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Well it might have been true before the 4S but not so much NOW

A lot of these banks are public companies. Is widely documented that bankers were saying that their banks were solid while trying to get funds from the Fed to stay afloat. This was done to prevent a run on the stock, but it not only mislead the public, it also mislead the stockholders. I think this goes beyond neglect, and into maybe fraud. The Fed helped keep things under wrap to (hopefully) prevent an even worse crisis. But I think this is illegal, besides going against capitalism. And this is the stuff we know about ... One account of it: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congress-gave-banks-13-billion-in-income.html

I am not sure that follows. Even if every android app used google's mobile ad platform, which isn't even close to being reality, the conversion quality matters. In fact it matters a lot. Even CPM contracts are highly non linear with quality. At least they were when I was around the business in 2002ish.

PS: Looks like google currently has around 1/4 of the mobile ad space;
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-12/google-millennial-media-take-ad-share-away-from-apple-idc-says.html

There is a ton of evidence. IN fact, they person who make those claims has said they where accurate... of course no he makes the excuse they where just theater stories and not meant to be taken as fact.

The 'Fanboy' group think is pretty alien to me in general.

http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-blog/2012-03-20-now-can-we-start-talking-about-the-real-foxconn/

http://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/460.mp3

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/122903-does-daiseys-lie-change-what-we-know-about-apples-manufacturing

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/mike-daisey-caught-lying-about-foxconn-incinerates-credibility/12569

IS Foxconn a place of magic unicornd and pixie dust? no. But it isn't nearly as bad as people like you think.

So, thre are the facts. Lets see if you are truly capable of evaluating and reflecting on your opinion in light of new facts, otr if you are another non thinking excuse making reactionary. i.e. Shitweasel

That explanation would make a lot more sense if she were going to a big defense contractor. Google might make a little on govt. contracts (I don't know), but by far, the vast majority is on selling ads. For that matter, google's current profit margin is far higher than what is possible from govt. contracts. Google makes around 4 times the profit of Lockheed Martin even though LM's revenues are 50% greater.

Opinions like this are written from the perspective of a buyout company which is solely interested in maximizing share price.

Say you've got a company worth 10 million dollars. You have 1 million shares, each worth 10 dollars. Corporate raider comes in, strips out all "non-performing" assets like R&D, internal HR, IT, offshores programming, closes and consolidates stores. Voila! Now you've got a company (for a short period of time) that's worth 20 million since it has no drains on its "profit centers". Sell the company. Profit!

Private equity companies operate along similar lines. They'll buy a company take it private, "optimize" it, and resell it. As if they're any better business managers than the actual manager. In general, they're not. What they are good at is the leveraged buyout, field strip, and resell.

These types of activities result in healthy profits for the takeover artists, and jobs lost for the actual workers.

It's like harvesting the organs of a person while they're still alive in order to minimize the drains on ingested food. After you're done, they're going to be in very tough shape for any kind of long term existence. But by golly, food isn't being wasted on any of those useless organs.

Google is doing what companies used to do. They're going to become even more of a juggernaut.

This, on the other hand, is the way private equity execs dream of doing it.

Wasn't it exactly what happened in Belgium?

there is close to 0 public support for another war

Not true. Americans are sick of *some* wars; 75% of Americans support withdrawal from Afghanistan by Obama's timetable or earlier. But... 70% of Americans believe Iran already has nuclear weapons, and 58% of Americans say they support U.S. military attacks on Iran. The Young Turks: Can we stop a war with Iran?

5000 or so dead soldiers

6,300 U.S. soldiers killed, 46,000 U.S. soldiers wounded, estimated hundreds of thousands of civilian dead, and $3 trillion of public money given to "defense contractors".

And now Iran is being blamed for 9/11: U.S. District Court Rules Iran Behind 9/11 Attacks (December 23rd 2011)

How convenient. After 2001, 44% of Americans believed that the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi, and 70% of Americans believed Saddam did 9/11. In fact, not a single one of the hijackers were Iraqi, and secularist Hussein and Islamist bin Laden were known to hate each other. It was all a lie. Even now, after the whole argument has been completely discredited time and again, including by the CIA, 41% of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11. But now Iran did it, so we have to attack them.... omg..

I can't believe people are falling for this again...

I agree with most of your post but there is also evidence the plant was poorly maintained - Tepco admitted to falsifying maintenance records among several other misdemeanours.

TEPCO was also warned of the risk to the generators and did nothing to mitigate them - and still got an extension to their license (the 40 year old reactors' license had expired).

Hopefully something good will come out of this - Vermont (U.S. state) wants to refuse a request for a 20 year extension to the license of a similar design plant. A bit of backbone from our bureaucrats and politicians coupled with planning and foresight would go a long way in removing the stigma from nuclear (imo).

On a lighter note, we should take our manga comics more seriously - it appears one had predicted the Fukushima incident.

I don't contest that the system is screwed. I do contest that Google is innocent. Even this company that strives to do no evil falls into the same pattern as everyone else, as that is the only course of action that allows survival in todays market. There is indeed no chance in hell for us.

Crown Vic? St-Catherines, Ontario... Thats in Québec, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Thomas_Assembly uh... Ford has never had any plant in Québec. Hyundai did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromont,_Quebec#Hyundai_plant (RIP: 1994), GM did ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sainte-Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_Assembly ), (RIP 2002) but Ford/Linocln? never heard of it. With the Canadian Dollar trading at par with the US, that has meant a 30% increase in labour costs up here, and plants a closing left and right, and moving to the US (Caterpillar: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-23/caterpillar-union-workers-ratify-severance-package-as-ontario-plant-shuts.html ) oh, and fwiw, for every dollar each American put into saving GM, a Canadian put in 2$. (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/story/2010/04/21/wdr-detroit-gm-government-loans-100421.html) oh, and the St-Catherines plant closed last year.

It seems that predicting doom and gloom about the next round number in gas prices has become an American tradition (see $3 gas in 2005, $4 gas in 2008, etc). On the contrary, overall it's been a good thing - it's lead to conservation and fuel-efficient vehicles, just as economics would predict. 10 years ago the notion of getting Americans to use less gasoline year-over-year was crazy talk... now it's reality.

In early 2008 I traded in my old '90s Toyota truck for a Ford Escape hybrid. Many of my friends thought I was crazy. "Gasoline prices will never make it worthwhile, you're wasting your money on hybrid tech, Ford will never be profitable again", etc... Now Ford is more profitable than ever and builds vehicles on par with Toyota/Honda quality (that Escape is at 60,000 miles and hasn't had any service except oil and air filter changes). And gas prices averaging more than $4 over the lifetime of the vehicle did make the purchase worthwhile, especially with the hybrid tax credit.

The other really interesting thing going on right now is that the US "is the closest it has been in almost 20 years to achieving energy self-sufficiency", according to a recent Bloomberg report. Apparently domestic oil output is the highest it's been since 2003, and (even better) the amount of oil we import from the Middle East has fallen to 15% from 23% in 2009. The sooner we're not relying on places like Iran and Saudi Arabia for our day-to-day energy needs, the better.

Warren? Is that you?

Last friday Brent Crude Oil was trading at $126/barrel. This is near the all time high in modern history. We are already at the point where oil supply has become much less responsive to the price and price spikes are commonplace. It's a curious time for somebody to be declaring peak oil "debunked".

Oil is finite and the price of oil is getting exponentially more expensive as was predicted decades ago. Meanwhile, solar technology has been benefiting from a Moore's Law rate of advancement and the price of solar energy is plummeting exponentially. Even without cap-and-trade, the price of solar energy is projected to achieve grid parity by the end of this decade. Given prevailing trends, we can expect that people will use energy to make petrochemicals synthetically from the carbon in the air, using Green Freedom or some other such technology in the next 20 years.

Solar is the power source of the near future. If we embrace that fact now we can begin to adapt and avoid a huge amount of economic dislocation and suffering. Or we can get dragged into the future kicking and screaming and burdening the human race with massive ecological damage.

The charges against Apple.
The fact Apple used a shell company would technically give them some room to manouver in the US but not neccessarily in China.
Additional information - apparently the company was in receivership as of March 2009 so the directors could not sell any assets without the approval of it's creditors (the documents provided by Apple show dates of November and December 2009). If this is true, the best Apple could realistically hope for imo is for the director to be convicted of defrauding them. This would not give them the rights to the name as it would have been illegal to sell the name without the bank's consent.

I wonder if the owner was trying to stuff his own pockets behind the bank's back - hence doing the deal in Taiwan then not having the ability to deliver.

"Second you have some things really confused."

I'll disregard this as you didn't name any.

"And that is why the money does not make it into the system. It's literally free money for doing nothing."

I'm not denying that. But then again pretty much everything banks do to make money is free money. Pretty much anywhere else banks put money yields more interest than having it sit in the Fed which is why its called "required balances and EXCESS reserves". Hell banks can buy treasury bills and get a higher interest rate than they do from the fed and rather than create inflation they can create government debt!

For the most part the money banks borrow from the Fed does make it into the system simply because banks make more money putting it there. Putting the money into the system doesn't fix the problem.

This is actually what I thought you were referring to:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congress-gave-banks-13-billion-in-income.html

Can I get some examples of main stream science denialism by democrats?

Obvious one right here. You can claim this is one both sides ignore - but like Republicans claiming to be "pro family", Democrats should be held to a higher standard when they are always claiming so vociferously to be the "pro science" party.

But there are others examples. Note, for example, that Democrats oppose scientific studies if it involves testing on animals - human embryo research, though, poses no problems for them. Democrats ignore the scientific consensus in favor of more nuclear power plants, and oppose them for mostly emotional reasons. Note also the Democrat's reliance on the Precautionary Principle for evaluating policy decisions. That idea "imposes a burden of proof on those who create potential risks, and it requires regulation of activities even if it cannot be shown that those activities are likely to produce significant harms." - that doesn't sound very scientific at all, but it's used to oppose all forms of GM food, nuclear power, and even to block research funding in the absence of the ability to prove a negative. This entirely unscientific principle was even evident in Katherine Sebelius's justification to block the availability of Plan B contraceptives over-the-counter

Oh, and then there's the Obama administration's decision to support the oil companies in the fracking lawsuit, even when their own task force had had exactly the opposite conclusion. There is even evidence that many in the current administration are guilty of scientific misconduct.

Can I get some examples of main stream science denialism by democrats?

Obvious one right here. You can claim this is one both sides ignore - but like Republicans claiming to be "pro family", Democrats should be held to a higher standard when they are always claiming so vociferously to be the "pro science" party.

But there are others examples. Note, for example, that Democrats oppose scientific studies if it involves testing on animals - human embryo research, though, poses no problems for them. Democrats ignore the scientific consensus in favor of more nuclear power plants, and oppose them for mostly emotional reasons. Note also the Democrat's reliance on the Precautionary Principle for evaluating policy decisions. That idea "imposes a burden of proof on those who create potential risks, and it requires regulation of activities even if it cannot be shown that those activities are likely to produce significant harms." - that doesn't sound very scientific at all, but it's used to oppose all forms of GM food, nuclear power, and even to block research funding in the absence of the ability to prove a negative. This entirely unscientific principle was even evident in Katherine Sebelius's justification to block the availability of Plan B contraceptives over-the-counter

Oh, and then there's the Obama administration's decision to support the oil companies in the fracking lawsuit, even when their own task force had had exactly the opposite conclusion. There is even evidence that many in the current administration are guilty of scientific misconduct.

Apple also generates the most income, you have links for your "greenpeace" comment and apparently some rant about kiddie porn but nothing linked to information showing as you claim
"Apple has actually been cited as the most proactive when it comes to monitoring work conditions in the factories they contract with."

So let me help you with that, Apple was the first to join the FLA
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/foxconn-auditor-finds-tons-of-issues-.html

That's nice right? Proves your point and all that had to happen was being "singled" out, several suicides and a TON OF BAD PRESS.

You're an apologist.

"The Fair Labor Association found that Apple's plant where iPhones and iPads are far better than those at garment factories or other facilities elsewhere in the country. A quote: 'The lead investigator stated "The facilities are first-class; the physical conditions are way, way above average of the norm."' Which leaves the question, what is the acceptable norm?"

Translation: So the manacles are in better condition, they're punished with lifetime imprisonment versus death in other places, and the slaves are kept in slightly better conditions - but are still slaves given that one risks imprisonment or death if you speak out against Foxconn or the like.

So this organization is only a whitewash group for Apple.

Not so. /. has the older story of the initial impressions by the FLA. The new one today (reported on by Bloomberg), instead says:

“We’re finding tons of issues,” van Heerden said en route to a meeting where FLA inspectors were scheduled to present preliminary findings to Foxconn management. “I believe we’re going to see some very significant announcements in the near future.”

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/foxconn-auditor-finds-tons-of-issues-.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/foxconn-auditor-finds-tons-of-issues-.html

Creating fake Treasuries is a “common scam, especially in Italy,” he said. The tipoff was the “astronomical” face value of each bond, he said. Fake bonds in high denominations are more common in Europe, where people are less familiar with the face value of U.S. Treasury bonds than in the U.S., he said.

I appreciate your honest approach to the issue. And you're probably right, done with proper regulations and safety precautions fracking can be safe...in theory. You only saw one piece of the puzzle, so here are some more pieces.

In practice, one thing you need to consider is what happens to the chemicals *after* they're pulled out of the ground. Sometimes they just dump it, like the case of Josh Foster.

If it can't possibly affect the water table, why do drilling companies end up shipping water to people such as Mr. Ira Haire, who live near their fracking sites?

Why are the horses and pets in Dimock, PA, losing their hair?

Why is the EPA detecting fracking chemicals in the aquifers Pavillion, Wyoming?

How about this Oklahoma Geological Survey report that suggests the recent uptick in earthquakes were caused by fracking?

What about waste treatment plants that fail to successfully reduce the levels of contaminants before discharging the water into a river?

How about the President of the Marcellus Shale Coalition admitting that fracking has contaminated the drinking water in PA?

Fracking can be done right. But it's expensive and requires the cooperation of many disparate companies and enforcement of regulations (or any regulations at all; I'm looking at you, Halliburton Loophole). And expensive is not profitable.

Post this here since we know it'd never make it as an article:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-13/apple-tops-google-for-no-1-image-as-buffett-s-berkshire-slips.html

Apple Inc. (AAPL), burnished by the iPhone’s success and memorials to Steve Jobs, displaced Google Inc. (GOOG) as top company in Harris Interactive (HPOL)’s poll of corporate images. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) and Johnson & Johnson dropped.

Ships haven't gotten all that much faster over the years; modern container ships are only about twice as fast as the last clipper ships, not ten or a hundred or a thousand times as fast.

That's only because nobody cares about making them faster. They already run them slower than their maximum speed intentionally because the primary design consideration for container ships is efficiency, not speed. And if you look at the amount of freight transported per ship and per crew member compared to a clipper ship, I suspect it is in the range of ten to a hundred times more.

But let's assume you're right:

rockets are a mature technology, like ships and aircraft.

OK, so don't use rockets. I keep hearing about this magic carbon nanotube space elevator that we'll have Real Soon Now.

Even if you want to assume that never happens, let's consider another alternative: You pick a proverbial "asteroid the size of Texas" out of the many floating around out there. Find one in the habitable zone. Then you send a team there with some industrial equipment, not to mine the asteroid and bring it home, but to mine it and use the raw materials to construct a large compartmentalized living environment. Start off by building a few dozen acres of greenhouse, and fill it with plants so that you have food and oxygen recycling. Then proceed to build yourself a little home away from home -- but in a place that has lower gravity, so that you can build yourself a space elevator. Create yourself a city in space with a population of a few thousand people.

That gives you a foothold. You create an industrial city that can export its products to the universe without burning ten thousand gallons of fuel fighting gravity. Then you can branch out. Colonize and mine more asteroids and small planets. Once you have a large enough industrial capacity in low gravity areas, you can build yourself a city-to-go and just land the entire thing piecemeal on a suitable planet. Next thing you know you've got a million people living on Mars and several expeditions on their way to colonizing habitable planets in other planetary systems.

I'm not saying what I've just laid out would definitely work. Maybe, maybe not. What I'm saying is that we haven't yet exhausted all the possible alternatives, so giving up now is nothing but defeatism.

As we all know, most CEOs are honest people who never twist truth or distort reality to achieve their goals.

Meanwhile, Google is officially becoming an enforcer of Motorola's patents and will demand a billion dollars a year in royalty fees, contrary to everything about patents that they complained about six months ago and everything their defenders have claimed about their values. But, yeah, it's good that this old Gawker story about mean Steve Jobs was posted instead.

Oh thank god, Bonch is back! Here to remind us that if you are using an apple approved reality distortion field, you too will be able to deny the existence of a story that is critical of the character of the glorious Mr Jobs. And WTF does motorola patents have to do with this story? Oh that's right, everything Google does is wrong (including using patents to seek royalties.) If they were an upstanding company, they would say royalties be damned, and use every penny of their cash available to "right this wrong" and to "go thermonuclear war on this." Because that's what sane companies with IP to protect do. Right.

As we all know, most CEOs are honest people who never twist truth or distort reality to achieve their goals.

Meanwhile, Google is officially becoming an enforcer of Motorola's patents and will demand a billion dollars a year in royalty fees, contrary to everything about patents that they complained about six months ago and everything their defenders have claimed about their values. But, yeah, it's good that this old Gawker story about mean Steve Jobs was posted instead.

Gattaca was the worst case DNA/police state scenario based on genetics. ... and in 2008 we passed a law banning the practice.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aGlkCem6Llnc

[quote]April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Companies and health insurers would be forbidden to use the results of genetic tests to deny people jobs or medical coverage under legislation approved 95-0 today by the U.S. Senate.[/quote]

just because there are more people in china doesn't mean it is a bigger market. disposable income would determine if it is a larger market for apple because if you have 3 billion people but the average disposable income is $10 per person per year your market isnt as large as a place will 500 million people with $25,000 in disposable income.

Well, you know what they say about common sense - reality trumps it. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-19/china-becomes-apple-s-second-largest-market-by-sales-cook-says.html

Apple Inc. (AAPL) said China has become its largest market after the U.S. as the iPhone, iPad and iMac computer maker opened an online store last year and six retail outlets in the past three years in the Asian nation. China, the world’s most populous country, accounted for 16 percent of Apple’s fourth-quarter sales, or about $4.5 billion, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said on a conference call yesterday. Revenue in the nation was almost four times the year- earlier level, he said.

“If you interview power companies and say, ‘Is your control system connected to the Internet,’ they’ll say, ‘Of course not,’” James Lewis, technology program director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in an interview. “It turns out in almost every case a control system is connected to the Internet and it’s vulnerable to being hacked.”

Apple is now a Patent Troll... have they so given up on innovation that they can on live on shady backroom deals and the charity of a judge?

And still you don't get it, this is much closer:

Apple is now a Patent Troll http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-28/apple-seen-hurting-shareholders-with-jobs-s-thermonuclear-patent-war-tech.html
Google is now a Patent Troll http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2012/01/google-authorized-motorola-to-seek.html
Samsung is now a Patent Troll http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2012/01/eu-launches-full-blown-investigation-of.html
Microsoft is now a Patent Troll http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2012/jan12/01-12LGPR.mspx

However, I don't think any of them are Patent Trolls since you can't tell me that any one of them don't research and innovate to a large degree. But I guess "Patent Troll" has now become subverted, just like "Bricked" did.

BTW I feel I have to say this: I DON'T agree with what they are doing, I'm just pointing out your hypocrisy and selective representation of the facts.

Google started off with their heart in the right place, and from that they earned our trust. The fact that many of us trust them with our entire e-Mail collection is pretty amazing.

But we see that money is their primary driver. For anyone who thought could be trusted to keep giving away generously, look at the about turn they did on Google Maps. People who build their businesses on it were shafted overnight with demands for a $10K license fee. Some indy developers and startups did contact Google: surely you can't mean us? Google replied that yes, they most certainly did.

Forbes: "Google's Penny Pinching Is Costing It Customers"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisbarth/2011/12/27/googles-penny-pinching-is-costing-it-customers/print/

This is the new Google who believe they have come as far as they can on goodwill and destroying competitors by giving stuff away for 'free'. Now it's payback time!

They've also been dodging their taxes: "The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is auditing how Google Inc. (GOOG) avoided federal income taxes by shifting profit into offshore subsidiaries"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-13/irs-auditing-how-google-shifted-profits-offshore-to-avoid-taxes.html

As for their latest toadying to repressive regimes and corrupt governments in the pockets of lobbyists, well, Google have struck a new low. That's the bad news. The worse news is they don't care: If corporations are people, and the US Supreme Court things they are, then Google is a real asshole.

$2 billion in 2010, around $4 billion for 2011(around half a billion from Facebook credits). At least according to this Bloomberg article. I don't know what their costs are though.

y David Wilson - Fri Nov 18 05:00:01 GMT 2011

Anyone who expects Apple Inc.’s growth to rebound after sales and earnings shortfalls last quarter is “living in denial,” according to David Nelson, chief strategist at Belpointe Asset Management LLC.

I wonder if someone wants his money back.

that 23% is also the difference between a successful product line and one shut down.

Should an isolated product suddenly cost 23% more it will suffer badly in the market, therefore domestic manufacturing is not viable. This argument is unrealistic and naive at best, or disingenuous at worst. Trade with China isn't about iPhones. It's about EVERYTHING being manufactured in Asia. All products, all brands. In fact, it's really about all imports that allow you to accumulate stuff while eluding the regulatory burdens imposed by the government you elect and eluding the cost of employing fellow citizens that don't, for some strange reason, care to live in factory dormitories to provide you with low, low Walmart prices.

The net result of eliminating the cost savings of outsourcing to Asia is that the final cost of all products that currently do not incur domestic manufacturing costs will be higher. No one brand or product will suffer an isolated cost increase; everything will cost more.

Will that mean fewer iPhones and Nexus Galaxies sold? Yes. Will the smart phone market disappear? No. Of course not. People will replace their stuff less frequently and be less reckless with their purchasing in general. That isn't a bad thing. God forbid we do not all replace our $500+ phone every 12 months or suffer with only one x-box.

Let's consider the other side effects of not outsourcing our manufacturing base. Read this to understand the consequences of forsaking the working class for low, low walmart prices. US income disparity is accelerating and this is caused by making our working class compete with dormitory housed disposable Asian workers that live, sleep and breath their foreman's whim, on your behalf.

Another effect will be a vast reduction of environmental impact. The US has a regulatory regime with teeth. Some meat packer in butt-fuck Texas dumps blood in the river and it's news, the EPA swoops in and corrections occur. The Chinese have deadened whole regions of their land recycling your electronics and the Chinese government just chases out the journalists. If you actually care about the Earth and it's fate then your path is clear; stop the export of western pollution to the third world. If you're really just a NIMBYist and can't live without disposably cheap stuff swirling around your life, then continue advocating "free trade."

70% of all imports to the US are tariff free. The largest part of the remaining 30% is fossil fuel in various forms. No other nation has anything approaching the abject surrender of its manufacturing base presently occurring in the US. No presidential candidates, incumbent or otherwise, are seriously advocating any change to this situation. Your Secretary of State is a former Walmart executive.

You frequently encounter a sentiment that goes approximately thus; "the days of prosperity in the US for unskilled workers are over; if you fail to incur huge education debt and assume a place among the well compensated elite you should expect to be miserable, and you deserve it." If that's you then you need to look around. Your lifestyle has an expiration date. Part of the coping mechanism we have used to offset working class decline is lowering the tax burden on lower end of the scale. As a result, 51% of income earners in the US are paying no net federal income tax while we're running a $1.3E12 defic

Yeah, I can not image why a Chinese national would work on federal reserve, CONTINUE DOING CONTRACTING, but grab code to train ppl, except that he has no students. In addition, a co-worker who knew that he copied the source code to an external drive, later claimed to have lost said drive.

There are times that racism is here. There may be posts here that are racists. HOWEVER, the vast majority are NOT racists, but simply pointing out somebody that very likely is a spy.

2.4 percent = $249 million

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows-how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html

Zhang is a Chinese citizen, said a person with knowledge of the matter who didn’t want to be identified because the information wasn’t public.
The software system relates to the “tracking of the billions of dollars that are electronically transferred every day in the U.S.’s general ledger,” prosecutors said.
Zhang has been in the U.S. on a work visa since 2000, said another person familiar with the matter who also didn’t want to be identified because the information isn’t public.

Kind of destroys your theory there.

The story says that he's Chinese, not that he's a Chinese citizen.

The Bloomberg article states that he is in fact a Chinese citizen

since he "stole" the code for his own private training business

No, he claims he stole it for his own private business. May or may not be true, but it sure sounds better than admitting espionage.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-18/man-said-to-be-charged-by-u-s-in-federal-government-computer-data-theft.html

Zhang has been in the U.S. on a work visa since 2000, said another person familiar with the matter who also didn’t want to be identified because the information isn’t public. Zhang worked previously at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Bank of America Corp., the person said.

The Bloomberg article states that he's a Chinese citizen in the US on a work visa

The spectrum bleeds so there will be interference, though it remains to be seen how much.
Falcone is certainly paying fof his chance to get Light squared going.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-20/house-republicans-ask-white-house-for-records-of-falcone-contact.html
But that's business as usual.

However the claim is that the Lsquared signals are a "billion times greater in strength" than GPS, and I know my modern GPS unit seems to have trouble locking on at times.
http://www.insidegnss.com/node/2498

Lsquared seems like a great opportunity for rural areas to get high-speed Internet and maybe it's time we updated our GPS satellites again, but from my perspective after what I have read from multiple sources I am going to go with Light squared will cause issues with commercial GPS and the motivation on Lsquared's part is being the only provider in the area, charging a higher fee for access, and not having to lay cable and other infrastructure thereby reducing deployment and maintenance cost, in other words a large profit margin, and the only problem is they have to destroy the GPS infrastructure already in place.

Does anyone else have a nagging feeling that Nintendo is doomed in the next console cycle? The Wii U didn't grab the same attention that the original Wii did, and Nintendo is being attacked on two fronts--the hardcore market with the PS3 and Xbox 360, and casual gaming with the iPhone. Nintendo always had handheld sales to fall back on, but sales of the 3DS have been underwhelming, forcing an early price drop. It seems like Nintendo backed itself into a corner with the Wii, tying the company too intimately with the casual gaming market, whose gamers are fickle and prone to jump onto the next big thing, which turned out to be the iPhone.

Yes, yes, I realize people have been declaring Nintendo to be doomed since the Nintendo 64, but just because they survived previous eras doesn't mean they will survive the next one. Nintendo's stock price jumped after a rumor that Pokemon was coming to the iPhone, which turned out to be untrue. It just seems more than ever that it makes little sense for Nintendo not to become a software developer, since that is what they are most famous for in spite of their trend-setting controllers. Yet despite the novelty of the Wii remote, I still prefer the Dual Shock.

I love Nintendo's classics, but their refusal to embrace online play on the same level of their competitors as well as their reliance on nostalgia titles is frustrating. Sadly, I haven't turned on my Wii in so long that I can't even remember the last time. I think the last game I played on it was was Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, an old PC-Engine game, and only because it's Wii-exclusive.

IMHO, Google abandoned it's "Don't be evil" mantra long ago when they began evading taxes.

Does that take into account the indirect federal subsidy that comes in the form of tax deductions? California has some of the highest levels of income tax in the U.S., and much(*) of it is tax deductible in federal taxation. (Other types of state tax are deductible also, but don't vary so much between the states, I'm guessing.)

In 2005, California collected about $105 billion in tax revenues, out of which about 55%, or $60 billion are income taxes. Assuming the average marginal federal tax rate of 20%, that would amount to about $10 billion of indirect federal subsidy.

(*) All of it, offset by the standard deduction.

the oil we never actually got, of course: Iraq's production has gone down since the invasion

Really? Iraq Oil Output Has Reached a 20-Year High, Shahristani Says:

Iraqi crude oil production jumped to the highest level in at least 20 years, or more than 3 million barrels a day, said Hussain al-Shahristani, deputy prime minister for energy affairs.

Iraq holds the fifth-biggest natural-gas reserves in the Middle East and the world’s fifth- largest crude deposits, according to BP Plc data that include Canadian oil sands.

“Iraq’s crude production will rise to 3.4 million barrels a day by the end of next year, and exports will rise to 2.6 million barrels a day, including 175,000 barrels from fields in the northern Kurdish region, next year from a current average of 2.2 million barrels of oil a day,” he said.

How much Iraqi oil were U.S. corporations getting access to before the invasion? How much after?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-14/too-much-debt-means-economy-can-t-grow-commentary-by-reinhart-and-rogoff.html

Once you get past ~90%; sayonara economy. The US is facing decades of decline and there's really not much which can be done about it now. Well, war, maybe.

Thanks for pointing out my sig, it's out of date. The time for guillotines was last year.

How is this different

How is this different from when Google uses open source? There's a great article about the supposed openness by Google here

Some good points from it:

Where Google is losing you can count on them pushing the open label in order to build momentum & destroy the asymmetrical information advantages of existing market leaders. But where Google leads non-transparency is the norm.

- At the same time Google is trying to push social sites to offer transparent data, they decided to block some Google search referral data (unless you are paying for the clicks, then you get that data).

- When planning some of the features behind Google+ one of their employees wrote a book about the social circles concept with Google's blessings. Then, after he wrote the book, Google revoked permission to publish it!

- Android is open but internal Google emails revealed that carriers were getting wise to Google using compatibility as a club.

- The Panda update was needed to rid the web of garbage content. And yet Google is pre-paying Demand Media to post videos on YouTube. Since the Panda update downstream Google traffic to YouTube has more than doubled & YouTube is serving over a trillion streams per year!

- In spite of not having permission to do so, Google has been scanning books for nearly a decade now. Yet whenever Google goes to court they try to get the court documents sealed so that their statements couldn't be used against them.

If you only had to manage competing against other market competitors & staying inside Google's editorial guidelines then investment isn't that difficult, but if you have to stay within Google's guidelines in the short term yet try to build a business that is sustainable even after Google enters & destroys the market it is far more difficult.

A Self-serving Bias You Can Count On
When Google enters a market it might buy out a competitor, buy out a supplier, bundle, use predatory pricing, grant themselves superior search placement, adjust the relevancy algorithms and/or editorial guidelines, violate IP, scrape 3rd party content, work with sketchy advertisers & publishers to undermine competing business models, or any combination of the above.

They are rarely transparent with their interests when they enter a market. Almost everything is labeled as "a beta" and "just a test." They promise to "act appropriately" & you may not be aware of the steamroller until you are under it.

Google can bundle themselves into markets, but when others do the same it is a big no no:

A Google spokesman said "applications that are installed without clear disclosure, that are hard to remove and that modify users' experiences in unexpected ways are bad for users and the Web as a whole."

Google's founding research highlighted how bad ad-driven search engines were & then Google's core revenue engine of paid search was built on their violation of Overture's patent. They keep

corporations would fuck us all over if someone didn't keep an eye on them

- the market keeps an eye on them.

Here is a little something that's happening in Greece right now - drug shortages. Why are there shortages of drugs in Greece? Because they can't pay and because government forces companies to sell at lower prices than they sell elsewhere, which means that wholesellers simply export the drugs back out of Greece and into Eastern Europe and probably other places, where these same drugs sell for more, this creates secondary market in other countries competing against the pharma companies that produce these drugs.

So it's very simple - government will fuck you up completely in the long run. A corporation can screw with you only until you go to the competitor, and if there is no competitor at the moment, you'll find a substitute product.

However once government is involved you are completely fucked, you have to get out of the country to escape that sort of punishment, no company can do that, only government can do that.

The antitrust issues rarely are from direct user point of view. It wasn't with Microsoft, it isn't with Google. With Microsoft they were trying to kill other browser and OS makers by making deals with PC manufacturers. With Google it's issue with advertisers, who are the actual customers of Google. Since Google maintains a monopoly on search, they can pretty much dictate pay per click advertising. And they do.

European Union was looking into Google's monopoly issues because Google was denying advertisers from running same ads on other networks if they want to use Google's ad services. This is already bad in US, but in several European countries Google has a market share of 90-99% in search. There are just no alternatives, and if there are, Google is doing everything they can to kill them off. Hence the antitrust issues.