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Well again your numbers are wrong. You didn't even account for obvious expenses like oil changes, breaks and tires which have a linear cost with miles driven ... According to this
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/08/cost-car-ownership.asp
driving a large sedan costs anywhere from $0.54 to $0.76 per mile. A nice new mercedes might be three times that amount. Even so using a modest $0.54 that gives us a cost of $118 or so to drive.

Amtrak offers a $49/ticket booked one month in advance.

I must agree with the GP that if you don't understand something as fundamental as the bid-ask spread, your personal opinion on HFTs (or any other "classes" of traders) just isn't very useful or valid. To put it as a car analogy, it's akin to arguing with your car mechanic, "I don't know what an interference engine is, but I just don't see the value in a timing belt."

You can read the book Trading and Exchanges if you really want to get into gritty details. Otherwise, if there's ever a term you don't understand I suggest searching for it on investopedia.com. Both of those are very good resources for learning more about the markets.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/02/110802.asp

I asked what was making the U.S. cellular market fail and you claimed a government granted monopoly was the cause.

So, either you have no idea what a monopoly is or you are, in fact, claiming that there is only one cell provider.

It's you who has no idea what a monopoly is. Let's correct that now.

1. something that only one person or group of people has
2. What Does Monopoly Mean?
   A situation in which a single company or group owns all or nearly all of the market for a given type of product or service. By definition, monopoly is characterized by an absence of competition, which often results in high prices and inferior products.
3. Legal Dictionary
   1 : exclusive control of a particular market that is marked by the power to control prices and exclude competition and that esp. is developed willfully rather than as the result of superior products or skill —see also ANTITRUST Sherman Antitrust Act in the IMPORTANT LAWS section
4. Monopoly
   Market situation where one producer (or a group of producers acting in concert) controls supply of a good or service, and where the entry of new producers is prevented or highly restricted.

A monopoly does not necessarily mean only one entity controlling a market. For instance though MS Windows and MS Office both have dominate but not exclusive monopolies of Operating Systems and Office suites, MS is a monopoly. Let's also make it clear, being a monopoly is not necessarily bad or illegal, how the monopoly is used determines that. For instance MS forcing OEM computer manufacturers not to sell PCs with operating systems other than MS OSes such as BeOS and Linux, and not allowing them to install Netscape as the browser or WordPerfect or other office suites instead of MS Office is what was illegal.

Meanwhile, power companies have nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

You asked about monopolies and power companies are monopolies.

I'm thinking you're trolling so I'm not going to reply again.

Falcon

Pedro Santa-Clara and Rossen Valkanov published the results of their work in "The Presidential Puzzle: Political Cycles and the Stock Market," which was featured in The Journal of Finance in October of 2003. The duo analyzed stock market returns using Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) indexes, including the value-weighted and equal-weighted portfolios. CRSP portfolios track the major market indexes and are created according to clear, unbiased, systematic processes. As such, they are widely used as a foundation for academic research.

Unlike most studies, which are based on total returns, Santa-Clara and Valkanov based their efforts on the average excess return of the indexes over the return of the three-month Treasury bill. The results were striking. When a Republican president held office, the value-weighted return delivered nearly a 2% premium over the T-bill. When a Democrat held office, the premium was nearly 11%. While the 9% difference clearly favors the Democrats, the results from the equal-weighted portfolio were even more telling, with a 16%+ result in favor of the Democrats.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-theory/08/political-party-democrat-republican-stock-returns.asp

That is typically called a lease. And 99 years is the most common term.

I've seen "MM" suffix in the context of foreign currency trading/exchanges. Though they also use the term yard to signify a billion (of some currency).

Income stocks *were* a good place for your retirement money. They may be again- but for the near to mid term future, you risk losing 20 to 30% of your retirement money owning in come stocks. You risk losing just as much in bonds because once interest rates start rising they are going to lose a lot of value. And you can't get better than about 2% in CD's.

I cited 2 income stocks, both with better returns than those 2% CDs, the lower return being almost 4%. For more examples do what I did, Google income stocks. Right now the first result is the definition of "income stock" given by investopedia and the second Stocks For Income Investors In 2010. I didn't check it out but the third result is the Fool's 5 Stocks for Strong Income. Now while those links may be from people who have their own agendas, such as trying to have stocks they own rise in price before they're dumped so does Warren Buffet. I say that even though what I know about him I like. The same with George Soros. Now do you think they have the same outlook on investments? Here's the portfolio at Soros Fund Management LLC.

I'm using a mixture of approaches ... dividends as you suggest (I'm 17 years from retirement), some dollar cost averaging, a big pile of cash, and a big pile in overseas investements as a hedge. And I'm getting debt free-- no house debt, no car debt. I'm already free of debt other than those and both of those are now quite low (I might be out in 24 months).

While the rest sounds okay, why the "big pile of cash"? As you said yourself inflation could gobble it up. One year's living expenses should be enough. But not just cash. Have 3 months in saving for ready cash, then have the rest in 6 month CDs that mature every 3 months. Of if a money market account offers higher interest then use that instead of CDs. If and when it comes down to it cutting out non-essentials, taking out odd or temporary jobs, and growing some of your own food should stretch that year of emergency funds out further.

And yes, gardening. Just this week even though it's still early I picked some greens in my garden for salad, leaf lettuce and mustard. Now I did buy some carrot, onion, and radish because it's too early for those and I tossed some sliced ham and turkey and well as grated cheese I bought too. However within a few more weeks I should have enough in my garden for more salad and other dishes. I have Roma tomato plants to make tomato sauces, yellow tomatoes for salad, and more for soups and salsa. For salsa, and soup, I also have tomatillos. Though it won't be much I hoping I can at least can a few quarts of them.

Oh, lest I miss it, you say you have no house debt, did you pay off a mortgage early or on tyme? If early, was the interest high? If so then it may of been better to refinance to a lower rate. With the one year emergency fund even if you lose your job and become unemployed you could still make your payments. Of course, you may feel better being debt free and having less risks. If so and that's important to you then go for it. Personally I wouldn't, but then again I can handle higher risks. So long as I have that year of funding I can get by.

Get by? HAHA Because I'm on disability and it is being messed with, so far this year I've only got money 4 out of 6 months and not once was it the full amount of my disability, I'm living week to week. I am glad

Income stocks *were* a good place for your retirement money. They may be again- but for the near to mid term future, you risk losing 20 to 30% of your retirement money owning in come stocks. You risk losing just as much in bonds because once interest rates start rising they are going to lose a lot of value. And you can't get better than about 2% in CD's.

I cited 2 income stocks, both with better returns than those 2% CDs, the lower return being almost 4%. For more examples do what I did, Google income stocks. Right now the first result is the definition of "income stock" given by investopedia and the second Stocks For Income Investors In 2010. I didn't check it out but the third result is the Fool's 5 Stocks for Strong Income. Now while those links may be from people who have their own agendas, such as trying to have stocks they own rise in price before they're dumped so does Warren Buffet. I say that even though what I know about him I like. The same with George Soros. Now do you think they have the same outlook on investments? Here's the portfolio at Soros Fund Management LLC.

I'm using a mixture of approaches ... dividends as you suggest (I'm 17 years from retirement), some dollar cost averaging, a big pile of cash, and a big pile in overseas investements as a hedge. And I'm getting debt free-- no house debt, no car debt. I'm already free of debt other than those and both of those are now quite low (I might be out in 24 months).

While the rest sounds okay, why the "big pile of cash"? As you said yourself inflation could gobble it up. One year's living expenses should be enough. But not just cash. Have 3 months in saving for ready cash, then have the rest in 6 month CDs that mature every 3 months. Of if a money market account offers higher interest then use that instead of CDs. If and when it comes down to it cutting out non-essentials, taking out odd or temporary jobs, and growing some of your own food should stretch that year of emergency funds out further.

And yes, gardening. Just this week even though it's still early I picked some greens in my garden for salad, leaf lettuce and mustard. Now I did buy some carrot, onion, and radish because it's too early for those and I tossed some sliced ham and turkey and well as grated cheese I bought too. However within a few more weeks I should have enough in my garden for more salad and other dishes. I have Roma tomato plants to make tomato sauces, yellow tomatoes for salad, and more for soups and salsa. For salsa, and soup, I also have tomatillos. Though it won't be much I hoping I can at least can a few quarts of them.

Oh, lest I miss it, you say you have no house debt, did you pay off a mortgage early or on tyme? If early, was the interest high? If so then it may of been better to refinance to a lower rate. With the one year emergency fund even if you lose your job and become unemployed you could still make your payments. Of course, you may feel better being debt free and having less risks. If so and that's important to you then go for it. Personally I wouldn't, but then again I can handle higher risks. So long as I have that year of funding I can get by.

Get by? HAHA Because I'm on disability and it is being messed with, so far this year I've only got money 4 out of 6 months and not once was it the full amount of my disability, I'm living week to week. I am glad

All you need is one good bout of inflation and you can kiss your retirement goodbye.
Combined with low rates on savings, there is not a lot you can do to avoid that freight train on the way (it also wipes out pensions and social security too).

Inflation will only wipe out savings if the investment decisions made are poor and a number of other things happen at the same tyme or in close sequence. Though down from it's peak the Dow Jones Industrial Average is still way higher today than it was in 1973. A thousand dollars invested in 1973 is worth $10,000 today, at it's peak the investments would have been worth $14,000. And in 5 years it may be back up there. Now if you're going to be retiring in 5 years it's a good idea to have a big part of your investment portfolio in income stocks, companies that regularly pay out dividends. Utilities are pretty good. If however you still have 30 years before retirement simple regular investments in growth stocks using dollar cost averaging will keep you in good company.

Obviously today people don't save and invest much and instead expect government, ie other workers, to pay for their retirement.

They are capable. They have issues. They are half a world away. But it's idiotic chauvinism to assume they won't be equivalent within five or six years.

I agree but they'll also be demanding higher pay. By then US companies may decide it's cheaper or financially better to employ US workers. Tesla is opening a plant in CA, as I bet other businesses will do too. Hell, Detroit automakers have to compeat with Japanese makers that have and are opening plants in the US. States compeat with each other to lure them to the state.

Falcon

All you need is one good bout of inflation and you can kiss your retirement goodbye.
Combined with low rates on savings, there is not a lot you can do to avoid that freight train on the way (it also wipes out pensions and social security too).

Inflation will only wipe out savings if the investment decisions made are poor and a number of other things happen at the same tyme or in close sequence. Though down from it's peak the Dow Jones Industrial Average is still way higher today than it was in 1973. A thousand dollars invested in 1973 is worth $10,000 today, at it's peak the investments would have been worth $14,000. And in 5 years it may be back up there. Now if you're going to be retiring in 5 years it's a good idea to have a big part of your investment portfolio in income stocks, companies that regularly pay out dividends. Utilities are pretty good. If however you still have 30 years before retirement simple regular investments in growth stocks using dollar cost averaging will keep you in good company.

Obviously today people don't save and invest much and instead expect government, ie other workers, to pay for their retirement.

They are capable. They have issues. They are half a world away. But it's idiotic chauvinism to assume they won't be equivalent within five or six years.

I agree but they'll also be demanding higher pay. By then US companies may decide it's cheaper or financially better to employ US workers. Tesla is opening a plant in CA, as I bet other businesses will do too. Hell, Detroit automakers have to compeat with Japanese makers that have and are opening plants in the US. States compeat with each other to lure them to the state.

Falcon

It is unfortunate that people aren't really looking at this from all angles. Competition is a good thing for everyone. It applies to Microsoft and Linux, but not the markets right? ...

^^THIS^^

I'm not saying High Frequency Trading is a perfect system - it's not - but those who are unilaterally bashing it need to read up on the basics. HFT does add liquidity, which isn't really that important to the average Joe EXCEPT that it puts heavy downward pressure on everyone's trading costs, be it commissions, bid-ask spreads, market impact, or opportunity costs.

How Brokerage Works
How Electronic Trading Works
How Orders are Executed in the Stock Market
Dark Pools
Dishonest Brokerage Tactics
Electronic Markets (a bit out of date, but still good)

It is unfortunate that people aren't really looking at this from all angles. Competition is a good thing for everyone. It applies to Microsoft and Linux, but not the markets right? ...

^^THIS^^

I'm not saying High Frequency Trading is a perfect system - it's not - but those who are unilaterally bashing it need to read up on the basics. HFT does add liquidity, which isn't really that important to the average Joe EXCEPT that it puts heavy downward pressure on everyone's trading costs, be it commissions, bid-ask spreads, market impact, or opportunity costs.

How Brokerage Works
How Electronic Trading Works
How Orders are Executed in the Stock Market
Dark Pools
Dishonest Brokerage Tactics
Electronic Markets (a bit out of date, but still good)

It is unfortunate that people aren't really looking at this from all angles. Competition is a good thing for everyone. It applies to Microsoft and Linux, but not the markets right? ...

^^THIS^^

I'm not saying High Frequency Trading is a perfect system - it's not - but those who are unilaterally bashing it need to read up on the basics. HFT does add liquidity, which isn't really that important to the average Joe EXCEPT that it puts heavy downward pressure on everyone's trading costs, be it commissions, bid-ask spreads, market impact, or opportunity costs.

How Brokerage Works
How Electronic Trading Works
How Orders are Executed in the Stock Market
Dark Pools
Dishonest Brokerage Tactics
Electronic Markets (a bit out of date, but still good)

It is unfortunate that people aren't really looking at this from all angles. Competition is a good thing for everyone. It applies to Microsoft and Linux, but not the markets right? ...

^^THIS^^

I'm not saying High Frequency Trading is a perfect system - it's not - but those who are unilaterally bashing it need to read up on the basics. HFT does add liquidity, which isn't really that important to the average Joe EXCEPT that it puts heavy downward pressure on everyone's trading costs, be it commissions, bid-ask spreads, market impact, or opportunity costs.

How Brokerage Works
How Electronic Trading Works
How Orders are Executed in the Stock Market
Dark Pools
Dishonest Brokerage Tactics
Electronic Markets (a bit out of date, but still good)

It is unfortunate that people aren't really looking at this from all angles. Competition is a good thing for everyone. It applies to Microsoft and Linux, but not the markets right? ...

^^THIS^^

I'm not saying High Frequency Trading is a perfect system - it's not - but those who are unilaterally bashing it need to read up on the basics. HFT does add liquidity, which isn't really that important to the average Joe EXCEPT that it puts heavy downward pressure on everyone's trading costs, be it commissions, bid-ask spreads, market impact, or opportunity costs.

How Brokerage Works
How Electronic Trading Works
How Orders are Executed in the Stock Market
Dark Pools
Dishonest Brokerage Tactics
Electronic Markets (a bit out of date, but still good)

It is unfortunate that people aren't really looking at this from all angles. Competition is a good thing for everyone. It applies to Microsoft and Linux, but not the markets right? ...

^^THIS^^

I'm not saying High Frequency Trading is a perfect system - it's not - but those who are unilaterally bashing it need to read up on the basics. HFT does add liquidity, which isn't really that important to the average Joe EXCEPT that it puts heavy downward pressure on everyone's trading costs, be it commissions, bid-ask spreads, market impact, or opportunity costs.

How Brokerage Works
How Electronic Trading Works
How Orders are Executed in the Stock Market
Dark Pools
Dishonest Brokerage Tactics
Electronic Markets (a bit out of date, but still good)

You can easily lose more than what you set because of situations like this. If it moves faster than you can sell for that amount, you will sell at below your stop loss number. You can set it at 40% and lose 99%

And this is why you only use a stop-limit order. You can place your stop at a price reflecting a 40% loss with a limit reflecting a 45% loss. Using May 6 as an example, a stock trading at $50.00 that printed at $0.01 would trigger the 40% stop, but your order wouldn't fill below $22.50, limiting your loss to 45%. (And your trade would not have been busted by the Clearly Erroneous Ruling Policy, since the criteria was price deviation greater/less than 60% from the last print at or before 2:40 PM ET.)

Some brokerage firms offer both stop and stop-limit order types. In a world of millisecond trading, using a stop-loss is playing with fire.

No, that's not what is meant by the term. Intangible assets refer to non-physical things that realistically increase the value of the company. Copyrights and patents are intangible assets because they can be capitalized, and this ability is exclusive to the holder. If anyone could reproduce an image or re-implement an invention, then they couldn't be claim as assets. If push comes to shove, they could sell their copyrights and patents to pay off debt. Brand recognition is another intangible asset, and again companies have absolutely been bought and sold primarily to acquire the name. If anyone could use their brand, this would change.

Okay, so I dug here and got these definitions...

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/netincome.asp

What Does Net Income - NI Mean?
1. A company's total earnings (or profit). Net income is calculated by taking revenues and adjusting for the cost of doing business, depreciation, interest, taxes and other expenses. This number is found on a company's income statement and is an important measure of how profitable the company is over a period of time. The measure is also used to calculate earnings per share.

Often referred to as "the bottom line" since net income is listed at the bottom of the income statement. In the U.K., net income is known as "profit attributable to shareholders".

What Does Gross Income Mean?
2. A company's revenue minus cost of goods sold. Also called "gross margin" and "gross profit".

---

I find these two definitions a bit confusing. However, it looks like it is :

Gross Sales
Less Material Costs =
Gross Profits
Less all other costs =
Net Profits

---
So using my incorrect example above...
Gross profits of $100 ($1100 gross sales - $1000 material costs)
Gross profits less all other costs (rent? wages? interest, taxes, etc.) = Net profits. (so say $90 of non material costs = $10 net profits)

Here the tax on gross profits of .5% would be 5% of the net profits.

(If there were no costs except material costs, it would be .5%).

You buy it for the same reason that you might buy a stock or option to own for only one week. You hope to sell it for a capital gain. This demonstrates the Greater Fool Theory, which is a natural component of markets and market bubbles in general.

With securities speculation, you have nothing to show for your money other than a legal transaction record in a brokerages computer system. With this box, at least you can set it on a pedestal to admire for a while. I think this is very clever.

...

Any publicly held corporation has the legal obligation to return value to it's shareholders, it's not a defense, it's the stone cold truth - hence the Revlon Rule.

On the other hand, there is a lot of latitude for an (immortal) corporation to decide on the appropriate time frame for realizing that value. The Revlon Rule is interesting because it relates to the value of a sale of the business, whose time frame is both fixed and short (and which addressed decisions that served only the interests of the current management). A business that is not up for sale can consider the implications of its business practices as they play out decades from now, and in fact would be remiss if it did not do so.

Chevron for example invests a great deal up front in new petroleum developments to make them as clean as possible, generally far exceeding current legal requirements. Why spend more money now, when they could be returned as share-holder profits next quarter (as many businesses do)? Because it avoids costly accidents, and retrofits many years from now, and adds to good will -- which is a very valuable commodity. Deals made decades from now will depend on good corporate citizenship today (Google take note).

Actually being a publicly held company, Google has a legal obligation to adhere to it's mission statement approved by the share holders.

Um... Bullshit. No such legal obligation exists. In fact, this is the first time I've ever even heard such a claim.
 

The "Legal obligation to place money over principles" is a defense executives and PR firms like to toss around to shift blame.

Any publicly held corporation has the legal obligation to return value to it's shareholders, it's not a defense, it's the stone cold truth - hence the Revlon Rule.

even in a hypothetic society where there is no government, so long as large corporations persist

If there were no government there would be no corporations. It's government that gives corporations their corporate charters.

Falcon

Something wrong with your analogy is that these restaurants willingly gave you these free samples. Would these restaurants still willingly give you a free sample if you just walked in and forcefully took it?

The parent post didn't mention anything about forcefully stealing anything. The parent post said:

And the point was that you dont have demos in restaurants either, you only get to test it by purchasing.

My response was to point out that restaurants do give free samples voluntarily. I could also point out trade shows and expos where area restaurants show up as vendors and provide free samples of their menu to the thousands of potential customers that attend.

I can also go into my area supermarket on a Saturday and there will be people behind sample stations, trying to get me to test the newest brand condiment or microwave food or brand of cheese, or whatever they are pushing. These are also free samples or demos. We were talking about the presense or absence of demos, and the idea that try before you buy has validity in the marketplace.

In Texas, I can go buy a car. If I don't like it, I have three days in which I can drive back to the dealership and terminate my contract and give them the car back. I don't even lose any money on the deal.

In any loan contract in the United States, the law states a three day Right of Recission, during which the contract can be cancelled without penalty.

Even in a movie theater, a customer can walk out after the first 30 minutes or so and demand their money back. I remember quite a few parents demanding refunds after taking their children to Happy Feet with crying children in tow.

Why shouldn't consumers of software or games get to try before they buy? Why shouldn't consumers be able to demand their money back when a game is marketed as a great experience yet it blows chunks?

Hardly surprising, given all the free advertising they get from the media. The sad thing is that the Apple hype will eventually lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy, leaving us with an Apple monopoly far worse than Microsoft: expensive products with yesterday's features touted as "new", and a completely locked down platform. Nice one, media!

There are in fact other companies who are doing well - e.g., RIM, but most of the media prefers to ignore them. You'd think that a place like "news for nerds" would "think different" and focus on the interesting developments in the phone market, but instead it's just the same "Iphone news" that the mainstream media reports.

Or, hmmm... maybe Einstein didn't say that. But even if he didn't, he should have.

You are correct that in the literal sense of the financial term, ROI is indeed expressed as a percentage. Furthermore, what I and the GP are referring to is technically considered the payback period.

Semantics and technicalities aside, the priciple still holds up. When a capital improvement is being proposed (especially when its intent is to save energy), it is usually thought of and budgeted for with specific regard to the payback period as an interpretation of the return on the investment. That is, "what is the period of time until we make back the money that we've invested" -or- "what is the period of time until we realize a return on our capital investment".

So, while in a strict "by the book" interpretation, you are correct, it doesn't change the fact that (in the corporate world at least) these investments are absolutely thought of in terms of when the financials are "in the black", and that the units of measurement are typically relative to the particular situation.

Capitalism tries to externalize (and therefore ignore) all costs.

No, that's corporatism and the Corporate Aristocracy [reddit.com] Thomas Jefferson warned of

That's why I said try.

Maybe but I wanted to make the distinguishment between capitalism and the corporate aristocracy. Too many believe they are the same.

Right now the United States is fairly corporatist

That's why Thomas Jefferson issued his warning. When he ran for president banking corporations ran a negative campaign against him. Then again so did some religious groups.

I'm not against corporations themselves, I believe though that they should be held to the original standards by which they were granted Corporate Charters. The first two corporations to be granted charters were the East India Companies, the Dutch East India Company in 1602 and the British East India Company in 1604. Both owned ships and were shipping businesses, and shipping was a risky business. Ships could be attacked by pirates, as has been in the news lately, or they could sink. One may sink because of a storm. Whenever cargo and lives were lost a ship's owner was financially responsible. If someone had invested in or bought part of a ship they could loose everything. So the Dutch crown, then the British crown, created the idea of corporate charters. Someone could buy shares in a corporation and if something happened the most a person could loose is the amount they had invested. However for a business to be granted a corporate charter the business had to service the public or common good. As now trade was then generally s public good. If at any tyme a corporation did not serve the common good it could have it's corporate charter revoked.

Falcon

I work in the Field, I am an admirer of Taleb (met him a couple of times), and I must say that financial math is here to stay, even if I may contest the reason why this will happen.
The sum total that Banks, regulators and politicians invested in financial modeling, both in terms of money and of reputation, is immense. Value at risk is now the yardstick by which balance sheet risk is measured in the banking system [and look where it brought us], all financial instruments are measured, and Joe Public is informed about how risky his mutual fund is, and all precisely indicated to the second percentage decimal, for example 5,61%. I do not see the authorities "coming out" and saying:" well, we'll have to be honest to the public. Best practice will be that any VAR measure will be published as an interval, and the limits will be multiples of 5%", which in the example would mean writing to the investor "the risk measure of your fund is calculated as being between 0% and 10%".
If anything, I think that the quest for a perfect control of risk will be intensified, and as always happens in the field, something will be found that predicted exactly the financial crisis and it will become a second Holy Grail [insert your Monty Python joke Here ]. Of course,it could be a statistical fluke, like the Super bowl indicator.
anyway, the need for quants will not dwindle.

Please review the economic/finance definition for intrinsic value

You have a lot to learn about how Wall Street works. Being profitable is not enough to keep stock prices high. Brokers and analysts come up with figures (sorry for the ads) that corporations have to meet or exceed for fear of a massive sell-off. As a result, corporate executives often order massive layoffs in order to meet these expectations made by Wall Street to keep the value of their stocks high.

Exactly. When X company decides to go public, it is much like borrowing money from the mob. No matter what, they want their money. Remember Goodfellas? "Business bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning huh? Fuck you, pay me."

I have to ask...why? I thought Microsoft was massively profitable, even today. Surely they don't have to fire all these people to prevent losses?

You have a lot to learn about how Wall Street works. Being profitable is not enough to keep stock prices high. Brokers and analysts come up with figures (sorry for the ads) that corporations have to meet or exceed for fear of a massive sell-off. As a result, corporate executives often order massive layoffs in order to meet these expectations made by Wall Street to keep the value of their stocks high.

In my opinion, this is a major flaw in the way our economy operates as these layoffs ultimately do more harm than good. Corporations that do these types of layoffs often hire many new employees as soon as it looks like they will beat The Street's expectations and will spend massive resources to train them, only to get rid of them down the line. Employee's are all unique and should be treated as an investment, not a commodity.

You can't sell something for less then it costs to produce it.

Yes you can. While it's not, on it's own, a good long term strategy it sometimes makes sense to do so. Here's one example. Here's another.

• Keep innovating. If you can innovate faster than the FOSS rate of innovation, you can emulate scarcity. This is what Apple does.
• Move to greener pastures. There are certain fields of software development where there is real scarcity of ideas & a commonly available knowledge bank does not exist. e.g. speech recognition, protein folding, specialized databases for drug discovery etc.

Sounds like the razor-blade business model. Not that far off "first hit for free".

No, it's not.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/privatecompany.asp

It comes down to how the company is financed. Companies can have large loans secured by a deposit of stock. If the stock price collapses then the company could need to find additional capital to maintain requirements for the loan.

But banks and investors alike are going to look at their falling share price and get scared away. The company won't be able to raise capital, it won't meet loan requirements, and it will have no choice but to declare bankruptcy. That is part of what happened with Lehman Bros, although its unknown what role naked shorts played.

I invite you to read a Reader's Digest assessment of how we arrived at our current financial situation. You may notice the lack of blame for any political entity, Republican or Democrat.

Of course, you may simply dismiss any analysis that doesn't fault the Bush administration. Prove me wrong.

Check out this article for a decent breakdown of motives.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/02/041702.asp

see the section labeled "motives"

I probably shouldn't, but I will bite:

Suppose that I make you a loan so that you can start a basket weaving business and the business profits and you pay back the loan with interest. Is that gambling? Certainly not. You needed money to get started producing goods which added to the total amount of value produced by the economy. Now what if instead of asking for the principle to be repaid with interest at a future time I asked instead for a share of the ownership of the basket weaving business (with a proportionate share in profits, business decisions, losses, and other aspects of the business). Is this gambling? Certainly not. I am simply taking a share of the business as compensation for fronting some of the capital in a productive activity (i.e. the business). I will grant you that both of these activities involve risks (i.e. the business might fail and you might default on your loan or I might lose my equity position because the business has entered liquidation), but not every activity that involves risk is logically equivalent to gambling. The stock market is basically the same as the above example (with hundreds of thousands of companies engaged not just in basket weaving but millions of other productive economic activities). The difference between the stock market, a place where equity stakes in productive businesses (or potentially productive anyway) are bought and sold, and gambling is that gambling is NOT productive in that it results in no additional goods or service (other than perhaps entertainment, but many people gamble way more than could reasonably be construed as merely for entertainment) entering the economy. It merely transfers existing wealth from one person or organization to another without producing anything of substantial value in the process. It is at best properly categorized as an entertainment business and at worst a complete waste of time. As I have stated above, while it is possible to approach investing as gambling, it is NOT in all circumstances the equivalent of gambling.

For a more comprehensive introduction to the common stock market myths, including stock market == gambling, might I suggest the following article?

You know that support for ReiserFS will disappear (unless you know for a fact that another person/group has stepped up to provide support); why wait until the last possible second, when you'll only have more work to do, to migrate your systems to a new filesystem?

Because there's absolutely no reason to believe that support will disappear. ReiserFS isn't a one-man project that nobody's ever heard of. We're talking about the default filesystem in use by at least one mainstream distribution (SuSE), who have provided significant support for its development in the past. There's no reason to believe that support will dry up, as it would be against SuSE's interests to do so (leaving their customers with difficult issues to solve).

Don't put off to tomorrow that which can be done today.

Why not?

Seriously: even if you accept that there's a 90% chance reiserfs will not be supported in some future kernel version, why change now? All other things being equal, your time now is more valuable than the same amount of time in the future (this is basic economic truth, related to the time value of money and the basic understanding that time is valuable). Your expected expenditure of time in the future is only 90% of what you would spend to change the fs now. So you actually gain by deferring the task.

The same is true in many cases; by deferring a low-value task you can spend your time on a higher-value one instead. Sometimes when you do this the low-value task becomes irrelevant and can be abandoned.

Now, if you expect this migration to become harder in the future, obviously now is the time to do it. But I see no indication that it will become harder, so why do it now?

I hate to argue with you, but the sales tax is only a tax on spending, income and wealth are not in scope.

If you define it as "A tax that takes a larger percentage from low-income people than from high-income people." (from http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/regressivetax.asp ) then it is irrelevant what is taxed, only how it affects people depending on their income. Of course, there are some that say "A regressive tax is a tax imposed in such a manner that the effective tax rate decreases as the amount subject to taxation increases" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax). So I can't debate with you what is and is not a regressive tax until we decide which definition we are using. I used the first and am 100% correct in my assessment. You replied with a statement that would be correct if you were using the second definition.

So, as a "Tax", it is flat.

A flat rate does not mean a flat tax. Even if you say it as a percentage of money paid out, it is not accurate.

Or as another poster correctly pointed out, since many items such as food are not taxed, it is in fact progressive.

Then I would say it is still flat by your definition (all things taxed are taxed at the same rate, regardless of whether some people take advantage of more exceptions), and still regressive by mine. Think of the rich. They buy all sorts of things that don't fall under sales tax. I've bought shares of stock, but never have I paid tax on that purchase. I've bought certificates of deposit and have never paid sales tax. All sorts of "purchases" made by the rich are assumed to be exempt such that they are not enumerated. If you showed the amount of money "spent" on CDs, stock certificates, and other investment items that are bought, I think it would greatly exceed the expenses on food. The fairest tax is one that is on wealth with a multiplier of income. But this country is one where wealth is never taxed, except for land and some "luxury" items (cars, boats) in a select areas. Wealth is easier to hide, harder to gauge, and would be impractical to tax, but it is the only "fair" tax. Replacing income tax with a sales tax will benefit those that save more than they make and hurt those that spend more than they make. And I personally see nothing wrong with the Paris Hilton tax (some call it the death tax in order to make it sound bad, I call it the Paris Hilton tax to let you know who abolishing it will really help). If you want Paris to be richer, abolish estate taxes. That's the only touch the government has on wealth. Wealth is the real economic power, not income, but with the measurements this country uses, no one figures that out.

Oh, those poor poor oil companies. They have so much trouble making money: this is from the Wall St. Journal, that known left wing rag http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/oil-tax-break.asp

We all know that Big Oil has been making record profits, so I wonder what they've been doing with all that money? How about buying back their own stock? http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/big-oil-profits/609

"The handwriting is on the wall. The oil majors used 56% of their cash flow on share repurchase ... they are not replacing reserves."

So, despite the commercials on TV, they're not spending money on finding new oil and they're not spending it on other energy sources, they're driving the price up on the outstanding shares with stock buy-backs.

You claim that they are serving the common good, and that investments in renewable energy are bad for everyone. So how does that fit in with extraordinary tax breaks and stock repurchases? These facts support an alternate view: these greedy capitalists are only interested in stealing as much money as they can lay there hands on, and if the side effects are food riots in the 3rd world, the destruction of the US economy, and global warming, it's OK with them. They'll get so rich that they and their heirs will never have to worry while the rest of us rot.

There should be a -1: Unable or unwilling to capitalize option though.

Here, read this Investopedia article, which is about at the same level as saying women are complicated but interesting. Always remember that f*cked has two meanings, and Level II screens and women will eventually show you both.

NO! Who the hell invests their money for anything other than a nice stock price and/or dividend?

Warren Buffet "chooses stocks solely on the basis of their overall potential as a company - he looks at each as a whole."

Do you honestly expect Yahoo stock to hit the price MS was offering in a reasonable amount of time?

Not many will have the same opinion on this, what a reasonable tyme period for one person is too short for someone else and too long for a third person. Even traders are like this, besides the day trader people know about there's also swing traders and trend followers. Whereas a day trader sells stocks they bought during the day at the end of the day, they take an all cash position at the end of the day, trend followers take a long view and swing traders take the middle ground and look at both the short and long term.

This is based on the mistaken assumption that markets always grow and go up, never contract.

BS, investing in growth when young is based on the fact that if a growth stock crashes there's still plenty of tyme before retirement to rebuild an investment portfolio. And stats back this up. Over any given 20 year period, maybe even 10 year period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Standard & Poor's 500 index, and other composite indexes beat inflation. An 18 year old can invest $2000 a year until the age of 25, that's 7 years, and not invest anymore money and by the tyme they reach 65 they can have more than $750,000 invested. It's simple math, have a look at Wiki's page on Future value, you could say compound interest does wonders. Heck I learned that in intro to algebra.

it is hard to see a time when they wouldn't contract or expand. Most people don't even know how to work this out when the market is "growing" nevermind when it is contracting.

Dollar cost averaging, or in Europe Euro cost averaging, helps here. By consistently investing periodically, say once a month, the ups and downs of the market are evened out. Say you invest $1000 monthly, on the first day stocks are bought a stock being bought may sell for $50. So ignoring transaction fees, which many brokers charge $10 or under, 20 stocks can be bought. The next month the stock price has increased to $55 so only 18 shares are bought. The third month the price had gone down to $45 so 22 shares are bought.