Slashdot Mirror
Ray Beckerman Sued By the RIAA
An anonymous reader writes "Ray Beckerman, known for questioning the RIAAs legal tactics (also for frequent Slashdot contributions), was sued by the RIAA over his blog Recording Industry vs. People. In question is the 'vexatious' claims that the RIAAs legal tactics is a 'sham.' Beckerman is quoted as saying that the litigation against him is 'frivolous and irresponsible.'"
I believe strongly in the idea of free speech, and don't much care for censorship or other speech restrictions. That said, on some level I think I can agree with the idea that lawyers are part of our legal justice system, and therefore to be held to a higher standard of conduct than we mere mortals. I mean, I have no problem saying the same thing about judges or police officers. I certainly believe they should be held to higher standards.
But the idea that the RIAA would say of Ray's blog, "Such vexatious conduct demeans the integrity of these judicial proceedings and warrants this imposition of sanctions." is completely beyond absurd.
The RIAA has been conducting a multimillion dollar ad campaign in an attempt to paint copyright infringement as a crime in the same class or worse as theft, and further attempting to equate their inflated 'losses' due to 'piracy'. Ray might joke and jab more than is 'proper' or 'expected' as a lawyer, but in my mind, that makes him a better agent of the court, not worse. And I fail to see how this lawsuit is anything other than a legal attack upon Ray in an attempt to smear his good name and discredit him as a lawyer.
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
Honestly, this is a fortunate turn of events. This gentleman is at least capable of defending himself against whatever accusations RIAA is making against him, while at the same time consuming time and legal resources that the fuckwits at RIAA could be using to put another party in legal jeopardy.
In fact, since this is not the same as the boilerplate legal case that RIAA makes against thousands of consumers annually, it probably also consumed more resources. We should all be thankful that RIAA has chosen this course of action.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
You know, what this comes down to is plain and simple. If everyone payed the artist including the recording industry, then we would not have this problem. Is there a reason you want an album and then won't pay for it? Just GO BUY THE CD or BUY THE MP3'S. If the artist intended for you to have th emusic for free, they would put it up on their myspace account for download. Since they DON'T, PAY FOR IT!!! This includes movies. You don't need something that bad you need to steal it do you. I wish all sides would just grow up on this deal and REALIZE the only people getting rich are the stupid Lawyers.
This guy seems to have bothered you, I have never read his blog but, as you find it so threating there must be some value in it. Thanks for the recommendation.
Understanding complicated matters, such as law, is always hard because of the bad advice that goes about. I commend you RIAA for your services to education.
Let me be the first to point out what everyone's been thinking.
Thank.
You.
RIAA.
Morons.
I mean, honestly. We all are acting all high and mighty, but what we're really thinking is,
"What IDIOT up there thought it would be a good idea to sue one of the most competent, intelligent, LAWYERS who has already expressed a will to fight against their unsound tactics"
Lets take odds, who wants to bet they try to pull out of this the minute someone realizes what they just did, and someone is definitly getting sacked.
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
In question is the "vexatious" claims that the RIAAs legal tactics is a "sham"
The best way to show that criticism of your valiant, righteous lawsuits is a sham is to sue the critic for being so irritatingly vexatious. Now I (and I imagine this goes for everyone else here on Slashdot) take the RIAA completely seriously. I suspect a million geeks just stopped filesharing a few minutes ago, and that the torrents of the tubes have all gone dead: Seeders 0, Leechers 0. The RIAA has won.
Except ... all sarcasm aside, this is really desperate.
Indeed.
Actually I wonder if this is just an extension of the RIAA's legal tactics to the lawyers themselves. Previously, they would sue people in order to intimidate them into settling and/or not file-sharing. Now, they are applying the same logic to lawyers: suing lawyers with the audacity to defend file-sharers, so as to intimidate other potential defense lawyers from even taking a file-sharing case.
As usual, even if the RIAA loses (or eventually drops the case), they "win" in the sense that they send the message that they are willing to make life hell for anyone who opposes them (including other lawyers).
Such a tactic from the RIAA is presumably illegal... but it's probably very difficult to prove in court that this is their intention.
they are some pest that needs to be eradicated for rational functioning of u.s. legal system. they need to be made an example of, for future generations.
to [mis]quote a movie:
"we're the US government. we don't DO that sort of thing."
seriously - we don't seem to make examples of bad businesses. in fact, we BAIL THEM OUT with taxpayer money!
don't expect the US legal system to 'fix itself'. doctors can't operate on themselves, in a similar analog.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Who will pay Beckerman's legal fees? An interesting question. I'm sure that Mr Beckerman is well aware that the lawyer wo represents himself has a fool for a client.
"Is there a reason you want an album and then won't pay for it? Just GO BUY THE CD or BUY THE MP3'S. If the artist intended for you to have th emusic for free, they would put it up on their myspace account for download. Since they DON'T, PAY FOR IT!!! "
I've tried saying that here before, but you run into a brick wall of nitpicking denial. Somehow the idea that it's not physical media makes it impossible to steal. Or it's the record companies that lose out, the artist gets shafted anyway. Or real artists should just want their music listened to. Like there are no costs involved in creating music.
I've long since reconciled myself to the fact that while I believe in intellectual property rights, most people around me don't. Of course the vast majority of those people have never tried to make a living by producing something for the mass market.
The more aware the general public is of the morally-dubious position of the labels, the less chance the labels have of pushing through "settlements" under threat of litigation.
This is a good thing (not for Ray, obviously).
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
thank you.
this is obviously an attempt to harass him. these lawyers should be de-barred (or whatever the correct term is).
It wouldn't matter. Unlike college students, lawyers have both the experience needed and the money to take these cases to court. Given the RIAA's shaky prosecution tactics, I wouldn't be surprised if not only every lawyer being sued in this manner takes the case to court, but a number of them are secretly wishing to be sued just to make an example out of their opponents and get their name out.
Mr Beckerman's time is not valueless, and sadly human cloning is still not possible so he's also a finite resource. These RIAA asshats are clearly aiming to distract him from the fine work he does. If he's too busy fighting on his own behalf they'll remove one of their biggest threats. Their strategy is sound.
/. to tangibly show support: with cash for a Beckerman defense fund. Does anyone know how to set that up?
I'm reminded of the adage that a person who represents themself in court has a "fool for a client". Is this a case where someone like the ACLU or EFF could help Mr Beckerman? Maybe he will need to hire a lawyer to handle this nonsense so he can continue fighting the good fight? If the latter is the case then maybe it's time for
I know nothing about legal procedure in the USA, and precious little about it in my own country. But I suspect that it would not be wise for NYCL to comment on his own case here on /. and it might also be against the legal rules in the USA. Of course, we all wish Ray well but we might just have to wait until this one is over before we can get the full story.
Good Luck, Ray, for the way you have helped others you deserve some good fortune yourself.
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
All,
Mr. Beckerman is, as most of us know, one of the most respected members of the Slashdot community. He's posted many, many stories and innumerable comments, all with great insight and actual legal information from a real lawyer (yes, HIAL). Over quite a long time, he's become one of us, and he probably has the highest karma in the history of Slashdot. He's done a great deal to help us all, and now it's time to return the favor. There are a lot of comments here about how dumb a move this is on the RIAA's part, and how they'll finally get embarrassed by NewYorkCountryLawyer himself. I happen to agree.
However, Ray is only one man, and the RIAA has the means, and probably the will, to throw so many of their lawyers and arcane procedural motions at him to make his personal life a living hell. So it's time now that we thank him and make it clear that were behind him. As for how, that's up to you. Maybe send encouraging emails. If he comments here, reply with your support. Spread the word about the RIAA trying to sue a legal critic into silence. Please, everyone who's been enlightened, informed, and amused by Ray's comments here, do your part in return.
Those who anthropomorphize science and/or nature already believe in an intelligent designer.
When people will be looking back at the madness, deceit, lies and coercion that has become so commonplace with some of the RIAA's strong-arm tactics, someone like Ray will stand as an exemplary model of integrity and fairness, refusing to simply kowtow to the unreasonable demands of a group of corporate entities who have demonstrated that they are utterly unable to serve their original mission (i.e.: be creative in providing the public entertainment in changing times) and re-invent themselves in the face of a mutating marketplace and technological tools, by providing the public with easy, ubiquitous and unencumbered access to their catalogs of copyrights, and have instead made it their new specialty to sue those who could have been their best customers.
Being slapped with such silly and pointless lawsuits over a blog is just a mark of how desperate some of those behind these campaigns of harassment really are, and can only serve to highlight that they are slowly running out of options of who else to blame for their own demise into obsolescence.
Hang in there!!
Z.
In reading between the lines, I think it is important that he is not being sued for calling the Media Sentry investigations Illegal. If the RIAA thought they had a case in which to sue, I would have expected an attack on this. The silence is deafening.
I wonder if Ray can keep his blog entries up if he simply stated the line in contention as in my opinion.
The stating an opinion as fact is the basis of the action. His opinion may indeed be fact. It would be interesting if the RIAA lost and it was proven in court to be fact. I think the RIAA may have a tiger by the tail on this one.
The truth shall set you free!
milk it for all its worth
this is called free public relations
when you ignore your critics, they tend to fade away
but when you attack your critics, you stimulate neutral party's interests in the issue under contention, and often times, if you are on the right side of history, summon new support for the good cause
keep up the good fight ray. consider the RIAA suing you a gift: you yourself are now fodder for newsworthiness
thank you RIAA, you fucking morons
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm not sure they've really thought this through... according to TFA, one of the things they're accusing Ray of doing is trying to make the RIAA look bad. He doesn't need to: they do a pretty good job of it themselves.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
It wouldn't surprise me if this ploy by the RIAA was simply an attempt to distract Mr. Beckerman, who has become a bit of a thorn in their side. If he's busy defending himself he won't have time to defend other RIAA victims.
And what are the penalties for defaulting? What? There are none? Fantastic.
clearly, you hate freedom. i must kindly ask you to get the fuck out of america, not for your nationality of origin, but your diametrically opposed to our values views.
Someone might have believed that line 10 years ago, but considering the state of the US at the moment, it is obviously just flamebait. The American government certainly doesn't value freedom, and the citizens aren't doing anything about that, so how can you claim that freedom is at the core of your values? Is this the freedom to have a gun and be able to say whatever you want, as long as you don't actually do anything about it, like have a non government-sactioned protest (which is pretty much the dumbest idea ever)?
which is totally what she said
AIG won't default. AIG has plenty of assets--the problem with AIG right now is liquidity, and that's what this loan is supposed to cover (operating income while the assets are made liquid). If the money's out more than a month or so I'd be outright shocked.
And the federal loan is first on the repayment list.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
The facts tend to get ignored on slashdot when it gives people an opportunity to have a go at the RIAA. Facts are only facts if they support your case apparently....
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
This is completely off-topic, but an important enough discussion that I think it's worth chiming in anyways.
Yes, many will feel the pain either way. However, I think the most fair and equitable distribution of pain and accountability follows the plan of letting those investors that propped up AIG take the fall for its bad business practices.
I feel much the same way about bailing out fmae and fmac. Sure, people are losing thousands of dollars in their home "values" and their retirement investments. However, the drops in home prices are a natural market balance that reflects a lowered ability to pay. More accurately, it better represents the real ability to pay, when the mortgage balloon game is ended. Today thousands of homes sit on the foreclosure market, rotting away from the inside out and developing crippling mold issues that ultimately can completely destroy the value of a home. Yet, the banks refuse to unload these homes at a price that would move them off the market immediately, choosing instead to let them rot to maintain their inflated prices. Let us not forget that from 2000 -> 2005, home prices DOUBLED. Their prices prior to this "collapse" were in fact inflated, are still inflated, and taking out the exhorbitant mortgages to purchase them at their inflated value, was a mistake.
So lets summarize - banks are holding houses they aren't willing to sell for what the market will bear, plenty of people need homes and don't have them, and the government solution is we need to bail out the poor, poor bank at the expense of said non-homeowners?
NO.
One can argue how taxes should or should not be used, but I think we can mostly agree taxes should not be used to redistribute wealth to the wealthy.
I think things are fine. This clearance sale on housing is bringing the price of a home back into the range that a young couple starting a family may be able to afford one on a real income. When the next generation can buy homes, the price will stabilize. And maybe the younger generation, which is currently piddling away all their money the Middle East, will learn something from the older generation, which did the same thing in the Far East, and instead invest their money here at home, so that when it's time to retire we don't have to resort to robbing our children.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
Actual there are very good non racists reasons to ahve a national language.
Cost.
Once you interpret a document into one language, you must do it for all languages. This is very expensive.
Culture division.
Creating segments of the population that has difficulty communicating with other segments leads to an US v Them scenario; which leads to civil unrest.
A cheaper and more long term solution is a more widely available English language courses.
Encouraging people to speak the language.
Many people with 'Mexican' decent in California are multiple generation and speak English.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Expecting people to learn the dominant language is not bigotry, it's a reasonable expectation of a person putting in effort to work with society. I don't have anything against some random immigrant into the US. Good for him, I hope he does well for himself. If he chooses, however, to not attempt to learn English, which is the de facto national language, that's just plain rude.
If you want to let rude people who don't want to put forth the effort to work together with our society be accepted in our nation, that's your problem. I, for one, want people who actually give a damn, and try to become better citizens.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Have you been to Spain recently? There are more British expats in some parts than native Spanish people, and they really do expect to have their every whim catered for. English speakers are one of the most arrogant groups in the world, linguistically. The fact that our language is dominant in many areas puts us at a natural advantage.
But let's get this into perspective. Slashdot is on the Internet; it's not a country. Someone who posts here with less-than-excellent English might be posting from Mexico, or Lithuania, or Uganda. They're not refusing to learn the language of their country of residence, they're just not great at the language Slashdot chose for its website.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
call it ignorant if you want, but i'm not learning a new language every time i get a neighbor who cant talk mine and wont try to learn.
Clearly you don't have time to learn a second language. You've barely mastered your first.
If I could get money loaned to me at the rates the government does (0% or close to it), and was then able to loan that money out at 12%, I would call it a windfall. The government is going to basically get something for nothing out of this.
I wonder if Ray can keep his blog entries up if he simply stated the line in contention as in my opinion.
"in my opinion" is not a magic word that lets you defame people with impunity.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
I'd agree, but to allow these banks and insurers to go under would result in a massive cascade of bankruptcies that would plunge the entire world economy into a depression, forcing people out of their homes and out of their jobs. Then we'd see the re-emergence and re-popularisation of radical politics like fascism and communism. There's a good chance we would end up in another war, possibly a big one since that's what happened after the great depression of the 1930's.
So although I agree in principle, I'd rather see a bailout.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
There shouldn't be a financial industry! Industry produces and commerce sells. Finance == value. You can print money, but that actually causes all money to lose value, which is the opposite of what a finance "industry" should be doing. There's a lot of financial commerce happening, though; our money is being bought from us at a deflated rate and sold to the rich for even less.
You sir, are a naive tool. The financial industry provides the capital upon which industry is built. Without it, the only people with enough capital to create industry are the rich.
You'll have that sometimes...
Most of the private individuals getting shafted by AIG probably didn't even KNOW they were dealing with AIG.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Sure AIG might insure them, but the problem is that they insured without the capital reserve in place to back the insurance. They insured risky loans without the money to fulfill their finanical obligations should those loans fall through.
"If AIG goes under, its backing becomes worthless"
And one might argue that their backing was worthless from the start, just nobody knew it until the shit began to hit the fan. What's the point of having insurance if the insurer can't cover the claims?
Don't get me wrong, I agree with your assessment of the disaster that would take place should AIG go under.. But lets make no mistake, they dug their own grave here. They didn't start the chain of events that led to this collapse, but neither are they the innocent victims that some people claim them to be.
"The American government certainly doesn't value freedom, and the citizens aren't doing anything about that"
All of them aren't necessarily "doing anything about it". I live in Minneapolis and when the RNC was in town, there were plenty of people "doing something about it". I can tell you because I witnessed some of it firsthand.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Wow, that's just a huge assumption...I just want to be able to communicate with somebody without straining ans wasting a bunch of my time. Has nothing at all to do with their culture...
dB Masters
I don't own any bonds. I don't have any investments. I don't even own a credit card. So, why should I be contributing to keeping AIG alive?
Now, in a related note, I also can't get a mortgage. Been rejected. Why are the tax dollars I pay being used to keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac alive? Let's see. I apply to purchase a house and get a mortgage... where if accepted my money would provide a house. Now, these companies get my money anyway, except I don't get the house.
Maybe it is time for the entire world's financial industry to take a massive hit.
I'll continue to grow my own vegetables, thanks.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
Spoken like true EuroTrash (TM). Yeah, because no other nation's economies will be affected by the US having some problems. Every other nation in the world is completely independent from them financially.
Don't be silly. The US government doesn't spend taxpayer money when a ridiculously overblown problem is presented, the US government spends DEBT.
We're basically handing our kids money to companies. Don't worry though, all the middle-aged losers who are spending the money will be long dead before the time comes to pay most of it back.
It's been a long time.
If their culture stands between them and learning the language, then yes, ditch it.
Their culture is of zero worth (as mine is), and that much importance. Culture is just tradition, which is stuff we do for no good reason. (Or it wouldn't be traditional, just reasonable. Canadians shovel sidewalks, but not for fun or culture, but because they get covered in snow.)
Of course, they can follow whatever cute little traditions their people traditionally have, no matter how stupid, like cutting down a perfectly good tree to celebrate the birth of a space ghost. But these things are worthless, and we shouldn't cater to the traditionalist's demands for "respect" for their culture or we'll still be chopping down trees for this in another two-thousand years. Nutty old crap is nutty old crap.
Racist.
Well, countryist. "Us asshole Americans"...
Way to lump a few ignorant god-botherers ranting about racial impurity and anti-furriner idiots rating about welfare money into a group and label it "everyone in America".
I wouldn't mind a guest who spoke little to no English, as long as they realized the delay in finding a bathroom was their fault... But a neighbor, who then started to demand that I spend money translating street signs, no.
Depends on the context.
All it takes to create industry is ingenuity and drive, the money comes (should come, rather) later.
How do you propose to buy equipment, rent office/factory/warehouse space, etc. without any money? Suppliers and landlords won't take "ingenuity and drive" as payment. If the subject of your ingenuity is something that's expensive to make, you'll probably need investors (i.e. a loan) to make it happen.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Oh the irony. It's almost painful.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
If you were advocating punishment for the AIG bigwigs, then I'd agree with you. Going bankrupt does not help you in any way. It causes a weakening of the financial positions of those invested in some way in AIG. The majority of banks, right now, are also having severe problems.
So what we end up with is a domino effect, where AIG fails, then someone else fails because AIG did, then others whose investments were dependent on both fail, and so on, and so forth, until you feel the effect anyway. The person who talked about investments and bonds is way off. This affects you if you do commerce with anyone at all. If you own a mud hut in the middle of Nebraska, and live on worms and seaweed, then yeah, you're not going to be bothered.
I don't directly own any bonds. I'm pretty sure my bank does. I don't know under what mattress my employer keeps its cash, but I do know it's dependent upon the financial system for economic stability. My employer's clients are large companies that also depend upon the ability to borrow money from time to time. And those companies are also dependent upon large numbers of ordinary people to have the wherewithall to spend large amounts of money, borrowing because the amounts involved are considerably higher than can be raised by stashing $100 into a jar every month.
And, for what it's worth, it's not like there's no return here. We didn't give AIG the money, we bought an 80% stake in them. Most analysts are suggesting that AIG can recover, and when it does it will be able to buy itself out of state ownership in a relatively short space of time, with the taxpayer making a buck in the process.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The trouble is that such bailouts then teach people to take even more risks next time around. When the executives of a large company such as AIG are next faced with the choice between taking a risky road with a great reward or a safe road with small rewards, why should they not choose the risky road? After all, they're too large to fail, so Uncle Sam will save them if the risk doesn't pay off.
I don't have an answer. I can see that letting them fail isn't good either. But this is just going to make it worse next time around, the way I see it.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
"New York Country Lawyer" Ray Beckerman has probably done more to publicize the RIAA's thuggish, bullying tactics in clear, concise, non-legalese language than just about anybody else in the United States. And he's certainly done more than his share against them in court, if I understand correctly. It's no surprise they're targeting him.
I hope the Slashdot community is ready to help the guy out if necessary, because he's helped keep the RIAA and similar scumbags off all of our necks.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Freedom is our core value. The problem is that the government doesn't represent us. The American government is betraying American core values.
No, quite simply. If I moved to France, I wouldn't expect the French taxpayers to pay for an interpreter so I didn't have to be bothered to learn French. Now I suppose if these immigrants wanted to pay their own interpreters, well that's fine I guess. But I can't help but think it would be easier and cheaper to just learn the local language.
Ok, mods, come the fuck on. Overrated != Disagree.
Post a fucking response if you disagree, instead of abusing the moderation system. The Overrated mod is meant to negate a bad positive mod, it should never be the first (or only) moderation on a comment.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Slashdot is focussed on US stories and issues, so yes, its language is going to be english. You've got a lot of nerve calling someone arrogant for expecting decent english (dunno if it is - you didn't quote the complaint or the bad english) on a site that's pretty much all english.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
America's founders were capable, wealthy men who took significant risks and turned down opportunities in supporting the formation of the U.S. I know you don't have to worry about having you house torched and family killed, but we know there are more profitable ways to make a living then defending people who can't pay you against very wealthy aggressive corporations. You give American Patriots a good name. Thanks for all you do.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
So people who don't speak perfect english shouldn't post on Slashdot? Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, but many would argue that blocking all US traffic would be a good start. Maybe people, god help them, read this and other sites to improve their english? Perhaps we should be tolerant of them? My German and French aren't perfect, but when I go there and make an effort to speak the language they tend to be helpful and friendly; they don't tell me to fuck off home till I'm perfect. Of course it's almost impossible to become fluent in a language without trying to communicate with native speakers, but don't let that worry you.
My appreciation of Douglas Adams is far deeper than yours.
People are people, no matter where you go.
... The plural of anecdote is not data and It's A Small World After All, etc., etc., etc.
I'm from the USA, and recently traveled to Italy with little warning and thus little preparation. I speak a decent amount of Spanish, but no Italian. I put forth an effort to learn as many useful parts of the language as I could, as fast as I could, but was obviously still woefully unprepared to carry on a conversation in Italian when I arrived.
Some people were nice about it. They'd wait patiently as I consulted a translation dictionary for the missing word, try to help with hand signs or synonyms, or find someone who spoke English if all else failed. (And they were generally happy for my tourism dollars, too.)
Some other people... not quite. I knew enough of the language to know when I was being berated for not speaking correctly (they always say the first words you learn are 'yes', 'no', 'hello', 'thank you', and then all the curses). One gas station attendant even physically shoved me while cursing me (in Italian) for my lack of comprehension when I asked him which gas type my rental car used.
I mean, I live in Silicon Valley and hear at least 5 different languages between the office, the park, and my apartment every day. (And yes, I'm a Midwestern Caucasian of Italian descent.) The only time I'm bothered is when I feel guilty for having to ask someone to repeat themselves because of their accent (and my hearing difficulty).
So yeah. I think people will be people and continue to be widely distributed in their views and bigotries. I wish more Americans would be more understanding of culture differences, and, after traveling to Italy, I wish more Italians would be, too. (And I've never heard someone seriously use that argument, but I can certainly see some people being closed-minded enough to try.) Us "asshole 'Americans' " aren't all bigots, nor are "they" all perfectly welcoming fellows.
*shrug*
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
Insurers always have the risk of not having the money to cover claims. It's part of the bet that insurers (and the insured) make when figuring out premiums.
(The following is just general mention, not specifically to you, midnitewolf.) No insurance company can cover 100% of its claims at any one time. A company may insure $50 billion in real estate, but they don't keep $50 billion on-hand to cover it. They factor in the payouts over time against expected premium and investment gains, and adjust things accordingly.
Back to your points, there aren't many innocents in this market. It was out and out greed that got things to this spot (kind of like some of the problems in the financial industry in the 1980s), and a severe lack of caring about the futures of families that had no hope of paying off their mortgage. Business may be primarily about making money, but it shouldn't be outright lying to consumers, either. (Cue Slashdot cynicism.)
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
This guy is so used to translate RIAA gibberish into the cleartext nonsense it is that I personally think they have made their biggest mistake since starting their campaign.
Ray, thanks for showing that the legal profession DOES have people with old fashioned ethics.
I can't speak for others, but I am certainly 100% behind you. Thanks for your work.
Insert
I don't own any bonds. I don't have any investments. I don't even own a credit card. So, why should I be contributing to keeping AIG alive?
Do you have money in a bank? Do you ever want to see that money ever again?
People shouldn't expect coddling for poor english; I don't know what you're on about - half the people with crappy english are from here and are just bad at it. Being nice and trying to figure out what they mean doesn't lead to better english, it leads to worse english.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Correction is fine; telling them they shouldn't be here isn't. That clearer?
My appreciation of Douglas Adams is far deeper than yours.
And if I understand the news about AIG correctly, the stock is only taken temporarily as a security. So if AIG recovers and can pay back the money, these investors get off way too lightly as well.
The feds took stock warrants totaling nearly 80% of the company as collateral. The warrants are basically options, at anytime they can be turned into stock that the feds will permanently own. There is good reason not to make it 100%, no one wants the fed to actually have to own or oversee the dissolution of this company. It would be far better if they paid back the loan and went on to be a successfully company.
So if AIG recovers and can pay back the money, these investors get off way too lightly as well.
I don't agree with this. This is not entirely AIGs fault. AIG insured a lot of bad debt its true, however their current liquidity problems are also the product of fear (due to LEH, BS) driven increases to what amounts to interest rates on loans that they (like all banks/insurers) need. When these rates went up then AIG's costs shot up causing the recent problem. Nothing changed at AIG, its just that because of LEH/BS/etc the market fearfully drove AIG's debt costs up, prior to that they were fine.
Also keep in mind that the the Feds didn't write AIG a check for $85billion, they gave them a line of credit. The presence of this line of credit could make AIGs debt costs go down (remember they are artificially high due to fear) without ever actually using it fully.
Anyway I think seeing one's investment go from $70/share to $2 is probably PLENTY of punishment.
What about Morgan Stanley? The exact same thing could happen to them and they are currently turning a profit! Right now the market is so fearful that profit/loss doesn't matter. Should investors loose all of their money because a panic induced mob crashed prices? I certainly don't want to see profitable companies like Morgan Stanley go out of business and fire all of their workers because of a panicked crazed mob.
I'm going to stick my neck out again, it's my duty as resident /. asshole.
I say let AIG fail. Let the dominoes fall. It's the slap in the face the world needs to get back on the wagon. Treat the banking industry like a drug addict - let it bottom out and come back crawling for mercy.
We will suffer in the short term, but we will prosper in the long term.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I don't really think people "choose" whether to learn English or not learn English, as if they could push a button. I think these people have a lot of problems to deal with, the language being just one, and they don't have time to do whatever they want. Poverty is not so easy.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
My, that old Chinese saying is true: "sha ji gei hou kan" - means "kill the chicken to warn the monkeys". Or attempt to anyway.
The RIAA has plenty to fear from this guy because they've obviously gone too far with their heavy-handed approach. Goodness, They feel he's embarrassing them? Give me a break. With the way they're going, they don't need his help.
Solution is simple: stop buying music directly from any of the RIAA members.
...or dyslexic, or badly educated because your teachers didn't care, or the child of illiterate parents, or just plain tired after a long day, or a potentially hyper-intelligent foreigner who just hasn't mastered English yet...
I'm not a fan of poor English either - I teach the subject at Oxford, so I'm probably more aware of mistakes then the average reader. But when someone is obviously a learner rather than a sloppy native speaker, let's give them a break, huh?
Would you rather participate in an inward-looking forum where only native speakers with the requisite educational level are allowed, or one where you have a far broader range of opinions and ideas which are sometimes marred by poor (but nonetheless understandable) language usage?
A closed mouth gathers no foot.