Floyd Norris should know better. Today's article on Google is barely an inch deep. In response to Google's share price hitting $400, it simply examines the psychology of numbers--a phenomenon of marginal relevance to actual value. It doesn't matter if the share price is $200 or $400 or splits or doesn't split. The more important questions are: does the valuation make sense? And what would cause the price to go up or down? Making comparisons to Berkshire Hathaway's share price of $87,500 is absurdly useless.

This is where I miss my Wall Street Journal subscription. The Times just plays along with the wow factor accompanying high numbers. Last year, when Yahoo issued an earnings release touting greater profits from ad revenue, the Times simply tagged along with the party line instead of inquiring whether the model was fundamentally sound.

As stated here before, there are good reasons to be skeptical of Google. It's getting very large very quickly, with an employee count increase of 60% in less than a year. It seems to announce a whole slate of gee-wiz projects with questionable tangible value without defining an overall mission of the company. And sorry to be a party pooper, but I believe this whole "search marketing" craze is in for a reality check. Search marketing doesn't always work, and it depends on the kind of business you're in, and people have yet to see a lot of hard data on whether it is successful. (To Google's credit, it is now supplying search marketing customers with tools to calculate just how effective some of those paid ads are.)

When Judith Miller was in jail, we heard an earful from the Times about the sacred role of journalists in informing and protecting the public. Why is it that when it comes to the stock market, they get taken along for the ride just like everyone else?