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... I've never seen the price fall radically out of alignment with supply and demand in a stable market.

First, what's a "stable market?". Lets go to http://www.investorwords.com/6679/stable_market.html

"A market that is able to handle a large volume of trades, such as foreign exchange transactions, without causing large shifts in price."

So, by definition, you are correct. If prices fall out of alignment with supply and demand, as they've done in the stock market because of high speed trading, you don't have a "stable market".

You are ignoring market inetia. A market will only fulfill a demand when the expected profit exceeds the decision maker's time and effort. Regulation and exclusive deals between government and business drive up cost and effort for potential competitors. If a local government gives exclusive rights for cable service to one company, and the courts agree that includes anything like wireless that *looks* like cable TV, the costs and effort for a cable competitor are effectively infinite until the contract expires.

It's literally the definition of a free market. Literally. The definition.

http://www.investorwords.com/2086/free_market.html

"Business governed by the laws of supply and demand, not restrained by government interference, regulation or subsidy."

I didn't read past your first sentence, because as a rule I don't argue against people who can't be bothered to know what they are arguing about. Suffice it to say, if you advocate for "free markets" but don't want "markets with zero regulations or taxes", then you are a stooge being used by people who actually do want markets with zero regulations or taxes. What you probably want is a regulated market, perhaps one less regulated than the one the USA has today. That's fine, but it's not a free market.

A specific reduction on a company's balance sheet that adjusts the value of a company's goodwill. Due to accounting rules, a company must monitor and test the value of its goodwill, to determine if it is overvalued. If it is, the company must issue an impairment charge on its balance sheet, to take into account the reduced value of the goodwill.

So... I guess... it's an artificial lowering of their balance sheet to reflect the fact that AOL shouldn't be making that much money if their stock is so crappy. I don't know if there's an actual financial penalty involved (i.e., that charge actually gets paid out to someone), or if that number only matters with respect to determining their stock value on Wall Street (and they didn't actually lose 1.4 billion).

a Capitalist system is an unstable social construct that tends to slide into Corporativism.

Only if the rules for granting corporate charters are not observed. Corporate charters, which grant limited liability, were only granted when it served the common or public good. That is why the Dutch East India Company in 1602 and the British East India Company in 1600 were granted their corporate charters. They were both shipping companies and it was understood that international trade was positive, however shipping was a risky business. Ships, their cargo, crews, passengers, and the ships themselves were frequently lost due to bad weather or pirates. Without limited liability people did not want to risk everything they owned, including their homes, by investing in shipping. Those charters can be revoked though.

Thomas Jefferson warned about the Corporate Aristocracy, saying "I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of their country." Corporations no longer have to challenge our government, instead they buy the politicians who make the laws and the bureaucrats who enforce them. With a smaller, limited, government they wouldn't be able to do so.

I postulate that, given the way Politics (the rule setters), Power and Money interact, it is impossible to have a situation where the Players do not influence the Rules and furthermore, the bigger the player the more influence they have in setting the Rules.

That's true because of the size of government and it's regulations grows. Corporations use regulations, and often take part in writing those regulations, to limit their competition. For instance lawn care businesses like TruGreen lobby local governments to regulate lawn care businesses going so far as to require licenses. Hell, some places even regulate yard sales.

Falcon

Better smack it harder.

here, let me break it down to the most bare bones obvious choices:

1. no government or weakened government = unfettered corporate power (what you get with your ideology, but don't admit it or don't realize it)

No, let me break it down to the basics. The government grants corporations their corporate charter. With no government there are no corporations.

3. strong government = curtailed corporate power (where we should go)

Any government powerful enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take it away. Let's look at a couple of Thomas Jefferson's quotes:
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
And in The Forgotten Essentials of Jefferson's Philosophy. "To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."

but what you seem to want is obviously far, far worse. with no government or weakened government, the only power around, without any checks or balances on it, are the corporations.

Point to one place where I said I did not want any government. On second thought, forget it. I don't want to continue with someone who puts words in my mouth I did not say.

Falcon

An open market is one where all interested parties have access to pricing information.

Perhaps on your planet. But here on Earth... http://www.investorwords.com/3446/open_market.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_market
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_market

Ever heard of buyer's club cards? There's the listed price, the member price, an additional discount that pops up at the register, plus some selected deals made available only to a few select customers. So we're there already.

Nothing to do with magically reading what's in your wallet. And I repeat - you can always shop somewhere else.

Overall this thread is a good read, and it's obvious from the posts the understanding of the principles and circumstances is well informed. I've some economics schooling from undergrad studies and thus a fairly clear understanding of the rebuttal inherent in intel's claim that the FTC wants to turn them into a public utility, but I think those points have been well covered. Instead I'd like to point out that the western capitalist markets have swung deeply into litigious territory and lawsuits are now an everyday tool. There's a 'damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead' attitude that pushes corporations to pursue maximum profits from every possible means. My undergrad level economics courses spoke of the concept of moral suasion. Moral suasion, in Canada, was a means the Bank of Canada had as a means of swaying the banking community to follow Bank of Canada money policies. By perhaps bad analogy, the point I'm trying to make is that the community ethics and principles that are implicit in a concept like moral suasion are now anachronistic. With globalization and gargantuan consumer markets has come business practices that more reflect the difficulties in trying to impart a sense of community or national standards on international corporations that compete across many national boundaries and necessarily develop business strategies and tactics wherein governments are just other pieces on the board. Tied into the new world business strategies and exacerbating the situation is that publicly held corporations are intended to reward their investors with maximal profits. Thus, to a large extent intel's current circumstance just reflects the practices of a world market player. For me the sea change that introduced the new market was kicked off with Big Blue's late 1960 monopoly case because IBM demonstrated that mega corporations have the resources to win legal wars of attrition even against big league governments. The more so because every government was as eager to woo large corporations to invest in their countries as they were to sue them.

That's sales for July. This is not the same as marketshare.

Sales is marketshare.

And I also provided a second link with current data, which shows it at number 2 (though really more since another iPhone is in the number 9 slot).

I wouldn't go throwing stones when you have not even finished building your glass house...

It's really a shame eight year olds like yourself don't have to pass some kind of test to post here, it would keep the quality up to where it used to be. Even your insults are pathetic. Next time I'll just ignore requests for a link so it'll just be another bumbling ignorant fool like yoruself, and why bother to help someone who hasn't figured out how to use Google yet?

You keep stating that Microsoft is a monopoly over and over so frequently I believe it's a repetition tactic. You know, you repeat something often enough and it becomes the truth for you.

Ten years ago called, and they're tapping you on the head with the receiver: Judge calls Microsoft a "monopoly"

The last serious commercial competitor to Microsoft Windows for the desktop PC that I remember before Apple switched to the same x86 platform capable of running Windows, was IBM with OS/2.

So you claim that the last competitor was OS/2, and now that MS has no competitors, it's still not a monopoly? My friend, if there is no competition, that is the definition of monopoly!

I guess it's convenient to ignore my statements while you attempt to cement your argument. There are current competitors to Microsoft Windows, therefore it's not a monopoly. You epic failed to recognize that OS/2 was simply the last venture that was greeted with mild success, but still failed to dethrone the market leader.

BTW, a judge may call anything anything, but I would have to take a guess and say that unless it was a ruling and it was upheld after appeal, it's just an opinion. IANAL.

You keep stating that Microsoft is a monopoly over and over so frequently I believe it's a repetition tactic. You know, you repeat something often enough and it becomes the truth for you.

Ten years ago called, and they're tapping you on the head with the receiver:

Judge calls Microsoft a "monopoly"

The last serious commercial competitor to Microsoft Windows for the desktop PC that I remember before Apple switched to the same x86 platform capable of running Windows, was IBM with OS/2.

So you claim that the last competitor was OS/2, and now that MS has no competitors, it's still not a monopoly? My friend, if there is no competition, that is the definition of monopoly!

a commercial enterprise's primary concern is profit. they're obligated to their shareholders

Actually a corporation's primary responsibility is to improve the public good. The first two businesses granted corporate charter were the Dutch East India Company in 1602 and the British East India Company in 1604. Both were shipping businesses and shipping was a risky business to be in. The British and Dutch thought shipping was a common good, so to encourage shipping these companies were granted limited liability. If a ship sank because of bad weather or was attacked by pirates the ship owners were liable for the loss. The owner could lose everything including their home. So liability was limited to just what the corporation owned. A person could own stocks in the corporation and the most they would loose is the amount they paid for the stocks. If a corporation no longer served the public good then it could have it's corporate charter revoked.

However generally corporations are no longer held accountable to the public good. Instead as Thomas Jefferson warned of we now have a corporate aristocracy.

Falcon

The GDP is not about "creating value", but mostly about moving money around.

The GDP is "the total market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a given year". It is exactly the measure of the value produced in the economy. (Putting aside for the moment the broken window problem and the need for a GPI.)

General Electric has a Net Income of 22 billion dollars, and 370 000 workers. That's nearly 60 thousand dollars worth of profit for every single employee.

That "net income" is what's left of their gross profit of $100 billion after expenses, including payroll. So if your numbers are correct, each worker is on average creating $60,000 worth of value that isn't going to them, but goes to stockholders. (Of course some employees own some stock, but not enough to distort the general picture; it's not like GE is an employee-owned company.) That's bit higher than the $50,000 of my previous calculation but well within back-of-the-envelope tolerances. Thank you for the supporting evidence.

Taking only 60k of profit per employee while having to finance such a massive infrastructure is pretty fair.

Rubbish. That "financing" is an artifact of our system, of the centralized control of capital. If I loan a carpenter a hammer, and he creates $25 of value an hour with his skilled labor, something is fundamentally wrong with a system where I can charge him $15 an hour for the use of my hammer.

You also fail to account the fact that most companies are owned by the average american.

Because that's not a fact, but a misconception. Stock owned by your pension fund is not owned by you. If you're invested in MegaBank's Growth and Income fund, and that fund owns 1,000 shares of Amalgamated Profits, Inc., there's not a share with your name on it, and you don't get to vote at their stockholder's meeting, MegaBank does.

These funds are mostly a means of putting more wealth under the control of Wall Street bankers and managers, any wealth that trickles down to fund participants is a side-effect.

without a government a big "corporation" would simply hire mercenaries to enforce their will.

Guess what? Corporations already tried that, and that's how come many unions were created. When businesses sent in strike breakers this encouraged those workers to band together to create a union to represent them. However without a government there wouldn't be corporations, it's government that grants corporations their corporate charter.

Falcon

Who earned the money that was taxed to buy the stocks and bonds?

Ce depend, it depends. Someone may of worked to earn the money whereas others inherit the money or investments.

Why not make investments in stock and bonds tax deductible when they are bought just like buying business equipment and go ahead and tax the profits?

There wouldn't be any tax when stocks and bonds were bought if people didn't have to pay income tax, on earned income. I don't believe a person should be taxed on what they work to earn. Corporations though should be taxed. Now this is something I disagree with other libertarians, some don't believe corporations should be taxed. I believe they should though because corporations grant their stockholders limited liability. Take two businesses, one is a Sole proprietorship and the other's a corporation granted a corporate charter. If those businesses are ever sued for whatever reason the most a stockholder can lose is the amount they spent buying stocks in the corporation. The sole proprietorship owner though can lose everything they own, the business as well as their house and any other property of value.

Actually that why corporations were created, granted a corporate charter. The first two corporations granted charters were the Honourable East India Company in 1600 and the Dutch East India Company in 1602. Both businesses were shipping companies shipping goods between India, and the Netherlands in the case of Dutch East India Company, or Great Britain in the case of Honourable East India Company. Shipping was a risky business. For whatever reason if a ship's cargo was lost, whether because of weather it sunk or because pirates attacked it, the ship's owners were liable and had to pay the owner of the cargo. Ship owners also had to pay the family of any crewman killed or lost. So the crowns of England and the Netherlands gave both East India Companies limited liability, all someone who owned stocks in them could lose is the what they paid for the stock.

I'm all for running a deficit for a short while when absolutely necessary (like the Revolution, the Civil War, WWII), but not all the time or for piddly conflicts with countries who didn't attack us like Iraq.

I agree but currently deficits aren't run for short periods. You mention the Civil War. During the war Lincoln raised taxes to, imagine this, 4%. People were angry, but they knew the war had to be paid for. If those people saw how much we pay in taxes now there'd another revolution.

Falcon

Don't be ridiculous. Without government regulation, companies naturally grow into monopolies, like they did in the 1900s.

You're the one being ridiculous, it was government that created most of those monopolies during the 1900s. Pretty much the same can be said of those in the 1800s. It was government that gave the railroads the right of way along with the telephone and cable companies for instance. It was also government that gave corporations their corporate charters and then did not revoke those corporate charters when the corporation no longer served the common good. Libertarians on the other hand know what to do about the concentration of power in corporate hands.

Libertarian nuts like you

You're the nut. Bye

Falcon

Well, that trojan has a bug. When you sell short, you sell a stock then buy it. Yes, really.

That's what "short" means -- you don't have all the shares you need to cover the sale, so you're short. A "naked short" means you also don't have the funds set aside to buy and deliver the shares you sold or enough shares of the company in your portfolio to make up the difference.

The idea is that you sell at or just below the current price, expecting the stock to tank. Then you buy the shares before the agreed-upon transfer time for less than you're getting. Basically you're selling borrowed shares for more money than you're paying the guy you borrowed them from, if it works out as planned. If the stock goes up, you end up paying more for the shares than what you sold them for.

Theoretically there's a limit on what you can make and no limit on what you can lose. It's a useful tool in the market, though, if it's used correctly.

I know the explanation is overkill in response to your joke, but it seems many people do get confused with what the term means. I figured now was a teachable moment for people reading your post.

While I grant that libertarians tend to oppose government control of drugs, you are the first one I have heard of who does not think corporations should be able to drug test their employees. So you favor government regulation to accomplish this? Or by what means do you propose?

First, it's because of government that employers started testing for drugs, the government required some employers to test for drug use with the fake War on Drugs. In "The Libertarian Alternative - Questions about Drug Testing" [it's 28 minutes] a speaker (emergency room doctor) in this Google video says Libertarians believe the government mandate for employers to test for drugs is a violation of the 4th amendment, unreasonable search. As for me, I oppose drug testing but I would let the free market decide whether to test for drugs. An employer can choose to test or not test. If a potential employee didn't like being tested then they don't have to apply for employment at a company that requires it.

And what's wrong with that? [regarding the sale of human organs]

Because it forces people who are in desperate financial straights into a decision of their organs or foodstuffs.

I'll start by saying I believe that in a true free market most of those people who would be in any "desperate financial straights" are those who either won't work or who spend too much as compared to how much they make, ie they live beyond their means such as buying that brand new Jaguar every 2 years. In a free market people would be able to make enough money to live a comfortable life, have a roof over their head, have enough food to eat, and could afford health insurance. I do leave out, agree to, the possibility of requiring insurance providers to pay into an insurance pool that would allow those who either can't afford or have been turned down for health insurance to get coverage from the pool. I know about being denied health insurance, more than 10 years ago I survived an accident that left me with a permanent disability and have been denied insurance because of that.

Also I love gardening and believe in city farms or gardens. Besides private gardens, if say you have a 5 blocks X 5 blocks section of a city maybe you could have a lot on the center block that's a garden. People living in the area could have an allotment where they could grow their own food. With big enough of a garden, or more than one, people could hire garden tenders to take care of them.

We'd abolish the limited-liability shield laws to make corporate officers and stockholders fully responsible for a corporation's actions

That voids the concept of a corporation, which is that, due to my limited liability, I can invest only my money, but not my credit/honor/personal future in your idea, and limits access to capital. That combined with yourdesire to return to the gold stndard would destroy the economy.

I'm partially, but not compeatly with you on that. Businesses were originally granted a corporate charter, to limit liability, if the business served the common or public good. The first corporation to be granted a charter and issue stocks was the Dutch East India Company in 1602. The second was the Honourable East India Company in 1604. Both companies were shipping and trading businesses, they shipped goods between the Indian subcontinent and Europe. However shipping was a risky business. Ships could run into bad weather and sink or be attacked by pirates. The owners of the ship were responsible for lost cargo and crew, if a

Actually corporations are a reaction to liability. The first businesses granted a Corporate Charter were the Honourable East India Company in 1600 and the Dutch East India Company in 1602. Both companies were in shipping which was a risky business. Ships had to deal with storms such as hurricanes and pirates. When a ship sunk or was attacked the ship owner was financially liable. The owner of the lost goods had to be paid back. The crewmen or their survivors had to be paid as well. This could bankrupt the owners, who could even loose their homes. So the British and Dutch allowed companies to be granted a corporate charter, which gave the corporation's owners limited liability. The most a stockholder could loose is the amount they invested. However back then corporations were only granted charters if the corporation served the Common Good or Public Good. Once a corporation no longer did it's corporate charter could be revoked. Today governments no longer revoke charters though. As Thomas Jefferson warned, "I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of their country."

Well, the Mac is on TV, but it is most definitely _not_ an alternative. Jobs would have to let it be legally installable on whitebox hardware first. We're not just talking about letting Dell and HP make and sell Mac OS pre-installed boxes. Your local integrator has to be able to install it, without too many hurdles, and at a cost that leaves him some profit.

Apple won't allow OS X to be installed on beige box clones, at one tyme Apple did allow Mac clones but Apple lost more in lost hardware sales than they made in the sales of Mac OS licenses.. If the local integrator would make money then Apple would loose money. Apple isn't just a software company, Apple also makes and sales hardware. All to together Apple is a systems integrator, Apple just make things that work, the hardware and software work well together. And that totally ignores Microsoft. MS has already shown what it will do to those it views as competitors.

One relief I could think of that might not be unreasonable for a court to order when a company continues to behave like Microsoft. Strip them of all their patents and bar them from obtaining more patents until their market presence drops below 50%. (Trade one monopoly for another.)

What could be done to MS is to have it's Corporate Charter revoked. Corporations were originally granted charters if the corporation served the Public good. Once a corporation did not serve the public or common good it's charter could be revoked. The first corporate charter was granted to the Dutch East India Company in 1602 by the government in the Netherlands. Corporate charters allowed those who invested in the corporation to limit liability to just what they paid for for the stocks they owned.

Franchise:
http://www.investorwords.com/2078/franchise.html [investorwords.com]
See how this applies to the movie?

I can see how you could consider Castlevania to be a product. If you shoehorn it a bit, you could probably also consider the production of a movie to mean they've entered into a "continuing contractual relationship with other businesses". However, I doubt the movie studio is operating "under the franchisor's trade name" in exchange for a fee.

Every other entry than the movie in the series is right out, considering that, last I checked, they're not farming production of them out to other companies.

Press Release:
http://www.1stworldlibrary.org/Glossary.html#p [1stworldlibrary.org]
See how this applies to the regular SlashDot postings?

Did Konami issue all of those articles themselves? No? I'm afraid I don't see.

Feel free to ask if you need more help with your cognitive processes...

Feel free to let me know if you want to argue based on the matters at hand rather than nitpicks.

Slashdot gets about one story a month that mentions Castlevania in some way or another, frequently just as an aside to the main subject, and that's "a string of press releases"?

Look, I'm not trying to flame here... but if you're not a lawyer, and don't have any other knowledge... don't try to render a legal opinion.

I appreciate that, and I'll try to respond in the same spirit. One definition of restraint of trade is: Illegally interfering with free marketplace participation. Regulated by the Federal Trade Commission.It seems that using that definition, there are two important points. Was It Viacom illegally interfering with trade, and does Irllicht participate in the free marketplace . I don't think that there is a profit motive requirement for participating in the free marketplace, so I think Irllicht, as well as every other open source/FSF based company or organization qualifies as participating in the free marketplace. The 2nd part of the definition is the important part. Was Viacom acting illegally?

Irrlicht doesn't need to sue Viacom. Because Viacom isn't trying to 'muscle out a smaller company'. To anyone - ANYONE! - in this thread who thinks Viacom should be sued, answer me this - What damages is Irrlicht suing for? Did Viacom really try to destroy their business - to 'restrain trade'? Did they prevent Irrlicht from selling their product, from promoting their wares?

Is malice or intent required for Illegally Interfereing ? There are plenty of crimes where the absense of intent is not a defense. A drunk driver didn't intend to run over a kid...that doesn't mean he won't be tried for manslaughter.

THEY TOOK AN EFFING VIDEO OFF OF YOUTUBE. Not only that, but a video they had at least SOME basis to believe infringed on their copyright material. And the DMCA - despite the HUGE problems with that piece of legislation - does at least provide a remedy for this stuff. It takes about ten minutes to kick off an email in response.

This is also gray area, at least in my opinion. From the article, is says that the video was part of the help/tutorial system of the Irlicht website. Is preventing customers from accessing support or help, even for a free product, interferring with the free trade between the Irlicht group and the Irlicht customers? Some would say yes. What if one person tried to access the tutorial, got a broken link and decided not to download? (in their case this is roughly equivalent to a purchase)

Show me damage. Show me Viacom acting in bad faith, rather than merely negligently or recklessly. THEN talk about lawsuits and restraint of trade. Until then... this is just not a big deal. The DMCA has a million huge problems - and this is somewhere around 950,000 on that list.

I think this is where the reason to respond legally becomes apparent. Let's assume that Viacom simply was negligent, and they sent out one accidental takedown notice. The burden is pretty low. As you said, you simply send them a letter, or email somebody ( I don't know who exactly ) wait some period of time, and the video goes back up. If you allow negligence to be a defence of this type of behavior, then what's to stop viacom to send out thousands, or millions of these youtube takedown notices. Then the cost is greater. Now it's millions of people sending out emails, waiting for YouTube support to restore their videos. Now YouTube is processing Millions of emails. Maybe it's not 20 minutes before your video is back up. Maybe its two weeks now...or a month. If negligence is a defence, then if someone loses a business, or even a single sale, Viacom's defense could be "Sorry, My Bad", and the smaller business would just have to bend over and take it. For viacom, it costs nothing extra to spam the world with takedown notices, but the costs to the receivers would be onerous. That's called a fishing expedition , and isn't allowed in american law.

As for the damages for Irrlicht...well, damages probably would be zero

InvestorWords
Answers.com
The Free Dictionary
Asians who speak Engrish

None of these limit the scope of the definition as you do.

Can you provide any references for your alleged AppleSpeak? It seems you stand along clinging to your definition, unless there's some secret AMA handshake to get someone to agree with you.

Seriously, you're fighting the wrong fight. Why are you on a troll for a stupid definition instead of standing up for your original point, or do you even remember what that was?

While that's true, this "unique selling point" has basically left them treading water in terms of marketshare

You say "treading water", I say "consistently profitable niche". Selling Wintel clones is not a profitable strategy because the market is so throughly commoditized. You can point to Dell, but that's just survivorship bias. Remember Packard Bell?

1% of the Wintel market @ 25% margin = Huge Profits.

And they'll get at least that with Boot Camp and Leopard's virtualization, without compromising OS X.

book value definition
A company's common stock equity as it appears on a balance sheet, equal to total assets minus liabilities, preferred stock, and intangible assets such as goodwill. This is how much the company would have left over in assets if it went out of business immediately. Since companies are usually expected to grow and generate more profits in the future, market capitalization is higher than book value for most companies. Since book value is a more accurate measure of valuation for companies which aren't growing quickly, book value is of more interest to value investors than growth investors.

The yield curve is not looking that great and historically we always have a recession soon after the fed stops raising rates.

Depends from your prespective. At the moment interest rates are low, as are credit spreads. Which means its a great time for companies to issue debt - lots of money for low interest costs (which are fixed p.a. to the issuer remember). So if I was a startup I'd now be visiting brokers and banks to luck in on this funding.

And the Fed stops raising rates because, er, they have no reason to because they expect a recession. Inflationary pressures receed in a recession (less economic activity relative to capacity) and the Fed has another interest rate objective of trying for maximum employment levels.

The longer term forecasts are for a sharp short recession in late 2006 to mid 2007 then 2 good years, then a very harsh longer recession from 2010 to 2011.

Ah, financial alchemy. A recession is two consecutive declines in GDP - people, on average, get poorer over a 6 month period, only the maddest hatter is predicting that for the 2006/7 period. That is quite different from a slowdown in growth. Now I don't think even 2011 is long term, but, Concesus Forecasts are the leading sources of forecasts. They don't actually forecast anything, rather every month they telephone/email economists and financial professionals from each major financial institution (think investment banks, brokerages, private sector economist shops), around 50 in total, and publish what each institution thought as well as various averages. While a marked slowdown in growth is expected, certainty of a recession is far from clear.

I live in Chile, South America. We are one of the main producers of copper in the world; in fact, it is our main export by far.

The price of copper has been claiming so fast, that the amount of Dollars coming to our country is messing with our economy, in fact, there are people trying to intervene the value of the Dollar so it doesn't keep going down as is doing now

I don't know if the value of copper will keep rising, but it is coming to a point when our country is depending suffering because we are getting "Dutch disease"

This is reminiscent of Enron's mark to market accounting, wherein you basically determine the real market asset value, then you just make up a bunch of shit.

My Google-fu has failed me; I was hoping to find some data on the demand elasticity for porno but apparently nobodys ever studied this in a quantitative manner.

Anyhow, even if the demand for porno was very high (i.e., an increase in prices would cause a sharp fall in demand), porno is a very, very high margin business.

More than likely the industry would just reprice the porno so the consumer would pay the same as the pre-taxed price.

Simply put, a derivative is as security whose value is derived from that of another, underlying security.

For instance, a stock option is a derivative whose underlier is an option.

In practise, complex derivatives have values that are functions (often very, very difficult or indeed unknowable functions) of various aspects of a range of underliers.

For instance, a credit default swap is a derivative whose underlier is a debt obligation, but its value usually varies only with the creditworthiness of the underlier, not with the other aspects.

Another way of looking at derivatives (depending on what you do with them) is to call them a contract which deals with your rights pertaining to another contract.

For instance, a commodities rollover is a contract that gives you the right to buy and sell two underlying commodity futures contracts. These underliers are themselves derivatives of an actual commodity such as gold. Rollovers are also used in finance (as opposed to commodities trading); in that case, the underliers may well be index-tracking products.

None of this has ANYTHING to do with virtual commodities trading, except that people engaged in virtual commodities trading usually trade futures, which are simple derivatives. They trade futures because it's damn hard to actually take delivery of 1,000,000 tons of orange juice.

Now, how the hell did the parent post get +5 informative?

The parent poster goes on to say a lot of very inaccurate things about derivatives -- for actual information anyone interested should check out a financial website (not Wikipedia!) such as http://www.investorwords.com/

This has been a PSA. Don't do drugs! Stay in school! And FFS don't day trade if you are at the level of the parent poster!

Besides, when a company with 30B USD market cap becomes a part of a company with 170B USD market cap it's called an acquisition, not a "merger."

When a company with 30B USD market cap becomes part of a company with 170B USD market cap, it's a "pooling of interests." Calling it an acquisition would be surpassingly stupid in terms of the taxes incurred, bordering on a violation of the Intel board's fiduciary duty to the shareholders.

debenture
Unsecured debt backed only by the integrity of the borrower, not by collateral, and documented by an agreement called an indenture. One example is an unsecured bond.

Dell invested his own money in the Raleigh Linux software developer, taking the largest single chunk of $600 million in debentures offered by the company in January 2004.

Man, it must really bug you that the FairTax isn't regressive, since that kind of kills your argument against it. Sorry!

No, I'm just annoyed that you're more than happy to take money when you feel its "yours" but go into paroxyisms when I take money that I feel is "mine" (after all, I paid taxes too, and since unemployment is partially paid at the state level, I've paid a lot of that back through our state sales tax).

As for progressive vs. regressive, sorry, but giving everyone $5000 doesn't make the tax any less regressive. As a fraction of the money they earn, people with less money will generally spend more on goods than people with more money (regardless of where they are relative to the poverty line), which means they will spend more on taxes than rich people percentage-wise, which seems to be the very definition of the word.

All the $5000 does is shift the scale so that people who are really poor end up either making money or having no taxes, but then the scale starts climbing from there.

Just as demand for hard-drives has pushed down hard-drive price, and demand for increasing amounts of RAM has pushed down RAM prices,

What in play here is the Law of Supply: the increase in supply without any corresponding increase in demand. The manufacturers of these devices have found ways to make them for less, which has the effect of increasing the quantity of them each is willing to produce at any given price point (that's what an increase in supply means). It is only an increase in supply that can allow for the quantity produced to increase and the price at which that quantity is produced to decrease.

Just as demand for hard-drives has pushed down hard-drive price, and demand for increasing amounts of RAM has pushed down RAM prices,

What in play here is the Law of Supply: the increase in supply without any corresponding increase in demand. The manufacturers of these devices have found ways to make them for less, which has the effect of increasing the quantity of them each is willing to produce at any given price point (that's what an increase in supply means). It is only an increase in supply that can allow for the quantity produced to increase and the price at which that quantity is produced to decrease.

Interesting enough, this same sort of force led to the idea of primogeniture, i.e., all lands and wealth going to the eldest son. The idea was that rather than splitting up a wealth creating system (e.g., an agricultural estate, or cobbler's shop, or whatever), it would remain intact and go to the eldest son.

This led to younger brothers who, having no fortune to speak of, were forced to go out and make their own. They became knight errants (wandering knights), which laid the foundations for chivalry, gentlemanliness, and codes of male conduct up until the 60's, when we all became crass bastards again.

For a (much) more complete history, check out The Compleat Gentleman by Brad Miner.

One last thing: before anyone begins to salivate about a big inheritance tax: any sufficiently well-educated wealthy person would simply channel his assets into a Charitable Remainder Trust rather than let it go the government.

In other words, corporations have a God given right to eternal perpetually increasing profits.

Investors like to see companies become 'cash cows', and become frustrated when they find out various markets are really cottage industries, or if government regulation forces them to become 'boring utilities'.

You'll find that all the people who care about quality programming/design are either working as architects or running their own companies.

In other words, corporations have a God given right to eternal perpetually increasing profits.

Investors like to see companies become 'cash cows', and become frustrated when they find out various markets are really cottage industries, or if government regulation forces them to become 'boring utilities'.

You'll find that all the people who care about quality programming/design are either working as architects or running their own companies.

Here is an opportunity for parallel importing.

...a short squeeze is unlikely. The way the stock has been dropping, it's much more likely to be a Dead Cat Bounce. The reason the price rises is people with stock options cashing out because they have made good money on that dip.

Remember that people won't experience a short squeeze unless the stock price rises to above the price they bought them for. Like e.g. a surprise legal victory or something. If there was one, it was when slashdotters were advicing you to short at 10$ and it rose to almost $20, not now.

Kjella

The scary thing about that statistic is the idea of a short squeeze. Basically, that means that if the price rises a bit, maybe some people are forced to buy back the stock, 'cuz they don't have enough money in their margin account to cover the stock's value anymore. This buy bumps the price some more, and now the next guy has to cover. It's hardly ever an issue, but 50% short interest is pretty much unheard of.

Of course, for this to happen, the stock price would actually have to go *up* first...

In fact, that same chart will show you that most people's taxes were actually lower in 2000

Hmm, you may want to check the data you linked to (I had ditfully transcribed it but apparently too many numbers triggers slashdots lameness filter *shrug*):

As for the average tax rate (average rate you pay for each dollar in a tiered tax system such as the one the US has), correct me if I am wrong but 7.54% is less than 10.58%, 14.36% is less than 15.67%, and 20.33% is less than 20.90%.

Those are the numbers I get if I follow the yearly rows for 2001 vs 2000. It seems you are paying less in 2001 vs 2002.

The only place you payed more is on your marginal tax rate (Marginal tax rate is the tax rate on the last dollar you pay taxes on - that is the highest rate you qualify for) if you make half the median income. I would bet that has more to do with moving into a higher tax bracket than anything (median income changes each year, typically so do where the brackets are placed). If that marginal tax rate is on the last 300 dollars of income it's not very relevant.

By your link the last time the 1/2 median income people payed that little tax was 1967 (mostly in the 12's and 13's so 7 is a good deal different), median income 1974 (stays a little under 17 mostly, once more 14 percent is a signifigant amount of money when talking yearly income), and double median income 1998 (it fluctuates from 20 to about 21 from 1978 on). Most would consider that to be different from virtually unchanged since 1980.

So where do you get taxes rose in 2001 vs 2000? Heck income rose and tax rate went down, that meets most peoples definition of "more money in my pocket" or "less payed in taxes"

This link says a commodity is:

A physical substance, such as food, grains, and metals, which is interchangeable with another product of the same type, and which investors buy or sell, usually through futures contracts. The price of the commodity is subject to supply and demand. Risk is actually the reason exchange trading of the basic agricultural products began. For example, a farmer risks the cost of producing a product ready for market at sometime in the future because he doesn't know what the selling price will be.

I don't see printer cartridges fitting this definition at all.

A dividend is different from a stock split.

A dividend is different from a stock split.

Define "deal with"

If you do buy Google on day 1, don't use a market order (especially in the first minutes). If the IPO becomes a feeding frenzy, you could easily end up paying 2 or 3 times what you expected (and yes, your broker WILL hold you to that price, no matter how bad it is). Instead, use a buy limit order to ensure that you pay no more than your target price for the stock. With a limit order it is possible that you will get no shares (if the stock blows past your price). On the other hand, you are ensured that you won't get shares at some outrageous price.

Sure we do have children. After all when we are dead, who is going to pay all the National Debt? Plug the Deficit ?

And who is going to finance our medicines while we are old and dying. Of course our children !

But you know what? Someday they are going to be dead too. Hopefully they will die wiser than us, so that their children can live a little better than what we afforded to our own.

Face the facts. Logic takes you only so far. Sometimes a little too far. Witness the prize that Rumsfeld was recently give for his "logical labyrinth."

I would prefer Keynes "rhetoric" anyday to Rumsfeld's logic. Thank you very much.

Or more accurately, not.

A short squeeze is when shorts have to rush to cover because of a spike in price, not the other way around.

I do however, agree that this would be a scary short, even if there were any shares to borrow.

Nothing necessarily has to be cut. They could have a budget surplus, you know.