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it is only a matter of time before the US adopts similar policies.

America already has a similar system. We are ahead of China on this. The big difference is that in America your credit score is controlled by corporations rather than the government. But similar criteria are used, and excessive job-hopping can hurt your score.

The scary thing about the Chinese system is that it's unclear what the eventual effects of the social credit score will be. There only seem to be suggestions of effects that could occur. In contrast, the US credit report system has been in effect for a much longer time. Employment history is not a factor in credit scores but does appear in credit reports, and the reader of the report can decide how to use that information or whether to ignore it completely. It's entirely understandable that a lender would want to build a mathematical model to predict the likelihood of loan default and want to incorporate employment history as a predictor of future income stability. However, employment history could not be used for governmental sanctions or as evidence in a court proceeding. In contrast, the Chinese system lacks the history to determine its applications and limits, resulting in a sense of apprehension concerning its potential for abuse.

it is only a matter of time before the US adopts similar policies.

America already has a similar system. We are ahead of China on this. The big difference is that in America your credit score is controlled by corporations rather than the government. But similar criteria are used, and excessive job-hopping can hurt your score.

... and because corporations can have religious principles you will soon be punished for more than job hopping, things like, not praying enough, having sex outside of marriage, having sex in marriage more than once a month without using a sheet with a hole in it, ... all kinds of Christian values like those.

it is only a matter of time before the US adopts similar policies.

America already has a similar system. We are ahead of China on this. The big difference is that in America your credit score is controlled by corporations rather than the government. But similar criteria are used, and excessive job-hopping can hurt your score.

" In 2016, the company earned $10 billion but recorded a tax benefit of $400 million for a 12-month tax rate of -4.5%, according to Forbes."

"GE was one of 18 Fortune 500 companies that paid no net federal income taxes between 2008 and 2015"

https://www.thestreet.com/stor...

No.

Large corporations have been paying little to no taxes for decades.

Control your butthurt.

Ummm...

Baird's Colin Sebastian estimated YouTube is doing around $15 billion in annual sales.

https://www.thestreet.com/inve...

I'm rational enough to use and prefer Amazon for everything except hosting (Digital Ocean ftw). Hasn't stopped me from pointing out that they make over 100% of their profits from AWS: their businesses run below profitability and they shore them up with cloud computing services.

That's predatory pricing.

Boycotts don't work; but those people who talk about a boycott and don't bother doing it themselves? They'll talk. They'll talk about breaking AWS off from Amazon. They'll talk about Federal anti-trust investigations.

That works.

It works even if you don't have enough people to make a dent with a boycott anyway.

...In fact, what they did was give Donald Trump tons of free media coverage-- about five billion dollars worth, by some estimates. http://www.mediaquant.net/2016/11/a-media-post-mortem-on-the-2016-presidential-election/
https://www.thestreet.com/stor...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Constant attacks are worth five billion?

Getting his name in the media, the media covering his speeches, the media covering his campaign rallies (while ignoring the comparable events from other candidates), the media covering his talking points-- yep, turns out to be worth about five billion dollars worth of free publicity.

The media covered him because he was outrageous. And he used that.

He seems to be following the model of George M. Cohan: "I don't care what you say about me, as long as you say something about me, and as long as you spell my name right."

Or, to quote another luminary, "there's no such thing as bad publicity."

Yes, we all know that the NYT ran a hit piece on Friday containing false information (including a claim that Tesla was looking for COO which Bloomberg has since debunked), and whose author made a snarky brag on Twitter about lowering Tesla's stock price.

That's not why the stock fell and continues to fall. fElon musk is also trafficking illegal narcotics through the giga factory.

Followed by Amazon.

LOL BGR. The second biggest apple dickpuppet next to you.

Ok, I assume all THESE are not "Dickpuppets", Hater:

https://www.anandtech.com/show...

https://www.thestreet.com/mark...

https://www.marketwatch.com/st...

https://www.channelweb.co.uk/c...

It's really fun watching you guys lose your shirts trying to short Tesla. Give it up already.

"You guys?" I don't count myself among the shorters.

That said, there is a way to play around with TSLA without losing "your shirt." Trade options, and use hedging to mitigate risk (e.g., trade spreads.) It is not easy, but it's a lot less risky than shorting, and it can be fun. But beware of the way a stock can humiliate you. I'll leave this right here.

I remember all the people over in Shortsville writing articles encouraging people not to "go wobbly" when Tesla was down in the 250s/260s, but to double down on the shorts.

$306,85 today ;) And analyst factory checks showing that production appears to be up to nearly 3k per week now. Now you've even got long-time Tesla-despising shorts going long just to cash out on the squeeze of their fellow shorts. It's going to be a $10+B bloodbath.

Now that their old production canard is going away, they'll have to revert to their fallback, "But Tesla loses money on each Model 3!". Yes, that would be meaningful in a world where the cost of a vehicle exactly equaled the cost of the steel/aluminum and 3rd party parts that went into it, and the cost of labour and hardware depreciation was zero. Meanwhile in the real world, if you're producing an average a bit over 1k per week (Q1) with labour and hardware designed for 5k per week... well, of course that's going to be running a negative. It's impressive that they were only running a ~17% negative margin on Model 3 in Q1.

In case anyone is wondering why you're seeing so many stories like this about Tesla all of the sudden, here is your answer. In particular, this chart.

Tesla is the most shorted stock in the US right now. There is literally no company in the US that more people have a financial interest in seeing fail than Tesla. A third of the stock is in short positions. The problem is that this is incredibly dangerous from the perspective of a short squeeze. Shorts hold the stock price down - the massive surge in short selling countered the benefits (from a stock price perspective) of the major increase in Model 3 production rates. But this can only be taken so far; it's not like they're going to be able to short 100% of the stock. If Model 3 production continues to rise like it's been doing - and along with it, the stock price - not only will some short sellers want to liquidate, but others will be contractually forced to liquidate. This is done by purchasing an equivalent number of shares of TSLA to cover their short. This purchase in turn raises the stock price. With such a massive percentage of Tesla shorted, this can easily snowball, where the obligations of some shorts to purchase cause the next to be forced to purchase, and the next, and so forth - all purchased at whatever price Tesla happens to be at the moment. The shorts would need to acquire literally 1/3rd of Tesla's stock in a short period of time.

Needless to say, this would be a financial disaster for them. If Tesla underperforms what the market expects of them, longs lose some money. But if Tesla overperforms what the market expects, shorts lose a huge amount of money. It's highly asymmetric.

So in case you were wondering if it was a coincidence that all of the sudden everyone and their cousin suddenly started bashing Tesla in the news - even for something as mundane as another company poaching talent from Tesla - no, it's not a coincidence.

In case anyone is wondering why you're seeing so many stories like this about Tesla all of the sudden, here is your answer. In particular, this chart.

Tesla is the most shorted stock in the US right now. There is literally no company in the US that more people have a financial interest in seeing fail than Tesla. A third of the stock is in short positions. The problem is that this is incredibly dangerous from the perspective of a short squeeze. Shorts hold the stock price down - the massive surge in short selling countered the benefits (from a stock price perspective) of the major increase in Model 3 production rates. But this can only be taken so far; it's not like they're going to be able to short 100% of the stock. If Model 3 production continues to rise like it's been doing - and along with it, the stock price - not only will some short sellers want to liquidate, but others will be contractually forced to liquidate. This is done by purchasing an equivalent number of shares of TSLA to cover their short. This purchase in turn raises the stock price. With such a massive percentage of Tesla shorted, this can easily snowball, where the obligations of some shorts to purchase cause the next to be forced to purchase, and the next, and so forth - all purchased at whatever price Tesla happens to be at the moment. The shorts would need to acquire literally 1/3rd of Tesla's stock in a short period of time.

Needless to say, this would be a financial disaster for them. If Tesla underperforms what the market expects of them, longs lose some money. But if Tesla overperforms what the market expects, shorts lose a huge amount of money. It's highly asymmetric.

So in case you were wondering if it was a coincidence that all of the sudden everyone and their cousin suddenly started bashing Tesla in the news - even for something as mundane as another company poaching talent from Tesla - no, it's not a coincidence.

Source for the affirmation that the suppliers that furnish specifically for the iPhone X?

I don't give a shit whether you answer or not, joey boy. Your posts have been consistently absent of all useful information whereas I at least have been giving my references. I'm merely not letting your idiotic statements stand unchallenged.

The following URL gives the best analysis that I have seen so far by comparing multiple sources as well as better knowledge of the industry:
https://www.thestreet.com/stor...

In particular:

Sinolink Securities and JL Warren Capital each cut their March quarter iPhone X shipment forecasts, though it's worth noting Sinolink's new estimate (35 million) is much higher than JL Warren's (25 million). Meanwhile, B. Riley FBR, Rosenblatt Securities and Loup Ventures' Gene Munster defended Apple.

Rosenblatt speculated that the Economic Daily News might be confusing iPhone 8 order cuts with iPhone X cuts, and said their supply chain checks pointed to healthy demand and no OLED panel or 3D sensor order cuts. On the other hand, JL Warren reported that some Apple suppliers have seen reduced orders.

What to make of all this? First of all, it's unlikely that Apple ever expected to sell 50 million iPhone X units in the March quarter, especially considering the consensus analyst estimate for the quarter's total iPhone sales is only at 62 million. As Munster notes, Apple has a history of initially placing outsized orders with iPhone suppliers to make sure it can meet demand, and later paring them back. It could be that the Economic Daily News was provided info from a supplier that had seen this phenomenon play out.

So, again: The habitual Apple doomsayers are claiming with zero proof that iPhone X sales are below expectation.

In broad terms, there is an argument that government should tune the mixture and sizes of corporations within markets so to maximize social efficiency or equity. On the other hand, there is the philosophical objection that individual liberty should take precedence, and that sub-optimal social outcomes must be accepted as a price for granting individuals liberty to make decisions on their own, free of coercion, because individual liberty is inherently preferred. The latter would not be unusual. For example, the liberty to eat refined sugar predominates over the public health benefits of its prohibition.

Regulation of mergers is a moot issue though, because the FTC bureaucrats have no real knowledge what are the consequences for the market of their dictates. It's all hocus-pocus. A larger corporation can benefit consumers by providing economies of scale and eliminating needles competition. Or it can harm consumers by reducing price competition. Which is declared by officials in what case is determined by political affiliations of the regulated and benefits the regulators choose to extort for a favored constituency. Edicts are not based on science, but a combination of inept meddling, political retaliation and extortion. Giving the FTC the power to block and restrict mergers is of no demonstrable benefit and only increases opportunities for corruption. It seems that regulation would be necessary to prevent monopolization before it forms because, historically, there have been some beneficial breakups of monopolies. The AT&T, Standard Oil, and railroad monopoly breackups stand out as convincing examples. But looking into the details, it turns out that those monopolies were created by government regulations to begin with, so that the the net effect of regulation was negative.

If CNN was genuinely opposed to this kind of regulatory meddling on principle, as opposed to acting as mouthpiece for the self-serving financial interests of it's corporate parent, it might have expressed some concern during 30+ years history of increasing intervention. Apparently, regulations apply to everyone else.

If Trump ordered this as hit on CNN (there is no evidence he did) ya, of course that is unjust. But this kind of things has been going for while. While the Obama administration was notorious for playing politics with regulatory policy, CNN never said a thing.

With the media so biased for Trump, I can't blame people for getting their news from Facebook. Trump received over $5 billion in free advertising from the media before the election:

https://www.thestreet.com/story/13896916/1/donald-trump-rode-5-billion-in-free-media-to-the-white-house.html

.Civil Forfeiture is an immoral and most likely Unconstitutional act.

The Trump administration loves civil forfeiture. They've expanded it in every way, and have overturned all of the limitations that the Obama administration placed on it in 2015. There will be more asset forfeiture until the Trump regime is safely out of power.

https://www.thestreet.com/stor...

http://observer.com/2017/07/do...

http://www.nationalreview.com/...

https://www.thestreet.com/stor... Yay! It's good to finally have confirmation that Australians are smarter than Americans.

Missed a link. Musk has his own significant conflict of interest, and it hinders effective management.

I know what you're saying. But the big question is, why did the Yahoo Board of Directors make such a HUGE mistake.

A few of the Marissa Meyer stories, over several years. Major problems were reported almost 5 years ago:

The Truth About Marissa Mayer: She Has Two Contrasting Reputations (Jul. 17, 2012) Quote: "She used to make people line up outside of her office, sit on couches and sign up with office hours with her. Then everybody had to publicly sit outside her office and she would see people in five minute increments. She would make VPs at Google wait for her. It's like you've got to be kidding."

Yahoo! CEO Mayer Is Delusional and Must Go - RealMoney.com (Oct. 21, 2015)

Marissa Mayer: A Case Study In Poor Leadership - Forbes (Nov. 20, 2015) Five reasons people don't like Yahoo's Marissa Mayer (Oct. 7, 2016)

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer led illegal purge of male employees, lawsuit charges (Oct. 6, 2016)

How was Marissa Mayer viewed within Google? - Quora

What made Marissa Mayer an incompetent CEO? - Quora

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Thoroughly Failed on Promise to Not Screw Up Tumblr (Jun. 16 2016)

And the answer is almost always "administrative overhead". Some universities have more new administrators than new instructors. . .

Several Links:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

https://www.thestreet.com/stor...

>billions of dollars is up for grabs here
some perspective:
a quick goolge shows that the oil industry is estimated to be US $5,349billion in 2017 https://www.thestreet.com/stor...
that's FIVE THOUSAND BILLION. YEARLY.
how big is the 'climate change science industry' worth ? 1 billion ?

It really, really has nothing to do with high frequency traders. Lots of people got screwed. Michael McCarthy is a typical example:
https://www.thestreet.com/stor...

As I've explained in another post, people can run the exact same scam on eBay with iPhones, or "selling" F-150 pickups on Craigslist.

> But ebay would (or at least should) catch you if you did that a bunch of times.

I suspect eBay would catch you after a while UNLESS you were clever. Certainly there are ways to set up a new eBay account under a new identity, I've done that. All you need is a different email address and maybe a new prepaid Visa. I have one eBay account for business-related transactions and one for personal. A clever person could probably find a way to keep setting up new accounts as old ones got locked.

> If they allowed someone to commit that transaction thousands of times then it'd seriously undermine the entire platform.

The guy is TFA DID seriously undermine the US stock market, for a short time, so the markets now have mechanisms to protect against a repeat. Some people, like Michael McCarthy, lost a lot of of money, as in stocks that normally trade for $100 were down to $10. Proctor and Gamble lost over 30% of it's value, then quickly recovered most of it.
https://www.thestreet.com/stor...

Scott Adams (who writes Dilbert) is on vacation in Switzerland, and his recent blog post had this snippet, which got me really angry:

[...] I also asked the Swiss man what kind of problems they have in Switzerland. He laughed again. The answer is “none.” Literally.
Good economy.
Plenty of jobs.
No racial strife.
Low crime rate.
Highest standard of living.
No real pollution.
No litter.
No homeless that I could see.

The reason it angered me is that here's a country where the government tries to give the citizens a good life. They have fixed all of the major problems and are just letting their citizens live in quiet enjoyment.

The Swiss government is considering implementing a guaranteed minimum income.

Over here in the US, our infrastructure is crumbling, our healthcare is at 3rd world level, jobs are scarce (and we're outsourcing more and more), and two thirds of the people are on the brink of poverty, and the government spies on and opresses everyone.

It's as if the government sees the people as some sort of harvest-able crop whose purpose is to provide taxes, where their only efforts are towards maximum yield.

More deflection from the problems at hand and the propensity to under-perform in operations;

https://www.thestreet.com/stor...

GM stock price slumped a whopping 1.3% on news of its ignition recall that was actually killing people.

Apple hires some engineers with car experience, everyone guesses that they'll be making electric cars, and "OMG, this could be the end of Tesla!" (The stock drops 10% in a day).

Analyst price targets for Tesla are all over the map, going from $150 to $385.

Removing the opinions of talk show hosts/car collectors for a moment, perhaps what these statements truly highlight is an utter inability to predict a damn thing when it comes to the incredibly unstable stock market.

People equate it to gambling for valid reasons.

Jay Leno had some interesting things to say about Tesla.

I've noticed the same thing (as Jay): people are falling over themselves to try to bring Tesla down, and I haven't the first idea why.

GM stock price slumped a whopping 1.3% on news of its ignition recall that was actually killing people.

Apple hires some engineers with car experience, everyone guesses that they'll be making electric cars, and "OMG, this could be the end of Tesla!" (The stock drops 10% in a day).

Analyst price targets for Tesla are all over the map, going from $150 to $385.

Jay mentions that "we like noble failures more than we reward success". I think that's true, but it's also baffling.

I am not sure why we still have pennies. They are annoying and useless, and costing the tax payers money just keeping it in circulation. Keeping pennies make about as much sense as bringing back the half cent. tbh, I think John Oliver subbed it up pretty well https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

On the other hand... Copper prices is shrinking... http://www.thestreet.com/story...

Well, "which HP?" is a good question.

As Hewlett-Packard (HPQ - Get Report) prepares to break apart its enterprise unit from its division that produces personal computers and printers, the tech institution said Wednesday that it will sell cyber security unit Tipping Point to Tokyo-based Trend Micro International for $300 million.

Splitting up and selling off are not exactly indicators everything is going swimmingly.

As I said, companies grow, companies buy, companies fuck up what they buy, and then realize they no longer have much of an idea what they are anymore.

I think the M+A craze in tech for the last 20 years has been a lot of short term profit seeking, but is overall really bad in the long run. It maximizes executive compensation, but it doesn't actually achieve the outcomes they claim it does.

Uh, the S class tripled the Tesla S sales in 2014. BMW didn't triple the Tesla S, they just beat it by 50%. And Audi did the same as BMW. Reality is quite a bit different than what the Tesla fans often claim.

Of course this is still not going to have much effect. Just look at the financial industry. Post 2008 bank fines have totaled over $184 billion. To put that in perspective:

"For comparative purposes, an economy with a GDP of $184 billion would, according to the World Bank, rank 54th globally, or roughly the size of New Zealand. With 174 cases still ongoing, we expect the issue of monetary penalties to persist,"

Since 2008 banks have committed crimes like manipulating the international LIBOR lending rate, laundered money for drug cartels, and been actively involved in illegal tax avoidance. So fines don't really do much, and bank stocks are doing OK and going up with the rest of the market.

Welcome to our post-capitalist society. Entrenched special interests make money no matter how badly they perform and no one individual ever is held accountable.

Seems like Cramer has changed his tune on Tesla: http://www.thestreet.com/video...

Anyway, is that guy really taken seriously as an analyst or viewed just as a talking head?

This is the second "article" in one day about Elon Musk.

Maybe some of you should read this.

And I am now thinking that Slashdot has been bombarded or even maybe paid to feature Elon Musk promoting articles.

It's not just Cramer. See, Wall Street has a much different opinion on Tesla and Musk than Silicon Valley's misguided hero worship.

Say what you want about Wall Street - and I'll be right there to join in - but they do know bullshitters and bullshit.

I'm really waiting for an x86 phone that can be bought in the USA.

Looks like your wish is coming true on Oct. 24: Intel Processors to Power New Asus Smartphone Hybrid for AT&T - TheStreet

I was going to post that too. But while googling to make sure Dropbox still used Amazon S3, I came across this article. Apparently the problem for Dropbox is the price volatility. Amazon can lower or raise its prices on a whim because they don't have much competition. Dropbox doesn't have that luxury.

The SEC started requring companies to file their earnings reports in the Extensible Business Reporting Language a few years ago. At first, it was only for big companies; now it's everybody. The SEC displays this info in a standard format on line. Here are the latest earnings for DICE Holdings [sec.gov], Slashdot's parent. Here's the raw XML behind that data. [sec.gov] Turning that into verbiage isn't that hard.

The real problem isn't the robotic writers. The real problem is that the robotic writers are now obfuscating the story, not clarifying it.

What I don't want: "Analysts expect higher profit for Paychex when the company reports its fourth quarter results on Tuesday, July 1, 2014. The consensus estimate is calling for profit of 40 cents a share, reflecting a rise from 38 cents per share a year ago."

What I do want: "PAYX (Paychex): 7/1/14: Q4 $0.40 EPS (beat/misses) consesnsus estimates of $0.xx EPS by ($0.40-0.xx), +$0.02 from $0.38 YoY, and a link to the company's press release if I feel like reading through management's spin on the quarter" That's it. That's all I need or want to know to place a bet if I see it pop up on the feed during market hours. The fewer words, the better. Briefing.com does it right.

And while we're on the subject, here's the robodreck I really loathe: Crap like this (story 1) vs this (story 1). In Story 1: Only the first two sentences contain actual content. Everything else is a data dump from a robot. Story 2: Same stock, one day later, and the entire article is a data dump from a robot, including the description of what the company does. Even the headlines "((WHY|NULL)STOCK) (JUST|CONTINUES|IS) ((ADJECTIVE) (TECHNICAL_PATTERN))" are robogenerated. It's pure clickbait and the only reason either was generated was because the stock in question was a large gainer/loser on each of the two days.

The SEC started requring companies to file their earnings reports in the Extensible Business Reporting Language a few years ago. At first, it was only for big companies; now it's everybody. The SEC displays this info in a standard format on line. Here are the latest earnings for DICE Holdings [sec.gov], Slashdot's parent. Here's the raw XML behind that data. [sec.gov] Turning that into verbiage isn't that hard.

The real problem isn't the robotic writers. The real problem is that the robotic writers are now obfuscating the story, not clarifying it.

What I don't want: "Analysts expect higher profit for Paychex when the company reports its fourth quarter results on Tuesday, July 1, 2014. The consensus estimate is calling for profit of 40 cents a share, reflecting a rise from 38 cents per share a year ago."

What I do want: "PAYX (Paychex): 7/1/14: Q4 $0.40 EPS (beat/misses) consesnsus estimates of $0.xx EPS by ($0.40-0.xx), +$0.02 from $0.38 YoY, and a link to the company's press release if I feel like reading through management's spin on the quarter" That's it. That's all I need or want to know to place a bet if I see it pop up on the feed during market hours. The fewer words, the better. Briefing.com does it right.

And while we're on the subject, here's the robodreck I really loathe: Crap like this (story 1) vs this (story 1). In Story 1: Only the first two sentences contain actual content. Everything else is a data dump from a robot. Story 2: Same stock, one day later, and the entire article is a data dump from a robot, including the description of what the company does. Even the headlines "((WHY|NULL)STOCK) (JUST|CONTINUES|IS) ((ADJECTIVE) (TECHNICAL_PATTERN))" are robogenerated. It's pure clickbait and the only reason either was generated was because the stock in question was a large gainer/loser on each of the two days.

Intel has an insanely high Gross Profit Margin of 75%. That is the opposite of selling at a loss.

http://www.thestreet.com/story...

This is my problem with all of Bennett's articles. They don't appear to be well researched and edited. He makes statements, then twists facts to support them, ignoring anything that doesn't fit. For example, he claims that T-Mobile has found it profitable to break the traditional model, but a quick Google search reveals that this may not yet be the case.

The problem that Facebook faces is that much of its current stock price critically hinges on the belief that it is a "growth" stock. Look at some of the numbers ( http://www.thestreet.com/story/12043406/1/the-beginning-of-the-end-for-facebook.html ):

The stock is ridiculously priced at 208 times trailing earnings, 48 times 2014 consensus earnings estimates, more than 10 times book value, and 18 times revenue.

Once investors realize that FB is no longer growing - especially that young eyeballs and thumbs have moved elsewhere - they will also realize that it will never live up to its (admittedly unrealistic) future earnings estimates. At which point the stock price will plummet.

That being said, I slightly retract my previous statement: FB won't die out completely, it will merely linger.

Why bother making Chromebooks, the market doesn't much seem to care for them

Chromebooks are actually doing pretty well.

I'm a huge Android fan, but there are some issues with apps on Android that don't translate too well to the laptop experience (yet):

• * While multitasking apps works great, there's no support for multiple on-screen app windows. (though some people have tried to add them.)
• * though there is mouse support, there's still a heavy reliance on the touch-based interface compared with laptop point-and-click.

That said, Android is open source. You're free to do a port yourself. Some have done so already.

That was shorthand for "Google could buy the companies that comprise the RIAA". e.g. the RIAA "big three" are Sony Music Group, UMG, and Warner. I could only find market capitlization for Warner (1.3bn), but the entirety of Sony (not just the music group) is valued at 16bn. Google has $50bn cash on hand.

Like Apple, currently shopping around for another chip manufacturer after Samsung raised prices, (to earn back billion dollar fine which will most likely be overturned on appeal).

Nice story, but not true.

Every dollar of profit is not taxed eventually. For the most part, corporations sit on their profits to increase cash-on-hand [1]. This increases flexibility for them, gives them better banking terms, and causes share price to increase. This increases the wealth of those who own the shares, but this increase in wealth is untaxed unless these shares were to be sold. Once you are a millionaire or billionaire, you don't need to sell shares--instead, you can take out loans against them [2].

Effectively, reducing corporate tax to 0% would be a 100% loss. Corporations do not spend more money on cap ex just because they have more cash on hand. Similarly, they do not increase salaries; U.S. wages have fallen by more than 50% since 1970 (in inflation-adjusted dollars) [3].

Here are my references, which are pretty half-assed since I just googled for stuff I'd already read and linked the first similar thing. But hey, it's already 50% more informative than the average post.
[1] http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2012/07/16/idle-corporate-cash-piles-up/
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/opinion/the-zuckerberg-tax.html?_r=0
[3] http://www.thestreet.com/story/11480568/1/us-standard-of-living-has-fallen-more-than-50-opinion.html

Since it didn't happen, no.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11749058/1/is-microsofts-ceo-steve-ballmer-crazy.html

Adding up sales of iPads, Kindles, Nooks, Android tablets, etc, and then saying "none of these people -wanted- what they've bought" (particularly in the face of people upgrading their devices) -really is idiotic-.

To me that's the real counter-argument: Lots of people have bought more than one tablet, which means they must have found utility in the concept and the product. (Claimer, my wife's on her 2nd iPad device and my mother loves the hand-me-down 1st gen iPad. Me, I'm sticking with my MB Pro because I want a full size tactile keyboard.)

The argument about Microsoft's marketing approach in the cited article is also relevant: Microsoft should sell its tablets on the basis of what you can do with them, rather then on some pseudo-demand buzz.

p.s. I think Microsoft's Surface is notable/worthy because it's not such an obvious clone of the iPad. That doesn't mean I want one, it means I'm crediting Microsoft with "thinking different" ;-) Your opinion may vary.

There is a system for national bankrupcy. It's called war (either civil or external). Currently, that is the only estalbished way for a country to free itself of international debt. Look what happened to Argentina in 1999...

The pre-BK system we have today, however, is called the IMF. This is analogous to credit counseling before BK. Assuming the IMF is somehow a-politicial is absurd in the extreme.

The typical prescription that the IMF had a country follow is to cut their budget, force a country to open up to (more) global trade, and divest their state owned corporations to private capital interests around the world. However, this credit-counseling prescription is predicated on the idea that a country is "too-big-to-fail" and that if it were to go into default (or BK), private capital interests would get damaged and cause global economic chaos. Thus the IMF prescription is heavily tilted to global economic interest, often at the expense of the state's best interests. This means the IMF is essentially like a credit-counseling service working for the creditors. They carrot they hold out is so that your country can get credit.

Having the IMF handle a state BK (if there were an organized way to do such a thing) would be like having a credit counselor who works for your creditors handle you BK. Can you say serious conflict of interest?

On the other hand, when a country takes things into its own hands instead of the IMF...