computers and equipment that he used to listen in on the system were seized. Police also found a "counterfeit police badge" during the investigation.
There are the key details of the story.
Yes, I understand that he offered to help. Yes, I understand that he had the noblest intentions. Regardless, he still intentionally broke the law by accessing a system without authorization. That it was easy to do doesn't make it any less of a crime.
The FISA court is a rubber stamp. They almost never reject an NSA request. Why would the NSA go around the FISA court when they know the court will say yes? That would be stupid.
This was debunked around the last time Slashdot covered it. I don't know if the debunking ever made it here, though. I saw it from SwiftOnSecurity, I think. In short, the FISA rubber-stamped most requests only after heavy revision that happened before the final request was submitted. The reviewers looked at requests, had a hearty laugh, and suggested changes to the search scope so it wouldn't be rejected.
Back when I worked in government contracting, we'd do the same thing. We'd get the test criteria from the customer and make sure our tests passed before the government representatives showed up. Our record never showed any failures, because they never made it to the final scored test.
As I understand it, lawyers are appointed and paid to argue against the NSA before the FISA court. The problem is these lawyers are paid by the government to argue against the government, which is a conflict of interest.
There's no evidence that any such conflict has actually affected anything. The government is not a coherent entity. It is a multitude of departments, agencies, and hierarchies, usually with very intentional disagreements in purpose. If one guy is being paid expressly to advocate for human rights, and another guy is being paid to advocate for security, there's no reason to assume either will shirk their duties, regardless of where their paycheck comes from.
at if it's an American company, that the U.S. would get the taxes on that income (profit)
Aye, there's the rub. It's not an American company. The company that makes the profit-producing sale is based outside the US and has no US connection, apart from an investment by a US umbrella (along with other companies from other countries).
...economically illiterate, ignorant people, who have been brainwashed for this long and are so married into the system they can't get out of the Matrix, so to speak. It's like having fun at the expense of somebody with leprosy, sure sure, it's amusing but also a bit cruel.
figure that one out.
Now, why do I bother with you? I guess it is a good deed to try and save the sick, but why bother really? Do I need you? No. Still, I will finish replying to this comment.
- oh, this is PRECIOUS, just precious.
:) Oh my my my, how hard it is to stay serious while replying to such amazing examples of total and complete ignorance.
oh, you don't know what that is
you might have heard something.
the subject of my next ridicule of your complete ignorance and lack of interest on the subject
You may want to read up.
oh, the holly naivety.
such stupid ideas... are stupid and confuse the simpletons like you.
blah blah blah, nonsense... only idiots don't get it.
completely blowing out of the water your (and all the other mainstream charlatan 'economists') idea
honestly, a person capable of typing a sentence on a complex device, such as a computer should be able to understand it, but I guess we made computers too simple, even idiots can use them today.
that's the first true statement in your entire comment, but that's incidental, not on purpose.
Sorry, I got distracted there. If you'd like to have a reasonable discussion, you're welcome to try your post again, and see if you can maintain a bit more decorum. There were a few notable arguments in your post, but they're mixed with so much vitriol as to be incoherent. I'll check again sometime tomorrow.
Being publicly-traded companies, their American financial structure is public information, and many other countries have similar transparency structures.
To contrive an example, then, if a Frenchman in London buys a phone that was manufactured in Japan from parts fabricated in China from raw materials mined in Australia, using designs licensed from a company in Ireland who in turn licensed them from an American company, why does the United States get all of the taxes?
Just because a company is headquartered in the United States does not mean that its profit or expenses are necessarily American. Domestic profits are still taxed domestically. The issue is regarding profits from business that was conducted entirely in foreign countries, most often with no direct financial obligation to (or infrastructure benefit from) the United States.
Please enlighten me with what you know. This should prove most entertaining.
Gold is not an investment, never was, it is money
To my knowledge, there is no country that actually uses gold as legal money. You personally might value it as a currency, but that is not a majority opinion.
its function is to keep purchasing power and be an inflation hedge
It fails to keep its purchasing power due to fluctuations in its exchange rate with real currencies. Even accounting for the recent recession, real estate has actually done a better job of keeping its "purchasing power". I'll also note that the very definition of an "inflation hedge" is an investment.
Governments produce inflation, unless you are under a mistaken belief that central banks are not really controlled by governments and don't really act for the short term benefit of the current organization. Governments produce inflation and sometimes hyper inflation that take down economies.
You're going to have to explain this conspiracy theory of yours a little more. Governments (through central banks) can encourage inflation by raising their interest rates, or they can allow deflation by cutting interest rates, but they're not the driving force behind inflation, and would have no reason to initiate heavy inflation or hyperinflation.
Inflation happens when consumers have to pay more for the same goods and services. A little inflation has a positive effect on the economy, because it encourages people to spend money, adding more inertia to the economic machine, thereby providing confidence that producers will continue to have income in the near future, allowing them (as consumers) to purchase luxury goods and raise their quality of life. Conversely, if consumer prices are dropping under deflation, consumers are less likely to spend money, because they'll get a better deal later. That, in turn, reduces the viability of industry, lowers confidence, and further discourages spending.
These basic market principles are independent of any government. The government's only involvement is that by issuing loans from a central bank and controlling the interest rates of those loans, the government has a very highly-desired product whose price it can control. That lets the central bank effectively put its thumb on the scales, promoting inflation or deflation as it sees fit, but it can't actually control the whims of the rest of the market.
As to taking down governments, that's a worth while life goal, call it a hobby for the sake of freedom.
Using corporate money to fund a personal hobby, especially one that will harm the company, is a good way to get fired, even for an executive.
My point is that the actual laws dictating an executive's responsibilities rarely care at all about the shareholders. Rather, they usually only require that the company follow its charter, and it's that charter that defines the goals, and that's usually done vaguely.
In Apple's case, I don't see any definition of what the shareholders' interests are. It has been upheld in court that such a term can be construed to mean many things beside the often-assumed short-term profit goal. If Tim Cook thinks (and convinces the Board) that it's in shareholders' best interests to pay taxes to bring cash into the United States, then he can do so.
In essence, my point is to question the point of the original comment. Corporations are beholden to the laws of their jurisdictions, and those laws (in the US) make them subject to their charters. Blaming shareholders and invoking the profit myth implies that somehow the executives are being forced to do something distasteful, whether it's outsourcing or polluting or keeping foreign cash. The reality is that the executives have a wide range of options, and usually they only have to make a passable justification like "our polled shareholders said they care about the environment, so we're spending billions of dollars to have recycling in all facilities".
The myth essentially shifts the blame from the corporate executives to "the system". It's the same as the hippies' stereotypical disgust with The Man, the modern rebels' jealousy of the 1%, the historic persecution of Jews, and the vilifying of banks. Rather than a specific mechanism to effect change, such as participating in a shareholder poll or vote, the myth provides a vague target for outrage that the masses can rally against, feeling good about their impotent rebellion. It satisfies a craving to be a noble warrior in a community of fellow underdogs, fighting against a powerful oppressor... but it doesn't require the drudgery of actually changing anything.
They just need to use that money where it is instead of keeping it in cash
They already do. These accounts are usually the sources for rotating expenses, and their value can change dramatically on a day-to-day basis as investments cycle in and out. Pretty much, the goal of foreign accounts is to hold cash until it's needed, and to then make it available quickly at low cost.
which can be inflated away by the governments
Governments don't cause inflation. Governments can control the inflation rate with their policies, but one of the things that makes tax havens appealing is that their governments have a history of policies that keep inflation low. Remember, high inflation is pretty much always a bad thing, because it means that the value of money keeps dropping.
What they should do is buy inflation hedges with it,
Typically, "inflation hedge" is a commodity future. I'd expect a chunk of reserve capital is already invested as such, but again, tax havens typically have a low risk of inflation. It's also worth noting that buying local inflation hedges (primarily real estate) in the tax haven can then drive up local prices for that commodity, actually causing higher inflation. Hedging is a risky business, so the investment advisers I've worked with tend to avoid the issue altogether and just stay in easily-liquidated bonds.
gold
Gold hasn't been a safe investment since 1971. Despite the love of enthusiasts, it's really just a shiny metal, offering the same risk as any other commodity investment. Again, since the whole point of these accounts is to keep money available, having it tied up in a gold bubble is not a good option.
income producing assets
...Like what, exactly? If you can actually answer that question, I expect that you are a CEO for a top-5 tech company, since identifying potential income-producing assets is a notable part of their job. It's not so simple as to build another factory or buy more parts... if the market is saturated, money would be better off as cash. Also note that if these "assets" are located in a country that is not the tax haven, there will likely be a taxable event in such an investment.
maybe other companies
Again, this is a matter of strategy. Buying a company is a risky investment. If the company is already profitable, the purchase price will reflect that. If it isn't profitable, then the expected return is even riskier, and it will tie up money for a long time.
I would use some of that money to take down governments, but that's me.
That's a good way to lose favor with other allied governments, and eventually get a reputation as a destabilizing influence, which eliminates a lot of opportunities around the world.
A pauper unexpectedly and unknowingly does a favor for a wealthy underworld boss, and is rewarded with his choice of arms or cash. He chooses wisely, and uses his gift to start a small trading business around south Asia. It goes well until he meets some pirates, but he barely manages to escape, and is forced to borrow money to make repairs. From then on, the pirates harass him at nearly every passage, and he must keep increasing his volume and taking riskier cargo just to stay afloat (pun intended... use it for the poster). Finally, he chances on a port that has a large cargo of opium for sale, and he's heard rumors that there's a shortage in another port. This could be the opportunity he's been hoping for, if he can just evade the pirates, port authorities, and extortionists long enough to make that next big deal, to become a major businessman... to be the tai-pan.
As long as Uwe Boll isn't involved, it wouldn't be the worst video game movie...
Having worked for large corporations and the government, I actually can fully understand how this could happen without any foul play (opinions of Slashdotters notwithstanding).
One guy says "it's preserved somewhere", another guy says "it's on those disks" and a third guy says "let's scrap all of those disks". Nobody ever stops to ask "where's the backup?" or "are these disks needed?". Instead, it's just a game of moving targets and priorities, trying to stay ahead of the collapsing mess of bureaucracy whose only concern is "why does this cost so much?".
So when does the teaching curriculum cover ethics? How about the legal process required to actually effect change? Does their "civil disobedience" lesson cover the detail that activists are actively trying to be arrested, so their complaints can be addressed in courts? Where's the lecture on the justice ramifications of vigilantism, the need for due process, and the history lesson covering the last few dozen centuries of slow improvement to the process?
I don't see any of that mentioned on the Twitter feed, but those really should be the first subjects for anyone looking to bring justice to the world.
Don't start a project on anything Microsoft's touting as "next-gen" anything.
Back in the bad old days, DDE was the best way to do IPC in Windows. Then it was OLE, and COM, with ActiveX thrown in the mix too. For storing data, we had application-specific files, then system-level INI files, then the registry, and now we have a weird mess under the "AppData" tree.
Of course, DirectX was supposed to be everything game devs needed, until it was neutered to handle just video and audio. XNA was then supposed to handle all of the game-centric functionality under the.NET framework, until it died a quiet death.
Microsoft's the most indecisive software company I've ever seen, so I'd strongly recommend against taking any of their decisions at face value. Only adopt a Microsoft technology after others have vetted it and raised sufficient complaints about the broken parts.
I'm not familiar with United's specific program, but others I've seen would have United take the expense, then the hackers receive the $20,000 taxable income and immediately donate it to charity, allowing them to record a $20,000 deduction from their taxable income.
The fact that it is legal is what is being taken exception to. People want it to not be legal!
That's all well and good, but that should be done through a petition to the government or changes in voting practices, not defamation and harassment of law-abiding citizens.
By your reasoning, if an online game has a technical issue that can be exploited to your advantage, it is "Totally not cheating" to use that exploit, because the game lets you do it--even if that exploit basically makes it so you cannot lose.
That depends on the rules. If the rules say that you cannot do something (like, for instance, hacking the game's server), then it's cheating. If instead the rules permit such behavior (like, for instance, using a particular item in particular circumstances to greatly amplified effect), then it's not cheating. You may not like another player for doing something you couldn't, but your anger has no moral basis.
There are actually games that have put this philosophy into practice. One example that comes to mind is Kingdom Of Loathing. There is a perfectly-valid technique in the game that allows one to amass lots of currency quickly, and it's a valid and encouraged part of the game. There have been bugs in the game in the past that allowed players to instantly get the maximum amount of currency, and that was allowed as well, though there were subsequent changes to mitigate the economic damage. On the other hand, there have been players who actually hacked the game's database, and those accounts were suspended.
Most offshore account providers have prohibitive minimum deposit values to make use of them, making them effectively unusuable by nearly everyone but the already wealthy. This makes them unfair...
It's very clear that you don't know what you're talking about. "Offshore accounts" usually cost under $1000 to set up, plus ongoing maintenance costs. They're usually just corporations founded in a foreign country with a foreign bank account, doing foreign business. However, if you need your money to be accessible domestically, you'll be paying income tax to bring the money into the country, which probably will outweigh the benefit for a small scale.
I've known several folks near the Canadian border who maintained separate bank accounts, just to avoid dealing with any exchanges.
Thinking that everyone should cheat, and that by not cheating you are just dumb or something, is so unethically minded I dont even know where to begin.
You could begin by explaining why everyone must share your particular sense of morality.
there might not have even been laws like the US's insider trading rules concerning such action to begin with.
Then you should be angry at lawmakers, not somebody who happens to have better circumstances than someone else.
That does not change the percieved injustice of a wealthy politicians continuing to be wealthy,
"Perceived injustice" is not the same thing as an actual injustice. A "perceived injustice" is when someone beats you in an automobile race fifteen consecutive times because their car goes faster. An actual injustice is when he does so by breaking an established rule like a power limit.
There is a reason I used the poisoned pigeons analogy earlier. Something can be perfectly legal, and yet be very repugnant at the same time. Claiming "But it is not a crime to poison pigeons!" does not in any way reduce the repugnance of poisoning the pigeons for sadistic pleasure.
It does, however, drastically alter the morality of the situation. The responsibility for the objectionable act shifts from the perpetrator to the lawmakers. If this is such a widely repugnant act, then lawmakers would be negligent to allow it to remain legal. On the other hand, perhaps it's not pigeons, but rats. They may be a disease-spreading menace, and harboring them may actually be detrimental to society. In this case, the lawmakers would be fully justified to allow the killing of such plague-bearing pests, regardless of how much you might love the little furballs.
Ultimately, the purpose of a lawful government is to codify the rules that provide for the betterment of society. If you disagree with the laws, that's a matter for you to take up through the proper channels of your government, but you do not automatically get the right to harass and defame law-abiding citizens just because they have resources that you don't.
The practices are not "illegal", but they are socially unacceptable, which is why there is a scandal.
That's ridiculous. These practices are quite openly available and documented. I personally used to work for a company that advertised where we could help set up foreign accounts.
Another tortured analogy might go something like this... his blatant hipocracy, and abuse of client privilege to hide it to continue to snooker his electorate.
And that's fine for a scandal, but it's still not illegal. At that point, people are outraged that a politician might have lied! Of all the unspeakable horrors, that one should certainly go without saying.
That's pretty much exactly what happened in Iceland. A politician promised to fix up banks, and was found to have held a large interest in the very banks he was using government power to save. That's a conflict of interest, and a good reason to be upset, but he apparently made all of the required disclosures at the time. He might not be the person you want to have in charge, but whether that's enough reason to kick him out of office is a matter for local laws.
So, the fact that these accounts are not illegal does not remove the controversy, it is what causes it.
Can we move past that line of reasoning now?
Well, frankly, no. Moving "past this line of reasoning" is to beg the question of whether the outrage is justified. In effect, you're asking that we suspend rule of law, and vilify people for daring to disregard the morality of this particular angry mob.
I'm all in favor of bringing justice to those who have actually done something illegal, but we must be careful that we aren't just aiming our anger at a convenient scapegoat.
Not really. The point of having an "offshore account" is to keep money somewhere financially better than one's own country, primarily to avoid taxes.
For instance, let's say I'm going to be making a large transaction, such as selling a luxury yacht and buying a bigger one, but I live in a country where such a transaction would be taxed heavily. It is financially beneficial for me to set up a shell company in a foreign country, sell that company my current yacht (for a small-but-legal price), then have that shell company sell the yacht and collect the income. Taxes on the income would be paid, but at the low rate of the foreign country. Then the shell company can borrow money from me to buy the new bigger yacht, and pay me a small amount in interest on that loan, which conveniently works out to be exactly the cost of renting the yacht to me, so it's a legitimate practicing business.
The foreign company can then also hire crew for the boat, under a contract with another company (possibly from a third country) to provide labor, so my crew doesn't have to be subject to my own country's labor laws.
The fun part is that not only is this legal, but in the United States, it's a First Amendment right. Courts have upheld that you have the right to decide (except for discrimination) who you will do business with as a matter of free expression, summarized in the common suggestion to "vote with your wallet". If I choose to sell my yacht to a foreign company at a huge loss, that's my choice. From then on, it's entirely a foreign business, and my home country's laws have virtually no effect.
Now, eventually if I want to sell my yacht and bring my money back home, that's another matter... then my country's laws can have an effect, and I can be taxed heavily, but if I don't need the money, then there's no reason to move it from its foreign tax haven.
I haven't followed this leak closely, so it's very possible I've missed something, but as I understand it, the vast majority of the offshore accounts being publicized are completely legal. Embarrassing to their owners, perhaps, but not illegal in themselves.
Rather, the release of such private details is likely illegal, so any prosecution or criticism has to admit that it also benefited from illegal activities, effectively shooting itself in the foot.
Per my comment above, I'll assume you've read the actual standard, and that will be the subject of discussion, rather than any particular state's perversion of it.
What, exactly, is "loony" about the math? Please elaborate on how it slows down the student, since it explicitly does not restrict what teachers can teach.
As for history, do note that the actual standard does not specify any characters. There are reference texts to illustrate the complexity of the subjects, but the standard does not require their use.
Slashdot Mirror
That depends... was yours used repeatedly in the past to claim to be an officer?
computers and equipment that he used to listen in on the system were seized. Police also found a "counterfeit police badge" during the investigation.
There are the key details of the story.
Yes, I understand that he offered to help. Yes, I understand that he had the noblest intentions. Regardless, he still intentionally broke the law by accessing a system without authorization. That it was easy to do doesn't make it any less of a crime.
The FISA court is a rubber stamp. They almost never reject an NSA request. Why would the NSA go around the FISA court when they know the court will say yes? That would be stupid.
This was debunked around the last time Slashdot covered it. I don't know if the debunking ever made it here, though. I saw it from SwiftOnSecurity, I think. In short, the FISA rubber-stamped most requests only after heavy revision that happened before the final request was submitted. The reviewers looked at requests, had a hearty laugh, and suggested changes to the search scope so it wouldn't be rejected.
Back when I worked in government contracting, we'd do the same thing. We'd get the test criteria from the customer and make sure our tests passed before the government representatives showed up. Our record never showed any failures, because they never made it to the final scored test.
As I understand it, lawyers are appointed and paid to argue against the NSA before the FISA court. The problem is these lawyers are paid by the government to argue against the government, which is a conflict of interest.
There's no evidence that any such conflict has actually affected anything. The government is not a coherent entity. It is a multitude of departments, agencies, and hierarchies, usually with very intentional disagreements in purpose. If one guy is being paid expressly to advocate for human rights, and another guy is being paid to advocate for security, there's no reason to assume either will shirk their duties, regardless of where their paycheck comes from.
at if it's an American company, that the U.S. would get the taxes on that income (profit)
Aye, there's the rub. It's not an American company. The company that makes the profit-producing sale is based outside the US and has no US connection, apart from an investment by a US umbrella (along with other companies from other countries).
...economically illiterate, ignorant people, who have been brainwashed for this long and are so married into the system they can't get out of the Matrix, so to speak. It's like having fun at the expense of somebody with leprosy, sure sure, it's amusing but also a bit cruel.
figure that one out.
Now, why do I bother with you? I guess it is a good deed to try and save the sick, but why bother really? Do I need you? No. Still, I will finish replying to this comment.
- oh, this is PRECIOUS, just precious.
:) Oh my my my, how hard it is to stay serious while replying to such amazing examples of total and complete ignorance.
oh, you don't know what that is
you might have heard something.
the subject of my next ridicule of your complete ignorance and lack of interest on the subject
You may want to read up.
oh, the holly naivety.
such stupid ideas ... are stupid and confuse the simpletons like you.
blah blah blah, nonsense... only idiots don't get it.
completely blowing out of the water your (and all the other mainstream charlatan 'economists') idea
honestly, a person capable of typing a sentence on a complex device, such as a computer should be able to understand it, but I guess we made computers too simple, even idiots can use them today.
that's the first true statement in your entire comment, but that's incidental, not on purpose.
Sorry, I got distracted there. If you'd like to have a reasonable discussion, you're welcome to try your post again, and see if you can maintain a bit more decorum. There were a few notable arguments in your post, but they're mixed with so much vitriol as to be incoherent. I'll check again sometime tomorrow.
Being publicly-traded companies, their American financial structure is public information, and many other countries have similar transparency structures.
To contrive an example, then, if a Frenchman in London buys a phone that was manufactured in Japan from parts fabricated in China from raw materials mined in Australia, using designs licensed from a company in Ireland who in turn licensed them from an American company, why does the United States get all of the taxes?
Just because a company is headquartered in the United States does not mean that its profit or expenses are necessarily American. Domestic profits are still taxed domestically. The issue is regarding profits from business that was conducted entirely in foreign countries, most often with no direct financial obligation to (or infrastructure benefit from) the United States.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you think you know simething?
Please enlighten me with what you know. This should prove most entertaining.
Gold is not an investment, never was, it is money
To my knowledge, there is no country that actually uses gold as legal money. You personally might value it as a currency, but that is not a majority opinion.
its function is to keep purchasing power and be an inflation hedge
It fails to keep its purchasing power due to fluctuations in its exchange rate with real currencies. Even accounting for the recent recession, real estate has actually done a better job of keeping its "purchasing power". I'll also note that the very definition of an "inflation hedge" is an investment.
Governments produce inflation, unless you are under a mistaken belief that central banks are not really controlled by governments and don't really act for the short term benefit of the current organization. Governments produce inflation and sometimes hyper inflation that take down economies.
You're going to have to explain this conspiracy theory of yours a little more. Governments (through central banks) can encourage inflation by raising their interest rates, or they can allow deflation by cutting interest rates, but they're not the driving force behind inflation, and would have no reason to initiate heavy inflation or hyperinflation.
Inflation happens when consumers have to pay more for the same goods and services. A little inflation has a positive effect on the economy, because it encourages people to spend money, adding more inertia to the economic machine, thereby providing confidence that producers will continue to have income in the near future, allowing them (as consumers) to purchase luxury goods and raise their quality of life. Conversely, if consumer prices are dropping under deflation, consumers are less likely to spend money, because they'll get a better deal later. That, in turn, reduces the viability of industry, lowers confidence, and further discourages spending.
These basic market principles are independent of any government. The government's only involvement is that by issuing loans from a central bank and controlling the interest rates of those loans, the government has a very highly-desired product whose price it can control. That lets the central bank effectively put its thumb on the scales, promoting inflation or deflation as it sees fit, but it can't actually control the whims of the rest of the market.
As to taking down governments, that's a worth while life goal, call it a hobby for the sake of freedom.
Using corporate money to fund a personal hobby, especially one that will harm the company, is a good way to get fired, even for an executive.
My point is that the actual laws dictating an executive's responsibilities rarely care at all about the shareholders. Rather, they usually only require that the company follow its charter, and it's that charter that defines the goals, and that's usually done vaguely.
In Apple's case, I don't see any definition of what the shareholders' interests are. It has been upheld in court that such a term can be construed to mean many things beside the often-assumed short-term profit goal. If Tim Cook thinks (and convinces the Board) that it's in shareholders' best interests to pay taxes to bring cash into the United States, then he can do so.
In essence, my point is to question the point of the original comment. Corporations are beholden to the laws of their jurisdictions, and those laws (in the US) make them subject to their charters. Blaming shareholders and invoking the profit myth implies that somehow the executives are being forced to do something distasteful, whether it's outsourcing or polluting or keeping foreign cash. The reality is that the executives have a wide range of options, and usually they only have to make a passable justification like "our polled shareholders said they care about the environment, so we're spending billions of dollars to have recycling in all facilities".
The myth essentially shifts the blame from the corporate executives to "the system". It's the same as the hippies' stereotypical disgust with The Man, the modern rebels' jealousy of the 1%, the historic persecution of Jews, and the vilifying of banks. Rather than a specific mechanism to effect change, such as participating in a shareholder poll or vote, the myth provides a vague target for outrage that the masses can rally against, feeling good about their impotent rebellion. It satisfies a craving to be a noble warrior in a community of fellow underdogs, fighting against a powerful oppressor... but it doesn't require the drudgery of actually changing anything.
Just to clear up a few things...
They just need to use that money where it is instead of keeping it in cash
They already do. These accounts are usually the sources for rotating expenses, and their value can change dramatically on a day-to-day basis as investments cycle in and out. Pretty much, the goal of foreign accounts is to hold cash until it's needed, and to then make it available quickly at low cost.
which can be inflated away by the governments
Governments don't cause inflation. Governments can control the inflation rate with their policies, but one of the things that makes tax havens appealing is that their governments have a history of policies that keep inflation low. Remember, high inflation is pretty much always a bad thing, because it means that the value of money keeps dropping.
What they should do is buy inflation hedges with it,
Typically, "inflation hedge" is a commodity future. I'd expect a chunk of reserve capital is already invested as such, but again, tax havens typically have a low risk of inflation. It's also worth noting that buying local inflation hedges (primarily real estate) in the tax haven can then drive up local prices for that commodity, actually causing higher inflation. Hedging is a risky business, so the investment advisers I've worked with tend to avoid the issue altogether and just stay in easily-liquidated bonds.
gold
Gold hasn't been a safe investment since 1971. Despite the love of enthusiasts, it's really just a shiny metal, offering the same risk as any other commodity investment. Again, since the whole point of these accounts is to keep money available, having it tied up in a gold bubble is not a good option.
income producing assets
...Like what, exactly? If you can actually answer that question, I expect that you are a CEO for a top-5 tech company, since identifying potential income-producing assets is a notable part of their job. It's not so simple as to build another factory or buy more parts... if the market is saturated, money would be better off as cash. Also note that if these "assets" are located in a country that is not the tax haven, there will likely be a taxable event in such an investment.
maybe other companies
Again, this is a matter of strategy. Buying a company is a risky investment. If the company is already profitable, the purchase price will reflect that. If it isn't profitable, then the expected return is even riskier, and it will tie up money for a long time.
I would use some of that money to take down governments, but that's me.
That's a good way to lose favor with other allied governments, and eventually get a reputation as a destabilizing influence, which eliminates a lot of opportunities around the world.
And why, exactly, is that bad?
What's wrong with "letting" foreign money stay foreign? If the companies want to use it for US endeavors, they'll have to pay taxes on it.
No, the responsibility is to the corporation's charter, which may or may not indicate any responsibility to shareholders.
That could be spun out decently...
A pauper unexpectedly and unknowingly does a favor for a wealthy underworld boss, and is rewarded with his choice of arms or cash. He chooses wisely, and uses his gift to start a small trading business around south Asia. It goes well until he meets some pirates, but he barely manages to escape, and is forced to borrow money to make repairs. From then on, the pirates harass him at nearly every passage, and he must keep increasing his volume and taking riskier cargo just to stay afloat (pun intended... use it for the poster). Finally, he chances on a port that has a large cargo of opium for sale, and he's heard rumors that there's a shortage in another port. This could be the opportunity he's been hoping for, if he can just evade the pirates, port authorities, and extortionists long enough to make that next big deal, to become a major businessman... to be the tai-pan.
As long as Uwe Boll isn't involved, it wouldn't be the worst video game movie...
Having worked for large corporations and the government, I actually can fully understand how this could happen without any foul play (opinions of Slashdotters notwithstanding).
One guy says "it's preserved somewhere", another guy says "it's on those disks" and a third guy says "let's scrap all of those disks". Nobody ever stops to ask "where's the backup?" or "are these disks needed?". Instead, it's just a game of moving targets and priorities, trying to stay ahead of the collapsing mess of bureaucracy whose only concern is "why does this cost so much?".
So when does the teaching curriculum cover ethics? How about the legal process required to actually effect change? Does their "civil disobedience" lesson cover the detail that activists are actively trying to be arrested, so their complaints can be addressed in courts? Where's the lecture on the justice ramifications of vigilantism, the need for due process, and the history lesson covering the last few dozen centuries of slow improvement to the process?
I don't see any of that mentioned on the Twitter feed, but those really should be the first subjects for anyone looking to bring justice to the world.
Host files, Yoda, Natalie Portman, grits, Gorden Girls, GNAA, Slashdot beta...
There's a lot to get out of the way.
Don't start a project on anything Microsoft's touting as "next-gen" anything.
Back in the bad old days, DDE was the best way to do IPC in Windows. Then it was OLE, and COM, with ActiveX thrown in the mix too. For storing data, we had application-specific files, then system-level INI files, then the registry, and now we have a weird mess under the "AppData" tree.
Of course, DirectX was supposed to be everything game devs needed, until it was neutered to handle just video and audio. XNA was then supposed to handle all of the game-centric functionality under the .NET framework, until it died a quiet death.
Microsoft's the most indecisive software company I've ever seen, so I'd strongly recommend against taking any of their decisions at face value. Only adopt a Microsoft technology after others have vetted it and raised sufficient complaints about the broken parts.
That doesn't mean we've eliminated barter. We just standardized its measurement with fungible certificates.
I'm not familiar with United's specific program, but others I've seen would have United take the expense, then the hackers receive the $20,000 taxable income and immediately donate it to charity, allowing them to record a $20,000 deduction from their taxable income.
The fact that it is legal is what is being taken exception to. People want it to not be legal!
That's all well and good, but that should be done through a petition to the government or changes in voting practices, not defamation and harassment of law-abiding citizens.
By your reasoning, if an online game has a technical issue that can be exploited to your advantage, it is "Totally not cheating" to use that exploit, because the game lets you do it--even if that exploit basically makes it so you cannot lose.
That depends on the rules. If the rules say that you cannot do something (like, for instance, hacking the game's server), then it's cheating. If instead the rules permit such behavior (like, for instance, using a particular item in particular circumstances to greatly amplified effect), then it's not cheating. You may not like another player for doing something you couldn't, but your anger has no moral basis.
There are actually games that have put this philosophy into practice. One example that comes to mind is Kingdom Of Loathing. There is a perfectly-valid technique in the game that allows one to amass lots of currency quickly, and it's a valid and encouraged part of the game. There have been bugs in the game in the past that allowed players to instantly get the maximum amount of currency, and that was allowed as well, though there were subsequent changes to mitigate the economic damage. On the other hand, there have been players who actually hacked the game's database, and those accounts were suspended.
Most offshore account providers have prohibitive minimum deposit values to make use of them, making them effectively unusuable by nearly everyone but the already wealthy. This makes them unfair...
It's very clear that you don't know what you're talking about. "Offshore accounts" usually cost under $1000 to set up, plus ongoing maintenance costs. They're usually just corporations founded in a foreign country with a foreign bank account, doing foreign business. However, if you need your money to be accessible domestically, you'll be paying income tax to bring the money into the country, which probably will outweigh the benefit for a small scale.
I've known several folks near the Canadian border who maintained separate bank accounts, just to avoid dealing with any exchanges.
Thinking that everyone should cheat, and that by not cheating you are just dumb or something, is so unethically minded I dont even know where to begin.
You could begin by explaining why everyone must share your particular sense of morality.
there might not have even been laws like the US's insider trading rules concerning such action to begin with.
Then you should be angry at lawmakers, not somebody who happens to have better circumstances than someone else.
That does not change the percieved injustice of a wealthy politicians continuing to be wealthy,
"Perceived injustice" is not the same thing as an actual injustice. A "perceived injustice" is when someone beats you in an automobile race fifteen consecutive times because their car goes faster. An actual injustice is when he does so by breaking an established rule like a power limit.
There is a reason I used the poisoned pigeons analogy earlier. Something can be perfectly legal, and yet be very repugnant at the same time. Claiming "But it is not a crime to poison pigeons!" does not in any way reduce the repugnance of poisoning the pigeons for sadistic pleasure.
It does, however, drastically alter the morality of the situation. The responsibility for the objectionable act shifts from the perpetrator to the lawmakers. If this is such a widely repugnant act, then lawmakers would be negligent to allow it to remain legal. On the other hand, perhaps it's not pigeons, but rats. They may be a disease-spreading menace, and harboring them may actually be detrimental to society. In this case, the lawmakers would be fully justified to allow the killing of such plague-bearing pests, regardless of how much you might love the little furballs.
Ultimately, the purpose of a lawful government is to codify the rules that provide for the betterment of society. If you disagree with the laws, that's a matter for you to take up through the proper channels of your government, but you do not automatically get the right to harass and defame law-abiding citizens just because they have resources that you don't.
The practices are not "illegal", but they are socially unacceptable, which is why there is a scandal.
That's ridiculous. These practices are quite openly available and documented. I personally used to work for a company that advertised where we could help set up foreign accounts.
Another tortured analogy might go something like this... his blatant hipocracy, and abuse of client privilege to hide it to continue to snooker his electorate.
And that's fine for a scandal, but it's still not illegal. At that point, people are outraged that a politician might have lied! Of all the unspeakable horrors, that one should certainly go without saying.
That's pretty much exactly what happened in Iceland. A politician promised to fix up banks, and was found to have held a large interest in the very banks he was using government power to save. That's a conflict of interest, and a good reason to be upset, but he apparently made all of the required disclosures at the time. He might not be the person you want to have in charge, but whether that's enough reason to kick him out of office is a matter for local laws.
So, the fact that these accounts are not illegal does not remove the controversy, it is what causes it.
Can we move past that line of reasoning now?
Well, frankly, no. Moving "past this line of reasoning" is to beg the question of whether the outrage is justified. In effect, you're asking that we suspend rule of law, and vilify people for daring to disregard the morality of this particular angry mob.
I'm all in favor of bringing justice to those who have actually done something illegal, but we must be careful that we aren't just aiming our anger at a convenient scapegoat.
Not really. The point of having an "offshore account" is to keep money somewhere financially better than one's own country, primarily to avoid taxes.
For instance, let's say I'm going to be making a large transaction, such as selling a luxury yacht and buying a bigger one, but I live in a country where such a transaction would be taxed heavily. It is financially beneficial for me to set up a shell company in a foreign country, sell that company my current yacht (for a small-but-legal price), then have that shell company sell the yacht and collect the income. Taxes on the income would be paid, but at the low rate of the foreign country. Then the shell company can borrow money from me to buy the new bigger yacht, and pay me a small amount in interest on that loan, which conveniently works out to be exactly the cost of renting the yacht to me, so it's a legitimate practicing business.
The foreign company can then also hire crew for the boat, under a contract with another company (possibly from a third country) to provide labor, so my crew doesn't have to be subject to my own country's labor laws.
The fun part is that not only is this legal, but in the United States, it's a First Amendment right. Courts have upheld that you have the right to decide (except for discrimination) who you will do business with as a matter of free expression, summarized in the common suggestion to "vote with your wallet". If I choose to sell my yacht to a foreign company at a huge loss, that's my choice. From then on, it's entirely a foreign business, and my home country's laws have virtually no effect.
Now, eventually if I want to sell my yacht and bring my money back home, that's another matter... then my country's laws can have an effect, and I can be taxed heavily, but if I don't need the money, then there's no reason to move it from its foreign tax haven.
Not much.
I haven't followed this leak closely, so it's very possible I've missed something, but as I understand it, the vast majority of the offshore accounts being publicized are completely legal. Embarrassing to their owners, perhaps, but not illegal in themselves.
Rather, the release of such private details is likely illegal, so any prosecution or criticism has to admit that it also benefited from illegal activities, effectively shooting itself in the foot.
Per my comment above, I'll assume you've read the actual standard, and that will be the subject of discussion, rather than any particular state's perversion of it.
What, exactly, is "loony" about the math? Please elaborate on how it slows down the student, since it explicitly does not restrict what teachers can teach.
As for history, do note that the actual standard does not specify any characters. There are reference texts to illustrate the complexity of the subjects, but the standard does not require their use.