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Warren won't buy Microsoft stock because the entire world would be throwing insider trading accusations at him.

I—well, Microsoft is a special case because Microsoft is off bounds to us because of my friendship with Bill and if we spent seven months buying Microsoft stock and during that period they announced a repurchase or increase of the dividend or an acquisition, people would say you've been getting inside information from Bill. So I have told Todd and Ted and I apply it myself that we do not ever buy a share of Microsoft. I think Microsoft is attractive but that—but we will never buy Microsoft. It—people would just assume I knew something and I don't, but they would assume it and they would assume Bill talked to me and he wouldn't have. But there's no sense putting yourself in that position.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/45290263

This article explains why QE isn't printing money.

Maybe you should read it.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100760150

And if you think only Americans without health insurance face financial troubles, think again. NerdWallet estimates nearly 10 million adults with year-round health-insurance coverage will still accumulate medical bills that they can't pay off this year.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100840148

Winklevoss twins. http://www.cnbc.com/id/101190181

I you believe their comments here, @120$ in the article, they feel it has 100x to go... that would be... $12000? Still a ways to go yet if their
prediction is right.

"281 million individual bills weighing a total of 363 tons" , so make sure you do the right planning http://www.cnbc.com/id/45031100, but will the next campaign be funded via Bitcoins?

The problems seem to go beyond that. It is now being reported that major subsystems are not even implemented. The "plan" seems to have been to implement the "sign up" subsystem by October. Now we have learned that other subsystems were not to be implemented until Jan 2014. Ex:

"A crucial system for making payments to insurers from people who enroll in that federal Obamacare marketplace has yet to be built, a senior government IT official admitted Tuesday. The official, Henry Chao, visibly stunned Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) when he said under questioning before a House subcommittee that a significant fraction of HealthCare.gov—30 to 40 percent of it—has yet to be constructed ... Chao on Tuesday said other areas that need to be built include "the back-office systems, the accounting systems."" http://www.cnbc.com/id/101211556 [cnbc.com]

This "learning moment" for IT project management is going to be with us for a while.

Oh please - we already implemented it in the True West - CA and WA are way ahead of you.

So you are pointing out that some things can be better done at the state level? Who is making big government red state arguments in this discussion? :-)

Stop pushing your Big Government Red State solutions when Blue States have solutions that already work.

So directly quoting "a senior government IT" official testifying before Congress and characterizing the situation as a teachable moment for IT project management is a political statement in your opinion? Well, that is a interesting perspective you have there. Are you sure you know who is viewing things through a political lense in this conversation?

By now, most Americans have either heard or learned firsthand that the Healthcare.gov website doesn't work right.

The problems seem to go beyond that. It is now being reported that major subsystems are not even implemented. The "plan" seems to have been to implement the "sign up" subsystem by October. Now we have learned that other subsystems were not to be implemented until Jan 2014. Ex:

"A crucial system for making payments to insurers from people who enroll in that federal Obamacare marketplace has yet to be built, a senior government IT official admitted Tuesday. The official, Henry Chao, visibly stunned Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) when he said under questioning before a House subcommittee that a significant fraction of HealthCare.gov—30 to 40 percent of it—has yet to be constructed ... Chao on Tuesday said other areas that need to be built include "the back-office systems, the accounting systems.""
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101211556

This "learning moment" for IT project management is going to be with us for a while.

Yeah, the article is bogus.

Iran diverted production for domestic heating this winter. Total productivity decreased because of deteriorating plant. http://www.cnbc.com/id/101186643

And if you can't pay, and declare bankruptcy? Who pays then? You pretending this isn't a problem [cnbc.com]?

And are you pretending the ACA did anything to actually reduce costs are help resolve the problem you're talking about? Did you read the entire article you linked?

With millions buried under medical bills, more insured under the Affordable Care Act will not completely solve that problem, LaMontagne said. While the ACA's reforms will indeed give more people coverage, NerdWallet's data shows that millions of people with year-round, full coverage are still overwhelmed by medical bills, she said.

So, 1-2 trillion dollars that are going to be spent per year, and the very same broken legs are still going to be paid out of pocket. I love this stuff!

You _can_ keep your policy if you like it

Hmmm, I don't seem to recall the disclaimer on the end of that sentence when the president said it. I don't remember ANY wiggle room here. I think the President said this better than I could. Not sure where you'd pick any of this apart.

Instead, President Obama should have said something like, "You can keep your plan... comma insert disclaimer here".

As for this up-sell notion... the policies that got dropped were dropped due to them not offering all the stuff required by the ACA to be offered. These were policies that had existed prior to the ACA implementation. The white house knew many of the policies out there would no longer be allowed to be offered. They knew it when the President was out giving speeches that you would not lose your plan under any circumstances... "period". He was either completely ignorant of the fact, or was out and out fabricating lies. There is no in between.

If the issue was actually insurance like we issue for cars, then the costs would be trivial. There are really good reasons why this stuff is so expensive.

I think I'll trust an actuary to calculate the actual cost. Put in a reasonable mark-up, and you have: insurance. If the market is, well, efficient, then the mark-up will be reasonable. So let's apply those good-old liberal ideas of free markets, and let the magic happen.

Otherwise, the bill should be in the mail.

And if you can't pay, and declare bankruptcy? Who pays then? You pretending this isn't a problem?

There were issues that could have been addressed by our government that could have actually helped.

Right, like an almost-single-payer system, like what works in most of the OECD. Instead, in an attempt to compromise, we get a regulated insurance market and a mandate, just like leading conservatives supported up until 2008.

What happened in 2008? Obama was elected, adopted the GOP healthcare plan, and was promptly labelled a tyrant by an apocalyptic cult. Just the opinion of a 20+ year GOP insider who knows a hell of a lot more about what happens on the hill than you do.

Now we know the president either lied outright about what would happen to existing policies

You _can_ keep your policy if you like it, so long as you've had the policy since before the ACA was passed. The fact that insurance companies are changing the policies and then trying to up-sell clients onto more expensive planes: who would have thunk it, that businesses would act this way. I agree that Obama shouldn't have used the language he did, because it is too easy to pick apart. But it is hardly the lie you WANT it to be.

Testing was scheduled to begin the week before the site went live. Do you really think it's just a problem of adding more servers?

How much does ObamaCare cost the economy?

How much does having your citizens not being able to afford medical care cost the economy?

The leading cause of Bankruptcy in the US is medical costs. The number of people who die in the US every year because they simply can't afford medical treatment is 45,000 (in 2009, more now I suspect). Older Americans can't start small businesses because they would lose their healthcare, which is typically provided by their job.

The economic cost is really incalculable

Talk of monetizing the Android, a week after MicroSoft decides to give
it's phone software away; in hope many will select the dual bootable Windows
over Android.

I didn't post this, then today I read "Google shares touch $1,000 for the first time ever"
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101093044 a surge in mobile and video advertising that helped drive quarterly revenue up 23 percent.
Google seems to be doing rather nicely, thank you

Google has started doing small things that tick me off, but two request one for each account
to be removed from Google+ was met without the whining that had me on facebook 4 years
after I thought I had quit that POS.

Quoting an Apple fan boy http://venturebeat.com/author/johnkoetsier/ who use a company that
agrees with his agenda http://www.nanigans.com/ is just sad.

Good riddance. These infotainment systems have historically been buggy and lead to animosity misdirected at the auto manufacturer rather than the software provider. Witness the story of Ford. On the rebound after the auto-crisis of 2007, Ford quality grew by leaps and bounds, outpacing the industry in 2008, and resulting in a top-5 JD Power and Associates ranking in 2009. That year, Ford added Microsoft SYNC to their vehicles and called it "MyFordTouch." The interface was so buggy and inconsistent that it lead to Ford dropping from number 5 in JD Power's quality 2010 quality rankings (despite no major overhalls and no new engines that year), to number 23 a year later, and then all the way to 33rd this year. Now Ford customers have launched a class-action lawsuit against Ford.

The sooner auto manufacturers standardize on a infotainment system, the better. The fact that this is open-source and based on Linux (specifically, Tizen) makes it even more likely that updates will be provided many years down the road. (even if not by the manufacturers themselves, by the community; think Cyanogenmod). This makes cars less like disposable toys and more worthy of being the second-largest expense that most households make.

The Federal Funds Rate is at 0.08% Of course the target rate is zero to .25 but since corporate stocks and profits are at all time highs it is hard to turn off the spigot so I imagine that is why the rate is near the lower bounds. The federal reserve corporation has conjured up Four trillion dollars in the last five years with no end in sight. Please forgive me, to the novice like myself they would appear to be producing quite a bit of money out of thin air. I am sure if I were a Wall Street investment banker the subtleties of monetary policy would be much clearer to me.

It is written into law which parts of government stay open and which close.

It also turns out to be a Federal crime to undertake unfunded actions during the shutdown. These would put the employee in violation of the Antidefiniency Act of 1870:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101078243?__source=xfinity|mod&par=xfinity

It's taking a bigger bite than just the customer service type jobs. Of course in any budget dispute the more visible jobs and services are cut first. But even the Defense Department and intelligence agencies are taking a hit.

NSA, intelligence workers 'stretched to limit' by shutdown, official says
400,000 DOD Civilians to Get Shutdown Furloughs
US shutdown: Bad for Pentagon workers, not so much for defense firms

"Secure" meaning . . . . . . the backdoor for the NSA is really well protected.

So the Microsoft has finally got all their systems working properly with the government requested backdoors and decryption methodologies.

"... SAFE from EXTERNAL hackers..." So it's only the ones already in the box that we have to worry about.

Hey, HEY, HEY ... Look, Ballmer's almost gone -- give M$ a break already. It's all set up so that the week after the new guy starts, the NSA will be using Azure SharePoint

(It's a shame that he wasn't the one being punched, though.)

When will we see a postive story about Bitcoin's usefulness? Oh right, there really ISN'T any news on that front.

There is news on that front; it just doesn't get reported here as often.

• Honolulu-based Tealet using Bitcoin to expand international business
• Online game developer Bigpoint's 330m users can now buy virtual goods with bitcoins
• BitWall Allows Publishers To Make Money Through Bitcoin Micropayments
• Bitcoin recognized by Germany as 'private money'

Ever heard of circuit breakers? You don't think they might have something to do with curbing wild price swings and crashes?

Market Circuit Breakers: CNBC Explains

More and more circuit breakers are today being added because of "flash crashes".
Circuit breakers are now being concidered added to more and more markets and assets as well.
Why would that be necessary if the market really "sorts itself out"?

Next topic: Exchange rollbacks (for some reason I'm unable to find articles on this topic, but I think you get an idea)

This sort of stuff happens all the time.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/knight-capital-says-trading-mishap-cost-it-440-million/

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100980489

It sounds as if news services could have released it at exactly 2pm in Chicago without breaking the Fed's rules. The rules say "public use."

I often work with material under a press embargo. If I get something on Tuesday with an embargo of 2pm EST Wednesday, that means I can send it to my editor in Chicago (or anywhere else) on Tuesday. That's not public use. My editor will wait until 2pm EST and release it (for public use) at that time in Chicago.

FTA:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101056168

A key question is whether or not any organization transmitted information out of the lockup room and into its own computer system before 2 p.m. If that was done, the data could have been moved to computer servers near Chicago before 2 p.m. and publicly released the information from there at precisely 2 p.m. – enabling subscribers of that data service to get the information milliseconds before others in Chicago relying on transmissions from the Federal Reserve in Washington to arrive.

It is not clear whether that would violate the Fed's rules. The Federal Reserve declined to tell CNBC whether or not it would be a violation of their rules to transmit information out of the lockup room before 2 p.m., if that information was pre-loaded into servers in Chicago for release at 2 p.m. ...

On top of those precautions, every media person entering the lockup – including two employees of CNBC -- was required to sign an agreement that read: "I understand that I may make no public use of the documents distributed by Federal Reserve Board (FRB) staff or the information contained therein, including broadcasting, posting on the Internet or other dissemination, until the time the FRB has set for their public release." [my emphasis]

Transmitting them to the news service's own computer system in Chicago isn't "public use."

"No public use" means you can transmit your story to your editor in Chicago, who holds it until 2:00:00 pm EST and releases it immediately in Chicago.

That would be an unusual news story. It would consist of 1 machine-readable bit meaning "buy." But that's all their readers need.

Quick, everybody, you've got 7 milliseconds to mod me up to +5 insightful.

From: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101056168

"Inside a room on the top floor of the William McChesney Martin, Jr. building, Fed officials instructed reporters not to send information about that decision to the outside world before precisely 2 p.m. as measured by the national atomic clock in Colorado.

The doors were locked at 1:45 p.m., and Fed staffers handed out copies of the statement at 1:50 p.m., allowing reporters a few minutes to digest the complicated document before reporting on its contents. At 1:58 p.m. television reporters were escorted out of the room to a balcony where cameras had been prepositioned. The Fed's security rules dictated that television reporters were not allowed to speak before precisely 2 p.m. Print reporters were told they were allowed to open a phone line to their editors at headquarters offices a few moments in advance of the hour, but not allowed to interact with people on the other end of the line until exactly two p.m."

So many hacked communications channels are still possible from this. The print writers can signal the editors when making phone calls before 2pm, without talking to them. For example, the editor can instruct the reporter to call them on landline if it's a sell, or his mobile number if it's a buy. The TV reporter can wear a jacket if it's a sell, or remove it if it's a buy, so someone across the building can monitor the balcony for pre-release signals... etc.

Also, from the http://www.nanex.net/aqck2/4436.html:
"It wasn't just gold. It was everything that traded. In fact, the 1/100th of a second after 2pm was the most active 10 milliseconds in the history of the U.S. Stock an Futures markets."

This was a major, major hack, and they waited as late as they could wait, without signaling their competitors.

You will appreciate this.

A widow in PA lost her $280,000 home over $6.30 in unpaid property taxes. Well, after interest and penalties, the $6.30 became $235 - still less than 0.1% of her home value.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100975448

Fortunately, a Judge has decided she has a chance to appeal the loss of her home. But it has already been auctioned off.

The USA health care system has some of the worst possible perverse economic disincentives. At literally no point is there a clear economic incentive for you to be healthy and taken care of.

1) Consumers have no interest in keeping costs down. They pay the same deductible no matter what happens. Unfortunately, this is only up to a point (see #4 below) but that's not going to enter casual consideration.

2) Hospitals have no interest in keeping costs down. They blatantly inflate their costs knowing that the insurance companies will only pay a fraction anyway. They also have no incentive to keep supplies costs down since they are paid "cost +" by insurance companies. They'll tend to buy whatever sponge or soap dispenser is in "the catalog".

3) Providers of supplies to hospitals have no interest in keeping their costs down. Hospitals get paid on a "cost +" basis by the insurance companies so charging $35 for that "medical grade" sponge that cost them $0.35 wholesale has 99% profit margins as its incentive.

4) Insurance companies have some incentive to keep costs down, which they generally do by axing their most expensive customers with any of the myriad of technicalities written into their eye-gouging 10 page contracts full of inverted double negatives and exceptions. A good example is somebody with a job who gets cancer. Sure, he/she may have excellent health insurance, but what about when he/she loses his/her job because they didn't show for four months while undergoing chemo therapy? Even so, the myriad of regulations in place (and a legal department that ensures that one plan can't be compared to another) provides an opaque enough service offering that customers are unable to distinguish which plan is actually "cheaper".

5) Doctors had to just about kill their mother to get through medical school, and are saddled with enough debt to make anybody contract stress-related symptoms. Since they get paid for the work they actually perform, they have every incentive to declare a medical emergency and take you under the knife, regardless of whether or not it's necessary or even beneficial. I'm not saying every doctor will give you heart surgery when you come in with a rash, but I'm not alleging something that doesn't happen. Citation 2.

The majority of bankruptcies in the United States are for medical reasons, and the majority of *those* are by people who had health insurance at the time they got sick. Anybody who says this ridiculous would-be-laughable-if-it-wasn't-true system is lying or misinformed.

Spending instead on spy networks with little ROI (if any) for 'criminals caught' masking it as "anti-terrorist" when it is the terrorist itself used by those who are supposed to be 'better than' their actual criminal opponents. When those protecting rules/laws start acting like the crminals, operating on their own low ground, we have a problem. The potential for misuse is there, and always seems to happen, absolutely power corrupting absolutely. Enemies both foreign and domestic (question is who's the enemies? Regular US citizens getting fucked points to it along with Pension funds failing http://www.cnbc.com/id/100929269 with the domestic enemies being the 1%'ers ). Caught this today on Medicare and Social Security too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0vP6fIzYho and it's disgusting.

Secure boot was a disgrace that should not have been allowed. I am getting increasingly concerned that the old duopoly is Apple and Microsoft has no interest in evolving its Desktop machines, Windows replacing their OS with a tablet interface, and Apple is replacing it with a cylinder...and the choice of expensive external hard drives. All in pursuit of those early adopters money in the tablet (mobile) market ironically a market that has been taken from them by Googles Android(67% Market share) faster than the smartphone market; Apples(28% Market Share) "Sold" suddenly means "Shipped" and Millions of Tablets Disappear in Inventory adjustments(Channel stuffing perhaps?) and the margins are vanishing from it even faster; The Microsoft(5% Market Share) Surface price even massively discounted looks overpriced.

The sad fact is I am convinced there is a great machine in there somewhere. I personally would be happy with surface running GNU/Linux with android compatibility...and the Play store. In my opinion apart from an unnecessary low resolution screen which is indefensible in a Nexus 7 1920 x 1200 with 323 pixels per inch (the return) world. Yet they have made such future impossible with their(not your) hardware. I am now waiting for the next generation of touchscreen chromebooks which will also solve the problem of price as Intel and Microsoft gouging their hostages on 70% gross margin, A major factor when you face competition.

As I said Secure Boot is a disgrace. Ironically Asus CEO and chairman Jonney Shih sees the of Android with a keyboard too (If only Asus would add GNU/Linux to Mix) as the future http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000185493&play=1 (Jon Fortt really really likes Apple and should be sacked) even though Asus are selling significant Android tablets including the incredibly popular Nexus 7 (both generations).

FYI Tablet Market figures from here http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/29/apples-ipad-market-share-chopped-in-half-as-android-takes-over/

On the contrary, it allows them to hire their family members and pay them far more than they are worth. They can hire their buddy's incompetent kid, who can't tie his own shoelaces, and pay him $250000 a year for doing nothing. Then when his political career is over, he gets hired by the people he helped on the way. The whole system is designed to allow corruption.

Never mind the info they are allowed to profit on, that if they were company employees would be considered insider trading. Instead it's just another profitable perk of being in office.

Maybe they'll start making... (gasp)... actual plots to accompany those stars/explosions/special effects?

But enough about My Little Pony: Equestria Girls (which had to extend its run due to the Herd filling the limited number of theaters in which it was shown.)

Your oversimplification of the stock market leaves out a large number of traditional investors who do vet company performance, and look for value such as dividends. They use statistic too, although the stats traditionally come in text form. It sounds like you got your talking points from other people without doing much research to validate it.

A large number of trades are high-frequency trading, but as you said it is usually a few pennies per share and hardly impacts the market (outside of the rare flash crash). A lot of automated trading is still based on market news, such as

... the contract carves out an even more elite group of clients, who subscribe to the "ultra-low latency distribution platform," or high-speed data feed, offered by Thomson Reuters. Those most elite clients receive the information in a specialized format tailor-made for computer-driven algorithmic trading at 9:54:58.000, according to the terms of the contract.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100809395

That was suspended 8 July, but if you search for more on that you will find similar perks that elite traders get. Do note, the Yahoo article is about HFT because it happens on low-latency platforms, but that is still news-based trading, not the algorithmic sort of HFT.

Counting trades, the market does look like automated systems battling it out. But counting investors (individuals and financial groups such as fund managers) it's largely still about reacting to market news. The Reuters news above basically has analysts figuring out what to buy, sell, or hold, and advising clients of their findings - still traditional market valuation. And the news here is that Microsoft is rapidly losing ground to competitors due to making boneheaded decisions like RT.

I don't believe that Mayer has CEO super powers. She was lucky to have worked at Google at a time when it was poised to take off.

That, and she works really, really hard. Like the quote from this story:

"For my first five years at Google, I pulled an all-nighter every week," Mayer said in a recent talk at New York's 92Y cultural center. "It was a lot of hard work."

It doesn't matter what you're doing, if you're working that hard, and actually make it productive, you're going to get better. If I spent an all-nighter every week, and actually made it productive, I would be really, really good at programming right now.

market share in what? Total worldwide PC sales fell 14% in the first quarter of 2013, this is double what was predicted by analysts. http://www.cnbc.com/id/100632389

I don't suggest that MS is terrified of Apple, but I think if I "owned" 92% of a market in such rapid decline, I would be!

MS seems to be responding to the decline by trying to diversify their business with new ventures into things like Skype, Bing and the new Windows phones etc, but the writing is on the wall for the PC market as we know it; it is going to keep shrinking as ever more users move to mobile/tablet computing solutions for their email and web browsing needs. We'll still have power users buying new PC's, but content consumers and casual users have far fewer reasons to own a full blown PC any more.

It also stands to reason that more developers are buying Macs and Linux boxes because they want in on the Apple app store and Android app store(s) action, it also stands to reason that happy iPod, iPhone, Android users get Mac/Linux curious if/when it comes time to buy a new computer

The PC market MS is so heavilly invested in is being nibbled from all sides, they must change or die (eventually).

First off, a "cheap but okay bike" is not $150. I can't stand this (nor can most bike shop employees, who are really, really, REALLY fucking tired of people strolling in and having wildly unrealistic expectations for what a bicycle costs.)

Bicycles are not toys, and they should not be priced like one. They should be priced compared to the expense of a public transit pass ($60/month in my city for bus+subway), a scooter, or car expenses. How much is a typical monthly car payment?(Answer:$452) How much do you put into that car per month in gas? (Answer: about $250/month.) Insurance? (Answer: about $800/year) Etc.

Second: bike rental systems (these are not "bike shares", despite the popular bastardization of the term) are popular because:

• They can be used for spontaneous and/or one-way trips. For example, I'm going out with friends tonight, and they don't bike; I don't want to have to leave my bike at work. I rode a bike share bike into work instead of taking my for-transportation bike. Or maybe it's going to rain in the morning but the evening commute will be spectacularly nice. Or maybe the roads are clogged and the busses running behind; I can hop on a bike share bike.
• You don't have to store the bike. While many buildings are getting better at this, most don't have bike storage, and it's usually a bit of a pain. Same at many workplaces, though again, lots of places are getting better at this, in part because there's often a financial incentive from the health insurance company.
• You don't need to worry about maintenance and repairs.
• It's amortized, basically. Instead of having to spend $500 on a solid commuter bike, you can spend $X/month/year. And in some ways, it's easier to track for purposes of taxes on commuting expenses.
• They are heavily aimed at tourists, despite claims to the contrary. Looking at the deployment maps this is pretty obvious - they stations tend to be around touristy areas in many cities. Bicycles are the perfect speed for touring an area; slow enough to take it all in, but fast enough to cover a good amount of area.

Insider trading is/was never illegal.
http://cnbc.com/id/43471561

Politicians will have special privileges.
http://cnbc.com/id/43471561

I'm hoping someone with some econ knowledge can enlighten me, although I fear since this is the Internet and Slashdot comments it's probably not going to happen ;-) I've never heard of a situation where companies tried to pay taxes because they like them and if they're publicly traded they had a fiduciary responsibility to avoid them in order to maximize returns to the shareholders, and when forced to pay them they just try to find ways to force the cost down to the customer.

So why do we bother at all? Personally, I'd rather pay higher property/income taxes and abandon corporate taxes so that money comes back into the country for reinvestment and so that the companies don't leave the country and expand their business elsewhere.

We did a "corporate tax holiday" before and when companies bring back the money tax-free they simply do not invest it nor does it spur job creation. http://www.cnbc.com/id/44773176 When both the Institute for Policy Studies and the Heritage Foundation say that another tax holiday would have no effect on investment or jobs, then you know it's a bad idea. (Seriously, getting those two to agree on the effects of a tax cut is like getting Rush Limbaugh and President Obama to agree on healthcare policy)

Maybe we should slow down with the deficit reductions; this consolodation may not be necessary and may be detrimental.

Since the recession ended four years ago, the federal budget deficit has topped $1 trillion every year. But now the government's annual deficit is shrinking far faster than anyone in Washington expected, and perhaps even faster than many economists think is advisable for the health of the economy.

That is the thrust of a new report released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, estimating that the deficit for this fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, will fall to about $642 billion, or 4 percent of the nation's annual economic output, about $200 billion lower than the agency estimated just three months ago.

The agency forecast that the deficit, which topped 10 percent of gross domestic product in 2009, could shrink to as little as 2.1 percent of gross domestic product by 2015 — a level that most analysts say would be easily sustainable over the long run — before beginning to climb gradually through the rest of the decade.

"Revenues have been strong as the economy has outperformed a bit," said Joel Prakken, a founder of Macroeconomic Advisers, a forecasting firm based in St. Louis.

Over all, the figures demonstrate how the economic recovery has begun to refill the government's coffers. At the same time, Washington, despite its political paralysis, has proved remarkably successful at slashing the deficit through a variety of tax increases and cuts in domestic and military programs.

people looking for jobs are all going to switch to firefox and chrome

Muwahahahahah. Evil plan working as predicted.

Actually it has been proven to work with wild success. You can continue to spout your radical socialist agenda all you want, but the real world is proof.

So believe me when I say that if the judge I worked for, of if the judges my friends were working for were being offered bribes, I would definitely know about it. He isn't, and they aren't. Not even close. It just does not happen. Sorry.

And nobody's saying it does. Read the thread. I believe the originating sentiment is "the law is bought and paid for". That doesn't mean people are bribing judges; it means that people with money can drive the legislative process. The average net worth of first-term congressmen is almost four million dollars. "Lobbying" is a 3 billion dollars a year and growing industry. Really, the question isn't "is the law bought and paid for?" it's "how can anyone reasonably expect such a process to generate just laws?".

if you aren't a lawyer and you think a decision is crazy or wrong, the more likely explanation is that you just don't know the law that's being applied.

People who are judging the law aren't doing so on the basis of which laws were infringed, they're doing so on the basis of justice - which, increasingly, does not overlap with the legal technicalities.

Look it up: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100527259

you did exchange it out by their integrated service, you doofus.

Scott Thompson, fired from Yahoo. Hired on by Shoprunner.

Fired for lying on his resume, not because he ran the company into the ground. Despite this, he went from being the man in charge of a company on the Fortune 500 list (barely, at 483), to being in charge of a company that, uhh... doesn't even have a wikipedia page. I had to dig this up to find out what the company even did. It's a startup company nobody's ever heard of.

Léo Apotheker, fired from HP. Hired on as Chairman of the Board for DMK.

HP: Ranked the 10th largest company on the Fortune 500 list. Lost over $300 billion in market capitalization under Apotheker's leadership.
DMK: Doesn't exist.
KMD: Does exist... and is a Danish IT firm with 3,000 employees. Is not on the list. Also... Chairman of a board is not the same as CEO of a company, so it's a false analogue anyway! But let's say he was the CEO -- he went from one of the largest companies on Earth to some tiny po-dunk company in another country.

Dick Fuld, CEO of Lehman Brothers, went on to work at Matrix Advisors and Legend Securities.

Lehman Brothers: Suffered a total existance failure under Dick's fearless leadership. Was only publicly traded for about a decade before folding. In other words, a nothing commanded by a nobody.

Matrix Advisors and Legend Securities: A hedge fund. It's not even a proper company. And it's primary source of income? The money that Dick was able to hide from creditors when he bankrupted both himself and his former company. Like, for example, the mansion he purchased just before it went under that he sold to his wife for $100 to evade creditors.

So as you can see, each of these people didn't get to "keep their cushy jobs"... every mistake led to a dramatic downward step in their cash flow. Far from proving me wrong, you've managed to brilliantly prove my point: CEOs get just as big of a black mark when they're fired as "the peons" do. All three of the examples you provided resulted in someone being a CEO on paper only -- they were never given a real company, with real money, to play with again.

You must have missed the follow up
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/26/once-thought-lost-and-now-found-6-billion/

But the inspector general's new report says almost all the $6.6 billion was properly handed over to Iraq and its Central Bank. "[Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction] was able to account for the unexpended [Development Fund for Iraq] funds remaining in DFI accounts when the CPA (Coalitional Provisional Authority) dissolved in June 2004," the new report says. "Sufficient evidence exists showing that almost all of the remaining $6.6 billion remaining was transferred to actual and legal CBI (Central Bank of Iraq) control."

There was also a great story about how a random guy ended up being solely responsible for handling every pallet of cash destined for the Central Bank of Iraq.
It's actually a bit disturbing that the US didn't set up any procedures and this one guy was more or less on his own, handling billions of dollars with zero oversight.

Seventy-five years - that means they are putting money away for future USPS employees that haven't even been born yet!

Yes, preparing for future retirement that you agreed to is SOOOO unfair.

Congress has decided that the USPS must have 75 years of pension money IN THE BANK by 2016, and their shortfalls each year nearly match the size of the over-payment Congress requires the USPS to it's pension fund each year.

The USPS Pension is over-funded simply because in 2006 it was profitable, and Congress siezed upon that opportunity and decided to REQUIRE the USPS to over-fund it's pension to a level no other company has ever been required to do - 75 years of benefits in the bank! They are required to have pension money in the bank for employees that haven't even been born, let alone hired by the USPS.

First off, this fellow in a city council has no responsibility for the funding of the USPS.

Second, he has no ability to tax anyone outside his city - does he propose that Berkley alone fund the USPS?

Third, the issue with USPS solvency is, for the most part, inflicted upon the USPS by Congress, which has decided that since the USPS was profitable in 2006, that it should fully-fund 75 years of pension obligations by the end of 2016. This has resulted in over-funding the pension fund beyond any reasonable requirement by any conventional funding formula, and if you look closely, the losses the USPS reported these last few years is only slightly more than the annual over-payment of the pension system.

• HuffPo piece on USPS over-funding it's pension plan, as required by federal law
• CNBC piece on how USPS pension fund required to have funds to meet 75 years of benefits by 2016
• Inpector General Report the effects of the over-funding of USPS pension

I call bullshit, due to new laws the company I work for changed us all to high deductible insurance. I now pay 250 a paycheck for healthcare and the insurance company does not have to pay a dime until I spend $3,000 out of pocket, so yes a small few get some help, but a large group who sacrificed a lot to ensure our families had something get pushed to the edges, I get a health savings account, but I have to save $3,000 before I can see a doctor with out it costing me more than that. As for paying for preventive care My daughter needed some hearing test early in the year, she went in one day before her birthday, and the insurance company agrees this falls under preventive care, but since it was not her birthday they did not have to cover, if I would have waited another few days it would have been covered, or hay what if they explained this clearly, as I do not have time to research all the loop holes, I work 50 - 60 hours a week with a wife who does the same. So what is this hearing test cost (to be fair they did it twice) $1,000. what did they find, nothing, they want to do an MRI, but my out of pocket will be $4,000. So I have to wait to save up $2,000 for the insurance to pay a dime, and once they do pay they are not paying the entire price, no now I hit my $5,000 expected out of pocket funding, so why do I have insurance?.. Oh ya I get fined by the Government If I don't.. The Government can mandate until they are blue in the face, but if its not profitable the insurance companies will get around it. also from CNBC http://www.cnbc.com/id/100376831/How_Obamacare_Is_Changing_Your_Health_Benefits COST SHIFTING Employers will continue a push this year toward account-based health plans, also known as consumer-driven health plans. These plans come with low premiums, but high deductibles—patients are typically asked to pay the first $3,000 to $5,000 of each year's medical expenses themselves. These plans often add a health-savings account where the employee save pre-tax dollars to pay for those expenses. Though often the employer will add money to the account as well as part of the employee's benefits, the point of these consumer-driven plans, as their name indicates, is to introduce market forces to our inefficient, price-bloated medical system. "It's a step toward giving people more control," says Paul Fronstin, head of health-benefits research at the Employee Benefit Research Institute. "They say, 'We'll give you this pot of money and give you some exposure to the health care market.'" read that last part with the first, over and over until 5th grade math kicks in. You have to spend $3000 before you get a dime, but you have to save the $3,000 first ($250 a month) plus the insurance premium you already pay, so you really get no health care until you save the money. So say you like me pay $250 every two weeks to cover a family of 5. that is $9,000 a year out of your pocket. So how will this bring down cost? You will pay it, have no real choice, you will still pay for insurance and now a new group, those who make money off setting up savings plans to meet government regulations is profiting, I see no incentive for the medical industry to lower cost, hell no they have your money already. And since my medical insurance only covers in network doctors, its not like I can shop around.. They all charge the rate negotiated with the insurance company.. WAKE the fuck up.. Obama and his plan is a insurance dream, it is corporate welfare..

"Do people actually run out to buy a book just because Oprah reviewed it? Really?"

Yes, really, see the The Oprah Effect

Funny that the summary doesn't include his initial statement to the French industry official that approached him: "How stupid do you think we are?"

In a word: Very.

CNN observes that Taylor is not only a relic of the 80s' leveraged buyout "corporate raiders" era, he's a hypocrite as well for wanting to make tires in China:

"The U.S. government is not much better than the French. Titan had to pay millions to Washington lawyers to sue the Chinese tire companies because of their subsidizing. Titan won. The government collects the duties. We don't get the duties, the government does," said Taylor.

All of this is beside the point however. US workers have less vacation/break time than anyone else on the planet, in a time where it is increasingly recognized that giving more breaks to workers results in more productivity. The real stupidity comes from failing to notice how well the rest of the world can keep pace with the much-vaunted "American productivity" while maintaining a vastly better quality of life.

The Post Office was doing great until someone made a plan for them switch to electric vehicles.

All of the sudden a bill was pushed through that they had to pre-fund their pensions for complete coverage 75 years in advance and now they're eliminating weekend delivery.

All I'm saying is, the folks at Tesla need to watch their backs.

When the baleful eyes of the oil barons fall on you, well... Sauron has nothing on them.