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Is that true? I thought that only the proceeds from property sales and funds from employers and financial institutions could be seized for unpaid taxes, and that, through the court system.

That is their existing profit margin, they don't have 16% to give.

From 2014: "ground beef prices are at a record high, after rising 76% since 2009." -- Your 4 Favorite Things to Eat & Drink Are Getting More Expensive as one of the many things much more expensive.

Meanwhile, from 2015: "Between 2007 and 2012, a number of cities have seen at least a 50 percent increase in fast food restaurant outlets." -- Tracking Fast Food Restaurant Growth on the USDA's New Food Atlas as one of several indicators that overall fast food restaurant growth is booming.

Further, in 2009: "As it turns out, Wendy's really isn't cutting corners with its signature square burgers. If you can find a Wendy's location that's selling this item for 99 cents (some have bumped the price up to $1.49), you'll be sinking your teeth into the most beef you can get for less than a dollar." -- Top 5 Fast Food Value Menu Deals vs in 2016 "Double Stack $2.09" -- Wendy’s Prices

In short, suck it your short-sighted, obviously wrong idea that (1) price increase are something unabsorable by the industry, (2) price increase will cause a shrinking of the fast food industry, or (3) there's a 1:1 correlation with cost increases and price increases except in the obvious direct sense (the breakdown of the cost of a burger shows that the cost was basically 100% passed to the consumer). Yet (3) obviously doesn't override (1) and (2). If anything, as others have noted, the simple fact that the money is being effectively sucked OUT of the local economy and yet the fast food industry thrives would indicate that wage increases that "reinvest" in the local economy would actually make things even better.

So, yea, fuck you.

If you have a philosophical discussion regarding the real unemployment rate and what the definition SHOULD be

No discussion is necessary. We don't have to argue about what the definition SHOULD be, because there is already a definition.

http://www.investopedia.com/te...

"Down rounds" happen, but they are not common.

You never heard of a downround kid? Look it up. They are fairly common nowadays, particularly with unicorns.

Well, which is it?

Wikipedia.

Hmm... dot com crash of 2000 again.

Looks like history repeating itself to me.

Business Insider, from 2013:

After a few years of massive hype in the startup sector, absurd-sounding valuations are starting to correct themselves. Startups are confronting the prospect of raising "down rounds" from investorsâ"or rounds of financing that value the companies at less than the previous round.

LivingSocial, for example, was once valued at $5.7 billion; it's now worth a quarter of that, or less, depending on whom you ask. ...

Many of the businesses started were consumer-facingâ"things like photo apps and social networks that require a lot of people to use them to survive. They weren't transactional businesses that make money when they sell something. And that was okayâ"a lot of investors encouraged entrepreneurs to build up their user bases before trying to generate revenue.

But when some of the biggest consumer Internet companies, like Groupon, Zynga, and Facebook, went public, their stock prices got slashed. Suddenly, these incredibly valuable companies weren't worth as much money as the tech world initially thought.

FuckedCompany is no more, but Wired informs me that CB Insights is where the action is at this time around.

More evidence of the coming shitstorm.

The answer is "no". The "subsidies" that the looney left yell about all the time are standard tax breaks available to manufacturers in the US.

Incorrect. Do a quick internet search for "oil tax credit" and learn something new. If you're too lazy for that, try this article: http://www.investopedia.com/ar... If you're too lazy for that, understand that you're incorrect, and there are specific tax benefits that are given to oil investments.

By "subsidies", you apparently mean normal business expense deductions that ALL businesses get.

No. Do a quick internet search for "oil tax credit" and learn something new. If you're too lazy for that, try this article: http://www.investopedia.com/ar... If you're too lazy for that, understand that you're incorrect, and there are specific tax benefits that are given to oil investments.

Warren Buffet would disagree. But then, what does he know about investing?

What part of what he said disagrees with Warren's viewpoints in the article you linked to? Warren tries to estimate the company's intrinsic value, which is not bound to the net profit or revenue of the company today. While I certainly agree he is more risk adverse than your average VC, which is probably a good thing, but he certainly is not bound to simplistic measures of a company's worth.

I don't think Warren would invest in a company with virtually no book value but a much higher market value, but that doesn't mean he ignores that intrinsic value exists.

Warren Buffet would disagree. But then, what does he know about investing?

That sounds remarkably like the definition from Marx. Which translation did you use?

You're a douche. The definition is from Adam Smith.

Here's how Investopedia (the largest financial education website in the world, run by NASDAQ) puts it:

What is 'Capitalism'
Capitalism is a system of economics based on the private ownership of capital and production inputs, and on the production of goods and services for profit. The production of goods and services is based on supply and demand in the general market (market economy), rather than through central planning (planned economy). Capitalism is generally characterized by competition between producers. Other facets, such as the participation of government in production and regulation, vary across models of capitalism.

http://www.investopedia.com/te...

Is this a 50% tax on profits, or gross revenues?

In either case, I think a 50% tax makes many businesses not viable. Across the US we have huge unemployment issues, and many young people are unemployed. This is a negative situation, and is putting the social safety net at risk. Companies move where the taxes are lowest.

It appears that many small businesses pay much more in taxes than do the large multinationals employing the double irish with a dutch sandwich

Furthermore, the US already has worldwide taxation that leads to double taxation, whereas most countries utilize a territorial taxation system. Worldwide taxation leads to companies keeping their earnings abroad to mitigate the double tax when they return them to the US

High taxes, unemployment, and high welfare can create perverse incentives for people needing income.

I don't think a 50% tax is going to solve any of those problems.

In summary:
We need tax reform
We need territorial taxation
We need to address taxation for smaller businesses
We need something like basic income that is more equitable

Right now, when the government wants to expand the money supply, the Federal Reserve just sort of dumps money on the biggest financial institutions. Then it pays them a small interest fee for their service of having use of the money (0.25% according to this Investopedia article).

If the government really must inflate the money supply, then it seems to me that the best way to do it would be to spread the new money evenly among the citizens. It's just part of reality that when you have lots of money, it's easier to get more money, so almost all the time when we are talking about the economy, everything benefits the rich more than the poor. Here would be a direct payment that would definitely benefit the poor more than the rich.

Inflation effectively steals part of the value of the money. This is hardest on the poor, and people trying to live on a fixed income. Directly paying the inflation to the people would offset the harm, at least partially.

P.S. I'm a minarchist libertarian, so I don't really like seeing the government messing with the money supply at all. I'd rather just see prices deflate, so that maybe a hamburger would go back to costing a dime, and even a small income would be enough to live on. However, I'm not a trained economist, and apparently Milton Friedman believed we need to inflate the money supply as the economy expands. If you have to bet on whether Milton Friedman was right or I am right, you should bet on Milton Friedman. And if we accept that we need to inflate the money supply, I'd just as soon do it by paying the new money out to all the citizens.

Unemployment rates are not based on unemployment claims. They are based on a random survey of 60,000 households. Here's some information on how the various employment rates are calculated.

it wouldn't be surprising to see the quality go down and down to the point that many customers abandon it, as Microsoft turns into another Oracle.

Possible, but I think it would be a mistake on part of Microsoft to let this happen.
  Windows being the OS that (almost) everyone uses makes for strong network effects (as defined here: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/network-effect.asp). If the quality of Windows drops to the point where customers leave in droves, it will probably have a nasty (from Microsoft's POV) feedback effect:

-Increasing market share of other OSes will make other platforms more attractive for software and hardware vendors, as there is now more money to be earned with those platforms

-Increasing choice of software and hardware for those other platforms will boost their attractivity further. For instance, right now there are few offers of pre-configured Linux machines. Change that and buying a Linux machine becomes more interesting for non-geeks. Market share for other platforms might increase even more.

Yes, yes, yes finally someone gets it. Yes, she's more republican than Trump and WAY more republican than Sanders.

I will be modded to oblivion by the Hillary shills, but oh well. When you have someone who starts more conflicts than George Bush, pushes MULTIPLE trade agreements to strip US of businesses and workers, was against gay marriage before she was for it, wasn't always on the minority's side, ran a war room against the women which Bill had hurt then tweeted all women who are assaulted should be heart, and is in bed with Wall Street, yes she's pretty much a Republican.

It's going to see if this continues without the tax breaks

Aren't you also interested in seeing if the coal industry and the oil industry are able to continue without tax breaks?

http://www.taxpayer.net/librar...

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/...

http://www.investopedia.com/ar...

And that's a wrap! AC down below has forgotten - or refuses to account for the huge amount of subsidies received by Coal, Oil and Natgas.

Now of course, the crowning acievement of subsidized energy Nookyalar! http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-...

https://lucian.uchicago.edu/bl...

I'm not even anti-nuc, but dammit, I'll wager a cup of crap that they are "free market" advocates. Those billions for that, and the taxpayers bearing the reisks of nuc plants sounds like the invisible hand of the free market is giving a reach around hand job to the nuc industry.

It's going to see if this continues without the tax breaks

Aren't you also interested in seeing if the coal industry and the oil industry are able to continue without tax breaks?

http://www.taxpayer.net/librar...

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/...

http://www.investopedia.com/ar...

stock options do not work like that

You're still wrong. Let's look at this since you claim that your Wikipedia sources are unreliable.

Incentive stock options (ISO) receive special tax treatment:

• The grant is not a taxable transaction.
• No taxable events are reported at exercise; however, the bargain element of an incentive stock option may trigger alternative minimum tax (AMT).
• The first taxable event occurs at the sale. If the shares are sold immediately after they are exercised, the bargain element is treated as ordinary income.
• The gain on the contract will be treated as a long-term capital gain if the following rule is honored: the stocks have to be held for 12 months after exercise and should not be sold until two years after the grant date. For example, suppose that Stock A is granted on January 1, 2007 (100% vested). The executive exercises the options on June 1, 2008. Should he or she wish to report the gain on the contract as a long-term capital gain, the stock cannot be sold before June 1, 2009.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/optioninvestor/07/esoabout.asp

...they could put a ton of people out of work in the transportation industry, enrich a few corporations, and further wreck the economy through knock-on effects as the unemployed push wages down

Maybe people could spend their copious free time reading about economic fallacies. Or we could just pay the unemployed to throw rocks through windows to generate jobs for glaziers.

Sure.

During deflationary periods, people tend to hoard their money. This gives the hoarding populace an incentive to spend, thus helping the economy out of the deflationary spiral.

thats the typical response from someone with public education. except indiscriminate spending is the problem. the deflationary spiral where everything becomes cheaper is awesome for the poor, and only hurts people that speculate (gamble). people "hoarding" are actually saving and being robbed of interest that could be invested back into the economy.

During deflationary periods, people tend to hoard their money. This gives the hoarding populace an incentive to spend, thus helping the economy out of the deflationary spiral.

It's already too late: the class struggle is over. The One Percenters won. From now on it's a long slide towards misery and, ultimately, elimination for us the dispossessed masses.

How much a year do you make? If it's more than $US 32,400 then you are part of the 1%. Oh, you meant the other one percent. Typical. I can hear you now: Everyone else is a blood sucking parasite, but *I* earn my money.

Don't feel bad, I won't pay 38% either... You get beyond 1/3 and I'd do whatever it takes to avoid paying it. Frankly below that is worth a lot of effort to avoid.

If you make $100,000, having $38K of it taken away is highway robbery.

You dumb shit. Do you understand how marginal tax rates work? If you make $100,000 and the rate is 33% you do not pay a third of your money in taxes.

http://www.investopedia.com/as...

It's no goddamn wonder the political system in this country is so fucked up. We've got people voting who don't understand the most basic things about how government works.

Indeed, they are almost in the top 1% highest earners in the world. To be the 1%, one must earn about $33K. (Different sources range between $32-$34K).
http://www.investopedia.com/ar...

It's funny, it was understanding that which made me realize the "your mom's basement" meme must actually be true for the majority of Slashdot commenters. I had thought we were mostly IT professionals and the like, but if so we'd all be earning twice as much as the 1%. In which case we wouldn't see all this hostility toward college grads (the 1%) that exists on Slashdot. So I guess most Slashdotters are indeed eating cheese puffs in their mom's basement, and resent those of us who aren't.

That is true companies love spending on transmission equipment, but only because they get a guaranteed return on investment. They have to get approval for that though, and people don't want higher electric bills.

The counterargument is that utilities don't have large profit margins. So this is really on the people not want to pay for better infrastructure, whether it be via a utility or through a public solution. The same applies to most American infrastructure.

Consider also that the stuff that people needed in the 1930's - food, energy, housing rather than gadgets - is the stuff that doesn't count towards GDP.

Wrong. http://www.investopedia.com/as...

It represents the total dollar value of all goods and services produced over a specific time period

As an investment, Bitcoin might still end up being a scam.

No need for the qualifier. Even if we accept that Bitcoin itself isn't a scam, Bitcoin routinely is used for scams and even when it is used honestly it's generally a terrible investment positively dripping with risk.

You do run a bit of currency risk but if you make many small transactions you'll lose some and win some, it's a quite okay facilitator of trade.

"A bit of currency risk"? Presumably you mean exchange rate risk and it is WAY more than "a bit" (no pun intended). Bitcoin is terribly volatile compared with traditional currencies so anyone who plans to hold it for any length of time is taking a LOT of exchange rate risk. If you hold it in an exchange you also are taking on agency risk, counterparty risk, and several other types of risk each of which is larger than for large traditional currencies like the dollar, yen or euro.

I don't doubt that the other players involved do make money, but you have failed to take into account what their expenses are. The $386 that goes into seed, etc. isn't pure profit. When you have an open and competitive market with many players and a low enough barrier to entry you tend not to see profit in the double digit percentages.

Well it appears agricultural chemicals and pharmaceuticals have among the highest profit margins in the chemicals industry, which would put them both at around 13%-14% profit margins. This is a very capital intensive industry, since R&D spending is very high in these sectors, so it is not a very open market. It is very clearly an oligopoly. The top 6 pesticide and GMO corporations make up 68% of the market, and are all companies with market caps above $50 billion.

As for seeds, three companies control almost 50% of the world's seed supply, and the top 10 companies control 75% (source. Monsanto makes almost $12 billion per year and has around a 50% gross profit margin (net profit margin fluctuates greatly but has averaged 12% over the past two years). Yet again these companies have huge R&D budgets which restricts competitors entering the market.

I never even claimed the costs of growing food was too high. I'm glad there is so much R&D being done in the industry. I would rather the price per bushel to go up than for our food industries to stagnate. But characterizing these companies as small with a low barrier to entry is not accurate.

So now that women have their own safe space we can expect some amazing innovation to follow. But if we don't, I wonder what the next excuse will be?

Because women have never achieved amazing innovation? http://www.entrepreneur.com/ar...
http://www.investopedia.com/ar...
http://womenshistory.about.com...

If you haven't been as accomplished as these women...I have to ask...what's your bloody excuse?

I am American, but let me point out several things:
1) I agree with you about CHina. They are a total disaster for North America. They manipulate their money, which prevents an eqalization from occuring; they dump on our markets, which is criminal; they push inferior products that would be considered illegal down in Mexico, let alone in America or Canada; In addition, when Clinton-China went through, there were 90 tariffs. Now, there are over 500 tariffs directed specifically at the west. Agreements with china need to be stopped, or they need to be enforced.

2) that NAFTA has been overall a good deal for North America, but Canada has actually done the best at it.
If anything, Canada has seen the strongest gains among the three NAFTA countries, though, again, it is difficult to attribute direct causation, particularly given that Canada and the United States had a free-trade deal that predated NAFTA. Canada is the leading exporter of goods to the United States, U.S. and Mexican investments in Canada have tripled, and Canada has added 4.7 million new jobs since 1993. Canadian manufacturing employment held steady, though the "productivity gap" between the Canadian and U.S. economies wasn't narrowed: Canada's labor productivity stood at 72 percent of U.S. levels in 2012 despite Canada's highly educated work force [PDF].
Here is another assessment of many.

3) we need to STRENGTHEN NAFTA, not weaken it. In Particular, I would like to see us require similar labor and environmental laws that Canada has. And if we are going to do more FTAs, it should be done not by individual nations (i.e. mexico, canada, or america), but by NAFTA as a whole, since 1 FTA impacts the other.

4) Considering how important climate change is, I would love to see NAFTA implement a tax on ALL manufactured goods based on where the worst sub-part comes from. It should be a tax that starts low, but increases every year (or more). And it should be done as a %. Likewise, the data needs to be real verifiable numbers, not guess work, or based on what govs report. As such, it should be based on OCO2. Finally, it should be normalized on a sane metric, not per capita, but emissions per GDP. By having NAFTA do this, it would quickly cause all nations to lower their emissions since if they have high emissions per $ GDP, it will cause their goods to be expensive and manufacturers will quit using their sub-parts.

And GMO is really a euphemism for Monsanto. They're the *only* meaningful player in this industry right now.

And this is why you and those that argue alongside you don't deserve my trust. You're very poorly informed about even the availability, much less the techniques or safety of these things.

Dupont Pioneer
Cargill (Syngenta)
Dow
BASF
Bayer

And that's just a quick list that turned up when I found this article about how a PR campaign can make all the difference. Of those, I found that Dow seems to have the largest EU presence, followed by Syngenta (which is owned by Cargill now), at least according to their web search results.

But go on spouting how you're actually an informed and trusted source for anything on the topic. And then endorse some stupid law that bans a useful technology, based on a premise you know nothing about.

Yes, Monsanto is a shitty company. Hell, their headquarters is less than 20 miles from my house. I know people that have worked there. You don't need to tell me how terrible they are as a company, since those people that used to work there already have. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater-like substance. A single bad actor shouldn't destroy a useful improvement to agriculture.

Sorry, wrong "broken window theory". I meant this one.

Largest company by capitalization value, not by revenue. That just means the stock is way overpriced.

No, it doesn't. Revenue isn't a useful metric for determining if a company's stock is overpriced, nor does the idea even make any sense if you give it just a moment's thought. I could sell $10 items for $5 each (presumably with a plan to "make it up in volume"), and my revenue may be through the roof, but because my operating costs exceed my revenue I won't be bringing much value to the company or my shareholders (which is the unenviable position many smartphone manufacturers are in right now, since, with the exception of Samsung and Apple, all of the major players have operating expenses that exceed their revenues). Case in point:

By revenue, Apple is ranked 17th.

What that means is that there are 16 companies that bring in more money than Apple, yet none of them manage to hang onto as much of it as Apple. As a result, those other companies are bringing less value to their shareholders, since they have less opportunity to grow the company and less ability to distribute the wealth back to shareholders. If anything, the fact that Apple is 17th in revenue but 1st in profit serves to highlight why Apple is so valuable. But profit, by itself, is not sufficient either, since we still need to take into account the number of shares, given that the value of that profit will be split among the shareholders. After all, $10 profit split 10 ways is better than $100 profit split 1000 ways.

Which is to say, the fewer the shares, the greater the profit, and the lower the share price, the less likely it is that a company is overvalued.

Towards that end, one metric that's actually used as an indication of if a company is overvalued or undervalued is the price-earnings ratio (P/E), which is the ratio of their current share price to the earnings per share (i.e. how many dollars an investor would have or should expect to invest in order to get a $1 return), and when you look at Apple's P/E compared to other large companies in the tech sector, Apple's P/E is quite low (e.g. half that of Google's and Microsoft's, 1/40th that of Amazon's; i.e. you need to invest that much less in Apple to get your money back), which is a decent indication that either those other companies are overvalued or Apple is undervalued.

But if a large market cap and the largest revenue is all you think it takes to be a success, let us know when that works out for you.

You were implying that Adam Smith's writings aren't relevant to today

I don't believe I made that implication at all. Relevant to late 1700s US? Not very much.

So, according to those criteria, quantum mechanics, psychology, neuroscience, and much of modern engineering is also pseudo-science?

psychology - yes. Neuroscience is still arguably in its infancy, and much of modern engineering is applied science. Quantum Mechanics is the one case I'd considered addressing previously, as it is the one obvious hard scientific field that we're still massively struggling to come to grips with.

There is actually much less disagreement about economics than you think. And the fact that people like you find it utterly confusing is no more a sign of a failure of economics than people seeing faces and pyramids on Mars is a sign of a failure of astronomy.

Who says its confusing? It's a fact you cannot predict the future, which most practitioners assert they can. IMNSHO, the best you can do is attempt to see trends, and much like the stock market, you'll be just as accurate. Where is the huge trickle-down economic enrichment? We've seen just the opposite. Where is the communistic ideal? Every communistic society is failing or has failed. Economics apparently has failed to provide the path to global enrichment everyone says they want. Or, looked at another way, everyone has gambled to be the top 1% in those scenarios at the cost of the rest. I'd just make the simple statement that the economic models and theories are universally flawed, as none have proven accurate in real life. Given the scope of the model necessary, I'd say that it will likely be beyond our capacity to model accurately until we no longer need to model it. And I'd still say there's significant disagreement within the field of economics, and that the laissez faire viewpoint would initially enrich a small segment of business owners at the cost of everyone else except the lowest classes in the world (an admittedly huge percentage) as wage and price equilibrium is reached. But this would only happen in a perfect world where every country has the same policy. The current free trade policies are a similar process, draining jobs and money out of the US, and it will continue for the foreseeable future. If congress had balls, they'd slap a general tax on all transactions, including at the border, to make up for the lost revenue but that's yet another conversation.

It's easy to say TANSTAAFL. It's much harder to figure out where the costs lie.
http://www.investopedia.com/te...

No I don't want an answer from someone who: can speak for everyone and has polled a "representative sample". I want you to stop talking as if you had that information.

As for "whatever that is", I typed poll representative sample into Bing and it suggested the search what is representative sample in a poll.
http://www.investopedia.com/te... is first in the results.

As for the rest of your post, it makes no sense.

Maybe this was the plan all along. Get a huge tax break, and get essentially free patents to troll with.

Nokia's patents ARE STILL OWNED BY NOKIA. Microsoft licensed some of those as part of the deal of buying Mobile devices business, but Nokia corp is still making money on the patent portfolio and by their contract, is free to start producing Nokia branded mobile devices in 2016.

Maybe this was the plan all along. Get a huge tax break, and get essentially free patents to troll with.

Have a read here- http://www.investopedia.com/te.... Economic rent doesn't mean what you think it does.

Consider the common real estate purchase requirement of a 20% down payment â" or $100,000 on a $500,000 asset. The buyer is essentially using a relatively small percentage of his or her own money to make the purchase, and the majority of the money is being provided by the lender. Real estate investors often refer to the remainder of the purchase price as "other people's money," since persons other than the borrower provided the money needed to make the purchase.

Assuming the property appreciates at 5% per year, the borrower's net worth from this purchase would grow to $525,000 in just 12 months. Comparing this gain to the gain from an unleveraged purchase highlights that value of leverage. For example, the same borrower could have used the $100,000 to make an outright, paid-in-full purchase of a $100,000 property. Assuming the same 5% rate of appreciation, the buyer's net worth from the purchase would have increased $5,000 over the course of 12 months versus $25,000 for the more expensive property.

Consider the common real estate purchase requirement of a 20% down payment â" or $100,000 on a $500,000 asset. The buyer is essentially using a relatively small percentage of his or her own money to make the purchase, and the majority of the money is being provided by the lender. Real estate investors often refer to the remainder of the purchase price as "other people's money," since persons other than the borrower provided the money needed to make the purchase.

Assuming the property appreciates at 5% per year, the borrower's net worth from this purchase would grow to $525,000 in just 12 months. Comparing this gain to the gain from an unleveraged purchase highlights that value of leverage. For example, the same borrower could have used the $100,000 to make an outright, paid-in-full purchase of a $100,000 property. Assuming the same 5% rate of appreciation, the buyer's net worth from the purchase would have increased $5,000 over the course of 12 months versus $25,000 for the more expensive property.

I'm not talking about infrastructure projects - aka public goods. These don't drive up prices of particular goods, services or financial products.

I'm talking about subsidies paid to people who then pass those through to a business entity. Those subsidies have the effects of helping the poor, harming the middle class and not having any impact on the wealthy, as I noted earlier.

I'm not talking about infrastructure projects - aka public goods. These don't drive up prices of particular goods, services or financial products.

I'm talking about subsidies paid to people who then pass those through to a business entity. Those subsidies have the effects of helping the poor, harming the middle class and not having any impact on the wealthy, as I noted earlier.

High finance -> a gigantic shell game designed to fleece reveneue out of the mugs .. err I mean 'investors'.

"Asset-backed credit default swaps are structured differently from other credit default swaps due to the nature of the instrument being hedged. For example, since many asset-backed securities amortize and pay monthly, the credit default swap will more closely match these features. The most widely used ABCDS transactions cover U.S. subprime mortgage tranches of mortgage securitizations"

Amd before you say it, yea, and it was all those liberals in the Clinton administration that caused the subprime crisis, mainly through selling mortgage to poor people and negros :)

I'm not sure if it is market value. It could be at a premium.

There is no distinction in the two, much less difference. Market value, by definition, is what somebody is willing to pay. By offering more for what these people are selling (their labor), Uber demonstrated their willingness thus automatically raising the market value.

It could be a strategy, also used by MS, of poaching talent just to keep it from falling into the hands of the competition

It could be, but it still is a market value. And the "strategy", if that's what it is, is perfectly legitimate too. The people in question aren't slaves of the University and free to change employers.

Uber has poached 40 researchers from Carnegie Mellon University

Wow. "Poached" — as if the employees were chattels or animals in CMU's private reserve... Nice TFA...

"To the great surprise of many consumers, credit card offers reappear in the mailbox within weeks following the announcement of the bankruptcy (it is a public record and published as such). A prime reason is that the consumer is not eligible for another discharge for two to eight years. Therefore, newly acquired debt must be paid. For the creditor, the offer is almost risk-free."

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/120914/best-credit-cards-after-bankruptcy.asp

>> If it's invested, it's not just sitting around, like you could go down to the bank and withdraw it.

If it's investments in regular old stocks and bonds, then yes, these are considered "near liquid" assess you basically could go (sell and) withdraw your money during normal business hours.
http://www.investopedia.com/te...

Do you understand what 'rich fuckers' do now?

Yes I do! They avoid paying taxes using the following strategies:

-Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich
-Foreign Holdings
-Inversion
-Stock Options
-Living Trusts
-Blind Trusts
-Public Welfare
-Many, Many, More

These strategies do not even account for the many ways that they screw their workforce.

They then take the enormous pile money that they have and use it to buy politicians and
manipulate the system.

They also use the system to privatize anything that can have money squeezed out of it, such as schools, healthcare, and roads. Finally, they use the money to distort the reality of what they have done so people consider them to be "Heros", "Pillars of the Community", and such. The Nobel prize, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, etc. That is what those "Rich Fuckers" do.

I'm happy as the next guy to pillory Halliburton, which deserves little but scorn for its shocking profiteering in US government contracts. But you probably don't want want to cite dated Chavezista leftie Froot-Loops talking about how the rapidly disintegrating former Venezuelan economy is a model for anything except citizen outrage.

Just ask the folks living in the former Socialist Paradise where condoms now cost $755/pack on the black market because the Bolivar is worth less than toilet paper and it turned out that Chavez was mortgaging his country's future to buy temporary popularity with oil dollars.

None of that activity produces actual goods or services.

I suppose it depends on how you define "services". But most people would consider the capital markets a service:

Capital markets are vital to the functioning of an economy, since capital is a critical component for generating economic output. Capital markets include primary markets, where new stock and bond issues are sold to investors, and secondary markets, which trade existing securities.

You should read up on the irish-dutch sandwitch tax dodge. That is exactly what they are doing.

http://www.investopedia.com/te...

They may use this technique, but it has nothing to do with the current news.

Dutch people live in Holland

Danish people live in Denmark.

The new datacenter is in Denmark, not Holland.