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Gray market seeks way around iPhone 5 restrictions

http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/2012-09/20/content_15770744.htm

It's really a battle for unlocked mobile phones that don't have registered users. Locked-in phones have your government ID registered.

Same think happened to someone Iranian:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/06/21/does-apple-actually-understand-the-export-restriction-laws/

First, calling on Apple to lessen restrictions on the business model of ebook stores etc. is completely orthogonal to the numbers you cited.
Your's a non sequitir argument. How much money has been made by developers on the PC over the same time period of 5 years? Must be tens of billions. Most of the money you quote is paid to a few big developers.

See http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2012/12/06/top-25-developers-receive-half-of-app-store-revenue/

Canalys research group estimates that half of all App store revenue from Apple and Google goes to just 25 developers. Pandora is the only non-game developer in the top 25.

There are over 700,000 apps available for Apple platforms and almost 200,000 publishers per 148apps.biz. Apps that charge on average generate $1.65 for a non-game app and $0.91 for a gaming app.

So paying a bit more to the small guys is not going to kill Apple or the platform.

vlm specifically implied that Americans are being extradited to other countries for doing things that aren't illegal in America - I contend that point, and the lack of supporting citation.

No, read his post, he said doing things illegal in the US (as in, against the law in the US) while being in a foreign country.

That's a negatory, Ghostrider. vlm's post, verbatim:

Extradition treaties. You live in .us and uploaded a wedding picture of your wife showing bare ankles to facebook? Hopefully the religious authorities in Afghanistan will be lenient with your extradited there for punishment ... all in exchange for other countries extraditing I.P. violators to the USA.

Phrases such as "you live in .us" and "authorities in Afghanistan... you['re] extradited there" makes it pretty obvious he's talking about US citizens being extradited to other countries.

You probably shouldn't throw stones from a glass house

Irony; You probably shouldn't say, "read his post," when you have failed to read and understand it yourself.

Well, the "shit tin-foil-hat-crazy people say" about Obama and firearms is correct. Obama said he wants to "reintroduce the ban on assault rifles."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frankminiter/2012/10/24/what-president-obama-says-hell-do-to-your-gun-rights/

The same President Obama who refused to renew the Brady Bill, and allows citizens to carry in national parks. He's gonna 'take yer gunz away.'

Right.. and I just so happen to be the Lindbergh Baby.

What you've linked to there, aside from being an opinion piece completely devoid of any sort of citation that would back what the mouthpiece who wrote it claims, is an example of political posturing. Fun fact: Presidents do not have the power to create or enact legislation, only the option to sign or veto.

Besides, If you don't like assault rifles, what are you going to do about it, take it from me at knifepoint?

When did I say I didn't like assault rifles? Never. All I said was the "Dat N*gg35'z gonna take away owl ur GUNZ!" crowd are batshit crazy - this is a fact.

By all means, continue to believe such nonsense - my family owns a gun shop, and we're always happy to take your money!

vlm specifically implied that Americans are being extradited to other countries for doing things that aren't illegal in America - I contend that point, and the lack of supporting citation.

No, read his post, he said doing things illegal in the US (as in, against the law in the US) while being in a foreign country. Although Dotcom hasn't been extradited yet, they are pushing for it, and they have successfully extradited other people who have never set foot in the US.

You probably shouldn't throw stones from a glass house, by the way (see your first sentece below.)

And I think you're reading too much into the specific words I wrote, and not enough into the context. Hint: It has far less to do with partisan politics than you think, and far more to do with shit tin-foil-hat-crazy people say.

Well, the "shit tin-foil-hat-crazy people say" about Obama and firearms is correct. Obama said he wants to "reintroduce the ban on assault rifles."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frankminiter/2012/10/24/what-president-obama-says-hell-do-to-your-gun-rights/

Personally I love assault rifles. In fact, I use them exclusively over pistols for target shooting. Pistols make me nervous, ironically (they just feel so dangerous for how small they are). Probably has to do with the fact that I've been extensively trained with assault rifles in the Army, but never have been trained with a pistol. Besides, in an urban environment its a lot easier to assassinate somebody with a pistol than a rifle. A rifle isn't as inconspicuous as a pistol, and is much harder to conceal.

Besides, If you don't like assault rifles, what are you going to do about it, take it from me at knifepoint?

This study includes that, nuclear is still lower.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/

Not according to Forbes.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/

Here is the link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/05/31/sorry-global-warming-alarmists-the-earth-is-cooling/ Another link: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/10/a-big-picture-look-at-earths-temperature-2nd-quarter-2012/ Global warming is just a hoax!

Class Warfare: The Mortal Enemy Of Economic Growth And Jobs
The Communist Manifesto

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

Here ya go:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

The people in US who don't deny the existence of climate change will keep on blaming China and India as a scapegoat. Meanwhile, it's US, Canada, New Zealand, Russia, and a few other countries which are holding up any kind of international progress from taking place.
China leads the world in renewable energy investment.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jackperkowski/2012/07/27/china-leads-the-world-in-renewable-energy-investment/
I think it's time to get your head out of the sand and admit that you are part of the problem.

Here ya go:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

Uh, yeah. Let me guess. It should be on the market in five years, just like every other solar technical wonder.

Oh please. If only you knew what was really going on, you'd have trouble breathing. Prices for solar power have dropped so rapidly and so consistently people are calling it "Moore's Law for Solar". A quote from the article: Solar modules prices have dropped from $300 per watt in 1956 to $50 per watt in the 1970s to $10 in the 90s to $1.05 a watt today. Just what did you think this should look like?

Approximately half of all the generating capacity last year was from renewable energy sources. The miracle of having an actually usable smartphone was a pipe dream just 5 years ago. Now, even most poor folks have one.

Today, anybody can afford to board a high speed aircraft and travel at 350 MPH at 40,000 with safety that rivals our living rooms. Think about that. A chair, 40,000 feet in the air, travelling 350 MPH, affordable to nearly everybody, complete with magazines to read, and we mostly complain about the noise.

Sheesh.

Yes, it's a choice. The choice is "Do I pay my bills this month or stay home and rest?" Not everyone has a salaried job.

Thanks for checking my source, but please re-read it. The paragraph you quoted says exactly what I said. SS's deficit can't be covered even by completely removing the cap. You have to ALSO reduce benefits for the people who were previously above the cap in order for the system to no longer be running in deficit. Which is perfectly consistent with my original position: you've got to either inflate or cut benefits.

As for making an example of SS, you introduced that into the conversation; my original post was directed at all entitlement spending. I agree that Medicare (and actually the entire Federal "health care" apparatus) is a much much bigger problem.

If you're interested in some interesting debate on the PPACA and other health care stuff, check out: The Apothecary.

at an estimated price of $1.4 billion or more for two

According to Forbes there are only around 1000 people on Earth with that kind of money.

It was a fraudulent trade. He intentionally bought 1000x what he should have bought, and through some fast talking got another firm to short sell a comparable amount. I don't think the guy got beyond step 2 ???. He basically set up one firm to make a lot of money and the other to lose a lot, don't know how he expected to get any of it. Source

this is the slowest and most anemic recovery we've had from a recession since the Great Depression

And since this is quite clearly the worst recession we've had since the great depression, perhaps that follows?

Bush presided over the Slowest and Most Anemic job growth of any 2 term president since Eisenhower.

If you look at job creation and when the stimulus ended, there's a clear drop in job creation showing that stimulus was working.

Bush had a surplus and a reasonably strong economy given to him and he turned it into massive deficits and the greatest recession since the Depression.

Obama is slowly working us out of that, though without literally *any* help from the GOP.

I am going to disagree with you.

Pick apart the wiki article you posted and you will see things like:
          Production approach: Net Value Added = Gross Value of output – Value of Intermediate Consumption. (where Gross value of output is revenue) or
          Income approach: .Corporate profits
Etc.

Here is an example.

In country Y
Manufacture A has revenue of 45b and profits of 5b.
Middle Man B distributes company’s A product. It has revues of 50b and profits of 5b.

In country Z
Integrated company C produces and distributes 50b of product and has 10b of profits.

Question – Is countries Y GDP twice as big as country Z. No – because you nailed it on the head when you referred to real “economic activity”.

There are differences between corporate and GDP accounting. Investing is assets is a cost to companies reducing profits (short term, accounting wise). For GDP it is added in. But it is still more akin to prfoits then revenue.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/06/28/gdp-for-a-country-is-not-the-same-thing-as-turnover-for-a-business/

Ok, let's stop to consider this for a moment. 30% of the Facebook subscriber base needs to participate if the measure is to pass. What's the liklihood of that happening if:

(1) A significant percentage of all FB subscribers are spambots (estimated at 6-10% - http://www.insidefacebook.com/category/spam-2/ )

(2) The average turnout of a normal adult voting population for US elections is ~50% (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout)

(3) There is a gap between "all users" and "monthly active users" - hard to estimate (e.g., http://www.forbes.com/sites/limyunghui/2012/09/30/1-billion-facebook-users-on-earth-are-we-there-yet/ )

(4) Voting requires registering for an app, which (see other comments) also reduces turnout?

I think we can say, with relative confidence, that it's very unlikely that a full 30% of all 'Facebookizens' will express their right to vote. Which is probably why Facebook set the 30% threshold in the first place.

But, it'll be fun to estimate: what percentage of FB users will actually vote in the end?

--D

The BBC article, Downward mobility haunts US education, presents an interesting observation on post-secondary graduation rates and possible causes and consequences. Granted, there are immeasurable depths of innumerable studies and opinions, but the fact is that it may well be that the current generation will be less well educated than past generations. This will have serious consequences.

Since I started university over 30 years ago, the trend that sees more and more graduate degrees going to international students who are increasingly returning home to move their homelands ahead has been going up and up. See, for example, Absurd U.S. Immigration Policies Amount To Economy Sapping Talent Drain .

All I know is that getting a college/university degree shows one thing -- you can take on a challenge and complete it while working with other people in a collaborative environment with mentors and support people. Sounds a lot like something that would be valuable in a career.

Besides, what has Zuckerberg accomplished besides making money? There is nothing fundamentally new about social media. Its a consequence of the ubiquity of wideband communications...

Forbes suggests it wasn't the unions which made the company fail, it was the management.

There's a very slim chance of that happening, even after Jobs' death. He was notoriously against anything OLED related, now it's finally going to be biting Apple in the ass since Samsung owns 90% of the OLED market (albeit through non-exclusive PHOLED materials agreements with Universal Display). That includes almost all flexible OLED production too. And Sharp's financial woes are causing problems on the Apple LCD front going forward. It really was a major blunder on Job's part to lock themselves so tightly with "old fashioned" LCD.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/01/17/steve-jobs-failure-to-see-light-in-oled-could-cost-apple/

MS doesn't pay anyone to put their OS on a system. Utterly false but still modded up by fanbois as fact.

Microsoft is paying Nokia over $200 per phone to put their crapware onto Nokia's systems. I don't know exactly what the situation is now, but traditionally Microsoft charged PC vendors per PC with Windows installed but then gave them a big payment towards marketing costs, typically conditional on exclusive use of Windows for domestic use.

When coal power was the same age as nuclear is now you guys were sending children down mines to get it for you. That's great that you require coal plants to clean up the site though (I assume you also require nuclear plants to do so). Do you also require them to clean up all the toxic waste products that are conveniently dispersed on the wind?

Issues with decommissioning nuclear plants and safely storing (or better, reusing) waste aren't trivial but suggesting coal is safer because you don't have store the waste for 100,000 years is pretty naive. The mortality statistics certainly paint a very different picture: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/

I maintain that you CAN'T really program morality into a machine (it's hard enough to program it into a human). And I also doubt that engineers will ever really be able to overcome the numerous technical issues involved with driverless cars. But above these two problems, far and away above *all* problems with driverless cars is the real reason I think we'll never see anything more than driver *assisting* cars on the road: legal liability.

To put it bluntly, raise your hand if YOU want to be the first car manufacturer to make a car for which you are potentially liable in *every single accident that car ever gets into*, from the day it's sold until the day it's scrapped. Any takers? How much would you have to add onto the sticker price to cover the costs of going to court every single time that particular car was involved in an accident? Of defending the efficacy of your driverless system against other manufacturer's systems (and against defect, and against the word of the driver himself that he was using the system properly) in one liability case after another?

According to Forbes, the average driver is involved in an accident every 18 years. Let's suppose (and I'm sure the statisticians would object to this supposition) that that means that the average CAR is also involved in a wreck every 18 years as well. Since the average age of a car is about 11 years now, it's not unreasonable to assume that a little less than half of all cars on the road will be involved in at least one accident in their functional lifetimes. And even with the added safety of driverless systems, the first model available will still have to contend with a road mostly filled with regular, non-driverless-system cars. So let's say that a good 25% of those first models will probably end up in an accident at some point, which will make a very tempting target for lawyers going for the deep pockets of their manufacturers.

Again, what car company wouldn't take that into account when asking themselves if they want to be a pioneer in this field?

Yeah. Speaking of invisible hand:
Q) How many free market economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A) Free market economists don't change lightbulbs, they write their papers in the darkness while waiting for the Invisible Hand to do it.

As far as I see collapse is inevitable every now and then, it's a matter of how bad it is. Good regulations reduce the impact and how often the collapse happens. After all banks that didn't do crazy stuff didn't collapse, and it was quite obvious that some stuff was crazy- the greedy people didn't care - there was little risk to them. There's so much regulation can do though - if you run out of resources you can't regulate your way out of it.

BTW Iceland had a rather different bailout approach - instead of bailing out the banks they let the banks suffer and bailed out the citizens. Maybe Iceland is different, but they seem to be doing better now.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-12/imf-says-bailouts-iceland-style-hold-lessons-for-crisis-nations
Look what Forbes said back then: http://www.forbes.com/sites/halahtouryalai/2011/04/11/icelands-stand-against-bailout-repayment-will-hurt/
Forbes thinks Iceland won't be able to raise money any more? Sure Iceland is clearly riskier now, but there's plenty of evidence that higher risk never stopped greed. Whereas losing your life savings can put a halt to lots of things.

Jenny McCarthy is only one of many. I'm using her as an example.

For instance, read this article in Forbes about a *nobel laureat* who has gone off the deep end.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2012/05/27/nobel-laureate-joins-anti-vaccination-crowd-at-autism-one/

Well, apparently Montagnier has gone off the deep end into pseudoscience himself. He claims that his new group, Chronimed, has discovered in autistic children

        âoeDNA sequences that emit, in certain conditions, electromagnetic waves. The analysis by molecular biology techniques allows us to identify these electromagnetic waves as coming from ⦠bacterial species.â

What the heck? In what seems to be a desperate effort to stay relevant, Montagnier is promoting wild theories with little scientific basis, and now he is taking advantage of vulnerable parents (see his appeal here) to push a therapy of long-term antibiotic treatment for autistic children.

This is truly a wacky theory. Montagnier hasnâ(TM)t been able to publish this in a proper journal, for a very good reason: itâ(TM)s nonsense. He claims that quantum field theory â" an area of physics in which he has no qualifications â" explains how electromagnetic waves emanating from DNA can explain not only autism, but also Alzheimerâ(TM)s disease, Parkinsonâ(TM)s disease, multiple sclerosis, Lyme disease, and rheumatoid arthritis. Montagnier makes these claims and more in a self-published paper that he posted on arXiv.

It's not a false dichotomy. The anti-vaccine movement is unscientific and anti-science. It rejects biology.

--
BMO

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/11/23/kids-want-an-ipad-more-than-a-wiiu-for-christmas/

Outside of wikipedia the distinction between base and peak is not so clearcut.
Forbes Magazine (outspoken defender of free markets) had these two articles in May of 2012:
"Shale Gas Takes On Coal To Power America's Electrical Plants", May 30, 2012
and "Why Shale Gas Is Closing Coal Plants, So Why Do The Hippies Hate Shale?", May 5, 2012
http://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2012/05/30/shale-gas-takes-on-coal-to-power-americas-electrical-plants/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/05/05/why-shale-gas-is-closing-coal-plants-so-why-do-the-hippies-hate-shale/
So the electric utilities in the US are substituting natural gas for coal due to price differences. I read it first in The Economist.

Outside of wikipedia the distinction between base and peak is not so clearcut.
Forbes Magazine (outspoken defender of free markets) had these two articles in May of 2012:
"Shale Gas Takes On Coal To Power America's Electrical Plants", May 30, 2012
and "Why Shale Gas Is Closing Coal Plants, So Why Do The Hippies Hate Shale?", May 5, 2012
http://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2012/05/30/shale-gas-takes-on-coal-to-power-americas-electrical-plants/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/05/05/why-shale-gas-is-closing-coal-plants-so-why-do-the-hippies-hate-shale/
So the electric utilities in the US are substituting natural gas for coal due to price differences. I read it first in The Economist.

WMDs today aren't really nukes. There are genetic weapons, chemical weapons, biological weapons, psytronic weapons, cybernetic weapons, laser weapons, all which are more dangerous than nuke and all paradigm shifting.

Nukes were state of the art in the 1940s-50s. It's 2012 and now the weapons are like nukes only invisible or so secret people don't know what they are to recognize whether or not it's being used. Russia has a zombie-gun weapon now for which there are no defenses against. Let's also not rule out lasers and other space weapons which could defeat a lot of these so called missile defense systems with ease. We have to worry about clone armies, cybernetic warfare, and other exotic weapons. Fortunately Iran doesn't have these weapons yet but I do think they have a satellite in space and probably are smart enough to figure out how to put weapons into space or just a guidance system from space. Missile defense systems wont work in an actual war, it will take more but that is my opinion and I don't know what different governments have I only know it wont work against China, Russia or Iran.

They've supposed spent just under $200 million in total on various things, including anti-AGW stuff. That's slightly more than a year's funding for the World Wildlife Fund, one of the larger AGW advocates.

Are you suggesting that TWO HUNDRED MILLION dollars spent by a single family for the sole purpose of political gain is somehow insignificant compared to an international environmental organization's entire budget? I just don't understand your argument that AGW advocates are somehow stomping big oil when it comes to funding (hope I'm reading your post right). Ok so Exxon only made $41Billion in profit...a few more than shell...who made a few more than BP...etc down the line of the hundreds of billion dollar oil companies. But they aren't even the biggest producers. State owned companies dwarf the private companies but they don't publish financials so no one talks about them. Where are the hidden trillion dollar AGW cartels pulling the strings on the poor oil industry? You provided some speculation of how Carbon credits might take off but it won't mean anything if those 98% of scientists are correct and the global landscape shifts faster than we can adapt.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/11/18/if-youre-27-or-younger-youve-almost-certainly-experienced-many-colder-than-average-months/

"And this will give ammunition to those who would write off a warming planet as little more than a hoax. Alarmism has no place in a discussion of science. We should leave that to 24-hour cable news pundits."

Except that's strictly a right-wing fantasy. Obama actually LOWERED taxes and CUT regulations.

Psst, hey AC, better check this out...

Incomes are down: http://news.investors.com/092512-626958-household-income-down-82-under-president-obama.aspx

Obamacare regulations for 2013 are going to be less than optimal: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gracemarieturner/2012/10/28/the-avalanche-of-new-obamacare-rules-will-come-in-january-2013/

Obama EPA regulations also sub-optimal: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/11/04/epas-insanely-ambitious-agenda-if-obama-is-reelected/

Here's another tip- stop getting your news from NPR and MSNBC. that's a left wing fantasy.

OK, even if we assume that those are all 100% accurate, WTF do any of those have to do with whether taxes are higher or lower? Here's a hint: NOTHING!!!!

Except that's strictly a right-wing fantasy. Obama actually LOWERED taxes and CUT regulations.

Psst, hey AC, better check this out...

Incomes are down: http://news.investors.com/092512-626958-household-income-down-82-under-president-obama.aspx

Obamacare regulations for 2013 are going to be less than optimal: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gracemarieturner/2012/10/28/the-avalanche-of-new-obamacare-rules-will-come-in-january-2013/

Obama EPA regulations also sub-optimal: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/11/04/epas-insanely-ambitious-agenda-if-obama-is-reelected/

Here's another tip- stop getting your news from NPR and MSNBC. that's a left wing fantasy.

OK, even if we assume that those are all 100% accurate, WTF do any of those have to do with whether taxes are higher or lower? Here's a hint: NOTHING!!!!

Thats over a third of Exxon's revenue for 2011!

Revenue != profit. If traders in those markets can get carbon emission credits to cap under actual demand consistently, then they can drive up the volume to far higher and scoop profits that make the oil business look like chump change.

Also, ever wonder why oil is seeing record profits at this time? AGW mitigation is coupled with all sorts of stuff that restricts competition in the fossil fuel industry, such as regulation that has prevented any new refineries from being built in the US for decades. Why should they oppose AGW?

If Germany is increasing its power exports with a $130B investment (http://cleantechnica.com/2012/02/09/clean-energy-loving-germany-increasingly-exporting-electricity-to-nuclear-heavy-france/), Imagine what they could do with $500B.

It's called throwing good money after bad. I'm not at all impressed with how Germany can squander half a trillion dollars.

As for political motherlodes, what do you call the 10's of millions the Koch brothers spend on lobbying every year?

Pocket change, especially since they don't spend that much. They've supposed spent just under $200 million in total on various things, including anti-AGW stuff. That's slightly more than a year's funding for the World Wildlife Fund, one of the larger AGW advocates.

Except that's strictly a right-wing fantasy. Obama actually LOWERED taxes and CUT regulations.

Psst, hey AC, better check this out...

Incomes are down: http://news.investors.com/092512-626958-household-income-down-82-under-president-obama.aspx

Obamacare regulations for 2013 are going to be less than optimal: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gracemarieturner/2012/10/28/the-avalanche-of-new-obamacare-rules-will-come-in-january-2013/

Obama EPA regulations also sub-optimal: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/11/04/epas-insanely-ambitious-agenda-if-obama-is-reelected/

Here's another tip- stop getting your news from NPR and MSNBC. that's a left wing fantasy.

Except that's strictly a right-wing fantasy. Obama actually LOWERED taxes and CUT regulations.

Psst, hey AC, better check this out...

Incomes are down: http://news.investors.com/092512-626958-household-income-down-82-under-president-obama.aspx

Obamacare regulations for 2013 are going to be less than optimal: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gracemarieturner/2012/10/28/the-avalanche-of-new-obamacare-rules-will-come-in-january-2013/

Obama EPA regulations also sub-optimal: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/11/04/epas-insanely-ambitious-agenda-if-obama-is-reelected/

Here's another tip- stop getting your news from NPR and MSNBC. that's a left wing fantasy.

On the other hand, the Patent system works well when viewed in its historical context. They have been a net benefit for innovation.

Actually, one of the most comprehensive studies on that topic (Fritz Machlup, An Economic Review of the Patent System) concluded more or less the opposite:

If one does not know whether a system "as a whole" (in contrast to certain features of it) is good or bad, the safest "policy conclusion" is to "muddle through" - either with it, if one has long lived with it, or without it, if one has lived without it. If we did not have a patent system, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge of its economic consequences, to recommend instituting one. But since we have had a patent system for a long time, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge, to recommend abolishing it. This last statement refers to a country such as the United States of America - not to a small country and not to a predominantly nonindustrial country, where a different weight of argument might well suggest another conclusion.

Similarly, the FTC Innovation report from 2003 was also far from unequivocally positive about patents, especially in the hardware/software fields. Or Jim Bessen's research, as presented (twice) at an FFII conference in 2004.

For example, there are many fewer patents lawsuits regarding Smart Phones than there were in the time the original telephone was invented.

That does not exemplify how patents have supposedly been a net benefit for innovation. Additionally, you are wrongly paraphrasing the article you refer to below. It only says that nowadays, per filed patent there are fewer lawsuits than there were in the days of the fixed telephone. From that it concludes that there is no problem with the volume of patent lawsuits.

I would argue that the reason for this is that patents are used in a very different way today compared to how they were used back then (there were much less large companies back then amassing patent war chests just for defensive purposes). Arguably, the standards for patentability were also higher back then, which means that actually going to court rather than only looking for the players you can convince to settle out of course was a much less risky business.

Here is a god article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2012/02/09/no-the-patent-system-is-not-broken/2/

While I appreciate that shooting the messenger by itself is not a very strong argument, that's an opinion piece by "the vice president and head of strategic acquisitions at Intellectual Ventures". That's patent troll central. Suing companies, or threatening to sue them, based on all kinds of patents is their bread and butter.

Moving on to substance, he's most definitely wrong when he claims that "Every major technological and industrial breakthrough in U.S. history [..] has been accompanied by exactly the same surge in patenting, patent trading, and patent litigation that we see today in the smartphone business". Do you remember the massive patent wars from the eighties and nineties that came with the personal computer revolution? No? Me neither. There were a few lawsuits (e.g. Stac vs Microsoft), but there most definitely was no surge like what we see today.

What we need is general legal reform so that disputes can be decided simply and inexpensively without Lawyers getting all the goodies.

...the report is flawed...

. . . if the head of the office is trying to use smartphones as an example of patents inspiring "innovation", he is... an idiot, quite frankly (or a liar, either way, not trustworthy).

On the other hand, the Patent system works well when viewed in its historical context. They have been a net benefit for innovation. . For example, there are many fewer patents lawsuits regarding Smart Phones than there were in the time the original telephone was invented. Here is a god article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2012/02/09/no-the-patent-system-is-not-broken/2/
What we need is general legal reform so that disputes can be decided simply and inexpensively without Lawyers getting all the goodies.

The only people using mail anymore are junk mailers.

Amazon, Newegg, Ebay, Zappos... Junk mail is one of the post offices biggest profit items. This is like claiming the roads are only used by drug dealers and thieves.

So let's raise our taxes even more to prop up a bunch of spammers.

An apt analogy for how USPS operates is a ship with 3 rudders.

If you don't, the union gets angry and leans on politicians. That's just good policy.

The main reason that the USPS is losing money is because congress forced a 70 year prepayment of retirement benefits on the USPS

If not them, then someone else will buy those brands.

I kind of figured Google was up to something when they bought all that white space. http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2012/11/05/why-google-and-microsoft-are-competing-for-the-airwaves-and-what-it-says-about-opportunity/

About that criticism of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Baucuscare, after Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the man who *actually* wrote the law (or rather, it was Sen. Baucus' aides and lobbyists, but at least Baucuscare is less of a misnomer, since laws are not written by the executive branch))

Mr. John Schnatter, CEO of Papa Johns, estimates that the PPACA will cost his company $5 to $8 million annually.

In September, Papa Johns ran a campaign where they gave out two million free pizzas. The cost of these pizzas would be $24 to $32 million, estimated.

In other words, free pizza advertising gimmicks cost about four times as much as providing health care to your employees.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/calebmelby/2012/11/12/breaking-down-centi-millionaire-papa-john-schnatters-obamacare-math/

China is already playing the game and beating America at it.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jackperkowski/2012/07/27/china-leads-the-world-in-renewable-energy-investment/

You're right, but why nuclear? Why not something that doesn't have the chance, however remote, of causing armageddon?

Because modern nuclear doesn't have even a remote chance of causing armageddon. The worst crisis in the history of nuclear power gave a few thousand people cancer. The second worst crisis has killed or injured almost nobody, although caused a lot of inconvenience in the area no doubt. No other nuclear failure has caused any health problems worth mentioning, and the ones whose failures were costly to clean up were old, and would not be produced in this day and age.

Nuclear power is the safest energy source per TWh, bar none. Wind power is more deadly.

Modern nuclear can also process existing nuclear waste, which seems like a bit of a win.

Shut up. All bringing up nuclear power does is remind everyone that most people are superstitious morons.

The natural wombs are pumping out product at a terrifyingly prodigious rate

Except they're not, except in third world countries where the only recreational activity is fucking.

The US is slightly below the stable "replacement" rate of ~2.1 children per couple, at 2.0. Many European countries are SIGNIFCANTLY below the replacement rate, in the 1-1.8 range. Our population is rapidly aging, and barely replenishing itself, much less growing. A technology that would allow some of the women who WANT to reproduce but cannot might change that dynamic.

I doubt that the low birth rates in the U.S. and Europe are due to women who want to have children but can't. It's much more likely due to women who don't want to have children having the means to prevent conception.

The natural wombs are pumping out product at a terrifyingly prodigious rate

Except they're not, except in third world countries where the only recreational activity is fucking.

The US is slightly below the stable "replacement" rate of ~2.1 children per couple, at 2.0. Many European countries are SIGNIFCANTLY below the replacement rate, in the 1-1.8 range. Our population is rapidly aging, and barely replenishing itself, much less growing. A technology that would allow some of the women who WANT to reproduce but cannot might change that dynamic.