Slashdot Mirror

I bet it would get pretty personal for you if you came to these places and started spouting your socialist views on how cheap food is that your government is subsidizing farmers and then paying farmers to destroy it

Swaziland: HIV patients 'eat dung to make drugs work'

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/out_of_food_zimbabweans_eating_cow_dung/

Food Prices Fuel Egypt Unrest

Egypt and Tunisia usher in the new era of global food revolutions

Spike in global food prices contributes to Tunisian violence

Food price jumps protested in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco

Egypt and Tunisia: rocked by the global food crisis

Hunger in Syria, Libya and Yemen

Ukraine to control food prices

Rising food prices increase squeeze on poor - Oxfam

As Food Prices Spike, Azerbaijanis Endure Border Chaos To Shop In Iran

For dummies: The impact of the global food crisis on Azerbaijan - in pictures

Estonia Raises Inflation Forecast on Global Food and Fuel Prices

Nigeria: food price up as inflationary rate drop

High food prices 'caused Niger hunger'

Mexico: Food prices reach record high

China's food price inflation hits 14.4% in June

Lithuania and Latvia catching up with Estonia

Food prices rise, wages donâ(TM)t

China food prices spike as floods ruin farmland

Brazil: Food Prices Surge and Head Toward Dangerous Levels

Rise in food prices causing major concerns in Russia

Stockpiling as Russian food prices soar

Food prices have soared most in Venezuela, Bolivia and Argentina

Thousands protest against high food prices in Delhi

India: A spike in food prices is especiall

Downgrading will matter, but I agree with parent, this is a bit odd.

"About 90 percent of AAA securities backed by subprime mortgages from 2006 and 2007 were later downgraded to junk status"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-13/moody-s-s-p-caved-to-mortgage-pressure-by-goldman-ubs-levin-report-says.html

Doubtful, regardless of what the ratings agencies say, US debt is still the safest in the world.

Oh, it's not like they'll completely stop buying US Treasuries, etc. It's just that they will demand higher interest rates be paid on them, which will cost the entire US economy and every individual seeking credit.

You mean, like what happened to Japan? They were downgraded quite a lot deeper at some point in 1998. Now look at their interest rates.

Credit rating is ideologically ignorant - it's a matter of high debt and inability to meet payments.

No, in fact it is ideologically very non-ignorant, as it has an ideology that it is trying to push on the world. c.f. Krugmans commentary on the issue.

It is also arguably irrelevant in many situations. You can compare us 10y bond yields with, I don't know, greece's 10y bond yield or a bunch of orthers. The world is not about to end on the US. It is quite possible that S&P have just made fools of themselves.

They sued a patent troll over his patents. But you know Google hasn't had cause to sue, they're the ones moving in to others' territory (in mobile OS's, netbooks, etc.). Taking on established companies in court in an area you are trying to move into is a good way to get get knocked out as they've undoubtably got larger relevant patent portfolios. It'd be more interesting to see what they'd do if one, or several, credible competitor showed up in the search and/or ad space.

Burn their houses down.

Close... Kinda like that 'cash for clunkers' bullshit

You incessantly babble on about something as relevant as Justin Bieber's boxer shorts when, quite simply, the mafioso banks made you an offer you can't refuse

I see why you're posting this as an anonymous corward, because it's typical HFT nonsense. You've not actually addressed the underlying issue, such as occurred on http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-06/electronic-trading-to-blame-for-stock-market-plunge-nyse-s-leibowitz-says.html, where a single significant stock event triggered automatic sales, which devalued a stock, sent other HFT automatic systems into a spiral of selling, with ripple effects spread throughout the HFT systems triggering massive flurries in unrelated companies and markets.

The existence of other types of trading can provide some stabilization against such feedback spirals, but most certainly does not prevent it. Your metaphor is also misleading because it involves second hand clothes, a commodity that most people can live without if the market evaporated tomorrow. A better metaphor would be mortgages, evaluation based partial ownership of actual goods where the trade among them can itself be profitable.

And we all know how safe from ridiculous collapses poorly monitored, high speed and high volume trading was in _that_ market, don't we? The opportunity for "due diligence" simply does not exist in HFT. It's been poorly managed arbitrage, and the feedback cycles are too fast and too dynamic to successfully model. I'm surprised we haven't had repeats of that collapse last year: companies have been _exiting_ HFT because of it.

Oh, please, spare me. I see this sentiment everywhere, and it's nonsense. Traditional investing still works. At the end of the day, investors are still going to look at how much money a company makes and assess how much risk that company's stock poses. If HFT causes blips in a stock's price, the the market will eventually correct the price.

Like this blip?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-06/electronic-trading-to-blame-for-stock-market-plunge-nyse-s-leibowitz-says.html

beware of "facts" coming from thenewamerican.com
GM hasn't sold many volts, because it doesn't have many volts to sell, and its only selling them in a few places (same with the nissan leaf which the article similarly trashes)
Both vehicles are in short supply, and both have large waiting lists, the logistics pipelines for both cars will take time to ramp up... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-27/gm-volt-supply-poised-to-surge-in-race-with-nissan-s-leaf-cars.html

The way the US dollar is going, you won't be able to afford "cheap" cars from China anyway. Yeah Bernanke harps on about how good a weak dollar is for exports. The US has always consumed more than it produces and the reality of the situation is that even Chinese crap is becoming expensive.

Sorry, when i made the submission thursday morning that page was freely available, i didn't realize it was going to get moved behind a paywall less than 24 hours later.

However here's an alternate source from Bloomberg with most of the same details. And one from cnet.

"That is, no matter how terribly inefficient you are at producing A and B, it still makes sense to trade with you."

From the Wikipedia article on the subject: "Full employment - if one or other of the economies has less than full employment of factors of production, then this excess capacity must usually be used up before the comparative advantage reasoning can be applied."

With rising unemployment due to robotics and other automation, better design, accumulating infrastructure, eventually cheap solar and fusion energy that replaces labor, and voluntary social networks, in the face of limited demand, that key assumption of "comparative advantage" is invalid. So, then arguments can be made for tariffs, subsidies, and so on.

As for efficiency, note that even GE, makers of gas turbines and nuclear power plants, say solar may be cheaper than fossil fuels and nuclear by 2015. Look at the graphs for yourself:
http://solarbuzz.com/facts-and-figures/retail-price-environment/module-prices
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-26/solar-may-be-cheaper-than-fossil-power-in-five-years-ge-says.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-26/solar-may-be-cheaper-than-fossil-power-in-five-years-ge-says.html

If externalities were accounted for (pollution, risk, disease, war), renewables have been cheaper since the 1970s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
"The book argues that U.S. domestic energy infrastructure is very vulnerable to disruption, by accident or malice, often even more so than imported oil. According to the authors, a resilient energy system is feasible, costs less, works better, is favoured in the market, but is rejected by U.S. policy."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/world/asia/26china.html?_r=3

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-25/ge-healthcare-moves-x-ray-base-to-china-no-job-cuts-planned.html

http://blogs.forbes.com/raykwong/2011/07/25/friends-dont-let-friends-become-chinese-billionaires/

You're mostly right, but the timeline is important.

From an article about the offer: "Robert Van Nest, Google's attorney, said yesterday at a hearing in federal court in San Francisco that the proposed $100 million three-year "all-in" deal in 2006 was for a technology partnership to jointly build Android, rather than for just a patent license."

The quote praising Android/Google is from late 2007. So Sun offered a license for Java, Google considered it but then said no thanks, we'll build our own, and then Sun's CEO praised them for their work. That strongly implies that Sun (or at least the CEO) didn't see anything wrong with Google doing their own clean room implementation, especially since they'd offered a license for Java _before_ that.

(Posting as AC because I'm at work and I don't log into websites from work...)

According to Bloomberg, HTC is ready to negotiate with Apple. Now, I know that's not as exciting as "HTC Ready for Apple Patent War" because there's just so much sensationalism in that, but why let facts get in the way of sensationalism, right?

And even then, the exact same survey company said Android had 22% tablet market share in the Christmas quarter. So it went from 2% to 22% from calendar Q2 to Q4 last year, then 22% to 30% from last Q4 to this Q2. Sure looks like even their over-inflated, Android-biased survey shows Android tablets asymptotically approaching about 35% of the market someday. Their growth curve-- and it's the most optimistic one of all the Android tablet research out there-- doesn't look good for Android taking a majority of the market any time soon.

The cost of solar cells, the main component in standard panels, has fallen 21 percent so far this year...

Think about that. A 21 percent drop in price so far this year??? New technologies are bringing down the cost of solar at a really incredible rate. That's not some futuristic, maybe it'll be available some day technology. It's what's on the market right now.,

Not that I'm expect much in the way of impartiality here, but...

"During the Bush Administration"? There's a subtle bit of tweaking going on there... it was passed by a Democratically-controlled Congress (albeit with a Republican pushing it, who has now mea culpa'd and is leading the drive to repeal it) and stuck in a 300 page energy bill.

Background:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-10/need-a-light-bulb-uncle-sam-gets-to-choose-virginia-postrel.html

And for more of the right-ward/libertarian spin on why this is a dumb idea, just keep scrolling:
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/?s=bulb

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-30/germany-becomes-net-power-importer-from-france-after-atomic-halt.html

I'm going to get in on the AC act with some facts: Please read this and then go back to sitting quietly in a corner somewhere.

Since the first halt, Germany became a net power importer from France -- whereas it used to be the other way around. And of course France generates 80% of its power from nuclear. So yeah, they aren't really doing anything except shuffling the plants around.

France is going to make out pretty well from all this, probably going to end up as the major electricity producer on the continent. They are already reaping major economies of scale, having the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing electricity prices in Europe.

Why do you think the US hasn't tapped its own oil reserves?

"Not in my backyard."

Since the first halt, Germany became a net power importer from France -- whereas it used to be the other way around. And of course France generates 80% of its power from nuclear. So yeah, they aren't really doing anything except shuffling the plants around.

France is going to make out pretty well from all this, probably going to end up as the major electricity producer on the continent. They are already reaping major economies of scale, having the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing electricity prices in Europe.

Don't worry. The US has a corporate counter-strategy that could be known as the "Billion Clogged Arteries." The overt health destruction agency known as KFC is having a very successful deployment in China.
Deep Fried Success

Jury's still out on App Store, but the first blow has already fallen against Apple, on Amazon's side, so it's by no means as clear cut as you suggest...

And yet corporate profits are up, corporations have record amounts of cash on hand, economic demand is down, and capcity is idle, inflation is nonexistent, and with interest rates near zero, credit is cheap.

If there wasn't enough money in the economy, then the corporations wouldn't have cash, there would be no excess production capacity, and inflation would be high. None of these are true. Taxes ain't the problem kid. They haven't been for 40(!) years. What is moving production overseas? Labor arbitrage -- the race to the bottom. And no, we don't have to accept this as a nation, and no unions, nor regulations are the cause. Case in point: The world's second largest exporter: Germany.

>I can assure you that banks, foreign exchange brokers and payment processors such as Visa and MasterCard are regulated by government agencies

Hahahah!

Government Regulator leaves FinCEN for Bank of America

Bank of America Acknowledges Illicit Funds Moved Through a Manhattan Branch

Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal

Why waste money? Facebook and MS have been pals for a long time already. Do you know that all thirdparty ads on FB pages are served exclusively by Microsoft? Or that Bing integrates FB in search results? Or, on Windows Phone, guess which social network is automatically integrated into the contact list?

[q]Microsoft doesn't own it yet. This is all Skype.[/q]

And between this and the rumor they have quietly fired important execs right before the deal with Microsoft is finalized... makes you wonder if they're purposefuly trying to sabotage it.

As the article says, the presumption is that they're getting rid of execs to prep the company for buyout (less execs means less expensive payouts, or at least less payouts on MS's dime). And if you've ditched all the talent, don't be surprised if the remaining suckers start making poor decisions.

[q]Microsoft doesn't own it yet. This is all Skype.[/q]

And between this and the rumor they have quietly fired important execs right before the deal with Microsoft is finalized... makes you wonder if they're purposefuly trying to sabotage it.

For those unaware of "what the big deal is", this new Skype version is widely regarded as a piece of crap. It was somewhat fine as long as users could keep their previous version, but this forced upgrade is likely to push away many people.

The original scoop came from Bloomberg yesterday evening, and says they were fired.

As usual the Slashdot summary links to another summary which links to some knock-off news aggregator.

The US ratified the treaty in 2006. So you guys can do the same.

And we're cutting back. What do they know that we don't? Hmm...

What do the Chinese know that we don't?
Math
Science

And in the US, we want creationism taught in biology classes and forbid schools from using the word 'gay'.

'Nuff said.

Not any more:

In April, France was a net exporter of power to Germany for the first time since the summer months of June, July and August last year, according to RTE.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-30/areva-s-lauvergeon-says-germany-will-import-nuclear-power.html

The question is not could, but should. Clearly we could.

In some ways, I am not sure it matters much, as it will take so long that several different government will have to approve it, and minds can change.

The Fukushima disaster should not have happened, period. The reactors themselves survived the earthquake and tsunami just fine; the disaster was caused by a cascade of secondary failures. It's as if your house burned down because of a power failure. The operators and regulators knew that this was a possibility in these old designs, but it was "too expensive" to rebuild or replace 50 year old gear. That thinking will have to change. Clearly a lot of money will have to be spent on existing nuclear plants, regardless of whether they are wound down or kept going. The "stress tests" ordered by the EU are just the beginning.

You forget that the biggest reason that fukushima was still running is because of NIMBY concerns in Japan not wanting new reactors built. The money was there for replacing it 10 years ago, but it was politically inconvenient and tepco couldn't get the permits. Based on a normal construction time it would have been replaced with a newer, safer design and we wouldn't be talking about this if it wasn't for the anti-nuclear nutjobs.

I suspect TEPCO's, the IAEA's and governments track record with the truth and compliance comes into the equation (imo).
TEPCO failed to meet it's obligations regarding maintenance of pumps and their word that it will be done was accepted despite being caught falsifying records on more than one occasion.
Why did they get the green light to keep operating let alone extend the life of reactors operated by them that should have been decommissioned?
The risk of the generators failing due to a tsunami were identified in 1990 and raised in 2004, the only comment made now is that "it appears TEPCO did not address the risk"

To argue that the NIMBY crowd is at fault I believe is disengenuous when the root cause is more than likely profit and expediency. Who will foot the bill?

. France appears to be doing a good job and apparently the populace were quite happy having nuclear plants in their neighbourhood - until this "accident". No NIMBYers there for some reason......

Africa? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7086777.stm
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-22/china-s-investment-in-africa-to-increase-to-50-billion-by-2015-bank-says.html

Might be funny if Communist China's investment in Africa actually improves Africa more than all that Western aid.

"Pres. Medvedev is a great troll! Unfortunately, he doesn't decide anything in Russia - Putin does."

Uhuh. That was the initial view of him when he became PM from a position of relative obscurity. Unfortunately times change, I guess you don't watch the news:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12810566

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-31/medvedev-tests-limits-of-power-with-plan-to-oust-putin-allies.html

http://www.euractiv.com/en/global-europe/medvedev-putin-tensions-grow-2012-elections-get-closer-analysis-504662

Similarly look at Medvedev's history on justice, human rights and so forth. Without a doubt, Medvedev is a much more positive force than Putin and he's never been afraid to express that in his position as PM.

"You see, there's a mandatory 'performance fee' in Russia which goes toward central agency which then distributes gathered money to artists (minus 15% commission)"

Sounds like the PRS in the UK, or GEMA in Germany, or any number of other rights collection agencies that exist in pretty much every country.

What, you thought that kind of thing only happened in Russia?

"So Medvedev can talk all he wants, it won't change a thing."

Unless of course he beats Putin to the presidency next year, severely denting Putin's ability to control anything anymore.

BAH! Who needs bitcoin when the regular banks got your back?

The entire market in contraband is too big to punish without trashing the economy even more... They don't want to stop drugs, they want to control them... It's the controlled substances act

"Act of War" except when such cyber warfare is directed at Iran by a join Israel/U.S. operation. Then it's just ... uh. Definitely not war

So, your thinking is what? That poor, peaceful Iran is being picked on? That the mean old US and Israel started a war on blameless Iran? Apart from the fact that you are speculating about the source of Stuxnet, the outrage is purely imaginary. If anything, Iran is lucky things aren't worse for it given its reckless, murderous behavior.

Israel Seizes Cargo Ship Carrying Tons of Iranian Weapons Bound For Hamas in Gaza

Hezbollah's stockpile bigger, deadlier

In the 2006 war, Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets into northern Israel. Most were inaccurate, short-range models, but the attacks killed at least 39 civilians and had a profound psychological effect on Israelis....

Hezbollah now has about 27,000 rockets and missiles, more than double its supply before the 2006 war, Israeli officials say. Acquisitions include Iranian missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv, they allege.

"We know without a doubt that the international embargo on the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah has been deliberately violated by the governments of Iran and Syria," said Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman.

The U.S. government, which has designated Hezbollah a terrorist group, accuses Iran of providing arms, training and millions of dollars. Syria also has emerged as an arms supplier, not just a conduit for Iranian arms, Israeli officials say.

Iran Builds Rockets to Arm Hezbollah, Deter Sanctions (Update2)

August 4, 2006 06:05 EDT
Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Many of the rockets Hezbollah is firing into Israel are made in Iran, demonstrating the Islamic republic's success in copying Chinese and Russian technology to build its own weapons industry.

The Shiite Muslim group's arsenal includes Iranian-built portable Katyusha rockets, Israeli Reserve Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser said. Hezbollah struck an Israeli ship on July 14 with an Iranian-made C802 Noor guided missile. The militia also has Iran's Zelzal rocket, with a range of 120 miles, enough to reach Tel Aviv from south Lebanon, said Yaakov Amidror, a retired major general who ran Israel's National Defense College.

List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2011
List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2010
List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2009
List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2008

Iran says can cut energy to Europe, hit enemies (Reuters)

28 February 2010
Iran could make European countries suffer by cutting off energy supplies and can target any adversary with its missiles, a senior Iranian military official said on Sunday....

“Iran is standing on 50 percent of the world’s energy and should it so decide Europe will have to spend the winter in cold,” Hossein Salami, deputy commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, said in a meeting with war veterans and volunteers in Kerman, according to Fars news agency.

“Our missiles are now able to target any spot in which the conspirators are in, and the c

oregon has no sales tax.

But Texas has jobs.

But Texas has no Amazon.com jobs.

There are 17 available nuclear power plants in Germany. While some were down for maintenance in 2010, the remaining ones produced 22.6% of Germany's electricity.

Also in 2010, "green power" (electricity from regenerative sources) was at 16.5% in Germany.

8 nuclear power plants have been shut down in the wake of the Fukushima disaster and will remain so. With 5 down for maintenance, this leaves Germany with currently only 4 running nuclear power plants. I didn't notice any recent shortage of electricity. And obviously green power has outpaced nuclear power already.

And regarding the alleged expensiveness of green power, here's a Bloomberg article which claims it's keeping the power price down: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-21/solar-doubling-gas-glut-drive-down-german-power-prices-energy-markets.html

There are plans to have Germany completely on green power by 2050. Should be possible.

I wish that was true. But sadly it isn't. Or rather, yes there are better alternatives but:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-15/cez-may-build-1-4-billion-coal-fired-plant-in-germany-ceo-says.html

And I know Vattenfall (Swedish power company) have plans on expanding with more coal plants in Germany. I can't seem to find that article, where they had to move a complete town to get to the coal under it.

So at the moment Germany are expanding their coal plants, and what do you think will happen if they shut down all nuclear plants? Less or even more coal plants?
It isn't THAT hard to figure out...

And take it from one that have suffered (I'm living in the north of Sweden) from both nuclear (Chernobyl accident) contaminating of our animals, mushrooms and berries from the forest and dead forest from acid rains (from coal plants in Germany, Poland and more, as we don't have it our selfs) I know how it feels to be the one suffering for others need of electricity.

But, the effect from the Chernobyl accident are soon gone but the coal plants (with all negative sides) will continue to be a problem for hundreds or thousands of years (mostly the CO2 but even other stuff).

Judge for yourself: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-15/four-charged-with-embezzling-80-million-from-new-york-s-citytime-project.html

Um... because Nintendo is actually worth more than Sony. Nintendo's market cap as of May 27th is ¥2.64 trillion ($32.66 billion), while Sony Corporation, parent company of SCE, is only ¥2.18 trillion ($26.92 billion). If anyone is going to be buying anyone, it'd be the other way around (although realistically, there's no way Nintendo has enough cash on hand to buy Sony, or even enough equity or credit for an LBO, so neither company is going to be buying the other any time soon. Microsoft on the other hand...).

Sony is a much smaller company than most people realize. I was surprised when I first found out a few months ago, around the time there were rumors that Apple Inc. was considering a buyout of Sony. I always assumed Sony was one of these $200+ billion giants, but apparently not.

Um... because Nintendo is actually worth more than Sony. Nintendo's market cap as of May 27th is ¥2.64 trillion ($32.66 billion), while Sony Corporation, parent company of SCE, is only ¥2.18 trillion ($26.92 billion). If anyone is going to be buying anyone, it'd be the other way around (although realistically, there's no way Nintendo has enough cash on hand to buy Sony, or even enough equity or credit for an LBO, so neither company is going to be buying the other any time soon. Microsoft on the other hand...).

Sony is a much smaller company than most people realize. I was surprised when I first found out a few months ago, around the time there were rumors that Apple Inc. was considering a buyout of Sony. I always assumed Sony was one of these $200+ billion giants, but apparently not.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-27/tepco-faces-massive-problem-containing-radioactive-water-at-fukushima.html

i just found this article in bloomberg, it's a play-by-play analysis. the tone is fairly apologetic and tends to put the people responsible into a heroic light, but wtfe. after you read this you'll know why all the different shit happened. it's fairly in-depth.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-25/japan-s-terrifying-day-saw-unprecedented-exposed-fuel-rods.html

another side in this debate

On the other hand, to even begin to satisfy the demands of the other side, the USA and Europe would need to seriously reform their economic policies. Copyrights, patents, and trademarks are a major export for these countries,

They're an export for the US, an import for everybody else, according to http://intangitopia.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-wealth-of-nations.html

According to census.gov, the US had exports of $1,834,164 million last year. Of these, $95,807 million were licensing and royalties; and there were $29,227 million of licensing/royalties imports. If we removed absolutely all restrictions, that's a net difference of $66,580 million - or 3.6% of 2010 exports. So, if not having to deal with licensing makes other industries 3.6% more effective, this comes out a wash for the US.

Of course, the entire existence of these 3.6% comes down to other countries choosing to accept that they should pay this to the US; and some part of this licensing is manipulation by US companies to make sure to book revenues in more tax-friendly countries through the "double Irish" trick and similar. The tax revenue lost to these kinds of tricks is about 60 billion dollars, according to this article (the first result for a Google search for "double irish".) To within 10%, that's the same number as the value of the export.

I'm not sure how these numbers would compare; exports and government tax revenue are two fairly different subjects.

That means you need to compete with countries where labor is cheap -- and short of cheapening your own labor, I am not really sure how you do that.

You increase efficiency in some way; e.g, by spending less time dealing with licensing or other regulatory hurdles. The US has fairly high efficiency due to a single common language and culture, relatively low barriers to moving, relatively easy access to cash, and relatively easy starting of companies. Things that decrease efficiency are low trust and market regulation (thus needing extra paperwork and longer contracts), need for extra physical security, and an abundance of lawyers leading to time wasted in lawsuits (including jury duty.)