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They can't own the mask; it predates the corporation.

No, it doesn't.

"What few people seem to know, though, is that Time Warner, one of the largest media companies in the world and parent of Warner Brothers, owns the rights to the image and is paid a licensing fee with the sale of each mask."

Yes, but the masks used by protestors are very much based on the version drawn by Alan Moore (and which the movie intentionally used, being a cinematic version of Moore's work). Had they been directly drawn from the original source, they would have looked more different.

...and not subject to royalties.

Anonymous, thanks for inflating the profits of one of the big media companies you are protesting against.

You sound an awful lot like David Pogue.

Which means that for karmawhoring, people should just copy/paste the comments to his blog at the NY Times, explaining why people target Apple.

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/the-dilemma-of-cheap-electronics/

In summary: Because Apple has the most exposure. It's kind of like if John Doe, Jane Smith and Lady Gaga shopped at a clothing store whose clothes come from sweatshops, and complaining that everybody is focusing on Lady Gaga. Whether or not that is actually more productive than if they treated all of the players equally in these matters is another discussion, albeit a predictable one.

I made this point in the last article: Foxconn is the world's largest electronic producer and is outsourced by Dell, HP, Microsoft, Google, Sony, Nintendo and more. Not only is it completely ineffective to hand a signed petitions to some Apple store manager in an attempt to influence the working conditions of an internationally traded public company in China, it also gives a pass to every other computer company who uses Foxconn. Remember that the last article said that Apple was the best about being proactive about labor conditions...so where are the protests against the companies that aren't? Where are the demonstrations against the Chinese government? It's not like Tim Cook can make a phone call and change the entire Chinese business model. There are all kinds of factors at play between the Taiwanese management of Foxconn and the Chinese labor it employs that foreign companies have no power to change.

On a related note, the NY Times published an interesting article on why the U.S. lost out on iPhone work. For most big electronics companies, it's simply not economically viable to manufacture here in the States.

You've never actually read the NYT, have you? I know of precious few sources which have more diversity of opinion. Among other things, they run a regular (almost daily) feature called "Room for Debate", in which people with widely varying opinions respond to a central question. Here's the one on SOPA/PIPA. I linked to an opinion you'd probably agree with, but you'll find several others.

You can disagree with them all you want. But when you start complaining that they post opinions you don't like while simultaneously calling them an echo chamber, you're just being a hypocrite.

5 seconds in google

Replying to my own post with a source.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?pagewanted=all

Time for someone to start an open source college/university

I had planned on making a wisecrack about the lack of "open-source careers" for graduates, but sadly, the job outlook is already pretty damn sad for traditional university grads.

Nothing like taking out a mortgage to buy an education you'll never get paid to use, eh comrades?

you realize that Apple relies on cheap Chinese slave labor to make iPads at $499/ea, right? And if Apple pulled out of China they'd have nowhere else to go. America isn't an option because of labor regulations and an expensive workforce. iPads would be up at $1499 and still losing money, iPhones would be $1000 subsidized and America's economy would take a larger nosedive than China's. Brazil? They've already tried that and it's as bad as America.

Bullshit. The differences in manufacturing costs amount to a few dollars per unit. From the New York Times:

the cost, excluding the materials, of building a $1,500 computer in Elk Grove [California] was $22 a machine. In Singapore, it was $6. In Taiwan, $4.85.

So we're talking about $22, not $1000. You're off by over an order of magnitude. Sure, moving the supply chains from China to the USA would be a big challenge, but that's a one-time expense.

Bzzzzt! Wrong! Many actually do accomplish at least some things. See what Sallie Mae changed as a result here and here.

Getting in the door with an internship is quickly becoming the best way to not get paid to do something you weren't hired to do.

Actually, you may well find the US Constitution move to the religion section. Certain parties certainly treat it that way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/us/we-the-people-loses-appeal-with-people-around-the-world.html?_r=1

From the article:

Thomas Jefferson, in a 1789 letter to James Madison, once said that every constitution “naturally expires at the end of 19 years” because “the earth belongs always to the living generation.”

It hasn't just gone far beyond the scope required for it's nominal purpose of promoting literary progress, but has gone so far that it inhibits literary progress.

Terry Pratchett could probably sue me for writing this story.

more than once. their business model is to steal other's creative work, make many millions then settled out of court for millions of dollars.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/238331/zynga_sued_for_alleged_patent_infringement.html
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/12/zynga-and-vostu-settle-lawsuit-over-social-games.html
http://gamepolitics.com/2011/02/23/zynga-settles-digital-chocolate-mafia-wars-lawsuit
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/zynga-is-hit-with-countersuit-over-game-designs/
among others...

P.P.S.: As for becoming U.S.A. citizen, it happened... in 2002...

FWIW, apparently, Lafayette was made a citizen long before 2002 (in 1784 by the maryland legislature, and subsequenly in other states as well)
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9E00EFDE1F3BEE3ABC4F53DFBF668382609EDE

I guess parroting questionable sources like the ny times is a bad habit of mine as they are well known for always asserting dumb facts. Sorry, I'll do more fact checking in the future...

Well, anything except actual threats. We are continually told on Slashdot that they don't exist despite continuing arrests and convictions. The lack of terrorist attacks isn't because there aren't terrorists, or that they don't wish to attack, but because they have been generally foiled to date due to good intelligence, hard work, and luck.

North of the border:
Canadian Charged in Iraq Bombing
Few Details Given as 4 Canadians Are Held in Terrorist Plot
Alleged terrorist arrested at Pearson
Canadian police arrest couple on terrorism charges
Government links boat passengers to terrorism, arrests made
Terror Arrests Reveal Reach of Canada's Surveillance Powers

South of the border:
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 27, 2012
Denver: Man Arrested for Providing Material Support to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization
Baltimore: Man Pleads Guilty to Attempted Use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction in Plot to Attack Armed Forces Recruiting Center
Washington Field: Man Pleads Guilty to Shootings at Pentagon, Other Military Buildings

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 13, 2012
Tampa: Florida Resident Charged with Plotting to Bomb Locations in Tampa
Baltimore: Former Army Solider Charged with Attempting to Provide Material Support to al Shabaab

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 9, 2011
Seattle: Man Pleads Guilty in Plot to Attack Military Processing Center

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 2, 2011
San Diego: Woman Guilty of Conspiring to Provide Material Support to al Shabaab

More here.

Keep in mind that Al Qeda has called off attacks that would have likely killed hundreds or thousands of people because they weren't spectacular enough for their tastes. ( New York Subway Plot and al-Qaeda's WMD Strategy )

Well, anything except actual threats. We are continually told on Slashdot that they don't exist despite continuing arrests and convictions. The lack of terrorist attacks isn't because there aren't terrorists, or that they don't wish to attack, but because they have been generally foiled to date due to good intelligence, hard work, and luck.

North of the border:
Canadian Charged in Iraq Bombing
Few Details Given as 4 Canadians Are Held in Terrorist Plot
Alleged terrorist arrested at Pearson
Canadian police arrest couple on terrorism charges
Government links boat passengers to terrorism, arrests made
Terror Arrests Reveal Reach of Canada's Surveillance Powers

South of the border:
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 27, 2012
Denver: Man Arrested for Providing Material Support to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization
Baltimore: Man Pleads Guilty to Attempted Use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction in Plot to Attack Armed Forces Recruiting Center
Washington Field: Man Pleads Guilty to Shootings at Pentagon, Other Military Buildings

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 13, 2012
Tampa: Florida Resident Charged with Plotting to Bomb Locations in Tampa
Baltimore: Former Army Solider Charged with Attempting to Provide Material Support to al Shabaab

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 9, 2011
Seattle: Man Pleads Guilty in Plot to Attack Military Processing Center

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 2, 2011
San Diego: Woman Guilty of Conspiring to Provide Material Support to al Shabaab

More here.

Keep in mind that Al Qeda has called off attacks that would have likely killed hundreds or thousands of people because they weren't spectacular enough for their tastes. ( New York Subway Plot and al-Qaeda's WMD Strategy )

Well, anything except actual threats. We are continually told on Slashdot that they don't exist despite continuing arrests and convictions. The lack of terrorist attacks isn't because there aren't terrorists, or that they don't wish to attack, but because they have been generally foiled to date due to good intelligence, hard work, and luck.

North of the border:
Canadian Charged in Iraq Bombing
Few Details Given as 4 Canadians Are Held in Terrorist Plot
Alleged terrorist arrested at Pearson
Canadian police arrest couple on terrorism charges
Government links boat passengers to terrorism, arrests made
Terror Arrests Reveal Reach of Canada's Surveillance Powers

South of the border:
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 27, 2012
Denver: Man Arrested for Providing Material Support to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization
Baltimore: Man Pleads Guilty to Attempted Use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction in Plot to Attack Armed Forces Recruiting Center
Washington Field: Man Pleads Guilty to Shootings at Pentagon, Other Military Buildings

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 13, 2012
Tampa: Florida Resident Charged with Plotting to Bomb Locations in Tampa
Baltimore: Former Army Solider Charged with Attempting to Provide Material Support to al Shabaab

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 9, 2011
Seattle: Man Pleads Guilty in Plot to Attack Military Processing Center

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 2, 2011
San Diego: Woman Guilty of Conspiring to Provide Material Support to al Shabaab

More here.

Keep in mind that Al Qeda has called off attacks that would have likely killed hundreds or thousands of people because they weren't spectacular enough for their tastes. ( New York Subway Plot and al-Qaeda's WMD Strategy )

Apple is still a niche player.

Yes it is, so long as your definition of "niche player" is "the biggest maker of PCs in the world".

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/apple-becomes-worlds-biggest-maker-of-computers-thanks-to-ipad/

I'm sorry. You think the iPad is a PC? Jesus Christ. Please keep anything sharp away from yourself sport.

I should start this reply with a disclaimer. I'm a US citizen and I've been living in Hungary since July 2011. So I haven't been here very long. My Hungarian is practically non-existent so my news sources are very limited. So take whatever I say with a grain of salt.

Hungary was never on the Euro. By the time Hungary came into the EU, getting on the Euro wasn't automatic. They have never met the criteria. They are in the schengen zone and a EU country but still use the Forint.

The push to get out of the EU is mostly coming from Jobbik (as I understand it - or at least groups like it.) Last week-end I was flipping channels on TV and some Jobbik folks were burning a EU flag. From what I've been told they'd also like to get rid of all the Roma, the Jews and pretty much anyone who isn't Hungarian. This would, I assume, be part of the master plan to regaining all the land that was taken in the treaty of Trianon. These guys form militias and I think they represent a pretty far out there fringe. Kind of like white supremacy groups in the USA maybe.

The ruling party, Fidesz, is also on the conservative end of the spectrum (for Europe) though I don't think they are as out there as groups like Jobbik. Back in 2006, the leader of the socialist party discussed in a meeting, that they had been lying for quite a while to stay in power. A recording of the speech got out and the reaction was understandably strong.

I think this played a big part in Fidesz winning huge in 2010 and since then they have been working overtime to transform the government. They rewrote the constitution and changed a lot of laws. Many, including the US government, have been vocal about not liking a lot of these changes. The view is that the changes are primarily intended to make sure that Fidesz cannot lose their control of the government. The last few months there were a few articles ( here is one ) about this that made the news in the US. Clinton and the ambassador here have been pretty vocal about not liking the way things are headed.

Most Hungarians I talk to are not pleased with this criticism from the US or the EU. They view at as being pushed around by larger powers that have never helped them anyway, and in fact just use Hungary to their own ends. The most positive statement I've heard about it was a young guy who said, "At least getting screwed by the US is better than getting screwed by Russia."

There is a financial crisis related to loans that a lot of Hungarians took out. The loans were in Swiss Francs and the Forint has done horribly compared to the Franc and people are getting crushed by the loans. I saw a decent report on this on an NPR site. As this gets worse - people seem to be shifting towards the more nationalistic groups. I see lots of big hungary stickers on cars when I'm driving around.

But like I said, I don't have the linguistic skills or the cultural background to reliably navigate what information is available. I just try to get a ball park idea. One of the more interesting experiences I've had is living right down the street from György Budaházy. He's been on house arrest since they let him out of prison. From what I've read of his views, he's way out there. I've only met him once, and he was civil but the cops that watch his house were sitting in their car a few meters away. Not that I think he's raving mad - more the calculated type.

Between google translate (which really strug

As this excellent piece by Thomas Friedman points out, manufacturing is rapidly becoming a global commodity. The real value resides with the creators of a product, the designers, engineers, marketers, etc. Factories are just big machines into which you plug your designs, and they can be swapped in and out of your logistics chains if necessary.

The "big machine" analogy is even more apt as manufacturing eventually shifts more and more to automation. How many workers does a robotic factory need? If you've ever seen videos of the Lego factory in Denmark, the answer could be as few as none, and it operates 24/7, 364 days a year (down one day for maintenance). Jobs was right to tell Obama that manufacturing jobs aren't coming back to the U.S.

Apple is merely acknowledging the fact that the "Designed in" sticker is coming to mean a hell of a lot more than the "Made in" sticker.

Let's tax westerns and football and rock and roll while we're at it, after all they promote violence.

What's that? Nooo? You don't want *your* favorite media having the tax?

I guess it should only apply to video games then, since todays kids are so much more worse.

The myth of Japan's failure.

However, they have managed this prosperity by going into debt (borrowing from the future). Who knows how long it can keep going.

As I've heard it put, Japan is a bug in search of a windshield. Debt does matter. Money represents some fraction of the wealth in the economy. If a currency loses its credibility as a store of value, well... the the Germans in the 1920s knew how that went.

However... if a country can maintain price stability in the face of massive debt, that could probably keep the game going for a long time. Which makes the Federal Reserve's noises about desiring a bout of inflation to bring down the real value of the debt very puzzling. Fiat currencies get their value from confidence that currency as a store of value. Undermining that in the face of 1:1 debt to GDP ratios seems ill advised.

But I'm afraid Team Reaper's been making a bit of a rally of late.

The advances you cite:

washing hands before surgery -- Joseph Lister, 1867
vaccinations -- Edward Jenner, 1796
antibiotics -- Alexander Fleming, 1928

Are from a while back, and I've had time to rally.

The US the highest infant mortality of any civilized nation. Fewer babies die in Croatia than the US. Tuberculosis is once again a major concern in American cities. Drug-resistant strains are becoming a real problem, and the doctors in charge are screaming panicky warnings that we may be approaching the end of the Age of Antibiotics. Life expectancies in the US are actually declining, mostly due to heart disease, diabetes and cancer from the industrialized crap we call food. We're eating beef rinsed in ammonia, product that is literally called "pink slime."

Sarah Palin and Megyn Kelly are actually convincing most Americans that healthcare is a frivolous luxury. I love those two!

Sad to say, Mortality Inc. looks like an "BUY" for the forseeable future.

Apple is still a niche player.

Yes it is, so long as your definition of "niche player" is "the biggest maker of PCs in the world".

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/apple-becomes-worlds-biggest-maker-of-computers-thanks-to-ipad/

The Chinese have nuclear weapons and you don't see the Western World freaking the fuck out about that. Why is that? Because for all of their flaws the Chinese actually behave like adults in the global community.

Because China has publicly proclaimed that they will not be the first to use nuclear weapons under any circumstances. That is a more restrained policy than that of the United States, which only exempts non-nuclear states from nuclear attack, and does not rule out a first strike.

That, and China is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. In my mind that carries more weight toward "acting like an adult" than the contrasts you attempted to draw between China and Iran.

"I challenge you to repeat that post replacing your references to actual papers published in mainstream journals."

Consider:
http://www.disciplined-minds.com/
"Who are you going to be? That is the question.
In this riveting book about the world of professional work, Jeff Schmidt demonstrates that the workplace is a battleground for the very identity of the individual, as is graduate school, where professionals are trained. He shows that professional work is inherently political, and that professionals are hired to subordinate their own vision and maintain strict "ideological discipline."
The hidden root of much career dissatisfaction, argues Schmidt, is the professional's lack of control over the political component of his or her creative work. Many professionals set out to make a contribution to society and add meaning to their lives. Yet our system of professional education and employment abusively inculcates an acceptance of politically subordinate roles in which professionals typically do not make a significant difference, undermining the creative potential of individuals, organizations and even democracy."

And from a previous link:
http://www.responsiblefinance.ch/appeal/
"The authors of this appeal are deeply concerned that more than three years since the outbreak of the financial and macroeconomic crisis that highlighted the pitfalls, limitations, dangers and responsibilities of main-stream thought in economics, finance and management, the quasi-monopolistic position of such thought within the academic world nevertheless remains largely unchallenged. This situation reflects the institutional power that the unconditional proponents of main-stream thought continue to exert on university teaching and research. This domination, propagated by the so-called top universities, dates back at least a quarter of a century and is effectively global. However, the very fact that this paradigm persists despite the current crisis, highlights the extent of its power and the dangerousness of its dogmatic character. Teachers and researchers, the signatories of the appeal, assert that this situation restricts the fecundity of research and teaching in economics, finance and management, diverting them as it does from issues critical to society."

So, that's why it's hard to find this stuff in mainstream "group think" economic journals edited by "disciplined minds" engaging in "group think" that is directly linked to their own paychecks as professors ("those who profess") of mainstream economic dogma.

However, if you actually looked at any of those links I previously supplied, you would find several of them actually lead to either journal publications (Luthar) or items that cite journal publications in other fields or even some books written by professional economists. A little bit of reality sometimes even seeps through past the group think and self-serving apologies of the current high priests of the mythology of wealth like in the links to the NY Time article. Again:
"Economists Who Did Their Homework (800 Years of It)"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/economy/04econ.html
"But in the wake of the recent crisis, a few economists -- like Professors Reinhart and Rogoff, and other like-minded colleagues like Barry Eichengreen and Alan Taylor -- have been encouraging others in their field to look beyond hermetically sealed theoretical models and into the historical record. "There is so much inbredness in this profession," says Ms. Reinhart. "They all read the same sources. They all use the same data sets. They all talk to the same people. There is endless extrapolation on extrapolation on extrapolation, and for years that is what has been rewarded.""

Here is more on that mythology and the consequences:

Can you be a little more specific? I looked carefully throughout all seven pages of the NYT article but I couldn't find the part where it says that "other tech companies often pay these manufacturers more money to be spent on improving work conditions". (And no, I was not expecting to find that exact wording, but the same basic concept.)

Thanks for the reply, even if the ad hominen part probably just weakens your argument. :-)

I actually like economists like Julian Simon, even if he ignores externalities and equitable distribution:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

The fact is, most mainstream economics is based neither on facts, history, or human nature. :-) Most of it is abstract theoretical model with little connection to populist ethics or reality. See, for example:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/03/the-market-as-god/6397/
http://www.responsiblefinance.ch/appeal/
http://debunkingeconomics.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/economy/04econ.html

Or:
"Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science that Makes Life Dismal"
http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Rest-Us-Debunking-Science/dp/1595581014

Here is another thing to think about, by the way:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_toil
"The paradox of toil is the economic hypothesis that total employment will shrink if everybody wants to work more when "the short-term nominal interest rate is zero and there are deflationary pressures and output contraction".[1] The idea is that total employment will fall when wages, and therefore consumption, are pushed down by the simultanious efforts of everyone to work more in situations where interest rates are against the zero bound so that rates cannot drop more to increase demand for goods. This is a limited example of the fallacy of composition.[1] where assuming that the increase in production that normally occurs when total labor increases applies in all situations. Put simply, when a recessionary economy is up against the zero bound, having more people seeking work - at lower wages if necessary - can actually reduce the number of jobs due to reduced demand from lower wages."

Even in your defense of the concept, you started introducing qualifiers. You "introduce" a new worker into a "closed" economy. You are carefully avoiding what it means when an economy already has 20% or higher real unemployment, or what it means if the economy is open to imports or innovation, or what happens when the owners of capital take advantage of the situation of too many workers chasing too few jobs and apply the law of supply and demand to lower wages.

But since so much of mainstream economics is theory devoid of facts, let me play along, and show how, just theoretically, the "lump of labor" fallacy assumes both linearity in a relation of labor to output and also increasing demand, given whoever becomes a worker in a modern society with unemployment like the USA must already have been consuming a lot of products.

Consider an economy with one hundred people who consume one generalized product called "A". Imagine forty-five members out of the hundred "work" to produce product 10000 units of product A per day. The production of A has been greatly optimized for maximum production, ignoring any joy the workers get from their jobs:
http://web.archive.org/web/20110425153540/http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/buddhist_economics/english.html

Assume people only need about 1 unit of A to get by, but more is nice, up to about 7 units of A, and then more doesn't make people much happier (and at some point, people even become sick from too much).

The product is distributed in some fashion to everyone in the society, party based on

According to the New York Times report on this subject:

Information gathered during this interview revealed that both individuals were inadmissible to the United States and were returned to their country of residence.

That's the government talking. But they don't say that it was the Twitter posts themselves that rendered the two "inadmissible." They say it was "information gathered during this interview." Presumably the people interviewed repeated many times that it was all a joke, they didn't mean it, etc., so it seems unlikely that the "information gathered" was anything that was said. It seems totally possible, though, that there was something else that flagged them to be blocked at the border during the interview (for example, they had prior drug convictions).

Actually, Target has already done this for years (house brands and exclusives) with a bunch of products and it has worked pretty well for them so far (almost too well, sometimes - the whole Missoni thing was so popular it took down their website for a while).

In general, their house brands for clothes and housewares are actually pretty decent, and a good deal... way better than Walmart's house branded crap. They definitely have a reputation as the quality leader among discount megastores...

According to NYT and this blog post about the NYT article:
"The least expensive part of the process is manufacturing and assembly." Approximately $6.54 and "workers are paid less than a dollar an hour to solder, assemble and package products". Say manufacturing is two hours of labour the rest is overhead, if non-Chinese workers were paid $30/hour then the increased cost is approximately $60, depending on overhead.

Apple could easily reduce the $360 that goes into design, marketing and profit so that prices could stay the same. Some combination of increased price and reduced profits would be a good trade for reduced suffering and local manufacturing.

Some recent article about Steve Jobs quoted an Apple executive saying paying US wages in mainland China (instead of $17/day) would only increase the price of an iPad by $70.

And if you were going to pay US wages you could always, I don't know, build the damn thing in America?

I'm not exactly a Buy American nazi, but if the flagship products of greenwashing high-end manufacturers can't be built here, then what can?

Maybe not. The Chinese allow business to setup differently than we do here in America: See this recent NYT article.

It is hard to estimate how much more it would cost to build iPhones in the United States. However, various academics and manufacturing analysts estimate that because labor is such a small part of technology manufacturing, paying American wages would add up to $65 to each iPhone’s expense. Since Apple’s profits are often hundreds of dollars per phone, building domestically, in theory, would still give the company a healthy reward.

If you're just talking about assembly, $65/phone additional cost is probably about right at minimum wage. But don't forget that the great majority of the components are sourced from vendors who make them at factories with similar conditions. If you build every last piece here in the states, you're talking quite a bit more.

And that's after the sunk costs of getting the factories going. If you amortize the cost of those factories even over several years, you're probably adding a cost greater than that of the labor. Long story short, a fully US-made phone will cost more. How many people would be willing to pay $1500 or more for a "fair trade" device?

And don't forget, there are a lot of materials that are sourced from far off locations where work conditions are not great, to say the least. If you're using a cell phone--any phone, not just an iPhone--you've helped fund a civil war and sex-slavery in the Congo. And it's not just phones; the materials that are most common there are used in computers, DVD players, TVs...

If not to buy Apple, what’s the substitute – Samsung? Don’t you know that Samsung’s products are from its OEM factory in Tianjin? Samsung workers’ income and benefits are even worse than those at Foxconn. If not to buy iPad – (do you think) I will buy Android Pad? Have you ever been to the OEM factories for Lenovo and ASUS? Quanta, Compaq factories of other companies are all worse than those for Apple. Not to buy iPod – (do you think) I will buy Aigo, Meizu? Do you know that Aigo’s Shenzhen factory will not pay their workers until the 19th of the second month? If you were to quit, fine, I’m sorry, your salary will be withdrawn. Foxconn never dares to do such things. First, their profit margin is higher than peers as they manufacture for Apple. Second, at least those foreign devils will regularly audit factories. Domestic brands will never care if workers live or die. I am not speaking for Foxconn. I am just speaking as an insider of this industry, and telling you some disturbing truth. — Anonymous.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/chinese-readers-on-the-ieconomy/

Some recent article about Steve Jobs quoted an Apple executive saying paying US wages in mainland China (instead of $17/day) would only increase the price of an iPad by $70.

And if you were going to pay US wages you could always, I don't know, build the damn thing in America?

I'm not exactly a Buy American nazi, but if the flagship products of greenwashing high-end manufacturers can't be built here, then what can?

Maybe not. The Chinese allow business to setup differently than we do here in America:
See this recent NYT article.

It is hard to estimate how much more it would cost to build iPhones in the United States. However, various academics and manufacturing analysts estimate that because labor is such a small part of technology manufacturing, paying American wages would add up to $65 to each iPhone’s expense. Since Apple’s profits are often hundreds of dollars per phone, building domestically, in theory, would still give the company a healthy reward.

This

It is hard to estimate how much more it would cost to build iPhones in the United States. However, various academics and manufacturing analysts estimate that because labor is such a small part of technology manufacturing, paying American wages would add up to $65 to each iPhone’s expense. Since Apple’s profits are often hundreds of dollars per phone, building domestically, in theory, would still give the company a healthy reward.

Do our freedoms hold more weight than corporations' freedoms?

No. The answer is clearly no. If you kill someone through your negligence, you will be imprisoned for negligent homicide, while fines for killing people is just part of a corporation's operating expense.

Corporations and government are both servants of the people.

Whatever school you are attending, I urge you to find a different one. Corporations don't serve any people except their stockholders. You serve your employer, who is likely a corporation. And in the US at least, government only serves business interests, not yours or mine.

To governments and corporations, individual specimens of Homo sapiens are just tools to be used or discarded.

How you wish it would be is not how it is.

Gates is also funding funding other billionaires' aligned initiatives and bankrolling astrotufing-likened school advocacy, raising concerns about undue influence and even a call for eliminating the charitable giving tax deduction. 'This year, governments may lose $50 billion because of tax deductions taken overwhelmingly by the rich for charitable givings intended primarily to enhance their status with their brethren or to attack the public sector,' writes David Morris. 'We can't stop the rich from using their money for their own purposes. But we should not add insult to injury by giving them huge amounts of public sums to attack the public sector.'

• 10/31/2008 - NBC News demands that Obama and McCain pull ads it alleges violate its copyright
• 02/11/2004 - NBC News demands that Bush ad it alleges violates its copyright
• 11/03/1990 - NBC News demands candidate Jane Brady pull ad containing video of Sen. Joe Biden's aborted 1987 presidential campaign that it alleges violates its copyright

I'm sure there are many more, but I didn't want to spend my entire Sunday listing them. The point is: they've been doing this for many, many years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/education/from-finland-an-intriguing-school-reform-model.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

"The fact that we have more race, ethnicity and economic heterogeneity, and we have this huge problem of poverty, should not mean we don't want qualified teachers - the strategies become even more important," Dr. Darling-Hammond said. "Thirty years ago, Finland's education system was a mess. It was quite mediocre, very inequitable. It had a lot of features our system has: very top-down testing, extensive tracking, highly variable teachers, and they managed to reboot the whole system."

Singapore and South Korea do about as well as Finland but with a different approach - the students do a lot more work, have more pressure and I think they have a higher student to teacher ratio (more expensive directly for the State). FWIW I think I'd prefer to be a Finnish student than a Singaporean student. The former apparently enjoy the process of being educated more.

I wish I had mod points today. The links you posted are excellent.

Paul Krugman has been writing some very good stuff about the debt lately. A country's debt is nothing like a household's debt. See here for one example of his writing.

When Fox News releases a report in September of an election year based on obviously fake documents supposedly written by a man who's been dead for years with the sole intention of ruining a president's re-election chances, you let me know. Oh wait. You will never know because you Fox blocked. I guess that means you really don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

It's gotten so bad that news networks are using the phrase "Fake, but accurate" to describe a story. It's not FoxNews, by the way. In other words, they believed something to be true, but were unable to prove it. So they faked the evidence and presented it as fact. When caught, they said, "So? The story is still true, so we ran with it." Never once did they actually consider that the story might be false. Even today, many still believe the story's authenticity, years after it's been proven to be a lie.

It must be tough to be that delusional. It's kinda like blaming a single news network of being bias, while continuing to deny the true bias from all the other networks, even when it's been proven beyond denial.

Well, let's look at the sixteen climate scientists who signed this, shall we?

Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris: Sounds reasonable, though it looks like the proper name for the "University of Paris" is the "Paris VI University", or "Pierre and Marie Curie University". Unfortunately, it looks like the man is kind of a crank, and he hasn't been the director of that Institute since 1986, which makes it weird that it's the one thing they list about him.

J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting: That's pretty reasonable, but forecasting and climate science aren't exactly the same thing; forecasting is the study of what's going to happen tomorrow or next week in any topic, while climate science is trying to figure out what will happen in the next year or the the next ten years with the weather. Also, Armstrong's professional background seems to be primarily in advertising, not forecasting, and he hasn't actually published any papers on climatology that I can see.

Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University: I'm not exactly sure what he's doing on this list, since presumably it's a list of climate scientists? I mean, just because he's a researcher in one field doesn't automatically qualify him in others; it's like taking your car to ten mechanics and ignoring what they say, then asking your doctor about it and following his advice.

Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society: This dude seems to be a writer for the NY Times, and I can't seem to find anyone by that name on the list of Fellows of the American Physical Society. Maybe he received his fellowship before 1990? In any case, it doesn't signify much in terms of his ability to evaluate any kind of science; those fellowships are kinda prestigious, but they're handed out for all sorts of things.

Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences: What can I say? He's an electrical engineer. Would you trust him to diagnose a heart condition? An expert in one subject is not automatically an expert in all subjects.

William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton: What can I say? Damnit Jim, he's a physicist, not a climatologist! Sure, they're related - but would you trust this guy if he was talking on the way that chemists all over the world are trying to fool us about the mind control properties of fluorine? (as a side note, he's also a Fellow of the American Physical Society - why didn't they mention that?)

Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.: This dude is kinda hard to Google because he shares a name with a fairly famous guitar company and a well-respected journalist (who died in 2003); however, it looks like he's done some pretty awesome work on semi-conductors. Unfortunately, that doesn't have anything to do with climate research.

William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology: Well, for one thing, he hasn't been the head of the ABM since 1998 (this seems to be a theme, you know?); for another, he's trained as a meteorologist, not a climate scientist. Just because they both deal with the weather doesn't necessarily mean that his word carries extra weight, but I do have to admit that he's one of the better signatories of this list.

Ric

Reduction in choice may reduce the amount of eating/drinking people have to do in order to avoid decision fatigue:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Mr. Gould left Columbia and joined Technical Research Group, a company in Syosset, on Long Island, to try to turn to the laser into a practical device. The military provided $1 million, but Mr. Gould could not work on the research himself. He was denied security clearance because he had taken part in a Marxist study group with his first wife, Glen Fulwider, in the 1940's.

There's much better coverage of Mr. Gould in actual books. They detail how his notebooks with the original laser design had been taken from him and classified so that he couldn't use them.

Although I'm not entirelt convinced that labor costs are small in comparison to total product cost. Lee Ioccoca pointed out that even in the 90s, Blue Cross became Chrysler's #2 supplier. It's those indirect costs of labor (approx. 2.5x salary) that eventually make US manufacturing unappealing.

It clearly depends on the industry. You will never make textiles in the US, because labor is such a huge part of the final cost. On the other side, AMD didn't start making fabs in Germany because of cheaper labor costs.

In the case of the iPhone, we have this quote:

, various academics and manufacturing analysts estimate that because labor is such a small part of technology manufacturing, paying American wages would add up to $65 to each iPhone’s expense.

But there are other reasons to not build it in the US.

1) In response to new government rules that airlines must advertise the bottom-line ticket prices, Spirit airlines whined: "Thanks to the U.S. Department of Transportation's latest fare rules, Spirit must now HIDE the government's taxes and fees in your fares." (Which is a lie - they can still show a price breakdown, but must now show the bottom-line total).

2) Bank of America was eager to rationalize their $5/mo ATM card fee as "unintended consequence" of new regulations on on card swipe fees. (Yet somehow they found a way around this unintended consequence when passing the buck backfired and customers got mad at them instead of the government.)

3) Health insurance companies all rushed to blame Obamacare for steep price increases in 2010, even though none of the provisions of the law were to kick in for several years, and healthcare prices have been rising sharply for decades.

Of course, I'm not saying there's no truth in the claims. Regulations can be costly to certain parties. But the truth is almost independent of the rhetoric. Blaming the government for price hikes (whether as retribution against regulations, or simply as a fig leaf for hiking prices) is something companies will rarely miss an opportunity to do.

Presumably his point was that he wanted to build factories in the US, but regulations and unnecessary costs prevented him.

Yeah, regulations like sane labor laws and costs such as a livable wage. Source. I'm sorry but if apples vision of a ideal work force is one where they can stack employees 8-10 to a room in on site dormitories, roust 8000 of them in the middle of a night and pay them $1.41 an hour, then they can keep that vision. There may be some areas where US manufacturing can improve, but laws forcing companies to treat their employees as human beings is not one of them.

And the good news is that to be competitive with Chinese workers employees everywhere will soon have to get used to working 80 hr/wk for about $22.00 per day. Most corporations like Apple, which essentially employ Chinese under conditions that approach slavery, have figured out this is the easiest way to maximize profits and that is all that capitalism is about. Apple admitted to this, when they officially claimed in testimony to Congress that their role in society was not to benefit society as a whole, but merely to make "good products" (ie profitable ones).

Keep in mind that when you bite into that shiny apple, it is rotten at its core.

Colour me shocked.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/saudi-prince-invests-300-million-in-twitter/