Domain: businessinsider.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to businessinsider.com.
Comments · 3,404
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Re:Why the government should subsidize?
Then why are they not all in Somalia? No taxes at all there. Because from the stats I've seen higher taxes on the wealthy lead to lower unemployement and greater economic growth yet all we hear from the right is "Give teh rich more MONIES! nom nom nom". If this strategy worked, why didn't Raygun sit on top of unprecedented growth? Oh right, we had a nice little recession after he cut the hell out of taxes on the rich.
Its actually quite simple, the rich hoard, the poor and middle class spend. All that money being hoarded? is dead money, its gone, poof! If they invest it it sure ain't here. No in the past 30 years we've had trickle upon, voodoo economics, the "hey lets have trade agreements with those with NO workers rights or environmental laws, that'll work!", two wars while CUTTING taxes, the first time in the entire history of the USA that's happened BTW, and "bailout baby bailout".
If the right were correct in their theory, why we should be having a hell of a economy, with jobs everywhere....oh wait, they used their tax breaks to close 21,000 factories in this decade alone. Why? Because in China they can poison the workers, the air, the water, and it costs them NOTHING. No OSHA, no clean air act, no workman's comp, they can give every worker cancer and all they'll get is fired.
Is that REALLY the America you want? Where your kids play outside wearing gas masks so they don't get sick, and where your ass better have enough money for purified water or you will suck down so many toxins you might as well drink gasoline? Personally I like having clean air, water, and not working in sweatshops, thanks. of course that must make me an evil socialist since I don't support everything that can be done to maximize profits, which in the end is all the right gives a fuck about.
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Re:Pooling some money?
This dude has a different take on Yahoo, and is actually big on it:
cheers,
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Re:Why build a brand new ghost townThere are a lot of existing city locations that could be used for this purpose. Two candidates are Las Vegas and Riverside county in Southern California. There are large tracts of existing houses that are empty that the banks would love to unload. The people who own houses here have all seen their value drop by large amounts. A government buyout would be great for them as well.
This article lists Riverside/San Bernadino a having the worst outlook for recovery of the housing market. http://www.businessinsider.com/thirteen-housing-markets-that-will-never-recover-2010-5#1-riverside-ca-housing-prices-are-down-52-and-unemployment-is-at-18-13
Housing prices are down 52% and unemployment is at 18%. Why build a bunch of new empty houses when some many new houses are sitting idle right now?
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Re:I don't see how it is illegal.
ATT isn't buying T-Mobile in order to get a corner on the market. They are buying them to expand their network so they can have a hope of competing with Verizon.
You believed that line too? Too bad it's not true
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Re:weekly
Walmart has more employees:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/performers/companies/biggest/employees.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-employees-payBut the USPS is probably second place or so.
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Re:I agree
I have always believed that tablets were a very small niche application.
You are shockingly wrong.
They can not, and will not replace real computers.
Theoe apple fanboys really can distort perceptions when they get going.
So after selling a hundreds of millions of iDevices - is everyone in the world beside you an "Apple Fanboy" ?
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Re:Does anyone actually use tablets?
Except for the fact that at least one study has shown users actually spend more time using their tablet the longer they have it.
I own one; I use it as: an e-reader (kindle, ibooks, and unsecured epubs downloaded from third parties), general web browser, occasional netflix device when traveling & wifi supports it, email (reading, and sending for "lightweight" personal emails), portable "stereo" when traveling - with a small set of external speakers, does quite well at playing some music to listen to while I work; instapaper is a killer application - save stuff I see and want to look at later during the day at work, pull up Instapaper and review my stuff that night; RSS reader; Sirius device (with portable speakers & wifi, works great); occasional skype; news; great when covered by a ziploc bag for working with recipes in the kitchen, a little dicking around with some various musical apps (virtual piano works surprisingly well & guitar chord reference are nice); and yes, the occasional games - crosswords, plants vs. zombies, tetris, words with friends - casual stuff with family and friends.
I've owned it for a good 8 months now... novelty hasn't worn off quite yet, and I'd honestly say my experience mirrors the findings of the study linked above: I've found MORE, not less, to do with it over time. It gets an hour of two of casual usage every day, more when I'm traveling - I still find it quite useful, even with having a laptop to take with me when I travel.
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Re:Clueless haters...
As the article points out - why did Samsung choose a sunflower of all things for photos icon?
The resemblance between the 'media player' icon and the old iTunes icon is also a very close match.
The address book having a silhouette of a bust is suspect (but far from obviously wrong - let the court decide), as is choosing the icon they did for a notepad.
The "gear" for settings is, I think, not defensible; KDE's been using it for ages.
After further investigation, though, I haven't been able to find the design patents I spoke of. I've found numerous references that computer icons are valid material for a design patent (as well as a trademark and copyright.) Talk about a trifecta from hell... you can have something covered with copyrights, trade dress, and patents.
An look at the claims, with numbers:
I'm pretty sure both Samsung and Apple will be found to infringe something in the other's IP chest.; it's foolish to think that either is innocent. Samsung has a history of copying designs from other makers, and of playing the lawsuit game.
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Re:Clueless haters...
As the article points out - why did Samsung choose a sunflower of all things for photos icon?
The resemblance between the 'media player' icon and the old iTunes icon is also a very close match.
The address book having a silhouette of a bust is suspect (but far from obviously wrong - let the court decide), as is choosing the icon they did for a notepad.
The "gear" for settings is, I think, not defensible; KDE's been using it for ages.
After further investigation, though, I haven't been able to find the design patents I spoke of. I've found numerous references that computer icons are valid material for a design patent (as well as a trademark and copyright.) Talk about a trifecta from hell... you can have something covered with copyrights, trade dress, and patents.
An look at the claims, with numbers:
I'm pretty sure both Samsung and Apple will be found to infringe something in the other's IP chest.; it's foolish to think that either is innocent. Samsung has a history of copying designs from other makers, and of playing the lawsuit game.
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Re:Clueless haters...
Simply wrong. This is a patent suit, not copyright or trademark. Have a look at the patent in question. THAT is what Apple is claiming they should have a worldwide exclusive right to.
That is what Samsung is countering by showing very similar designs from the '60s.
However, looking at the side by side of the icons, I remain unconvinced even there. The phone icon is predated by Bell using something like that on payphone pedestals for ages if Apple has a case against Samsung there, then Bell should sue Apple. Flowers of various sorts are commonly used for photo icons. Gears are likewise commonly used for configuration and such (If Apple has a case against Samsung on that one, then MS has a case against Apple).
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Re:Long term, it is a good thing...
Last thing I read on it was from April in this article: http://www.businessinsider.com/next-xbox-may-be-profitable-on-day-one-2011-4 Seems like the business segment containing Xbox is down 5.5 billion over its lifetime, but has been turning a profit for each of the last 11 quarters.. they may be down overall, but they're going to break even here pretty quickly; even more so if they decide not to go the hardware loss route with the next xbox.
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Re:Without R&D investment, innovation WILL fal
R&D Expenditures for Tech Companies. As a percentage of revenue, Microsoft is highest (14.6%), followed by Cisco (14%) and Google (12%). Apple is down at the bottom with 2.3%.
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Re:Sad, sad, sad.
I hope that HP will somehow weather the turbulence and emerge stronger than ever.
Interesting article from Business Insider saying that becoming software only company riskier, but more lucrative. Also, next step is to buy RIM?
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Re:ughHave you been paying attention to Facebook at all in the last few years? Here's a quote from Zuckerburg:
Zuck: [Users] "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucksThe fact is later he actually did use people's information to hack into private email addresses and read them, in an attempt to get better news coverage for his website. He basically sucks.
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Don't distract them with facts
They're on a roll. Don't distract them with facts.
The fact that Google is buying Motorola Mobility is interesting itself of course, but the reportage is interesting too. It's getting a ton of press, almost all of it gloom and doom. BusinessInsider goes on about some of the major properties in the deal, but misses some major ones like factories around the world, an ARM Architectural license, and other things.
I don't think this is a bad deal for anybody involved. Sure, MMI isn't an earnings star right now - but they just finished a painful reorg and are on track to do very well now that it's over. Even at their worst they weren't burning WP7 marketing kinds of money. Their share has been declining, but they still have more of the market than WP7 does. Google gets some more patents for their growing defensive arsenal, which means the rest of us get to keep getting ever-better shiny Android widgets. Google's Android partners get a tough defender - and now it looks likely they'll be able to assemble a patent pool terrifying in extent. Moto might even stop with that Blur and locked bootloader nonsense. Moto doesn't get carved up and eaten by another phone vendor. The US factories don't close. There's lots to be happy about.
As you note, it's barely a dent for google. Google will make almost as much income in the time it takes for the deal to close, or half as much at least. People were already complaining Google was hoarding cash. MMI will probably spin off some money too.
So why the panic? I suppose it's disruptive. On Friday a lot of folks thought they had a plan to kill Android. Now they're going to have to go back to the drawing board. People don't like too much change.
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Re:Analysts are idiots
The people have a choice and it is pretty obvious how they have spoken.
Yes, and that choice is, "buy a new Android phone to replace my existing Android phone, or buy a new WP7 phone to replace my existing Android phone?" Unless there's a compelling reason to switch, people will stick with what they know. This doesn't mean that consumers "demand Android," it means they already have Android phones - likely because the iPhone wasn't available on their carrier, or they absolutely hate Apple and refuse to buy Apple products (seriously: read about some of the attitudes here http://www.businessinsider.com/smartphone-survey-results-2011-4?op=1), and now that they have an Android model, they're sticking with it because it's easier than switching. "Not hating" something isn't the same as "demanding" something.
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Re:I for one...
In no way does Apple fit into any of these categories
You have a very short memory. iPod had greater than 80% marketshare years ago before iPhones came along and canabalized them. Most of us would agree >80% == Monopoly, so stick your head in the sand if you'd like...
With that monopoly, Apple introduced a music store online with DRM'ed music files. RIAA required DRM to do business online, so Apple created Fairplay. Apple refused to license Fairplay to other stores and device makers so only iTMS files could play on the iPods that everyone had and only iPods could play the files sold at iTMS. Apple then rolled out more content... books, movies, and tv shows. Also encrypted with FairPlay
After a short period of time, the iTMS became the largest music store in the world. iTMS beat out traditional brick and mortar retailers like Wal-Mart. Next Apple rolled out iOS. Again, only iOS devices (iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch) could play these encrypted files. Although iOS is starting to face competition from Android in the phone market, it gave Apple another monopoly in tablets.
And iOS is where this anti-competitive behavior has really become blatant. Now, you cannot even write an app for these devices without getting Apple's permission. It's like Fairplay all over again, except it is for apps. If you compete with Apple, they shut you out entirely. Your app will never see the light of day. They have created a system that offers them complete control over the market for apps. And once again, they've creating a monopoly.
But you go ahead... stick your fingers in your ears and shout "I can't hear you!"
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Bing vs. Google
The claims of Hitwise don't explain why I keep finding things like Microsoft service pack download pages better through google than through bing.
That's because unlike Google, Bing doesn't favor its own services over others. Google favors their news service, maps, YouTube, shopping and every other service over others. Bing returns results objectively.
There are also differences in algorithms. Bing doesn't count so called junk-links while Google does. Bing prefers link inside good, relevant content. Google, on the other hand, counts all kinds of links. That's also why Google is full of shitty results, as SEO spammers game the system by spamming links to blog comments and every other place where they can get it. As Bing doesn't count those links almost at all it means their results are much more cleaner.
The problem Bing is facing is that they cannot get as much user data from searchers as Google. They miss a lot of long-tail keyword data that Google gets just because of their dominant market share. They also miss a lot of data of what result user thinks is relevant and good for the search query (both Google and Bing track which result user clicks on) and how much they spend on the site (both services again track if you return back from that result - if you come back quickly, it's obviously worthless result for the query). This is also the same reason why Bing toolbar gathers that data on users who use Google - the same thing that somehow got twisted in slashdotters heads as Bing scraping and stealing results from Google. The only thing they do is collect that click data.
Judging by the usual slashdot response of "but they should just improve their algorithms", people don't seem to get how immersively complex current search engines and their algorithms are. It's not just about following links on other websites - we have been past that for almost 10 years now. Algorithms are the base of the search engine, but they're almost worthless without all the keyword and usage data that really powers them. That is also why Google is so keen to collect every single piece of information they can get their hands on.
Microsoft has done a lot of things correctly with Bing. I would say their algorithms are even better than Google's, as they're able to compete with much smaller market share and data against Google and actually provide better results. It has come a long way from the Windows Live Search days. -
Re:Speculative Ramblings
Exactly. As it has been pointed out Android has a patent fee. http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-ballmer-android-isnt-free-it-has-a-patent-fee-2010-10 And more recently http://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2011/08/09/in-major-win-for-apple-galaxy-tab-10-1-banned-in-europe/ Now that Android has proven it's self and has a strong foot hold expect more and more companies trying to get some money off of it.
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Google paid Apple for the same thing.
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Re:It already is a major, massive source of energy
You should read up on the concept of Resource Curse. In fact, your region has already dealt with those issues twice according to your post (coal, timber). Yes, you make money in the short term which is hard to ignore because long term your region has gone through several boom bust cycles and you're in one of the 'bust' times at present.
Shale gas, while interesting and perhaps important in the short term suffers from two significant drawbacks. First is the fallout from hydrofracking. As several posters have pointed out, this is a technical issue and can be mitigated by best practices. Which somehow never seem to happen (cf, the nuclear power industry). The second is harder to escape. It is a very short term resource. In 5-10-20 years (not the 100 year timeframe that is bandied about by industry), the pressures will drop to unusable levels. Yes, you can 're frack' but that's expensive and natural gas (currently) isn't.
So, you're back to another resource that temporarily brought some economic good to the region, allowed a few lucky people to cash out and trashes the environment for everyone for long periods of time. You all should at least take the hint from Alaska and try to keep the money in state a bit longer.
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Re:Google released info on accident?
Last I heard google has not commented on the accident.
It was in the first article on any news site:
A Google spokesperson gave us this quote about the accident: "Safety is our top priority. One of our goals is to prevent fender-benders like this one, which occurred while a person was manually driving the car."
http://www.businessinsider.com/googles-self-driving-cars-get-in-their-first-accident-2011-8
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crash
What? Did China finally manage to crash their robotic car?
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Re:Maybe they're making a point?
So this is like the twentieth "They're just making a point!" post from Google fans. Ignoring the fact that every other company could claim that too, did you know Sergey Brin filed a patent for Google Doodles--a.k.a., the changing of their logo for special events and holidays?
The patent describes their revolutionary method of simply uploading a new logo:
"A non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores instructions executable by one or more processors to perform a method for attracting users to a web page, comprising: instructions for creating a special event logo by modifying a standard company logo for a special event, where the instructions for creating the special event logo includes instructions for modifying the standard company logo with one or more animated images; instructions for associating a link or search results with the special event logo, the link identifying a document relating to the special event, the search results relating to the special event; instructions for uploading the special event logo to the web page; instructions for receiving a user selection of the special event logo; and instructions for providing the document relating to the special event or the search results relating to the special event based on the user selection."
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What a great picture of Zucker they chose
FTFA: He looks like a fish. What are the odds that they're intentionally trying to make him look dumb in an article about Anon's intent to dismantle his cash cow?
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Re:All computers are less secure
Watch out, once they lose the forced and convoluted arguments to support Apple and discredit MS, this what they will degenerate to:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/188807/mac_worm_author_receives_death_threats/
After all
,it's a religion. -
Re:Mortgage Backed Securites
Most of the public debt of the US is actually held in the US as investments by various companies, investment funds, retirement plans, and individuals. If you are going to make some wild claim at least provide some evidence to back it up. If the provided link isn't enough how about this one that show the breakdown of the US debt that is foreign owned. China owns about 20% which is about $900 billion so extrapolating from that the total foreign held debt is about $4.5 trillion.
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Re:Their crappy math got us here in the first plac
I heard Robert Reich make that point weeks ago on NPR. Here's one of several rants on the topic: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-sp-has-no-business-downgrading-the-us-2011-8
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how our debt happened
Good post by Klein: how our debt happened.
It is also worth to note that the downgrade is not because of any near term debt problem in the US. The reason given by S&P is that the disfunctional political system in the US at the moment (i.e. the extreme elements taken over the republican party) makes S&P believe that the long term debt problem (i.e. the next decades) will not be dealt with properly. Like this statement:
Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.
A last point is how misinformed people in general is on this topic about the US economy and debt (just read some of the slashdot posts here getting modded up). It seems to be the medias responsibility to be fair and balanced and actually call out republicans talking nonsense about what the debt problem is.
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Re:Again
Get some perspective. Take a deep breath and repeat: we're discussing a preference for certain technical solution, not a religion.
Not a religion? Some might disagree.
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Google is a very hostile company
Google is a very hostile company, but people are so used to viewing them as the benevolent Linux-using company that they don't see it. Google's hostility comes from their use of search monopoly profits to prop up their products in other markets and destroy other businesses. Once upon a time, Microsoft was regularly trashed on Slashdot for using monopoly profits to destroy other businesses--the biggest sin being giving away Internet Explorer for free to dismantle companies that had no choice but to charge for their browsers. This is exactly what Google does with Android and with any of the services it prominently displays at the top of its search results page. Remember that Google once responded to antitrust concerns by stating that its search results page was entirely algorithmically objective, but that has since been disproved--certain hard-coded search terms will display Google's services at the top of the results page, above more popular services.
Google's biggest problem is that they started out with a perception of being the good guys based on an irreverent self-awareness ("Don't be evil"), which has let to an inaccurate sense of self, just like when Microsoft started out believing they were the upstarts overthrowing IBM. Google thinks that it's not a big deal if they withhold Android source or snoop data from neighborhood wifi networks or use monopoly profits to buyout or drive away competitors in other markets. They think they're still some kind of friendly engineers' playground with a sense of humor. It's as if they're not aware that they're a for-profit megacorp whose business relies on selling people's personal data and that their poor behavior has major consequences. They seem to believe that by talking about openness all the time, it somehow negates hypocrisies like bundling of Flash in Chrome or signing non-neutral Internet deals with phone carriers just to prop up Android.
Google still has the support of many techies, and they maintain that appeal by pretending to be an open source company. But if Google is all about open source, where is the source code for their core business, the search engine and advertising platform? Where are the algorithms for users to poke at? Google's data-indexing is as closed source and proprietary as Windows. If open source is about providing freedom for users to obtain the source of the software they use daily, where is the outcry over the fact that Google has taken over most of the internet with a closed-source product?
It seems like the last couple of years have really exposed a bad upper-management element within the company. Google is trying to destroy or buy out as many competitors in as many markets as it can, just like Microsoft did when they had a monopoly, and just like practically every other company does when they have a monopoly. The monopoly profits are used to flood new markets with low-priced or free products, often bundled, that existing competitors are incapable of competing with because they must charge for their products. Again, Microsoft received so much shit for that behavior, year after year, and it seems that few have noticed that Google is doing the exact same thing. It doesn't matter if their product is based on Linux. That doesn't make it right. If you respond by saying that competitors should just come up with a better product in order to compete, that's exactly what Microsoft and its supporters said in the days of their antitrust investigation.
What happened to the Google that just had a cool search engine? Why is it taking advantage of search monopoly profits to either buy out or crush every competitor in every non-core market? Why do they talk about openness when their core business is based on a search and advertising engine that is not open source?
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Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri?
Dude, Missouri is the fattest state in the country,
Sorry, you're not. You don't even make the top ten. The fattest (i.e. most obese) state is Mississippi. Don't believe me? See the results for yourself.
One word of warning: The pictures they show of fat people may put you off your lunch. -
Re:Vista used more than Mac, wOw!
Who needs $1500 Macs when you have users willing to rebuy marginally improved $500 phones or tablet year after year? Or rebuy them after dropping them in the street, off the sailboat, or leaving them in a taxi?
Supporting stats March qtr. iPad shipments: 4.69 million, March qtr. iPhone shipments: 18.65 million, March qtr. Mac shipments: 3.76 million
There used to be Apple II vs Mac camp at Apple. Apple II lost out. It's obvious what the excitement and moneymaker at Apple is now.
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Re:Ponzi Scheme
ever since then the USD has been worth nothing
Tell that to Japan and China, they have around 1 trillion dollars (each) http://www.businessinsider.com/who-owns-us-debt-2011-7?op=1
And Japan got to the trillion $ mark a long time ago.
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Re:J/MW?
It's not a measure of efficiency. Nothing in the original post claimed it was. It is, however, a legitimate measure of the social benefit created by the industry. Much has been written about the jobless recovery that has created enormous profits for a small number of people without helping most of the population. If subsidies for fossil fuels merely inflate the already egregious oil company profits, while subsidies for solar energy create jobs, that is a clear advantage to the latter.
This is independent of questions of efficiency (megawatts/dollar), environmental impact, etc. -
Re:Google-oply
Oh, hey, Jim Goldman, didn't you Facebook people get busted a couple of month ago for astroturfing against Google? Give it up, man, everybody's on to you.
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Re:A bit ironic ...
That would be a GREAT way for us to have our own Arab spring, along with some nice looting and murder of the rich and
...oh wait, that is a BAD idea. In case you've missed the memo thanks to congress critters handing bailouts and tax breaks with NO strings attached we have lost 41,000 FACTORIES in just the past decade, the business districts of many places are ghost towns, and thanks to inflation and congress freezing cost of living adjustments many are barely above starving.Frankly the ONLY thing keeping the USA from the massive rioting being seen by other countries is the safety net that is honestly keeping many Americans alive. In my own town you see signs painted on cars saying "looking for work call xxx" because there simply aren't jobs to be had, the last major factory went to Mexico last year since they can pay a Mexican pennies and get NO penalty when they bring it across the border thanks to NAFTA, and as we have seen many in congress are paying their own "Maria Imigra" illegals to do their dirty work.
So personally with the "let them eat cake" attitude by the tea baggers I wouldn't be surprised if instead of raising taxes on the 1%ers (BTW GE not only paid NO taxes for most of the decade but actually got a tax BREAK, which they used to send one of their last USA plants to India. You PAID for that,happy?) they gut the safety net but mark my words, masses of starving and homeless have NO reason not to riot, NO reason not to loot, NO reason not to burn the place to the ground. Hell look at the guy in NC that held up a bank for $1 just so he could get healthcare in jail. THAT is how bad things are out there right now and cutting what little safety net there is risks lighting the powder-keg and starting our own revolution as the ME is having now.
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Re:Rewrite the Constitution or face default!
Yes, Democrats are absolved because they have made major concessions, e.g. the Reid plan you just mentioned
You mean this Reid plan? http://www.businessinsider.com/reid-introduces-democratic-deficit-plan-2011-7
"His deficit reduction package would not include entitlement reform"
"includes $1 trillion in savings from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
"$1.2 trillion would come from cuts to discretionary spending, while another $400 billion would come from interest savings. The plan does not detail where the discretionary program savings would come from."Major concession??? What major concession? Entitlement reform isn't addressed as all, half the bulk of the savings come from "unwinding wars" (which is cuts to things Republicans are actually interested in), and the other half of the bulk isn't even detailed. What you call a "major concession" I call a smoke screen.
When they put forward a plan that contains real entitlement reform or detailed extensive spending cuts (as in exactly where the money comes from) that doesn't resort to using projected savings of things that were already going to happen (unwinding the wars) as a cost point, maybe I'll agree with you.
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Wrong Again!!!
The Bush tax cuts resulted in an acceleration of the 2000 recession and the high point was LOWER than the peak in the 90's.
Because of the Bush tax cuts we had the second most abysmal recovery EVER in 2001-2003. The only worse recover was his SECOND recession 2008-2009.
When you actually compare change in GDP to the top marginal tax rate you find that they are essentially independent. You can set it at historic lows or historic highs like in the 40's when it was at 95% and the economy gows humming righ along.
In fact you find a very slight BENEFIT from higher taxes to a point.
If you chart out the performance of the GDP according to the top marginal tax rate you actually find that our economy has been MOST effective at a tax rate of 60% (yes Six-Zero).
This actually makes sense because if the top tax bracket is high than owners/investors whill choose to not realize (take home) the profit and instead will tend to reinvest which boosts the economy.
Now it is true that in the past under certain situations lowering taxes helps. Like when Kennedy lowered them from 90 to 75%. But in general this is rare. For instance, when Regan cut taxes in the early 80's he triggered a recession. The recession was only resolved after he raised taxes 5 seperate times.
In virtually every case a tax cut has directly lead to a worsening economy the next year while a tax increase (to a point) has resulted in an improved economy the next year.
Take a look at this analysis: http://www.businessinsider.com/a-few-graphs-on-real-gdp-growth-rates-versus-taxes-and-the-size-of-government-2011-1
It is very interesting and simple enough for even me to replicate.
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Re:This also means...
Do you calculate the Android market-share by chance?
Here's a fun fact, the iPhone didn't beat out RIM (Blackberry) in market share until mid 2011. You know, the company everyone says has been dying for the past few years. It took tons of "RIM is dying" press and, of course, a significant lack of new handsets for RIM the "dying" RIM to finally slip behind to supposed "market leader".
The iPhone was a distant #3 or worse for years. That they're a distant #2 now should make Cheerful Mac Fanboy's happy, not sad.
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Re:This just proves
The top 2% of Americans own 80% of the wealth
Nope, it's closer to 20% own 80% of the wealth:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/10/estimates-of-wealth-distribution-are-widely-wrong
Is it fun pulling numbers out of the air to try to make your point?
And just because you aren't in the top 2% or top 20% doesn't make you poor.
The ratios aren't precisely 100:1...
If by 'aren't precisely' you mean 'aren't anywhere close too', then your statement is correct.
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Re:Yes, for now
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Re:More like
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks.Good enough reason NOT to use Facebook.
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Re:RED BRIGADES?
"this picture" ?
Doesn't he look like THIS MAN?
http://static7.businessinsider.com/image/4d6c271ccadcbb3b132c0000/linus-torvalds.jpeg -
Re:Shipping share vs. market share
Samsung didn’t give any figures, but when a company describes sales of a flagship product as “quite small,” you better believe those sales are microscopic.
As you heard, our sell-in was quite aggressive and this first quarterly result was quite, you know, fourth-quarter unit [figure] was around two million. Then, in terms of sell-out, we also believe it was quite small. We believe, as the introduction of new device, it was required to have consumers invest in the device. So therefore, even though sell-out wasn’t as fast as we expected, we still believe sell-out was quite OK.
This was back when people were touting the "2 million Galaxy Tabs" sold when in fact that was just the shipped figure and then Samsung is saying the sales were "quite small". Yes, that would lead very much to believe that it is "dramatically less". Otherwise, if the sales were so great why don't they quote the actual sales numbers rather than the shipped numbers? Businesses do this to hide the fact that actual sales suck.
This would be true, except that later that day (or perhaps the next day) a redaction was submitted, saying he was misunderstood. What he really said was "quite smooth".
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Re:G+ just needs some games
Zynga and Facebook are very much in bed together (excellent recent article on the subject). If Zynga were to go to a competitor, Facebook might start making their OWN games (something they've never done, since they've always worked so closely with Zynga).
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Re:howzabout looking at this rationally for once?!
BS. It's not popular to talk about it, but due to age demographics social security is fucked.
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Re:Why don't we give the pirates a choice
Uhhh...been there done that. Didn't you ever see "Black Hawk Down"? That was the USA trying to keep enough order that famine relief could be brought in to help the starving. Instead every warlord and jihadist snatched everything that wasn't nailed down for their troops and for good measure used the US soldiers as target practice.
If the EU wants to go in there fine, but we kinda have our hands full with trying to keep the reps from tossing our credit rating in the hopes of stomping on the poor and elderly some more by making sure they don't get their checks next month (I swear they need to change their logo from an elephant to the monopoly guy lighting a $100 bill while standing on the poor) not to mention the THIRD war the president now has us involved in, showing us that "Hope & Change (TM)" had fine print that read "I Hope nobody notices the only Change was from a R to a D on the door".
Finally, and I'm sure I'll get hate for pointing it out but I don't give a fuck, the truth is the truth, everything I've seen proposed with regards to "climate change" (I love how they switched it from global warming, so no matter what happens the name fits) has been a GIANT SCAM like carbon credits, led by Rev Al Gore who has set himself up to be a carbon billionaire and just to show his balls are REALLY big has the nerve to claim farting around on his Lear jet and having a home so large it has its own basketball court indoors is "carbon neutral" since he pays himself credits from his own company which would be like moving money from your left to right pocket and claiming its "wealth redistribution" and demanding a tax break for it!
Oh and it might interest some here to know one of the chief architects of credit default swaps, you know the thing that helped slaughter the economy? Well guess who is writing the rules on cap & trade? Yep from the very same people who brought you "lets treat the market like Las Vegas baby!". And I would also point out that NEVER, not even once, have you seen Rev Al Gore come out for increased tariffs on China or India, two of the biggest growing polluters on the planet and who have already said they won't play the carbon swap game. Why? Because he and his friends MAKE MONIES off of them silly!
So I'm sorry but until we see a plan that doesn't consist of "hey you should give large chunks of money to me and my friends, while helping China and India to completely bury your economy!" then I say they can all fuck right off. We have three wars, an economy that has lost more than 20,000 FACTORIES to outsourcing not jobs mind you, whole factories, and a shamefully porous border that is killing Americans daily. So frankly we have bigger things to worry about that guarding some probes. Let the EU do it.
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Re:Patents
Yeah, and regarding the second one - lets hope HTC's first touchscreen phone in 2002 wasn't doing any of the "real time serial signal processing" Apple say they invented and started using with their first phone in 2007. HTC are probably ok, since as everyone knows phones couldn't deal with real time signals before Apple's miracle, and users had to be content with being told they "don't need that" until its triumphant descent from the heavens to the earth.
Motorola, the actual inventor of the cellphone (first call 1973), must have a patent or two under its belt. Why doesn't this newcoming upstart try throwing its weight around with them? Its one thing to piddle about with UI stuff, but does their arrogance stretch beyond that to the actual guts of phones and networks of the kind widely in use way back even when Steve Jobs was lying in court that he was a father? Oh, wait... they're American.
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Re:In related news
Do you have some current numbers? Because at 550k activations per day if Android hasn't caught up yet, it will soon.
http://www.businessinsider.com/android-iphone-market-share-2011-4