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Judge Orders Verizon Subscriber Identities Sealed
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In one of the mass 'John Doe' cases based on single BitTorrent downloads of films, Malibu Media v. Does 1-13, a pro se litigant made a motion to quash the subpoena. The Court granted a stay of the subpoena, pending its decision on the motion to quash. Unfortunately for John Doe, Verizon had turned over its subscribers' identities 5 days BEFORE the response was due, thus possibly mooting both the stay and the motion to quash. Fortunately for John Doe, the Judge wasn't too happy about this, ordered the information sealed, directed plaintiff's lawyers to destroy any copies, and ruled that they can't use the information unless and until the Court denies the motion to quash."
What did you expect? Come on...
here you go :
"In one of the mass 'John Doe' cases based on single BitTorrent downloads of films, Malibu Media v. Does 1-13, a pro se litigant made a motion to quash the subpoena. The Court granted a stay of the subpoena, pending its decision on the motion to quash. Unfortunately for John Doe, Verizon had turned over its subscribers' identities 5 days BEFORE the response was due, thus possibly mooting both the stay and the motion to quash. Fortunately for John Doe, the Judge wasn't too happy about this, ordered the information sealed, directed plaintiff's lawyers to destroy any copies, and ruled that they can't use the information unless and until the Court denies the motion to quash."
A common misconception. Since money isn't tied to anything physical, there is no reason that more of it need lower the value. The current value is already arbitrary.
Wow, you've really skipped economics 101 haven't you...
The price of things is based on offer and demand. Suppose I offer to sell you a satsuma at $1 and you earn only $10 a day, I've priced it too high and you won't buy, so I'll lower my price until you and I agree that the price is okay for you and me (i.e. when you estimate the satsuma is worth whatever portion of your work I ask for it - your money, that is - and I estimate I can make a reasonable profit with your purchase).
Now suppose you photocopy a bunch of dollar bills: you come to be with $1000 in your pocket and buy my satsuma for $1 like it was nothing. What do you think I'm gonna do when I see you're so rich? I'll raise my price since I can make a bundle out of you and you don't care. So I'll sell my satsumas at, say, $20 a pop.
And if enough people photocopy dollar bills, everybody will rise their prices. Who's losing? Those who don't photocopy dollar bills. Suddenly, they can't afford my satsumas anymore. They've lost purchasing power. For them, their money has lost value.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
A common misconception. Since money isn't tied to anything physical, there is no reason that more of it need lower the value. The current value is already arbitrary. I will also point out that there are far more dollars in databases than we have currency, so we should be able to print quite a bit more without losing any real value at all; we would only be introducing a physical aspect to money that already exists.
I'm sorry, but you're completely wrong. This is disinformation. It never ceases to amaze me how few people have any idea how money actually works. Of course, the government is happy to encourage and promote this lack of understanding and misinformation, as it works to their advantage in effectively stealing wealth from everyone with very few even understanding why they're effectively poorer.
Money is a representation of value, either in services/labor or in goods, regardless of whether the money is tied to something like gold or not, as gold is also a representation of value in goods or services/labor.
Back in the old West, a $20 gold coin would buy you one of the finest suits made. Today, that same amount of gold still buys a fine suit. It's only the amount in dollars that's changed. The comparative actual values have not changed. Back in the 1940s when dimes had a specific amount of silver, a gallon of gas cost two dimes, today those same dimes (with that amount of silver) still buys a gallon of gas. The relative values haven't changed, just the amount of money to equal that relatively static value has increased.
Printing more money dilutes the value of the money, effectively robbing everyone of the value they exchanged either in goods or services/labor for the money they hold. This is why gold prices have rocketed recently. Gold has not gained in value, rather, the dollar used to buy it has lost value.
The Fed engaging in "quantitative easing" (printing/creating more money from thin air) has caused the value of the money to drop dramatically, thus requiring more money to purchase the same value in goods and services/labor. This effectively robs everyone holding that currency of the value of the goods or services/labor they exchanged for that money.
It's theft on a really grand scale with everyone holding US dollars as the victims.
Every time the Fed does another "quantitative easing", your salary/pay is effectively cut.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I think your analysis is overly simplistic. It's true that inflation reduces the values of our savings and wages, but it also reduces the value of the debt we owe to others. That's how the country avoids paying off previously accrued debt: by inflating it into irrelevance.
I have no credit so it doesn't help me. But it's not true that inflation is only a loss for people who hold dollars, if they also owe.
The problem here is that it only really works out to the advantage those holding absurdly-large and unrealistic (for the overwhelming majority of private citizens) amounts/ratios of debt to income in order to make up for the increases in the prices of everything else they purchase like food, energy, goods, and services. This does not work to the advantage of the vast majority of citizens.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
> Actually, the problem is that it's likely he *did* take college economics.
+25 Insightful, Informative and just plain "Yes." :)
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
That's one part of Econ that I never did understand... WHY should there always be a little inflation? What possible good could there be for my daily gallon of Red Bull to cost an extra 20 cents this year than it did last year? (Higher prices provide incentive to cut back, but that's a health benefit not an economic benefit.) Deflation makes sense - less money moving around, vendors make less, so they have less to pay in wages. The whole thing spirals down. But where's the problem with no inflation?
In theory, there is no problem with 0 inflation. The problem is attaining it. The Federal Reserve has powers, but unlike the powers of congress and the president and the supreme court, it takes a long time to see the affect of any policy they put in place. The economy is a supertanker and the Fed is a little bow thruster. It is difficult to know precisely what effect Fed policies will have, and how long it will take to get there.
That being said, we need a small amount of inflation in order to keep up with other countries. Most other counties subscribe to the "small amount of inflation" theory. If we had 0 inflation, prices overseas would rise (purchasing power would decrease) but our currency would stay the same (ie, a very strong dollar). This would be great for American tourists traveling abroad, but the companies in the US that make things would have a hard time selling things overseas. Most Japanese companies that export are having a difficult time with this. The Yen was roughly 110 Yen/Dollar about 4 years ago and now it hovers around 80 Yen/Dollar. This is a substantial difference and since most big Japanese companies source things and do machining inside Japan (their costs are mostly fixed to the Yen) some are really struggling to sell abroad.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
All Taxes are regressive. The rich can always avoid some (most) taxes, while the poor cannot avoid any. The progressive liberals keep thinking that taxes on the wealthy hurt the wealthy, when they hurt those the wealthy employ.
Case in point, the "luxury" tax on new Yachts and the like. When the tax was engaged, the rich simply stopped buying those items, killing the industries targeted, and causing unemployment as companies laid off workers due to much lower demands for said Luxuries. The tax was quickly repealed when it diddn't raise anywhere near the amount of revenue it claimed, and the corresponding loss of revenue and unemployment benefits out weighed the revenue it did generate.
The problem is, the Laffer Curve is more than accurate, however we are just left guessing at where "maximum revenue" is generated. My thesis is that revenue is maxed out when people are willing to endure taxes for the things they want (not need), which is one of the reasons I'm fairly Libertarian on things like currently illicit pharmaceuticals. Legalize drugs, create jobs and industry in the process, tax (and regulate) the crap out of them, and use the revenue to fund government. At some point, the Laffer Curve kicks in, and people STOP doing drugs (good thing) and revenue starts to decline (see Cigarettes for example).
IF you do this for all products / services deemed "harmful" to society, but otherwise "victimless", such as Alcohol, Drugs, Porn and Prostitution, we'd have all the money to do all the things we want as a society. And taxes become "voluntary" for all, including the poor. You won't have to pay taxes if you don't want what is taxed.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.