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Probably a good thing. Using corn or other edible crops has been linked to rising food prices that have been painful in the third world, the US, and Europe.

Record Food Prices Linked to Biofuels
How biofuels contribute to the food crisis
Biofuel rule puts turkey farmers in fret over corn costs
EU votes on crucial cap on biofuels made from food crops

There are other ways to do it.

'Biofuel from non-food crops within 15 years'
U.S. to Pay Farmers for Non-Food Crops for Biofuels, Vilsack Says
Quest for cheap, nonfood biofuel starts with a brewery

Of course it may not be popular is some states.

Not that I will necessarily agree with the AC, but you wouldn't deny that the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, Cubans, al Qaida, and others, have access to the same Top Secret American, British, Australian, and Canadian documents leaked by Snowden that have found their way either into print or onto the web, would you? So that means that they assuredly have at least some of those Top Secret documents. That is before we get to the question of the already many and growing number of businesses (many newspapers, web sites, etc.) that have those documents, and the question of have been able to provide adequate security to prevent them from falling into the hand of nation states with sophisticated intelligence agencies that don't have to follow the niceties of American or British law such as Russian or Chinese agents operating overseas. Maybe you've heard, but Russian agents have assassinated people in the UK before. A little breaking and entering or other more subtle intelligence gathering would be inconsequential to them. And that is probably all it would take for them to get the complete trove of documents. That is assuming that they would even have to do that, that they don't have moles in those papers now. I'm pretty sure that newspapers and TV stations don't conduct 10-20 year background checks of their employees similar to those for Top Secret clearances (even if they are sometimes "imperfectly" done as they were in Snowden's case).

Experts Doubt Snowden Could Keep His Leaked Documents Safe From Spies

There is reason to doubt Edward Snowden’s claim that Russian or Chinese spies have not seen the NSA files he leaked.
.
In an interview with the New York Times published yesterday, document-leaking NSA contractor Edward Snowden made a bold claim in response to allegations that other nations may have got hold of his classified haul:

“There’s a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents.”

Many security and surveillance experts publicly questioned that claim. Google security engineer Justin Schuh tweeted that the remark showed “Snowden is divorced from reality,”

Now we can also add to that the fact that the UK government assesses the secrets that Snowden stole to have fallen into the hands of foreign intelligence agencies. I seem to recall that NSA, or at least some of its leaders, have a similar assessment.

Snowden leaks 'worst ever loss to British intelligence'

Sir David, the former head of the UK's communications surveillance centre GCHQ, told the Times: "You have to distinguish between the original whistleblowing intent to get a debate going, which is a responsible thing to do, and the stealing of 58,000 top-secret British security documents and who knows how many American documents, which is seriously, seriously damaging.

"The assumption the experts are working on is that all that information or almost all of it will now be in the hands of Moscow and Beijing.

"It's the most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever, much worse than Burgess and Maclean."

You can also see the Russian response.

Snowden Inspires Russia to Boost Internet Spying

Less than three months after granting asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, Russia is preparing to implement the kind of electronic surveillance that Snowden uncovered in the U.S.

And you must admit that Snowden is in contact with FSB officials. (The FSB was formerly the KGB.)

It's Now Clear That

As far as anyone can tell, edX is surviving on investment money (such as this one). Schools join the consortium by putting up more investment money.

They're burning through this money with no clear business plan; specifically, they don't have a product to sell.

On top of this, edX at least seems unconcerned with the quality of their offerings. For example, their course offerings aren't searchable by keyword (that I can determine), you have to slog through the entire catalog to see if they have something with, for example, "neuroscience" in the title. Having found a neuroscience course, the introductory video tells the prospective student nothing about the course - it's completely useless.

Pointing this out to them, they said that there's nothing edX can do - Harvard is responsible for that course, and edX is only being used as a marketing vehicle.

Other players are making innovative changes in infrastructure and technique. None of this is happening at edX or Coursera - it's all videotaped traditional lectures. There's nothing that distinguishes the big MOOC product in a business sense; ie, nothing that says "our product is better for *this* reason".

As an outside observer, the big MOOC players appear to be living a bubble similar to the 2001 tech bubble: lots of hype with no clear business plan.

Yeah, it can't possibly work. That's why the Italian equivalent of the IRS didn't do a swoop at some fancy ski resort a few months back and even if they had they wouldn't have caught anyone.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-08/italy-police-pursue-ferraris-to-nab-tax-evaders.html

Perhaps this, perhaps that. Perhaps you're an imbecile.

I suggest you do more reading, and read more carefully. That "300" is cases, not 300 people, in similar cases mentioned there 12 people went to jail. There are hundreds to low thousands of Hezbollah in the US. There are more than 3,000 Chinese front companies alone used for espionage.

Peter King warns: Hezbollah agents in U.S.
American Universities Infected by Foreign Spies Detected by FBI

When you start adding in Hamas, al Shahab, and plenty of other extremist organizations, spies from Russia, China, Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela, Iran, and plenty of other nations, it starts to add up.

The problem isn't the lack of evidence, but the disregarding of it.

If you aren't getting it yet, I'm just about going to have to assume you're trolling.

Its not a question of paranoia, but ignorance. I'll let you guess who that applies to.

Here is a hint: China, just by itself, has more than 3,000 front companies devoted to espionage. Russian spies are back a Cold War levels. There are plenty of other countries with an interest in the US.

American Universities Infected by Foreign Spies Detected by FBI

China also has more than 3,000 front companies in the U.S. “for the sole purpose of acquiring our technology,” former CIA officer S. Eugene Poteat, president of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers in McLean, Virginia, wrote in the fall/winter 2006-2007 edition of “Intelligencer: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies.”

Peter King warns: Hezbollah agents in U.S.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) warned Wednesday that there are hundreds — maybe even thousands — of Hezbollah agents inside the United States capable of launching a terror attack if U.S.-Iran tensions continue to escalate.

“The American intelligence community believes we are very much at risk for an attack by Iranian operatives, which would be Hezbollah, that is a terrorist-trained force in this country. It really is the ‘A’ team of international terrorism — far more sophisticated than Al Qaeda,” the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee said on CNN’s “Starting Point.”

Note that is just Hezbollah, not including Hamas, al Qaida, al-Shabaab, or many other terrorists or narco-terrorist organizations with a presence in the US.

And then there are the spies from Russia, Iran, Cuba, etc., etc., etc.

That is before you consider the Americans that go overseas to participate in Jihad who will return as trained, experienced terrorists.

Congressional Report: 40 Americans Training in Somalia Are 'Direct Threat' to U.S

Well, Haliburton is still one of the top Oil-Field Services Companies, if that's what you mean. Which it isn't, of course, but thought I'd get that in.

from an intellectual point of view [...] paying more taxes will also results in more disposable income.

Perhaps, "intellectual point of view" means something else where you live. The only way this is possible is for the tax-spending government to spend the taxes both wiser and with higher efficiency, than the majority of taxpayers would've spent them on their own. Although this is possible in theory — and may even have happened a few times in history — usually whatever a government does (from running a railroad to building a web-site), is done poorly. This is not a "partisan" statement — it is a widely accepted wisdom. The expression "not bad for government job" is part of vernacular. Heck, Harry Truman pointed out decades ago: "Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship."

Some things — like waging war — can not be done safely by non-government entities, because non-governmental customers ordering such services may get too tempted. But for most things, it is both fairer and more efficient to let people decide, how to spend their monies.

The ratio of CEO compensation to average worker compensation is now approximately 10 times its value in 1950. This is approximately commensurate with the average increase in the Dow average adjusted for inflation.

Right; and one should hardly be surprised by this since our government continually passes more and more regulations that generally only benefits big businesses. The barrier to entry for a small or medium-sized firm to get on a public stock exchange is enormous. When competition is limited, one should not be surprised when the market can no longer efficiently remove wasteful players. Paying prices vastly more than necessary to secure a proper executive is, of course, very wasteful. But this is not a fundamental issue with CEO pay, this is an issue with regulation that keeps smaller firms out.

But why should CEOs receive the entire benefit of a growing economy when all actors have contributed to that growth? CEO compensation has no correlation with company performance.

As I see it, the problem has nothing to do with a free vs. a coerced market. The problem is that the market of executive compensation is entirely divorced from the market at large. "Stockholders... vote... for whatever the management recommends no matter how poor the management’s record of accomplishment may be". This is what I mean by oligarchy: a few privileged elites have control over this smaller market without the essential feedback cycles that stabilize prices in the larger economy.

Yes, and this smaller market is much easier to manipulate when it remains artificially small due to artificial barriers to entry. That said, your definition of oligarchy is quite arbitrary; even if you could absolutely measure the power the "privileged elites" have over a smaller market, at what ratio of power to size does it constitute an oligarchy? I do agree with your sentiment, and I think my paragraph above speaks to it.

The issue is that the market value of labor has plummeted in relation to productivity and in relation to the value of top earners. In the 50s one could work part time at a minimum wage job and pay rent and college tuition and walk away with a degree free and clear. Today, just to pay rent, one needs roommates or more than one part-time minimum-wage job, let alone any ability to pay for education in order to get a better job.

1950: $0.75/hour * 20 hours * 50 weeks = $750 wages $42 * 12 months = $504 rent $35 * 4 quarters = $140 tuition

2013: $7.25/hour * 20 hours * 50 weeks = $7250 wages $602 * 12 months = $7224 rent $3917 * 2 semesters = $7834 tuition

How do you measure productivity? GDP is a pretty useless measurement. Also, there is this silly notion that public sector consumption should actually be counted as production. Since there is no objective way to measure public sector "productivity" (since it is not part of a market), it should not be included in aggregates; also it is quite common for the public sector to be horribly inefficient with its "funds". Government makes up

The ratio of CEO compensation to average worker compensation is now approximately 10 times its value in 1950. This is approximately commensurate with the average increase in the Dow average adjusted for inflation.

But why should CEOs receive the entire benefit of a growing economy when all actors have contributed to that growth? CEO compensation has no correlation with company performance.

As I see it, the problem has nothing to do with a free vs. a coerced market. The problem is that the market of executive compensation is entirely divorced from the market at large. "Stockholders... vote... for whatever the management recommends no matter how poor the management’s record of accomplishment may be". This is what I mean by oligarchy: a few privileged elites have control over this smaller market without the essential feedback cycles that stabilize prices in the larger economy.

The issue is that the market value of labor has plummeted in relation to productivity and in relation to the value of top earners. In the 50s one could work part time at a minimum wage job and pay rent and college tuition and walk away with a degree free and clear. Today, just to pay rent, one needs roommates or more than one part-time minimum-wage job, let alone any ability to pay for education in order to get a better job.

1950:
$0.75/hour * 20 hours * 50 weeks = $750 wages
$42 * 12 months = $504 rent
$35 * 4 quarters = $140 tuition

2013:
$7.25/hour * 20 hours * 50 weeks = $7250 wages
$602 * 12 months = $7224 rent
$3917 * 2 semesters = $7834 tuition

I believe that raising the average wage will have a better impact on the economy as a whole than raising executive compensation. I believe that income inequality is a social ill that should be addressed through policy -- not by Marxian state capture of the means of production and not through Randian private hoarding of the means of production, but through a hybrid realistic approach like "all employees should receive stock options or profit sharing if executives do".

Medical bills are not the primary reason for bankruptcies, While you can rack up bills that will take more then your life time to pay off, the biggest problem is the lack of income that comes with those large medical bills. You simply do not often get large medical bills without missing work and often, you are permanently off work or off work for a substantial period of time. I don't care how well you planned or if you have insurance, the lack of income usually is devastating to most all working families. Health insurance does nothing to fix that, obamacare of the ACA does nothing to fix that.

That's what Elizabeth Warren published her research on. That's why the voters sent her to Congress. Warren found that large medical bills were a major factor in bankruptcy. There were other factors, but medical factors were a big one. When some of the cancer drugs cost $100,000, and a CAT scan costs $5,000, what do you expect? People complain about taxes, but medical expenses were a bigger expense than even the highest taxes.

If you have disability insurance, which most people had in the days of benevolent corporations like Eastman Kodak or IBM, then the disability insurance would cover your expenses. If you had a good job and planned well, financial advisers used to recommend keeping enough in savings to get through a 6-month emergency. That was the free-market solution to disability. If you didn't have disability insurance, you could fall back on the government safety net.

But corporations don't routinely give disability insurance any more, and most people aren't making enough to pay for disability insurance and accumulate a 6-month cushion. This is a problem of the increasing inequality, which means that people in the middle and bottom are earning less.

And the federal government and states have cut the safety net back dramatically, starting with Ronald Reagan, and followed up by Bill Clinton.

We used to have a pragmatic mix of private and government services, which worked reasonably well. But the conservatives (Republican and Democratic) have destroyed the government safety net.

This is also not getting into the problems with the ACA's cheap plans that do nothing to fix it either. We are seeing family plans with $10k a year out of pocket deductibles before the insurance even kicks in.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-15/obamacare-deductibles-26-higher-make-cheap-rates-a-risk.html

Obamacare was based on Romneycare and the Heritage Foundation proposals, with the "moderate" Democrats' foolishly believing that if they gave the Republicans everything they demanded, in a spirit of "post-partisanship," the Republicans would cooperate.

Liberals, like Robert Kuttner, opposed the Romneycare model, for the very reason this Bloomberg article describes. It's a basic principle of health insurance, well-known to anybody who understands insurance, that private insurance offers you a tradeoff between lower premiums and higher copays, or vice versa. These bronze plans are terrible policies, and the platinum plans are still pretty bad.

Progressives supported a Canadian-style single-payer system. Canadians pay their premiums through taxes, and they pay less than the bronze plans, for better coverage than the platinum plans. Here, the cost of running health care through the private insurance system eats up about half of your health care dollar.

But even the liberals agree that Obamacare is better than what we had before. I went to a talk by an insurance expert who worked for a union, and he told us that (though single payer would have been better), under Obamacare the maximum payout in premiums plus copayments will be $8,500 a year for an individual, bronze or platinum. And for low-income people, with the vouchers, their maximum payment will be something like 15% of their income.

Total annual cost, the site explains includes "annual total out-of-pocket spending (which includes premiums, co-insurance and co-payments) for average use of health services." According to Bloomberg, "Bronze plans, the cheapest and least generous, are designed to cover about 60 percent of medical costs and carry higher deductibles," resulting in additional expenses which can reach $12,700 per family.

http://www.nanex.net/flashcrash/ongoingresearch.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-26/speed-traders-meet-nightmare-on-elm-street-with-nanex.html

Nanex is the one creating this data. They're a small boutique market data firm out of the Northern Chicago suburbs. Their data showed that someone was leaking the Fed data a few seconds early.

Medical bills are not the primary reason for bankruptcies, While you can rack up bills that will take more then your life time to pay off, the biggest problem is the lack of income that comes with those large medical bills. You simply do not often get large medical bills without missing work and often, you are permanently off work or off work for a substantial period of time. I don't care how well you planned or if you have insurance, the lack of income usually is devastating to most all working families. Health insurance does nothing to fix that, obamacare of the ACA does nothing to fix that.

People cite medical as reasons for filing bankruptcy because they have to have a reason other then they spent too much. But what normally happens when they file for bankruptcy is that they are trying to protect assets they can no longer afford like their home or cars or have racked up serious credit card debt trying to keep them because they lack the financial wherewithal to keep their lifestyles without that income.

This is also not getting into the problems with the ACA's cheap plans that do nothing to fix it either. We are seeing family plans with $10k a year out of pocket deductibles before the insurance even kicks in.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-15/obamacare-deductibles-26-higher-make-cheap-rates-a-risk.html

BTW, I didn't think anyone didn't know about this which I commented about. I guess you can stay inside your bubble all you want.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304527504579171710423780446

Yeah, our problem isn't that we don't have any good health care... the problem is the large percentage of people in the US who don't have access to good health care.

Our system is so good, we were ranked 46th worldwide for efficiency!

Wrong, bitch. Tesla's the one that needs to be more proactive:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-21/musk-claim-of-fewer-tesla-fires-questioned-in-mit-report.html

Because only 4 percent of vehicle fires are caused by collisions, Tesla's Model S sedan, with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, is statistically more likely to catch fire in those incidents than cars with gasoline tanks, wrote Kevin Bullis, senior editor for energy for MIT Technology Review.

why don't they just go after siberia?

Yeah. I like Tom Clancy, too.

But let's seriously consider this. Do you really think Russia would just sit idly by as the Chinese invaded an area which is actually bringing in good solid foreign currency? You'd have a peck of tanks headed that way on day one. I wouldn't be surprised if Putin went nuclear on the invading troops (no, he won't blow up Beijing, but I could see him blowing up chunks of Siberia.)

Consider the US as well. Remember that Exxon is working with the Russians to drill, not to mention oil shale and fracking. Hell, we sent troops to Grenada to rescue med students. What would we do to support a major US company?

After getting permission--not a difficult thing to do, I'd imagine--you'd be able to walk across the Bering Strait from all the supply ships that would be pouring materiel into Russia. We have pretty good rail transport between the lower 48 and Alaska. So you have the Russians pouring in from the west and US troops pouring in from the east and Chinese troops stuck in the middle. Not a great scenario. You might also ignite conflicts among US and Chinese allies--if North Korea could be considered a Chinese ally.

In short, you'd have World War III. And not necessarily a war that China would win.

Contrast that with the current strategy: Politically claim a batch of islands and let international law give you what you want for nothing. Even if it came down to a war, it would probably be kept localized to the South China sea. You might see a naval battle between US and China but that would be about it. Ultimately, there would be some negotiated solution where China would get enough access to the oil fields under the South China Sea to keep them happy. Nukes are doubtful--nobody is going to chuck nukes over Senkaku.

Which one of these provides the best long term hope for China?

Like I said, I like Tom Clancy books as much as the next red blooded American. But there's a reason they're kept in the fiction section.

Economic sanctions alone can and will bring the US to its knees

Sanctions? Hardly necessary. To bring the US to its knees, all that needs to happen is for the Chinese to stop buying US Treasury bonds. Whoops....

Or selling electronics.

Economic sanctions alone can and will bring the US to its knees

Sanctions? Hardly necessary. To bring the US to its knees, all that needs to happen is for the Chinese to stop buying US Treasury bonds. Whoops....

Venezuela's approach doesn't appear to be sustainable.

Venezuela's President Maduro to rule by decree
Ghost of Chavez Can't Stop Hyperinflation
Inflation, Shortages And Economic Turmoil: Venezuela On The Brink
2013 Index of Economic Freedom - Venezuela

It's pretty incredible but sadly predictable that Apple can keep winning over juries in its home county of Santa Clara to award it damages mainly for a patent (pinch to zoom) already declared invalid twice by the USPTO. Thanks however to the US's weird system, Apple can go on appealing until 2017 or 2018 before it finally runs out of people to whine to. I'd like to think that sanity could prevail then, but as recent experience shows, the US President would have no qualms about vetoing any adverse judgement against Apple but would be okay letting it stand against Johnny Foreigner.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-21/musk-claim-of-fewer-tesla-fires-questioned-in-mit-report.html

Likewise, Russia won't do it, as they've got crime syndicates taking advantage. It's up to countries like Brazil and India to speak out about these things..

Because Brazil is crime free and doesn't spy? I expect that India is similarly virtuous.

No, because Brazil and India have more to gain than they do to lose. And we already had that debate regarding Brazil, cold fjord... If I peek over the cubicle wall to see what my co-worker is up to, that's not the same type of spying as comprehensive meta-surveillance. Likewise, the oranges from Brazil aren't the same as the rotten apples from the US. First clue: Brazil announced what they were doing publicly, NSA lied to congress about what they were up to and have had a steady program of misleading information and character assassination ever since. If Brazil was able to openly admit to what they were doing, I'd trust them to speak out about what other countries are doing too.

Likewise, Russia won't do it, as they've got crime syndicates taking advantage. It's up to countries like Brazil and India to speak out about these things..

Because Brazil is crime free and doesn't spy? I expect that India is similarly virtuous.

"Cisco’s techniques cut the effective tax rate on its reported international income to about 5 percent since 2008 by moving profits from roughly $20 billion in annual global sales through the Netherlands, Switzerland and Bermuda"

cite

Harming America's economy? This is more about affecting Cisco's profits. And color me unsympathetic, as they are an "American" corporation (in scare quotes since it shifts as it suits them) when it comes time to complain about something, but they are apparently Swiss http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-28/biggest-tax-avoiders-win-most-gaming-1-trillion-u-s-tax-break.html when its time to pay taxes.

Non-Academic Administrators include people like me. I'm a librarian.

Yes, I know what the phrase means, and I didn't mean to imply anything bad about all administrative (or "non-academic") positions -- AT ALL. I'm all for libraries and librarians. Apparently, if this blog is to be believed, the issue at this particular school is that there's also a significant amount of jobs going to friends of existing administrators going on in administrative hiring. I have no idea whether these claims are true, but the implication of the blog is that unnecessary jobs are being "created" and sometimes unqualified people are getting them.

This is NOT an indictment of all administrative staff at all institutions, let alone those who provide important services to students.

On the other hand, the reality of budgets at many schools is that administrative costs are rising at alarming rates (along with costs for new buildings and facilities, etc.), while academic budgets are static or going down, with more and more adjunct faculty hired at levels below minimum wage just to cover basic teaching needs.

These are general trends, and this blog seems to claim that one university has some particularly problematic stuff going on. Again, I have no idea how true it is, but that's the subject of this thread.

That "Non-Academic" phrase gets thrown around a lot and frequently includes people like guidance counselors who DO have an impact on student success.

Yep. That's great. SOME "non-academic" growth is certainly necessary at many universities to provide various kinds of student services, whether that's a career counselor or just an extra person at the registrar's office to facilitate student access to records.

The issue is the rate of growth relative to academic areas, making these administrative costs a significant driver of increasing tuition rates, as discussed in many news stories in the past few years. In many cases, these "administrative" staff have increased anywhere from 5 to 10 TIMES the rate at which faculty and academic staff have increased.

I'm all for providing student services, but if all of these guidance counselors and librarians, etc. are necessary for student success, what had colleges been doing before these giant increases in administrative hiring in the past decade? How could they possibly have functioned before with so few administrators?

I'm not at all saying that administration is somehow "bad" -- it's just that the growth seems disproportionate to other areas, and I'm certainly not the only person to have commented on that trend in the past few years.

You misunderstand what the debt ceiling is. The debt is already incurred, meaning we are already obligated to pay for that existing debt. Raising the debt ceiling allows congress to borrow as needed for short term income to pay off incoming debt. It does not authorize additional spending or incurring any new deb (only congress can do that with spending bills). I assume by 'doom', you are generalizing. We've already seen one immediate affect of not raising the debt ceiling the last time they failed to do so. Our credit rating was dropped, costing us billions more in interest, much like your interest rate spikes if you miss a payment. This isn't rocket science. Our credit worthiness allows us to do things that a poor credit rating does not. It's really just that simple.

The root cause of 'spending' is Congress, not the debt ceiling. The right has turned the debt ceiling into some bogeyman without any context as to what it is, and why it's necessary to raise it.

If you are looking to address a spending problem (ex: live within our means), then tell congress to stop authorizing such spending. They control the purse strings. Playing with the debt ceiling is like giving your children your credit card, letting them max it out, and then refusing to pay the bill when it shows up in the mail because you think it was irresponsible to let you children max out your card.

Regarding your 'mentally ill' statement, a mentally ill person could certainly harm someone with a knife for example. but it's unlikely they could commit mass murder without being stopped. They could do the same with a rock, but again it's unlikely they could kill 20, 30, or more people before being disarmed and contained. I suspect you knew that before you put up that particular straw man argument.

For you climate change question, you are making an assumption that the short term result is harmful, when in actuality, one may see an increase in growing seasons. That doesn't mean it's not harmful, but rather shortsighted to assume that those changes will remain beneficial. Eventually when the increase begins to affect planetary ecosystems to such a degree that they break, you are faced with flooding, increased storm activity, etc.

As to short term damage, you need only look at the last few decades of increased storm activity, both in number, and in power.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-10/record-typhoon-damage-shows-aquino-s-task-in-philippine-tragedy.html

Here in the US, we also had two record storms that caused billions in damage. Each considered a 'storm of the century' except they both happened in the same decade (Katrina and Sandy). As the temperature increases, climatologists predict even more increase in storm severity. You are providing yet another straw man argument that says "Look here..short term, this hasn't caused any issues at all". The same could be said for poison, until it reaches a toxic level.

That two week 'vacation' as you call it had a larger impact than simply sending people home for two weeks. Those two weeks without pay affected every business that takes such money in, affecting their bottom lines, which in turn affects the goods that they order and produce. The work that would have been done in those two weeks became backlogged, causing new work when they return to also be delayed. Any fees and fines that would have been collected by the government were lost revenue. Any contacts that the government would have spent would be pended or cancelled, causing more ripples in the business sector. The CBO estimates that the shutdown costs about $300 million a day in lost economic activity. The shutdown was never just about 800,000 people being sent home for two weeks.

PS: Let's do the math!

What's the cosine of 5 degrees? That's the new size if you bend a screen by 10 degrees (5 degrees each side of the center line)

My calculator says cos(5) = 0.9962 ... so it's less than 0.5% smaller.

Plus it looks awful: http://www.bloomberg.com/image/ibdaG6emCoQY.jpg

The original poster said "The Olympics".

Cites for Sochi:

Billions stolen in Sochi Olympics preparations. The opposition alleges that Putin's buddies have stolen US$30b from the Sochi preparations (over half the $54b budget.)

"Corruption and censorship cast shadow over Russia's Games". Corruption, censorship and human rights violations.

Russia Cracks Down On Journalists, Activists Exposing Corruption Ahead Of Sochi Olympics. Putin's response to corruption claims, shoot the messengers.

And more generally:

Wrestling with corruption at the Olympics. Gives a more general overview of the long history of Olympic corruption. Put simply, it's baked into the DNA of the entire organisation.

Citations please.

Fitch downgrades Nokia rating
Nokia Rating Cut Further Into Junk by S&P
Nokia Cut Further Into Junk by Moody’s

Things might have improved now that MS took over, but then again, they could be much better if they hadn't touched that shit in the first place.

iPhone ... was what people now wanted, and continue to want.

Yes, the iPhone brought smartphones to the mainstream - a new style of smartphones, even. Can't deny that. Yet you overestimate its "hook" on users: if everyone's so crazy about it, how come Android has surpassed it? I think there was room in the market for MeeGo, which, unlike WP, carriers actually intended to support.

Citations please.

Fitch downgrades Nokia rating
Nokia Rating Cut Further Into Junk by S&P
Nokia Cut Further Into Junk by Moody’s

Things might have improved now that MS took over, but then again, they could be much better if they hadn't touched that shit in the first place.

iPhone ... was what people now wanted, and continue to want.

Yes, the iPhone brought smartphones to the mainstream - a new style of smartphones, even. Can't deny that. Yet you overestimate its "hook" on users: if everyone's so crazy about it, how come Android has surpassed it? I think there was room in the market for MeeGo, which, unlike WP, carriers actually intended to support.

Well, the US Treasury Department have been publicly bitching because Germany are exporting more goods than they are importing. Apparently this kind of seemingly responsible economic behavior hurts the global economy.

You should be delighted if they end up spending their trade surplus in China's factories.

They'll probably just get zombies to float it into $20 and under anonymous donations, much like the last two national elections.

Dead People Have Donated Nearly $600K to Campaigns Since 2009

Anonymous Donations Can Remain Secret Despite IRS Requirement to Disclose

The Arizona net metering policy is already very protective of utilities' interests. http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=AZ24R&re=1&ee=0

System size can't be larger that 125% of a customer's normal use and customer/generators only get paid at the avoided cost rate, not the retail rate for power generated beyond their annual use.

In New Mexico, First Solar is selling power at 5.79 cents a kilowatt-hour http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-01/first-solar-may-sell-cheapest-solar-power-less-than-coal.html so it seems hard to believe that this campaign is anything but a way for the Koch brothers to shake down APS.

Candidates are not allowed to have TV or radio advertising, or even put videos on the internet etc.

Everyone gets the same amount of free TV/radio/newspaper advertising, but the Internet restrictions have been lifted entirely.

Internet has not been lifted entirely; email campaign is banned, just as telephone campaign is banned. Political party TV advertising is allowed but individual candidate advertising is not. We have freedom of speech in Japan, but ONLY if the public want's to listen via the specific media, and the public has said no to email and telephone push political campaigns. Door-to-door campaign is also banned. In Japan, we are slow at making changes to laws, but the laws are made vague enough so that interpretations can be made based on current public opinion. We have mechanisms that allow bureaucrats to hear and listen to what the public wants NOW, not what the public wanted yesterday.

Hence a major reason not to federalize a lot of power.

In this particular case, it was the states themselves that "federalized" the power -- only 14 of the 50* decided to set up their own exchanges, the rest decided it best to leave it to the feds for one reason or another. And some of them are doing a better job than the federal program.

*This number varies by source, I think because some states are setting up their own systems but not yet.

Candidates are not allowed to have TV or radio advertising, or even put videos on the internet etc.

Everyone gets the same amount of free TV/radio/newspaper advertising, but the Internet restrictions have been lifted entirely.

Let's be honest, no elected legislator of either major party is willing to engage that concept, even in a lighthearted fashion.

It's been a mainstay request of Republicans for some time now. And do you know what Obama's counter proposal has been? He'll entertain the idea if he gets to spend the money saved from the reform: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-30/obama-tax-plan-tackles-budget-issue-with-political-hurdle.html

That's actually a very common thread with him actually. Just look at any of his budget proposals. Spending never goes down. He pretends to claim financial discipline via using tax hikes and retribution of dollars (by cutting programs he doesn't like) to account for added spending.

However, while I concede that there is perhaps not enough of a focus on cutting spending, you can't simply ignore the issue of taxation, even if only for the reasons I mention previously.

I would agree with this statement only if taxation wasn't already addressed while spending has been completely overlooked. Obamacare hiked taxes by about 1 trillion over 10 years: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/does-obamacare-have-1-trillion-in-tax-hikes-aimed-at-the-middle-class/2013/03/11/1e685f4c-8a9b-11e2-8d72-dc76641cb8d4_blog.html
The December tax hike on the upper income bracket resulted in 600 billion in new revenue over 10 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Taxpayer_Relief_Act_of_2012

That alone is 1.6 trillion dollars in new revenue over 10 years. Now show me a drop in the budget anywhere near that. Here's the last 6 budgets (over his total time in office, he has added 700 billion in spending to the budget -- and keep in mind, this is accounting for the savings in winding down Iraq/Afghanistan spending + TARP paying for itself...so even with those windfalls, we're at +700 billion):

2014 United States federal budget â" $3.8 trillion (submitted 2013 by President Obama)
2013 United States federal budget â" $3.8 trillion (submitted 2012 by President Obama)
2012 United States federal budget â" $3.7 trillion (submitted 2011 by President Obama)
2011 United States federal budget â" $3.8 trillion (submitted 2010 by President Obama)
2010 United States federal budget â" $3.6 trillion (submitted 2009 by President Obama)
2009 United States federal budget â" $3.1 trillion (submitted 2008 by President Bush)

You'll note that spending hasn't changed at all. At best, it's petered out at "unchanged" (and this is in an environment with very little inflation). So once again, you'll have to pardon me if I don't scoff at the demands for more taxes by the Democrats (or at the demands for more spending for "stimulus"). I find it particularly insulting that Obama has the gall to demand a "balanced" (i.e. "1-to-1") composition of tax hikes and spending cuts after he just permanently added 700 billion (20% more spending) to our total spending picture

The states had a good couple decades, centuries in some cases, to get this shit straightened out. Nothing happened.

Actually, I'm fairly certain the states dodge most of these issues because they assume mother government is going to handle it on the federal level. Otherwise, why haven't all the Democratic states adopted single payer programs as they've been clamoring for so incessantly?

I hear a lot of talk about reform. I have yet to hear any coherent plan to provide t

"1% china share. "

You need to back up your numbers.

See here.

Satisfied, douche?

No, they don't. (as your won link shows).

They collectively, get to write off 4 billion of taxes for foreign tax paid, depletion allowance, domestic manufacturing, all of which are tax breaks available to any industry. Depletion allowance can even be claimed by a Gravel Pit owner. The oil industry is Huge, and the total tax writeoff is only 4 billion.

That's less than the cost of one Navy DDG-51 destroyer.

Apple alone wrote off 1.1 billion all by itself.

  You don't get to call a general tax write off a subsidy. At least until you accept the fact that a the Standard Deduction that every tax payer gets to claim is a subsidy.

What did the oil companies pay in taxes:

ExxonMobil in 2011 made $27.3 billion in cash payments for income taxes. Chevron paid $17 billion and ConocoPhillips $10.6 billion. And not only were these the highest amounts in absolute terms, when compared with the rest of the 25 most profitable U.S. companies, the trio also had the highest effective tax rates. Exxon’s tax rate was 42.9%, Chevron’s was 48.3% and Conoco’s was 41.5%. That’s even higher than the 35% U.S. federal statutory rate, which is already the highest tax rate among developed nations.

Just the top three alone paid about 55 billion in taxes. Add in the drillers, smaller oil companies, the pipelines, and you are talking serious money.

Note: About here is where someone invariably posts the War for Oil bullshit. But the US doesn't import any oil from Iraq or Afghanistan. The US is a Net Exporter of oil and gas.

Ok, fair enough...don't trust the blogger. How about Bloomberg?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-07/flash-crash-story-looks-more-like-a-fairy-tale.html

Manual order triggers automated feeding frenzy.

Simply not true. For instance, here's a 2010 Bloomberg article citing the fact that Google was employing it at the time to get a competitive advantage over Apple and Microsoft by having the lowest tax rate among the top five tech companies. Other references mention that Oracle was using it early on as well. I don't know if Google invented it or not, but it certainly didn't start with Apple.

The tech companies want to be given the ability to do anything to make a profit. The government wants to be given the ability to do anything to spy on us.

I smell a market opportunity!

The Fed often gets "first dibs" at auctions because of their role in managing the money supply

The Federal Reserve Act says that they have to buy them on the open market. Are you saying they have a "more open" market? That would contravene the purposes of the Act, but not surprise me.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/money_12851.htm

They say that there's a line to buy them, but if the market actions are open, then the Fed would not be able to grab 90% of there really was such a line. I tend to trust the numbers more than the claims, but if the market is cooked, then that's different.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-03/treasury-scarcity-to-grow-as-fed-buys-90-of-new-bonds.html

This could be a boon for Brazil in tech. Offering services that are free of surveillance could make Brazil a tech powerhouse.

It already is.

Sorry, but you are ill informed.

Just all by itself; China also has more than 3,000 front companies in the U.S.

That isn't spies, that is just front companies that have spies in them. The Russians have many spies, and so do many other nations.

Hezbollah has at least hundreds of operatives. It adds up.

The level of abuses - both the spying itself, subsequent known abuses of the data, and countless likely unknown abuses - has already done enough damage to the fabric of the ideal of democracy, that an open and straightforward conversation is not enough. When there are very real threats that people will be tortured to preserve government secrecy about this...

The only straightforward and sensible conversation at this point can be about shutting it down, and how quickly we can shut it down. You cannot have a democracy in this environment where the public is left completely uninformed, the programs are shrouded in secrecy, and any attempt to unravel that secrecy is met with "National Security, go fuck yourself." Snowden was straight on point when he said we building a solution for "turnkey tyranny." Communism to the extreme, or Capitalism to the extreme all lead to totalitarianism with control and power centered in the hands of the very few. Look at Jeff Bezos--whose company is a HUGE government contractor--buying The Washington Post, one of the bigger critics and writing about the Spying State, I'm sure that was pure coincidence, probably a childhood dream to own a newspaper right?

Look at the skill with which the NSA protects their own secrets, do you think they are protecting yours? Surely not, and more to the point, they use those against you. I'm sure there are a lot of good people that would run for office to solve this mess, if only the State didn't record every little detail of a person's life to use against them when they run for political office. Calling America a democracy is a farce, we're given the illusion of choice, there is no real choice anymore. It's all about control, State control, for "make happy benefit of monied interests" as Borat would say.

The President can keep a secret kill list of US Citizens, and execute that kill list with no oversight or transparency, all in the name of Terrorism or National Security. "Nation Security" is a term perverted far what it's actual meaning, all you have to do is "know something" they think you shouldn't know and the President can "arrange for an accident" to happen to you. I'm not worried about "terrorists", I'm worried about my own government assassinating me.

Ask yourself, who gained the most from the events of 9/11? We need to roll all this back. And to the various Analysts parsing this post, do you really think you're doing a moral and ethical job? Do you think you're serving the good of the general citizenry or are you serving deep pockets? Do you really think The People would approve of what and how you're doing what you're doing if they knew all the details?

Not like there is any point in posting this "Anonymously."

I think you are correct that the current leadership has not yet proven that they can innovate in the way that Mr. Jobs did. That said, the iPhone 5s is really a nice step forward, real-world tests are showing that the A7 really is a lot faster, and the fingerprint thingy is winning a lot of accolades. And, they've sold a hell of a lot of them. Nonetheless, the stock price is actually a bit lower than before the 5c/5s announcement.

The truth is that the stock price for a lot of companies, and Apple in particular, does not reflect the financial success of that company or the company's products. Just compare Amazon's numbers to Apple's and you'll get what I mean. Stock prices today are more driven by bets on where that price will be in 15 minutes (or 15 milliseconds), not how well the company will be doing in a few years. As such, stock prices for high-tech companies are not a valid way to measure the company's success in the marketplace.

I think the GP might be in Europe. The EU thinks the GP's views is possible "reality".

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-12-1448_en.htm

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-27/samsung-submits-commitments-in-eu-antitrust-probe-almunia-says.html

Do you live in Korea?