It's difficult to deny Google's transformative -- and disruptive -- power on many traditional businesses from newspapers to book publishing. Now a decade after its founding by two Stanford University students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the digital media behemoth is experiencing growing pains -- while reaching for even more.

"And they're not always well-equipped for those challenges," says our guest Ken Auletta, author of the new book "Googled: The End of the World as We Know It." Based on more than a dozen visits to the tech campus, Auletta had access to the founders, CEO Eric Schmidt and about 150 present and former employees for the book.

Challenges ahead.

Not so fast, says Robert Prechter, president of Elliott Wave International and author of Conquer the Crash.

"Everybody who's saying ‘buy stocks' today or ‘buy real estate' is, I think, setting up people to get really hurt," says Prechter, who believes the bear market rally is reaching a major top.

"We had a great opportunity at [S&P] 667 - that was the big opportunity," says Prechter, who did make a bullish call last February. "The market is up 60% [from the March lows]. There's no way the S&P is going up 60% from here."

Prechter's advice for most investors, as described in the recently released second edition of his book, is fairly simple:

Play it Safe: Keep as much of your assets as possible in cash and cash equivalents, Prechter recommends, stressing not all money market funds and bank CDs are created equal -- or equally safe. (Prechter also advocates exposure to gold but isn't as bullish on it today as he was in 2002, as discussed here.)

Patience Is a Virtue: "Sit back, relax. Be as safe as you can [and] in safe institutions," he says. "There's a great buying opportunity coming up around 2014, 2016."

Return Of Capital Is Key: "Be very careful," he says. "Don't lose the money you have saved in the markets that are likely to come down in 2010 a long way."

From Prechter's perspective, "there's no negative to getting safe."...

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Stocks and gold rallied sharply Thursday, moving in opposition to the dollar as is so often the case these days.

The inverse correlation between financial assets and the dollar won't change but the trend is about to reverse in a major way, according to Robert Prechter, president of Elliott Wave International and author of Conquer the Crash.

"I think stocks are topping out, commodities are topping out and the dollar is making a bottom," says Prechter, who calls the dollar "one of the most despised" assets in the world.

Ever the contrarian, Prechter cited the heavy bearish sentiment on the dollar when he made similar predictions here in August. Since then, the Dollar Index has made new lows but the dollar has shown intermittent signs of life; in addition, Nouriel Roubini, Martin Wolf and others have made similar forecasts about the potential for a dollar rally.

In the accompanying clip, Prechter also makes the seemingly counterintuitive argument that the dollar will rally because there's so much debt...

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But even Hindery, a former advisor to President Obama and John Edwards' senior economic policy advisor, can't deny the Democrats have stumbled.

"The lesson is simple: It's the economy, stupid," Hindery says. "Healthcare reform is an important issue...but the priority was misguided. I'm a strong advocate of universal healthcare but would have put it behind employment."

The issue is not so much the Obama administration hasn't created jobs but unemployed Americans "do expect the appearance is every effort is being made to reemploy them," he says. "I think we got away from that perception [due to] the overemphasis on healthcare."

As a result of these misplaced priorities, Hindery says the Democrats are...

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Every time Warren Buffett does something, a legion of Buffett-watchers immediately pass judgement on whether the world's most-admired investor has finally lost his mind.

Well, he hasn't, says one of the smartest of those Buffett-watchers, hedge-fund manager Jeff Matthews, the author of "Pilgrimage to Warren Buffett's Omaha."

Buffett's $44 billion bet on a railroad--the biggest bet of his career--is a long-term play on economic recovery and, possibly, global warming.  And it includes a nice potential option in the form of 32,000 miles of rights-of-way that could eventually form the backbone of a nationwide broadband network.

Buffett's Burlington bet probably won't earn the same eye-popping returns of some of his earlier investments, says Matthews, founder of Ram Partners and author of the popular blog, Jeff Matthews Is Not Making This Up.  He paid (relatively) a lot for it, and railroads aren't a major growth business.

But considering Buffett's desire to put a massive amount of money to work and earn a decent return, this seems like a typically smart play.

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Warren Buffet is digging deep into his pockets, making a $44 billion bet on the U.S. economy. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway announcing plans today to buy the remaining stake in railroad giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe it doesn't already own for $100 a share in cash and stock, and assume $10 billion of debt.

Apparently, the Oracle of Omaha is fired up about the acquisition – the largest in company history. "It's an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States. I love these bets," he says.

This deal comes on the heels of a smaller multi-billion dollar merger. Yesterday after the close, Stanley Works announced it would buy rival toolmaker Black & Decker for $4.5 billion in stock.

Diane Garnick investment strategist at Invesco thinks this may be the tip of the iceberg. In this accompanying clip, (recorded before both deals were announced) Garnick says mega-mergers and smaller spinoffs are bound to heat up as companies search outside their own business for revenue growth in this sluggish economy. "Now is not the time for organic growth," she states.

Where's the hotbed of M&A?...

From The Business Insider, Nov. 3, 2009:

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) is making a big rail buy, acquiring Burlington Northern (BNI) for $100 per share or about $44 billion. The deal is the largest in Berkshire's history.

Shares of Burlington Northern had been trading around $76, so shareholders are getting a fat 30% premium.

Berkshire already owned over 20% of the company.

From the release:

“Our country’s future prosperity depends on its having an efficient and well-maintained rail system,” said Warren E. Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway chairman and chief executive officer. “Conversely, America must grow and prosper for railroads to do well. Berkshire’s $34 billion investment in BNSF is a huge bet on that company, CEO Matt Rose and his team, and the railroad industry.

“Most important of all, however, it’s an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States,” said Mr. Buffett. “I love these bets.”

Click here to view the full news release.

More coverage from The Business Insider:

Wallie Weitz: Berkshire Hathaway still the perfect holding

Remember all the reform talk from a year ago? With the massive post-March rally still intact and big profits and bonuses back en vogue on Wall Street, it's easy to lose track of the excessive risk-taking that triggered a near depression and financial system meltdown. 

"Compensation right now is completely screwed up. It is not tied to long-term performance," says our guest William Black, white-collar criminologist and associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Black recently testified before Congress on executive pay.

Sure special "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg last week announced seven taxpayer-rescued firms are subject to statutory rules on executive compensation. But the restrictions are temporary and far short of longer-term "prudent" solutions needed, says Black, a former federal bank regulator and a top investigator for the definitive Congressional report on the S&L crisis.

Primarily, Black calls for the:

1. Need to adopt compensation reform at all companies -- not just the gang of seven under Feinberg's purview (AIG, BofA, Chrysler Group, Chrysler Financial, Citigroup, and General Motors, General Motors Acceptance.)
...

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That's very bullish from a contrarian standpoint, and Paulsen believes we are "very early" in the recovery for both the economy and the stock market.

"There will come a time when the recovery gets more mature and you're going to convert bears to bulls and we'll get buyers that will take this market still higher," he says.

How much higher?...

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From The Business Insider, Nov. 2, 2009:

Prior to the bust, the Japanese yen was the favored currency behind the so-called "carry trade." Traders would borrow a cheap currency, buy risky assets, and then profit. It was basically that easy.

But the cheap yen has been replaced by the cheap dollar, so that everything priced in dollars has soared like crazy.

And just as the dollar is showing some signs of life, and just as the market shows an inlking of a breakdown, here comes Roubini warning about the coming bust of the carry trade.

FT: The reckless US policy that is feeding these carry trades is forcing other countries to follow its easy monetary policy. Near-zero policy rates and quantitative easing were already in place in the UK, eurozone, Japan, Sweden and other advanced economies, but the dollar weakness is making this global monetary easing worse. Central banks in Asia and Latin America are worried about dollar weakness and are aggressively intervening to stop excessive currency appreciation. This is keeping short-term rates lower than is desirable. Central banks may also be forced to lower interest rates through domestic open market operations. Some central banks, concerned about the hot money driving up their currencies, as in Brazil, are imposing controls on capital inflows. Either way, the carry trade bubble will get worse: if there is no forex intervention and foreign currencies appreciate, the negative borrowing cost of the carry trade becomes more negative. If intervention or open market operations control currency appreciation, the ensuing domestic monetary easing feeds an asset bubble in these economies. So the perfectly correlated bubble across all global asset classes gets bigger by the day.

Click here for the full post from the Financial Times.

More coverage from The Business Insider:

• Roubini: A dollar rally, not a crash, could slam markets
• Here's more dollar strengthening and more bad news for stocks and gold