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"cash" is something individuals have. "finances/accounting" is something businesses have.

"Cash flow" is also something businesses have. See also this definition of "cash flow".

it is Time Warner itself that is the first party to separate out the upstream and downstream and charge for them separately.

Only because Time Warner is forced to set those prices by the market. If Time Warner allocates more upstream bandwidth to residential customers, it pays an opportunity cost in lost web hosting business.

(If you don't know what an opportunity cost is, please study this definition and then read a basic economics textbook.)

I disagree. The definition I've seen is this:

socialism
Economic system which is based on cooperation rather than competition and which utilizes centralized planning and distribution.

Hey i dont force my views on others, but you should be pissed off at George Bush if you are a libertarian

Funny, telling me what I should believe sounds like forcing a view to me. Remember, I said SMALL-L, not a full-fledged Libertarian. There's a difference. And BTW, I musn't agree that DEAN is conservative, unless you mean in the traditional sense that he defends the status quo of a large paternal nation-state. And, from all reports, seeks to enlarge the paternal nation-state significantly. I disagree with THAT approach wholeheartedly.

While I hardly agree with everything Dubya has done (the Patriot Act comes to mind. . .), I'll note that the deficit, as percentage of GNP is nowhere near its' maximum size. Or that the 'Pubs DID manage to force Bubba to balance the budget, for a while. Even so, the deficit was going to come back anyway, thanks to automatic increases in entitlements. 9/11 and the aftermath just pushed it up a year or two. After all, when it comes to finance, ALL politicians are scum: the power of the purse is the easiest way for absolute power to corrupt absolutely. . .

As for Dean being un-electable, let's look at his core constituency: the Hard Left. American Presidential Politics is based on uniting your core faction with as much of the uncommitted Center as you can. Bush's core vote is somewhere between 30 and 40% of the voting populace. Dean's is MAYBE 10%. His outsider message has been seen before. Eugene McCarthy. John Andersen. H.Ross Perot John McCain. NONE have been elected to the Presidency. Add to that his home voter base in Vermont, a hardly-significant electoral state, and I forecast a maximum of 20% of the votes in the Democratic Convention. And, as the cherry on top, please recall that Dean doesn't own the Hard Left: he shares it with the Greens, and they'll support Nader again, the way things look. . .

This is the same situation and I think Dean can win because hes exactly what we need at the moment, a President who works for the people and not lobby groups, special interests and big corperations, and a President who is going to balance the budget and not spend alot.

Y'know, I LOVE idealists. But Dean WON'T balance the budget, his Universal Health Care proposal guarantees that. He CAN'T cut the Defense Budget too far, way too much pork in there for all the Congresscritters. It's not gonna happen.

My guess at who actually has a shot and who doesn't ? Dead in the water: Gephardt, Edwards (who, in fact, may not even get re-elected to the Senate in 2 more years. . .). Never even stood a outside chance: Moseley-Braun, Kunicich (who was revealed to be fundraising overseas, a big no-no). The Pat Paulsen Award for Comic Relief: Al Sharpton. Contenders: Kerry, Lieberman, and Hillary Clinton. And any of the three will lose to Dubya: especially so for Hillary. The Hard Right, and a good chunk of the Middle Right hate her with a passion rarely seen in politics. They might not like Dubya, but they'll be damned if they let (as I've heard her called) "Hitlary" back into the White House. . .

I'm wondering what you mean by a "Fake" conservative. Then again, by classical definitions, today's Conservative Movement is basically Liberal, and today's Liberals are actually hide-bound conservatives who wish to retain the welfare state built in the 60's and 70's. . .

Now, to your last point:

We dont need oil in our cars though.

What do you propose we use instead, and what changes to existing infrastructure are required to implement your proposal ???

Ummm.... I don't like being the rain, but you won't even make a dent. The people who trade stock professionally in these quantities don't hang out in chat rooms.

When I got to college in 1986, the big political issue of conversation on campus was Apartheid. Well, not Apartheid, actually, but rather the divestment of university funds from companies maintained a business relationship with the country of South Africa, where Apartheid was the status quo. It seems that a bunch of empty-headed group-thinking pseudo-intellectual protestor types woke up halfway through macro-economics 101 classes and concluded that the best way to deal with the humanitarian atrocities committed by the South African government was to protest so convincingly that it compelled the university trustees to sell off all ownership in friendly corporations, thereby putting pressure on the South African government to abolish Apartheid. and restore political freedom to the black majority of the population.

In other words, they wanted to coerce the S.A. goverment by artificially manipulating the stock prices of friendly corporations in such a way that would result in additional control of the corporations being handed over AT A DISCOUNT to people who didn't give a rats ass how many black people were murdered to maintain the white minority control.

Brilliant, simply brilliant.

I would suggest that if you really want to fight SCO with their own stock, that you would be better off advising groups friendly to Linux to BUY as much SCO stock as possible. Stock is ownership ('0wn3X0r5h1p'?). Literally.

Take a look: SCOX

With 13 million shares outstanding, at worst, we need 51%, or around 7 million voting shares (almost all of the publicly available outstanding shares) to make it work. If I'm reading this right, this is less than the number of shares they are floating publicly (7.1 million) so technically it should be *possible* (however unlikely) to get 7 million friends to pony up $20 or so each to fire McBride and his dork friends with a big fat bonus at next years shareholder meeting.

Realisticaly, my plan probably won't work either without a sugar daddy, but at least it takes the market seriously.

(BTW, that Yahoo! The numbers on that finance page make for a fun read. Their EBITDA was $168K for all last year? On sales of 65+ million? That's close enough to zero to arouse my suspicions about their accounting. Microsoft's had almost 15 billion, NVidia was around 10+ million, IBM: 8+ billion, Red Hat's was -10 million (a loss), Wal-Mart reported 18+ billion. FYI.)

(BTWA, Investor Words will help you decipher the data.)

The difference is that in medicine, engineering and finance, you still have to deal with computers all the time and this it is important to understand something about them, but the reverse is NOT true.

Therefore it's quite distressing that most people don't know basic computer terminology but not distressing that the computer literate don't know advanced medical or skateboarding terminology.

I'm currently a PC Tech at a financial company and in passing I overheard some words between investors having a meeting. I was not distressed that I had to look up what an underwriter is.

I am not sure if you really got the concept of opportunity cost: take a look at some definition here.

Well... a lot of leases include non-compete agreements. Meaning that the landlord will not lease space to two clients selling similar products/services.

Sure, it's what should be, and probably is, an unlawful agreement in restraint of free trade. Of course I wouldn't expect to actually win such a case. That would require way too much money.

That and, while you might not like to hear it, Blockbuster pretty much has it sewn up as far as what it takes to get the maximum profit and maximum customers on DVD rental.

As in, be a monopoly? I think we could definately undercut them and make a profit.

Basically, unless your plan included a special, never done before way that you could beat blockbuster's business plan, it's a hard sell to convince the landlord that you'd be successful and be able to pay him

Well, it does. As for convincing the landlord I could pay him, I have excellent credit and would be willing to put a year's rent in escrow. I could probably even get a few cosigners. The point is it never even reached that stage.

Well, I hear this, but then I see a local electronics store that happens to rent DVDs (Steve's TV) and they have at least 300 DVDs for rent. I know it probably isn't easy, but where there's a will, there's a way. ;-)

I wouldn't need or expect wholesale prices for dvd rental. I can easily obtain 300 DVDs at dirt cheap prices from Columbia House. I'm talking about thousands of DVDs, with hundreds of the same title. Columbia House doesn't allow that, and that in itself is a restraint on free trade.

Yes and no. Blockbuster is a natural monopoly, unlike some other ones, such as most phone companies. They're a monopoly because most customers like them (although I don't), not because they use underhanded tactics to force others from being unable to compete.

I'm not saying they use underhanded tactics to force others from being unable to compete. I'm just saying that the system itself discourages small businesses and competition. Between zoning laws and licensing issues, the things I've already mentioned and the many more that I haven't even brought up, it's very hard to compete with any large company. On top of that, most businesses utilize economies of scale. Without millions or even billions of dollars, or the connections to borrow it, you can't even think about competing.

By the way, the term natural monopoly is commonly used in economic theory, and it doesn't mean what you're using it to mean. In economic theory, local phone companies are a natural monopoly, and Blockbuster is not. This is because it would be terribly inefficient to have multiple companies running telephone lines down the same street. It's not so inefficient to have multiple rental places in the same area, however.

I generally have no problems with natural monopolies. Of course, perhaps I missed something, and Blockbuster is really a big bully...

I don't have a problem with Blockbuster per se. It's more with the regulations and agreements which make it so hard to compete with it.

Take Economics 101. Learn about the term "sunk cost." Then you'll understand.

Because there is only so many times a week that I can stomach listening to Slashdot's collective indignance about the recording industry and its antics.

Surprise, surprise: advances in technology drive down the costs of production; I'm sure that every aspect of the music business has benefitted from this in some way or another.

Equally unsurprising: We're not seeing any of this money, as the industry is effectively an oligopoly, with high barriers to entry on a national/international level.

And between a) apathy-induced boycotts of major label artists on the grounds of not being very good, and b) illegal distribution of the very little we can be bothered to buy via P2P networks, we'll either remedy the situation through the collapse of recording industry as we know it or make it worse through yet further consolidation of record labels, putting even more power in the hands of the people we despise the most.

God I'm feeling cynical today.

MABYE THE RIAA SHOULD FOCUS ON MAKING A PRODUCT PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO PAY FOR?? if someone wouldnt buy a cd anyway how the FUCK does it hurt the artist if they download teh cd?

Because the artist makes royalties off of the sale of the CD.

And if you're not willing to pay for it, fine, but that doesn't entitle you to steal. Go find music that is being given away for free and listen to that -- there is PLENTY of good, free music available on mp3.com and elsewhere. I mean, shit, go out to a bar sometime and get a CD some local band is giving away for free, you will find LOTS of good music that way.

> 1. You can't lose something you never had.

Sorry, but that's entirely wrong.

Opportunity Cost (definitions: 1, 2) is essentially the issue here. The cost of something also includes the opportunity that is given up, even though it was never actually posessed. Assuming that consumers would buy the same goods whether online or in stores, every purchase online deprives the states of the otherwise-available opportunity to tax that purchase.

This situation is a little different from classic examples of opportunity cost, because the person making the choice is not the one losing the opportunity, but the same principles apply. The states never had that money, but they have indeed lost it because the online purchases removed the opportunity.

I'm no economist myself, so if there's a principle that applies more directly to the situation I'd be interested to hear it. Also, I make no judgement on taxing online purchases here; I'm just pointing out that you don't have to be able to hold something in your hand in order to lose it.

No, it is entirely the same thing.

Every product, including the XBOX, PS2 and Gamecube, have huge startup costs.

You couldn't be bothered to quote them, because if you did, you would see the startup costs are considerably different; much higher, in fact, when you manufacture more of your own components. Hey, you'll look bad arguing this one, it's covered in the essay you plagiarized.

The profit made on each PS2 console is gross profit, not net.

A dictionary definition for net profit. A dictionary definition for gross profit. Drawing the gross/net profit distinction is specious - holding aside "taxes, interest, depreciation, and other expenses" doesn't matter. This kind of error makes you look like you don't really know what you're talking about.

Your discussion about the politics between suppliers and console vendors is slightly interesting, although it more or less echoes what I originally said ("...but then over time will reap even bigger rewards as their manufacturing investment pays off"); it's also irrelevant to the point.

No, it is entirely the same thing.

Every product, including the XBOX, PS2 and Gamecube, have huge startup costs.

You couldn't be bothered to quote them, because if you did, you would see the startup costs are considerably different; much higher, in fact, when you manufacture more of your own components. Hey, you'll look bad arguing this one, it's covered in the essay you plagiarized.

The profit made on each PS2 console is gross profit, not net.

A dictionary definition for net profit. A dictionary definition for gross profit. Drawing the gross/net profit distinction is specious - holding aside "taxes, interest, depreciation, and other expenses" doesn't matter. This kind of error makes you look like you don't really know what you're talking about.

Your discussion about the politics between suppliers and console vendors is slightly interesting, although it more or less echoes what I originally said ("...but then over time will reap even bigger rewards as their manufacturing investment pays off"); it's also irrelevant to the point.

Public Domain can mean openly available to everyone and not subject to copyright protection, or simply openly available to the public (i.e. for sale to the public).


You know, if every fuckwit in the world makes up definitions for commonly available words, english will get more fucked up than it already is.

What gives you the right to judge who is giving money away for the "right reasons" and who is doing it "only for tax purposes"?

"Tax-deductible" means that a donation qualifies as paying your income tax, putting your money towards something the government would have given your money to anyway. Making a tax-deductible donation only decides where the money is going, not whether or not to "give" the money in the first place. Sub-Saharan Africa would still be getting their fresh water and such, the only difference being whether the check is signed "Bill Gates" or "Uncle Sam."

Wrong. Tax-deductible means the amount you give is taken out of your taxable income. What you are talking about is a tax credit. Charitable contributions are tax deductible, not tax credits. See this definition. For example, lets say you earn $100,000. If you give away $10,000, you are taxed as if you earned only $90,000.

Let's use real tax rates here (taken from this site. If you earn $100,000, your tax liability is $24,308. But if you gave $10,000 to charity and you are taxed as if you earned $90,000, your tax liability is $21,323. Thus, your taxes are reduced by $2,985. In contrast, with a tax credit of $10,000, your taxes are reduced by $10,000.

You seem to have confused a company's Market Cap (Definition 2) with its Total Cash.

IIRC, in the case of, say, a TelCo considered to be a natural monopoly, the old-school supporting arguments centered around the idea that it's inefficient to have a redundant network of phone lines. The same notion was applied to utility companies. It's not clear at all to me that M$'s product development (and software development in general) is an analogous process (in terms of high infrastructure costs) to connecting phone lines or distributing electric power. To me, M$ is more of an old-school monopoly a la Standard Oil, that uses its market power to drive out competitors, even when they have arguably superior products.

If, by "open monopoly," Hrebejk means "everyone around the globe using open-source software for most of their computing" then I hope he's right, although that situation wouldn't be a true monopoly unless one company (Sun? Red Hat?) ends up controlling most of the software market.

-Rene

Actually, it is not 'free market' either since by definition that implies no government interferrence with the market. Im not sure what the best term for what I want to say is, perhaps 'competition' or some combination of the three (capitalism, competition and free market).

The real definition, FYI:
http://www.investorwords.com/c5.htm#commingling

Damn the man.

Imagine if your bank were to declare that your deposits with them were not physical, but electronic, and as such were merely forms of information that were the product of your contract with the bank. Therefore, they actually owned your money, allowing you to use it at their "sole discretion", and if you tried to move it to another bank, they had no legal responsibility if the "information" somehow ended up in the hands of a third party.

Deposit: Money given in advance to show intention to complete the purchase of a property. Also, money transferred into a customer's account at a financial institution. see also American Depositary Receipt, Global Depositary Receipt, certificate of deposit, demand deposit, depository trust company, earnest money, escrow, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, margin call, near money, savings account, savings deposits, security deposit, time deposit.

Imagine if your bank were to declare that your deposits with them were not physical, but electronic, and as such were merely forms of information that were the product of your contract with the bank. Therefore, they actually owned your money, allowing you to use it at their "sole discretion", and if you tried to move it to another bank, they had no legal responsibility if the "information" somehow ended up in the hands of a third party.

Deposit: Money given in advance to show intention to complete the purchase of a property. Also, money transferred into a customer's account at a financial institution. see also American Depositary Receipt, Global Depositary Receipt, certificate of deposit, demand deposit, depository trust company, earnest money, escrow, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, margin call, near money, savings account, savings deposits, security deposit, time deposit.

Imagine if your bank were to declare that your deposits with them were not physical, but electronic, and as such were merely forms of information that were the product of your contract with the bank. Therefore, they actually owned your money, allowing you to use it at their "sole discretion", and if you tried to move it to another bank, they had no legal responsibility if the "information" somehow ended up in the hands of a third party.

Deposit: Money given in advance to show intention to complete the purchase of a property. Also, money transferred into a customer's account at a financial institution. see also American Depositary Receipt, Global Depositary Receipt, certificate of deposit, demand deposit, depository trust company, earnest money, escrow, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, margin call, near money, savings account, savings deposits, security deposit, time deposit.