Slashdot Mirror

ok, I've been thinking about this overnight, and here are my thoughts (in case you for some reason care). AOC isn't particularly more braindead than any other politician, as you say. So no big deal there, she'll get the hang of it.

The biggest problem I see is that here's what will happen:

1) "Tax the rich" becomes popular.
2) Republicans (and lets face it, a ton of Democrats) realize they need to make a token effort to appease the people
3) They join together (loudly protesting or cheering as needed) and raise the top bracket to 45% on people earning more than $10million a year (the idea is 70% but I don't think that will happen).
4) Everyone is satisfied and goes back to watching TV, or complaining how stupid AOC, Pelosi, or Trump actually is, while
5) Less than two thousand people are affected by the new tax rate, and half of those are able to restructure their income to avoid the new taxes.

In other words, an ineffectual bill will be passed with loopholes that appease anyone who actually knows how to lobby government.

You are incorrect.

Alaska
Highest paid employee: Keith Meyer
Position: President, Alaska Gasline Development Corporation
Salary: $550,000

Delaware
Highest paid employee: Mark Holodick
Position: Superintendent of Brandywine School District
Salary: $246,072

Hawaii
Highest paid employee: David Engle
Position: Neurosurgeon
Salary: $786,000

Nevada
Highest paid employee: Kayvan Khiabani
Position: Professor of surgery
Salary: $987,638

New York
Highest paid employee: Lewis Pasternak
Position: Anesthesiologist and CEO of Stony Brook University Hospital

Salary: $673,596

https://247wallst.com/array/20...

Survivors are not victors, but they remain.

Like Microsoft. You do realize that Microsoft's whole shtick for the longest time is they were substantially cheaper than the competition, right? Yea, there was all that anti-monopolistic stuff too, but Microsoft always was very much about focusing on providing low cost products. That's why so many companies were upset: they'd duplicate some product that cost $50 and bundle it in one of their products running the company out of business.

At the time iMacs came out *I* sure could not afford them, as much as I thought they looked awesome.

The original iMac G3 game out in 1998 for $1,299. For the period it was low end. The absolute bottom low end, no. But by standards of what Apple sold until that point, yes. Its inclusion of a monitor is one part of where a price discrepancy by the absolute bottom low end differs.

Seriously, you clearly have very foggy memories of the time.

0.001%? Electric cars are 39% of new car sales in Norway, 8% in California, and around 5% in China. If you live in a backwater that can't even keep up with China, maybe it's not relevant to your area yet.

I think he was specifically referring to Teslas - which very much are still a luxury product - not electric cars in general.

Doubt many 0.001 percenters are rolling around in a Nissan Leaf.

0.001%? Electric cars are 39% of new car sales in Norway, 8% in California, and around 5% in China. If you live in a backwater that can't even keep up with China, maybe it's not relevant to your area yet.

I've done everything from on-site support to large-scale Windows XP image design and deployment, but now -- due to age and disability -- I work from home, answering Help Desk calls for one of the worst companies to work for in America.Our call queue times range from 30 minutes to over an hour, partly because the team gets virtually no training: some of them can take 45 minutes to track down drivers and install a printer. (I have provided some training for them in the past, but tamping down the calls in the queue always takes precedence over actually improving how we respond to the calls).

As you can imagine, the users aren't the main source of frustration. Our IT department is easily the dumbest on God's gray Earth, and the stupid flows downhill from the very top. The business model seems to be "make a change that breaks tens of thousands of computers -- or hundreds of thousands of user profiles -- and let the Help Desk fix them one at a time as they call in." We basically work for Dilbert's PHB, and our company is circling the drain while we divest locations and cut costs by laying off staff and ditching M$ Office for GSuite... both of which are making the call queues even worse.

I cope by reminding myself that I do a good job, and take care of the callers I get. I also realize that I'm sitting in my jammies in a recliner, half-watching movies on a 55" TV while I work, that I only have to do one thing at a time, that I have almost no responsibilities that extend beyond any phone call I take, and that most of the end users' jobs are much worse than mine (hence our placement on the aforementioned list).
When I was younger, coming up, I would never have survived here. Now, I look at it as a means to a worthwhile end: my wife makes much better money, and we could survive quite comfortably on only her salary... but we enjoy new cars and cruises, and this Dilbertian hell is our conduit to such things. Besides, in our company of 50,000+ employees, I sometimes get to feel like a minor celebrity: several times per week, someone recognizes my voice and says "Thank God I got you!"

Most car trips are under 6 miles. 75% of all car trips are under 10 miles.
https://247wallst.com/autos/20...

So, a car that does short trips all-electric but has a gas engine for back-up is, for most trips, an all electric car, but one that also works for longer trips.

Yes, it seems so.

That battery is making money and saving more, apparently it's been very effective in load or frequency balancing, or whatever it can do.

https://247wallst.com/energy-b...

And while pumped hydro is certainly well proven, you'd still be getting planning permission and building approval at this stage, assuming you've acquired a suitable site, and yes, water. Yet the battery has been up, running, and earning money for many months now.

Now all we need is more lithium (or a high performance, safer and cheaper alternative... :)

Yes. http://247wallst.com/special-r...

This article suggests that only about 3% of gas stations in the US are owned by big oil companies, I couldn't find world-wide stats. I do understand your larger point however. The local gas station model is doomed. While some will survive as electric fast charge locations, most street corner stations will disappear as people convert.

There is no breakdown by region and there is no way to discern, what exactly is the reason of the longevity/lack thereof. Is it all healthcare? Or climate? Or traditional diet? Or various life-style choices and wealth — and resulting availability of personal cars? Or misguided dieting advice?

Worse, different countries use different standards and rules for counting they very number we are comparing. Some, for example, count all humans, while others discard the still-born babies — thus improving their averages. Even more — some countries would not count babies born live but underweight.

Finally, consider two European countries: Moldova and Lithuania. The former is very poor and corrupt, the former — an EU and NATO member doing reasonably well for an ex-Soviet republic. Both provide "free" healthcare to citizens and long-term residents. Life expectancy in Moldova is 81.4, in Lithuania — 73.9. Why?

also completely unrelated, but competing for air time today, is the other Apple story about a dip in shares and phone sales. this airpod story is a good distraction from the iphone sales drop because it has a big percent for satisfaction or something. On the other hand, Apple is probably worried that people are going to start selling stock off faster with any sign of weakness in iPhone sales too, so there is also this astroturfed story to reassure investors about how apple stock prices are up 20000% since their IPO.

Well played, Apple; that is how the richest company in the world polishes their turds.

My understanding is that the main job for humans in Amazon warehouses is for 'pickers', that these machines are claimed to be able to replace (no word on accuracy, however). The article mentions that packing items in boxes is still done by hand, and I imagine loading/unloading trucks is still done with humans. However I can foresee completely-automated Amazon warehouses in the near future. With self-driving trucks, and completely-automated factories, there will likely soon be some products whose packaging are unseen by a human until they reach a consumer's doorstep. Completely-automated retail. From what I could find here, at least 10.1 million Americans work jobs that'd be replaced with automated retail. The American Trucking Association claims 3.4 million American truck drivers. So that adds up to 13.5 million jobs between retail and trucking, add in other driving jobs and it'd be 10% of all jobs.

For comparison, about 2.5 million new jobs are created in the US each year. In the unlikely event every driver and retail supply chain worker were laid off at once, it'd take ~5 years for new jobs to be created to absorb them (assuming an equal number of vacancies.) That's ignoring the fact that many of these 'new jobs' are in the driving and retail sectors. Another 5.4 million Americans work as food preparers/waiters; as minimum wage increases I wonder how many restaurants will increase automation. I know many restaurants won't fully-automate due to tradition or being high-class, but most restaurants aren't too high-class and will automate if it's either that or go out of business.

Look my friend, you would have been wasted at ITT. With a degree of ambition to be apart of the problem, why not aim for upper management at some fortune 1000?

Check out the following link (a bit old, but hey... I am sure they are worse by now!): http://247wallst.com/special-r...

For many years there have been stories about bad management at Cisco. Here's one: Cisco: Bad Economy, or Bad Management? (August 15, 2013)

Quotes: Cisco is "a maze of barely related tech business"... "Aside from its network core, it has operations in data center management, video hardware and software, "collaboration" products, cloud computing and low-tech WiFi products. All of it together seems too much with too little connection."

At the time of the election Alabama had an unemployment rate of just under 3%, a small but consistently shrinking deficit and manageable debt.

I note that in 2011, unemployment in Alabama was near 10% not near 3%; that the education fund (which makes up a large portion of the Alabama budget) had been cut back by 20% over the previous three years prior to the 2010-2011 budget (which means it might be a "conservative economics" action, but not one by the present governor); and it's state debt per capita is really low, going from $1,738 in 2011 to $1,867 in 2015 (which I think we can all agree is not a significant enough difference to go from .

Alabama's deficite is now larger than the total state revenue.

Every link I look at says something like Alabama's budget is around $5-6 billion per year while it's deficits vary a great deal from year to year, but haven't gone over a billion dollars per year.

You know, this looks a lot like your claim that 45% of all carbon emissions come from whips-and-chains slave labor, that is, it is complete bullshit.

At the time of the election Alabama had an unemployment rate of just under 3%, a small but consistently shrinking deficit and manageable debt.

I note that in 2011, unemployment in Alabama was near 10% not near 3%; that the education fund (which makes up a large portion of the Alabama budget) had been cut back by 20% over the previous three years prior to the 2010-2011 budget (which means it might be a "conservative economics" action, but not one by the present governor); and it's state debt per capita is really low, going from $1,738 in 2011 to $1,867 in 2015 (which I think we can all agree is not a significant enough difference to go from .

Alabama's deficite is now larger than the total state revenue.

Every link I look at says something like Alabama's budget is around $5-6 billion per year while it's deficits vary a great deal from year to year, but haven't gone over a billion dollars per year.

You know, this looks a lot like your claim that 45% of all carbon emissions come from whips-and-chains slave labor, that is, it is complete bullshit.

Companies will have power as long as they can make political donations.

Companies in the US already have strong restrictions on "political donations".

They may have "restrictions"-- but they find ways to donate anyway. Nice thing about corporations; they have lawyers to find the loopholes.

Here's the top contributors list from OpenSecrets.org: https://www.opensecrets.org/or...

What they can do is communicate on issues.

Yes, that's the biggest loophole: the Political Action Committee ("PAC"). It's "supposed" to be to "communicate issues". Every candidate has one.
"Political contributions, which used to go directly to candidates, now often flow to Super PACs, independent organizations that can raise money to either help or defeat a political candidate. Historically, traditional political action committees have been prohibited from accepting donations from unions and companies. However, following rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, Super PACs are now allowed to accept unlimited donations from unions and companies, provided the money does not go directly to the campaign.
The rise of the Super PAC has opened the door to a new generation of fundraising, changing how money is used to elect candidates and increasing the amount candidates need to raise to be competitive as they seek office.
(source: http://247wallst.com/special-r... )

So, are you going to start massively censoring speech by companies? How exactly is that going to work? Does "company" include the New York Times, or only companies you don't like?

A start would be a law mandating that money donated to political action committees has to be disclosed: if you're funding political campaigns, you have to do it openly, not secretly. This wouldn't even require overturning the Citizen's United decision: the Supreme court already said that this would be legal.

30 years ago we had free, or next to free college in California

Not sure whether this is related:
With 10 campuses and five medical centers, the University of California System is the largest employer in California with nearly 200,000 employees. The UC System enrolled more than 238,000 students in this school year and contributes an estimated $32.8 billion to California’s gross state product.

http://247wallst.com/media/201...

I don't need to believe anything, experts in finance say he has the money. Go troll somewhere else.

Companies he has owned have gone bankrupt, this is not unusual in business as some businesses succeed and some fail, but no, Trump himself has never gone bankrupt.

Considering that many experts estimate his net worth in the Billions, it would appear you are the one who is wrong.

http://247wallst.com/media/201...

Forbes: $4.5 billion
Bloomberg: $2.9 billion

Even the starting amount you give is wrong:

When Trump and his four brothers inherited their father’s real-estate business in 1974, the company was valued at an estimated $200 million. Trump’s share would have been worth $40 million. According to Vox.com, if Trump had invested that $40 million in an S&P 500 index fund in 1974, and reinvested all the dividends, not cash out and paid no fees, by August of 2015 he would have been worth $3.4 billion.

As far as the bankruptcies, taking risks is exactly that, risk. Companies fail all the time, blaming someone who probably had very little actual contact with a company for its failure is silly. He has many more than 4 companies that succeeded, so his success rate is also way higher than yours.

You are conflating several bullshit statistics, cherry picked without rhyme or reason.
Meanwhile, back in reality, concealed carry laws have been debunked as the cause for lower crime rates.
And no, it isn't the stand your ground laws either.

Hint: Florida ain't the only state with conceal carry nor stand-your-ground laws. Where are those supposed low Florida numbers in all other states?
In fact, ALL 50 STATES have concealed carry laws. It's just that some require a concealed carry LICENSE.
Of those that DON'T REQUIRE A LICENSE - two (Alaska, New Mexico) are first and second on the list of the most dangerous US states, due to their high violent crime rate.
Florida is ninth.
Shouldn't easier concealed carry mean less violent crime?

And what about three other states (New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont) that also don't require a license - but which are among the most peaceful states?
Vermont and Maine being the most peaceful states.
How can the same easier concealed carry actually create less violent crime in these states but not in others?

I.e. Concealed carry, with or without a permit IS NOT the cause nor is it an indicator of violent crime rates.

You are conflating several bullshit statistics, cherry picked without rhyme or reason.
Meanwhile, back in reality, concealed carry laws have been debunked as the cause for lower crime rates.
And no, it isn't the stand your ground laws either.

Hint: Florida ain't the only state with conceal carry nor stand-your-ground laws. Where are those supposed low Florida numbers in all other states?
In fact, ALL 50 STATES have concealed carry laws. It's just that some require a concealed carry LICENSE.
Of those that DON'T REQUIRE A LICENSE - two (Alaska, New Mexico) are first and second on the list of the most dangerous US states, due to their high violent crime rate.
Florida is ninth.
Shouldn't easier concealed carry mean less violent crime?

And what about three other states (New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont) that also don't require a license - but which are among the most peaceful states?
Vermont and Maine being the most peaceful states.
How can the same easier concealed carry actually create less violent crime in these states but not in others?

I.e. Concealed carry, with or without a permit IS NOT the cause nor is it an indicator of violent crime rates.

Your points would be fantastic, if any of them were true: 1. I live amongst more educated people: While many in California feel you are better than everyone else, the rankings say...not so much. Tenth worst, actually.
http://247wallst.com/special-r...

2. Most welfare mouths are in the midwest: Here is a list of the states with most welfare population compared to working population. 1. Ca 2. NM 3. HI 4. MI 5. Al 6. SC 7. IL 8. KT 9. Oh 10. NY. Now, two of those are midwest, and because IL and OH enjoy large, urban centers.
http://brandongaille.com/welfa...

3. Most are white: Slightly more welfare recipients are black compared to white (39.8 vs. 38.8) but, black people make up 13% and white are about 63 percent, to say most are white is such a torture of reality it borders on a sickness.
http://www.statisticbrain.com/...
4. The one you did get right is that most welfare people did not finish school. However, when you look at graduation rates, places that I am fairly sure you would say are "educated" i.e. coastal meccas, are not exactly nation beaters. Ca is middle at best and New York is near the bottom. Br> https://www.washingtonpost.com...


I know making such statements are cool in some circles, but facts and links make for stronger arguments, better policy, and more honest discussion. You simply can not fix problems without this. I for one, want to fix issues, not play blame games.

"90% of the things I buy to live (Food, Toiletries, shelter) are owned and made by 13 companies."

It seems that the U.S. government now only helps rich people become richer. There is no democracy.

Companies That Control the World's Food (That is the 2nd page of the article.)

Food Processing's top 100

A certain proportion of the population seems to be unable to control themselves. Whether it be tobacco, sugar, alcohol, fat or some other substance that isn't good for you in large quantities. This is where they make their money. The majority alcohol is bought by heavy drinkers. I would imagine that the same is true for products like Coke. I know some people who drink 6 cans a day of Coke. I'll buy a 12 pack and it will last me a couple months. You aren't going to convince the people who are consuming massive amounts of this stuff to all of a sudden stop consuming it. Maybe a few people will see the light, but a lot of people will never stop. I think the only way is to get people before they start. It's going to take generations of change for the problem to go away.

Have you ever actually looked at how much oil companies pay in taxes each year? Exxon has topped the list for a long time, but the other big oil companies are right up there.

. Exxon Mobil > Income tax expense: $31.0 billion
> Earnings before taxes: $78.7 billion (the most)
> Revenue: $428.4 billion (2nd most)
> 1-yr. share price change: +14.5%
> Industry: Oil and gas

Exxon Mobil is one of the nation’s largest companies by a number of measures. The oil and gas titan trails only Walmart in revenue and has the highest pre-tax income of any American public company. Not surprisingly, Exxon Mobil also pays more in taxes than any other corporation.

I think your analysis is off. I believe democrats see government is a moderation of society, where people come together to create a better society and life for EVERYONE, not just the few wealthiest fucktards that will buy them into office (as the republicans believe), or that only-the-strongest-and fuck-everyone-else as conservative libertarians do.

As for the big government democrats, maybe you need to do just a little smattering of research before continuing to use a stupid talking point that is basically propagandized projectionism utilized by con men preying on the willfully ignorant conservative base.

The largest state governments by percentage of population are red states: http://247wallst.com/special-r...

.... red states that siphon more money from the federal coffers (takers) than blue states (makers) who have to subsidize them so they're not even worse shitholes than they already are: http://wallethub.com/edu/state...

... perhaps following the path republicans in the white house that have increased government jobs more than democrats in the white house have, while failing to come close to the private sector jobs that are created under democrats: http://www.politifact.com/trut...

http://politicsthatwork.com/de...

http://www.politicususa.com/20...

http://www.washingtontimes.com...

Maybe the biggest reason for the hatred is, libertarians and republicans continue to push policies that simply DO NOT WORK, and actually harm this country, all the while lying through their teeth about the disasters they've created. Clinton had to work to clean up after Reagan (Bush Sr. started that cleanup, and the GOP threw him out), and Obama has had to work to clean up from Bush Jr. Red states are leeches off the federal coffers, while blue states have to dole out money to help the sad sack red states who apparently don't have bootstraps of their own. All the while republican politicians lie like bitches so they can HAVE POWER.... instead of actually govern the country for the betterment of everyone.

All we had to do was LITERALLY NOTHING

But then, what's going to be his legacy? Not Obamacare, not peaceful Iraq (or Libya), not economic recovery, not lower unemployment, not reductions in income disparity.

Liberalization of marijuana? But that's individual States' achievement...

Being able to claim to have "normalized relationship" with Iran (and Cuba) will — for generations — be trumpeted as "success" by sympathetic historians. Or so he hopes...

It's already happening.

Name calling? It is no more name calling than referring to Obama as a dem, liberal, or even left-winger.

In addition, nm went from 1 of the top 5 ran states to 2nd to last worst ran state.
The level of incomprtence shown by neo-cons like Martinez is nothing less than staggering. She and her cronies took a state in a great position, and destroyed it.

McDonald's posted 5.5 BILLION in profit for 2012. They can pay their workers (well) above minimum wage.

They're a large company with a large number of employees. Economies of scales matter. Paying $15 minimum wage for instance would mean a 50% reduction in profit: http://247wallst.com/retail/20...
The Walmart case is even worse, at 80% profit lost.

That's a big deal. You're not talking pennies.

Microsoft is not universally hated, though legions of ignorant users have grown accustomed to using this scapegoat for their computer woes, no matter if it's the fault of a 3rd party or their own. None of the "most hated companies" lists I could find made any mention of Microsoft, but here's one that mentions Nokia at #2. Marketing 102: Don't listen to Slashdot trolls.

Making an unqualified statement is not a valid argument. Pretty much all the studies that support your contention are all funded by right-wing or libertarian groups that cherry pick data.

SOURCES:

http://www.edweek.org/ew/artic...

http://247wallst.com/special-r...

Government savings bonds are about as safe as the money they're denominated in, while their interest rate helps with reducing the effect of inflation.

Weellll, it gets amusing when TIPS get sold at a negative interest rate. Yes, the story is nuanced (there is a floor in that original principal will be returned if the yield would result in an overall loss), but it's still shocking to see US sovereign debt instrument with a negative interest rate.

BTW, the 5-year fixed rate yield on TIPS is still negative.

This is primarily the result of the market's flight to perceived stability after the 2008 crash. Supply & demand.

You will of course not have noticed that the bailouts were not actually used to help the people who were trapped in negative equity situations, but primarily used to payout ongoing large bonuses and option packages to the 'managers' of the institutions..

It wasn't "primarily" used for bonuses, although the bonuses were about about 10% of the bailout. This is clearly absurd. However, the purpose of the money was to ensure that credit kept flowing. It appears to have done that. The money should, however, have come with strict regulation attached. That is where the government fucked up.

Don't mod this guy up, since its outdated, and incorrect.

Lets compare the States he mentioned to Massachusetts

Taxes paid per capita in Massachusetts is almost twice that of Louisiana, yet he is saying Louisiana has higher taxes.

His willingness to ignorance is completely astonishing.

crowd-funding $200,000 to buy the video in question

Founded in 2003, Gawker is the flagship blog for Nick Denton's Gawker Media.

http://247wallst.com/2009/11/10/the-twenty-five-most-valuable-blogs-in-america/

1. Gawker Properties, $300 million. This group of blogs which includes Gawker, Deadspin, Gizmodo, and Lifehacker has about 23 million monthly unique visitors and 250 million page views. Owner Nick Denton has pointed out the business is highly profitable and growing and that advertising revenue has performed better than expected. Almost all the advertising at the family of websites is premium marketing from major companies. The average CPM on a page is estimated to be $20. That would drive $60 million in annual revenue. Gawker is not expensive to run. Its writers are paid relatively low wages. Many of the blogs Gawker owns have only five or ten writers and editors. Gawker keeps at least 50% of its revenue as operating income. The valuation is based on 10x operating income.

And they're asking for people to pay for their scoop, so they could make more money from the ads?

What's next? CNN asking viewers to do their journalism for them? Oh... wait...

2. And? Despite Conservative claims, there were very few (as in barely-breaks-two-digits) complaints about it.

5. You have a funny definition of "fact". Pipelines spill more than twice as much oil (per amount transported) as railroads do.

Actually, it appearz that Facebook is one of the most hated companies in America:

http://247wallst.com/2013/01/09/the-10-most-hated-companies-in-america-2/2/

Facebook has had customer satisfaction issues for some time, but recently did a particularly good job of alienating a portion of its nearly one billion members. According to the ACSI, Facebook is one of the most strongly disliked American companies, beaten out only by three public utilities companies. This comes in part from the company’s continuing user privacy concerns. Mark Zuckerberg’s company did not help itself in this regard in 2012, after it announced that it had the right to republish any and all photos in the accounts of its Instagram users.

I don't see where the articles address the "reversing of losses" that the GGP cited. HFT may be flawed, but I don't see the items I questioned being addressed.

Yes, the questions were raised: Look in the '247wallst' article at http://247wallst.com/2012/12/04/high-frequency-trading-a-grave-threat-to-the-markets-and-the-economy/ and search for 'why' as in 'Why were the orders canceled?'

In other words, by some unknown mechanism, certain market participants were able to have second thoughts about their trades.

Their profit, or their cancellation of loss, was someone else's non-cushioned loss.

-wb-

What happened is that actual people reacted to the news and the trading algorithms (not necessarily HFT, but trading bots) thought they hit a pattern and amplified the movement. Nobody lost anything except the bot herders that sold at -150 because they trusted their bots. I really can't see how that "hurts productive industries and threatens the stability of the economy" as you say.

I'll just leave this here. http://247wallst.com/2012/12/04/high-frequency-trading-a-grave-threat-to-the-markets-and-the-economy/

Just remember, the music industry saw growth and "profit" in 2012, the first time since 1999, before this copyright protection went in place.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/26/4031912/music-industry-grew-revenue-for-first-time-since-1999
http://247wallst.com/2013/02/26/music-industry-posts-first-profit-since-1999/

The article has inexplicably vanished. Here's the text from the Google cache while it lasts:

Microsoft needed a great Christmas season. After years of product stagnation, and a big market shift toward mobile devices from PCs, Microsoft’s future relied on the company seeing customers demonstrate they were ready to jump in heavily for Windows8 products – including the new Surface tablet.

But that did not happen.

With the data now coming it, it is clear the market movement away from Microsoft products, toward Apple and Android products, has not changed. On Christmas eve, as people turned on their new devices and launched their first tweet, Surface came in dead last – a mere 2% compared to the number of people tweeting from iPads (Kindle was second, Android third.) Looking at more traditional units shipped information, UBS analysts reported Surface sales were 5% of iPads shipped. And usability reviews continue to run highly negative for Surface and Win8.

PC sales declining

This inability to make a big splash, and mount a serious attack on Apple/Android domination, is horrific for Microsoft primarily because we now know that traditional PC sales are well into decline. Despite the big Win8 launch and promotion, holiday PC sales declined over 3% compared to 2011 as journalists reported customers found “no compelling reason to upgrade.” Ouch!

Looking deeper, for the 4th quarter PC sales declined by almost 5% according to Gartner research, and by almost 6.5% according to IDC. Both groups no longer expect a rebound in PC shipments, as they believe homes will no longer have more than 1 PC due to the mobile device penetration – the market where Surface and Win8 phones have failed to make any significant impact or move beyond a tiny market share. Users increasingly see the complexity of shifting to Win8 as not worth the effort; and if a switch is to be made consumer and businesses now favor iOS and Android.

Microsoft’s monopoly over personal computing has evaporated

From 95% market domination in 2005 share has fallen to just 20% in 2012 (IDC, Goldman Sachs.) Comparing devices, in 2005 there were 55 Windows de

The article has inexplicably vanished. Here's the text from the Google cache while it lasts:

Microsoft needed a great Christmas season. After years of product stagnation, and a big market shift toward mobile devices from PCs, Microsoft’s future relied on the company seeing customers demonstrate they were ready to jump in heavily for Windows8 products – including the new Surface tablet.

But that did not happen.

With the data now coming it, it is clear the market movement away from Microsoft products, toward Apple and Android products, has not changed. On Christmas eve, as people turned on their new devices and launched their first tweet, Surface came in dead last – a mere 2% compared to the number of people tweeting from iPads (Kindle was second, Android third.) Looking at more traditional units shipped information, UBS analysts reported Surface sales were 5% of iPads shipped. And usability reviews continue to run highly negative for Surface and Win8.

PC sales declining

This inability to make a big splash, and mount a serious attack on Apple/Android domination, is horrific for Microsoft primarily because we now know that traditional PC sales are well into decline. Despite the big Win8 launch and promotion, holiday PC sales declined over 3% compared to 2011 as journalists reported customers found “no compelling reason to upgrade.” Ouch!

Looking deeper, for the 4th quarter PC sales declined by almost 5% according to Gartner research, and by almost 6.5% according to IDC. Both groups no longer expect a rebound in PC shipments, as they believe homes will no longer have more than 1 PC due to the mobile device penetration – the market where Surface and Win8 phones have failed to make any significant impact or move beyond a tiny market share. Users increasingly see the complexity of shifting to Win8 as not worth the effort; and if a switch is to be made consumer and businesses now favor iOS and Android.

Microsoft’s monopoly over personal computing has evaporated

From 95% market domination in 2005 share has fallen to just 20% in 2012 (IDC, Goldman Sachs.) Comparing devices, in 2005 there were 55 Windows de

No surprise that Red Lobster and Olive Garden don't offer it, at least to hourly restaurant staff. When companies make prominent lists because of being lousy employers, there's probably more than one reason. Low pay, lousy benefits, the-employee-is-always-wrong mentality, etc. http://247wallst.com/2012/11/21/the-12-companies-paying-americans-the-least/2/

political support for unions, even among many Democrats, pretty much dried up a long time ago.

The way you word that is a bit misleading. Support for labor unions has been deliberately and systematically eliminated BECAUSE of their support for the Democratic party*. Their dwindling numbers are not so much happenstance.

[*] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)
http://247wallst.com/2012/06/11/unions-still-support-democrats/

"Now, we have the opposite problem -- an administration who issues oil leases but no permission to actually drill and fights all efforts to build any additional oil refineries"

Nice troll, but the US _exports_ gasoline of which it has a surplus.
There is also no refinery capacity problem.

The global market is willing to spend MONEY to buy US gasoline and diesel. They even pay to refine crude in _US_ refineries for export elsewhere.

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mgfexus1&f=m

http://zfacts.com/node/426

"U.S. oil and natural gas production in July was the highest since 1999, according to the Energy Department. That increase has allowed the U.S. to "meet 81 percent of its energy needs last year, the most since 1992." And, the U.S. took on the role of a net exporter of refined products for the first time since World War II.

Countries such as Venezuela and Brazil, petro dynamos in South America, both increased imports of U.S. refined products from last year.

Loder reported that gasoline has become more expensive because of rising world oil prices. The fact that U.S. refiners can turn a bigger profit by sending refined products out of the country should give us pause to think what would happen if we adopted policies to promote greater domestic crude production.

As long as markets for refined oil products overseas continue to grow, it only makes sense for U.S. refiners to tap these profitable opportunities.

"Drill Baby Drill!" won't necessarily lower gas prices as long as customers in China, India and other developing markets are willing to outbid U.S. motorists in the global gasoline price wars."

Incidentally, building pipeline for Canada to export their tar sands oil through US refineries in Foreign Trade Zones isn't going to help US consumers either, because it "un-landlocks" oil which was going to US customers in the first place.

http://247wallst.com/2012/03/07/valero-looks-forward-to-export-opportunities-vlo-trp-tso-mpc-hfc/

"The Keystone XL pipeline, with its projected delivery of 800,000 barrels/day of heavy, sour crude from Canada, figures prominently in Valeroâ(TM)s plans to boost its profits. The higher volume of Canadian crude will widen the differential between Brent and other imported heavy, sour crudes by pushing prices down on imports.

For US drivers, this scenario does not mean that gasoline will be cheaper. It does mean that Valero will be able to capture bigger profits even as US demand for gasoline falls. The only thing that will push down pump prices is for Brent crude to fall significantly with respect to WTI. That is not part of either TransCanadaâ(TM)s or Valeroâ(TM)s plan."

Sorry to derail another anti-Obama attack (I don't like Omney OR Robama!) but the White House does not run the oil industry!

1) Nokia chose to lic apple patents and to obtain others via use of MS windows (which also lic apple patents). This was a slower approach than the android approach and they lost market share to samsung which played fast and loose. Nokia was punished worse than apple for being IP sensitive.

Apple tried to take on Nokia and lost. It ended with them paying Nokia.
http://247wallst.com/2012/08/27/nokia-rises-in-wake-of-apple-patent-win/

2) Samsungs internal documents compared their in house design to the Apple one and recommended chucking many design elements in favor of copying apple. Thus evidently some (not all) of the apple design exceeded what Samsung could do. it was not obvious evidently.

Bullshit. COMPARING your product to MAJOR competitor's products is what nearly ALL sane companies do in nearly ALL industries.

• When you "slavishly copy" something, you don't need to compare what's better.
• Home screen on Samsung phones does NOT look iphone's grid of icons (which looks like ancient PDA) it supports widgets and default UI uses them extensively.
• "Device dominated by screen" design is more than obvious, look at most modern TVs.

And question of the day: who has invented, cough, power button, power slider, "press for X seconds to power off" pretty please? Why didn't any glorious company get

2. Regarding Canada's federal debt. As of a year ago Canada's total Public Debt hit $1.1 Trillion, but that was only 57.9 % debt to GDP ratio. That is regarded as low and is perfectly fine. Canada can handle that just fine and still sustain robust economic growth. The US recently exceeded a ratio of 100% debt to GDP ratio. That is bad because when the debt ratio exceeds 85-90 % then economic growth is inhibited significantly.

Canada did the right thing running up the deficit during the recession so as to maintain economic growth. The U.S also had to do the same to keep the recession from expanding into a full blown depression. But Canada had good fundamentals -- a relatively low debt -- so it could run large deficits for a while without undue long term effects. It can lower spending later and bring the deficit down using expanded revenues from future GDP growth. The U.S was not in as good a shape having already run large deficits through out the Bush years. Now we are saddled with a huge debt burden that is sapping our growth dooming us to many years of low growth and high unemployment.

This is a list of the ten countries most in debt based on this percentage.