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We would probably get more done as a country if we had more time off.

Funny you should mention this. Just this morning on CNBC there was a guy who talked about this very subject. His main point was that people should get roughly 10 hours of sleep each night, not the recommended 8 and certainly more than whatever the national average is.

He also mentioned that people should take naps in the afternoon to recharge as well as take more vacations as they are more productive afterwards.

Finally, the blurb across the bottom of the screen said according his book, most people work in 90 minutes bursts of creativity then have to recharge for the next round.

Overall, working more hours does not produce more work and people who think they can be more productive by working more and sleeping less are actually doing the opposite.

This is the link to the interview from this morning and this is a link to a related story from last year saying the same thing.

Having said all that, do I want Chinese New Year to be a holiday? No. Holidays should be reserved for unique events, such as our Declaration of Independence, not some general celebration such as New Years (Chinese or not).

We would probably get more done as a country if we had more time off.

Funny you should mention this. Just this morning on CNBC there was a guy who talked about this very subject. His main point was that people should get roughly 10 hours of sleep each night, not the recommended 8 and certainly more than whatever the national average is.

He also mentioned that people should take naps in the afternoon to recharge as well as take more vacations as they are more productive afterwards.

Finally, the blurb across the bottom of the screen said according his book, most people work in 90 minutes bursts of creativity then have to recharge for the next round.

Overall, working more hours does not produce more work and people who think they can be more productive by working more and sleeping less are actually doing the opposite.

This is the link to the interview from this morning and this is a link to a related story from last year saying the same thing.

Having said all that, do I want Chinese New Year to be a holiday? No. Holidays should be reserved for unique events, such as our Declaration of Independence, not some general celebration such as New Years (Chinese or not).

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100364929/Boeing_Confident_About_787_Despite_039Teething_Problems039

al-Baker is a notorious public complainer, but even he is defending the problems being found on the new plane:

"Of course there will be teething problems from time to time, but this is foreseen with any new aircraft program," Qatar Airways' Akbar al-Baker told reporters in Doha on Wednesday.

Qatar Airways is the largest customer of the Dreamliner in the Middle East with an order for up to 60 of the aircraft -- 30 firm orders plus an option on acquiring 30 more. It currently has a fleet of five 787 jets.

In this video clip taped for the CNBC documentary “Dreamliner, Inside the World’s Most Anticipated Airline,” CNBC's Phil LeBeau shows how building a 787 Dreamliner is a well-choreographed, but challenge-packed ballet of man and machine where the plane's seven major sections are hoisted and fastened together. The documentary debuted in 2011.

"Since the first issues we had with our newly delivered airplanes, we've had no other technical issues with the fleet of five Dreamliners we are operating now," Baker added.

I think this post contributes a lot to the discussion -- especially your point about it being difficult to even get an IC working. A couple of things occur to me:
* The designer might be the one attempting to insert the exploit
* Most folks are not circuit designers and could not make heads or tails of the circuit diagram or the circuit itself.


I would agree that building an exploit into hardware sounds really tough and expect that it would be easily detected as a large ROM on the IC. I further agree that firmware/software are much more likely to contain an exploit. Is there any way we might quantify this relative risk? Or establish some criteria to evaluate the trustworthiness of a hardware manufacturer? You may recall this link from the original article:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/49032374/Computers_in_China_Sold_PreInstalled_With_Malware_Says_Microsoft

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100337335

STILL yet others (Thanks Hairyfeet):

http://bgr.com/2012/12/18/consumer-reports-windows-8-criticism-257728/

http://bgr.com/2012/12/05/microsoft-surface-sales-q4-2012-est/

http://www.tech-thoughts.net/2012/11/windows-8-sales-weak-microsoft-blames-oems.html

---

PART of that is "hard times" economically though, which makes folks "make do" with what they have, & what they have, nowadays? SPEEDSTERS... ever since the Core series came out by Intel?? VERY fast. More than adequate.

Personally?

Well - I cannot BELIEVE the MS folks didn't see it coming, & especially from the 'business men' there, AND, more especially from an ECONOMIC point of view.

(NOW was not the time for "changes"... sure, develop that unified codebase, but don't "piss off" your PC desktop + laptop using public & force them into unfamiliar territory... especially not now!)

Damn dumb actually of them, to be blunt about it.

* However, MS can afford to make a mistake now & then, especially a silly easily replaced one like a desktop shell!

(Though Mr. Sinofsky is the one who REMOVED the ability to hack the registry & replace the 'metro' shell with one users know & like, Explorer IE shell, what we've been using essentially since 1995 onwards to present).

APK

P.S.=> Bottom-line? Ok - THIS is WHAT YOU GET, when you put "money men" @ the helm & whose ENTIRE EXISTENCE is "the holy dollar", when @ the wheel of companies, rather than techies who are also businessmen who UNDERSTAND their target markets (ala "King Billy"/Mr. Gates, whom I call that out of RESPECT)...

That type? Hey... they don't know their target market, & are out of touch in that regards, & again: YOU JUST CAN'T SELL SOMETHING TO PEOPLE THEY DID NOT WANT, & that's cardinal RULE of sales you'd *think* that THAT type of man, would @ least understand - apparently? They don't...

... apk again:

I still mostly like Nokia hardware, except for some minor quibbles. Unfortunately it got itself hitched to one platform. The current CEO should get voted out.

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/nokias-elop-hints-more-lumia-windows-phones-verizon/2012-12-18

Its half off-topic, but I was watching cnbc "Ballmer another Mcicrosoft Fail" http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000136311&play=1 and interesting right at the end it Ed Maguire says "ther have been discussions of stephen elop as a successor. ". I spat me coffee.

When that happens, then maybe it really will be the year of the linux on the desktop!

I still mostly like Nokia hardware, except for some minor quibbles. Unfortunately it got itself hitched to one platform. The current CEO should get voted out.

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/nokias-elop-hints-more-lumia-windows-phones-verizon/2012-12-18

Its half off-topic, but I was watching cnbc "Ballmer another Mcicrosoft Fail" http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000136311&play=1 and interesting right at the end it Ed Maguire says "ther have been discussions of stephen elop as a successor. ". I spat me coffee.

You need not predict markets.
Hire a Congress man as your proxy.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/43471561

Can you provide links to the videos and stuff? I'm curious about which specific videos and other evidence you're talking about.

If the election rigging is not just an isolated case, the USA is practically a banana republic with nukes...

There were some international observers: http://www.cnbc.com/id/49655147/International_Election_Observers_Rile_Americans
So I'm not sure if the rigging is widespread enough. I'm sure in such a large diverse country you will have rigging during elections, it's a matter of how much.

It's weird the citizens don't want more observers, maybe it's the usual media spin - only report quotes of those who object. As for voter ID, I don't see the problem with it if it's done properly. It may be considered an evil, but if you're worried about rigging, you're going to need something like it.

That appears to be an exaggeration.

CNBC story: "Before Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, the USPS operated under a pay-as-you-go model for retiree health care funding. The new law requires the Postal Service to pre-fund its benefit obligations."

"Members of the postal workers union say the pre-funding requirement has created a fiscal mess. Some people have even claimed that law has the effect of requiring the postal service to fund retirement obligations for people who are not yet employed by the USPS--potential future employees.

No one ever intended the law to work that way. And, in fact, it doesn't. Although accounting rules require the postal service to calculate future liabilities, including those for projected future employees, the law only requires pre-funding of obligations to actual current and past employees."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/45018432/The_Truth_About_The_Post_Office_s_Financial_Mess

I'm guessing the postal workers don't want that benefit pre-funded because that frees up money for additional pay.

The argument is that the rich will leave the country if you raise taxes, and you lose even the taxes you are currently collecting. The middle class and the poor are less likely to do.

I, personally, dont subscribe to this idea. The rich have very few places in the developed world to move to. I would say it is a bluff. Even if they move, the void will pretty soon be filled up someone else who starts a company (or whatever the rich were doing here).

France's proposed tax hikes spark 'exodus' of wealthy

In Maryland, Higher Taxes Chase Out Rich: Study

Caterpillar threatens to leave Illinois over taxes

Through the magic of commerce they can move and continue their business from a new location.

Yeah, miraculous how the unemployment rate defied expectations and foreclosures are suddenly down just a week after his disaster at the debate.

Also funny how a major as yet unnamed state failed to report its unemployment figures, thus effectively cooking the books. You're so gullible it is sad and funny at the same time.

State fails to report unemployment numbers.

And although slight, it might slow down the system. Maybe 4% will not result in a noticable change, but could it slow the system down enough to give someone an advantage? (..) Yeah I know, that's pure speculation.

That's exactly what I read in some article might be the point:

“My guess is that the algo was testing the market, as high-frequency frequently does,” says Jon Najarian, co-founder of TradeMonster.com. “As soon as they add bandwidth, the HFT crowd sees how quickly they can top out to create latency.” (Read More: Unclear What Caused Kraft Spike: Nanex Founder.)

Translation: The ultimate goal of many of these programs is to gum up the system so it slows down the quote feed to others and allows the computer traders (with their co-located servers at the exchanges) to gain a money-making arbitrage opportunity.

"...can you blame them?"

Ohh yes I can, but for a different reason:

Lies, blatant lies, or call them broad day thievery, for lack of a better term. Wanna know why? Here's why:

Apple's top gun on their "wonderful maps..."

"Designed by Apple from the ground up, Maps give you turn-by-turn spoken directions, interactive 3D views, and the stunning Flyover feature. All of which may just make this app the most beautiful, powerful mapping service ever."

Want proof? Fella, I didn't make this up:

Read here for the actual claim, here, for customers who almost revolted (my words), and here to satisfy your mind that Apple was then forced to face the truth.

Need more? Simply ask.

At the risk of repeating myself:

This lawsuit was about the Galaxy line of phones, all of which have a larger screen than the iphone.

If I'm mistaken, tell me where I am mistaken and tell me the correct answer. Don't just say, "YOUR WRONG!" and leave it at that. Tell me which devices are part of this lawsuit because everything I can find says the Galaxy line. I also read that they are using this lawsuit to try to ban the Galaxy SIII.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/48783982

The verdict, which came much sooner than expected, could lead to an outright ban on sales of key Samsung products and will likely solidify Apple's dominance of the exploding mobile computing market.

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/08/24/jury-reaches-verdict-in-apple-vs-samsung-case/

As part of its lawsuit, Apple also demanded that Samsung pull its most popular cellphones and computer tablets from the U.S. market. A judge was expected to make that ruling at a later time.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/avantgo/2018986876.html

Apple lawyer plans to formally demand Samsung pull its most popular cellphones and computer tablets from the U.S. market.

While the SIII is not listed specifically, it is the most popular cellphone Samsung sells right now.

This accords with what I have experienced. Generally we pay less than 50% of the sticker price for all medical care, if we offer cash.

When my latest was born in 2008, we got everything covered for under $5000 at a very good hospital, simply because we offered cash up front. In fact, we were informed that the price would triple if we couldn't pay the full amount up front--even if we paid all the remainder within a week. That's the nature of risk management in the medical business.

As a family man with 3 kids, we find that life is MUCH cheaper without insurance. If you have a generally healthy family, and actually bother to make sure your family eats well and exercises well (growing your own garden is a major plus), and if you bother to learn a little something about health on your own (my wife is a nurse), you can actually manage to live without constant "health care". Seriously, when did people start needing medical care as an ongoing service, like electricity and water? It's pretty easy nowadays to check your own blood pressure, cholesterol, heart rate, and quite a few other things. We only go to doctors when something doesn't add up.

I see the world today as gone somewhat mad about how to take care of the body. I know younger people in their 30s who are already on multiple medications--statins, beta blockers, blood-thinners, you name it. Diabetics are everywhere, and Coca Cola sales are exceeding forecasts. We are finding that "diet food" actually makes you fatter. We are finding that a certain amount of sun is actually good for you. We are finding that sitting all day in a cubicle is horrible for your health. It's time to start putting two and two together. If you want a healthier population, the first thing we need to do is get everyone exercising regularly, spending some time outdoors instead of under florescent lighting or the pallid glows of their LCD screens, and eating real food instead of the crap that comes from factories (and most grocery stores, unfortunately).

That's a common theory, but Apple's P/E is 15.6. For context:
Microsoft: 15.4
IBM: 14.5
GE: 18.2
Walmart: 15.2
Toyota: 17.87

Do most of the biggest companies in the world also hold most of their value in the expectation of further rapid growth?

Apple makes unreal amounts of money. Their profitability increased so fast, it outpaced their stock value despite its growth. Early this year Marc Andreessen made the investment news pointing out that Apple's profits had so far outpaced their stock price that they had the P/E of a steel company that was about to go out of business.

Compared to other companies, their stock price is pretty much what one would expect it to be for a company that investors expect to stagnate right where it is.

Once you understand how the mob actually works, then you can re-read this whole conversation and see the striking similarites between the mob and this litgious cabal.

The difference is one stays legal and the other doesn't. both are immoral dirtbags.

It is illegal to conspire or collude for the purpose of extortion, and it is also illegal to burden the courts with persistent unreasonable litigation.

The real Mob conducts their 'crime' in similar ways that, on the surface, appear legal. What you see in movies/HBO is not what really goes down.

This documentary will stream on netflix. You will see why it was hard for the FBI to crack down on the Mob -- that they conducted themselves very much within the scheme of what has the appearance of legal activity.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43392317/?__source=vty|mobmoney|&par=vty

If you don't watch it to learn what I mean, I'll give you a breakdown of one example given in the film.

1) Dude1: decides to build a new construction in a place with mob influence.

2) Wiseguy1/Wiseguy2 stop by and have a casual conversation about how Dude1 *will* buy his concrete from "Legit Company A", a company that charges about $1/cu.ft. over normal market prices.

If Dude1 agrees, life goes on as normal and it would appear that Dude1 isn't a good shopper.

If Dude1 disagrees....

3) Deliveries from various orders needed for the business never come.
4) Protests/Picket-lines show up at the build site.

If Dude1 still disagrees.....

5) Wiseguy1/Wiseguy2 have a physical intervention that changes Dude1's mind, or ends Dude1.

---------

It isn't a reach to say that the topic at hand follows these same 'on paper' techniques to extort money. It is very much the same a minor difference being that the lawyers don't actually do physical intimidation, but rather legal.

I hope this has been informative.

First, neither the National Review nor Mother Jones seem to think TARP has actually been paid back.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/242731/did-tarp-money-really-get-paid-back-kevin-d-williamson
http://www.motherjones.com/bailout/2009/06/big-bank-bamboozle

Second, TARP itself was only a part of the bailout, estimates on total money given to the banks by the Federal Reserve run as high as $29 trillion.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45674390/The_Size_of_the_Bank_Bailout_29_Trillion

So, yes, it does help to "read and understand the news instead of merely believing what you wish were true". You should try it sometime.

Why are they reporting 4Q earnings/revenue when they just reported 2Q earnings/revenue for this year yesterday? Is this just market manipulation? http://www.cnbc.com/id/46031203/Microsoft_Beats_Earnings_Forecast_Shares_Rise

You left out low salaries. It amazes me how little companies are paying their IT workers

Or maybe IT workers have an unrealistic idea of their self worth.

10 highest paid bachelor degrees in 2011:
3. Computer Engineering
5. Computer Science
6. Software Engineering

Only Petroleum Engineering and Chemical Engineering pay more.

How much exactly do you think your skills are worth? You work with a computer.. you don't create gold from thin air.

XKCD: Computer Problems

If, by any criteria, US does not top such charts, it's only because of outsourcing of manufacturing. Meaning - most of second-hand "smoke" is because of US consumption too.

Also, see this. Just for example, additional llustration:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44781282/World_s_Most_Polluted_Countries

There are two douchebags in this case, but they are not the victims of the crime or the merely peripherally involved girlfriend.

The first douchebag is the guy who ploughed into the victims' motorcycle as he texted while driving. The second douchebag is the NJ court which "punished" him with a $775 fine and a few hours community work, but did not even suspend his driver's licence. It has been repeatedly established that texting while driving is more dangerous than driving while impaired by alcohol. He should have received rather more than this slap on the wrist, and the victims of his crime apparently plan to appeal his light sentence.

In Finland and various other countries, and in several states of the US, the law is you stop your car to talk or text on any communication device. You may get fined if observed talking or texting on the phone even if your driving is otherwise perfect.

When rich people give away excess money to charities, that does not absolve them of guilt for the actions that made them wealthy in the first place. Just because Bill Gates gives away a bunch of money, that doesn't excuse he got that money using illegal monopoly tactics. You can't get credit for giving away money that you stole from taxpayers in the first place.

In recent years in particular, Buffett's wealth has been acquired using insider information from his cronies in the White House, actions that would have resulted in jail time for a less connected investor. Here's the way the circle works:

• Buffett and Goldman Sachs contribute buckets of money to the democratic party and the Obama campaign.
• When Goldman was in risk of going under, Buffett invests $5B in them to keep them going. It was a no risk bet because Buffett's buddies let him know before the general public that GS was getting a bailout. Notes on that at Trade With The Ultimate Insider.
• Buffett publicly thanks the US government for bringing stability to the markets, by which he really means money in his company's pockets.
• All the borrowed money plus $1.6B divident profit flows back to Buffett within 3 years.

There's endless stories on this theme, including major trades around the US auto industry bailout too. I believe the most recent is the Keystone XL mess. Peter Schweizer's "Throw Them All Out" book has a whole section devoted to Warren Buffett's tricks where he abuses his political ties for profit. Here's a video segment from Schweizer summarizing that. Buffett's money is just as dirty as if he'd robbed you with a gun; don't like the kindly old man disguise fool you.

Apple
Red Hat
Amazon

It could have been much shorter:
Dear Mark,
Don't be me.
I hate that bitch.

I don't think the backbone infrastructure is designed to handle so much traffic, and I doubt Comcast is willing to spend millions on upgrading.

I agree the problem is real. But millions? Are you kidding? Comcast's gross income in 2011 was 27.484 BILLION - up 71% from 2010! "Net income" after due cooking of the books was over 4 BILLION.

Comcast Corp. business figures

They're looking for cash? That's funny, because the US government is not revenue constrained. There's no constitutional limit on creating any amount of money, and in fact that's one of the most important policy tools of a sovereign nation (the EU members gave that up, and it has ended with disaster except for the mercantilist Germans, as was predicted by Modern Monetary Theory many years ago). This is all the more clear when one notes that there is no operational connection between government spending and subsequent taxation or public/foreign borrowing (much like bank lending is not really reserve constrained since banks lend unconstrained during the day and borrow anything they need to make up for reserves from the overnight market--and even the Fed itself). Much of the debt is just an accounting fiction registered between the Fed and treasury (being about as meaningful as the between a husband and wife), and legally, 100% of government debt could be made in this form--there could legally be zero public borrowing and no taxation. The appearance that taxes pay for anything is just an illusion, since tax "revenue" does not make any legal constraint on spending. But borrowing is done due to custom and ideological and political considerations which are vestigial from the times of gold-backed currency--not any current legal constraints. Taxation's actual role, however, is critically important: it forces private entities to use the government issued currency. You can only pay the IRS in US dollars. More information: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1905625 or lighter reading at http://www.cnbc.com/id/45795986 as well as http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/ and http://moslereconomics.com/ MMT has been around for quite a while and derives from the old Chartalism, but nowadays it's really starting to gain steam, and some MMT ideas have been co-opted by other economic schools. Back to the original point, government doesn't need covert means of funding agencies such as the TSA because it can do so easily with legal means. Your conspiracy theory is superfluous.

One of these perhaps
https://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/033012-visa-mastercard-breach-257824.html
http://www.cnbc.com/id/46904168
https://www.google.com/news?ned=us&q=VISA%2C%20MasterCard%20Breach&btnG=Search+News

Not quite. The FBI also invetigate such cases - sometimes with the SEC sometimes without.

The funny thing is they've kicked it up in the last couple of years (with about 60 convictions), but the OP is too slow to notice:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/46623058/FBI_Expands_Crackdown_on_Insider_Trading

$6.6 billion in hundred dollar bills literally "fell off a plane" and disappeared in Iraq; and that's something they'll actually admit to.

You must have missed the followup story
Billions in Iraqi reconstruction money finally accounted for
A U.S. audit finds that most of $6.6 billion entrusted to the Pentagon that had been missing was in fact delivered to Iraqi authorities in 2003 and 2004.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/28/world/la-fg-iraq-billions-20111028

Here's the story of the one man whose job it was to transport those billions from the military's C-17s to the Central Bank of Iraq
It's really rather amazing: http://www.cnbc.com/id/45031100/45031100

And if you want to bother with fringy sources like "shadowstats.com" or "truthistreason.net" go for it, but there's no way I'm wasting my time critiquing conspiratorial crap.

Shadow stats is far from "fringy", but why you feel the need to throw out ad hominems is beyond me, when all the information I posted has multiple sources for confirmation. Are you claiming that it's NOT true about the Libyan rebels oil company and central bank? It's general knowledge and there are many other sources. Sorry if that fact blows away the approved narrative that you were buying into before.

As for the inflation, the commodities graph of inflation that I posted is the same time period that the Federal Reserve distributed $16 trillion in fiat money around the world, so that's the correlation.

Yes, oil is up because we (or our proxies in the Middle East) are going to war with Iran. At least you acknowledge that it's a done deal and there is no amount of protest or outrage that will stop the elites from making sure that war happens. But that's not only an intentional move, but mostly a short-term blip with less influence than the long-term trend caused by MASSIVE INFLATION that will eventually become hyperinflation once the other major economies (Europe, China, etc.) have divested themselves of US reserve currency and start trading commodities instead, just like has already started happening.

If you really believe that the inflation numbers quoted by the Federal Government are accurate, you are truly naive. Not even Ben Bernanke himself believes it, although he doesn't come out and say so, he certainly won't defend those numbers.

Isn't this the same old plan T Boon proposed. http://www.cnbc.com/id/46403675/T_Boone_Pickens_Natural_Gas_a_Game_Changer

the company profits are well on par with Ubisoft and EA.

Oh really? You might want to reconsider that comment.

Zynga recent earnings and prospects

EA recent earnings and prospects

The numbers between these two aren't even close, neither in revenue or earnings.

intended to help people who wanted to overthrow a dictator

You mean the bankers, and oil executives. Right?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/42308613/Libyan_Rebels_Form_Their_Own_Central_Bank
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/wow-that-was-fast-libyan-rebels-have-already-established-a-new-central-bank-of-libya
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20111122-713038.html

And what exactly is Google meant to do? Hire loads of people to sift through every DMCA claim for validity and potentially end up in court themselves should one of them make a bad call?

You make it sound like Google is a company that is barely scraping by and couldn't afford this..

That is avoiding the real issue.

The real issue is that the surplus, even if it's all paid back, will still run out... before my generation retires. With current assumptions (including the loans all being paid back)

http://www.cnbc.com/id/34941334/Will_Baby_Boomers_Bankrupt_Social_Security

By 2017, Social Security is expected to start paying out more than it collects in payroll taxes, according to the 2009 Annual Report from the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees. There is currently a large surplus, but it will be drained by the year 2037. At that point, Social Security will only be able to pay out 75 percent of its benefits.

Let's not pretend that SSA is a scapegoat here. It's a fundamentally unjust program. It's unsustainable because population growth didn't keep up with the baby boomers. It's a pyramid scheme because each generation pays for the previous one, but the later generations don't get the same benefits.

First, Take out the REAL inflation numbers, and GDP was negative.

Second, the only reason that this depression isn't having the same "misery index" as the first one is because of the greater safety net, and because we caught a lucky break with the weather. Without unemployment insurance and welfare, and the dust-bowl conditions of the 30s, it would already be just as bad as the first one.

The "real" unemployment rate - when you take into account those who are heaping on debt by staying in school because they can't find a job, those who have given up, etc. (the U6 measure), and we're into the same range as the Great Depression. The real rate of unemployment in California, for example, is now 20%. Another 5% and it will be equal to the peak in 1933 ... and it's heading there, as cities and states struggle with their own ongoing debt crisis.

There's almost 50 million people on food stamps. And housing is now already officially worse than the great depression (and it's going to get wors)

It's official: The housing crisis that began in 2006 and has recently entered a double dip is now worse than the Great Depression.

Prices have fallen some 33 percent since the market began its collapse, greater than the 31 percent fall that began in the late 1920s and culminated in the early 1930s, according to Case-Shiller data.

Half of all homes now have a mortgage that makes them unsellable - if there is equity left, it's not sufficient to cover the additional costs of the sale (real estate commission fees, etc). Strategic default is a problem, but another problem is that, without jobs (or only part-time or low-paying jobs), even people whose mortgages are now "ok" are in trouble.

The fact is that any rise in GDP is not being seen by the workers, and hasn't been for more than a decade. Ask anyone who's had to take a major pay cut, or simply can't find a job because for every opening, there are 100 or 1,000 applicants.

The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default

So basically, if you buy US bonds, they will print money to pay you back. So there's a decent chance that what you get back will be worth less than what you put bought. This does not sound like a safe place to put money.

The bailout was bipartisan

Yes, after Bush basically pulled the panic switch and by the way he would do it again.

It's not a total media blackout. It's just not front page news.

For £200 million you could build a ship park it in the middle of the Atlantic and get a 30ms advantage over servers located on either shore. no its not my idea :-(

BTW, this is something the US has executed brilliantly. America gives China paper with numbers printed on it, in exchange for real goods. And no problem, because America can just print more paper! Don't believe me? Look at what Alan Greenspan said.

"The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default"

You are correct. Big movies cost more than big games by a factor of at least 2.

God of War III cost $44 million BEFORE marketing costs. According to cnbc lots of games fall in that range for cost.

Movies production costs easily reach over 100 million.

Good thing the Europeans support projects like the LHC

Yeah ... its a good thing Europe's economy is completely unaffected by any sort of economic trouble (downgrading of France's credit rating, rioting in England, Greece/Ireland/Portugal defaulting on loans).

I hope you're right, but we'll have to see what happens with the LHC, since the UK, France, Greece and Portugal are all CERN member states.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN#Member_states

That's leaving aside something further happening, like this for instance: http://www.cnbc.com/id/43794479/Let_Greece_Ireland_Portugal_Default_Pimco

As I wrote on the previous topic, it's happening now

Moody's Backs US's AAA Rating, S&P Cuts Fannie, Others

That's what Schiff said on Saturday, BTW.

The math on this doesn't matter a whole lot. The fundamental problem is that the US is addicted to borrowing and has no credible plan to stop. Forget about paying it off, there's no realistic way to stop borrowing more anytime soon.

The reaction to this decision is mostly emotional and not rational. Warren Buffet had this to say: "I can go out drinking all night, but if I've got a printing press, my debt is good." ... yeah, see. THAT right there is the heart of the problem. "Print more money" is not a legitimate way out of debt. It's what banana republics do, like Zimbabwe under Mugabe (and it worked out so well for them). This is not an AAA debt, and people are only pretending it is because they have so much personal wealth tied up in it that the reality will be bad for them financially.

He says the government's performance is sure not AAA, but he'd rate the debt as AAA.

Remember: Ratings on bonds is supposed to be how likely they are to default. Nothing has changed that makes the US more likely to default.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44056326

People will continue buying Treasurys at near zero rates

I don't understand. If that's the case, why is the FED buying Treasuries ?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43356436/Fed_Will_Buy_50_Billion_of_Treasurys_in_Final_QE2_Push