Slashdot Mirror

That is an enormous amount of weight to send up. Space-x is aiming for (has not achieved) $1,000 per pound. Their current cost is more realistically $4,000.

4425*850*4000=$150,450,000,000. Then add the cost to send up another 4427/7=630 satellites per year (630*850*2000(because they'll get costs way down if they can send up that much material)=$1 billion dollars per year. They need to spend 150 billion dollars initially and an ongoing 1 billion dollars per year.

In 2014 SpaceX had a "market cap" of (optimistically) 12 billion dollars. Let's assumt that 12 billion dollars have already been justified. Now rumors of an IPO have been heard, so let's assume a massive over-the-top IPO: 13 billion dollars. Then add in a billion dollars. (assuming every penny they can scrape together goes to this plan) 12+13+1=26 billion. Using realistic numbers for launch costs and hyper-optimistic numbers for funding, they're about 125 billion dollars short. And I don't see Trump signing a 125 billion dollar Space-X pork bill. If we're very optimistic about launch costs that hypothetical bill could go as low as a still-highly-unlikely 75 billion dollars.

I mean, can you think of any, I dunno, unusual things that happened to the global economy between 9/25/2008 and 10/28/2008?

Or would you call this specific period on our world's financial history just another typical 30-day window, where 20% fluctuations in major global currencies are a totally normal and commonplace and not at all hugely rare and alarming thing?

The process of power shifting from a set of hands to another set of hands has happened before many times throughout the course of human history.
Maybe something similar is about to happen again.
http://moneymorning.com/ext/ar...
If this is true, the mystery of why all these countries want these weapons, disappears.

I agree. If only we could get these yahoos to believe it is all bunk too.

http://www.ocregister.com/arti...

http://moneymorning.com/2013/0...

http://www.businessweek.com/ar...

Oh, and maybe we should get google to forget those and all those other stories it brings up when searching for businesses that left California. Or maybe, we can close our eyes and ignore it all and nothing can happen right?

This is not the case. If you think there are more jobs than people willing to do it, then think again. http://moneymorning.com/2013/0... There is a shortage of skilled labor in US. If you go to 10 job interviews, get selected in 5 of those, and end up choosing one, that still means that 90% of the vacancies are still unfilled. Introducing more people to the mix increases the competition and improves US's capability to compete in global arena.

It doesn't really make sense to entirely blame traders here .. what about all the traders that tried to sell early to minimize their losses when they realized early into the IPO that it had been overvalued, put sell orders through at price $X, had their orders mysterious "fail", then get blocked from selling for hours while all they could do was watch the price (and thus their savings) keep falling? If that was (say) your own mother who could just watch some of her savings evaporate (and your inheritance) purely and only because of so-called "technical errors" that favored some traders while ripping off other traders, preventing her from selling early, and forcing her to be left holding dud shares priced much lower? Zuckerberg himself, on the other hand, had no such apparent problem cashing in over a billion worth of his shares really early. Face it, Zuckerberg pulled a fast one here, ripping off mom-and-pop investors to the tune of billions.

And at least the institutional investors, like UBS, at least have a team of lawyers where they can get some form of "justice". Mom-and-pop investors don't.

And this is by far not the only problem with the IPO that makes it all look rather like a whole pattern of dodginess - there have been multiple dodgy things from start ... e.g.: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hagens-berman-files-securities-class-action-against-facebook-zuckerberg-and-underwriters-continues-insider-trading-investigation-against-selling-shareholders-2012-05-25

Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, an investor-rights law firm, today announced that it has filed a securities class-action lawsuit against Facebook, Inc. FB -3.82% , officers, directors and underwriters of the company's Initial Public Offering (IPO) on behalf of investors relating to allegations of whisper estimates withheld from all but a few select investors.

Also, it wasn't just delayed orders. Prices were also mysteriously delayed. This means that people were placing buy and sell orders based on incorrect prices for some people.

http://moneymorning.com/2012/06/07/facebook-ipo-fiasco-to-cost-nasdaq-40-million/
But there were problems from the first trades went off around 11:30 a.m. EDT. Executions were late, allotments askew, and prices delayed. Investors who did manage to get shares were disappointed when Facebook stock barely finished above the IPO price on its first day of trading, closing at $38.27 ... "The retail investor, the true victim, gets lost in the shuffle,"

(Note, in shares, the word "orders" can mean either "buy orders" or "sell orders" - I think some of the confusion on this thread stems from people thinking "order" always means "buy".)

Now imagine when the stocks are moving sideways (not much lows or highs, a bit of a flat line). When moving sideways most people are less interested in the stockmarket and most will put their money in other investment. In these cases the majority of trades happen to be done with high frequent trading systems (HFT computers without human intervention who do the bidding). Now imagine if someone in this case can manipulate them, even indirectly.

I quote this article

High-frequency trading now accounts for 60 percent of total U.S. equity volume, and is spreading overseas and into other markets. These traders stand ready to buy and sell shares at all times, providing the liquidity that keeps markets moving. As a result, trading is now cheaper and easier than ever.Yet critics worry fast trading may undermine the integrity of the U.S. equity market, a bastion of capitalism and corporate America, and could even spark another financial crisis.

This but also in itself beares also the risk that those HFT's go haywire. These kind of events already happened.

Also at relatively low trade volume days, sometimes stocks movement are sometimes totally inexplicable, that's also much of the time high frequency trading at work. HFT's are a big liability, as they have the power to send shockwaves rippling through the stockmarket.

You ask, We provide. That's just about as failed as it gets.

Basically the democrats and obama said "give us $1000 billion or we'l have 9% unempoyment". So we gave the democrats their money, they gave it to bank executives, and now unemployment is at 9.5% and rising fast. Needless to say democrats already spent more than $1000 billion.

Obviously you're a democrat. So please explain how any of this money spending could possibly come as a surprise ?

I think you need to give the Chinese more credit. As you've said, they have a billion more people than we do, yet those people are living on a similar sized landmass with similar resources. If there were a billion more people in America tomorrow, you can bet your ass that the interests on Wall Street would be aligned with Washington and implementing some serious production and other controls on the population. Look at what a big deal illegal immigration is. Americans are already stingy with resources and concerned about maintaining vague notions like "quality of life" for naturalized citizens. You can bet your ass that if there were a billion more people here, we'd have a Politburo like organization doing whatever was necessary to maintain their status while at the same time doing everything necessary to prevent a full on social uprising.

If you think China's government isn't effective, you have a very narrow view of the world. Spend a few hours researching what China is up to in Africa, and then contrast that with how well our State and Defense Departments are doing in that part of the world. Take a look at who is winning oil contracts in Iraq... Here, I'll save you the work (http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/05/news/international/iraq_oil/index.htm .. http://moneymorning.com/2008/08/22/china-iraq/) The Chinese don't have "terrorists" attacking their homeland because of misguided foreign policy blunders (warning, potential red herring).

It's not a big question, it's not even a question that hasn't been answered rather loudly and frequently.

Take a look at the revenues and profits of Coke and Pepsi in China. The two companies have 81% of the soft drink market.

From: http://moneymorning.com/2007/09/28/pepsi-goes-red-in-china/

And Pepsi, not Coke, was shrewd enough to realize it had to "shake things up" a bit in a market where Coke holds 51% of the soda market, to 30% for Pepsi, according to 2006 figures from the trade journal, Beverage Digest.

But the sales growth is enough to pop anyone’s lid. Coke last year sold 4.33 billion liters of carbonated drinks in China, a sales-volume jump of 70% over its results in 2000, according to market-researcher Euromonitor International and The Wall Street Journal. Pepsi sold 2.93 billion liters last year – 32% less than Coke but 93% better than it did in 2000.

And yet you, yourself are being intellectually dishonest by trumpeting your opinions as facts and your tinfoil conspiracy theories as truth.

Which one?

you immediately retreated to a "I'm really stupid, please enlighten my ignorance on Sunni-Shiite relations" position which you should have taken in the first place, since it was so God-awful clear from your first post.

And somehow I know more than the entire GOP ticket from the last election. I don't mind saying I was wrong - I misunderstood the relationship between Al Qaeda in Iraq and the militant Shia movements. I admitted it after I reread some things. Life goes on.

The Iraqi government is rolling in cash right now due to the petroleum deals(so much so that the US Congress is complaining of how much free money the Iraqis have and how much reconstruction the US is paying for).

They don't have 24 hour electrical service or sewage in much of Iraq. Much of their infrastructure is completely destroyed, and now their literacy rate is dropping like a rock. It's going to cost some money to build it back, and just as Iran did in 53, there will be a movement to stop the theft of oil profits from western countries.

Contrast this to Venezuela, whose oil rigs are falling into disrepair and whose production will plummet due to the lack of technical expertise available to the Venezuelan government bureaucrats after kicking out the Western energy companies and the reduction of reinvestment in new exploration. Nationalization is sexy and all to the global leftists, but it runs up against the hard reality of actually maintaining resource production (see: Zimbabwe after kicking out all the white farmers). Appointing paper pushers to do the job based on their political loyalty is a great way to send your country on a short road to North Koreaville.

Read the fine print. Oil companies are allowed to take 60 to 70 percent until their costs are recouped. Anywhere else in the world it's 40%. Once complete, American and British companies, who did not have to bid for access to Iraqi oil, keep 20% of the profits, which is double the normal rate of 10%. So, Venezuela is still doing better than Iraq. Their output has suffered under Chavez, but not as much as Iraqi output has suffered under the US.

Oil prices have gone down about $100 per barrel as well. That's an important fact to remember.

Also, a quicker way to dictatorship is to try and nationalize any of your industries and harm US and British investors. The CIA and MI6 will be up your ass in a heartbeat.

Do you think the US would just stand by and let them do it?

Yes. Do you know why? Because since oil is Iraq's lifeline, they will still sell it.

That's a logical fallacy. Iraqis, given the choice between extermination and dictatorship, will probably choose dictatorship, even if it's installed by the United States.

And it's not control of petroleum that the US is after as a strategic priority, it's the continuing free flow of petroleum to the world market. We don't care who owns the oil. We care that any one person or country isn't threatening to monopolize a large majority of the world's proven reserves, thus allowing them to destabilize the US and world economy, which is highly dependent on energy for transportation.

False. We want to make sure that we maintain control over the worlds proven reserves, in case someone thinks about threatening our empire. Then we have the power to cut them off and throw their society into ch

>Let me try to calm myself a bit. I can accurately be accused of trolling in a sense, which is to say I'm sensationalistic to get people to at least read something besides the same rhetoric passed to us from major news sites that, in my honest opinion, are completely dishonest.

And yet you, yourself are being intellectually dishonest by trumpeting your opinions as facts and your tinfoil conspiracy theories as truth. And that makes you different from a supermarket tabloid writer because...?

You are trolling. Period. Not in "a sense". So grow up. You started another post about al Qaeda having a grand opportunity with all these "militant Shiites", even though al Qaeda has traditionally terrible relations with Shiites, being a fundamentalist Sunni organization that has killed many innocent Shiites for terror and intimidation purposes. And yet when a poster called you on your ignorance, you immediately retreated to a "I'm really stupid, please enlighten my ignorance on Sunni-Shiite relations" position which you should have taken in the first place, since it was so God-awful clear from your first post.

>Of course I can't read that agreement in the ten minutes I took to respond. Let's say the language was clear and even well intentioned. What happens if Iraq wants to again nationalize their oil fields?

Why the fuck would the Iraqis want to nationalize the oil fields? The Iraqi government is rolling in cash right now due to the petroleum deals(so much so that the US Congress is complaining of how much free money the Iraqis have and how much reconstruction the US is paying for). Contrast this to Venezuela, whose oil rigs are falling into disrepair and whose production will plummet due to the lack of technical expertise available to the Venezuelan government bureaucrats after kicking out the Western energy companies and the reduction of reinvestment in new exploration. Nationalization is sexy and all to the global leftists, but it runs up against the hard reality of actually maintaining resource production (see: Zimbabwe after kicking out all the white farmers). Appointing paper pushers to do the job based on their political loyalty is a great way to send your country on a short road to North Koreaville.

> Do you think the US would just stand by and let them do it?

Yes. Do you know why? Because since oil is Iraq's lifeline, they will still sell it. And it's not control of petroleum that the US is after as a strategic priority, it's the continuing free flow of petroleum to the world market. We don't care who owns the oil. We care that any one person or country isn't threatening to monopolize a large majority of the world's proven reserves, thus allowing them to destabilize the US and world economy, which is highly dependent on energy for transportation.

> We didn't allow it to happen in Iran. We tried to stop it in Venezuela, but the coup failed.

Isn't it ironic? The Iranians have a populist revolution to only set up their own oppressive theocracy. 30 years later, the newest generation wants to have a populist revolution, only to have it squashed under the thumbs of the Ayatollah and the Revolutionary Guard, who at this point are starting to look worse than the Shah in terms of mismanaging their own country and citizens. The CIA had no involvement in the attempted Venezuelan coup, other than to indicate that the US government would rather have a military coup by halfway reasonable generals rather than another crackpot demagogue who is only interested in plundering his country's wealth for his own image and legacy. Which was perfectly fucking reasonable. Unless you happen to l

When you have GM going to congress begging for money while their laborers are making near $80k a year with gold plated benefits

They aren't. That was bullshit from the GM execs. They lumped in the retiree benefits and included them into workers. With productivity increases and workforce reductions, that means a lot of retirees are supported by a few current workers. US auto worker compensation is roughly in line with that of Japanese auto workers. In contrast, Japanese CEO compensation is much less than US CEO compensation.