Larry Ellison Rejuvenating Hawaii's Sixth-Largest Island (Which He Owns)

McGruber writes "In June of 2012, we discussed news that Larry Ellison, co-founder and chief executive of Oracle, purchased the Hawaiian island Lanai for $300 million. Ellison now owns nearly everything on the island, including many of the candy-colored plantation-style homes and apartments, one of the two grocery stores, the two Four Seasons hotels and golf courses, the community center and pool, water company, movie theater, half the roads and some 88,000 acres of land. (2% of the island is owned by the government or by longtime Lanai families.) Now Ellison is attempting to win over the island's small, but wary, local population, one whose economic future is heavily dependent on his decisions. He and his team have met with experts in desalination and solar energy to change the way water and electricity are generated, collected, stored and delivered on the island. They are refurbishing residential housing intended for workers (Mr. Ellison's Lanai Resorts owns and manages 400 of the more than 1,500 housing units on the island). They've tackled infrastructure, such as lengthening airport runways and paving county roads. And to improve access to Lanai, Mr. Ellison bought Island Air earlier this year and is closing a deal to buy another airline."

Comments

impossible

[roman_mir]

This is impossible, no private enterprise builds infrastructure, works on long term projects, etc. Only governments do that.

--

For the sarcastically challenged: Ellison is expecting some form of a return from this purchase, all purchases that are not for consumption are investments and he is not going to 'consume' his properties, so whatever it is he does with infrastructure, etc., it's all designed to try and create revenue streams, which is what private enterprise does and which is why infrastructure projects should all be privately funded, then their economic viability, success or failure are on the backs of the owners and not tax payers.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, governmens are supposed to provided efficiently and often fail. But that's still better than private corps who only exist to deliver goods as inefficiently as possibly - i.e. with maximum profit.

Re:impossible

[flyneye]

With enough money, you are the government. Haven't you been paying attention to U.S. history at all?

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I tend to think people go overboard with the whole private enterprise / government debate. I tend to lean a little towards private enterprise, if only because if I don't like a company I can boycott them and take my money elsewhere. Government, not so much.

I think the proper balance is to let private enterprise to the work, try to maximize profits, but under heavy government oversight and regulation, because corporations have no ethics or morals other than the profit motive - all other things and people are secondary. And if you notice, a lot of the whining coming from the corporate class is about too much regulation. Not a coincidence.

Re:impossible

[PopeRatzo]

This is impossible, no private enterprise builds infrastructure, works on long term projects, etc. Only governments do that.

Ellison hasn't done anything but buy a bunch of stuff yet. And by the way, he bought most of the island of Lanai from another private enterprise.

Further, if the people don't like what Ellison is does with the place, what can they do, vote him off the island?

Anyway, might be worth keeping an eye on this project a little longer before you start your Galtian touchdown dance, roman_mir, the history of private enterprise owning islands really isn't all that pleasant, at least for the people who live in those places.

Re:impossible

[__aaltlg1547]

Seriously? Who is going to pave the roads in your city where the property belongs to thousands to millions of people and companies instead of just one?

It sounds to me like what Ellison is trying to create is a modern fiefdom in Lanai. Maybe the next thing you'll hear of him is referring to himself as the Prince of Lanai.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, governmens are supposed to protect civil rights and often fail.

Fixed that for you. This is often not efficient at all and that's okay. A totalitarian police state is an efficient gov't. It's companies that are concerned with efficiency.

Re:impossible

[TheRaven64]

Companies have no incentive to invest in infrastructure if most of the benefits will be reaped by other companies. If one company owns an entire campus, town, or island, then they are generally good at improving the infrastructure. If such an area is owned by a diverse set of companies and individuals, then good infrastructure is rarely an emergent phenomenon, unless some organisation is responsible for collecting money to pay for it and for providing it. This organisation is traditionally referred to as a government...

Re:impossible

[__aaltlg1547]

Ellison is one of the more productive people in the world, he was able to devise a machine that is his company, that makes him one of the most productive people out there. All of his employees, all of his properties, they are all extensions of this machine.

I'd put it a little differently. Ellison is a very clever man who has devised a way of diverting a fraction of the productivity of over 100,000 people into his pocket. That way is the Oracle Corporation. Indirectly, his company diverts a fraction of the productivity of about 390,000 corporate customers comprising the efforts of millions of people into his pocket.

Nobody ever accumulated great wealth any other way. The most you can ever achieve from your own productivity is to be moderately comfortable.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, with private enterprise, boycotting them is about all you can do, which sucks if your whole life is there. If someone bought your county and made your life unbearable, would you consider moving away an acceptable remedy? What if that meant leaving your friends and family and maybe the business that you worked your whole life to build.

Re:impossible

[PopeRatzo]

In January, Mr. Ellison met with Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie. "As far as I'm concerned, he has not made a single misstep," said Gov. Abercrombie

Wait, a government official approves of something a rich guy is doing?

That's unheard of!

I'm sure it has nothing to do with Ellison's political contributions, which have been sizable, both as an individual and through Oracle.

So, from your excerpt, Governor Abercrombie is creaming over Larry Ellison, the people who actually live there, not so much.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

so we get a pacthwork network of infrastructure were 'enterprise' can make a profit. The same entities who will then turn round and demand tax breaks and better infrastructure to do business else they will take their 'jerbs' elsewhere and all the externalties like road maintenance , water supplies etc will be dumped on the tax paper.

sometimes joined up plannig has to be done at a higher level than profit motive.

Re:impossible

[MightyYar]

That works great for new development when there is a local monopoly. My area, like most of the older Philadelphia suburbs, was initially developed by the railroad companies. They made very little money on passenger service, but made boatloads selling real estate around newly installed commuter rail.

I don't think they would have bothered if they didn't own a large swath of land around the rail line, though. That would just make a competing developer rich.

Re:impossible

[sanman2]

Ellison is a clever man who helped invent the modern RDBMS, which is the basis for much of today's information technology.

What have you invented lately?

"Henry Ford was a clever man who invented the otherwise useless automobile, which helped him to divert the productivity of his newly created workforce into filling his personal pocketbook"

"Edison was a crafty fellow who invented this light bulb thing which wasn't very useful, except to divert the productivity of many workers into fattening his own wallet"

"Einstein was a cunning patent clerk who came up with this stupid Relativity thing, which wasn't very useful to anyone except Einstein, because it allowed him to cleverly gain the confidence of the so-called scientific community, while also turning him into a household name."

"Slashdot was invented just to provide an outlet for too-clever-by-half Tinfoil Hatters (Haters?)..."

Re:impossible

[lxs]

if I don't like a company I can boycott them and take my money elsewhere. Government, not so much.

What's stopping you from moving to a country that has a government more to your liking?

Re:impossible

[GLMDesigns]

I always hear the term civil rights? What is the difference between civil rights and individual rights? What rights do you have as part of collective that you don't have as an individual?

Re:impossible

[Nerdfest]

"God-Emperor" is probably more suited to his tastes.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you know? As part of a collective you can steal from the rest and give yourself a nice subsidy. You can force an obligation upon the rest of the people and give yourself a nice entitlement.

That's what 'civil rights' are there is no such thing, there are only individual rights.

There are no 'women rights', there are no 'gay rights', there are no 'children rights', there are no 'minority rights', there are no 'disabled rights', there are no 'worker rights', etc.etc.

There are only individual rights and when some group (any group) is given what the modern collectivist state likes to call 'civil right' what it actually does it puts an obligation upon some people to provide entitlements to some group. This is the exact opposite of the meaning of the concept of 'right'.

A right is only a meaningful concept in the context of a relationship between an individual and the State, not 2 individuals, not an individual and a business. A right is limitation of authority of the collective to destroy rights of an individual.

'Civil right' is the exact opposite of an actual right, 'civil right' relies on destruction of actual real individual rights, it's Orwellian doublespeak.

roman_mir

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Ellison is a clever man who helped invent the modern RDBMS, which is the basis for much of today's information technology.

Oh please.
Ellison is a clever man who implemented parts of a modern RDBMS. The invention happened elsewhere, and without Ellison the field would have been advanced at pretty much the same pace. He is noted mainly for his business acumen and inhuman practices to achieve his goals.

That's as stupid as saying Steve Jobs invented the iPod, the Mouse, the Desktop, or Multitasking. He didn't.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Private enterprise builds infrastructure all the time

The difference being that they own the land they are improving. Ellison owns the land he is improving. In fact, it works great for this first round of improvements.

Anyone looking to move to this island and, say, open a store or a farm or something, would do well to look at Zimbabwe where the farmers do not own the land they are trying to improve and therefore cannot get loans or investors to improve the land. Enjoy being controlled by the central planner's whims.

Re:impossible

[abirdman]

Privately financed infrastructure projects! Ahh, in the 18th century, that was called royalty. The lord of the manor controlled everything, paid tribute to more powerful entities, and exercised his droite de seigneur over the realm. This is all lovely until the lord succumbs to the moral cancer that invariably comes with that level of power, or until their finances fall apart and another mobster (err, I mean titled landowner) takes over. At that point Lanai will become a miniature, tropical Detroit.

This is disgusting, and it's probably worthwhile to point out that Oracle is among the largest and most successful gangster-based business enterprises on the planet. Go ahead and buy an Oracle product-- it will never go away. Get used to the license audit shake-downs, the version lock-in, the upgrades that cost more than the now-obsolete earlier version. Oracle embodies everything that's wrong with late-empire monopoly capitalism, and Larry Ellison is the grinning goof-ball poster boy.

And for the record, Oracle makes a fine piece of database software-- software so good, it finances Larry's wildest dreams.

Re: impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

They won't grant me citizenship.

Re:impossible

[fustakrakich]

You just don't get it. Economic power and state power cannot exist without each other. All governments are set up by the economically powerful. And to speculate that a government or any other authority won't be corrupt?? How naive can you be?

Re:impossible

[peragrin]

The same goes of Ford. Ford didn't invent the car he invented the assembly line which made car production cheaper.
Some of the bests inventions aren't of actual products but ways of building/using those products in better ways.
Steve jobs didn't invent any of those things. he did bring them to the masses in an easy to use form however.

Re: impossible

[Shark]

The way to solve that was to have 50 states and very little federal law thus creating competition among the states for population, which directly correlates with their tax revenues. Now that the federal government took over everything and made most of the states indentured servants, finding another country is the only real option left if you don't like your government's way of managing things.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. Ellison did not help invent the modern RDBMS. The concept of a DBMS started with Charles W. Bachman and later Edgar Codd refined the concept into the relational model. Please vacate my lawn.

Re:impossible

[budgenator]

It's not the difference between civil rights and individual rights, it's the difference between Civil Rights and Natural Rights. Natural rights are rights that exist due to the fact that you exist, they are often called "God Given Rights" by the Theists. Civil Rights on the other hand are Government Given Rights and what Government gives, tyhe Government can take away

Re:impossible

[abirdman]

Ellison didn't invent the Oracle database, he bought the efforts of those who did. Larry Ellison is the same as every Afghan warlord, Saudi princeling, or Russian oligarch-- a twisted parasite on the planet. His efforts did not create productivity, they stole productivity.

Re:impossible

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> Nobody ever accumulated great wealth any other way.

Some are good at patter and getting large masses behind them, and then forcing everyone, not just those masses, to give them money.

Doing so without seizing power, by offering things free people freely choose to buy, is completely different.

Re:impossible

[ColdWetDog]

He's really just trying to create a stable supply of virgins to toss down Mauna Loa's throat. The only thing that produces more hot air than Larry Ellison is a volcano. And he's working to stop that.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

This is impossible, no private enterprise builds infrastructure, works on long term projects, etc. Only governments do that.

--

For the sarcastically challenged: Ellison is expecting some form of a return from this purchase, all purchases that are not for consumption are investments and he is not going to 'consume' his properties, so whatever it is he does with infrastructure, etc., it's all designed to try and create revenue streams, which is what private enterprise does and which is why infrastructure projects should all be privately funded, then their economic viability, success or failure are on the backs of the owners and not tax payers.

Its a great theory, as long as we ignore that where essential infrastructure doesnt make a profit, it gets scrapped or neglected, or turned into abysmal toll roads that *everyone* hates.

Theres a reason the economics professions largely considers the austrians kooks (That, and the last time they where taken seriously, specifically by austrian economics nut greenspan, it crashed the bloody economy)

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no 'women rights', there are no 'gay rights'...There are only individual rights and when some group

Individual rights are not equally unimpeded for all groups. The names like women's rights, gay rights, etc., are used to highlight specific cases of that. To say they don't exist is to say that the government restricts or doesn't restrict rights of everyone evenly.

Re:impossible

[Pinky's Brain]

AFAICS he's just hedging his bets for societal collapse, Island paradise, food and energy self sufficiency, supply of servants ...

Re:impossible

[ChrisMaple]

You're drawing rights a little too narrowly. For instance, a person has the right not to be murdered, regardless of whether the murderer is governmental or not.

Re:impossible

[saleenS281]

And when he decides to "maximize" his investment by increasing the cost of water a hundredfold, and turning all the roadways into tollways, get back to us about how it's so much better than the government doing it for cost vs. a private enterprise doing it to make a profit. And if it's anything like Larry's main business, a grossly inflated, borderline criminal profit. This reeks to me of the same thing: insert yourself into a company (or island in this case), get them hooked on a service (water/roads), and then just charge them insane amounts of money once they've built their business up around your product because it's so difficult to get out from under you.

I'd imagine his end-goal here is to make the remaining population entirely reliant on his services, then he'll make the prices so high for basic services the ones who refused to sell the first time around will be forced into selling to him. Then it will be Larry Island plus a small chunk of government land.

Re:impossible

[garyoa1]

Unless you're a billionaire... money. And perhaps language.

Re:impossible

[saleenS281]

That depends entirely on what the private company is offering. If the private company owns the only road between your house and your job, how are you planning on boycotting?

At least with government I know their motivation for building and maintaining that road isn't a 60% gross profit margin every quarter. You can argue about inefficiencies but I can tell you first hand there isn't a fortune 100 company in this country that is anymore efficient than our federal government. Size breeds inefficiency, it's just a fact of life.

Re:impossible

[ChrisMaple]

All governments are set up by the economically powerful.

Vladimir Lenin.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

No, just the self-referential Oracle, or Mr One Raging Asshole Called Larry Ellison.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

which is why it is preferable for all infrastructure projects to be private

Ignoring history much? I'm pretty sure the people running trains in the United States during the 19th didn't share you view when they had to deal with every private enterprise building their own rail system with 3 different gauge widths that caused no end of headaches. And who solved this issue to the benefit of everyone? The "big bad gubmint".

Re:impossible

[ChrisMaple]

Zimbabwe is a poor example for just about anything. The aftereffect of Mugabe's land grab is to assure that no wise person invests there until many years after the present government is gone.

Re:impossible

[Immerman]

Not to mention water, power, communication (less so nowadays), etc.etc.etc. There are a *lot* of regional natural monopolies in the world, and where those are involved the free market pretty much guarantees that everyone gets shafted.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Boycotting a company is free, it costs nothing. Moving to another country is extremely expensive, and a massive hassle with getting travel documents, etc. in order. On top of all of that, you've got to get citizenship or a living permit in the other place. All of these things are incredibly difficult to do, especially if you are short on money.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

For the sarcastically challenged: Ellison is expecting some form of a return from this purchase, all purchases that are not for consumption are investments and he is not going to 'consume' his properties, so whatever it is he does with infrastructure, etc., it's all designed to try and create revenue streams, which is what private enterprise does and which is why infrastructure projects should all be privately funded, then their economic viability, success or failure are on the backs of the owners and not tax payers.

He may not 'consume' his properties, but there are all those tasty souls that will live and work on an island where he will control food, water, housing, and transportation. Better build new schools too, old souls are kind of funky tasting from exposure to other souls, need to freshen the stock constantly.

Re:impossible

[Immerman]

>the government restricts or doesn't restrict rights of everyone evenly.
Not just restricts, but protects. Abolishing slavery (insofar as we actually managed to do so) had nothing to do with government restrictions on rights, it was a matter of the government stepping in and eliminating socially supported private restrictions on rights.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

That's as stupid as saying Steve Jobs invented the iPod, the Mouse, the Desktop, or Multitasking.

Or as saying Edison invented the light bullb.

Re: impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that the federal government took over everything and made most of the states indentured servants

Still upset about that civil war are we?

Re:impossible

[NotQuiteReal]

because corporations have no ethics or morals other than the profit motive This is arguable.

But worse, is the unspoken assumption of the flip-side: "governments are moral and only have the public good at heart" -- which of course is arguable too.

Both public and private institutions are made of of people, and the culture of each organization can vary from what one would consider "ideal".

What is "ideal" is arguable.

Re: impossible

[dasunt]

The way to solve that was to have 50 states and very little federal law thus creating competition among the states for population, which directly correlates with their tax revenues. Now that the federal government took over everything and made most of the states indentured servants, finding another country is the only real option left if you don't like your government's way of managing things.

There's still some states powers, especially in regards to taxation. It's very possible in many areas to live in one state and travel to another for employment or for other reasons. Which may be indicative of a flaw in the idea of regions competing against each other - when the fastest travel time was a horse, it could make sense to let states compete against each other. But nowadays, with the same idea of letting states compete against each other, it may make sense for me to live right over the border in a low-tax state, and commute each day across the border into a high-tax state whose better-maintained infrastructure (roads, schools, etc) creates a better economy.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

It's nice to see a forward thinking fellow doing what he is doing. Solar generation and modern desalination are keys to affordable living on an island. Where I am from (Cayman) we operated on gasoline turbines and desal (from the 70's). As a result we have some of the highest utility costs in the world. However, this is not the fault of gov (purely) as these industries are privately owned and advancement is slowed as it would have an adverse effect on the profits of it's owners. Thus they finance any candidates that would be in line with them and their bottom line.

So is private over public leadership better? Depends

Re:impossible

[poity]

Well, the Mr. House ending was the most favorable outcome New Vegas could have had. So there's that.

Re:impossible

[Skreems]

which is why infrastructure projects should all be privately funded, then their economic viability, success or failure are on the backs of the owners and not tax payers.

Let's explore that thought a bit.

Say the local islanders dislike Mr. Ellison's policies. Say, for example, that someone wants to start a local airline which competes with the ones that already serve the island. Well, the ones that serve the island are owned by Ellison, and any competition is going to eat into profits. Fortunately (for him) he also owns the airport, so he can just refuse to allow the 3rd party airline to fly there.

Of course this competing airline could start their own airport, but that's likely prohibitively expensive. And even if they had they money, Larry owns all the land on the island, so he can just refuse to lease them land on which to run an airport.

The inhabitants of this island are, for all intents and purposes, indentured peasants to Larry Ellison. He has an effective monopoly on their food, housing, and transport off the island, and they have only as much say in how he runs things as he feels like letting them have. If you honestly think that's a good way to live, then I'll be happy to purchase your house and vehicle from you and let you pay me rent (at a rate that I choose, of course).

Of course Lanai is an extreme example, but similar problems occur when you try to run certain types of infrastructure projects with private companies on the mainland. For certain classes of things like roads, water/sewer lines, and probably electric, the amount of space and planning required makes it prohibitive to build multiple competing services. You can't have a city based on TWO separate street grids. And trying to run more than one water system or electric grid through the same town would get intrusive and immensely confusing in all but the most sparsely populated areas.

So what you end up with out of necessity is either a government monopoly or a private one. You no longer have the ability to "take your money elsewhere" so the private company has zero incentive to listen to you. With the government monopoly, though, you get two major benefits: one, you're guaranteed a vote, and in a local government that means a lot more than at the federal level; and two, the government's goal is to serve the needs of the citizens, NOT to make a profit off them.

In short, you've grossly oversimplified the problem. Of course private corporations COULD own and run infrastructure projects. Nobody's disputing that. But it's highly unlikely that they would run it WELL in cases where competition isn't feasible.

Re:impossible

[similar_name]

It works when 1 party control most of the property. As more parties get involved infrastructure typically moves towards a co-op system. As the number of parties increases, eventually, a central authority becomes responsible for infrastructure. At some point, right of ways become a major issue. I'm not basing this on any ideology, just observation.

Re:impossible

[__aaltlg1547]

Yeah, those hundred thousand employees would have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO if they didn't work for Oracle, because apparently according to you software designers and programmers and salespeople basically have no value until some industrialist tells them what to do.

Re:impossible

[dbIII]

The sarcasm fails because everyone has heard of mines or other remote projects where private enterprise builds 100% of their infrastructure, let alone a vast number of less extreme cases.

Re:impossible

[ultranova]

This is impossible, no private enterprise builds infrastructure, works on long term projects, etc. Only governments do that.

That's not the problem. The problem is, as the summary said: "Now Ellison is attempting to win over the island's small, but wary, local population, one whose economic future is heavily dependent on his decisions."

In other words, the local population now pretty much lives at Ellison's mercy, and once he dies at the mercy of whoever inherits him. A privately owned society is a nightmare where you depend on the benevolence of your local feudal lord. And perhaps Ellison is benevolent and smart enough to think long-term; that doesn't change the fact that these people now depend on his whims. And that's a terrible way to live.

Pure capitalism/libertarianism is the dictatorship of whoever has the most money. This is a perfect example of that. And that's why privatizing vital infrastructure is a bad idea.

Re:impossible

[Eunuchswear]

Define "murder".

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

My current country has a monopoly on my friends and family.

Re:impossible

[lxs]

And yet every day all over the world people who aren't billionaire ployglots migrate to other countries. Many will stay for decades, some for life.
If you want to you can go but first you have to cross the border that's in your mind.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Ford didn't invent the assembly line either. There are lots of "prior art" in that regard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_line#History

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the civil rights are the other part of the combined civil-political rights, which include rights related to property, association, life, equality and such. The other group of rights is the economic, social and educational rights. The groups of rights are separated very clearly for practical reasons of getting some kind of human rights declaration completed during the East-West schism of the Cold War.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, let's compare Greenspan, the guy known for his 'PUT' to an actual economist (to an Austrian school economist).

Nice job there, government shill.

Re:impossible

[bunbuntheminilop]

There are no individual rights that aren't granted by the collective.

Re:impossible

[datavirtue]

Thanks for bringing this to light mister AC. I've been thinking about the modern welfare state and how it keeps growing. Such an obvious thing dawned on me one day, with a group of people marginalized (on purpose by government) into a low-productivity subsistence role of "welfare receiver," the fact that those people can vote assures that the group will grow larger while eating into the productive portion of society until one day we are all owned by banks (disguised as government) and there is no longer any need to tax our labor in order to enslave us for the grand purpose of.....?? Unification under one world government? Seriously, what is the reason for all of this? Are the "elite" afraid of population overgrowth, and is this their way to gain and maintain some type of control? Look at China, you are strictly limited to how many children you can have.

Re:impossible

[gl4ss]

well yeah if by inventing you mean copying from the germans.
not sure if ellison did that with the db though!

wait a sec jobs copied his algorithms from fraunhofer and his design from braun... I think I found the key to success in america.

Re:impossible

[datavirtue]

Again, banker funded sociopathic asshole. At least they have Putin now. http://tomatobubble.com/putin_obama.html

Re:impossible

[icebraining]

The US is particularly taxing on emigration, since unlike most countries, you're still liable to pay taxes even if you leave the country but remain a citizen, and if you renounce citizenship, you're liable for an Expatriation Tax.

Re:impossible

[saleenS281]

Why stop at Standard. Let's talk about AT&T. You know, where long distance fees never went down, and you had to RENT your telephone because they wouldn't support attaching a phone to their network that wasn't owned by them. But, but, but, monopolies are good!

Regardless, your non-sensical Standard rant has NOTHING to do with my point: which was the history of Larry. If you spent 30 seconds dealing with Oracle, you'd see that lowering prices, only to raise them when a market is cornered is EXACTLY how he operates. Throwing around insults when you're too ignorant to do even a basic fact check of the "CAPITALISM FIXES EVERYTHING!" bullshit is an infantile response that sounds like it's coming from someone who's too emotionally unstable to have a rational discussion. IE: You.

As for energy prices falling, that had nothing to do with standard, and everything to do with discovering larger and easier to get at oil reserves. But why let the details get in the way of your fantasy?

Re:impossible

[MickLinux]

Having no mod points for "define murder", I will therefore expound on it: Since Roe V. Wade, the right not to be murdered has again been restricted to exclude a large class of people.

Moreover, the right to not be murdered was still only limited to "the right not to be murdered by the government without due process. " Sometimes evil politicians made use of it; Sometimes, as with the Downwind Experiments or the Tuskegee experiments, they ignored it. Recently, the Executive department of the government has pointed out theat they don't need to pay any attention at all to that right.

So theright not to be murdered is tenuous at best.

Re:impossible

[jc79]

Funnily enough, in the UK at least, the people most reliant on welfare are those most likely to support government attempts to cut welfare entitlements, even though they themselves are likely to suffer due to those policies. This seems to be a result of the constant demonisation of welfare recipients in the newspapers most likely to be read in lower-income households.

Owen Jones is particularly good on this.

Some reasons that the modern welfare state keeps growing:
- People keep having children
- Cuts in state funding of social investment programmes (such as parenting education initiatives, adult education classes, social housing construction etc) reduce the chances of people in the lowest income brackets from being able to find work that will lift them out of poverty
  - The national minimum wage (in the UK) is less than the living wage, so work in many cases does not pay

Re:impossible

[inasity_rules]

Still, I meet a lot of your countrymen here in South Africa, and they seem to be doing pretty well. How they got past our retarded BBBEE law I don't know... Our government is broken in different ways to yours.

Re:impossible

[jc79]

The sarcasm fails because everyone has heard of mines or other remote projects where private enterprise builds 100% of their infrastructure...

...and often externalises much of the cost onto the public - in the case of mines, often by allowing toxic leachates into river systems, building spoil tips in unsafe places, etc. The list of mining-related human and environmental disasters is long, and the majority of incidents were ultimately caused by the profit-seeking private owners of the mines wishing to reduce their cost burden.

Re:impossible

[buybuydandavis]

because corporations have no ethics or morals other than the profit motive - all other things and people are secondary.

Equivalently, governments have no ethics or morals but the power motive, which I find a much more dangerous motive than profit.

Re:impossible

[tyrione]

This is impossible, no private enterprise builds infrastructure, works on long term projects, etc. Only governments do that.

--

For the sarcastically challenged: Ellison is expecting some form of a return from this purchase, all purchases that are not for consumption are investments and he is not going to 'consume' his properties, so whatever it is he does with infrastructure, etc., it's all designed to try and create revenue streams, which is what private enterprise does and which is why infrastructure projects should all be privately funded, then their economic viability, success or failure are on the backs of the owners and not tax payers.

Private Enterprise brought us low bid contracts and high maintenance future costs. Sorry, but privately funded is hilarious [all funding comes from the Central Banks in the end] on the face of it and on the merits of future maintainence. Your Libertarian wet dream can't even manage to pave private roads on large estates without those land owners fishing for tax deductions. Go find a class of 9th graders to rave about the all private mantra of bs. Equilibrium of resources and funds is a balance not only in the Laws of Nature but in our artificial constructs.

Re:impossible

[__aarzwb9394]

Edison did not invent the light bulb. Stop believing your country's mythology. (Neither Did Swan)

Re:impossible

[Snufu]

You don't vote for Kings.

Re:impossible

[publiclurker]

And being so self-important you expect everyone else to do all of the hard work, don't you?

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Indirectly, his company diverts a fraction of the productivity of about 390,000 corporate customers comprising the efforts of millions of people into his pocket.

Nobody ever accumulated great wealth any other way. The most you can ever achieve from your own productivity is to be moderately comfortable.

Isn't it possible to write an amazing piece of software, then create a website by yourself and sell it at a fair price, and generate large amounts of wealth? To keep it simple let's assume that it's a one-man show, so no employees. How is that not one's own productivity?

As for CEOs, they increase revenue much more than they're paid (in general, otherwise they get fired). They're being paid market value for their labor, and entertainers get paid a lot more (which is closer to a solo effort). I don't think you can claim they're inappropriately benefiting from other's productivity unless you wish to redefine value and economics.

It almost seems like you're treating value like food & shelter, which can be obtained through manual labor to eke out a "moderately comfortable" life without interacting with any other humans. Nowadays, we have markets and value is defined by what people want. Much like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, our society has advanced to the point that food, shelter, and other "intrinsically" valuable items only account for maybe 5% of our economic activity. Now, some silly phone app might be worth millions (after all, the farmers raise the food so the rest of us need something to keep ourselves busy -- hence businesses). I may not value such a thing, and you may not, but others do and I'm not arrogant enough to say everyone else in the world is wrong. CEO pay is similar, as I'm skeptical I'd pay one so much to manage billions in assets, but that's the market price so others obviously find that much value in them.

Re:impossible

[icebraining]

Many Lords and other members of the aristocracy didn't need to directly force people to give them money either; they did so as a class.

Re:impossible

[icebraining]

Oh, I'm not an American, I just happen to know about those laws.

Re:impossible

[XcepticZP]

You have no idea how difficult it is to get a work permit in South Africa. Both me, and my employer had to jump through such hoops to get it, it's not funny. This all after my parent's spent year bringing money into the country to both pay for my education, and to pay for my living there. Such nonsense... Oh, and if you really want to go into ridiculous territory, I'll have you know that only about a fifth of your population actually pays taxes due to the lower income tax bracket. Lovely, isn't it?

Re:impossible

[XcepticZP]

And the government doesn't control/own everything now? Tell me, how much taxes do you have to pay to own land? Own land, you say? What happens if you don't pay your property taxes? How about inheritance tax? Still think you're free? What about gift taxes? No? You think you can gift your entire earnings to your family? Think again. Bunch of crap, and every single government has it slightly different and completely confusing in order to have us walking around like headless chickens arguing with one another about "democrat" vs "republican" vs "tea party" vs "gay" vs "religious".

Sooner or later, the government will make sure you can't accumulate wealth.

Sigh, rant over. Sometimes daft comments like yours make my blood boil.

Re:impossible

[XcepticZP]

Arguing with statists is rarely easy, or pleasant.

Funny how the guy you responded to claims that capitalism is an infantile response, and yet he wants daddy government to come protect him from the "evil corporations".

Re:impossible

[turbidostato]

"Maybe the next thing you'll hear of him is referring to himself as the Prince of Lanai."

That, or that he's breeding sharks and mounting lasers on them.

And don't forget the white cat. Above of all, don't forget about the white cat.

Re:impossible

[GLMDesigns]

Natural rights are that which you have by virtue of being human - it's given by god if you're a theist or by nature if you're not. These rights are not given by government; government exists (at least the US gov't does) to protect your exercise of these rights.

Your thoughts are your own and you are able to express them without fear of the government. (speech, press)
You haven't delegated away your right to self-defense: 2nd A
Then you have limits on government action based on privacy and ownership (3rd A and 4th A)
etc...

Re:impossible

[mjwx]

if I don't like a company I can boycott them and take my money elsewhere. Government, not so much.

What's stopping you from moving to a country that has a government more to your liking?

Immigration laws.

Countries that are nice to live in generally aren't easy to gain residency in.

Hell, it's difficult to gain residency in most third world nations even if you've got enough money to be self sufficient.

Re:impossible

[rtb61]

They can always simply wait him out, he is 68 after all. Death puts an end to all schemes driven by personal ego, which is obviously what the Lanai adventure is. Likely it will all be sold off and the money invested in more profitable ventures once he kicks the bucket. Something they will need to start looking at, major terracing infrastructure projects to halt the rapid erosion of the Island, this will substantially increase the usable area of the island, whilst reducing run-off and increase coral reef growth but the capital cost would be enormous.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

lol
I love this list cause I'm not sure if you are making a joke or not
Ellison implemented RDBMS, didn't invent
Henry Ford just made a lot cars, didn't invent
Edison patented the lightbulb, but didn't invent it, (who did is disputed, but it wasn't Edison)
And Einstein came up with a lot of math on a chalkboard that implied a lot of things, technically the closest thing to an invention on the list, but still just a theory

Re:impossible

[inasity_rules]

I know. Still can't figure out how you guys manage it. I work with a professional Zimbabwean who did it without bribery. That was really difficult, but they aren't so harsh on professionals. Once you're in, it isn't too bad though. As for tax, well, ironically, SARS regularly exceeds its collection targets and they want to destroy the middle class with etolls. Fun times....

Re:impossible

[inasity_rules]

It isn't usually such a bad assumption here... My apologies.

Re:impossible

[Jesrad]

Let's examine your claims more closely.

Fortunately (for him) he also owns the airport, so he can just refuse to allow the 3rd party airline to fly there.

He can't really afford to deny operation for most 3rd party airline that services destinations his own airline does not service, for one.

Of course this competing airline could start their own airport, but that's likely prohibitively expensive.

Only if you assume the islanders are the only people on Earth who might want to compete. I'm reasonably sure other airlines around the area, and I mean the Pacific by that, could get another airport started if it really came to that. And let's not forget that other means of transportation do compete with airplanes in many cases - like boats.

The inhabitants of this island are, for all intents and purposes, indentured peasants to Larry Ellison.

No they're not. They do not require his personal permission to sell off their stuff and move away, contrary to actual indentured peasants. No extra paperwork involved in moving to another island - you try changing country of residence as easily...

He has an effective monopoly on their food

No he has not. He owns half of the grocery stores, and that's at least a couple light-years away from "having a monopoly on their food". He does not own the farms that produce the food sold there (much of it being imported, BTW), and he needs the one grocery store he owns to keep on performing as before and keep on meeting the locals' purchasing expectations, and he needs it to do so in accordance to local and national regulations of such commerce. He's at their service in this market, and more at their disposal than the other way around.

One may say the state of North Korea has a monopoly on its inhabitants' food, and even that is not 100% - maybe it's 70 to 80% in my limited experience of it.

housing, and transport off the island, and they have only as much say in how he runs things as he feels like letting them have. If you honestly think that's a good way to live, then I'll be happy to purchase your house and vehicle from you and let you pay me rent (at a rate that I choose, of course).

Only if you limit the transportation to airplanes. Agreed on the housing. We'll see how that pans out over time, and I suspect it'll go much the same way as with private ownership of housing elsewhere on tropical islands - meaning that the structures will be properly maintained but that some people will very likely end up being priced out of this market. I also suspect there'll be no homeless on the island, if there even are any to begin with.

Plenty of people are fine renting a home. In many cases this is preferable to owning real estate. I'm trying to sell off my apartment, for example, mostly because it's tying me down in an area I don't want to live in anymore and because the property values are soon to crash.

You seem very convinced that Larry Ellison has no incentive or need to listen to the tenants... but that's just not the situation here, or in any housing markets I know of. Unhappy tenants leave, and often can destroy capital value, if you try to gouge them or interfere with their way of life.

For certain classes of things like roads, water/sewer lines, and probably electric, the amount of space and planning required makes it prohibitive to build multiple competing services. You can't have a city based on TWO separate street grids

Why would there even be a need to make two seperate street grids in the first place ? The state didn't invent and impose standardization and interoperability, they happened on their own. Also, thinking of these infrastructures in term of big, national-wide grids is misguided, in many cases providing power / water only requires localized structures.

See for example the p

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct, without SOME employer (and you can be your own employer) millions of people that are employees today would not be employees and would have NOTHING TO DO unless they became their own employer, which is the point.

Somebody has to act as an employer, which means using investments to hire people, either you have to save to invest or borrow to invest from somebody who saved (and no, printing money out of thin air does not count as savings, it's inflation, which is very destructive to the economy).

Millions of people would have nothing to do if they had nobody to work for, either they would have to become employers themselves and hire others or they would have to live subsistence lives to survive at all.

roman_mir

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

"large class of people"

Those aren't people.

Re:impossible

[higuita]

Ellison is a clever man who helped invent the modern RDBMS

wrong, he didnt invented it, he simply build one and marketing it successfull

Henry Ford was a clever man who invented the otherwise useless automobile

also wrong, he just made the production more efficient and lowered the price

Edison was a crafty fellow who invented this light bulb

and again wrong. the light bulb already existed, but last only a few minutes. Edison manage to find the right combination by trial and error, just like many were doing. most of his inventions were improvements of already existent things

Re:impossible

[higuita]

OK, please take out the word "economically" and add "at that time" in the end and you will see that it still applies to all.

Re:impossible

[PopeRatzo]

Death puts an end to all schemes driven by personal ego

Not in the Corporate Age.

As long as there are lawyers and registered agents and corporate trusts, Ellison can exert his will long after his death.

Re:impossible

[IndieVoter]

Like them or not, the private industry is the only source of adult decision making. Look at the recent NSA and IRS, and not so long ago actions of FannyMae and FreddyMac. If those were private companies, the CEO and CFO would be under indictment, if not already in Jail. Enron and WorldCom execs are behind bars, the FM execs are 'retired' and at least one living with his politician-friend. Corporations need the best people they can get. And, they are generally willing to pay for those people. In the US anyway, they need good roads, power, and water to operate and contribute to the creation, unless, of course, a politician gets involved and demands campaign contributions.... called bribes everywhere else in the world. If I am dealing with a corporation, I know what to expect and have legal recourse. Government? They just call you a 'racist' if you disagree....

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, governmens are supposed to provided efficiently and often fail. But that's still better than private corps who only exist to deliver goods as inefficiently as possibly - i.e. with maximum profit.

One would think that to achieve maximum profit, one must be very efficient. If you are being inefficient, you aren't maximizing your profits.

Re:impossible

[quantaman]

Don't you know? As part of a collective you can steal from the rest and give yourself a nice subsidy. You can force an obligation upon the rest of the people and give yourself a nice entitlement.

That's what 'civil rights' are there is no such thing, there are only individual rights.

There are no 'women rights', there are no 'gay rights', there are no 'children rights', there are no 'minority rights', there are no 'disabled rights', there are no 'worker rights', etc.etc.

There are only individual rights and when some group (any group) is given what the modern collectivist state likes to call 'civil right' what it actually does it puts an obligation upon some people to provide entitlements to some group. This is the exact opposite of the meaning of the concept of 'right'.

A right is only a meaningful concept in the context of a relationship between an individual and the State, not 2 individuals, not an individual and a business. A right is limitation of authority of the collective to destroy rights of an individual.

'Civil right' is the exact opposite of an actual right, 'civil right' relies on destruction of actual real individual rights, it's Orwellian doublespeak.

roman_mir

No right is absolute, rights are an emergent property of our society, they're something we agreed on to help each other get along.

Individual rights are the most basic and the most important of these, but they' re not the only ones. Civil rights are an important infringement on individual rights if we want to live in a civil society. The loss of individual liberty suffered from a civil right is minimal (you can't fire that guy because he's gay), but the amount of welfare gained is huge (the gay guy doesn't have to lie).

Re:impossible

[steelfood]

The most you can ever achieve from your own productivity is to be moderately comfortable.

Unless you were J.K. Rowling.

Re:impossible

[rtb61]

Nah, not any more, the flood of psychopaths into the corporate executive career path has put an end to that. They will ruthlessly strip mine any trust for their own immediate personal benefit one way or another, especially the lawyers. In fact your life comes under the greatest threat the more you hand over control to those snakes in suits.

Re:impossible

[Hognoxious]

What rights does nature give you, other than allowing you to be eaten by a bear?

Re:impossible

[GLMDesigns]

As stated in the earlier post - the concept of an individual right comes as virtue of being a human. The concept rejects the idea that everything comes from and is allocated by the government. As a human being we have thoughts and ideas. The government does not create these thoughts but the government may attempt to prevent us from communicating them. A just government is created via a social contract and exists with consent of the governed hence we have "rights", we have attributes, that predate the government. Therefore these rights did not come from the government. In fact the govt exists to protect these rights.

Anyway, that in a nutshell is the concept of individual rights - as I see it.

Re:impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

well sort of. he visually saw the idea in use in animal slaughter and coppied it from that in the chicago area.

Re: impossible

[IHateEverybody]

Well once someone owns nearly everything as Mr. Ellison does on the island of Lunai, is the distinction between government and this one super wealthy individual really that distinct anymore?

Re:impossible

[IHateEverybody]

This is impossible, no private enterprise builds infrastructure, works on long term projects, etc. Only governments do that.

--

For the sarcastically challenged: Ellison is expecting some form of a return from this purchase, all purchases that are not for consumption are investments and he is not going to 'consume' his properties, so whatever it is he does with infrastructure, etc., it's all designed to try and create revenue streams, which is what private enterprise does and which is why infrastructure projects should all be privately funded, then their economic viability, success or failure are on the backs of the owners and not tax payers.

Well once someone owns nearly everything as Mr. Ellison does on the island of Lanai, is the distinction between government and the one super wealthy individual in question really that distinct anymore?

Good luck with that

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Well, I hope that he manages to keep good relations with the natives or they will turn the tables on him. He had better have a backup strategy for this transaction.

Re:Good luck with that

[oPless]

(I wish I has mod points today)

More horrendous puns in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Re:Good luck with that

[flyneye]

I just heard the other day about a coalition of Hawaiian natives buying back as much land as they can for the locals.
This drama is not nearly over yet...

Re:Good luck with that

[Anonymous Coward]

He lacks integrity.

Re:Good luck with that

[Smallpond]

Well, I hope that he manages to keep good relations with the natives or they will turn the tables on him. He had better have a backup strategy for this transaction.

He outer join the local Chamber of Commerce.

Re:Good luck with that

[Anonymous Coward]

I just heard the other day about a coalition of Hawaiian natives buying back as much land as they can for the locals.
This drama is not nearly over yet...

Yeah, their plan is almost complete, they just need to figure out how to get large amounts of money without expending any effort.

Re:Good luck with that

[mbone]

I just heard the other day about a coalition of Hawaiian natives buying back as much land as they can for the locals.
This drama is not nearly over yet...

Yes, it's called the State of Hawaii. They have their own seal and flag and all sorts of cool stuff.

Re: Good luck with that

[charlesjo488]

Backup strategy is Recovery Manager (RMAN).

Re:Good luck with that

[Anonymous Coward]

Not clear how much his interests intersect with the locals

Is there a volcano?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, for the lair.

Re:Is there a volcano?

[MrDoh!]

YES! Was hoping someone would point this out. Ellison's always been made out to be the big bad Bond villain, and now he's got his own island with a 'dormant' volcano....? It'll probably turn out that all this NSA spying going on was using Oracle servers, and in that HE'S the evil mastermind behind all this. mwahahahahah!

Re:Is there a volcano?

[mrbester]

He just needs an amusingly short French manservant. That way he can be both Ricardo Montalban AND Scaramanga.

Re:Is there a volcano?

[DrogMan]

He just needs an amusingly short French manservant. That way he can be both Ricardo Montalban AND Scaramanga.

Or a fluffy white cat...

Re:Is there a volcano?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is DOCTOR EVIL. He did not spend 6 years in evil medical school to be called mister. Thank you very much.

Re:Is there a volcano?

[JeffAtl]

He seems much more like Drax from Moonraker.

Re:Is there a volcano?

[ColdWetDog]

I wonder if there are sharks around the island. There have to be sharks.

Re:Is there a volcano?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, for the lair.

Yes and it's guarded by Tyrannosaurs with lasers on their heads.

Re:Is there a volcano?

[Anonymous Coward]

Big bad Bond villain? Ellison is Tony fucking Stark.

Re:Is there a volcano?

[mrbester]

You guys are missing the point. He is in a position to allow people to pay to live out fantasies ("Boss, de plane! De plane!") and then mercilessly hunt them afterwards.

I'd bet secretly you'd love to do the same.

Re:Is there a volcano?

[Anonymous Coward]

He may be bad, but he's definitely not big. Ellison's a very typical Short Man Syndrome sufferer.

Re:Is there a volcano?

[ColdWetDog]

My fantasies are entirely different. And since my wife has discovered my Slashdot handle, I ain't tellin.

Re:Is there a volcano?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hawaii. They have Tiger sharks and Hammerheads.

Re:Is there a volcano?

[Svartormr]

I wonder if there are sharks around the island. There have to be sharks.

Don't forget the frickin' lasers.

Reaganomics!

[kurt555gs]

This is the end result. Oligarchs. Trickle Down Economics was a scam.

Re:Reaganomics!

[Anonymous Coward]

That is great, if you don't count all of the businesses it damaged due to costs or didn't help because of inflated prices. The question is what the net gain was, and if there was no dead weight loss...

Re:Reaganomics!

[ebno-10db]

This is the end result. Oligarchs. Trickle Down Economics was a scam.

Mod parent back up!

The thoughtpolice got nothing on Slashdot mods. -1 for expressing your opinion? The PP is a political/economic opinion stated in a reasonable way. It is not flamebait in any conceivable way, shape, manner or form.

Bonus points for mod censorship if this post gets modded below it's original +2. It wouldn't be the first time. According to some thoughtpolice mods, not only can't people express opinions the mods don't like, you shouldn't even point that out.

Re:Reaganomics!

[IndieVoter]

'trickle down economics was a scam' As was Socialism, Communism, and 99% of what your average College liberal arts Profs told you. But, hey, wanted to get laid then, so you wore the tie-dye pants and Che t-shirt in order to fit in. Now, you are not sure WHAT to believe. Well, like most people on these lists, you simply believe that if you are rich, you did something evil. Yes! Better than admitting that someone else was smarter, better looking, cleverer, harder working, or just plain luckier than you. After all, you are above average, right?

Modus Operandi

[Aaron B Lingwood]

1. Buy property / imaginary property
2. Close it up
3. Anger the community
4. Wait for staff to quit
5. Replace existing features with unwanted bling
6. Force users of Island #5 to use the new facilities offered on Island #6
7. ?
8. Profit

Re:Modus Operandi

[Anonymous Coward]

Without money you are a cog; and you do what your master tells you. The End.

Re:Modus Operandi

[Anonymous Coward]

You should really take to the time to see what he is doing over there, it really does seem to be more of a labor of love than a pursuit of profit.

Fun wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Sound like somebody's been playing too much Tropico.

Real Life Dr Evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except he holds the whole IT industry hostage for 78.32 billion dollars.

Feaudalism is back!

[Anonymous Coward]

Feudalism is back! Surf's up! I no kea!

Benevolent dictator

[countach]

Sounds like they've aquired a rich benevolent dictator and Ellison is enjoying playing the role of benevolent king over his mini kingdom. It's going to be nice, but since Ellison is 68 or whatever, who knows how long it can last till the next rich nit-wit comes along.

Re:Benevolent dictator

[__aaltlg1547]

This is the first time I've ever heard the term "benevolent" in relation to Larry Ellison. Not the first time I've heard him called a dictator.

Re:Benevolent dictator

[Nerdfest]

Most people don't even bother using the whole word most of the time.

Re:Benevolent dictator

[PRMan]

"Ben"? "Benev"? "lent"? "volent"? Ohh, THAT word.

Re:Benevolent dictator

[Anonymous Coward]

That's probably because unlike Buffet and Gates, he keeps doesn't publicize his philantropic endeavours. But then again, this is /., nobody cares about what anyone does that doesn;t involve Linux and computers.

Re:Benevolent dictator

[countach]

I'm sure. But I think he considers the island his little home, so he doesn't want to mess it up, get the locals off side, or otherwise make life for himself there unpleasant. I'm sure he is ruthless in business, but here he is role playing being nice guy.

Godhood?

[Swoopy]

Interesting retirement plan. By the time he needs it, he'll be as close to godhood with the islanders (no, I'm not underestimating their intelligence or thinking of them as primitive natives here), as is mortally possible ...

Secession?

[Dredd13]

It sounds a whole lot like Ellison is planning to just break-away from the US and declare his island a sovereign state.

And, frankly, he can't do a worse job than most of the other developed nations are doing these days.

Re:Secession?

[ChrisMaple]

There are many practical difficulties to seceding a Hawaiian Island. One is that the US may not approve, and has the muscle to prevent it. Another is that once independent, he would need to have a defense force of some sort to protect from rogues who'd like to seize a paradise for themselves. On the plus side, tax advantages.

Re:Secession?

[Dredd13]

I think Ellison can afford Blackwater's monthly invoice.

Re:Secession?

[DigiShaman]

There can be no vacuum of power in a world full of super powers (nations). If, (and that's a big *if*) he manages to gain sovereignty by the USA, not all nations would treat his status with equal. He doesn't have a military. China could literally invade his island and there's nothing he could do about it. Which BTW comes full circle as to why he will never gain sovereignty. The US will not cede land that will inevitably be take over by another super power in short order.

Re:Secession?

[Dredd13]

Again - Ellison can afford to pay the monthly invoice from Blackwater. At which point he has a military. The same military we use for half of our dirtiest jobs.

Dogma, Apples, & Oranges

[cmholm]

Larry is developing a plantation, not a municipality, so comparing this paragon of capitalist initiative with - say - the rest of Maui County is invalid. Lanai Island Holdings, LLC is just another plantsite, no different in principle than the Oracle Corp HQ. So, he's investing just for himself and David M. Based on his expressed plans, I for the most part it works out. But, it's reasonably obvious that this is a hobbyist pursuit.

The rest of the County is home to a variety of people, companies, and competing interests, so it makes sense that infrastructure that serves their common good is held as public trusts. Quite a bit of the work is contracted out to private firms, particularly when it requires occasional use of capital equipment it doesn't make sense for the County to invest in. But, by and large, private ownership of utilities and other public services hasn't proved to be anyone efficient than public ownership. Running such enterprises pits maximizing public utility against maximizing private return on investment, and the public loses if/when rent seeking in the part of a private owner perverts the direction of public policy.

Re:Dogma, Apples, & Oranges

[budgenator]

A 68-year-old bachelor with a net worth of U$ 40 billion isn't motivated by money; He's motivated by legacy and quite possibly a strong contrarian streak. Ellison will turn Lanai into "the first economically viable 100%-green community." if only because everyone else gives such concepts lipservice, but are too impotent to even try to bring them into reality.

Re:Dogma, Apples, & Oranges

[dintech]

I think it's his very own SimCity project. Just be thankful he isn't into Populus...

Re:Dogma, Apples, & Oranges

[higuita]

Larry is always motivated by money!! ... ALWAYS!!

Re:Incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

Overpriced? Maybe. Half-assed? Doubt so.

Re:Incredible

[TheRaven64]

Oracle is expensive, but if it were really overpriced then you'd see lots of cheaper alternatives. For a lot of workloads, something like PostgreSQL will get the job done for a fraction of the price. When you really need something at the high end, however, Oracle or a small handful of other companies will charge you similar amounts. The real problem for a company like Oracle is the same as the problem for SGI. In the '90s, a database with a few GBs of data was something you needed Oracle (or similar) and a lot of hardware for. Now, a cheap commodity machine can keep the whole thing in RAM for read-only queries and can write to an SSD (or a few in RAID-1) for a few thousand dollars, including the time it takes someone to set it up. The number of companies that have data of a size where an Oracle DB will work is increasingly small: at the very high end, you have companies like Google and Facebook that can't use any off-the-shelf solution, and at the other you have companies that can get away with cheap commodity hardware and an open source RDBMS.

This is why companies like IBM and Oracle are focussing heavily on business applications and vertical integration. They may be expensive, but there's a whole class of medium sized enterprises for whom it's a lot cheaper to periodically give a huge pile of money to Oracle periodically than it is to have a large in-house IT staff.

One Rich A** Called Larry Ellison

[Neo-Rio-101]

He's got money for this, but no money to give me contact with an Oracle support engineer on my continent who speaks English, and can reach me in a timely fashion.

Re:One Rich A** Called Larry Ellison

[cats-paw]

precisely _why_ has has money for this.

you are unhappy but you are an Oracle customer.

the game is to make your customers as unhappy as possible, but not so unhappy that they stop buying your product.

Re:One Rich A** Called Larry Ellison

[PRMan]

And yet you keep giving him money... Strange.

Re:One Rich A** Called Larry Ellison

[higuita]

It's not me.. it's my boss!

For me, i would have switch to mysql^H^H^H^Hmariadb, postgresql, enterprisedb and one or more nosql and similar DBs, depending of required the usage. Oracle DB is good, but not that good to cost that much and with support getting worse and worse each year.

yet, my boss think its safer to pay a huge amount of money... it cost soo much, it must be good

Mr. Ellison's Lesser Hawaii

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite (yet) Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong.

Re:Mr. Ellison's Lesser Hawaii

[RDW]

Reminds me more of L Bob Rife ("Yeah, you know, a monopolist's work is never done. No such thing as a perfect monopoly. Seems like you can never get that last one-tenth of one percent"). And owning a whole island makes an aircraft carrier look a bit second rate.

Re:Mr. Ellison's Lesser Hawaii

[higuita]

well, but a island moves soooo sloooooowwww!! :)

"Your Ask toolbar dollars at work"

[IgD]

He needs a big sign that says "Your Ask.com toolbar dollars at work"

Re:"Your Ask toolbar dollars at work"

[Anonymous Coward]

In the enterprise... GPO management for Java and disabling poorly-documented "features" such as add-on prompts during the install.

http://www.darkoperator.com/blog/2013/1/14/centralized-management-of-java-se-environment-using-gpo-redu.html

kind of a bitch to implement, but it's Java, so why wouldn't it be?

posted as AC because I can't be bothered. :)

competition

[sanman2]

Private companies may exist to profit for the most part, but the fact is that competition forces them to become efficient and sacrifice profit.

Re:competition

[txoutback]

but the fact is that competition forces them to become efficient and sacrifice profit.

Sadly, this is too often accomplished by externalizing costs to the environment and to the general long-term physical health of the population... ultimately putting whatever expenses can be externalized onto the government and tax payers.

Re:competition

[abirdman]

More and more legislation is being written to guarantee profit for business ventures. Look at the Monsanto Protection legislation that was recently tacked onto the budget. When profits are guaranteed by legislation, competition no longer functions as a control to efficiency.

Re:competition

[PatentMagus]

People keep saying " look at the Monsanto Protection legislation," but pretty much no one actually looks at it.

Re:competition

[Anonymous Coward]

How does competition work with roads? Are we going to have three sets of roads to choose from every where we go? Infrastructures are natural monopolies. Sorry, but they are.

Re:competition

[XcepticZP]

I don't get it... "Natural monopolies"? Dude, private ownership is the cornerstone of freedom. Let's forget for a moment that your term is nonsensical. What you're saying is that this company has an automatic "monopoly" over something they built and paid for. Kind of like how I, as an individual, am supposed to have an automatic and complete monopoly over my body and all the utility arising from it. No one gets to use it without my approval, and no I won't share it. You can rent it from me, though, which is basically what employment is.

In reality, you're just baffled as to how such a thing could exist. That's the first thing statists ask when encountered with an alternative to government. "But who will build the roads.". You went one step further and complained that competition is somehow not possible for infrastructure because of some fairy-tale term you invented, "natural monopoly".

And yes, I will damned well pick the fastest road I can get, for the cheapest price, with the least amount of restrictions. That's how competition works. Government by its very nature causes monopolies and oligopolies to form. To say otherwise is just sugar-coating the gun in the room that is the government.

Re:competition

[turbidostato]

"the fact is that competition *sometimes* forces them to become efficient and sacrifice profit."

There, corrected for you.

Re:competition

[turbidostato]

"What you're saying is that this company has an automatic "monopoly" over something they built and paid for."

No. What he said is that there are some markets where the entry of one party inhibits the ability of other parties to enter into competition. That's a natural monopoly.

And you know it.

Re:competition

[cusco]

Where on Planet Earth, in all of history, has 'private enterprise' managed to construct a utility that supplied potable water and sewer to anyone but the rich? How about "Never"? Has a telephone or electrical system ever been constructed by 'private enterprise' alone? No? How about an educational system? Not that either? Well, I'll be darned, many governments have managed that without having their wealth extracted by 'private enterprise'.

Re:competition

[davester666]

Yes. One important thing missing: "barriers to entry". Chiefly, cash.

That's why cell phone contract terms are so similar. A few large companies, with a large barrier to entry, no longer really compete on price or even making customers happy [cramming, customer service, long contracts with customer-hostile terms]. Sure there are some small cell companies, but they really have no chance at gaining significant market share.

Gasoline distributors. Same deal.

In cases like these, with just a few large companies and a significant barrier to entry, like infrastructure, they know that everybody makes the most money by setting similar, high prices.

Re:competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Just about anywhere where humans lived. It used to be done with people bringing water in large cisterns (tanks) and other people removing waste as well in large tanks (not the same tanks I assume) and it was done for tiny amount of money so that people could afford it.

Individuals sold infrastructure as a service for as long as people live on this planet.

Before AT&T was granted the monopoly status by the government there were literally thousands of competing phone companies with their own infrastructure. It was destroyed and confiscated. Electrical lines were built privately before governments subsidised certain companies with special laws and regulations and taxes. You are blissfully unaware of everything that is happening around you.

roman_mir

Re:competition

[XcepticZP]

Ok, so I built a road between two adjacent communities. What stops someone else from doing the same with a slightly different route, or heck, right alongside my road? I'm genuinely curious.

Unless you want to come up with contrived examples such as the one that most statists bring up about some private company building a road to blockade entry into an area in order to gain a monopoly. But that's a contrived scenario that's completely on the opposite side of the spectrum and has completely different solutions.

Re:competition

[XcepticZP]

If there is a market for potable water and sewerage, telephone and electrical systems/infrastructure, then you can be damned well sure that someone will want to invest in it in order to rent/sell it. And yes, I've lived in countries where the government was incapable of doing those things. And guess what, we paid private companies to do what the government was not doing. That includes water, internet via wireless radio, and fixing of roads in our community. Small, not fully-fledged examples, but examples that were only made possible in a slightly extreme situation of government. This was Zimbabwe in the last 15years, if you're curious and want to look it up.

Ordinarily, government doesn't allow such competition to crop up. E.g. you need licenses to provide telephone/internet access where I currently live. Good luck getting building approval from government to construct water/sewerage access in a city. Roads? You'd need to first invest in multi-million dollar "feasibility" studies first. These are all impediments set up by government to restrict competition, and to raise the barrier for entry into the infrastructure markets. Things that naturally lead to monopolies and oligopolies forming, if not downright preventing anyone except the state from providing that service.

Also, you do realize that education via schools and universities has existed way before governments tried to get involved? It's only once government started the war on "non-education" that public schools have started popping up. Usually with the end goal of just perpetuating the fears and propaganda to make us think we require the state, and can't live without it. Once you look for alternatives, you'll be surprised at what you find. But you just have to be a little open to the idea.

Re:competition

[cusco]

Apparently you missed the part where I said, "to anyone but the rich?" Of course they will bring in water and remove sewerage for the rich with their cisterns, but for the vast majority? There's a reason why they're disparagingly referred to as the "the unwashed masses", it's because they didn't have water that they could bathe in or wash clothes with. My niece and nephew live in that glorious free-market situation today in the slums of Lima. They have to buy dirty, over-priced water from filthy trucks because the government hasn't been able to run potable water to Los Olivos, and everyone shits in an empty lot around the corner where the garbage pile grows to enormous proportions until the provincial health department can send a scoop and dump truck every few months. They spend almost as much on that few buckets of contaminated water as they do on food for the day.

Ah, the glories of the fantabulous free market!

Re:competition

[XcepticZP]

That's not a failing of the free market. You can't expect people to give you shit for free; that's not the free market. That's charity. And if the countrymen of wealth around your niece and nephew aren't generous enough to help those around them, then that's what happened. Instead, you want the government to steal from those of wealth so that the poor can have shit for free, a la socialism. That's all find and dandy, but you have to admit that perhaps there is a reason that those wealthy aren't giving to the poor. Perhaps the poor aren't meant to have easy access to water. Perhaps the poor don't belong in the slums of Lima. As far as I'm concerned the poor are suffering of their own doings. Are they being restricted from leaving and going into the forest/farm land? No, then the solution is obvious. But the poor don't want that. They want the benefits of city living and civilization, and they want it subsidized by the rich/well off.

Either way, I'm getting off-topic with that rant. The point is that government uses the threat of violence and imprisonment to force people to "give to charity", as if they wouldn't do that by themselves. I bet you the reason that the countrymen around where your niece/nephew live aren't giving to charity is because they're already being taxed as a matter of "socialism" or "charity". And that is exactly the way I would see it. If I pay the government taxes, they had better well help the poor with those taxes, because don't expect me to go out of pocket to help the needy after you've already taxed me.

Re:competition

[cusco]

the poor aren't meant to have easy access to water . . . As far as I'm concerned the poor are suffering of their own doings.

Wow. It's still hard for me to believe that mindset exists outside of the royal families and the mega-wealthy. Because they didn't select their parents correctly they deserve to suffer and die. You are one sick son of a bitch.

I hope you lose everything and have to live in actual poverty for a few years.

Re:competition

[XcepticZP]

Lol, you're a funny one. I came here giving your reasonable arguments and trying to debate. And what do you do? Take two specific sentences out of context, chop one up to turn one from question to statement, and then proceed to call me a "sick son of a bitch".

To everyone else reading this. This is a classic example of cognitive dissonance. And anger/lashing out is this person's way of dealing with the conflict within their own mind on the topic, instead of accepting it.

Or perhaps cusco is angry that I suggested that his family members should go live on a farm and provide for themselves that way instead of living in filthy slums. Either way, I'm sorely disappointed that I wasted my time with someone so far gone, that they will grasp at the tiniest of things in order to defend their own internal viewpoints against my genuine criticisms. As opposed to having reasonable, rational debate. Very typical of statists.

Good day, sir, you've wasted both our times.

Re:competition

[anyGould]

Ok, so I built a road between two adjacent communities. What stops someone else from doing the same with a slightly different route, or heck, right alongside my road? I'm genuinely curious.

The fact that if I built my road first, it's logical that I also built the cross-connections to other roads and towns. So how do you propose to build your second road alongside mine without crossing or connecting to it

This isn't a hard scenario to imagine - look at any random chunk of road in your neighborhood, imagine the roads are privately owned (by folks hostile enough to you that you're trying to build your own), and for the sake of argument, give yourself infinite money - enough to buy whatever lands and right-of-ways you need, but not enough to buy out the Evil Roadowner you're competing with.

Now, where do you propose to run your Alternate Road System?

Re: competition

[Anonymous Coward]

try to understand, this is a semantic debate to you about who has rights to what roads because they built them. BUT, there are people who have been living there for tens of generations, people whose families have been residents of that island since before "discovery" by the western world. all of a sudden, someone owns your whole life, your house, the land it sits on, your place of employment, the grocery store you buy everything from, all of it. the only home you, or your parents, or your grandparents have ever known, belongs to someone who can do whatever they want because a while back, men with guns said it was theirs now. those people are serfs, plain and simple. most of them are resort employees who "owe their soul to the company store" and don't have the resources to move to another island if they wanted to. many of the rest are unemployed subsistence livers. i live in honolulu, and let me tell you, we have one of the highest costs of living in the country. lanai is one of those tiny places where it's not a stretch to say "everyone knows everyone else". a debate about their infrastructure or the rights of their corporate liege lords should ALWAYS be made within the context of acknowledging their situation. i'm all for ellison fixing the place up, giving these people a chance. their economy has been in the crapper for a long long time. but please don't debate "ownership rights" of a native people's ancestral home outside of that context. first world serfdom is alive and well.

Re:competition

[XcepticZP]

It's in the initial road-builders and owner's best interest to rent out use or allow connections to his road. I think you're taking a too-literal interpretation of the word "competition". Even though they may be adversaries, they don't work in isolation.

I don't have all the answers to these questions, I can only posit what sort of solution to this problem the free-market will come up with. So your example is that someone owns all the roads in my neighbourhood. Ok, they've got a defacto monopoly and what do they do, they charge us a fee. Sooner or later they realize that they can exploit this because we as residents of this neighbourhood are dependent on usage of their infrastructure. So what do they do? Of course they up the fee, up and up, and up. So naturally, as a consequence, the residents cost of living increases, their competitiveness in business decreases due to costs. Those things we can all agree on. Now, the beauty of it is that sooner or later, the costs will not be worth it for businesses to stay in business there. They move, or they fail. Both of those are bad for the road owner because the end result is he no longer gets fees. These two things lead to a natural equilibrium between the two.

Another thing that can arise from that is that at some point if the road usage fees keep going up, it will become economically more efficient for a resident to implement [insert radical solution here]. Cranes, flying transport ships, baloons, underground railroads, whatever. Necessity is the mother of all invention, they always say. Naturally, it will never come to such an extreme situation, because the road-owner will very quickly realize that raising the fees past the equilibrium point is detrimental to him.

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts? Perhaps you're reasonable and will admit merit in these scenarios/solutions, instead of dismissing them like the other guy in this thread did. I'm open to being proven wrong, or shown the error of my ways.

Re:competition

[Stuarticus]

What's been annoying me recently is people telling me to "look at history". Do they realise just how big history is? I am pretty sure you could find a precedent for just about anything if you looked hard enough.

Maybe he should change his name to!

[Anonymous Coward]

Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw would be a good choice.

And, dare I say, for fear of being labeled a rich-hater*, quite possibly he's not being taxed enough.

*I'm not, but this is ridiculous.

Zefram Cochrane's dream!

[Anonymous Coward]

I built this ship so that I could retire to some tropical island filled with naked women. That's Zefram Cochrane.

This isn't about profit!

Modern Feudalism

[drooling-dog]

There's plenty of precedent for this: It's called "feudalism". We can now discuss whether Ellison will be a good or a cruel feudal lord.

Re:Modern Feudalism

[ChrisMaple]

There are at least 2 layers of government above Ellison and his Pacific property. He's still subject to courts and laws beyond his control. Some aspects of feudalism, perhaps, but not entirely.

Re:Modern Feudalism

[jc79]

Until very recently, the island of Sark in the English Channel was considered the last feudal jurisdiction in Europe.

first step: start charging money for air

[decora]

claiming that "we cant give away products for free. it doesnt make business sense", oracle president larry elliosn announced that his ownership of the island now extends to the air people breathe. "if they are breathing my air, i want to somehow try to monetize and get a return to your shareholders" ellison said.

Re:first step: start charging money for air

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you cite a reference for this? I can't find any info anywhere that supports your comment.

the biggest socialist bailout in history

[decora]

happened under a republican president, the son of Reagan's vice president, whil the treasury secretary was a former Goldman Sachs CEO.

you are hereby banned from ever complaining about 'socialist democrats' ever again. ever.

Re:the biggest socialist bailout in history

[SQL Error]

happened under a republican president, the son of Reagan's vice president, whil the treasury secretary was a former Goldman Sachs CEO.

Caused by policies enacted during the Clinton and Carter administrations, which the Republicans had twice tried to repeal. The Clinton-era economic boom was the bubble rising; Bush and Obama inherited the bust.

Actually, the root causes can be traced back to FDR's New Deal, and probably further. No-one came out of that mess smelling like a rose, but trying to pin the blame solely on either Bush or Obama is simply short-sighted.

example: if i want to spy on 100 million citizens

[decora]

oracle just cant be beat. its open mindedness when it comes to NSA's "reboot" of the 4th amendment has made all the difference.

Great until you fall out with the king

[fantomas]

Benevolent dictatorships are fine as long as you agree with the king/laird/CEO/ whatever.

Fall out with him and you'll lose your house, your job, and all those related to you might suffer. Rich people running islands is not a great long term plan. Ask the population of Eigg in Scotland, for example. All good until your nice rich person gets bored with his toy and neglects local services that people need, or sells it to a Bad Rich Person, etc.

I would have though US citizens, of all the places in the world, would have a historical perspective on what happens when uncaring kings run your country, and what the poor but honest citizens should do to resolve the lack of decision making power.

Very curious. Of course Ellison might be a lovely chap and improve the situation - it sounds like people do need improved services... but one man owning an island and having no accountability on his decision making power over people's homes and jobs, this makes me nervous... it's not like the people living here can change employers or move down the road if they are unhappy, it's an island. I'd be interested to hear his thoughts about the democratic processes, how the local people have the option to veto his decisions if they disagree, and so forth.

If he's really in it for the long term, wouldn't it make more sense to go for independence from the USA and ask the people to elect him as their President?

Re:Great until you fall out with the king

[ebno-10db]

I would have though US citizens, of all the places in the world, would have a historical perspective on what happens when uncaring kings run your country, and what the poor but honest citizens should do to resolve the lack of decision making power.

The problem may be that Ellison is not a king, but merely a feudal lord. There was less experience with those in colonial America.

Re:Great until you fall out with the king

[runeghost]

Exactly this. Sure, it seems like Ellison is being a good and benign despot/feudal lord/oligarch, but there are tons of reasons why humanity has been moving away from "one guy makes all the rules" forms of government. Mr. Ellison's (current) benevolence towards his subjects doesn't change that one bit. I couldn't help but notice that the article doesn't make any mention of his employees (or should that be subjects?) being allowed to own the houses they reside in, the shops they work in, or the land they live on...

Re:Great until you fall out with the king

[ChrisMaple]

If current US citizens had learned from history, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now.

Re:Great until you fall out with the king

[Anonymous Coward]

History, what's that? My school taught that all necessary history started in 1968!

Re:Great until you fall out with the king

[Anonymous Coward]

>having no accountability

But he does have accountability. He owns the land. but his situation is no different than any other landlord. He still has to answer to the people. If you think he can just do what he wants on that land then you don't understand how hard it can be to pursue development projects in Hawaii. Our government here does a fairly good job (certainly not perfect) of keeping these things in check.

Ellisonland

[puddingebola]

Will I step off the plane to find Larry Ellison wearing a white suit and smiling? "Welcome! To Ellison Island" Well I guess this makes a fun experiment for Mr. Ellison. Solar power, desalination technology, etc. Sounds like the island is dependent on tourism. As long as he doesn't crown himself King and demand that the residents kneel before him.

what about toll roads that are semi private?

[Joe_Dragon]

what about toll roads that are semi private? in some areas they seem to better in better shape then other roads that don't have tolls on them.

Re:what about toll roads that are semi private?

[Anonymous Coward]

That suggests that the tolls are higher than they need to be for purposes of paying of construction and maintenance. This could be because the tolls are used to restrict traffic, like a congestion charge, or simply they are trying to look busy as if the tolls are going toward something (regardless of how much of it might not be going toward that).

Re:Incredible

[Nerdfest]

The problem with Oracle is two-fold. Large organizations have products chosen by buyers, not developers, and PostgresSQL et al do not buy lunches, golf outings, or vacations. In addition, many people after having Oracle around for a bit make the mistake of using it as more than just a database, putting business logic, etc, in their database layer using Oracle's proprietary extensions. This makes it extremely difficult to switch products. Oracle can raise prices quite a lot and people pretty much have to keep paying. This is why typing your business to a proprietary product or format with a single provider is generally a very bad idea.

Fantasy Island

[Anonymous Coward]

De plane, De plane, Boss, saz little gnome, Mark Hurd.
Ellison will meet Stevie in his Fantasy episode.

I hear the main question people on the island ask

[NotSoHeavyD3]

is "That's nice but why are you hollowing out the mountain?"

Yup

[blocsync]

If I was a multi-billionaire... I'd probably want to play "Sim City Island Paradise - Ultra Realistic Edition" too...

Good for him.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I could own my own island. However, I don't think I would want to make the natives restless. Natives have ancestry going back to before the monetary system that is now facilitating this gentleman to own their island. Maybe there will be wonderful java plantations, dancing in the streets and utopia.. ~not wanting to be judgemental out of mere jealosy.

Ellison's an awful person

[tgeller]

Ellison has a history of being just terrible. When the San Carlos airport cite him for breaking noise ordinances when he flies in during "quiet" hours -- you know, waking up uncounted residents in the area -- he just laugh and pays the fine, over and over again. Now he's suing the airport in San Jose airport so he can do the same thing to that city's 800,000 residents.

Hawaiians can expct zero consideration from this proven douchebag.

Re:Ellison's an awful person

[Eunuchswear]

Easy to fix - just buy one of these http://www.mortarinvestments.eu/products/armoured-vehicles-4/gm-587-kub-22#currency=USD

Only $8350 (missiles extra).

Re:Ellison's an awful person

[barc0001]

You're repeating incorrect facts on this story. If you read the actual story, the SJ airport (where he's been operating out of for more than 10 years) has a curfew on "weight classes" for planes, not stopping flights completely. And Ellison's plane can be operated in two different weight configurations, one of which is allowed after the curfew, which is the configuration he's used, backed up by his crews' logs, to land at SJ. The airport on the other hand has tried to use the argument that if the plane CAN be configured that way, it must be doing it. The judge in the case agreed with Ellison's logs and told the airport to pound sand:

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Judge-clears-Ellison-for-landing-at-night-2909426.php

Doing something you're legally allowed to do and then having some pencildick try to fine you for it anyway is not the definition of being an awful person. Ellison's done many questionable things, let's not muddy the waters by spouting misinfomation.

And as a side observation, if you buy a property next to an airport and expect quiet, you're gonna have a bad time. So don't bitch when you hear planes at night at an airport you live next to.

Re:Ellison's an awful person

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh the shame. And I thought airports existed to handle aircraft landing and taking off.

Re:Ellison's an awful person

[Anonymous Coward]

airport in San Jose airport

Yo dawg, I herd that...

Re:Ellison's an awful person

[tgeller]

Your explanation doesn't change the main point: He's been illegally flouting regulations for San Carlos Airport for years. AFAIK, there's no dispute about that.

And I only mentioned one instance of douchebaggery. A search for "Larry Ellison" and "douchebag" furthers the tale.

Sim city fan

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if he has an account?

Tropico 4

[Anonymous Coward]

The dude is playing Tropico IRL!

Hyperbole in a headline?

[Rob_Bryerton]

Hyperbole in a headline? No, I just can't beleive it.

Ellison does not own this Hawaiian island. It is a portion of a state, as in one of the states that comprise the United States. He holds title (or more likely, a bank does) for a significant portion of the lots on this island. He does not "own the island".

Even if he aquired the title to every square mm of land on that island, he still would not own it. That just allows you to build on and occupy the land at the governments pleasure. And remember, even if you have a title to a plot of land, whatever is below the surface certainly does not belong to you. And because of the construct of Eminent Domain, you only have the right to occupy/use a portion of real estate as long as the government has no use for it.

Unless you are the federal government, you cannot truly own a shred of real estate in the real sense of the word "own". It's never fully yours to do with as you see fit.

Re:Hyperbole in a headline?

[ColdWetDog]

I'll bet you get invited to all the parties.

Re:Hyperbole in a headline?

[ChrisMaple]

Mining rights vary by state.

Re:Hyperbole in a headline?

[Dynedain]

Hmmm... your argument is that no entity besides a government can own property, counteracting every dictionary definition of the word "own", every legal understanding of the word "own", and every use of the word "own" going back hundreds of years.

Who's spouting hyperbole?

Re:Hyperbole in a headline?

[Mars Saxman]

Given that your idiosyncratic definition of "ownership" can, by definition, only ever apply to a sovereign government, it's not a term that is likely to come up for conversation very often. In the meantime, we would need some other term, which could apply to the state we currently call "ownership", an everyday situation which frequently comes up in conversation, as it involves billions of people.

Gee, I have an idea! Why don't we use the common, everyday word to describe the common, everyday situation, and invent some complex, specialized, technical term to describe this rarefied form of national-sovereignty "ownership" you have in mind?

Re:Hyperbole in a headline?

[Anonymous Coward]

the claims made are not hyperbole, they are completely true.
the definition of "own" changes quite a lot actually. think patent reversal = renewal, think extension of copyright, think DNA patents, think computers.

1. If you own it truly, then why do you pay taxes on it?
2. Ask the state for an Allodial title on your property, as that is the only "legal" definition of to truly "own" something in the eyes of the government dating back hundreds of years.
3. all land and people where claimed assets 100 years ago when the government defaulted and we have never worked our way out of that claim on our resources. your ass is owned by the good old USA.

Re:Hyperbole in a headline?

[TubeSteak]

And remember, even if you have a title to a plot of land, whatever is below the surface certainly does not belong to you.

Those are called "mining rights" and they're for sale too.
It's just that most of us don't bother buying them, because there's nothing worth owning under our land.

SHTF billionaire style

[GaryOlson]

Ellison is a prepper. He just has more money and resources than your average paranoid, anti-social TEOTHAWKI person.

Re:SHTF billionaire style

[Dynedain]

YUOAMYCU

(Your Use Of Acronyms Makes You Completely Unintelligible)

Didn't Mr Hammond do the same?

[Locutus]

It sounds like Mr Ellison is on his way in creating his own Jurassic Park. He'll probably use *nix too so the kids can help out.

LoB

Re:Incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't. It's happened more than once where I had slow query performance, and EXPLAIN PLAN showed that the that several of the available indexes were not being used at all. Manually specifying the indexes in the query magically fixed the problem. Any DBMS that has a query planner that fails to use available indexes when dealing with relatively simple queries gets my vote for being considered "half-assed".

Seen this before

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they used to call these company towns, that is what the government got involved.......

Larry Ellison new owner island of Lanai

[Anonymous Coward]

Writing as a long time Maui resident (the island of Lanai is part of Maui County) the jury is still out on Ellison. He follows another billionaire, David Murdock, who also had big plans for Lanai and put big bucks into the island for decades -- results negative cash flow and a sea of red ink. Murdock was none too popular with local population and few tears have been shed on his partial departure (he retained some rights to energy development). From the 19th century until the present day Lanai has had a whole string of serial megalomaniac owners whose priorities included religion, plantation agriculture and most recently resort and real estate development.

Current plans call for large scale energy development - most frequently mentioned is running a undersea cable from Lanai to Oahu to use energy created on Lanai to power Honolulu. If successful it will be one of the most expensive and technically challenging projects of the century. If it turns out like most things on Lanai in years past it will cost a lot and not live up to expectations.

Whether having one person or company own so much of an important part of our state is a good thing is highly questionable, but it seems to be a moot point. In the past there have few public benefits from prior owners and it seems unlikely that Ellison will be much different. In the meantime he joins a long list of the mega rich who want to perch here in their own little bubble, it just his bubble is bigger.

Yep

[rsilvergun]

and If I don't like Larry and I live on that island I can boycott him. Wait, no. I can't. He _owns_ the entire island. Seriously, can we all just just read the wikipedia article on the railroad trusts and call it a day? Oh, and vote. We can vote. Heck, I'll bet the number of successful changes due to election dwarfs the number of successes from a boycott. Can anyone name me the last successful large scale boycott?

Re:Yep

[Anonymous Coward]

South Africa's apartheid? Obviously boycotts were not the only reason for the system's demise but they sure would have helped end it.

Re:Yep

[kumanopuusan]

You're suggesting voting in response to an article about America and you expect to be taken seriously? Can anyone name me the last successful campaign for a federal office by a third party candidate? What exactly changed when Obama got voted in and control of the senate changed parties? The wars stopped and Gitmo was closed and Americans won back all their rights, didn't they? Voting for the other guy would hardly have been better in that regard.

In all honesty, the vast majority of Americans will do whatever is suggested by interested parties with large advertising budgets and clever marketeers. It doesn't matter if those parties are political parties or corporations. Voting is more pathetic because there are only two boxes to tick. At least there are more than two corporations in America!

SimCity billionaire's edition?

[Gordo_1]

Why do I get the feeling this whole thing is like a big billionaire's version of SimCity for him? I wonder what "natural" disasters he has in store?

Re:Incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

For the record, Google still makes heavy use of MySQL.

Transhumania

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if only Larry Ellison were allowed to turn the island into sovereign country he could build Transhumania (see Zoltan Istvan book Transhuman Wager) and make rapid advancement in medical research.

Larry Ellison is 69 years old and it doesn't matter how much money he's got if he can't be around to enjoy them.

Re:Transhumania

[mbone]

You write as if this would be a good thing.

Re:Transhumania

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be a good thing! Don't you want to live forever, or at least as long as chose to?

Medical research can't progress as long we have FDA and all the other regulations. People like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison are our last hope, and one of them now have an island.

Re:Incredible

[thoth]

Oracle is expensive, but if it were really overpriced then you'd see lots of cheaper alternatives.

Not exactly... customers can't exactly move to another database easily. What are you going to do if you are some enterprise like an airline or bank, export to CSV and then import? And actually bet your company that it worked?

Oracle is expensive and they have a bit of lock-in on their customers' data in their database.

Larry's looking for defensible space

[Anonymous Coward]

to sit out the Apocalypse in style. Lanai's a little big to keep watch on the entire perimeter, but with enough imported gastarbeiten, he'll manage. Not clear how he and his will avoid the drone-delivered aerosolized MERS and their nastier derivatives.

glub, glub, glub

[Anonymous Coward]

Given Oracle's management of other acquisitions, I predict Lanai will be underwater (figuratively and literally) well ahead of schedule.

I'll bet with that percentage of the island....

[Anonymous Coward]

a media blackout, and a contract with whatever Blackwater is calling themselves nowadays, he could do pretty much whatever he fucking likes there and his catches in the political system would whitewash it for him.

Not that it really matters, since within another 25 years they'll all be speaking cantonese after a Chinese LLC buys the island off Ellison anyhow.

Maybe it'll be the retirement home for the current crop of Chinese leadership.

Re:I'll bet with that percentage of the island....

[mbone]

You seriously do not understand how Hawaiian politics work.

Japanese experience in Hawaiian real estate has been almost exclusively "buy high sell low," with billions lost. I wonder if the Chinese will fare any better.

Re:I'll bet with that percentage of the island....

[Anonymous Coward]

What does that have to do with the politics in Hawaii (where I live)?

Debit / Credit Cards

[transporter_ii]

Look at the per transaction fees on debit/credit cards. A banking cartel has figured out how to extract a few percentage points off a large percentage of every sale made in the United States, especially if you are a small business.

Imagine starting a business where you get a cut of sales off of a large percentage of sales in the US. Wow. Just Wow.

I would bet if I suggested a similar scheme in the early 20th century, people would have laughed at me.

Re:Debit / Credit Cards

[datavirtue]

It's just how bankers think. Take income taxes for example. A tax on your labor which is used to pay banks, administered by a central entity which you pay for as well.

Does he ?

[mbone]

Anyone wonder how all of this land came to be for sale ? And, how good his title is?

In the old Hawaiian monarchy set up by Kamehameha, the King owned all of the land. In the "Great Mahele" (division) of 1850, private land ownership was introduced, with 1/3 of the land going to the crown, 1/3 to the commoners, and 1/3 to the chiefs (the "ahupua" land, really a type of shared commons). Due to failure to follow through with paperwork, only about 1% of the "commoners" land was actually allocated to commoners. (I believe that there are only 4 acres on Lanai, out of 40,000 or so, that are actually available for fee simple purchase by the likes of us - that would be the old commoner land.) This old map shows the division into Crown and chief lands after the Mahele. This article describes how Claus Spreckels (a sugar baron) got fee simple for the entire island (minus the 4 acres, and some state land). Of course this was corrupt, but note the corruption appears to have occurred before the 1893 coup d'etat that destroyed the old Hawaiian monarchy and delivered the country over to the USA as a territory.

Does he have good title? I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc., but my guess would be no, not to all of it. The courts and political system in Hawaii tend to look very favorably to claims from Hawaiian natives about land ownership. There is an entire state bureaucracy, the Department of Hawaii Homelands, dedicated to returning crown lands (and other state lands) to Hawaiians. The DHHL has a land use plan for Lanai, which is full of more facts and maps about Lanai land history and ownership for those who are interested.

Here is my guess how this will proceed. Ellison will develop this and that and eventually do something that will seriously piss off Lanai locals, and then will be enveloped in clouds of lawsuits and political agitation until he sells the land. Having heard stories of the way he runs business meetings, and having had some dealing in Hawaii real estate at the Federal level, I think that predicting a collision is a good bet, and it would be highly unlikely to end favorably for Mr. Ellision.

Re:Does he ?

[Dynedain]

You did all that research work and missed how he got the land?

The first comment to the article you cited suggests that Spreckles never even owned it to begin with. But assuming he did, as a US citizen he would have been able to maintain his claim to the land through the US annexation. Dole bought everything up in the 20's. David Murdock, as the owner of the company Dole became, sold it to Larry last year.

Re:Does he ?

[Jesrad]

My big fear is what happens after Ellison's eventual death. Inherited riches traditionnally do not long more than one generation, and even if the island prospers quietly until then, the legacy will turn into a mess of lawsuits spread across local and remote jurisdictions.

Re:Incredible

[mbone]

My experience in business is that decisions to buy Oracle tend to follow exactly the same logic (and are typically done by the same people) as decisions to mandate Microsoft Windows for all desktops.

yeah uhm

[decora]

1. so there was no dotcom burst?

2. when was the first CDO created?

3. when the GOP controlled both houses of congress and the presidency in the early 2000s, why didnt they repeal it then?

4. im not saying clinton wasnt involved, but the guy tried to blame the whole thing on 'communist democrats' which is what they call, "a fucking lie written by a stupid asshole" in the business.

Corps have the ethics of its leadership ...

[perpenso]

Well, I tend to think people go overboard with the whole private enterprise / government debate ... because corporations have no ethics or morals other than the profit motive - all other things and people are secondary

You just went overboard. Corporations have the ethics and morals of its leadership. Some are both ethical and moral, not purely guided by the profit motive. In my personal experience where I witnessed such leadership the company (a publicly traded company with billions in revenue) was still run by its founders, not by professional management installed by venture capital. I suspect this is a major contributing factor.

And if you notice, a lot of the whining coming from the corporate class is about too much regulation. Not a coincidence.

That is clearly not the case. Have you spent a significant amount of time around small business? Admittedly I don't consider small business owners to be "corporate class", I think my exclusion is fair.

No, go_ernment is many things

[MickLinux]

The line between enterprise and government is actually quite blurry. Actually, let me go farther: the line between property ownership and government, or family and government is also blurry.

consider in The Odyssey, when Ulyssees returned home, and judged his wife's serving maids, hanging them all on a single rope for squabbling. Definitely evil government.

Consider the authoritarian role of fatherand mother in a family of four, two of the kids being toddlers: again, a government, hopefully benign.

Ungoverned industry only works for very small groups. More than 3-4, and a workgroup will waste its time without a leader.

Yes, it is obvious that the guy wants to be ruler of Lanai, in some sense or other. But tobe an effective ruler, he's going to need the support of his people, because rulers have only two tools to work with: influence, and coercion. As long as Lanai is American, the amount of coercion he can exert is quite limited. So he's going to have to try to coopt their good will.

"Corporations are people" ...

[perpenso]

People keep saying " look at the Monsanto Protection legislation," but pretty much no one actually looks at it.

What they really mean to say is look at this particular proponent's / opponent's spin on the legislation. I have not read the Monsanto legislation, I'm quite open to it being a travesty, but I did read (well much of it, skimmed some) the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. Nowhere did it say that corporations are people, that phrase was coined by the opponents of the decision as a wonderfully successful attempt at framing, manufacturing a narrative. What the decision actually said was that groups of people have the same speech rights as an individual person and it does not matter if that group is a corporation, a labor union, an advocacy group, an activist group, etc.

Re:"Corporations are people" ...

[icebraining]

Sure it doesn't, that's in the law:

the words âoepersonâ and âoewhoeverâ include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;

(1 U.S.C. Â1)

Re:"Corporations are people" ...

[perpenso]

Sure it doesn't, that's in the law:

the words âoepersonâ and âoewhoeverâ include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;

(1 U.S.C. Â1)

You left out the part that says "In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise".

In short, this is a mechanism by which organizations are subject to the same laws and regulations that individuals are. The qualification of "context" is quite important here. With respect to rights context would determine what would also apply to organizations and would would exclusively apply to individuals. Speech is merely an activity that by context applies to both individuals and organizations.

Anyone fly island air recently?

[Anonymous Coward]

The man is driving that airline into the ground. Look at the yelp reviews. Whatever his intent is it, it is not altruistic and, in my experience, VERY bad buisness.

Re:example: if i want to spy on 100 million citize

[gl4ss]

oracle just cant be beat. its open mindedness when it comes to NSA's "reboot" of the 4th amendment has made all the difference.

you would think google like db approach would be better for that rather than oracle. that was the whole point. either you have really huge or something manageable without oracle and you're better off putting the money towards hw anyways.

Bill Gates got married on Lanai

[Radical Moderate]

Whether that factored into Ellison's decision....discuss amongst yourselves.

Wikipedia sources say it was largely symbolic

[rsilvergun]

and at any rate it was 23 years ago. Not really a "recent" example... I'd also argue that corporations have much tighter control today. They do learn after all. I remember when Pakistan and India had that dust up where a bunch of Pakistanis launched a major terrorist strike. In the 80s that woulda started a war, and we were all expecting it. Except a war would be bad for all the corps using cheap Indian/Pakistani labor...

Pros and cons of a monarchy

[spasm]

As with any monarchy, if the King is a good, thoughtful, and benevolent dictator then the place might do fairly well out of it. If the King is a self-indulgent jackass, you're screwed. Most places have gotten rid of them, you'll note.

You're very funny

[publiclurker]

Too bad there are young impressionable children that are actually gullible enough to think you are serious and should be taken seriously.

That's because

[publiclurker]

nobody want to support a self-entitled leach.

Why not live in Haiti?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can Larry Ellison tell us why? We know it isn't the DNA of the people who live there, because that would be 'racist', so it must be the LAND MASS that makes it a vile third world shithole, right?

Re:Incredible

[Nerdfest]

... or buying Apple devices.

Tropico

[nickmalthus]

Ellison must have been a big fan of the game

Vote left

[rsilvergun]

It's not going to change all at once. Keep voting for the most viable and most liberal candidate and you'll gradually shift the country away from the current corporate run mess. Obama is one of the most liberal candidate in 20 years. Short of Alan Grayson I don't know anyone else who has a chance in politics and would be a better pick. As for what changed? If the Affordable care act is properly implemented it will change the face of health care. That's important, because right now seniors are single issue voters afraid of losing their lives. Take that fear away and we can start getting them to vote for things like banking reform.

Baby steps. You're up against professionals who's only goal is to bleed you dry if everything. But they lost once (after WWII). For example, Britain told Churchill to talk a long walk off a short pier on the NSA. So if they lost once they can lose again.

Re:Vote left

[rioki]

Actually NO! Keep voting for your third party of choice! The third party vote is NOT a vote wasted. If you don't vote your vote is wasted. If you vote for the lesser evil your vote is wasted. We need to break the cycle of the two party system in the US. Actually any third party would help shake up the situation.

Re:Vote left

[ah.clem]

Interesting. I wonder how many "Green Party" folks are still feeling like you do now; Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo, TSA, Homeland Security, Corps are People, Market Dump of '08, Think of the Children, etc. I am really sorry I will probably be long dead when you are 60; I would love to revisit your comment with you then to see how you are feeling about 3rd party shakups.

A simple term: Fee simple

[tepples]

Given that your idiosyncratic definition of "ownership" can, by definition, only ever apply to a sovereign government, it's not a term that is likely to come up for conversation very often. In the meantime, we would need some other term, which could apply to the state we currently call "ownership"

There are two terms: allodial title, which the sovereign government holds, and fee simple, which the private "owner" of land holds. Holders of a fee simple estate in land pay a recurring rent to the sovereign called "property tax".

Solaris, of course

[tepples]

It sounds like Mr Ellison is on his way in creating his own Jurassic Park. He'll probably use *nix too so the kids can help out.

And I think I know what flavor of *nix his park will use: one named after a Stan Lem novel.

Is that you, Goku?

[tepples]

Kamehameha

...douken!

the King owned all of the land

This is still true: commoners who hold a fee simple estate in land think they "own" land, but they're actually renting it from the sovereign government.

runway

[Anonymous Coward]

I was there a while back. One of the issues on the runways was they were not equipped for jets. You had to bunny hop over to another island for fuel. So this private island will become more private.

Either the US, or the Hawaiians Own It

[sesshomaru]

This is pretty absurd, the idea that Larry Ellison can own the sixth largest Hawaiian Island.

On the one hand, it means the Hawaiians, on that island at least, have a royal family again.

On the other hand, he holds it due to fictitious numbers in a database, so what this really means is that the United States gave it to him.

The United States will take it back whenever it likes, unless he decides to be a king like Leopold and establish his own military to torment the inhabitants. In which case the United States will take it back after a rather short war.

But I'm sure he'll enjoy pretending to be king for a while.

$300 million is pretty cheap...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised that Lanai went for only $300 million, that is a steal. I would of thought that it would of gone for at least 1 to 2 billion. I figure that just some of the resorts are worth a hundred million or so.

He his just playing SimCity for real

[Kaleidoscopio]

Seems he also got fed up with the online problems of SimCity and decided to go for the next best thing, real life SimCity.
Hell, he gets a triple package, Sims, SimCity and Transport Tycoon.
You guys are just jealous. :D

Re:Incredible

[BigZee]

Although I'm sure there is some truth to your comments, it really is not that simple. Firstly, the days of a supplier swaying a decision through sweetners is pretty much over. I can't say it doesn't still happen but it doesn't happen as much as you might thing. If you look at the database engine alone, then there are some valid and reasonable alternatives to Oracle - IBM DB2, Sybase SQL Server, MS SQL Server, PostgresSQL. Superficially they provide similar functionality. Large organisations quite often use more than one of them. However, anyone who knows much about databases know how substantially different they are. Oracle for example has it's own flavour of the SQL language as well as PL/SQL. Worth mentioning that you can also execute JAVA inside the database as well should you want to. Each of the DBs will have some alternative and it's not so easy to move that code between engines. Clustering is a good way to see the differences between the products. Oracle has something called RAC which attempts (sometimes pretty well) to make a database simultaneously available on several (potentially many) hosts at the same time. DB2 also supports clustering but does so by partitioning the data between different nodes. MS SQL Server supports basic failover clustering. I can't comment on Postgress or Sybase but it's clear that everyone has their own way of doing things. Another area where Oracle differentiates itself is through a number of other features - ASM for storage management, Oracle Application Server for application development and deployment. After all that, there is also products like Exadata.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that Oracle is superior (although it's the DB I know the best), but there are numerous substantial differences that dictate the decision an organisation makes, beyond cost or golf outings. More importantly, you'll find that the reason why a company will stay with a product is because of their investment in that product. It's not easy to lift and drop an application from Oracle into Postgress if you've taken advantage of the features. Making the move from one product to another could take a large organisation a decade to achieve and still find itself with pockets using the 'old' product.

Holy crap.

[azav]

This is insanely awesome.

Rich man's bug-out palace

[Anonymous Coward]

Smart boy, make it self-sufficient in food and water, tame the natives. With his inside track on when things are finally going to blow all you need is to watch for when moves his private armed troops in to know when you should jump too.

Re:Incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

A sane developer would set up a development environment, and replicate the schema and dump production data over a pipe... Once it's confirmed to work, one could partition the data or dump it while replaying transaction logs to keep the data true until the switch is flipped. It really isn't rocket science.