Slashdot Mirror

Yes.

https://www.irishtimes.com/bus...
http://fortune.com/2012/04/29/...
http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://www.finfacts.ie/Irish_f...
http://dukeundergraduatelawmag...
https://www.thecasecentre.org/...

Exactly. For example, every time Krugman gets involved in a debate about the banking sector, it becomes clear why he got the award. The Honorary Nobel Prize he got was handed to him by the head honchos at the Swedish Central Bank, so it shouldn't come as a surprise when his views are heavily leaned towards a more finance sector friendly Keynesian way of thinking.

So trying to boost his credibility with this "Nobel Prize" will only work on people who don't know what kind of a rigged anti-prize it is.

Absolutely false. The Riksbank gets its authority from the Swedish Parliament.

As you can see in this photo, Krugman is being handed his Nobel by King Carl XVI Gustaf who is a strictly ceremonial head of state. The King may be a customer of the bank, but he isn't a honcho at the bank; Parliament controls it.

However, figurehead Carl XVI Gustaf has no say in who gets the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences; that is decided by this group of professors. Not the Sveriges Riksbank at all. Yeah, I know, you've got a conspiracy theory to explain why all these professors are puppets of a bank. Bullshit.

I just don't get why people post lies on the internet that are so easily checked on the internet. Makes no sense dude; for a ten second chuckle, you've branded yourself a liar in the Slashdot community. Where's the win in that?

Apple
Red Hat
Amazon

1. it was a 30 year old plant 1 month away from being decommissioned;

The average age of the world's nuke plants is 25 years. Yeah, rare bad luck that this one was 5 years older than that.

So of a total of something over 400 reactors we've only had about 4 melt down (Chernobyl and 3 of the six at Fukushima), so roughly 1%. The average age of the world's nuclear plants is 25 years. So per-nuclear-plant, per-century of operation, 4% melt down, and the odds are 1 in 25 of having a meltdown of major consequence at whatever nuclear plant you live closest to within your or your children's lifetimes.

Yup, when you do the math there's just nothing to be too worried about.

With IP to extort reduced tax rates and other concession, you just shift the country of ownership of the IP, takes a quick pen stroke and it's done and your tax base is screwed.

exactly... look at how Microsoft hides their IP in Ireland to minimise their tax bill... but uses US patent law to enforce it...

With IP to extort reduced tax rates and other concession, you just shift the country of ownership of the IP, takes a quick pen stroke and it's done and your tax base is screwed.

exactly... look at how Microsoft hides their IP in Ireland to minimise their tax bill... but uses US patent law to enforce it...

Goldline scam? I don't get it. But I don't buy from goldline. I don't know why you have a hatred for someone you don't know, but typical in today's post progressive era.

Try Kitco.com or any of the other brokers that are out there. It has nothing to do with Glen Beck All coins are sold at a premium because of the intrinsic value. As soon as a coin is minted it carries some intrinsic value. Look at the state quarters. They are just quarters, but people collect them. THAT gives it intrinsic value. Are they worth more than .25$ US Dollars? Only to another collector. There are grades and dates and circulations, etc. These all go into the price of a coin. Mints change things beside the dates. Look at recent new dollar coin in USA. Again, still a dollar, but how many people use and spend them? 90% of population would squirrle the coin away because it is different. That is an instant debt free loan to the government, 1 dollar at a time. If you want gold, for gold reasons, buy bullion. Collectible coins are only a hedge because in the end you should still end up with a good coin collection if done properly. Even if the gold goes down. Bullion goes down the same as it goes up. Nothing collectable in bullion. (Well, not quite, some folks collect the individual commemorative mints that is common in silver bars, but not too much in gold.)

As for arguing facts, etc... You may have some of the "Eminent domain requires paying the actual value of stuff, determined by a court. " wrong. INAL... (WARNING!!!) But from my understanding, it was FAIR value, not ACTUAL value. And it applied to REAL PROPERTY, not "STUFF". Just like during a war they can confiscate any supplies they want and leave you a piece of paper I-O-U until settled later. Besides, the definition of FAIR VALUE is a gray term. For example, My family had a piece of property that it owned for investment reasons for 18+ years. We paid taxes on the land, cut some hay off of it, but other than that it was behind an airport that wanted to expand and next to a major highway. The county government started bragging about taking it by eminent domain and put an article in the newspaper about what the value was and never asked us. The family already had a contract for the sale of the property much higher than the county government wanted to pay. It was our "FAIR" value, but not theirs. In the end we finished the sale and the new owner promptly stuck a for sale sign on the property at 2 or 3 times amount paid. He thought that the court would force the county to pay his amount. In the end the county walked away because judge said the fair value was the value that just fairly reached between the two parties. Too high for the county and too low for the new owner... My mother walked away happy from the private sale, and then the market crashed and we really counted ourselves lucky.

Ok... I digressed. The point is that there will not be a judgment for every person that has a gold coin. IF (BIG IF...) it ever came down to it, it would be a hard locked price per oz set by the government on gold just like 1934 when it was locked in at 35$ per oz (!!!! Wish I had some of it back then -- Oh, yep, wasn't alowed unless it was collectable or special permit for artistic or industrial use!) http://www.finfacts.ie/Private/curency/goldmarketprice.htm

Why would they leave the loophole? Dunno, maybe to keep their own collections intact? There is REAL intrinsic value to the coins if you ever actually held one. Last years buffalo or a Canadian Maple leaf.. Beautiful coins. My current favorite is the Australian Silver Koala, Gilded edition. So cute...

BTW, today it is currently at $1308, up from 1294. yep, only $14 from yesterday, but it was a push through the overhead limit that everyone worries about. There may be a drop as some folks will sell to take some profit. That will cause the market to drop a bit as it reabsorb

I don't look at anecdotes, I look at data.

http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1010305.shtml

There's just so much time wasted on the road.
Link all the cars and let a computer control them and the moment the light goes green all the cars could accelerate at once rather than the first car moving off, then the second, then the third etc. On top of that throw in smarter traffic lights, better public transport systems(since there would be no need for drivers the money could be spent on more busses/trains) and being able to sleep on your way into work and you have a big winner

The solution to traffic congestion is not to be found in any amount of technology. It's called public transport. It's not a coincidence that the cities which are ranked highest by studies of quality of life:
http://www.finfacts.ie/qualityoflife.htm
have great public transport systems. Like Vienna, which is ranked 2nd, where most people just don't bother owning a car.

In case you are curious, the first US city ranks 28th (honolulu). If you want to read the newspaper on your way to work, underground/tram/bus is the way to go. Of course in many places it is not an option because there is no decent public transport, but this can be fixed. Quickly, if you tax motorists coming into town and spend the money on improving public transport.

First, medical care isn't the only thing that affects life expectancy, nor are they directly proportional. The culture in the U.S. and the average person's diet and exercise regimen may have as much or more to do with how long they live than the quality of medical care.

Read the links on the page that I provided; it goes into treatment of specific diseases and looks at how they fare in the US versus other countries.

Second, we live i.a competitive country and world.

Competition lowers prices.

Paying twice as much as other countries for medical care doesn't surprise me in the least, since we typically pay more than that for just about everything else. Do you think people in Cuba all buy $200,000 houses? I don't think so. Yet that's common here.

Have you priced living expenses in Europe lately? Europe, east Asia, and Canada are the nations we're comparing to, so let's look at the world's most expensive cities. London is number two (after Moscow). Copenhagen 6th, Geneva 7th, Zurich 9th, Oslo 10th, Milan 11th, and so on. Seoul is #3, Tokyo #4, and Hong Kong #5. The most expensive city in North America is NYC, and it's only #15. LA, our only other in the top 50, is #42.

American *salaries* are higher than European salaries (although that's changing), but as far as expenses go, Europe is more expensive. The simple fact of the matter is that our healthcare system is overpriced and under-effective, and there are countless studies out there on the subject. Start reading them.

What we need is a system like France's (yes, I know France is a dirty word, but hey ...). Canada's is too hostile to supplimental insurance. Britain's is too minimal on its basic coverage. Germany's is too convoluted and inefficient. I think France got it pretty close to just right. They're a little too lenient on allowing unneccessary visits, but that's a mistake we could avoid here, and is relatively minor in the scheme of things. And despite the cost of living in France, and the fact that France isn't exactly famed for healthy food, their healthcare costs are less than half of ours and their life expectancy longer.

I just google all of those terms and found absolutely nothing to indicate that anything I said was in the slightest bit wrong. Call me crazy for not digging beyond the first 5 pages of results. Maybe I missed something. How about you give me some specific links to indicate such and I will quite gladly read them.

The most interesting thing I found while searching those terms is that Americans spend only 10% of their income on food while the Chinese spend around 30%. So that means even LESS money in their pocket. How exactly do these google searches help your argument?

And we're not talking about Bumblefuckistan (damn if this place isn't a favorite straw-man location for people to use in limp arguments) - we're talking about China. A real country. You can make up imaginary places where $1000 a year is enough to feed a family of four in a less-than-squallid house with at least halfway decent medical care, but until you show me something adequate your argument kind of falls flat, wouldn't you say? Heck, let's just assume for food. Let's be generous and say these diggers make $5000 a year. Take out the 30% they spend on food. That leaves around $3,300. Take a look-see through the searches you suggested to me and let me know if $3,300 is adequate for a human being to live in any sort of condition that goes beyond simply surviving.

I'm actually not arguing and don't consider this to be a debate of any substance because nobody has yet provided me with any sort of refutation that has any weight. It's just the same reactionary, defensive stuff we always hear. I love to learn, so I'm curious about any and all data you may have access to that I'm overlooking. The only thing I was able to find on repeated pages was the international cities comparison: http://www.finfacts.ie/costofliving.htm - which seems to have major US and Chinese cities sprinkled throughout fairly evenly.

Do you have any information on the cost of living of rural areas of China? Something that indicates that their overall cost of living is at least 12x cheaper than the comparable cost of living here in the states? It doesn't have to be an online link (though I know people prefer that as a way to "win" an argument fairly quickly) - I have some great libraries in my area in NC. Honestly, I'm not being confrontational on this - someone point me to a source that shows that I shouldn't be concerned about third world countries where people make $4 a day digging through my garbage because they actually have it so much better than I realize. I'll read whatever you recommend to me and I'll apologize if any of you are right.

At some point there should be plenty of old people's houses vacant, but that just doesn't show on their price tags right now.

What are you basing this on? On my quick google search, they appear at #43 behind many other major software and hardware manufacturers (Microsoft, IBM, Intel, HP, Cisco, Dell, Oracle, SAP). Apple is considered a cult brand, not a top brand. http://www.finfacts.ie/brands2004.htm

Well, I haven't googled myself, but that list is a company ranking based on money, it is not a rating of the 'brand'. It is a rating of how much money a given 'brand' makes a company. When the company has sales that are 100x greater than another.. it's not hard for their 'brand' to make more money, as long as it's 2/100ths as good as the lesser company's brand, they'll make more money with it.

The strength of a "Brand" as this discussion is using the term is completely based on marketting impression and how effective the brand is at getting a customer's attention. Apple is one of the strongest brands in that respect, partly due to their absolutely genious marketting(No matter how stupid you think their ads are, you can recognize them on site, and everyone talks about them, hence, good brand recognition.)

In fact, the Mac has continued to dramatically outpace PC market gain.

Yeah, too bad the PC market couldn't quite get past 95%, that's pretty disappointing. What an accomplishment for Macs to outpace PC market gain.

They are one of the world's top brands

What are you basing this on? On my quick google search, they appear at #43 behind many other major software and hardware manufacturers (Microsoft, IBM, Intel, HP, Cisco, Dell, Oracle, SAP). Apple is considered a cult brand, not a top brand. http://www.finfacts.ie/brands2004.htm