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Reuter's story on this is here.

Since 950 wasn't enough for you, Colgate-Palmolive Co. announced today they would layoff 4,400 from their 78 plants around the world.

> Why make it a "tax"?
> Blood money is a lousy way to pay for anything.
> If this is a a cause you think is "worthy", just make an extra
> payment into a "needy get the service free" fund.

Whether one emotionally doesn't believe in taxes and price regulation for essential services is irrelevant; it makes sense from an economic perspective, as well as from a social contract perspective.

As macroeconomics theory states, it makes sense to look towards a tax in several cases, one of which is when the marginal costs (MC; the incremental cost to add a single additional consumer to an existing service) is much less than the average cost (AC; the total cost for the service divided by the total number of users). In other words, the fixed costs for a particular service is very high compared to the marginal costs.

So let's say the fixed costs for providing the 911 service is $1000 (costs for infrastructure, monitoring, etc). Let's say that the marginal cost for providing the 911 service to a given subscriber is $10.

Assume that we have 10 rich people who are willing to pay $200 for the service. We have 90 poor people who are willing to pay $11 for the service.

We want to supply all 100 people with the service, so to do that, we have to charge a max of $11 for the service. The marginal price is $11, and the marginal cost is $10, so we're okay from an efficient price perspective.

The problem is that at this price, we're losing money: ($11 x 100) - ($1000 + $10 x 100) = -$900. So it makes sense to allow the 911 service to have a monopoly, but use regulation to set the price at a level that has MR > MC, but subsidize the fixed costs with taxes.

For this example, let say there's a $91 tax that only the rich people pay, and a $1 tax that the poor people pay. Pretend that the tax rate is progressive enough to cover this with the difference in income. So in taxes, we collect ($91 x 10) + ($1 x 100) = $1000. Okay, the fixed costs are covered. Now we charge $10 for each user that uses the service. For 100 users, we generate (100 x 10) = $1000 in revenue, which covers all of our costs. The 911 service is exactly breaking even.

Moreover, each group is paying equal to or less what they were willing to pay. The poor people are paying $10 for the service + $1 in "911 tax" = $11. The rich people are paying $10 for the service and $91 tax = $101 for the service, which is less than the $200 they were willing to pay for the service.

Is this more efficient? Macroeconomics theory says yes. If the rich people had been the only ones served, they would have have had to pay [$1000 + ($10 x 10 users)] / 10 users = $110 for the service to just break even. This price would be even higher if a private company had been running the service, since they would have to do more than break even; they'd have to turn a reasonable profit. So from the rich people's perspective, the regulated, taxed price of $101 is less than the case where they were the only ones served ($110) as well as being lower than the maximum price they're willing to pay ($200).

So in conclusion, in the regulated case, everyone gets service (social contract and altruism benefit), both the rich and poor people pay equal to or less than what they were willing to pay (maximize the served base), the marginal price is higher than the marginal cost (efficient price), and the 911 service is break even (so we're not charging too much). Everybody wins.

This example is a little simplified because the marginal costs are too close to the fixed costs (1% for this example). The fact is the marginal costs for providing 911 service is nearly $0, but the fixed costs are very high.

Of course, unnecessary taxes are outrageous, particularly when spent on pork spending bills. Yes, Dubya, I'm looking at you and your damn yacht.

In an alternate universe, I guess. By the way, did you know that Michael Moore won an award?

motion picture industry can take care of itself.

Actor violates copyright

Ya, They had the secrete service at Boulder High School in Boulder Colorado after a talent show where a group of students planned to use a Bob Dylan song to say they wished for the death of President Bush.

Here's the story on Reuters.

Doing a bit of digging, I find that Tivo is a public company. Some information on them:

Company Profile

Company Two Year Stock Chart

This move seems to be a result of the hard stock price drop which occurred between March and September of 2004. I've always thought of corporations as one of those huge Euclid off road dump trucks with the 12' tires, and no power steering.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topN ews&storyID=6786951

Since it's from Reuters anyhow... old news too (11th Nov).

"Hey, if you can't win once, sue again, right? It is the American way after all."

Actually, it's, "If you do something once and get $536 million from it, then why not do it again and get even more money?" And yes, this is definitely the American way.

And how happy they are to oblige our cheese-eating, surrender monkeys on THIS issue.

No doubt about it. This Administration will say anything, do anything, to stay in power.

Hell, they will even abandon their support for Reagan's famouns slam against Carter's Administration:

"I believe in states' rights; I believe in people doing as much as they can at the private level."

Now they are reigniting the whole debate over Oregon's Assisted Suicide Law.

I guess when you can abandon your principles to win, you become just another Democrat.

Republicans: Democrats without the guilt.

No, the money supply isn't infinite. But what evidence do you have that private sector investment is being crowded out?

In fact, there was a most interesting Reuters story on corporate bonds that was posted today. According to Heidi Hu, who heads fixed income at Transamerica Investment Management, "'There continues to be healthy demand for corporate bonds'." It appears to me that there are sufficient funds available for both government and private borrowing.

That's what they want you to think- but just try to get a loan at prime. You won't be able to- in fact, you'll end up several points below- because:
a. You're not the government, and the government wins out.
b. The government has been winning out a lot lately.

Really? From the Reuters story, "[T]he average investment grade spread is yielding just 0.87 percentage point more than Treasuries, its lowest spread since August 1998, according to Merrill Lynch & Co."

Ah, I see you've also bought the lie of "creditworthy". The only credit worthy group right now is the government; private industry has spent the last 4 years proving that they have no clue about how to produce anything.

Again, really? If you look at the Reuters story, you'll see that in the last two days investors have bought $10 billion of bonds from the likes of BellSouth, Kraft and Ford. Are you suggesting that the investors have been fooled into thinking these companies are creditworthy, but they really aren't?

However, if the government wasn't borrowing AT ALL- private investment would be the only thing available, and thus all of the investment money would go to private industry.

Even when the government is running a nominal surplus, it still borrows, so your hypothetical is never going to happen. But even if the U.S. government weren't borrowing a thing, that doesn't mean that investment money would necessarily go to private industry.

If investors see more attractive investment options, e.g., foreign government bonds, the money won't go to industry. Alternatively, if industry forsees deflation and falling prices, it won't borrow money, even if offered at low rates. See, for example, Japan in which interest rates were effectively 0% and companies didn't borrow.

reuters article: http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internet News&storyID=6755158 I'm new here. How do you post a comment without replying to a comment? I couldn't seem to figure it out. Thanks.

See here.

To quote from the link (from October 25th):

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday spoke of the eventual "reunification" of China and Taiwan, a comment likely to annoy Taiwanese officials who regard the island as an independent nation."

Just to keep this on a rational basis, this is the original story: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worl dNews&storyID=6618677

I first picked this up on the Mike Malloy Show.

And yes, there would obviously be a fight, but then are these idiots going to endanger the life of the president by shooting at everything that moves or trying to hold out in Air Force One for days or weeks on end?

"Software maker Novell Inc.'s stock (NOVL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) fell 4.5 percent after the company announced the departure of Chris Stone, its vice chairman"

"Software maker Novell Inc.'s stock (NOVL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) fell 4.5 percent after the company announced the departure of Chris Stone, its vice chairman"

"Software maker Novell Inc.'s stock (NOVL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) fell 4.5 percent after the company announced the departure of Chris Stone, its vice chairman"

"Software maker Novell Inc.'s stock (NOVL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) fell 4.5 percent after the company announced the departure of Chris Stone, its vice chairman"

This phone uses the Series 90 system (the only phone to do so), which has shelved as of yesterday. See this Reuters article:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topN ews&storyID=6698762

Or for war crimes, far as I'm concerned. 100,000 Iraqi civillians already dead, and we're gearing up for a major assult on Fallujah - you better believe that number is about to get bigger.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Voting in U.S. elections this week was mostly fair, but the lines were too long at some polling stations, according to an international rights group monitoring the presidential contest for first time.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said on Thursday that before the vote it had received "widespread" allegations of fraud and voter suppression, mainly among minorities, and raised concern that confidence in the system could be undermined.
However, the group said it was unable to substantiate the allegations. It also said that on election day it observed relatively few attempts to challenge a voter's eligibility, despite concerns before the vote.
Europe's top rights watchdog, which groups 55 countries including the United States, said the election "mostly met" international standards for free and fair elections and defied fears of a repeat of 2000's debacle.

The OSCE's observations basically matched civil-rights groups' assessments that while there were voting problems, they were not on such a widespread scale to call into question the result -- unlike in Florida in 2000.

"The system has been improved because the poll workers and officials were so eager to have things work well and there was also high awareness among voters to make sure their vote counted," the OSCE delegation head, Rita Suessmuth, said.

Story here.

The story says Firefax now enjoys a 6% market share!

I didn't say he was a *perfect* libertarian. But that's my whole point -- his leanings, by and large, are of a libertarian nature.

* Economics? Staunchly free-market and anti-tax. Why do you suppose he used a $15b bond issue to try to pay off CA's deficit, rather than raising taxes?

Also, Arnie reads Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek. Economic girly-men need not apply where such authors are concerned, and Arnie calls Friedman, in fact, "my great hero"... The California GOP tried to paint him as a "liberal" (the evil "l" word) in the election, but failed b/c his capitalist tendencies are so strong. He has also attended an Austrian economics conference hosted by the Reason Foundation (and personally, for as libertarian as my ideals are, even *I* think the Austrians go too far).

BTW, have a look at his 16 person economic advisory board. It's reads like a who's-who list of outstanding free-market economists: Milton Friedman, Arthur Laffer, and Gary Becker are on that list, to name a few!

* Marijuana? He favors decriminalization (or is it legalization?) for medicinal purposes. No, he's not going for out-and-out drug legalization, but admit it: it's a step in the right direction, and a bigger one than virtually all Republicans are taking now.

* Abortion? Pro-choice.

* Gay marriage? Opposes a Constitutional amendment, and while he says it's illegal under CA law, he otherwise doesn't really care and seems to have no intention of actually having the law enforced.

Now, granted, he's not perfect. His stance on gun control is *far* from libertarian, and his stance on the environment is rather liberal (not that this is an entirely-bad thing IMO though).

But, when all else fails in demonstrating Arnie's libertarian cred, at least economically, well, he pisses off the socialists with his economic policies. That alone speaks volumes. And even socially, as I have described above, he is *far* more tolerant and moderate than most Republicans.

Face it, he's a libertarian-Republican; not a Libertarian, but not a Republican either. California could have done *far* worse than to elect the Terminator for governor.

Frankly, as *electable* candidates go (that is, the hardline Libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, etc. are obviously not electable), he is about the best one could hope for; in stark contrast to President Bush, who is about as bad as it gets.

The Canadian immigration officials might have a different opinion.

"Canadian officials made clear on Wednesday that any U.S. citizens so fed up with Bush that they want to make a fresh start up north would have to stand in line like any other would-be immigrants -- a wait that can take up to a year."

One issue that nobody seems to have brought up yet and that could turn out to become very, very important is that William Rehnquist is currently unable to work. He was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and underwent a tracheotomy. If we require a supreme court decision before he can come back, the court may very well be split 4-4 along party lines.

There is no way to resolve a tie within the supreme court. So, if this election comes down to a Supreme Court decision, we could be waiting for a long time to get that decision.

Any comments?

Laugh you may, but if the US poll was held in the UK, Homer Simpson would win!

HST feed

Electoral Vote feed

weird news

Distilled and actually interesting NPR

News from the world

HST feed

Electoral Vote feed

weird news

Distilled and actually interesting NPR

News from the world

...is what would the cost in lives have been if the U.S. had done nothing? In the short term I'm guessing more lives have been lost because of the war, but in the long term, will it have been worth it?

My guess is that history will prove that the war was worth it, not only for Iraqis but for the world as a whole.

I'm interested in seeing the new movie "Voices of Iraq" that just came out. From the reviews I've read, including one on NPR last night, it sounds like it provides evidence that the average ordinary Iraqi is grateful for what the U.S. has done (even though they want us to leave as soon as possible).

I'm betting it was this guy who is behind this whole Rubik's Cube thing! Get him DHS!

- Kevin

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush leads Democratic rival John Kerry by two points heading into the final five days of a tight race for the White House, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Thursday.

Bush led Kerry 48-46 percent in the latest three-day national tracking poll, gaining one point on the Massachusetts senator in a day. Bush led Kerry 48-47 percent on Wednesday.

That company (Voters Outreach of America) ran registration drives in other states, but so far the allegations are confined to Nevada and Oregon, which are hardly swing states. One is +5.7% for Bush, and the other is +5.0% for Kerry.

and rarely vice versa,

Hardly: http://washingtontimes.com/national/20041015-12132 5-3896r.htm

Read the part about ACORN. They also mention the problems with Voters Outreach.

probably a fraction of the total fraud going on.

You are right about that:

• Breaking into offices of political adversaries.
• Throwing cinder block bricks through the front door of offices of political adversaries.
• Shooting bullets through the windows of offices of political adversaries.
• Laying siege to offices of political adversaries
• Bullyingvoters in line at polling places.

Brazil's possible nuclear capability. It is likely that this capability means that Brazil is capable of delivering a nuclear payload a much longer distance than either Iran or North Korea.

I am not claiming that Brazil should be lumped in with either of these two nations, however it is an interesting opportunity to test a dual purpose launch vehicle and perhaps reflect the first of the 'developing' countries probable intercontinental capabilities.

Given recent trade tensions between Brazil and the USA I have no doubt that this is turning a few heads in the commerce / state department.

Being the second largest economy in Latin America does not exactly qualify it as "poor". I've seen quite a few posts comaring developing nations being equal to a dirt poor african nation.

It's just plain ignorant to bundle all non-developed countries in one bunch. Don't act surprised when these "poor" countries start buying up companies from the "prosperous" countries.

CEMEX (Mexico)
EMBRAER (Brazil)
TELEVISA (Mexico)
WIPRO (India)
KOLA REAL (Peru)

What, this reuters? Odd, searching for the name gives me no hits. Not even google has heard of it.

Yeah, in all seriousness, news sources close to the perpetrators of news are the best sources. Read VoA for information about US military actions and Aljazeera for information about guerilla/terrorist actions.

For instance, compare Reuter's coverageAljazeera's coverage of one event. Reuter's completely misses the information about the drone being shot down, and the guard building's destruction is also totally missing.

... while all the blogger pundits get lathered up about Stewart's appearance on Crossfire, everyone misses the minor detail that Rowe appeared before a grad jury yesterday to testify in the Valerie Plame probe.

The same story, direct from Reuters: Crackdown on Internet Journalists. More detail: New arrest of a journalist contributing to reformist websites. More about Iranian "religious" extremism: Iran cancels music concerts under hard-line pressure. There is political turmoil inside Iran: Iranian vice president quits. More about the social breakdown in Iran: Rights Group: Human Rights Violations on the Rise in Iran.

Don't expect leadership from the U.S. government. Members of the Bush administration can't even say Iran. It's not I-ran. It's I-rahn. During the vice-presidential debate, Cheney said I-ran, showing how little he knows about the topic. President Bush said "Moo-lah", instead of mullah, the Farsi name for religious leader. Don't underestimate their lack of interest in things that don't make money.

More Bush administration mis-pronunciation from Cheney: "Tolleybon", intead of Taliban, and "Internets".

More about U.S. government corruption: The Bush administration borrows money to give to its friends, you pay it back. Government data shows Republicans are corrupt.

Routers article here

There is absolutely no relevant information in the linked site. For a much better routers article, go here

Routers article here

Contact/feedback pages:

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from the article linked below:

To utilize the wireless communication capability of the DS, Nintendo plans to offer a new service enabling users to download extra data such as new characters from the new Pokemon movie, to be released next summer, Iwata said.

"You just need to bring the DS and one of the Pokemon software for Game Boy Advance and you'll be downloading some unique Pokemon data while you watch the movie."

HERE

Wow, that's pretty damn cool.

Try reading the fscking news, dipshit: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=busi nessNews&storyID=6368143 "MOSCOW (Reuters) - ConocoPhillips won a $2 billion stake in Russia's LUKOIL and said it aimed to raise that to 20 percent in a sweeping alliance that allows the two oil majors to tap vast reserves in northern Russia and Iraq. Both parties said the deal, announced on Wednesday, enjoyed strong support from the U.S. and Russian governments. Conoco at auction committed to pay $1.988 billion for Russia's remaining 7.6 percent stake in LUKOIL, one of the nation's two top producers. Conoco, the third largest U.S. oil company .." ... "It will allow Conoco to add billions of barrels of reserves to its books" I can't believe you're so naive. You don't honestly think Bush spent $200billion because he really cares about the Iraqi people or because of a gallon of sarin gas or because Saddam was a "baaad, evil man". Grow up. The world doesn't work that way. If you do your own research in the future, and stop just soaking up whatever you see on FOX, you might not be so obviously misinformed and ignorant next time.

Ah but, the more people who plant to vote, the more people are likely to take interest in the upcoming elections. Take this article for example it shows that tv ratings for the first debate are up 26%. At the same time new voter registration applications are swamping county/state election workers

The driver called police to say the cruise control of his Renault Vel Satis had jammed while overtaking a lorry, and that all attempts to brake or put the automatic into neutral had failed, police said Tuesday.

At least this time there is a valid reason for my story being rejected.

Not according to Reuters they're not. Music revenues are up but not CD sales.

Click here

The article gives a nice comparison of the output of the wind turbine and the nearby by nuclear reactor.

Lasrs? Chainsaws? Who needs hi-tech, use an axe:

Wounded Pilots Land Norway Plane After Axe Attack
An Algerian-born man attacked two pilots and a passenger with an axe on a domestic Norwegian flight on Wednesday in an unexplained assault that police said could be linked to his asylum status.

The pilots, who witnesses said were covered in blood from head injuries, managed to land the small Kato Air plane flying seven passengers from Narvik to Bodoe in northern Norway.

Is it just me or does this picture look like the batmobile from movies.