Slashdot Mirror

Until there is a Libertarian candidate, who is remotely viable, picking Republicans is what Libertarians ought to be doing. Because Republicans are far less wrong on economy. And economic freedom is required for prosperity...

The opposite is literally true. I don't personally vote economic issues (there's nothing wrong with doing so), but if I were to, voting Republican would not be an optimal choice.

On contrast, if an ultra-Conservative "RethugliKKKan" wins elections and, horrors, manages to outlaw abortions... Guess what? I'll still be able to afford my daughter's trip to Canada, should she ever want the procedure.

You seem to primarily vote your wallet, and you also have a liberal position on at least one social issue, or, at least, you're not crazy about the Republican platform position on that issue (please correct me if I read you wrong). Again, nothing wrong with that, but holding a Republican preference with what you've shared of your political views seems... decidedly strange. I'd honestly be interested in how you arrived at the preference you have.

...the deterioration of our economy...

What deterioration? Now, I'll be the first to admit that we're not exactly seeing Clinton-era growth, but we are seeing steady, albeit slow, improvement. Again, literally the opposite of deterioration.

Having gone up about 20% since obama care passed.

And how much did it go up in the years before obamacare was passed?
Sounds like we were seeing double-digit inflation in health care insurance costs most years in the decade prior to obamacare's passage.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2009-09-15-insurance-costs_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Seems like the rate of inflation in health care insurance is slowing to a historically low level of 4.5%:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2013/07/02/5-easy-ways-to-reduce-your-health-care-costs/

YMMV, but nationwide the trend is getting better not worse.

It applies equally much if the stranger's handing out free candy from a windowless van in a city park, or handing out free web services online. And remember that to you Sergei, Zuckerberg, and MySpace Tom are strangers no matter how much they claim to be "friends" who "don't be evil".

Even Fox News tells you to not give facebook honest information (perhaps encouraging you to violate Facebook's terms of use).

Personally I encourage everyone who needs to use Facebook to do it with entirely fictitious data. It's more fun. Your actual friends will know what your aliases are; and you probably don't want your non-actual-friends spying on you anyway.

From the raging lefties over at Fox News, here's a comparison of US to French annual health spending:

US: 17.4% of GDP / ~$8000 per capita France: 11.8% of GDP / ~$4000 per capita

You were saying?

The main criticism of the US healthcare system has always been that is BOTH expensive AND unfair.

From the raging lefties over at Fox News, here's a comparison of US to French annual health spending:

US: 17.4% of GDP / ~$8000 per capita
France: 11.8% of GDP / ~$4000 per capita

You were saying?

Are you trying to insinuate the US doesn't have socialized health care? Because millions of people would argue otherwise: people on Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, the Veterans' Administration, or who obtain free care by going to emergency departments without ability to pay. That's off the top of my head, no doubt there are more government health care programs out there (even at the federal level). No doubt there's some statistical data out there showing how much of the population is on socialized health care here. Perhaps it will even be a majority once the Boomer generation all hits 65 and enrolls in Medicare.

So, yes, the system is running on "other people's money" as GP said—you're both correct. In standard US cognitive dissonance, apparently we long ago decided we wanted "some" socialized health care, so naturally Congress set up committees to determine the best way to make it cost the maximum amount possible.

From the raging lefties over at Fox News, here's a comparison of US to French annual health spending:

US: 17.4% of GDP / ~$8000 per capita
France: 11.8% of GDP / ~$4000 per capita

You were saying?

Uh no, only the Apple Fanboys who can't live without the latest from Apple stick with it. I've had friends who actually prefer Android, as do I. I'm sorry, the business model, their public attitude towards American Workers, the lock in and two of the carriers, AT&T and Verizon, is why I'll stay the hell away from Apple for a long damn time. Not to start a flame war, but it's pretty bad when I see Samsung investing double what Apple does in the US just to make the chips that drive the latest fanboy gadgets.

Apple may be creative but they certainly don't have my vote as a good corporate citizen in the US and all that speed from the new iPhone 5 is built by Samsung in Texas.

you have to wait until 2:15 but here is an interview with Elon Musk/walk-thru of the Tesla factory

DirecTV alone added a record 645,000 subscribers in the latest quarter. And they added 593,000 subscribers in Latin America during the first quarter.

I think you miss the point. When Joe Sixpack doesn't have to pay for Product X, he doesn't care whether Product X costs $10 or $10,000,000.

Health insurers pass the cost on to employers, who have to keep paying the increased premiums to keep their employees happy. If Joe Sixpack had to pay for their own health insurance, then he would object when they doubled the premiums to cover those $10,000,000 products that could have been bought in a free market for $10.

Maybe you've been out of the job market for a while, but where are these happy employees?

Employers Push Higher Health Insurance Costs Onto Workers

Employees Get Pinched: Health Insurance Costs More

Workers paying more for health insurance as costs rise

New State-By-State Report: Employer Health Insurance Premiums Increased 50 Percent From 2003 to 2010; Employees' Share of Premiums Increased 63 Percent

Employers shift health insurance costs onto workers

...but Dell's shipping at least 10 times more computers than Apple.

Not so. Gartner estimates that Dell shipped a little less than double the number of computers as Apple in 4Q11.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2012/01/12/apple-remains-in-third-place-with-116-us-computer-market/

It's more that Apple's profit margins are multiples of that of other manufacturers:

http://www.kitguru.net/apple/benjamin/apple-pc-profits-are-seven-times-higher-than-hps/

beyond wall street expectations. Do you think that $100 million really matters to them?

Actually if these are already manufactured then they lost the money in 2011. This way they get their only BB 10 device currently available out there en mass so developers actually have a reason to still care about them. I decided to pick one up pre-black Friday and have not regretted it. They are actually quite nice and unlike hp RIM doesn't have the luxury of an enterprise PC/server/printer business to fall back on so they cannot just walk away. With their first OS 10 handset pushed back to "in the latter part of calendar 2012." they need this tablet or a newer model to propel them into the next generation.

Great non-reply

So where it the clock cleaning at?

http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2011/07/19/apple-3q-earnings-revenue-shatter-expectations/

http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/ipad_dominance

iPads outsell Android tablets 20-1

http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/08/24/beats.out.likes.of.tiffany.whole.foods/
Apple retail highest sales per square foot

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9219467/Tight_supplies_push_up_prices_of_13_in._MacBook_Air?taxonomyId=76
Even the laptops are beating sales expectations

http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/08/24/could.give.apple.74.percent.of.tablet.market/
And shipping estimates for iPads are increasing

The facts don't support your claims, unless you have other magical facts that aren't in business reports.

Each company maintains a "war chest" of abusive patents. Motorola Mobile just got bought out at 63% higher than market value. at a sale price of $12.5 billion.

Suddenly, the company you've invested in jumps for 63% over market value due to their patent portfolio. Then along comes a new ruling and it is essentially worthless. Up 63%, then suddenly zero.

See the problem yet?

I don't understand why you don't see the problem with buying imaginary property for 12.5 billion. If you were a share holder of a company, would you rather they spend 12.5 billion on buying another company out so they can fight a money wasting lawsuit, or would you rather they innovate, create, and make money rather than send money to lawers. If all the companies lost their software patents, whatever drop in share price that occured would be even accross the board, unless the company is only a patent troll, they would stand to loose more. Plus the lawers will loose out. And since laws are made be lawers, I don't see them hurting their own cache cow and changing the broken patent system.

Not on this scale. This would make the housing bubble look like a hiccup. Each company maintains a "war chest" of abusive patents. Motorola Mobile just got bought out at 63% higher than market value. at a sale price of $12.5 billion. And almost entirely for their patent portfolio to keep Android alive and viable. We all know that's the reason, even if Google is hedging the purchase in marketspeak.

Now imagine you're a shareholder.

Suddenly, the company you've invested in jumps for 63% over market value due to their patent portfolio. Then along comes a new ruling and it is essentially worthless. Up 63%, then suddenly zero.

See the problem yet?

If not, multiply that across the board. Imagine every single software company you know going through the same. Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, HP, Google...imagine all of them going through this. Their market caps being suddenly reduced by 20% to 80% or so. The war chest is suddenly useless.

Think of what that would do to the economy. Think of what that would do to your career.

Gives me the screaming heebie jeebies. I freaking *hate* software patents, but now that they are part of the calculation of the worth of your company - beware! If they go away we're all in some seriously deep shit.

Can you give examples? This fresh list suggests otherwise:

In fact, there's a book out there which suggests that historically the threshold starts at 90% of GDP. Above 90% is where you see nations either having to do hard cuts, defaulting, or praying for better times.

Of course, it's not only the absolute debt, it's also the debt vector. Care to tell the class what the vector for US debt is?

Tea Party Republicans are threatening to put the nation into default

- false. Obama is threatening default (while privately Obama and Geithner are talking to bankers and politicians around the world on the phone, promising not to default even if the debt ceiling is NOT raised.)

And btw I expect "them" to rate my post down into oblivion. Expect to see it rated as flamebait, overrated or something else.

- who is 'them'? This place if filled with socialists and Marxists.

And for additional names you can read a story here you can add in House Democrat Chris Van Hollen and he has support from other Democrats in the house as well. So basically you've shown yourself to be quite uninformed and ignorant.

Blame for the economy:
Feb 23, 2011 52% Bush, 41% Obama, according to the Washington Times
May 4, 2011 51% Bush, % Obama Fox News(warning, video)
May 18, 2011 54% Bush, 39% Obama Rasmussen
The above all are right-wing sources, and all put more of the blame on Bush than Obama. So what about other polls?

April 28, 2011 63% Bush, 30% Obama Marist Poll
May 9, 2011 55% Bush, 33% Obama CNN

Unsurprisingly Bush fares even worse.

those peasants won't just go quietly starve to death. ....
  More and more of the population simply doesn't play your reindeer games anymore, so what are you gonna do? unplug the planet?

No, you massively cull the population with major global conflict, which is perhaps why some financial analysts seem to think war cycles are predictable,

Of course, that is just paranoid jibberish.

Never mind me

Nuclear power is at the very base of the modern economy. Fossil fuels won't supply our energy needs for long. Renewables can't make up the difference in the short term. We can't afford to dismantle our energy production and ship it off to the third world the same way we did with toy manufacturing.

The Honeywell CEO was on the news just a few days ago saying the only reason US businesses are hoarding cash and aren't hiring is that they don't have "certainty". How could you possibly not have "certainty" in the production of something as basic as nuclear fuel? It has a payback of something like forty-to-one. From a purely material perspective, you'd have to be a complete retard not to make obscene profits in nuclear power.

Of course, the reason US industry doesn't have certainty is obvious: their competitors cheat. Thanks to globalization of trade but not of governance, other countries subsidize their businesses, operate under substandard environmental and labor standards, ignore human rights, and block US businesses from competing fairly. In the mean time, with our free trade and open borders, US consumers are exporting real wealth to developing nations, propping up their growth.

So how can US businesses get "certainty"? There's only one way: by making all competitors operate on the same, level playing field. That means one of two things: either import/export tariffs, or global government.

The downsides to global government should be obvious.

Personally, I think the US will be better off if we choose tariffs. Hell, we could completely seal the borders if we wanted to. We are still the wealthiest nation on Earth. We have more resources per capita than anyone. The US spans nearly every climate zone. We can have a completely self-sufficient, world-class standard of living. In the long term, no other nation could come close. Totally free trade is not in our best interests. The founders knew this, and wrote tariffs right into the Constitution. It is only in recent decades that politicians have sold out this power to the WTO and globalist institutions. It didn't improve the lives or earnings of the average American over the last thirty years. And it's high time for the farce to end.

I don't know why we are relying on a Google translated article when Xinhua News Agency (state run) offers their own English translations (second copy) of this exact news release. And they're much more readable. Such news sites often offer me periodic enjoyment.

Patent and innovation discourse aside, it should be noted there's an interesting piece comparing the locality of populations in the US vs China. Let's face it, China (and the Southeast Asia region this connects them with) have a higher population density and a greater need for this high speed lengthy rail. It's also going to bring much needed economic development via freight shipments to very poor areas that the United States probably wouldn't experience on a corresponding scale.

Oh, also, there's some pretty entertaining rail-envy springing up.

And before you call it outright theft, consider the history of the "technology transfer" program that seeded all this. It sounds like there's going to be lengthy lawsuits lasting a decade or more and that the companies have reason to sue -- good reason. I wonder how this is going to affect future "technology transfer" programs to China. Also, one last bit of praise: NPR's radio coverage of this has been top notch.

Most taxes go to pay the salaries of government employees, who are certainly not poor.

The #1 use of your taxes is war and it's consequences, or here, or the interactive chart.

http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2010/05/13/files/2010/05/Workplace-Fatalities-since-1933.jpg

Which is data based off the data from the National Safety Council

Exempting the SEC from nearly all requests for disclosure, including FOIA requests is a step in the right direction? You call that better oversight?

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2010/07/28/sec-says-new-finreg-law-exempts-public-disclosure/?test=latestnews

Please refrain from the usual ad-hominem attacks on Fox and try to address only the substance of the article. As hard as it is for Obama disciples, please also limit your use of red herrings and strawmen.

Sadly, we've lost the space race to all those 'desperately needed' 'entitlement' programs that are killing the whole world economy. Instead of spending a dollar on space research to help all of mankind, we've spent the dollar to breed and feed a mouth that will be hungry again tomorrow.

The government should hire all they can to contain and control the situation

They already have (and have had) a page set up specifically for this.

and make BP pay for it, since BP won't act on their own to minimize profits damages instead of environmental damages.

They are trying to, but many Republicans are blocking legislation to raise or remove the liability cap.

you can't run flash on a blackberry either. why is nobody attacking RIM for being non-competitive?

Could you explain this then, please?

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4148785/adobe-ceo-on-creative-suite-5-and-apple
http://na.blackberry.com/eng/developers/resources/adobe.jsp
http://www.blackberrycool.com/2010/04/18/adobe-ceo-confirms-flash-10-1-on-blackberry-in-2nd-half-2010/

There is this: http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2010/02/11/forced-unionization/

That's in the US, not Canada, but that's seriously, seriously f-ed up.

What we need is a publicly owned infrastructure and privately run services.

Yes, because we enjoy spending, on average, 40 hours a year waiting in traffic on our public highways — residents of large cities are lucky to have double that... Can't wait to have more of the same kind of "service" in other kinds of government-run infrastructure!

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/finance/lazy-portfolios-floor-behavioral-finance-funds/

Ignore the writer talking about his own strategy, and the boxing metaphors, the Nobel prize winning father or Behavioral Investing has had his own Investment funds rated Below Average by Morningstar, and a 2006 study of Behavioral Investing funds found

...in a 2006 research study by three finance professors from Florida State and Central Michigan universities. They analyzed "16 mutual funds that are self-proclaimed or media-identified disciples of behavioral finance," including the two Fuller-Thaler funds. Conclusion: "Behavioral mutual funds are essentially value funds [and] exhibit no ability to time risk-return opportunities" because "investing based on the principles of behavioral finance is indistinguishable from value investing."

In addition to being about the same or worse as a Value Investing strategy, they have high stock turnover, bad for you at tax time and fees tend to be higher, bad for your returns.

I find it interesting that the "Blame the Bailouts on Mr. Rogers?" author cites as Exhibit A of our "culture of narcissism" the nigh-legendary Mexican immigrant fruit picker who spoke no English and got a huge home loan. I repeat. MEXICAN. SPOKE NO ENGLISH.

Is it too much to expect the writer's own strawberry, er, cherry-picked references to support her basic thesis?

http://www.whywork.org/

See especially:
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
"Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil you'd care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working. That doesn't mean we have to stop doing things. It does mean creating a new way of life based on play; in other words, a ludic revolution. By "play" I mean also festivity, creativity, conviviality, commensality, and maybe even art. There is more to play than child's play, as worthy as that is. I call for a collective adventure in generalized joy and freely interdependent exuberance. Play isn't passive. Doubtless we all need a lot more time for sheer sloth and slack than we ever enjoy now, regardless of income or occupation, but once recovered from employment-induced exhaustion nearly all of us want to act."

See also:
http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/buddhist_economics/english.html
"The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure."

On the other hand:
"Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled"
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118358476840657463.html
And, extending that theme:
"Blame the Bailouts on Mister Rogers?"
http://emac.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2008/12/12/blame-the-crisis-on-mister-rogers/

Maybe there are deeper issues here on all sides? From:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/72330a22bcae8928?

Consider who could pay for food or water (or copyrighted content or patented
processes) in thirty years, if robotics continues to develop just at the
current rate over the last thirty years.

Check out clerks?
"Your supermarket cashier may not know a kiwano from a tamarillo, but
Veggie Vision does."
http://domino.watson.ibm.com/comm/wwwr_thinkresearch.nsf/pages/machin...

Cab drivers?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge

Heart Surgeons?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitive_Surgical

Airline pilots?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot

Nurses?
"Robot nurse escorts and schmoozes the elderly"

The Source by Circuit City Stores in Canada Not Included in US Circuit City Liquidation

They will be fine, InterTAN has found a way to continue business using that name.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/retail/source-circuit-city-stores-canada-included-circuit-city-liquidation-2010785338/

That's InterTAN's press release.

Essentially what a company does depends on the philosophy of its leaders, but if the philosophy is wrong then their actions will come to bite them in the end.

Amen brother and/or sister. Now if y'all will excuse me, I have a private jet waiting to take me to another corporate retreat. Do you have any idea how exhausting it is trying to look like you're begging for a government bailout? Hello, I'm in a leadership position of any successful company!

Their actions come to bite everybody except them in the end. You delude only yourself if you believe otherwise.

It's painful watching some of the most fascinating projects ever conceived being raked over the coals of budget cuts in the U.S., but you guys aren't alone.

Some of you may have seen that giant freakin' cool space robot called Dextre that just went up to the ISS. The Canadian company responsible (MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates or MDA) for that coolness is being sold off to a U.S. company.

The important thing to realize about MDA is that it was started over four decades ago and has been carefully nurtured by public funding with the express intention of forwarding Canada's space technology sector. MDA is the backbone of Canada's space program. (as small as it may be) In addition to selling off Canada's space program, this sale also includes RADARSAT-2, which was built with Canadian tax money and is currently used by the government to monitor the arctic. The sale of this satellite to a U.S. company will mean that the Canadian government will be ceding control of the satellite which it paid for to the U.S., a country which disputes Canadian sovereignty in some of the areas RADARSAT-2 monitors. RADARSAT-2 was effectively *given* to MDA to simplify operations, but now it's being sold to the U.S. and the money is going to MDA's shareholders rather than the Canadian government that paid for it!

The only thing standing in the way is a Rubber Stamp from the Industry minister Jim Prentice. Seeing as he's never failed to rubber stamp a sale before, the picture looks grim.

So, the U.S. is not alone in being mismanaged from the very top.

>>Why should you care if the airlines are making a profit? The more lucrative the industry, the more companies enter the field, the more competition, and the better prices and service we get. Maybe not right away, but in the long run we do like the companies that provide services to us to minimize their costs.

That would explain our $100/barrel oil while Exxon just posted the biggest profit of any corporation ever on earth ($40.6 billion). Just for perspective, Exxon's profits last year were around $10 billion.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/article/chevron-exxon-record-profits-reaped-cost-sliding-economy-strapped-consumers_461941_1.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/01/exxon-posts-record-profit_n_84463.html
http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/economy/2008/02/01/exxons-profits-measuring-a-record-windfall.html

I agree with your post except for that last part.

-b

As much as I hate Verizon Wireless for crippling their phones, if Verizon had 62.1 million subscribers in June 2007 and 63.7 subscribers as of January 8th, 2008, how can they be "hemorrhaging" customers?

AT&T may be clobbering them, adding new acquisitions to 67.3 million lines (from 63.7 in June 07), but Verizon has a turnover rate of less than 2% and they've increased the total # of subscribers since the iPhone release.

The fact that the iPhone shookup the wireless industry and forced others to innovate and improve is true, but Verizon isn't dying. They DO need to play catchup with AT&T though; AT&T is widening their lead.

It is also worth noting he actually did his undergrad in Computer Science and Economics. MBA from Harvard, Linux user, not too shabby for the role.