“On Monday morning, shortly before MacWorld 2009 — which, until he canceled, was scheduled to feature Jobs as keynote speaker — opened in San Francisco, the Apple CEO released an official statement about the ongoing weight loss that has left him gaunt and panicked his company’s investors,” Keim reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Incorrect. Steve Jobs was never, repeat never, scheduled to deliver the keynote presentation for Macworld Conference & Expo 2009. Period. There was no cancellation.
Keim continues, “His words set off an avalanche of speculation, ranging from knee-jerk skepticism — ”Hormone imbalance’? Please. Sorry, not buying it’ — to thoughtful analyses of his 2004 pancreatic tumor removal or possible thyroid disorders.”
“First is the hormone imbalance, suggesting an endocrine problem. Second is Jobs’ loss of protein. He doesn’t attribute this to loss by urination, which would suggest a plasma-cell cancer called multiple myeloma, or loss by defecation, which would implicate his pancreatic cancer history,” Keim speculates with abandon. “If Jobs’ weight loss were related to the latter, said Lustig, he would likely display other symptoms, including severe flushing and massive diarrhea, which have not yet been described.”
Keim reports, “The third thread is the ‘straightforward’ remedy for his ‘nutritional problem.’ According to Lustig, that conflicts with the rest of Jobs’ statement. “Endocrine problems are not nutritional, and vice versa,” he said.”
Keim reports, “‘There’s no way to put these threads together,’ said Lustig, though he refused to rule out a cancer-related complication. ‘It’s not possible to dismiss anything in terms of this,’ he said, and called speculation ‘very silly.’ Dong Chan and Monica Skarulis, endocrinologists at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, agreed with Lustig’s assessment of Jobs’ statement as insufficiently detailed to merit speculation. ‘I have no knowledge of his condition,’ said Chan, ‘and will not comment.’”
MacDailyNews Take: Thank God that somebody has some ethics, not to mention taste and humanity.
Full article – Think Before You Click™ – here.
MacDailyNews Take: The race to the bottom of the barrel is proceeding apace. Once again, the following Take from December 17, 2008 applies just as well today:
By SteveJack
Let’s face it: the way things are today, short of Jobs retiring, or God forbid, dropping dead, nothing is going to change the pattern of Steve Jobs health scares, regardless of whether they’re real, imagined, or invented manipulations intended to affect the price of Apple stock.
Jobs could walk on water this afternoon and some people would voice “concern” that he only accomplished it because he’s lost so much weight that he’s about to ascend into heaven.
There’s only so much Apple shareholders can take. An extremely well-positioned, successful company having its share price driven down artificially whenever some short seller desires to cry wolf, er… “gaunt” is not something serious, or even casual, investors welcome. Those who are charged with keeping order (SEC) in the markets are obviously incompetent, AWOL, or both. Perhaps, Jim Cramer and many others (see below for one example) are right in calling loudly for reinstatement of the uptick rule?
The chairman of the SEC [Christopher Cox] serves at the appointment of the president and has betrayed the public’s trust. If I were President today, I would fire him… Mismanagement and greed became the operating standard while regulators were asleep at the switch. The regulators were asleep, my friends, they were not working for you. [The SEC has allowed abusive short-selling, to turn] our markets into a casino. – Senator John McCain, September 18, 2008
In this current climate, with stock-price-affecting health “concerns,” real or not, that can only be alleviated via retirement or death, and in the absence of the uptick rule, has Steve Jobs become too much of a liability for Apple shareholders? With his “health” sitting there as ammunition to be used whenever the shorts desire to fire off a few rounds, can Steve Jobs remain as Apple CEO without the uptick rule in place?
We get email here. Some AAPL shareholders are not happy with what they consider to be obvious and uncontrolled manipulation.
In an attempt to achieve utter clarity, here’s the Either/Or statement: Either Steve Jobs has to go or the uptick rule has to return. Without one or the other, Apple shareholders are at the mercy of forces that have absolutely nothing to do the the company’s current and future performance. AAPL stock simply cannot be recommended, if its performance has little or nothing to do with the company’s actual results. Cancel or Allow?
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers"Fred Mertz" and "James W." for the heads up.]
5 Day Most Commented