There are two types of monopolies:
1) A company is so good at satisfying it's customers that it eliminates it's competition by providing value in the marketplace.
2) A company gets special privileges and favours from the government, including increased regulations of it's own industry.
Interestingly, the first never got discussed in econ classes. Mostly because although it is temporarily a monopoly, there's no force preventing another competitor from appearing. Hence, taking monopoly profits isn't likely to happen. But there are other barriers to entry you miss.
Extremely high fixed costs (e.g. Power Distribution)
IP restrictions
Network effects
Proprietary connections with complimentary goods
Distribution agreements (ever try to sell something to Walmart... or without Walmart)
I'll stop now. The point is that natural monopolies exist, for tons of reasons.
You omitted Medicaid (2.9%, uncapped) and SS ( 10.4% up to 110k). So, if the extra 11.44k makes up for the phasing in of the highest rate (not willing to do the math), the highest rate is actulally 47.2%. Which makes GP closer.
Also factor in unemployment/disability, and possible city taxes.
I'm sorry but I simply don't have any confidence that anyone has succesfully modelled our climate to the point that they can predict the weather a week from now, let alone years from now.
I too have trouble guessing the weather a week from now. However, I will put up a substaintal sum that it will be colder* in 6 months than it is now.
*Where I live... happens to be in the northern hemisphere.
IN a personal discussion, the burden of proof is on whomever disagrees with me.
In a policy discussion, the burden of proof is on whomever currently seems to be costing society more/benefiting society less(factor in different methods of calculation for cost/value of fairness, liberty, etc. and appetite for risk).
Drowned? Really? So entire generations are going to just sit there while the water around them rises? I think they'll have time to, you know, move.
Yeah, like all those whiners in New Orleans. I mean, sure a lot of them got enough warning to just lose all their material possessions...
Not sure how much of Katrina was caused by global warming, but I'd imagine that at some point, environmental changes will lead to an increased likelihood of catastrophic events.
It's not Apple Retail's issue since they were not conducting a transaction involving an export from the US. What happens to the iPad once it leaves the store isn't their concern.
It is their concern if they are told it will be sent to Iran. Just like a doctor cannot prescribe pain drugs to someone who, while needing them, tells them flat out they plan to resell them. Or a lawyer cannot knowingly help his client lie under oath.
No, not really. You are given a total cost and a delta cost. How you determine the cost is, ultimately, irrelevant. You can factor in weight based depreciation on your car or not. As long as your accounting methods are the same for the ball and bat, your total cost was 1.10 and your bat cost 1 more.
what if you have a 10% coupon for one item but not both and everything in the store is marked down 25% from the sticker price!?
Then you would have spent 5 cents on the ball, and 1.05 on the bat. It doesn't matter what the list prices was.
Almost every farmer I know is obese, drinks, smokes and eats fat and sugar like there's no tomorrow and has a full collection of chronic health conditions, from hypertension to diabetes.
Modern farmers, sure. Because they still eat like they did when farm-work was less automated. But 200 years ago, farmers put down like 5000 calories a day, trying to keep up with what they burned off.
You realize that radiated energy decreases with the square of distance, right?
No. But in my defense, that is because that's not true. That is only the case when the radiation goes equally in all directions. A radar gun focuses the energy in a much more concentrated beam. Therefore, the falloff is far less.
It's a huge stretch to compare a doctor who spent years in medical school training to diagnose and treat medical problems with airport security guards.
It's the education that separates what happens in a doctor's office from random things on the street? I thought it was informed consent and context.
You go try screening young women for breast cancer on the street. Let me know how that works out for you if you can get onto slashdot from jail.
I assume you're implying without their consent. It would be just as bad as me as for a doctor without their consent. Of course, the doctor could offer to perform a legitimate service that I could not (real medical care), but as long as I made it clear it was role-play and not a legit offer of services I cannot imagine any legal issue. Of course, there may be public indecency rules, but those apply regardless of medical degree.
So when this stuff started become standard operating procedure I decided to never again travel to the USA, and that has worked out pretty well. No conferences, no family holidays, no business trips, no standing in line while a jackbooted rentacop yells "PAPERS!" in my face.
"Papers" is about controlling who can go where. This is obviously very bad.
Frisking is about discovering contraband. Frisking everyone does not bother me. I don't really care if I get frisked entering a mall or a bar... just have a qualified professional do it.
So sue away... until another Apple ends up owning you because you flatly refused to give customers what we're begging for and willing to pay for, an easy way to watch every TV ever created on every media device we own.
One, that's a pretty tall demand.
Two, like half these companies are part owners of Hulu. The rest license content to Hulu. I'm sure this is more about protecting Hulu's profit margin, and standing to sue, than anything.
They're designing it from the ground up to be PATRIOT-Act proof because it will literally be impossible for them to give the feds the data they want. It is fewer fights, but may amount to one HUGE fight with the biggest gorilla on earth, the U.S. Justice Department.
Who he already fought. This guy is the same guy who fought (successfully), the national security letter he recieved in 2007.
Obviously, there's some danger/value tradeoff societies have to make. I'm not claiming everything has to be perfect or not exist.
However, your claim that the recall must somehow involve junking all the cars is similarly extremist. Look at the Prius recall. A lot of other recalls are done in a rolling fashion, fixed in the dealership (so the recall may take a few weeks... that's another way of handling cost/danger tradeoffs) while the person reads a book for half an hour, and the defective part is replaced (or commonly failing part is tested to see if it needs to be replaced.
If the settlement/loss cost put too low of a weight on human life in the equation, then the argument is that the results of lawsuits are too cheap, not that the car companies shouldn't use the equation at all.
Well, it's an interesting collection of conflicting goals. If car companies use this equation, and the equation is accurate, then it correctly captures the costs. However, a lawsuit also has a punitive aspect... testing to see if the 5 cent savings in plastic will make the car dangerous before saving that money is something we want to incentivize. But that leads to too many recalls.
Of course they're going to use that equation. Why wouldn't they?
It fails to take into account people who don't settle immediately: court costs, damages if found guilty and public relations costs. It also fails to take into account the value of certainty vs. uncertainty in costs. And that's without all the more involved questions about whether a public recall costing X hurts the stock price more than secret payments of Y given current conditions, etc.
Why shouldn't they?
Well, reading "should" as a moral question, I doubt that the aggregate out-of-court settlements really capture the full cost of leaving the vehicles on the road.
Why can't they say that already? "Oh, maybe in the eyes of THE_STATE you're married, but not in the eyes of MY_DEITY".
Because most people recognise that they can be both religious and a citizen of a state? Seriously, what a Mormon believes religious truth is doesn't matter. What the state believes the legal truth is, does.
If the state says a speed limit is X, we understand that it is X.
Marriage as a concept hasn't traditionally been owned by organized religion,
I can only really speak to European history, but it was pretty owned by religion (not necessarily organised.) Judaism defines religion. Catholicism defines religion. Anglicanism started over marriage. Whether Eastern marriages were religious or not, a good chunk of the planet believes it is religious.
My point is that the whole "the state shouldn't be involved in marriage, but domestic unions are okay!" thing seems dishonest. State marriage is a non-religious domestic union. If they really mean "gays shouldn't be domestic unioned", they ought to just say it. If they're really concerned that the State will start interceding on their religion, why not pass a law to prevent that rather than one to stop same-sex marriage in general?
They do. Or at least a large movement does. If you're talking only about those who say "legal marriage for me, legal civil union for you", that's a fair critique. But there is a large group that just wants the government to stop having any say in "marriage" and only deal with "legal household creation". That group exists and you do them a disservice by lumping them in with the others.
Who cares if it happens to share the same word as religious institutions use for their own domestic unions?
A lot of people.
I mean, I know it's a rhetorical question, but it seems particularly incorrect. A lot of people object to the term "married" being applied to gay people. For religious reasons. And since it's a legal term, the state defines who is married and who is not. If the state used any other word, those offended would say something like "Oh, maybe in the eyes of STUPID_OTHER_DIETY you're married, but not in the eyes of MY_DIETY."
That argument strikes me as a cheap way of shifting responsibility. Rather than truthfully supporting their positions, the religious folks can just say "well, the state shouldn't be involved in marriage anyways"
Huh? They don't think that gay people should be allowed to get married. Instead of letting 800 definitions of "married" exist, the state creates one. That seems to be pretty explicit.
I won't bother to address any of your points save the last:
I would add public key cryptography to the list of technologies that propelled the Internet to the mainstream which was not sanctioned by the government.
If by "not sanctioned by" you mean "funded by", then you are correct. Public key cryptography was funded by the government and military.
I don't know if there is a Karmic debt for taking money from warriors.
Other than a patriotic goal that my country win all wars it gets involved in, there's a great reason to develop better warfare technology: As technological asymmetry increases, the total number of deaths before surrender decreases.
To say otherwise would be like arguing physics wouldn't exist without a bunch of old overprivileged white guys.
Huh? Physics obviously would continue to exist. Our understanding of physics would probably be close to the ancient greeks if you eliminated the contributions of over-privileged white* guys.
*I read " over-privileged white" as privileged male members of the dominant ethnic group of whatever region you are in.
So would the internet eventually exist: Possibly. Would it exist now: No.
Or is the "in another form" supposed to cover the fact that before the APDAnet research went big there were hierarchies of BBSes. I think that quote substantially underestimates the feedback loops and capital investments that made the internet possible. And, incidentally, the scaling up of the internet is what makes it easier to do things in a one-off fashion now. That is, the internet facilitates experimentation and development so much that, given the internet as a black-box, it's easy to see how something as fundamental as the internet could get created. But it's a privileged point-of-view that ignores how difficult communication and collaboration was before.
the fact that lynching is legal again in Florida... More than 20 states have passed these "Stand Your Ground & Shoot a Black Guy" laws already,
Stand your ground refers to when you can legal force in self-defense. It, like many laws, depends on what (eventually a jury) believes a "reasonable person" would feel and respond. The fact is, in this case, a police department with very well documented race-issues was the first decider of "reasonable". If the law had been different and had required a stricter reasonable interpretation of immediate danger for justification, you can rest assured that they would have discovered that stricter standard was met as well.
So, not a legal lynching... a like when the sheriff is one of the people wearing the white robes lynching.
With my guinea olive skin I would hate some cracker
The guy who shot Trayvon is a Hispanic whose skin tone is probably fairly similar to yours (in shade and tint, if not in hue).
Slashdot Mirror
HBO and Disney are "premium" channels with every lineup I've ever seen. I just heard that I finally have to stop paying for ESPN 1-8. Huzzah.
Interestingly, the first never got discussed in econ classes. Mostly because although it is temporarily a monopoly, there's no force preventing another competitor from appearing. Hence, taking monopoly profits isn't likely to happen. But there are other barriers to entry you miss.
I'll stop now. The point is that natural monopolies exist, for tons of reasons.
You omitted Medicaid (2.9%, uncapped) and SS ( 10.4% up to 110k). So, if the extra 11.44k makes up for the phasing in of the highest rate (not willing to do the math), the highest rate is actulally 47.2%. Which makes GP closer.
Also factor in unemployment/disability, and possible city taxes.
I too have trouble guessing the weather a week from now. However, I will put up a substaintal sum that it will be colder* in 6 months than it is now.
*Where I live... happens to be in the northern hemisphere.
IN a personal discussion, the burden of proof is on whomever disagrees with me.
In a policy discussion, the burden of proof is on whomever currently seems to be costing society more /benefiting society less(factor in different methods of calculation for cost/value of fairness, liberty, etc. and appetite for risk).
Yeah, like all those whiners in New Orleans. I mean, sure a lot of them got enough warning to just lose all their material possessions...
Not sure how much of Katrina was caused by global warming, but I'd imagine that at some point, environmental changes will lead to an increased likelihood of catastrophic events.
At first glance, it seems like it'll have a pain of a time telling the difference between similar words. Char or Chair? Harm or Ham?
And it seems to be fairly vulnerable to imprecision going over the vowel almost-cross as well.
It is their concern if they are told it will be sent to Iran. Just like a doctor cannot prescribe pain drugs to someone who, while needing them, tells them flat out they plan to resell them. Or a lawyer cannot knowingly help his client lie under oath.
No, not really. You are given a total cost and a delta cost. How you determine the cost is, ultimately, irrelevant. You can factor in weight based depreciation on your car or not. As long as your accounting methods are the same for the ball and bat, your total cost was 1.10 and your bat cost 1 more.
Then you would have spent 5 cents on the ball, and 1.05 on the bat. It doesn't matter what the list prices was.
I'm fine with penalizing people who drive SUVs. They are, after all, the primary reason my shoebox-sized car is dangerous.
Modern farmers, sure. Because they still eat like they did when farm-work was less automated. But 200 years ago, farmers put down like 5000 calories a day, trying to keep up with what they burned off.
No. But in my defense, that is because that's not true. That is only the case when the radiation goes equally in all directions. A radar gun focuses the energy in a much more concentrated beam. Therefore, the falloff is far less.
It's the education that separates what happens in a doctor's office from random things on the street? I thought it was informed consent and context.
I assume you're implying without their consent. It would be just as bad as me as for a doctor without their consent. Of course, the doctor could offer to perform a legitimate service that I could not (real medical care), but as long as I made it clear it was role-play and not a legit offer of services I cannot imagine any legal issue. Of course, there may be public indecency rules, but those apply regardless of medical degree.
"Papers" is about controlling who can go where. This is obviously very bad.
Frisking is about discovering contraband. Frisking everyone does not bother me. I don't really care if I get frisked entering a mall or a bar... just have a qualified professional do it.
One, that's a pretty tall demand.
Two, like half these companies are part owners of Hulu. The rest license content to Hulu. I'm sure this is more about protecting Hulu's profit margin, and standing to sue, than anything.
Who he already fought. This guy is the same guy who fought (successfully), the national security letter he recieved in 2007.
Ireland as a paradigm of understanding and tolerance? Of non-tribal behavior?
Need I point to the sectarian Irish Civil War?
Obviously, there's some danger/value tradeoff societies have to make. I'm not claiming everything has to be perfect or not exist.
However, your claim that the recall must somehow involve junking all the cars is similarly extremist. Look at the Prius recall. A lot of other recalls are done in a rolling fashion, fixed in the dealership (so the recall may take a few weeks... that's another way of handling cost/danger tradeoffs) while the person reads a book for half an hour, and the defective part is replaced (or commonly failing part is tested to see if it needs to be replaced.
Well, it's an interesting collection of conflicting goals. If car companies use this equation, and the equation is accurate, then it correctly captures the costs. However, a lawsuit also has a punitive aspect... testing to see if the 5 cent savings in plastic will make the car dangerous before saving that money is something we want to incentivize. But that leads to too many recalls.
It fails to take into account people who don't settle immediately: court costs, damages if found guilty and public relations costs. It also fails to take into account the value of certainty vs. uncertainty in costs. And that's without all the more involved questions about whether a public recall costing X hurts the stock price more than secret payments of Y given current conditions, etc.
Well, reading "should" as a moral question, I doubt that the aggregate out-of-court settlements really capture the full cost of leaving the vehicles on the road.
Because most people recognise that they can be both religious and a citizen of a state? Seriously, what a Mormon believes religious truth is doesn't matter. What the state believes the legal truth is, does.
If the state says a speed limit is X, we understand that it is X.
I can only really speak to European history, but it was pretty owned by religion (not necessarily organised.) Judaism defines religion. Catholicism defines religion. Anglicanism started over marriage. Whether Eastern marriages were religious or not, a good chunk of the planet believes it is religious.
They do. Or at least a large movement does. If you're talking only about those who say "legal marriage for me, legal civil union for you", that's a fair critique. But there is a large group that just wants the government to stop having any say in "marriage" and only deal with "legal household creation". That group exists and you do them a disservice by lumping them in with the others.
A lot of people.
I mean, I know it's a rhetorical question, but it seems particularly incorrect. A lot of people object to the term "married" being applied to gay people. For religious reasons. And since it's a legal term, the state defines who is married and who is not. If the state used any other word, those offended would say something like "Oh, maybe in the eyes of STUPID_OTHER_DIETY you're married, but not in the eyes of MY_DIETY."
Huh? They don't think that gay people should be allowed to get married. Instead of letting 800 definitions of "married" exist, the state creates one. That seems to be pretty explicit.
What secret position do you think they support?
I won't bother to address any of your points save the last:
If by "not sanctioned by" you mean "funded by", then you are correct. Public key cryptography was funded by the government and military.
Other than a patriotic goal that my country win all wars it gets involved in, there's a great reason to develop better warfare technology: As technological asymmetry increases, the total number of deaths before surrender decreases.
Huh? Physics obviously would continue to exist. Our understanding of physics would probably be close to the ancient greeks if you eliminated the contributions of over-privileged white* guys.
*I read " over-privileged white" as privileged male members of the dominant ethnic group of whatever region you are in.
So would the internet eventually exist: Possibly. Would it exist now: No.
Or is the "in another form" supposed to cover the fact that before the APDAnet research went big there were hierarchies of BBSes. I think that quote substantially underestimates the feedback loops and capital investments that made the internet possible. And, incidentally, the scaling up of the internet is what makes it easier to do things in a one-off fashion now. That is, the internet facilitates experimentation and development so much that, given the internet as a black-box, it's easy to see how something as fundamental as the internet could get created. But it's a privileged point-of-view that ignores how difficult communication and collaboration was before.
Stand your ground refers to when you can legal force in self-defense. It, like many laws, depends on what (eventually a jury) believes a "reasonable person" would feel and respond. The fact is, in this case, a police department with very well documented race-issues was the first decider of "reasonable". If the law had been different and had required a stricter reasonable interpretation of immediate danger for justification, you can rest assured that they would have discovered that stricter standard was met as well.
So, not a legal lynching... a like when the sheriff is one of the people wearing the white robes lynching.
The guy who shot Trayvon is a Hispanic whose skin tone is probably fairly similar to yours (in shade and tint, if not in hue).