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Eric Schmidt To Sell Up To 42% of Stake In Google
derGoldstein writes "AllThingsD reports that Eric Schmidt 'plans to sell up to 3.2 million shares of his class A common stock in the company,' according to an SEC filing. 'The amount is equal to approximately 42.1 percent of his overall stake in Google.'"
I doubt this has anything to do with any bad news
for Google. It is my guess Schmidt just wants the
money here and now. Totally understandable.
Or we could have a better incremental tax system where dirt poor is not the bottom and fat rich is not the top.
how much tax he will end up paying when all is said and done.
i bet its a lot less than you or i would pay
captcha=dissuade
> Increasing wealth at one pole, increasing misery at the other.
This has nothing to do with capitalism. This has to do with the government raising taxes aimed at the middle class since the rich can move and the poor can't pay. Decade after decade the middle class shrinks while prices go up, taxes go up and the government becomes like a pimp managing tired older whores.
When both political parties give the government's ATM card to lobbies and spend trillions on what they think will get them elected again it appears that there is no hope.
There is only one solution: become rich or become poor.
lucm, indeed.
Seems to me like GOOG is where MSFT was in the early 2000s. The search business and cell phone platform business are both relatively mature and while other things may be growing, they are inconsequential in the over all picture of GOOG, Since there will be no more 10-25% year on year growth, the Wall Street guys will let the stock stagnate and not grow...If I owned any GOOG, I would sell too!
things can be worse than dirt poor?
and things can be better than fat rich?
sign me up!
He'd be an idiot not to, just look at the price.
Here's a hypothesis:
Google beat the last challenge from the antitrust attorneys from Texas, but it can't count on the future.
Specifically, other states or federal entities could attack it, and then there's all of the EU, which traditionally takes a harder line on privacy violation and monopoly.
Schmidt is no dummy and so he's divesting a reasonable amount (less than half) of his stock to hedge against a potential catastrophic future decline.
Remember what happened to Microsoft. They basically floundered hard after an assault by the department of justice. If the same happens to Google, they'll have to put most of their plans on hold for a decade as well.
Futurist Traditionalism
It's news for a reason. It seems unlikely he is strapped for cash, and as he's acting Executive Chairman of Google, a significant stock sale has to mean he's convinced the market capitalization for his Outfit has peaked. Often, if you look way up ahead in the distance, you can just make out the Captain running ahead of all those rats.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Yes, because there's no poverty or starvation in Marxist countries at all right?
So you want a system where everyone is pulled down to the same level? Where hard work isn't rewarded? Schmidt gets too much for what he's contributed? Perhaps - OK, then how much is too much? Who decides?
I personally know some dirt poor people. Some of them are hard working but unlucky or got a bad start in life (would be my guess), some are hard working but dirt poor because they made a mess of things when they were younger (drinking, not doing their school work, losing jobs through their own doing, etc), and some of them are just plain lazy. And in most of these cases, if you give them a million dollars today, they won't have anything left by next year this time.
Except that US taxes have been trending down for 30 years, and wages have not kept up with inflation.
the bear must have google in its sights
Actually, there's a third solution. You may not have thought of it.
If wealth condensation were an unstoppable force, it would have run to completion thousands of years ago and there would never have been a middle class in all of recorded history. Clearly there is some counteracting force. Something which we haven't since... let's say 1945.
Yes, because there's no poverty or starvation in Marxist countries at all right?
Nah. It is just that in Marxism, everyone is equally poor.
morcego
/tongue in cheek on.....
Maybe he is getting ready due to Microsoft ATE [At The End...) failing by selling 42% of Google to buy 100% of Microsoft
There is only one solution: become rich or become poor.
That's two solutions.
I am not exactly sure what insider trading is, but since he not only knows the inner workings of Google but controls them, how is this not insider trading?
It would be pretty simple for him to influence stock price right before he sells, and theoretically influence it down right before he buys back stock. Hell, it would be simple enough to lower the stock price or rise the stock price of other companies. Just announce that Google plans on competing with company X; Stock falls and he can quietly buy up a big chunk; Then announce that they decided to work together and corner the market with a new wonder device; Stock raises.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
There has never been a country that has implemented marxism, you are probably thinking of stalinism. Yes there is a diffrence and its big. Marx also said that if the Russians ever tried his ideas it would end up in failure.
Careful with the vagueness there. That's 42% of his stake in Google, not to be confused with 42% of the company's stock.
Nah. It is just that in Marxism, everyone is equally poor.
The choice isn't necessarily between extreme capitalism and extreme socialism...
Socialism to the point where people don't starve, can start over after failing and are given a decent chance to go to university, isn't so expensive that hard work won't be profitable anymore.
(Socialism to that extend, does however, encourage risk taking, as there's a system to help you if you fail).
It's often called liberal socialism, many/most countries in Europe (especially northern Europe) are quite successful with this approach.
I think Orwell would say all farm animals were equally poor, except for the pigs...
So, *almost* everyone is equally poor.
Slashdot. Unreadable news to annoy nerds. - wonkey_monkey
Liberal socialism didn't work as well as expected in many places (see Spain).
However, there is one easier to digest concept also: welfare state.
morcego
It is time for the workers, lead by their Leninist vanguard party, to smash the rule of the bourgeois parasites and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, opening the road to socialism.
Yes, let's replace those who have skill and initiative with those who are unwilling or unable to make their own way in the world. I've always found it quite ironic that the "proletariat" has such disdain for the capitalists upon whom they depend to make their living.
In Europe taxes are spent largely on public works, public health, and public services, so taxes are not a net loss for citizens but contribute directly to their welfare and to the smooth running of society for the man in the street.
The difference in the US isn't so much in the rate of taxation, but what is done with your tax dollars. They're not spent for the social good to any large degree, but fund the huge military complex and benefit the rich more than the poor. (Here the rich pay much more tax than anyone else.)
The US "misery" problem to which you refer is much more deeply rooted than could be solved by changing the rate of taxation. It can't. Your society is structured to create misery.
Federal Income Tax is down - almost every other tax has increased. Local wage taxes, state income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes... It took the recent financial crisis to knock us back down to 1970s levels, but expect that to ramp back up as the economy recovers. Just prior to the financial crisis, we were at an all-time high for total tax burden as a percentage of GDP.
Got my numbers here.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Dead or dying is worse.
Clearly there is some counteracting force.
We're fresh out of new continents, though.
It's because the math is confusing. They compute the pay they get divided by the hours they work and try to compare that figure to the same statistic for a capitalist. They get in trouble when they attempt to divide by zero...
No True Scotsman! I mean, Marxist!
You want to incentivize paying your employees better but without eliminating the ability to pay executives great money. I have yet to see a system that does this very well. Perhaps if you taxed income based upon it's relationship to the median income in the country. That way you're not putting a hard cap on how much someone can make but creating an incentive to pay your employees better.
for "rehabilitation"
https://gawker.com/5475332/the-google-ceo-and-his-mistress-the-tell+all-blog
Sucks to be p0wned, doesn't it Dr. Feelgood.. er, Eric?
Yea, Europe isn't my model for any sort of success fiscally. I suspect the solution is just something we haven't figured out yet. It certainly has nothing to do with socialism. Capitalism is at least, not a political dogma. Capitalism is "how money works" All the things you hate about it, are not a part of it. Kickbacks, loopholes, all that sort of shit are people gaming the system and are actually more socialist in nature than anything else.
and slowly dieing of starvation is great.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
Why do people mod this juvenile nonsense up as INSIGHTFUL? Taxes are not the reason. People didn't magically change. Same crooks, different economy over the last couple hundred years. The US prospered at a ridiculous rate since the late 1800s until about the 1970s. See Richard Wolff's talks on youtube and learn. While it's TRUE that the political system is completely corrupt, that has little to do with the disparity. Without a cap on income + politically motivated loopholes, Capitalism is a winners win losers lose. That's CAPITALISM not taxation at work. Taxation impact is a function of economy. $1000 vs 1000 pennies is a lot in both cases, but has nothing to do with the middle or upper class without context of the existing economy.
What do you mean, that kickbacks and loopholes are not part of "how money works"? Sorry to bust your bubble, but the world doesn't actually work as a Randian utopia.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
So we just need to wipe out a continent and colonize it? Awesome.
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I'm getting a price for GOOG of $785. That's $2,512,000,000 of literal cash under the mattress. IT's not that GOOG is a particularly risky stock, but money in the bank is more or less zero-risk; putting enough away to live like a king for the rest of your days certainly seems to me the absolutely perfect retirement strategy.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Also inflation and quantitative easing, so promoted by the last few administrations, are taxes targeted to the low and middle classes who own no equity and are unable to hedge. Keeping the people poor and dependent on your programs is a Machiavellian but predictable way to stay in power.
People will argue that these are two solutions. But just like the two-party system where there is no real option and thus for all things real, this is only one option.
A bit like the option if you want your left knee or your right knee broken. The people doing it say you have a choice, but for those in real life there is no option.
If things do not change, there will be some sort of revolution. Not sure if it can be compared of trowing the red jackets out, beheading the aristocracy or by strikes. I know it will be bloody. I know it will be temporary as after a while you need to redo it.
Not so much a question about if, but about when. It could happen anytime now or 50 years in the future. The start could be somebody not wanting to sit in the back of the bus. It could be somebody trowing tea in the river. It could be one kid killed by the Fingerman, uh, TSA. It probably will be something else.
It will be a random act that will be the last drip, but it will happen.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
You can be a capitalist while being a socialist, they aren't mutually exclusive domains. Many of the socialist countries in the world also have capitalist economies... Hell, the biggest communist country on earth is becoming a bigger capitalist country than the U.S. Hell, capitalism existed in the U.S.S.R.
As you point out, capitalism is how money works. Where there is currency or trade, there is capitalism, no matter what the government is.
Socialism is a political philosophy, and capitalism is an economic theory. Unless we take capitalism as what the edge cases define it as, of course, meaning no taxes, no laws, and no regulations, then they are not in opposition.
Personally, the market should be as free as possible, until it negatively effects individuals or society. Society is the sum of all the people within it, not just certain classes, or those who have more money/power, and government exists for the benefit of society, by the permission of society, and not for certain individuals or classes of people.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Yea, Europe isn't my model for any sort of success fiscally.
Some people say that it might not be great, it certainly isn't bad and hasn't failed as dramatically as the USA.
.. I need one more thing to reinforce my knowledge on this subject, and it needs to be equally vague and terrifying. Oh, yeah : Political manipulations.
I've also heard it said that your style of argumentation has been borrowed straight from fox news. Hold on while I find some other statement
Capitalism is at least, not a political dogma. Capitalism is "how money works" All the things you hate about it, are not a part of it. Kickbacks, loopholes, all that sort of shit are people gaming the system and are actually more socialist in nature than anything else.
Amusingly, just a couple of comments down the thread from yours is someone explaining to us how "true Marxism has never been tried," which of course is the communist's classic excuse when the failings of communism in the real world are pointed out. Fundamentalists of all sorts never seem to realize how much they sound like each other.
Communism in the real world is brutal and corrupt. Capitalism in the real world is brutal and corrupt. You can talk all day about they way you think things ought to work, but in every case you need to take into account that people, not abstract principles, are the ones making the decisions, and those people will not always (or even usually) behave the way your ideology says they should.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
There are other solutions. The French found one. It involved guillotines aplenty. The French aristocracy thought they were invulnerable, until they weren't. I expect something similar down the line for the USA, China, Europe and possibly even some African countries.
Wealth is a form of political power and being oppressed by the wealthy is turning out to be little better than being oppressed by any other dictator. Today, with enough hydrocarbon energy and a semi-functioning economy that provides enough bread and internet hollywood circuses, nobody's going for that other solution. As resources deplete, everyone gets poorer. If enough people hurt enough, well... if a few guys in a plane can take out a building, imagine what a few million angry desperate engineers can do, worldwide?
Go to the Philippines and see what happens when the government screws you over. You work as hard as you can to get out if you're lucky.
RIP NOVELL
Looks like the little Schmidt is on his way out. NK visit didn't go too well either.
A middle class as we know it is a fairly recent phenomenon, probably starting in the Netherlands in the 17th century.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Four solutions!
1. Become modestly rich
2. Become modestly poor
3. Become filthy rich
4. Become filthy poor
16 solutions if you add the qualifiers "happily" or "unhappily"
This is a good idea, except it would probably be easily abused by "splitting companies" into smaller ones. Having progressive taxrates where the marginal rate below the median national income is close to 0% and rises quickly above that would be my solution. While you do want to incentivize working harder, if you make it impossible for the poor to work hard and get ahead, what is the point. Also, inheritance tax!
One big problem with our tax system is that it taxes work far more than wealth. Tax rates on earned income are high, taxes on dividends and capital gains are low. So a very high-paid individual (think good actors, sports figures, etc.) who may bring in $10 million of annual earned income gets taxed at ~50%, while someone who collects $10 million in dividends annually gets taxes at 15%. And the larger tax on work extends way down into middle class incomes, where it constrains people much more than it does my hypothetical high earned-income worker.
I would like to try it the other way around for a bit, or at least bring the two rates nearer one another. Haven't the time to push the numbers, but I wonder what the revenue implications would be if we taxes earned income, dividends, and cap gains all at 25%. There's probably a more balanced mix of rates that would bring in plenty of revenue and ease the disproportionate tax burden on work.
That graph doesn't agree with what you said. Our all time high was in 1944 (94%), and we haven't been anywhere near that in a very long time. We're currently at 33%, which is a huge difference, although that is only tracking the very top tier of income tax. Also, that graph isn't very useful. If we added a new tax tier that said anyone making more than 1 trillion dollars a year would get taxed at 94%, the graph would show 94% at the highest tier, but no one would ever be in that tax bracket, so that number is useless.
This country was created by bold, risk taking thinkers. They may have been bigots and a part of their times, owned slaves and treated women like third class citizens,but they were learned risk takers. I am not sure who would be our leaders and founding fathers/mothers if it happened today, but i know it will be an enormous responsibility to undertake for any group of the people. That being said, my fears that it will instead be the brawl, and torch caring mob that takes down this country seems greater every day. I see the Orwellian devices the governments create, and the policies they pass and try to pass. I want to scream don't they know what happens when you do this to a population? Didn't they read history books or literature? Do they care nothing for their brother and sister on the sidewalk? to their own freedoms? Are they not of the people as well? Then my thoughts move to perhaps the government is not of the people, and are a separate class of corporations, and monopoly men. It is Us they FEAR. The man working the docks. The lady at the check out line. The fisherman. The Woman in the office. The coder at his desk. The geek in the living room. If that is the case, then they have already lost since they are the PROBLEM. This is the digital age and what do we do to problems? They get put on a webpage and showed to everyone in the world, and then we crowd source an answer. Whether this works for what we have in our situation I am not sure. However, it is up to US to solve this problem now, and no amount of screaming,voting, writing, and speaking will solve it. It is a time for action, and yes blood may be spilled, It should not be our first, second, or one hundredth option, only our last. Therefore I call to my fellows, to stand against anyone who would deny us the people our freedoms, dignity, and well being. I ask that you put aside any differences, and enter the process of creating a new world society that holds these ideals at its very core. We must do this now if we are to save what we have accomplished in the past century. To wait is to be too late, and we need all hands to create a world for all peoples. There will be false starts, despair, and rage. It will be dismissed, ignored, and called a terrorist. persist and be resolute for it is not only for your self that your fight, but for those who come after you, and after them as well. There are those who can do little, there are some who can do more, and few who can do a lot. It is for those who can do little we must do the most.It will not be easy, nothing worth doing ever is.
NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER GIVE UP! "No limitations, no boundaries, there is no reason for them."
Please continue reading. I was referring to the TOTAL tax burden: Federal, State, Local. You were only looking at the Federal chart, which has been bouncing along at about the same rate since the 50s.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
He's selling his stocks, as other billionaires are doing, to get out of the stock market before it crashes again: http://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/billionaires-dump-economist-stock/2012/08/29/id/450265
This is exactly how it used to be in the US. In the early twentieth century a person that worked for a living was unlikely to pay much of anything in the way of income taxes. Adjusted, it was above $65,000/yr... much more than I make now. So I wouldn't have paid income tax at all. Everything was paid for with excise taxes on things like alcohol and tobacco ('sin taxes', now). The wealthy paid income tax at a wide range of rates, depending on when you're looking at.
But that only worked before large federal benefit programs. We'd dealt with massive foreign debt before (really the origin of federal taxation, to pay off France), but our spending really started to explode and we haven't looked back since. Nowadays we collect more from a much from a 'broad base'.
Eric Shitt is an arrogant asshole.
Any system would work with an honest, caring, non-corrupt government.
Which is why none of them ever work.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
If he sells it all, will he be the first all cash billionaire, if only for a minute before he converts them to Treasuries, bonds, and other stocks?
Wasn't that long ago, and certainly cut into his spare cash. Also, Planetary Resources, Inc probably needs cash soon.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
well, in the movie my man godfrey 1936, there is a line where the character say " i don't mind giving 60% to the government " ... which he's implying his tax rate is 60%. this seems to conform to the chart.
What we need to find the distribution of the income
if you see me, smile and say hello.
revolution by itself is fine. The question is, will it get worse afterwards?
The market economy is a tool, not a way of life. Beyond a certain point, monetary rewards do not cause people to aspire to be more productive, so what's the point in letting that wealth accumulate in their hands? Power? You can have a tax system that is far more progressive than it is today while still rewarding hard work.
Lol, I got distracted by the pretty chart, my bad.
We should get rid of the whole huge military complex and replace it with drones.
We need flying drones, walking drones, floating drones and rolling drones.
Then we need to replace the current people who are flying this generation of drones with drones.
We can get piloting drones, strategy drones, driving drones, refueling drones and engineering drones.
Once we have that in place, Obama and Panetta can run the entire conflict without the need for any 'military complex'.
FREEDOM!!!!
Which only leaves the question - what does America do to employ it's 3.2 million servicemen and servicewomen who would then be unemployed and unskilled at anything useful?
Did you give any thought as to why they do depend on them? Maybe because, at some point in time, capitalists claimed all means of manufacturing, all natural resources as their property, and enforced this (and are still enforcing) with military strength?
You want to incentivize paying your employees better but without eliminating the ability to pay executives great money.
All employees that actually do anything, are on fixed, and very inflexible salary. It's ersatz sales drones and arrogant executives, that get any variations.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Capitalism is bad by design, it doesn't have to be broken or corrupt to keep everyone but tiny minority poor. In fact, someone (such as European government) has to constantly and severely keep breaking it, to keep it from slipping into what US has.
Socialism, on the other hand, by design promotes equality and universal access to abundant wealth. Obviously it only works when wealth is abundant (ex: 60's-80's USSR, not North Korea), however it actually is supposed to be that way, and corruption converts it to something that could approach (European-diluted form of) Capitalism.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Marx is doomed to failure. The problem with the Marx crapola you're spouting is that it ends in Socialism which ends up in the hands of the bankers anyway! Looking at the news over the past couple of years??? At the end of the day (or decades) someone is going to be left holding the bag of debt that socialism garners and then the cries begin for someone to either forgive that debt or buy it from them ending also in an interest payment and severe realignments of society where dumpster diving for food is an ever growning opportunity for media photographers. Your recommended system ends at the same dead end point just by taking a couple of different avenues to get there. Combine that with extremely liberal immigration policies that continually allow the overflow of borders with people not well educated and during a time of global recession when they cannot find suitable work. Reading or listening to the news, Marx? Most of us would like the government to stay out of our lives and let us make a living for ourself under the power of our own steam engine. The problem is not capitalism but politicians who have jumped into the pockets corporations and special interest groups like a joey in a kangaroo's pouch.
Or put a better way: All of these pure systems fail because they ignore the truth of human nature.
They seem to enjoy so many freedoms.
No, you're wrong, you can't be a "capitalist" People use that term incorrectly. "Capitalism" is how money works. It's in flux all the time but has general rules that are rather firm. "Socialism" is a political dogma with the goal of manipulating Capitalism into doing things it wouldn't naturally do. It doesn't work... it never works.
Capitalism is equal and fair, provided sales are transparent. This is where government regulation can help. Weights and Measures. Clearly defined products. Legal recourse for breaches of contracts. The government fails when it trys to regulate or manipulate prices. Or trys to ban products, regulate what can and can't be sold, and when it prevents failed business models from suffering their well deserved fates.
Kickbacks and loopholes are Capitalism ways of dealing with errors in the system. Artificial barriers put up by governments that prevent economic growth are circumvented in the most cost efficient way possible. Take away the artificial barriers, and there are no kickbacks/loopholes.
The fact is, if you pass a law that prevents people from making money in a certain way, all that happens is that the ones that can afford to bribe those that write the laws will continue to operate in the most efficient way. Stop creating laws that we all know the Rich wont have to follow. They are just burdens on the poor and middle class.
Perhaps he is using the dollar coins to buy bitcoins.
Capitalism is equal and fair, provided sales are transparent. This is where government regulation can help. Weights and Measures. Clearly defined products. Legal recourse for breaches of contracts. The government fails when it trys to regulate or manipulate prices. Or trys to ban products, regulate what can and can't be sold, and when it prevents failed business models from suffering their well deserved fates.
This is what I meant by an edge definition. There isn't a purely capitalistic country on Earth, and probably never has been one for any significant period of time. On the other hand, pretty much every country on Earth has some flavor of socialistic policy, stretching back a very long time. Capitalism by this definition is a myth, and as much a utopian ideal as Communism.
Probably because when societies don't ban dangerous products, misleading or harmful and exploitative practices, things go bad pretty quickly, and people force their governments to protect them (as is their right, and as is the function of government). Personally, and I really don't want to get into it, I think that any economic theory is perfectly fine, until the second it hurts the only thing that matters, people. People are more important than commerce and capital. People need commerce, obviously, but it can go bad. Government exists to keep it within bounds, providing maximal benefit and minimal harm. Where these bounds exist are debatable, and these definitions vary from culture to culture, and time to time. There isn't one true definition, rule, or set of standards.
But actually we're just having a semantics fight now... Your thinking of economic philosophies (laissez faire, in particular, it seems), which generally are political philosophies as well. You'll find there are several competing economic philosophies. All them them have about as much force as the various competing political philosophies, meaning not much. They are all utopian, and sound very nice as a philosophy, but don't take into account that the world is a messy, chaotic thing with more factors than anyone can ever truly foresee.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
It is time for the workers, lead by their Leninist vanguard party, to smash the rule of the bourgeois parasites and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, opening the road to socialism.
Yes, let's replace those who have skill and initiative with those who are unwilling or unable to make their own way in the world. I've always found it quite ironic that the "proletariat" has such disdain for the capitalists upon whom they depend to make their living.
You would have been a Loyalist in 1775 with your backwards ideas, like the Lord deserves to be Lord and they're so much better than the peons. I mean gimme a break. If all your cherished capitalists dropped dead right now the proletariat would produce ten times as many to replace them, and with improved results. The disdain comes from recognizing the current crop of capitalists are enemies of democracy.
You can be a capitalist, provided you have enough capital.
You seem to forget (as most people while defending their political view points) that human nature is what really bring things down, vendors will almost always try to obscure their sales and it takes more than a well balanced weight from the goverment to enforce fairness in commerce. Without heavy (expensive, tax payed) regulation the packaged food industry would not have to print nutritional facts and list of ingredients and even so they cheat sometimes, in a Laissez-faire scenario we all would be eating more chalk and ashes than we already do, and only really rich people could afford to treat the ailments derived from it.
"The way the money works" has a lot to do with political and ideological context, it doesn't work the same in the U.S. than in Cuba and it was different in the past too. Is not like there is a pure, perfect, abstract market that we have failed to implement, it's more like the economic system we have today with all its failures is the result of a long and inconcluded social, political, and economical strife that spans for centuries and the agents involved vary in size and importance, and have changing, sometimes irrational goals.