, but it makes a lot of sense. From the Truth is Stranger Than Fiction Department.

CNN is reporting that companies in China are hiring white people to portray foreign executives to impress clients and officials. Requirements for the job are pretty simple. Be white, don't speak any Chinese, and look good. Is that Larry King's next gig? You never know. The guy needs a job. The practice is tied to the Chinese concept of face, where having a few foreigners around means a company has prestige, money, and connections abroad. James Early, we're a room full of white guys. Are you tempted by this job opportunity?

I am. The CNN story is interesting. It profiles this one guy who just goes from job to job giving speeches as like a fake jeweler or a fake something else. And I thought, surely this guy is going to get found out at some point. So I was talking to my Chinese connection, analyst Sean on my team, who's Chinese. And he said, no risk of that because frankly to Chinese people, all white people look the same. So this guy can just go around as long as he wants to. Now, we have no reason to believe that there are any.

U.S.-based companies that are renting white guys. But if you had to guess as to one well-known CEO who could be a rental, someone who's just like an out-of-work model or actor, who are you going with? Well, I've got my answer, but I want to go back to that for a second because, as funny as it is, there's actually an investing story here that people need, that people need to think about. And that is that you buy a lot of these Chinese stocks we have on a hidden gems called Jinpan. And the whole idea that this might be considered business as usual, you're essentially swindling people is very, very scary. If that's how business is done, then you need to suspect a lot more. You need to ask a lot more questions anytime you buy a Chinese stock, and I'm certainly going to

now begin mine with how many white guys are on the payroll who aren't actually doing anything but standing around looking like a white guy. But that said, my CEO, who I think is probably just a rented white guy, is Eric Schmidt of Google. Really? Seriously, he was brought in to look like the adult presence. You couldn't have these two young guys with names like Sergei, running this company, and he essentially, he's the big white guy, the tech white guy. James, what do you think? Chris, I was going to say Angelo Mozilla, a former CEO of Countrywide, but he's used so much spray tan that he's no longer white.

Shannon? Lloyd Blank Fine. We're doing God's work fame. Apparently God's work involves method acting. Yahoo! Announced this week that its board of directors has approved a plan to buy up to $3 billion worth of company's stock over the next three years. Now, guys, Yahoo's stock hit a 52-week load this week. week. As investors, we tend to like share buybacks. Shannon, do we like this one? Well, so maybe most investors like buybacks. I'm a little on the fence there. A lot of times it seems to be theater. And the CEOs of companies like to make it look as though they, oh, we know

what we're doing and we're going to acquire our company or we're going to buy back our shares. We feel so confident in our future. We know our shares are undervalued. That's right. But on the other hand, Yahoo does look cheap to me right now. So maybe this timing will be right. Share buybacks, to me, are a poor second. dividends in terms of rewarding shareholders in ways other than stock price appreciation. Hulu has launched a paid subscription service for $10 a month. Subscribers will have access to full seasons of all shows currently offered by Hulu,

which is co-owned by News Corp, Disney, and NBC Universal, as well as a few other companies. Seth, are you betting on this idea? For our listeners who don't know, Hulu is an online video site that essentially is what YouTube and Google hoped it would be. through piracy and or extortion, as I like to look at their business model, which was hopefully everyone who upload so many network shows that the networks will give up and just say, all right, you have the license to use these and charge whatever you want. So the content providers did an end run about this, and they came up with Hulu.

Hulu actually has very, very good, high-quality video. It's a great site to use, and it's been very popular. So I would not doubt they couldn't make a go of this. Finally, Diageo, the beverage giant that owns brands like Jose Cuervo, Smyrnoff, Guinness, and Johnny Walker, has a big deficit in its pension plan. So the solution? The company has put aside 2 million barrels of whiskey into a pension funding partnership. Diageo employees are still going to receive their pensions in cash, but if the company

defaults, this move guarantees employees won't go away empty-handed. James Early, if you're a Diageo employee on some level, aren't you hoping for the company to default? A barrel of whiskey. And whiskey is highly priced these days. You know, the pension shortfall was registered at a time when stocks were at a low. So it's probably bigger than it is right now in reality. So it's a pretty good move, I think.

Whiskey is not cheap. Yeah, and it is whiskey. They do get it. They will buy it back, apparently, after 15 years, which is, I think, clever solution. So I like the assio. I don't know. A better backstop, if you're an employee to any of these companies is just to know where the copper is in the wall.

Smash, grab, and run, baby. with the lead from your computers. Let's just go around the table real quick. What's the best way you've ever been paid that didn't involve money? You know what? You know what? That's a bad question. Let's just move on.

I don't want to hear James' answer. All right. The guys will be back later in the show to discuss the stocks that are on their radar. But hey, drop us an email. Have you ever been paid in whiskey or, for that matter, anything else that wasn't money? And would you fly standing up? Send us an email. Radio at fool.com.

That's radio at fool.com. Coming up, is Google making you stupid? Author Nicholas Carr will be in studio to talk about what the Internet is doing to our brains. Stick around. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. In 2008, Nicholas Carr wrote a cover story for The Atlantic, posing the simple question, Is Google Making Us Stupid? That article set off a big debate and became the basis for Carr's latest book,

The Shallows, What the Internet is Doing to a while. our brains. And he joins me in studio now. Nick, welcome. Thanks a lot, Chris. All right. So what is the internet doing to our brains and more specifically to my brain? It's turning us into perpetually distracted creatures. And, you know, we get huge benefits from the technology, from all the information we have access to, to the community, all the communication tools. But I think the emphasis of our thought is shifting ever more toward skimming and scans. and processing lots of little bits of information quickly, and we're losing the ability to actually pay attention,

to think about one thing for more than a few seconds. But haven't we seen this before with other new mediums when they became popular, with radio, with TV, even printed medium like comic books? There was this notion that it was going to ruin the youth of our nation. What's different about the Internet? I think what's different is that earlier media, earlier entertainment technologies, they were kind of segregated in some area of the day.

And even television, which obviously we watched a lot and we still watch a lot, we see it as kind of an information, I mean, an entertainment device. The difference with the Internet now, particularly when we all have, you know, Blackberries or iPhones, is that it's with us all the time. And we're kind of, it's bursting out little messages to us throughout the course of the day. A lot of people today, the first thing they do when they wake up, they grab their BlackBerry or their iPhone, check email. Last thing they do before going to bed is checking email. And so unlike any other earlier media, this one's with us all the time, and it's kind of imposing its way of thinking on us throughout the day.

You're listening to Motley Full Money? We're talking with Nicholas Carr. His new book is The Shallows, What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. One of the things you say in the book is that you find, for you find, for you. yourself personally you're not thinking the way you used to think it's it's changed the way you read how how how has that happened yeah the the book comes out of my own personal experience a few years back i i realized that i was having trouble when i'd sit down to read a book or a long article you know i'd get a page or two in and then my mind wanted to start clicking links do some googling

check my email and i realized that you know i'd been using the the web a whole lot of like a lot of people for the for a number of years and something that used to come naturally to me deep attentive reading had suddenly become very difficult and it wasn't just reading I realized it was the ability to concentrate on one thing to pay attention to one thing and I related that to the fact that that was a that the net in the web and constant connectivity which you know gives us all sorts of things to that we enjoy was imposing it's the need to constantly be connected, to constantly being engaged with new information,

and it was stealing away some of the quieter, calm, or more attentive ways of thinking. So is it enough to merely recognize that this is happening and then make the conscious choice to, just as once upon a time we used to set aside time just to watch TV, now we need to set aside time to unplug? I think that, I think that's important to realize that there are different ways of thinking, and if we don't practice them, we're going to lose them. The problem and the challenge is that the expectation of constant connectivity is now being woven into our work lives, into our social lives.

You know, if your boss and your colleagues expect you to be able to respond to emails and other messages instantly, it's very hard to say, I'm going to take a break. And similarly, if your friends are organizing their social lives through Facebook and through Twitter, there's a cost to backing away. But if you cherish and value, you know, the full range of thinking that human beings are capable of, I think you have no choice but to make some sacrifices and set aside some time to get disconnected. You're listening to Motley Full Money. We're talking with Nicholas Carr, his new book, is The Shallows, what the Internet is doing to our brains. Let's go back to that article you wrote a couple of years ago for The Atlantic.

Is Google making us stupid? I think it's, I think Google in the Internet in general, general, the editors of the magazine shows that title, but I have to keep answering the question, is making us, I think, superficial. And, you know, that's a word that has lots of negative connotations, I know, but, you know, there are benefits to, obviously, to having all this information and to being able to jump around. But I do think that we're short-circuiting the kind of mental processes that underpin rich, deep, personal knowledge. And that also, by extension, have been the foundations for a lot of our culture through the years. So I do think it's making

us more scattered thinkers and, in the end, more superficial thinkers. But in defense, some of us were superficial to begin with. That's right. But the fact that deep thinking is maybe a rare trait to me makes it all the more precious and all the more reason we should protect it and not all become scattered and superficial. How have your habits with respect to the internet changed since you've worked on this book? Well, you know, I've been I've been a big early adopter of technology for for most of my life and really used most online tools as they came out. And what I've, what I've done is I have begun backing away. I mean, I got rid of my Facebook account. I dropped off of Twitter, and am trying, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, to restrain myself

in checking email and doing all the other types of things we do online. And when I wrote the book, for instance, I made a conscious decision to use the web to find information, to locate what might be relevant, but then I actually went to libraries and bookstores and stuff and got printed materials and read them rather than just depending on the web for everything. We're talking with Nicholas Carr, author of the new book The Shallows, what the internet is doing to our brains. As one who follows technology and business here at the Motley Fool, one of the emerging rivalries that we can't help but watch constantly is Google and Apple. If you had to essentially bet on one of those two companies over the next two years,

Which one would you bet on and why? I think I'd probably bet on Apple, simply because it has, I think, a clearer idea of what people want across software, hardware in web-based businesses. And I think it's proven, and a lot of this has to do with Steve Jobs' vision, that it can remake markets around the power. of its own products where when I look at Google for all of its talents it seems like a more passive kind of company that it throws a lot of things out into the market and then waits for the response rather than getting out ahead of what users and buyers and searchers want and as a result I think if you look at its business obviously a very profitable very successful company but it's still a

narrow company it's it does all sorts of things but it still makes all its money from, you know, selling little tiny ads next to search results or next to other content. So I think Apple right now is showing that it can succeed across a much wider range of activities than Google has proven itself capable of succeeding in. Other than each other, what do you think is the biggest threat to Google and to Apple? That's a good question. I think it's probably the, it's probably the, it's, it's probably the unanticipated new service that comes out or from an entrepreneur. You know, I think we, we, all of us use Google, for instance, and Google's the one that seems to me most vulnerable,

simply because it is a narrower company. We all, most of us use Google today, you know, all the time. But there's, I think that the quality of its search results, as it's bringing in more and more things of video, you know, tweets and news headlines into its search results, it seems to me that it's lost something as it keeps incorporating new features. So I think it might be vulnerable to a really different way of navigating, navigating the web and navigating information. Apple's a tougher call because it, right now it seems to be going from strength to strength. But I guess, you know, the if the mobile market ends up proceeding down the way that the PC market did when Apple lost the PC market, if we go with a more open system and reject kind of the closed Apple universe,

that would obviously be a big hit to Apple. There's no sign right now that we're moving in that direction, but it's always possible. All right, Nicholas Carr, time to play a round of buy-seller hold. And as always, these are not stocks, but we'll treat them as though they were stocks. Buy seller hold the likelihood that there will still be a print edition of the Washington Post five years from now. I would sell on that. I think there are going to be print newspapers left, certainly in five years, but the universe of them is going to shrink and continue to shrink fairly rapidly. The Facebook movie comes out this fall. So buy, seller hold, the future of Facebook itself.

Unfortunately, I would buy that, even though I wish I could sell it. Even though you've left it? And this shows how you shouldn't let your own emotions affect your investment choices. I have lots of problems with Facebook, but it's kind of cornering the market on social networking. And, you know, you see it being built into devices. popular devices. So at this point, its immediate future, at least, looks pretty strong. Buy seller hold Twitter. I'm going to hold Twitter. I think the people who use it now tend to love it, but I still don't think it's broken into the mainstream, and that remains the big question mark.

Are we all going to be tweeting in a few years, or is this going to be relegated to, a small, if important set of segment of the market. Buy seller hold, the future of the iPhone. I would buy that. I mean, I think there is another model, the kind of Google model, of more open types of systems. But right now, Apple has the most vibrant app market. It has a lot of market momentum.

It's got great marketing. So for a while anyway, I think Apple will still rule that world. And finally, buy seller hold, peace and quiet. I'm going to, now here I'm going to go ahead and let my emotions determine my investment choices, even if it leads to big losses. I'm going to go ahead and buy that. Because, I mean, you can't go wrong with peace and quiet, can you? At a personal level.

Whether the market agrees with me or not, I'm not sure. But as an individual investor, I'll take peace and quiet. The new book is The Shallows, What the Internet is Doing to our brains. Nicholas Carr, thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Coming up for Independence Day weekend, we'll talk a little Fourth of July fun. Plus, as always, we'll give you an inside look at the stocks on our radar. This is Motley Fool Money.

As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about. Don't buy ourselves stocks based solely on what you hear. I'm Chris Hill, and back in the studio with me, our trio of senior analysts, Seth Jason, James Early, and Shannon Zerman. Guys, it's Independence Day weekend. And Seth, during the break, we found out that you've actually got a relative who signed the Declaration of Independence. That's true, Chris. Every American out there owes their independence to me. No, I check.

Now, there's no Seth Jason or Sophocles Jason or whatever old name. No, I actually come from a proud American mixture of hobo stock, and that's not a joke, actually. And on my grandmother's side, the second person signed a Declaration of Independence, Josiah Bartlett, who was the representative from New Hampshire, is a distant either grandfather or our grand uncle, depending on which way one of the kind of blurry connections plays out. You might know him from TV's West Wing. Yeah, and I had no idea.

I'm like James Early. I don't watch TV. He was the basis for the character on the West Wing. That's crazy. So you're not getting a cut of any of the West Wing money? I am not, no. Would I be sitting in here and during these kinds of questions if I were? No, but I think our producer, Mac Rear, a good idea and we want to employ all of our listeners on this one. You know, we're tired of

the phrase, put your John Hancock here. John Hancock as a proxy for the word signature. Let's get your Bartlett. Yeah, exactly. Put your Bartlett right there, would you? And if nothing else, people are just going to kind of stare at you for a moment when you do that. Get your Bartlett on. Independence Day weekend plans. What do you think, guys? Barbecue going to the beach? I'm going to spend the entire time in my house with the shades down, listen to the Bruce Springsteen song Independence Day, which is probably the most morbid Fourth of July song ever. James? Chris, I just moved, so I'm going to try to sleep.

I'm not even living out of boxes yet. That would be a step up from where we're right now, so I'm going to work on that. Living among boxes right now. I'm going to put the baby in a trailer behind my bike, or it's actually a trike. Should we be calling child services? No, she's pretty happy back there, and we plan to try and do a, what is it, a 16, mile round trip with her. So if I don't get in here on Tuesday, you'll know where to find me. If I could buy stock right now in your daughter growing up and hating your guts, I would.

Is she going to be securitized at some point? Steve Broito, what do you got planned? I'm also moving. I feel like this has been the great move. I feel like I've been moving for the last several months. I know. We still have boxes at my place, dude. They're a year old, and they still haven't been unpacked. Go home away. I don't want to brag to all our listeners across the country, but here in the Washington, D.C. area, I think we've got the best fireworks. I feel pretty confident about that.

It's the nation's capital. Yeah, we make fun of Washington, D.C., and what goes on in Congress and the government, that kind of thing. But when it comes to fireworks, we kind of have it all over the rest of the country. But you know what? If you think you have better fireworks, just drop us an email, radio at full.com. Send the video. Yeah, exactly. Send the video.

But Disney World does not count. But are we all fireworks fans? When I was a teenager, we used to shoot bottle rockets out of lengths of PVC pipes. Sure. You had a little bazooka. And I shot one one time, and it skipped off the water and into the back of a boat down by the gas tank and blew up. Now, the odds of that starting a fire or an explosion are fairly low. But even then as a kid, I went, ooh, that's pretty bad.

And that about wrapped it up for me. All right. I think the investigations will be forthcoming. Let's move to the stocks that are on our radar. Shannon Zimmer, we'll start with you. My stock is one I've mentioned before. It's one that I own, and the full-owned shares of two Stryker, the medical device and orthopedic implant manufacturer. bit of a fire sale going on on this fantastic company amid concerns of what might happen to the bottom line with health care reform,

that I think those concerns are overblown. Looking at the valuation profile right now, it's well below its own historical five-year average, below its industry average as well, which is just unconscionable. This is a good buying opportunity for a great company. And what's the ticker symbol? S.YK. James Early. Nothing unconscionable, Chris. I like that.

I like that. I do have a company called Gryfe. The ticker is GEF. This makes industrial containers, like plastic boxes. and plastic bags to hold, like, stuff. Exciting. Chemicals and products and things like that. Long-term management.

Is this a real company? Are you just making one-up? This is. I'm stretched, but I did make one up. This is making a real company. Excuse me. Long-term management. High insider ownership like 40%. 2.9% yield.

Raised their dividend recently. I like it. Any chance that the folks at BP are going to, because BP kind of needs to put a lot of stuff into bags and boxes. Yeah, they could use some containers. Seth, Jason. Atheros Communications, I believe I've talked about them here before. They design cell chips, wireless chips, actually land chips.

A lot of what you see in broadband routers are inside your computer or even more importantly in upcoming devices, handheld devices. These chips are designed by Atheros, and they have been a big winner for us at Hidden Gems, although right now the stock has kind of been brutally cut back over the past couple of months down to about $27 a share. And it's tough to figure out exactly what this company is worth. But I look forward to a future when you may see that sort of hockey stick-type growth because we are getting to a place where you may just see a chip.

This is going to sound like an exaggeration. But seriously, in your refrigerator, in your TV, all sorts of devices are going to have networking chips in them in the future. And Atheros is in one of the best places to capitalize on that. Tickers, ATHR. I'm just stunned that there are other chip makers besides Intel. I just, I thought it was Intel and that was it. Luckily for us, there are a few more.

All right, Seth, Jason, James, Early, Shannon Zimmerman. Guys, thanks for being here and happy fourth. You're welcome. You too, Chris. Thanks also to our special guest this week, Nicholas Carr. His new book is The Shallows, what the internet is doing to our brains. You can find it online at Amazon, ironically. If you miss any part of the show, you can find it at our website, motleyfoolmoney.com.

You can also get a copy of our free report. The Motley Fool's Top Stock Stock for 2010. all that and more at motleyfulmoney.com. Our engineer is Steve Broido. Our producer is Mac Creer. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.