No. I haven't read that one and neither of you since Peter and the Wolf is a 1936 classical composition by Sergei Prokofiev, where the boy beats the wolf at the end and rescues his animal friends.
I believe what you meant to refer to is the Aesop fable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Thanks for playing though.
Witty, true, apropos, and timely.
However, if the science deniers were interested in facts to begin with, you would not have needed to post that correction.;)
I did get a kick out of the nitwit telling people to read Peter and the Wolf though.
Actually, we (the set of people who took statistics classes in college) will continue to attribute the increased frequency of extreme weather events to global warming. Some of us (the set of people who also possess a sense of humor) will continue to point and laugh at the deniers and lump them in with the birthers, creationists, and moon landing hoax folks.
Categorical denial of science is a disease that cannot be cured, only prevented. Educate your children, it is the only effective vaccination against idiocy.
You are arguing about semantics. What is, and what isn't a department etc. RTFA alert. If MIT or Cal was "eliminating all funding for teaching assistants in computer science, cutting the graduate and research programs entirely", you would flip the fsck out. Who cares what department what was in when. No more MS or PHDs in CS is a huge blow to the "program" (and I use that word losely and ironically).
Blind faith in scientists is as illogical as blind faith in priests.
Science involves no faith. This fundamental misrepresentation of science as just another faith (with scientists acting as priests) is eating away at the US like a cancer. Science by definition is based on logic and data and is verifiable by external parties. In many ways science is the opposite of faith.
When something is true, it is true whether or not you believe it to be so.
It sure is strange that the reality of the pump prices and the deficit counters around the country seem to show that the idea of liberal economic policies working to be more of a dream than reality.
Too bad it was conservative economic and foreign polices that brought us the wars and the recession in the first place. Go figure that repairing the worlds largest economy is costing a lot of cash. At least one of the wars is finally over.
But it is clearly Obama's fault that Iran is going for the nukes instead of Iraq...
(The preceding sentence is sarcasm, I know conservatives have a hard time with that too.)
The alternative was banks start to go bust because they could not finance their day to day activities.
If private banks cannot finance their day to day activities, their mismanagement should not be financed by the public. That just privatizes profit while socializing loss. There's not just one alternative, as you describe, but two: either the banks need to be allowed to fail (the "let it all burn" position, which I think we both agree is probably very unwise) or the funds need to be given only on the condition that the banks surrender their right to mismanage themselves: there need to be strings attached to public monies that go to private businesses. I'm sure the libertarians will mod that into oblivion, but they ought to be focusing their anger on the interference in the market represented by the lending of public funds in the first place: once you've interfered in the free market, you might as well go all the way and demand systemic changes to the institutions taking the public money. Sure, bailing out the banks is feasible, but that doesn't mean handing them a blank check to run an arbitrage scheme to buy Treasuries, and it sure doesn't mean handing them money without strings. Taking public money ought always to be a devil's bargain.
No money was "handed out". It was loaned against collateral (mostly treasuries and GSE bonds). People are conflating the lending of last resort function of the Federal Reserve with the bailouts of the Treasury (TARP, et al). The whole reason Europe is on fire is because the ECB isn't the lender of last resort like the Federal Reserve is. We get to watch in real time as the second largest global currency evaporates in large part because it lacks this backstop.
The real issue here isn't that the Fed made money available, but the disparity of interest rates between that at which the money was available to select parties and that which the open market would bear: that let the banks borrow massive quantities at virtually no interest, only to lend it back out at much higher interest rates. Pure arbitrage between the "emergency" funds' near-zero interest rate on a restricted market and the open market's willingness to pay interest. It's not even clear that the banks taking the loans were unhealthy--they may have just recognized the profitability of free temporary money that could be loaned out for more than it cost (arbitrage).
The alternative was banks start to go bust because they could not finance their day to day activities. Would that have been a problem given how smoothly Lehman Brothers went? The few billion the banks made on the discount window was dwarfed by the hundreds of billions they were hemorrhaging in asset and loan losses. The LIBOR rates of the open market were crazy high, and there was no liquidity behind them so using those rates for a comparison to determine "what the banks made" isn't really proper accounting. As soon as there was liquidity available and interbank lending started again, the LIBOR rates fell dramatically.
What is the state of the well on your grandparents property now? (I am curious, I am not implying anything nor am I taking sides in the debate)
Also, the study found methane in groundwater near gas wells (implying that the fraccing forced some gas out of the shale and into the water), they did not find fraccing fluids in the water. Thus, this is not a case of failed holding ponds spilling the fluid into the ground water. It could also be systemic failed well casings leaking gas into the ground and thus into the water supply, but I think that less likely.
"We found no evidence for contamination of drinking-water samples with deep saline brines or fracturing fluids."
Corporations pay taxes in the countries they operate in. They report financials for each of those countries, and they file taxes in each of those countries. GEFS also known as GE Capital is based in the US and its primary business here (which was giving out crap loans, but thats another story) was what generated the losses in 2008-9. So, the bulk of GE's losses in the 2008-9 meltdown came from its financial services, the bulk of those loses were conducted in the US and thus the bulk of their tax right offs did as well. The other business units in GE US operations are high revenue low margin businesses, and thus have little profit to offset against the losses.
It is patently unfair to include the entire results of the GE holding company's corporate profits, for which they pay taxes on to multiple countries, and then claim that they must be double taxed by the United States for business not conducted in the US. Granted, they locate a lot of their leasing business in low tax countries like Singapore and Ireland, but those profits are not "American Profits" if they leave them offshore.
As for that New York Times article, their smoking gun is that GE has been paying a smaller percentage of their overall profits to the IRS over the last 5 years. That is because their China, India, and Brazil business have grown like crazy in the last decade. They also bring this up after GE gets a monster tax credit from having GE Capital nearly implode in 2008, which skews the results of the last 2 years.
The key to the situation is this (and I quote from the NYtimes article):
"If G.E. financed the sale of a jet engine or generator in Ireland, for example, the company would no longer have to pay American tax on the interest income as long as the profits remained offshore." So if they take those profits from a subsidiary in Ireland and reinvest it all in their Irish business, they don't have to pay any taxes to the IRS on it. Is that wrong? I dunno, its been the law for over a decade. I think it was passed under Clinton. Since lately, the lions share of GE's profits have come from their financial services, the lions share of their taxes are subject to that law.
Re:So you are taking Economist seriously.
on
Behind Cyberwar FUD
·
· Score: 1
Why can't I feed the trolls? With proper care and feeding, we may be able to get them to breed in captivity:)
Mr Hedwards, I have an excellent education thank you. Please allow me to further yours. The GP was calling out a private institution for advocating business interests, as if this was somehow a terrible thing. Oh, and he used hyperbole, which I did as well in referencing Lenin.
Re:So you are taking Economist seriously.
on
Behind Cyberwar FUD
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Someone is standing a bit to the left of Lenin. Oh, and as far as cyber wars go, the one between 4chan and Youtube seems to be heating up!
You just described most of corporate america with your six steps.
Step #1 is very very plausible. One develops a potential working relationship with the target company and crafts an email to contain an innocuous looking document or link requested by the target. The link/document contains the latest exploit that has not been patched. The email is not suspicious because who would attack a potential business partner after all. It is an exploit that is preferably zero day and not yet in the virus/malware databases. Also, a new shell for the attack could be devised from the original code to insure it would be unrecognizable.
Step #4 can be obviated by infecting an admin's computer, and if I was targeting a company with a zero day unknown exploit, I would aim it at their IT guys.
Step #5a all networks are vulnerable to this sort of exploit, especially if the exploit is unknown to scanners & filters.
Step #5b if you root an admin's box, you can piggy back on him next time he does maintenance on *every* server and device he maintains.
I am surprised the list was only 100 companies. I assume every S&P 500 company has been penetrated to some degree.
Same thing with car and homeowners insurance. Both are a total waste of your time. You never need them and the insurance companies win. Just avoid having bad things happen to you and you will come out ahead.
If you must stay in the USA try the following: kill and eat the hearts of republicans (if you can find any that have one). Then you will gain their powers and be able to ignore your health problems until they go away.
Do not move to Canada, their hockey team is bad. I recommend Switzerland or Sweden. If you don't like white people, try Singapore, Morocco, or Columbia. They all have better health care than the US. If you are picky about a country, check the WHO website. They have a list of countries with good health care.
If you have reached this point and are frothing at the mouth or hurling your mouse, lighten up and ebay yourself a sense of humor.
When you conflate 47 million uninsured with 9 million who "want" insurance, sure Issa's bill makes a little bit of sense. It wasn't extending Medicare it was extending the FEHBP to cover them. SEC. 8925 of HR 3438 says that non-federal employees have to pay the entire premium, which is a problem for the poor since there is no way in hell they could afford it. There is nothing wrong with making this plan available to non-federal employees if they want to pay for it, it just doesn't solve the problem of health care for poor people.
FYI, we pay for the uninsured health care already, when they show up to the emergency room. Only, when it is a chronic condition like diabetes it now costs 100 times as much to treat the disease with insulin than if they were detected as a borderline diabetic and could control it with diet. If they don't treat it with insulin, it will cost 10000 times or more since they will be getting ambulance rides with the following conditions: heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, blindness, and nerve & circulatory damage that can require amputation. Since 24 million americans have diabetes, it is kind of a problem if 2 million of them never see a doctor about it.
I know I will never convince you, but others who read this will be.
20 grand should just about cover 1 ambulance ride and 1 emergency room visit if you break a bone. A stroke, heart attack, serious car accident, any form of cancer would wipe out that little nest egg you have in 2 weeks flat. Then you would be broke and still have no health insurance. Thank you for illustrating why nobody should listen to you about health insurance.
As it happens, I do have a pretty short list of things that the Government should do. It is based on a very simple principle: the function of Government is to do things that could not be done any other way. That would include law enforcement and running the military. It would not include running a news organisation.
You mean like Pinkerton guards and Blackwater? The government could EASILY outsource their police organizations to private contractors and in fact did for many decades. We can and do outsource a lot of our military work abroad to Blackwater and dozens of other companies like them. So, given that it can be done, by your argument it should be done.
Mail could be carried by Fedex & UPS.
Agriculture could be handled by Mosanto.
Treasury could be done by Goldman Sachs.
Justice could be handled by National Arbitration Association.
The interior could be handled by Six Flags & Exxon.
Commerce could be handled by Bloomberg.
Labor could be handled by the AFL-CIO.
Health and Human services could be handled by Kaiser Foundation & Blueshield.
Transportation could be handled by the Teamsters.
Housing and Urban development could be handled by Toll Brothers.
Energy could be handled by Exxon & Chevron.
Education could be handled by Harvard and Yale.
Veterans Affairs could be handled by Alderwoods Group Inc.
Homeland Security could be handled by the Mexican Drug Cartels.
Anyway, back to the point. Murdoch may be many things, but he's not an idiot. Quite the opposite. His one-dimensional focus and complete absence of any principles have made him an extremely shrewd businessman.
I wouldn't count him out too soon, any more than I'd finish the cancer drugs halfway through the course because the tumour hadn't been quite as aggressive this week.
His business owns a pile of newspapers, TV stations, and movie studios and wants to own more. In this day and age, that to says to me "early onset altzheimers" or he is an idiot.
As it is, I think the Murdochs are just upset that a REAL news group keeps them from controlling the news. They want power. If there were anything else I could say to make this a stronger condemnation of News Corp, I would. They are really that bad. They are the evilness that Microsoft only aspires to.
You might not be able to say anything else, but I can QUOTE you and then laboriously collect pebbles and present them to you as a penguin would to his mate!
Seriously, News corp is trash. I am about to drop my subscription to the Wall Street Journal because I am finding too many factual errors and biases in their business news.
Except for the part where they can modify the constitution to give themselves the authority. I know, I know, inconvenient facts should be left where they cannot damage your arguments. Sorry.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the horses mouth:
;)
http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.html
The TL;DR
Users of Bitcoin are not subject to MSB regulations.
Exchangers of Bitcoin for USD are subject to MSB regulations.
The WSJ is a poor lens to view math through
There are things we can do about it. They're called Government and Diplomacy.
We could encase all the science deniers in blocks of ice and deposit them into the Greenland glaciers. That would have a number of positive effects.
No. I haven't read that one and neither of you since Peter and the Wolf is a 1936 classical composition by Sergei Prokofiev, where the boy beats the wolf at the end and rescues his animal friends.
I believe what you meant to refer to is the Aesop fable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf .
Thanks for playing though.
Witty, true, apropos, and timely. ;)
However, if the science deniers were interested in facts to begin with, you would not have needed to post that correction.
I did get a kick out of the nitwit telling people to read Peter and the Wolf though.
Actually, we (the set of people who took statistics classes in college) will continue to attribute the increased frequency of extreme weather events to global warming. Some of us (the set of people who also possess a sense of humor) will continue to point and laugh at the deniers and lump them in with the birthers, creationists, and moon landing hoax folks. Categorical denial of science is a disease that cannot be cured, only prevented. Educate your children, it is the only effective vaccination against idiocy.
You should not waste your time with it. Otherwise, you might end up competing with me for the interesting jobs. Neither of us wants that. ;)
You are arguing about semantics. What is, and what isn't a department etc. RTFA alert. If MIT or Cal was "eliminating all funding for teaching assistants in computer science, cutting the graduate and research programs entirely", you would flip the fsck out. Who cares what department what was in when. No more MS or PHDs in CS is a huge blow to the "program" (and I use that word losely and ironically).
Because the job of the University of Florida is to make money, not educate students. Now I know to discount any degree I see from that state.
Blind faith in scientists is as illogical as blind faith in priests.
Science involves no faith. This fundamental misrepresentation of science as just another faith (with scientists acting as priests) is eating away at the US like a cancer. Science by definition is based on logic and data and is verifiable by external parties. In many ways science is the opposite of faith. When something is true, it is true whether or not you believe it to be so.
It sure is strange that the reality of the pump prices and the deficit counters around the country seem to show that the idea of liberal economic policies working to be more of a dream than reality.
Too bad it was conservative economic and foreign polices that brought us the wars and the recession in the first place. Go figure that repairing the worlds largest economy is costing a lot of cash. At least one of the wars is finally over. But it is clearly Obama's fault that Iran is going for the nukes instead of Iraq... (The preceding sentence is sarcasm, I know conservatives have a hard time with that too.)
The alternative was banks start to go bust because they could not finance their day to day activities.
If private banks cannot finance their day to day activities, their mismanagement should not be financed by the public. That just privatizes profit while socializing loss. There's not just one alternative, as you describe, but two: either the banks need to be allowed to fail (the "let it all burn" position, which I think we both agree is probably very unwise) or the funds need to be given only on the condition that the banks surrender their right to mismanage themselves: there need to be strings attached to public monies that go to private businesses. I'm sure the libertarians will mod that into oblivion, but they ought to be focusing their anger on the interference in the market represented by the lending of public funds in the first place: once you've interfered in the free market, you might as well go all the way and demand systemic changes to the institutions taking the public money. Sure, bailing out the banks is feasible, but that doesn't mean handing them a blank check to run an arbitrage scheme to buy Treasuries, and it sure doesn't mean handing them money without strings. Taking public money ought always to be a devil's bargain.
No money was "handed out". It was loaned against collateral (mostly treasuries and GSE bonds). People are conflating the lending of last resort function of the Federal Reserve with the bailouts of the Treasury (TARP, et al). The whole reason Europe is on fire is because the ECB isn't the lender of last resort like the Federal Reserve is. We get to watch in real time as the second largest global currency evaporates in large part because it lacks this backstop.
The real issue here isn't that the Fed made money available, but the disparity of interest rates between that at which the money was available to select parties and that which the open market would bear: that let the banks borrow massive quantities at virtually no interest, only to lend it back out at much higher interest rates. Pure arbitrage between the "emergency" funds' near-zero interest rate on a restricted market and the open market's willingness to pay interest. It's not even clear that the banks taking the loans were unhealthy--they may have just recognized the profitability of free temporary money that could be loaned out for more than it cost (arbitrage).
The alternative was banks start to go bust because they could not finance their day to day activities. Would that have been a problem given how smoothly Lehman Brothers went? The few billion the banks made on the discount window was dwarfed by the hundreds of billions they were hemorrhaging in asset and loan losses. The LIBOR rates of the open market were crazy high, and there was no liquidity behind them so using those rates for a comparison to determine "what the banks made" isn't really proper accounting. As soon as there was liquidity available and interbank lending started again, the LIBOR rates fell dramatically.
Think of the headache involved counting all that collateral! 1,2,3,...7,699,999,000 7,700,000,000 bond units!
What is the state of the well on your grandparents property now? (I am curious, I am not implying anything nor am I taking sides in the debate)
Also, the study found methane in groundwater near gas wells (implying that the fraccing forced some gas out of the shale and into the water), they did not find fraccing fluids in the water. Thus, this is not a case of failed holding ponds spilling the fluid into the ground water. It could also be systemic failed well casings leaking gas into the ground and thus into the water supply, but I think that less likely.
"We found no evidence for contamination of drinking-water samples with deep saline brines or fracturing fluids."
If you read the fine print you will discover why GE got such a large tax credit:
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40545/000119312510246292/d10q.htm
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40545/000119312510173396/d10q.htm
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40545/000004054509000071/frm10q.htm
Corporations pay taxes in the countries they operate in. They report financials for each of those countries, and they file taxes in each of those countries. GEFS also known as GE Capital is based in the US and its primary business here (which was giving out crap loans, but thats another story) was what generated the losses in 2008-9. So, the bulk of GE's losses in the 2008-9 meltdown came from its financial services, the bulk of those loses were conducted in the US and thus the bulk of their tax right offs did as well. The other business units in GE US operations are high revenue low margin businesses, and thus have little profit to offset against the losses.
It is patently unfair to include the entire results of the GE holding company's corporate profits, for which they pay taxes on to multiple countries, and then claim that they must be double taxed by the United States for business not conducted in the US. Granted, they locate a lot of their leasing business in low tax countries like Singapore and Ireland, but those profits are not "American Profits" if they leave them offshore.
As for that New York Times article, their smoking gun is that GE has been paying a smaller percentage of their overall profits to the IRS over the last 5 years. That is because their China, India, and Brazil business have grown like crazy in the last decade. They also bring this up after GE gets a monster tax credit from having GE Capital nearly implode in 2008, which skews the results of the last 2 years.
The key to the situation is this (and I quote from the NYtimes article):
"If G.E. financed the sale of a jet engine or generator in Ireland, for example, the company would no longer have to pay American tax on the interest income as long as the profits remained offshore." So if they take those profits from a subsidiary in Ireland and reinvest it all in their Irish business, they don't have to pay any taxes to the IRS on it. Is that wrong? I dunno, its been the law for over a decade. I think it was passed under Clinton. Since lately, the lions share of GE's profits have come from their financial services, the lions share of their taxes are subject to that law.
Why can't I feed the trolls? With proper care and feeding, we may be able to get them to breed in captivity :)
Mr Hedwards, I have an excellent education thank you. Please allow me to further yours. The GP was calling out a private institution for advocating business interests, as if this was somehow a terrible thing. Oh, and he used hyperbole, which I did as well in referencing Lenin.
Someone is standing a bit to the left of Lenin. Oh, and as far as cyber wars go, the one between 4chan and Youtube seems to be heating up!
You just described most of corporate america with your six steps.
Step #1 is very very plausible. One develops a potential working relationship with the target company and crafts an email to contain an innocuous looking document or link requested by the target. The link/document contains the latest exploit that has not been patched. The email is not suspicious because who would attack a potential business partner after all. It is an exploit that is preferably zero day and not yet in the virus/malware databases. Also, a new shell for the attack could be devised from the original code to insure it would be unrecognizable.
Step #4 can be obviated by infecting an admin's computer, and if I was targeting a company with a zero day unknown exploit, I would aim it at their IT guys.
Step #5a all networks are vulnerable to this sort of exploit, especially if the exploit is unknown to scanners & filters.
Step #5b if you root an admin's box, you can piggy back on him next time he does maintenance on *every* server and device he maintains.
I am surprised the list was only 100 companies. I assume every S&P 500 company has been penetrated to some degree.
Same thing with car and homeowners insurance. Both are a total waste of your time. You never need them and the insurance companies win. Just avoid having bad things happen to you and you will come out ahead.
Yes I was kidding.
If you must stay in the USA try the following: kill and eat the hearts of republicans (if you can find any that have one). Then you will gain their powers and be able to ignore your health problems until they go away. Do not move to Canada, their hockey team is bad. I recommend Switzerland or Sweden. If you don't like white people, try Singapore, Morocco, or Columbia. They all have better health care than the US. If you are picky about a country, check the WHO website. They have a list of countries with good health care.
If you have reached this point and are frothing at the mouth or hurling your mouse, lighten up and ebay yourself a sense of humor.
When you conflate 47 million uninsured with 9 million who "want" insurance, sure Issa's bill makes a little bit of sense. It wasn't extending Medicare it was extending the FEHBP to cover them. SEC. 8925 of HR 3438 says that non-federal employees have to pay the entire premium, which is a problem for the poor since there is no way in hell they could afford it. There is nothing wrong with making this plan available to non-federal employees if they want to pay for it, it just doesn't solve the problem of health care for poor people.
FYI, we pay for the uninsured health care already, when they show up to the emergency room. Only, when it is a chronic condition like diabetes it now costs 100 times as much to treat the disease with insulin than if they were detected as a borderline diabetic and could control it with diet. If they don't treat it with insulin, it will cost 10000 times or more since they will be getting ambulance rides with the following conditions: heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, blindness, and nerve & circulatory damage that can require amputation. Since 24 million americans have diabetes, it is kind of a problem if 2 million of them never see a doctor about it.
I know I will never convince you, but others who read this will be.
20 grand should just about cover 1 ambulance ride and 1 emergency room visit if you break a bone. A stroke, heart attack, serious car accident, any form of cancer would wipe out that little nest egg you have in 2 weeks flat. Then you would be broke and still have no health insurance. Thank you for illustrating why nobody should listen to you about health insurance.
As it happens, I do have a pretty short list of things that the Government should do. It is based on a very simple principle: the function of Government is to do things that could not be done any other way. That would include law enforcement and running the military. It would not include running a news organisation.
You mean like Pinkerton guards and Blackwater? The government could EASILY outsource their police organizations to private contractors and in fact did for many decades. We can and do outsource a lot of our military work abroad to Blackwater and dozens of other companies like them. So, given that it can be done, by your argument it should be done.
Mail could be carried by Fedex & UPS.
Agriculture could be handled by Mosanto.
Treasury could be done by Goldman Sachs.
Justice could be handled by National Arbitration Association.
The interior could be handled by Six Flags & Exxon.
Commerce could be handled by Bloomberg.
Labor could be handled by the AFL-CIO.
Health and Human services could be handled by Kaiser Foundation & Blueshield.
Transportation could be handled by the Teamsters.
Housing and Urban development could be handled by Toll Brothers.
Energy could be handled by Exxon & Chevron.
Education could be handled by Harvard and Yale.
Veterans Affairs could be handled by Alderwoods Group Inc.
Homeland Security could be handled by the Mexican Drug Cartels.
Anyway, back to the point. Murdoch may be many things, but he's not an idiot. Quite the opposite. His one-dimensional focus and complete absence of any principles have made him an extremely shrewd businessman. I wouldn't count him out too soon, any more than I'd finish the cancer drugs halfway through the course because the tumour hadn't been quite as aggressive this week.
His business owns a pile of newspapers, TV stations, and movie studios and wants to own more. In this day and age, that to says to me "early onset altzheimers" or he is an idiot.
As it is, I think the Murdochs are just upset that a REAL news group keeps them from controlling the news. They want power. If there were anything else I could say to make this a stronger condemnation of News Corp, I would. They are really that bad. They are the evilness that Microsoft only aspires to.
You might not be able to say anything else, but I can QUOTE you and then laboriously collect pebbles and present them to you as a penguin would to his mate!
Seriously, News corp is trash. I am about to drop my subscription to the Wall Street Journal because I am finding too many factual errors and biases in their business news.
Except for the part where they can modify the constitution to give themselves the authority. I know, I know, inconvenient facts should be left where they cannot damage your arguments. Sorry.