Slashdot Mirror

Here's Intel co-founder Andy Grove making basically the same point: How to Make an American Job Before It's Too Late (the resulting Slashdot discussion: Intel Co-Founder Calls For Tax On Offshored Labor )

He suggests the somewhat protectionist idea of putting a tax on products resulting from offshoring, and using the funds to a "Scaling Bank" that will be used to create incentives for keeping production in the US.

An interesting (and slightly scary) read.

nice shill attempt there, google boy. But google mostly operates in high corporate tax rate countries, e.g. U.S. rate is 35%, UK 28%., etc but transfers earnings to low-tax areas while expenses stay in the high tax areas. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows-how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html

  It seems that the article's author leaps to the conclusion that a lack of engineers and scientists in politics is a bad thing for innovation.

That was one point he made. I agree with you that he's out to lunch on that.

He claims that the reason young people in the US don't pursue engineering careers is because engineering isn't respected. Ummmm, no. It's because the market works. There's little market demand for engineers today. We're not using the engineers we already have and don't need more. Engineering jobs have been offshored even faster than the manufacturing jobs which preceded them. No doubt the spectacle of their peers working their butts off in engineering school for 5+ years only to graduate to diminishing job prospects was probably enough to persuade many not to follow in their footsteps.

Next he proclaims the schools are broken, that we need to train more engineers and scientists, fund more research, etc.. No. That's what we've been doing all along and the jobs disappeared anyway.

Former Intel Andy Grove has a much better understanding of our situation. How to Make an American Job Before It's Too Late: Andy Grove

Andy understands that scaling up innovation is what makes innovation matter and it's the scaling up that is not taking place in America anymore. Scaling up is my specialty. I don't much care for pure research. But if you want to make a million of 'em, I'm your man. All this business has been airmailed to China to make big bonuses for corporate CEOs. And now everyone wonders why we don't make things anymore.

I have news for Norm Augustine. Flogging ourselves about the schools is not going to bring those jobs back. Further, America is not losing it's edge in innovation. The edge he refers to disappeared almost 2 decades ago.

There's a strong possibility that you're mistaken in your assertions there. There has been some reporting in the press that Wikileaks activists have actively eavesdropped on data by running one or more rogue Tor servers:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian?currentPage=all#ixzz0pWdlAepe
There has also been reporting as recently as today that Wikileaks actively gathered data from peer-to-peer file sharing networks:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-20/wikileaks-may-have-exploited-music-photo-networks-to-get-classified-data.html

Nokia are Number 1 in smartphones, by far, above 30% market share for 2010. Contrary to popular believe their market share in smartphones is *bigger* than their market share in dumb phones. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-10/nokia-s-market-share-slips-below-30-as-smaller-vendors-grow-gartner-says.html

You mean where she "knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda.''

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

And her defense fund was illegal too

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/24/sarah-palin-defense-fund_n_624833.html

Sorry but using the ethics laws as the boogyman and blaming the press just doesn't fly, it hamstrung Joe Miller's campaign and its not an excuse for quitting the job she was elected for.

He isn't pirating material, nor distributing pirated material.

And Sony knows that. That's not what the suit alleges.

GeoHot didn't hack the PS3 until Sony removed functionality.

That's immaterial.

And while you can argue circumventing copyright measures is illegal for any reason according to the DCMA, this isn't a criminal case

Circumvention in violation of the DMCA is also grounds for a civil suit, which is what this is.

and a federal judge has already opened the door saying jailbreaking an iPhone to get additional functionality (not piracy) is legal.

That wasn't a federal judge. It was the Librarian of Congress adding an exception to the DMCA.

Sony could actually hurt their own case by allowing a judge to rule against them.

That's very unlikely. For better or worse, this is precisely the kind of thing the anti-circumvention parts of the DMCA were designed to prevent / punish.

Here is a chart of the spending by department.

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=172

In my post, I may have overstated the size a bit. So I guess we have one additional option -- instead of eliminating two programs, we can eliminate one and then all other government spending. :-)

Here is an article placing the current US deficit at $1.5 trillion:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aNaqecavD9ek

Another interesting site is ShadowStats which shows a more accurate representation of government figures that they have been manipulating over the past three decades.

http://www.shadowstats.com/

What's another 2 trillion[1]?

The USA has already created many trillions since 2008, without hyperinflation of a "few thousand percent in one month". Seems like as long as they don't call it "printing money" nobody appears to notice or care that much.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=armOzfkwtCA4
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a7484bxHz7Bk

While it's still "printing money" if you lend money that doesn't exist, or borrow from a "financial smoke and mirrors scheme" to pay off a real debt, it seems as long as the smoke and mirrors are good enough, nobody asks too many questions about it. I doubt China would either - they'd take the trillions very quietly and try to convert it to stuff that's more tangible, before everyone else notices...

[1] Approximately:
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/chinas-debt-to-us-treasury-more-than-indicated/
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timcollard/100011049/america-owes-china-two-trillion-dollars-but-what-does-that-mean/

What's another 2 trillion[1]?

The USA has already created many trillions since 2008, without hyperinflation of a "few thousand percent in one month". Seems like as long as they don't call it "printing money" nobody appears to notice or care that much.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=armOzfkwtCA4
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a7484bxHz7Bk

While it's still "printing money" if you lend money that doesn't exist, or borrow from a "financial smoke and mirrors scheme" to pay off a real debt, it seems as long as the smoke and mirrors are good enough, nobody asks too many questions about it. I doubt China would either - they'd take the trillions very quietly and try to convert it to stuff that's more tangible, before everyone else notices...

[1] Approximately:
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/chinas-debt-to-us-treasury-more-than-indicated/
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timcollard/100011049/america-owes-china-two-trillion-dollars-but-what-does-that-mean/

In the real world, the longer you let someone hold your money, the better return you get. (Note the increasing coupon with increasing maturity.) This isn't some kind of academic use of the Law of Compound Interest, or some Wall Street quant's way of finding a microsecond's inequality in the market (which is, of course, the exception that proves the rule; it's called an "inequality" precisely because it's an unusual situation in which the short-term return is unexpectedly high).

Also, I did say that "[y]ou have better options and get a better return on your investment if you invest $100,000 than if you invest $1,000." It's even more true if you invest a million -- assuming you have one, of course, which is the subject under discussion.

Sandy Bridge implements treacherous computing.

http://www.naturalnews.com/z030209_placebo_medical_fraud.html
http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect?currentPage=all
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/03/press.htm
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL9910/S00096/rankin-on-thursday-where-communism-succeeded.htm
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2004/jul/15/the-truth-about-the-drug-companies/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-26/glaxo-said-to-settle-u-s-drug-manufacturing-lawsuit-for-750-million.html

Wired on the orginal article:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/the-truth-wears-off/

Anyway, this New Yorker article once again underscores the folly of going to extremes against common sense or long standing cultural traditions, based on some new scientific report or another, without looking at the broad big picture on overall weight of all the evidence we have from a variety of perspectives.

But even when there is a wide variety of good science, often policy ignores it.
Problems with the recent timid vitamin D recommendation:
http://www.grassrootshealth.net/recommendation
Dr. Joel Fuhrman on how much money the USA spends on sick care for very poor outcomes:
http://vimeo.com/16682935

We are not functionally bankrupt. The United States of America is point blank in fact bankrupt. If you believe the GOA numbers you really need to look at the actual balance sheets for the country. Congress has been playing games for years mislabeling liabilities so they don't show up in the grand total reports. They have effectively been lying to the country. We are so totally in debt we are completely screwed if there aren't some major serious changes right away.

We are actually $202 Trillion in debt, not $14 Trillion as the GOA would have you believe. The US nation GDP is only $14 Trillion currently. So even if you believe the GAO we are 100% in debt. If you look at the actual numbers we are 1450% in debt. So anyway you slice it we are in big freaking trouble, and must have some very serious, hard changes to how much we spend. Spending has got to come down by a huge percentage. We spend more than the government gets in revenue every year. The rough amount we over spend every year is $800 Billion a year and growing. This is a GOA number so it is probably in fact higher. This can not be allowed to continue or you can kiss our economy goodbye and just get ready for the same riots and problems as Europe. This could, and probably would, give us a depression that would make the "Great Depression" look like a tiny dip in the economy that didn't last very long. There is no guarantee this won't happen anyway.

Check out this article if you need a citation source.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-11/u-s-is-bankrupt-and-we-don-t-even-know-commentary-by-laurence-kotlikoff.html

If we don't change something by 2019 then we are looking at 92 cents of every dollar revenue received by the government will be spent on entitlement programs and interest on the debt. By 2020 100% of every dollar of revenue received by the government will be spent on entitlements and interest on the debt. So you can see, there is a major problem here that must be addressed.

Check out these articles if you need citation sources.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-silent-entitlements-monster-social-security-medicare-and-interest-on-the-debt-will-gobble-up-every-single-tax-dollar-by-2020
http://www.gao.gov/financial/fy2009/09frusg.pdf

None of this even addresses the huge problem of the Baby Boomers, who begin retiring next year (Jan 1, 2011) and there is no money to support them all. An average of 10,000 Baby Boomers will retire every day for the next 19 years. We may not even make it 2019 to even have to worry about the other problems. The pressure the Baby Boomers are going to put on entitlement programs is going to be massive. If they insist on all the benefits they have been promised over the years it will crush the American economy. There is no possible way for the government to be able to afford all of that.

I would guess that hard core budget cuts of about 25%-40% across the board is about the only way we might, and that's a big might, climb our way out of this mess. Squabbling about Democrats or Republicans, and who sucks more, will do zero to solve these problems. If America doesn't come together to make major changes, we will all go down together. I suspect once we fail that it will be a domino/ripple effect and you will see every other economy in the world fail. The EU is already teetering on the edge of the collapse, with the entire EU being brought down by the countries that have already failed, with more failures expected. The German court votes after the new year if it is against their Constitution to bailout other countries. If they decide that it is, the EU will be in for some major trouble and it will get

Because if we don't do some serious cuts to government spending then we might as well hole up in our homes and await the coming destruction of America. We are seriously in debt and have to do something about it now, not later. The national debt isn't $14 Trillion as the GOA would like for you to believe. It is actually $202 Trillion because Congress has been playing games with what they label as liabilities. America is basically bankrupt. So we have to do something bring spending under control and get that debt down, rather than spending more and letting our economy implode. Remember the national GDP is only $14 Trillion. So please explain how we are suppose to pay down $202 Trillion debt when we already spend more than the government gets in taxes by a large amount? Not to mention the debt is larger than our GDP.

Here is one of the many citations if you can't find it out on your own.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-11/u-s-is-bankrupt-and-we-don-t-even-know-commentary-by-laurence-kotlikoff.html

If you think they deficit is only $14 Trillion then you really have bought in to the lies from Washington. Look at the actually balance sheets of the government and you will see we are actually $202 Trillion in debt. Congress has been playing games with what they label as liabilities and that is what has gotten us in this mess.

Yes the Democrats are such geniuses that they pass spending bills with no clue how to pay for them other than to simply borrow more. Yea the tax bill with more unemployment and enough ornaments that it should have been called the Christmas Tree bill instead. How did they think any of that was going to be paid for? They didn't care as long as they got their ornaments, and it looked like they were doing something for unemployment. What they actually did was make everything worse for the entire country, including those unemployed. Now we are even deeper in debt and closer to the debt ceiling.

Someone want to tell me exactly how we are suppose to pay off $202 Trillion in debt when our GDP is only $14 Trillion? We are bankrupt people even if you don't want to believe it.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-11/u-s-is-bankrupt-and-we-don-t-even-know-commentary-by-laurence-kotlikoff.html

In 2007, Bloomberg notes, IBM was bullish on online immersive environments like Second Life. Big Blue certainly put its patent efforts where its predictions were - 250+ published IBM patent applications mention 'avatar' or 'avatars'.

The US gas production is more and more dependent on shale gas production, due to the progress of the hydraulic fracturing technique . Although the American Petroleum Institute claims that there this technique pose little or no threat to underground drinking water, environmentalists say otherwise and their voice has been gaining strength thanks to the recently released Gasland documentary film.
What is clear to me is that there is no reason to explain why Dick Cheney exempted the gas drilling industry from the Safe Drinking Water Act, but to protect the gas industry profitability...
To be fair with Democrats, I also have to say that Obama strongly supports shale gas extraction. Good luck, America!

Banks already do filter payments; you're not permitted to use them for money laundering or payments obtained through, for example, the sale of illegal drugs. Or should money laundering be protected under free speech regulations?

Too bad Wikileaks is not an international drug running or firearms smuggling organization, they appear to be more befitting "internal policies".

Of course they are. Lots of money involved in smuggling. Not so much money involved in free press.

You don't need Wikileaks or /. comments to see obvious evidence of fraud, corruption and criminal activity by BofA and all of the other big banks.

Municipal bond bid-rigging

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-24/bankers-rigging-municipal-contract-bids-admit-to-lying-to-cover-up-tracks.html

Failing to transfer mortgage notes into MBS trusts . . . but not keeping them on the balance sheets either? Hmmmmm.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/11/countrywide-routinely-failed-to-send-key-docs-to-mbs-trustees.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EconomistsView+(Economist's+View+(EconomistsView))
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-02/bofa-drags-balance-sheet-confidence-backward-commentary-by-jonathan-weil.html

These are great because a senior BofA executive testified under oath that BofA routinely never trasnferred mortgage notes to the mortgage trusts when they were sold as "Mortgage Backed Securities" i.e. they were really "Nothing Backed Securities"

Now, the funny part is that BofA is Disavowing the testimony of its own executive.

http://www.bankinvestmentconsultant.com/news/bofa-mortgage-2670073-1.html?zkPrintable=1&nopagination=1

If you need any further evidence of fradu and corruption, "4closurefraud.com" also has a mountain of dirt and evidence of fraud, forgery and corruption bu BofA and the other the big banks.

Anyone still doing business with these scumbags is either completely apathetic to the idea of "voting with your dollars" as a form of social activism, or just a fool.

You don't need Wikileaks or /. comments to see obvious evidence of fraud, corruption and criminal activity by BofA and all of the other big banks.

Municipal bond bid-rigging

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-24/bankers-rigging-municipal-contract-bids-admit-to-lying-to-cover-up-tracks.html

Failing to transfer mortgage notes into MBS trusts . . . but not keeping them on the balance sheets either? Hmmmmm.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/11/countrywide-routinely-failed-to-send-key-docs-to-mbs-trustees.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EconomistsView+(Economist's+View+(EconomistsView))
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-02/bofa-drags-balance-sheet-confidence-backward-commentary-by-jonathan-weil.html

These are great because a senior BofA executive testified under oath that BofA routinely never trasnferred mortgage notes to the mortgage trusts when they were sold as "Mortgage Backed Securities" i.e. they were really "Nothing Backed Securities"

Now, the funny part is that BofA is Disavowing the testimony of its own executive.

http://www.bankinvestmentconsultant.com/news/bofa-mortgage-2670073-1.html?zkPrintable=1&nopagination=1

If you need any further evidence of fradu and corruption, "4closurefraud.com" also has a mountain of dirt and evidence of fraud, forgery and corruption bu BofA and the other the big banks.

Anyone still doing business with these scumbags is either completely apathetic to the idea of "voting with your dollars" as a form of social activism, or just a fool.

This decision,' says the bank, 'is based upon our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments.'

Too bad Wikileaks is not an international drug running or firearms smuggling organization, they appear to be more befitting "internal policies".

Cost of both wars over 7 years: $1,124,390,382,240 http://costofwar.com/.

Deficit of a single year of Obama's budget: $1,500,000,000,000 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aNaqecavD9ek.

Budget deficit handed to Obama: $400,000,000,000 http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-02-04-budget-analysis_N.htm

Sticking it to the elitist /. crowd who think ending a 7 year war is the answer instead of reining in a president who spends that in a single year: priceless

Morons.

You know what's even worse for morale? When a company ultimately goes bankrupt because they didn't tighten up spending.

You are absolutely correct. I can even suggest how tightening up spending can easily save them over $40M/year.

It should make your brain hurt. There are nine supreme court justices, why in the hell is only 8 splitting a ruling for?

Why only 8 votes? Because the new Justice, though injustice is more appropriate here, is Elena Kagan who before her approval was President Barack Obama’s solicitor general and she argued before the USSC that they should decline to hear the case, that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had reached the right conclusion.

Falcon

...a loophole in regulations allows marketplaces like Nasdaq to show traders some orders ahead of everyone else in exchange for a fee.

It should please you to know that NASDAQ disabled Flash orders in their markets, and BATS encouraged the SEC to disallow flash orders long ago. I don't know whether the SEC has actually done any rules-lawyering on the issue, but both BATS and NASDAQ voluntarily shut this down over a year ago.

It's not risky at all. Read the Alaska Department of Revenue's forecast report.

You are correct. Unlike other states Alaska does increase the tax as oil prices rise. But guess who is responsible for that, Palin:

"Under Palin's plan, called ``Alaska's Clear and Equitable Share,'' oil company profits are taxed at a 25 percent base rate, up from the previous 22.5 percent. When the price rises to $30 over cost, or about $52 a barrel, the tax rate rises 0.2 percent for each dollar."
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aYdZoyTvFrTc&refer=home

Folks should flame her when she does something silly, but folks should also give her credit for things she got right.

it happened to other people. whether it happened to germans is irrelevant.

get out of the cave you are living in. or stop watching american news channels.

http://www.google.com/search?q=cia+kidnaps+and+tortures&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aqY5RMOCoXjE&refer=us

Apparently disclosing the following counts as an act of terrorism according to a certain republican:

* US diplomats spying on UN

* Canadian diplomats asking ExxonMobil and BP to help "kill" U.S. global-warming policies to ensure that "the oil keeps a-flowing" into the U.S.

* Yemen goverment lying to its people on US bombings

* US pressing Germany to not pursue arrest warrants for 13 agents CIA agents. (arrest warrents that the cables describe as "From a judicial standpoint, the facts are clear, and the Munich prosecutor has acted correctly.")

This is stuff that people need to know.

That's great that the Iraq War casualties are so low. Only 4,287 dead and 30,182 wounded. Of course that's not all the expected casualties. As of 2008, 20% of the 1.6 million vets from both wars are suffering from PTSD and it is expected that their post-combat suicide rate will produce more deaths than those KIA. Then there's the under/untreated TBI injuries, estimated at one in five soldiers. Then there's the little matter of the Iraqis, who have suffered anything from 100,000 dead to 650,000 excess dead (from just 2003-06) as reported in The Lancet. Then there's the cost of the war to the USA, estimated at $2.4 trillion by the Congressional Budget Office but this number is thought by other experts to be overly optimistic. For example, Joseph Stiglitz has estimated the cost to be higher than $3 trillion. Then there's the cost to Iraq. It was one of the most developed nations in the Middle East prior to the war, with ~90% of urban and ~50% of rural citizens enjoying access to modern water supply systems. Now, open sewers. Garbage pickup went from being efficient to being suicide by IED. Electricity has yet to match pre-war levels. One in three Iraqis now lives in poverty. Sectarian violence is still rampant. And we gave Islamic terrorist organizations a massive PR coup and recruitment tool with not only the invasion and occupation, but also the national disgrace of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, assorted covert torture destinations, and secret renditions. All this for a war that was in the planning stage by Sept, 2000. That's before the inauguration, and nearly a year before the 9/11 attacks. It was supported by intelligence that was badly out of date, circumstantial, and in many cases transparently fabricated like the yellowcake/spy outing scandal; the 81 mm aluminum tubes for uranium enrichment (which turned out to be tubes for conventional rocket bodies very similar to our own and wholly unsuitable to uranium enrichment and was pointed out in the original, unaltered intelligence reports that only White House officials got to see at the time but red-lined my bullshit meter when Powell mentioned it in 2003); and the laughably insane sooper sekrit anthrax production semi fucking trailers which was over the top obvious bullshit to anybody with minimal training in molecular biology. But you're right, we should be thankful that life-long fuckup W didn't fuck it up even worse.

As for AIDS, President Bush let ideology trump reality and wasted the money on a program that was at best ineffectual: "One of the White House's major aid initiatives, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), has wasted much of its funds on scientifically questionable programs designed to please American religious conservatives. Though studies show that only a comprehensive approach, including condom distribution, sexual education, and antiretrovirals, could reduce HIV, the White House insisted that PEPFAR spend one-third of its behavioral prevention budget on programs that promote abstinence until marriage. It also refused to let PEPFAR money go for programs like needle exchanges and aggressive condom promotion. Recipient nations had to sign an American pledge vowing to oppose prostitution, even though prostitutes are major carriers of HIV in Africa, and signing the pledge could scare PEPFAR recipients out of helping sex workers. Virtually no other major multinational donor agreed with PEPFAR's strategy. Even the administration's own inspector general responsible for overseeing aid couldn't prove that its methods had worked." As reported by CBS News. Heckuva job, heckuva job.

As your link says:

Westinghouse's readiness to transfer the technology for its AP1000 to China was a major factor in its selection.

Oh well, wait a while and buy your tech back from China. Hey the iPhone's designed in the US and made in China, too.

Might have some evil French tech included though: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-24/china-builds-french-designed-nuclear-reactor-for-40-less-areva-ceo-says.html

As for:

fierce opposition by just about everyone over air quality concerns.

Funny though, I keep hearing US people say the politicians aren't listening to them and just listening to Corporations. So which corporations opposed that? Not that I'm for building coal plants. I think nuclear is the way to go, but might be wise to look for a suitable nonuranium tech, because I believe China has already started grabbing as many cheap uranium supplies as it can.

Nuclear? China has already started: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China#Future_projects

They've even started preparing their uranium supplies and stock piles: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/35c2d7ca-f8c7-11df-b550-00144feab49a.html

They're already building nuclear reactors for 40% cheaper than the French (using French designs).

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-24/china-builds-french-designed-nuclear-reactor-for-40-less-areva-ceo-says.html

Wonder if they're of similar quality, but if I were in charge of stuff in China's nuclear power program, I'd definitely be making sure there are no major screw ups.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/11/18/ex-china-nuclear-power-boss-given-life-sentence/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kang_Rixin

You can't count on your screw ups being rewarded with a bail-out or golden parachute there. High stakes.

I don't even think there's a "golden bullet" option in executions, even if your family is willing to pay extra for it ;).

FedEx (and other carriers) handle materials like this all the time. Also, if you had bothered to do a little more research you would have found this article:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-26/fedex-seeks-missing-shipment-of-radioactive-rods-used-in-ct-scan.html

quoute:
"The recovered cylinder, which was about 10 inches long and weighed 20 pounds, contained four rods of germanium-68, used in medical-imaging cameras. Their total radioactivity is 684 megaBecquerels, the equivalent of about 18 microcuries, said David McIntyre, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The rods are among the least significant sources of radioactivity from health and security perspectives, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

If someone had opened the canister, “it would take like 1,000 hours of exposure to get a skin blister,” Munoz said."

I would because it would cut down on the crazy medical malpractices awards and maybe, just maybe, make healthcare affordable.

Rising healthcare costs have little to do with malpractice awards -- malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of healthcare spending. Malpractice costs have been estimated to be about $12 per American a year. So, if you completely eliminated them, you'd have...a dollar a month. Whoop de frickin' do.

"Tort reform" is a shibboleth for the right wing and a way to distract people from the enormous profits that health insurers and Big Phama extract from the system, not a serious proposal to reduce costs.

Congress cut taxes, not Bush, though it was his initiative. They also cut them for every tax bracket, not just the wealthy. The highest tax bracket still pays a higher percentage than the lower brackets under our 'progressive' tax system.

Horse shit. Unless your taxes are less than 2.4% then that is total horse shit. Let's put this into perspective as it relates to Ireland:

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

To quote the article:

Google is "flying a banner of doing no evil, and then they're perpetrating evil under our noses," said Abraham J. Briloff, a professor emeritus of accounting at Baruch College in New York who has examined Google's tax disclosures.

"Who is it that paid for the underlying concept on which they built these billions of dollars of revenues?" Briloff said. "It was paid for by the United States citizenry."

Without public funding, most of these companies wouldn't exist today and it certainly wouldn't be "global". Everything from research seed money through NIH to actual research sources such as DARPA are all federally funded. Without federal funding, there would be no internet, no cell phones, no interstate transportation system, etc... The list goes on and on. For any company to shirk their responsibility to support the country of their origin, or actively seek loopholes in the laws all while trying to get that country's government to make laws that favor them even more, now that's truly unpatriotic.

And while I'm on this rant, tell me why any country should do things like issue patents, enforce copyright and prosecute fraud against corporations when the corporations don't want any of that funded? After all, it is taxes that pays for all that and they don't want to pay taxes right?!?

This is a huge issue for Google. But not because of Google's operations in Ireland. Google's whole tax-avoidance strategy, which gets Google's tax rate down to 2.4% (!), is based on a tax strategy which exploits Irish law:

Google Inc. cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the last three years using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda.

Google's income shifting -- involving strategies known to lawyers as the "Double Irish" and the "Dutch Sandwich" -- helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries.

"It's remarkable that Google's effective rate is that low," said Martin A. Sullivan, a tax economist who formerly worked for the U.S. Treasury Department. "We know this company operates throughout the world mostly in high-tax countries where the average corporate rate is well over 20 percent."

The Bloomberg article describes how this works. Google "licenses its advertising technology" to "Google Ireland Holdings", which owns "Google Ireland Limited". That unit sells 88% of Google's $12.5 billion in non-US advertising. Google Ireland Limited then pays royalties to Google Netherlands Holdings B.V. in Amsterdam (which, according to Bloomberg, is a dummy company with no employees), to get the benefit of a tax break for royalties paid between European Union countries. Then Google Netherlands Holdings B.V. pays royalties to Google Ireland Holdings (headquartered in Bermuda) $5.4 billion in "royalties". "You accumulate profits within Ireland, but then you get them out of the country relatively easily. And you do it by using Bermuda." After all that, the tax liability has been laundered out of existence.

That's why Google is concerned about changes in Ireland's tax laws.

Here's a story at Bloomberg about Google's "Double Irish" arrangement:

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

ITYM the US should slap Google with a huge tax bill for running a bunch of business through Ireland's 12.5% tax rate rather than the Us 35% corporate tax rate in the first place. They are based in the US, after all. Google shelters itself from US taxes using Ireland and shelters itself from Irish taxes in Bermuda. It's not speculation on my part. It's all very well documented. The sad part is that right now it's all perfectly legal to move money around internationally for the express purpose of lowering the taxes paid.

• Bloomberg
• http://taxjustice.blogspot.com/2010/10/not-being-evil-google-pays-24-tax-rate.html">Tax Justice Network (which cites the Bloomberg article but discusses it further)
• Wikipedia entry on the "Double Irish" tax shelters

These arrangements allow Google, a US company, to put its sales of ads for everywhere outside the US into a wholly owned Irish subsidiary and lower the tax rate on all of those non-domestic sales to 2.4% when their domestic tax rate on profits is 35% and their Irish tax rate would normally be 12.5%. They screw the US with Ireland and then screw Ireland with Bermuda. Lots of other companies do the same, sometimes with the Caymans replacing or supplementing Bermuda. Sometimes they move money through The Netherlands or somewhere else for even more benefits.

Except they do contribute - indirectly. By exporting goods to other countries, those companies bring money into their host country, where they pay it out as wages, spend it on locally-purchased supplies, etc. The host country then has ample opportunity to obtain tax revenue via personal income, payroll, or consumption taxes.

Not in the Irish case. Companies "in Ireland for tax reasons" don't necessarily employ many people there. They just have to allocate certain revenues to an Irish subsidiary for tax purposes, and then re-"export" these same on-paper revenues to tax havens like Bermuda. The so called "Double Irish" and "Dutch Sandwich" (they use another holding company in Holland too) that meant Google paid only 2.4% tax rather less than Ireland's 12.5% to 25% rates. It doesn't depend on how many people you employ. Nor on actually making much in Ireland. Just on sharp practice to ensure that even the toilet cleaners at these countries pay higher rates of tax than the company does.

He's an amateur.

This is what I call a great cyberheist:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=armOzfkwtCA4
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aGvwttDayiiM

Or if fancy computer tricks are required:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/24trading.html
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/07/24/business/0724-webBIZ-trading.ready.html

He's an amateur.

This is what I call a great cyberheist:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=armOzfkwtCA4
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aGvwttDayiiM

Or if fancy computer tricks are required:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/24trading.html
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/07/24/business/0724-webBIZ-trading.ready.html

The Scandinavian case he mentioned is when the small bunch beat the robo traders, they go to jail.

When the robo traders screw up big time, the stock exchanges roll back their losses.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-06/nasdaq-to-cancel-trades-of-stocks-moving-more-than-60-in-market-plunge.html

They claim it was "someone hits the wrong button", but I think most slashdotters can guess what really happened :). Bug in computer programs - failure to handle corner cases or exceptions.

I understand a rollback if it's a bug in Nasdaq's programs that caused the problem. But if it's a bug in a trader's robo-program, the trader should eat the loss.

Otherwise, why shouldn't they cancel my trades if I ever lose more than 60% on Nasdaq? Or poker?

That's where the real profit is coming from - these people cheat and they get away with it.

Otherwise all those billions they make would be lost during the times they screw up.

It's their metascheme that is profitable. Not their actual schemes.

Metascheme= win, keep your winnings. Lose big? Stock exchange rolls back your losses. Lose really big? Government bailout.

Even I could make money like that. I just have a conscience and I wouldn't be able to fool myself on what I'm actually doing.

All that talk of liquidity and making the market more efficient is BULLSHIT. How the fuck is it more efficient if you have to do massive bailouts?

why is it that at economic peaks we always end up with the same 4% unemployment rate

The published unemployment rates don't mean much. The rate can fall while employing fewer people, due to workers abandoning the workforce or accepting 'underemployment.' That phenomenon is keeping contemporary unemployment figures lower than they probably should be according to this non-Murdoch source.

There is a more meaningful measure called the Labor force participation rate. It is a general measure of the state of the workforce; a simple ratio of workers to jobs. Since 1970 exposure to foreign labor has reduced the earning power of US workers. As a result the US household has put to wife to work to cover the shortfall and the Labor Participation Rate has grown rapidly. Today most households require two working adults.

Whether this is a good thing or not and what effect this has on the notion of 'family' and child-rearing is an exercise left to the reader. I note poor scholastic performance of US students, despite huge education budgets.

At one time a father could earn enough to support a household. A student could fund an education without debt. 12% of the US wasn't being fed by the Federal Government. This ended when the container ships from Asia started appearing.

Your 4% misses a few things.

Financially, it's not a success story for the company.

It is becoming one now.

Microsoft's Online Xbox Sales Probably Topped $1 Billion

Many new unit sales and subscriptions have been achieved due to Halo: Reach, proving once again that good software sells hardware (i.e. Apple's OS X).

Microsoft is learning.

Kinect will most likely garner quite a few more sales as well, and the technology of speech and full body recognition will similarly start making it's was across other platforms too. Touchscreens are cool, Jobs, but 3d motion control is the future IMO. Facial recognition, gestures, and most importantly, no mouse (left clicking, right clicking, dragging, etc.) opens up a whole host of new possibilities.

"Computer - Submit"

From the bloomberg article:

SAP said TomorrowNow, which provides software support to clients, was authorized to download materials from Oracle's Web site on behalf of TomorrowNow customers. The unit made ``some inappropriate'' downloads of fixes and support documents, SAP said.

In its lawsuit, Oracle said TomorrowNow used identities of Oracle customers and phony users to gain access to its systems. Customers for whom SAP allegedly conducted illegal downloads included Merck & Co. and Bear Stearns & Co., according to the March 22 lawsuit. Oracle didn't say how much the damage cost the company.

I admit I'm just guessing here, but it appears they used "Platinum" style support contracts to download some fixes to which regular joe-blow customers weren't entitled (like Microsoft has fixes for certain support contract customers) for their own use instead of their clients'.

Don't forget that the right wing mouthpieces had their part in affecting the debates. The whole "death panel" debacle was completely distorted rhetoric on something very sensible and important: end of life planning and counseling. Which was proposed by a Republican and accepted until it became too much of an albatross to carry.

You did realize the health care rationing panel was added in one of the stimulus bills. Tim S. See Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan: Betsy McCaughey http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs

It happened. All you need for proof is the fact that Boehner apologized for doing it, years after the fact Unless you think Bloomberg is too lefty a news site for you.

Actually so far, TARP has profited 8.2 percent netting taxpayers $25.2 billion.

There's a big difference with you borrowing US dollars from the bank and the US borrowing US dollars from China.

The US can legally create US dollars and already has created trillions (more than what it owes China):
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=armOzfkwtCA4
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/18/AR2009031802283.html

You can't.

The US has pwned China.

The US might have pwned itself more than it pwned China: the US not using its advantage wisely for the long term benefit of the US people but instead spending it on cheap toys and wars (and making a few people very rich) is not China's fault.