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User: mesterha

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Comments · 365

  1. Re:What about people who bus, bike or walk? on Oregon Lawmakers Propose Mileage Tax On Fuel Efficient Vehicles · · Score: 1

    I guess you include paying a lot less as a more efficient way of paying for roads. I was confused as to what you meant as you said we're not going to get out of paying for it.

    As for changing the regulatory framework, I claim that can be reasonably free market. It's a relatively easy way to deal with these types of market externalities. It's not too controversial to claim that a free market needs government interventation to create the market. I would also claim that includes correcting for these types of externalities.

  2. Re:What about people who bus, bike or walk? on Oregon Lawmakers Propose Mileage Tax On Fuel Efficient Vehicles · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not very free market of you. Why not give the proper incentives to companies to do less damage to the roads.

  3. Re:And this too shall pass away. on The U.S. Careens Over the Fiscal Cliff, Reaching Only Half of a Deal · · Score: 1

    Hoarding the money in tax havens and other such things essentially makes it useless to the economy.

    Right. Because an investor putting money in a haven keeps it in cash.

    What actually happens is that money is put into investment baskets which goes to buying debt in enterprise. That enterprise probably employs you.

    Or that enterprise buys capital or employs some workers in a third world country. What we have is a tragedy of the commons. Corporations, in order to maximize profits, are outsourcing and cutting wages. To an individual corporation, this makes sense; however, when many corporations do it, they destroy the consumer base that create and buy their products. If every corporation slashed salaries of all their employees, their short term profits might rise, but in the long term who has the money to buy their products. Henry Ford had the right idea, but I doubt a publicly traded company could pull that off.

  4. Re:Just a cheap H1-B visa scam, "for the kids" my on Microsoft Calls For $5B Investment In U.S. Education · · Score: 2

    What you say does not contradict that Microsoft wants more H1Bs to reduce their labor costs. It's simple supply and demand. By adding people to the job market, H1B visa workers will depress wages. While Microsoft is willing to pay more than market average, they will still benefit from a lower market average.

  5. Re:Just keep in mind the tradeoff on Indian Gov't Uses Special Powers To Slash Cancer Drug Price By 97% · · Score: 1

    You can pretty much look at any pill in a pharmacy and they all cost peanuts to actually produce, like software it's just a matter of pricing it so that the expected sales pay off.

    This also says something about the massive over regulation of the generics industry by the FDA. Most generics should cost peanuts, but many do not. I would guess the pharmaceutical companies exert considerably lobbying to keep it that way. In fact there is currently a massive shortage of many generics. Instead people are forced to by the name brand version.

  6. Re:One more issue on The Zuckerberg Tax · · Score: 1

    Why can't credit unions supply your capital?

  7. Re:One more issue on The Zuckerberg Tax · · Score: 1

    Wealth tax seems pretty fair to me. Looking at how our government currently spends income tax, it mostly goes to defense. It can be interpreted that the government is spending that money to protect the wealth of the nation. Therefore people should pay proportionally to their wealth.

    The idea that it's unfair because people might waste their income seems strange. If someone makes some bad investments and loses some wealth then they have less wealth to protect and should pay less tax. This is also true if they waste their money on things that have a high depreciation.

  8. Re:Gee, maybe U.S. shouldn't try to steal oil on Tensions Over Hormuz Raise Ugly Possibilities For War · · Score: 1

    Actually, I heard about the Caspian oil during the war. Just because those finds came after the war doesn't mean people didn't realize there was oil there.

  9. Re:Hardly surprising... on Prospects Darken For Solar Energy Companies · · Score: 1

    If EVERYONE say "that's a great deal, let's do it!", then you have to pay the subisdy to everyone, and tax everyone extra to pay the subsidies - so, your neighbor pays for your solar installation, you pay for your neighbor's solar installation, and effectively noone gets a subsidy.

    The goal is to lower the cost of solar versus other energies. The hope is that it will create the demand and allow the market to increase production to lower the cost so that the incentives can be removed and solar will still be competitive. This can be effective with smaller industries that can substantially decrease cost either through research or larger factories.

    Another motivation is to equal the playing field since many existing energy sources take advantage of subsidies and externalities. While it would be great to get rid of those unfair advantages, politically it's easier to give incentives to competing technologies.

  10. Re:Anyone know how this is different from myostati on Researchers Create "Mighty Mouse" With Gene Tweak · · Score: 1

    I'm curious how this is related to thyroid hormones. Is the linked article incorrect?

    Thanks,

  11. Re:Thanks Obama on The $443 Million Smallpox Vaccine That Nobody Needs · · Score: 1

    You haven't explained this natural balance between labor and capital. Just because interest rates are high doesn't mean a business will hire more people. A company will only hire more people if it feels it can make a profit off their labor. Interest rates only effect the amount a company will borrow in an effort to make that profit. Also, any capital equipment they purchase can either increase or decrease the number of people they hire. A company that is already based on automation might expand their capacity. This requires more workers. A company that adds automation will reduce their workforce by replacing workers.

  12. Re:Thanks Obama on The $443 Million Smallpox Vaccine That Nobody Needs · · Score: 1

    There will always be a natural balance between labor and capital in a free market where life and property are protected.

    Why?

  13. Re:$3k is 2 months income? on Is There a Hearing Aid Price Bubble? · · Score: 1

    I have several points, but yes veterinary care is less expensive because euthanasia is an acceptable alternative to an expensive life saving procedure. How many dogs get quadruple bypass surgery? How many cats get two rounds of chemotherapy? Since the demand is limited for expensive life saving procedures, they don't frequently happen. In fact the really expensive procedures aren't even an alternative because there is not enough of a market to do the research.

  14. Re:$3k is 2 months income? on Is There a Hearing Aid Price Bubble? · · Score: 1

    I dunno, that's the model that's followed in veterinary medicine and their prices are lower, their equipment up to date and the waits are shorter than most human-care systems.

    Call me when you can euthanize grama because her surgery is too expensive.

  15. Re:Press release from S&P on United States Loses S&P AAA Credit Rating · · Score: 2

    They are measuring the probability of future outcomes and politics plays a large part in that assessment. If it now becomes standard practice to play chicken with the economy then there is a chance that one side will not back down and that the US government will default. This is all about measuring an increase in risk.

  16. Re:Job-killing Tax Hikes on Facebook Bans Google+ Ads · · Score: 1

    I agree, the only time a business will create jobs is when they feel they will get a reasonable return on their investment. If they don't feel they can get a reasonable return today then it doesn't matter if you give them a bunch of money. They will keep the money because they have already determined that it's not profitable to hire more people.

    It's even worse in this type of economy because the poor labor market means they can extract more work out of less people. This further reduces the value of keeping people employed. Just look at the recent record profits made by some corporations. They aren't using this money to hire because they don't think it's profitable to expand their business.

  17. Re:Finally... on Steve Ballmer's Head On the Block? · · Score: 1

    The newly independent company was headed by Dr. Edwin Catmull, President, and Dr. Alvy Ray Smith, Executive Vice President and Director. Jobs served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pixar.

    It's really not that hard to check the Internet for such simple facts.

  18. Re:This is just stupid on Doctors Are Creating Too Many Patients · · Score: 1

    One idea is to look overseas for at least a proper diagnosis. You might be able to do it much cheaper even with the airfare. The rates the medical industry charge in the US are highly inflated.

  19. Re:My wife is a doctor... on Doctors Are Creating Too Many Patients · · Score: 2

    nothing is going to stop doctors from providing it and profiting on it.

    You can stop the doctor from profiting on it by giving them a fixed salary and removing their ability to be financially vested in the testing companies. Kind of like how it is done in England (the location of the anecdote) and almost all of the first world.

  20. Re:Simple reason really on Nvidia and AMD Hug It Out, SLI Coming To AMD Mobos · · Score: 1

    Your entire rant about Intel has been rectified. First AMD sued Intel, that case was settled over a year ago. Then the FTC gave Intel an anticompetitive smack down on top of that, which was settled nearly a year ago.

    Unfortunately, according to people looking at the compiler, things haven't changed

  21. Re:What do you expect from SBC? on AT&T's Metered Billing Off By Up To 4,700% · · Score: 1

    The old AT&T did a few good things: the transistor, the laser, information theory, the UNIX operating system...

  22. Re:true story on Ask Slashdot: Worst Computer Scene In TV or Movies? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I interpreted it as a cheeky way for a Marx Brother's fan to encourage people to watch all the movies. Clearly it doesn't work on people with no sense of humor.

  23. Re:logical contortions in the article on Why Published Research Findings Are Often False · · Score: 1

    It's *extremely* common for people to underestimate their random errors by a factor of 2. That means the the 4.9-sigma result is only a 2.45-sigma result. But 2.45-sigma results happen about 1.4% of the time.

    I'm not sure what you mean by underestimating random error. For simple experiments, one has a control to control random errors. They compare the control sample distribution to the test sample distribution. There is no explicit estimation of random error. Do you mean they use an improper distribution to model things? Perhaps they incorrectly use a normal distribution when the real distribution has heavy tails.

  24. Re:Not like Slashdot on EPA Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Bees · · Score: 1

    Yes, some industry is bad. Some is good. Same goes for parts of government.

    What's your point? Clearly in this case they are completely different kinds of bad. If the government fails to regulate properly for whatever reason then yes this is bad. If a company knowingly releases a product it knows is damaging to the environment then this also is bad. However, in no sense are they equal or even comparable.

    In this case, the government is only failing to prevent a industry from creating a problem. They aren't directly creating the problem. In fact, it's reasonable to assume that without any regulation even more companies would get away with similar abuses. It's even reasonable to assume that no regulation is perfect and some problems will always be missed, but we can't compare against Utopia.

  25. Re:Ergo oil on Life Found In Deepest Layer of Earth's Crust · · Score: 1

    As a liberal, I have to say mcrbids was being a bit of an arrogant ass, and I don't see why that's not reason enough to be pissed at him. Let's stick to reality and not play the pundit game.

    As for oil from bacteria, this is not the first time this theory has been proposed, so instead of calling someone an idiot why not go into the research. As for sustainability, the point is not that one should wait for the old wells to refill, but that there might be a lot more oil deeper in the earth. Of course, even if there is a lot more oil that doesn't mean it's a good idea to burn it.