Hey guys (and gals), they're trying to get our vote!
Maybe they are, but IBM is still on our side for this battle anyhow. IBM's big money comes from services, Sun's big money comes from expensive hardware. Even though Solaris runs on x86, Sun is basically trying to make Solaris a value proposition for it's hardware. If Sun doesn't have a distinct Solaris value, people will then start to switch to Linux on x86 much quicker. Sun is attacking this on two fronts. 1) Free solaris just enough so that those who have pressing needs for freedom from that controll do not switch for Linux on x86 platform, 2) offer an x86 platform of their own to try and controll the flow of movement (minimize it) into the x86 market for their customer base. Also, since they are probably (I think) aware that they can't stop the x86/Linux tsunami, they can at least hold it back long enough so as not to kill their revenue base while they transition. They might also be trying to look for nitche markets (like the Mac)
The tone of the posts under this topic confirms that this is indeed a which hunt.
First off, the amount of stocks set aside for options is typically already known well in advance and already priced into the price of the shares. If someone exercises an option they bought at 1-cent, and sells for $100 dollars that will have the same effect on the price of the stock as if they bought options at $99 and sold them for $100.
Second off, while executives benefit from options, the people who benefit the most are employees. People are so blinded with envy over a few boys-club executives, that they are shooting themselves more than they are shooting the 'good-ole-boys'.
Third off, artificially reducing the option price would take money away from the company, but typically this price is minimal and reflected in other compensation. If a hot-shot programmer got 100K in value from 50K of options + 50K of salary, or got 100K in value from 25K of options + 75K of salary. The company and the share holders are pretty much out the same expense either way. The former actually benefits the company more because it increases the companies cash on hand that it can use for other activities.
Fourth off, noone seems to understand what's driving this, and it's not greed, but taxes. Between sales, property, state, federal, social security, and medicare eating the majority of peoples pay - it is humanly impossible to have any independent savings or any decent retirement. Now people go thru all these crazy schemes to aviod taxes that are clearly unjust and like fools we start whining about these crazy schemes. Well bullshit.
Fith, stock options are not inflationary. Over the last 5 years the Fed has doubbled the amount of money in circulation. People who have held on to dollars, or are paid in dollars have been screwed and not by the companies. They get screwed because the value of their pay gets watered down, and they get screwed because as their pay adjusts for inflation they get pushed into higher tax brackets. So then when people counter by back-dating their options - we call them thieves?, well bullshit again.
IMHO, they need to treat copyrights like sewage that leaves no room for free speech in the information age, rather than some honorable law that just needs clear boundaries set. The RIAA understands this is an all or nothing game and they are acting off that understanding, and so should we. We never got rid of the 55 speed limit by proclaiming that it was an honorable law that just needed better boundaries set, no we got rid of it because millions of people treated it like the worthless burden that it was eventually forcing the system to change.
No they havent, what are you talking about, the government is winning the war on drugs big time! It has turned out to be every thing they have ever dreamed of and more.
They have gotten massive funding for their police state apparatus, and prision facuilities, and for their law enforcment cronies, and for the judges, and have gotten massive abilities to spy and pry into other peoples lives. They have more power and controll over peoples lives than ever before - yes in their eyes they are absolute victors in this drug war. Not to mention all the extra money they get to siphon off to special interests.
They even have massive authority to invade American's financial privacy and deter them from putting their money into tax havens so people can't protect themselves from the massive tax impositions. As a bonus, they even get authority to impose these controls on other countries in other parts of the world. Just think of all that extra taxes they get to collect from people who are too afraid to protect themselves - what a major victory. And if people trying to protect their money get a little to brave, no problem, just go out and shoot a bunch of niggers to set an example and scare them back into line. You see, it even gives the police live firearms practice - it is a win win situation for them.
Right to privacy - they have won that war. Right against unreasonable search and seisure - they have won that war too. WTF are you talking about, this war has been an astounding success for the government. They even get to incarcerate a large number of black people and get them off the voting rolls and influence elections.
Nope, the war on drugs is a stunning success. Things worked out so well, that many have decided that it is time to expand this war. Yes, we now need a war on terrorisim. Three cheers. The war against fair trials, or even having trials at all for that matter is on. The war to get total access to every thing you say and do without even the pretext of permission or checks and balances is on. The war for controll over the internet is on. The war to disarm the people (like in New Orleans) is on. The war to controll all your travel and movement is on. The prospects for victory in this war too are so promising, it is almost salivating.
So I don't know WTF you are talking about. Thes wars are a stunning success for the government by every measure they use.
Has anyone ever noticed how the PC industry is not like other industries - eg cell phones which are all fragmented and incompatable and the user is mostly locked out from the hardware, or even laptops - try buying a laptop case and building your own at home. Try taking a tire off a chevy and putting it on a ford, or the breaks, or even the engine.
The PC industry is the way it is because IBM just assumed they could patent the interfaces - when they couldn't. When people started to copy them, billions and billions of dollars worth of lawsuits started to fly all over the place. IBM against Compaq, Intel aganst AMD - inspite of great effort and costs, they were given no rights to impose patents over the interface. Maybe this was a failure for IBM and Intel, but it created a nuclear explosion of business, commerce, opportunity, and R&D for the rest of us.
The moral of the story is that patnets do not help R&D and do not help finance R&D, they help lock out competition, and force the industry to fragment and center around a licensing model (which is good for lawyers and bad for engineers) instead of a service model (which is good for engineers, but bad for monopolies).
As I said, they would make money from invention services instead of invention controlls
According to the Constitution they are (a property right)...
According to the constitution they are not. That's why they have an expiration date (in theory) Also, it doesn't say "to protect property rights" but to encourage sharing inventions into the public domain...
Non-sequiter alert! Let's try to avoid confusing slavery with patents, shall we?
I think you are confused. I never implied that patents are slavery, but the logic used is certinly the same. The same bullshit logic that was used to justify those phoney property rights happens to be used to justify these ones too.
Well, you made a very compelling argument that the FDA needs to get the hell out of the way. You also made another argument about patents that I forgot to mention - patents drive R&D costs to the moon.
f) In a non patent world, people and companies don't mind collaberating and sharing research because if another uses that research to make a killer breakthru, every body gets to produce and profit off of it. However, when patents are in place, then people and companies need to be very secretive and isolated in their research, because if another company uses that research to make a breakthru - then all their efforts are for nill. Hence, every one reinvents the wheel from scratch every time, and R&D costs go to the moon.
So here patents drive up R&D and, and kill collaberation and community research - and then now say we need patents to capitalize on the high costs of R&D and to protect rugged lone inventors who tinker in their grage for ten years. No, patents are a fraud and a lie. Also, this has nothing to do with anarchy. Is getting rid of slave properties anarchy? No, because patnets are a fradulent property and not incentive to begin with.
People need to understand that patents are a lie, and pure evil. There are several reasons for this....
a) Inventions are usefull, they are beneficial that's why there will always be a need for them with or without patents. The choice is not between patents and no innovation, the choice is between wether invention revenue will derive from a service model vs an invention control model.
b) When you have patnets that forces the market to center around invention controlls, when you don't have patnets that forces the market to center around invnetion services. So the notion that patents help small inventors, and incentivize invention is complete fraud.
c) Inventors are good at inventing things, big-business and government and lawyers are good at controlling things - patents do not help inventors. Patents help some large businesses, lawyers, governments, and anyone else who likes to control and deny other peoples liberties. They hurt inventors and do not promote innovation.
d) Patents are not a property right. Property rights exist because of natural scarcity, not because of human made scarsity. Slaves on the plantation were not a property right either. All the argument about incentive, business, commerce, and the wealth of America was crap back then and is now too.
e) Patents are a pure evil, and even genocidial. Those millions Africans who suffered and died of AIDS while pharmacuticals sued in the world court to forbid African nations from making generics - they suffered and died in the name of patetns. Those millions of people who died in auto accidents while patents held back air-bags and anti-lock breaks for 20 years - they suffered and died in the name of patents.
In sum, patents are a fraud, they are a lie, they harm inventors, they stiffle innovation, they are not property, they are anti free market, and they are evil to the point of genocide. We shouldn't be trying to reform them, we should be trying to kill them and hammer anyone else who dares try to impose them on us.
No, he'll just go broke when trying to compete with the large companies who wait for him to build something cool and then use their huge existing resources to cheaply mass produce his invention before he has a chance to make a dime off it. Not that either the existing or proposed system is "good", but yours would suck pretty bad, too.
WTF, if I loose a production monopoly on my $50K idea, but I get access to $100,000,000,000 worth of patentes to research and innovate - then that INCREASES my chance to make a profit off of inventing, and increases invention related opportunities because it forces the economy to rotate arround invention services instead of invention controlls.
That's a red-herring, the problem isn't big companies copying the xyz idea from a small inventor and putting him out of business. The problem is that all the small businesses and inventors are getting the crap sued out of them, and all small companies walking on eggshels wondering when the next big lawsuit is going to hit them and shut them down.
Your parent poster is right. Patents are anti-free market trash that need to be killed. They aren't a "property" or an "incentive" any more than slaves on the plantation were, and are arguably more harmfull. Like the millions of Africans who died of AIDS while they were being sued not to make generics in the world court, like the millions people who died in car accidents while air-bags and anti-lock breaks were held bac 20 years.
Another big problem is that that would tend to consolidate power in the patent office.
I renember when they decided to create a seperate patent court. The side effect was that the judges in that system were now only patent judges, so they had a biased interest in expanding the scope, influence, and imposition of the patent system to expand their own scope and influence. Putting this kind of power into the patnet off will make this problem even worse.
INAL, but treaties are authroized in the constitution, but most of our rights are secured in the amendments. Legally, the core constitution takes more votes to change than the bill of rights, and trumps it.
That means that if a foriegn country wishes to screw over our free speech rights, and the US government agrees with them - then the constitution becomes irrelavent.
I'm loosing patience with propriatary software vendors who embrace doing the minimal amount of free software necissary to hold back free alternatives. They're getting washed over, and they deserve every bit of it.
The real failure isn't that this person died. The real failure is the costs and debts that have been placed on our sholders, and it is ongoing. No one has even aplologized for it yet, no one has even investigated yet, no one has been held accountable yet.
Who knows what other good things could have been done with that money, but no, it was siphoned off to corrupt contractors and corrupt bureauocrats who don't even deserve a food-kitchen plate from us, no less squander millions of our dollars. If people were actually entitled to the money they worked hard to earn - who knows what other good deeds they would have done with it. Perhaps they would have given more charity to children starving in India, or children dying of AIDS in Africa. Perhaps they would have put it towards their childrens college education, kids who would have then gotten careers and possibly found a cure for cancer. Sheesh, nobody even dares talk about the *REAL* death toll.
Today we live in a country that has more debt that they can ever pay off, and with total taxes ranging from 20% to 45% for every person, and paper money that has depreciated 95% over the last 95 years - and so nobody is able to be independent anymore. Nobody but the top 1% can pay out of pocket for their retirement anymore. Nobody but the top 1% can pay cash for their kids college any more. Nobody but the top 1% can buy their own house for cash any more. We are all dependent on a system that can only grow to hate us - that is the REAL failure, and REAL death toll has yet to kick in.
In fact, maybe people would just spend their money on beer. It doesn't matter, becaue even the act of taking peoples money (for good sounding deeds) is inherently evil. Today the US has more debt than it can ever pay off. Ever. There are three choices:
1) default = great depression 2) print up money to pay it off = hyperinflation 3) do both = stagflation
Any of the three options are going to destroy the lives of millions. So please, The REAL damage hasn't even scratched the surface.
Whats happening is that as scoiety enters the information age, the service value of information is becoming more valuable than the content value. That's causing the rules to change up and down the board, and is making it so that the industry is starting to rotate around information services instead of content controlls like copyrights. While Linux is very nicely positioned for this future, Microsoft isn't, and they know it. Microsoft needs to be friendly with Linux because they need that to make it in this future. They're not like the RIAA, whose crap mostly has no commercial service value at all. Miscosoft is eventually going to need to compete in the service area head on with the likes of IBM, Oracle, and Sun. Each of these companies are positioning themselves with strategies to deal with and benefit from open source, while maximizing the revenue coming from their current core.
Microsoft will probably try to milk the OS, Office, and the dominance of IE for all they can get with the right hand, while pushing a full end open source service assult with the left. While this is nice, to me it's a day late, a dollar short. There are already companies deeply entrenched in this space who can provide for my needs far better. Also, it is a dangerous strategy. Not only is the company likely to go skitso as profit center butts heads against its service center. But they are also likely to reach a point where they can't increase their service core as fast as their licensing core is decreasing. When that happens they will likely go into panic mode and all freakin hell will break loose - making SCO look like the tooth fairy.
My messg to Microsoft. If you really want to play in our playground - open up your damn patents!
IMHO public schools are inherently evil. No matter how irresponsible they are, no matter how bad they are, no matter how incompetent they are, they are still entitled to coerce people to give them funding. That takes away direct accountability to results in one way or another, and always ends up with strange consequences (eg students get neglected to the point that some break and go off the deep end). Instead of trying to make a bad system work, why not make a bad system good. For the longest time the system in HK was completely private, and we didn't have zillions of uneducated dweebs like pundits predicted. People kicked in grants, schools awarded scholars, parents offered extra funds. Did some students slip thru the cracks, sure, but anyone would be a fool to think that it isn't happening just as much in the public school system already. Even the teacher of the year in NYC three times in a row said that the only way to fix public schools was to shut them down. Columbine was a hint of the fundamental problem and blaming it on video games is disingenuious.
In a normal world, individuals create wealth, and that wealth creates discressionary money that eventually gets pooled into big R&D projects. But we don't live in a normal world, we live in a world with....
Paper money: A paper money economy tends to drive out a real money economy and encourage debt and rampant speculation and low savings for individuals. It also tends to push people into higher tax brackets - which is another reason why discressionary money into R&D is dampened.
Copyrights: In a normal world there is not very many inhibitions between researchers and innovators sharing knowledge and information, and for this information to be shared between industries. Copyrights (and patents) create that inhibition and add a lot of hype (like Britny Spheres) on top of it. Society makes up for this by providing research grants and a heavially subsidzed university system where people learn shared knowledge, before they face the world of fenced off information. (open source is undoing some of this and normalizing things again)
Patents: In a normal world, when Johnny makes a better mouse trap - everyone uses that mouse trap and improves upon it eventually giving Johnny and the world a better mousetrap than he could have ever made himself, and putting it to use in ways he could never have dreamed of. Patnets kill that kind of group incremental innovation and drive up the price of R&D bigtime. Big companies make up for this by having private R&D departments, but most individuals are on their own as rogue independents. Someone mentioned xerox parc above, but that is a classic example of why patents are crap - society got to use those innovations by mere luck - xerox could see no value in them. Other people have mentioned the need for patnets to pay for big pharma, but that has been rebuked time and time again too.
In sum, this "good ole days" story of real innovation is complete crap. Most of the innovation has happened inspite of these institutions, not because of them. In stead of giving credit to AT&T, give credit to the people who got fed up with AT&T, left it, and formed a small semiconductor startup in silicon valley. Instead of giving credit to IBM, give credit to enterpernual individuals who took their control away from their OS and proprietary interfaces causing a PC revolution. Instead of giving credit to Xerox-parc, give credit to those who acted inspite of xeroxes leanings to write off the technology as complete crap. In stead of giving credit to ARPA and the NSF, give credit to those who lied to congress thru their teeth to get the internet released for use in the private sector (hint it wasn't Al Gore). The only reason why innovation has ever happened is because individuals have been free enough to act inspite of these systems, not because of them. The USSR had a lot of innovation too, but it was useless without the freedom and liberty to apply and use it and most of it got burried and sidelined for just that reason. What people don't understand is that innovation is not about science and funding, it is about liberty and being able to apply it. Only when people understand that will real innovation come to take place.
While companies do conspire to keep down peoples pay when they can. The truth is that in countries where they control the companies less - pay (and the standard of living) tends to be higher, and where they control companies more it tends to be lower. IMHO, what most people fail to understand is that companies and governments aren't leaders, they are followers. When their power is reduced, and they stand out of the way, people tend to succede and innovate, but when companies have lots of regulations protesting them and there is lots of government interference on work and pay - then peoples chances tend to go down. Minimum wage is a great example, it tends to lock out the lower people from getting jobs keeping them from learning new skills and opportunities. Other companies do things like petition government to put in 'enviromental regulations' to make it more expensive for smaller competitors to break into the market.
Why gold and silver? They're just so...arbitrary. I'd rather have my money backed up by something that can actually do something, like energy.
Energy and most other commodities will probably do well for similar reasons. But gold and silver are what is called natural money. They are malable, splitable, do not rot burn rust or fade away, are safe and non toxic, total circulation does not fluxuate by large amounts, and their rarity makes them valuable enough to hold a reasonable amount of value in your poket. Even though gold is not consumed very much accept for jewlery, silver is used for lots of industrial processes and there is a shortage at this time. The most important part is that you are able to have posession, so they are the ultimate form of insurance. You can't have posession of a barrel of oil, or store a ton of copper without great difficulty, do you really just want a certificate if all hell breaks loose? Paper backed assets are also more vulnerable to manipulation. Tthe risk in energy is that in the event of serious economic slowdown, it's demand will decreses just when you need it the most, the opposite is true with gold and silver.
It's not the workload, it's the monitary policy. Over the last 90 years the value of money has slowly been watered down putting a bigger and bigger squeese on middle income families. For example, in 1920 gold was about $25 per ounce, but today it is about $620. One would think that the price of gold would go down because it isn't even demanded or accepted in stores as a currency anymore, but the fact that it's gone up really means that over that amount of time the dollar has lost at least 95% of it's value. In fact, over the last 5 years almost all commodities have doubbled and trippled in price. Sorry, it's not some global corporate conspiracy, it is bad monitary policy - our paper dollars have been watered down in value - plain and simple.
Banks learned a long time ago that when you print up money and spend it - that causes hyperinflation, so most modern economies now print it up and loan it out. When people start to notice higher prices, then they raise the interest rates on the loans squeesing people to lower their prices and profit margins to keep hyperinflation under control. The unfortunate conesquence of this policy over time is high debt, low savings, and stock and housing market bubbles. Hmmm, look at the US now?!!!!
So why are we really starting to feel it just now? because of two forces - overseas economies, and technology deflation. In "normal" inflation, all that extra money floating around would eventually find it's way into peoples pay checks, but that's not happening this time because overseas workers can work for a fraction of what US workers make and because technology is causing things to be so much cheaper that it is driving down costs (and profit margins) on manufactured goods.
Moral: we need gold money. In a gold based economy there is a near fixed amount of money - that tends to encourage savings, keep prices in check, limits the amount of debt, and limits the amount of corruption and government interference (the US constitution says gold and silver for a reason). Also, in a gold based economy you need to be a savings earner before you become a savings loaner which leads to a certain wisdom and dicipline and tends to make it so that loans are used for productive activities like business and commerce and savings are used for other stuff like consumer purchases, cars, and homes. Imagine being able to save for 4 years and buy up a house... well before the federal reserve act of 1913, that used to be the norm.
So what is going to happen? Thrid world economies will continue to come alive for several decades, and technology deflation will continue to happen for several decades as well. That will drive down prices in labor and profit margins for many more decades. For the long term, that is very good because goods will become cheaper and cheaper, for the short term that is an economic disaster because the whole US economy has way way more debt and obligations than is possible to pay off. The US is in check-mate because political forces will make it impossible for wall street to default on it's debts so they will print up money to pay them off causing price hyperinflation. The only problem is that will drive up prices, but not pay making it impossible for regular people to pay on their housing debts. So prices will skyrocket at just the same time when business activity collapses and mass unemployment follows, and everyone looses their houses.
So what do you need to do? Stay out of debt no matter what. Get gold and silver with every spare penny you can afford. And buy a gun and store food, because all freakin satanic hell is about to break loose. PS: This geopolitical tension in the middle east isn't a cooncidence, the pressures are everywhere and will probably cause WW3 to break out. Please be carefull, all freakin satanic hell really is about to break loose.
And people here call me nuts when I suggest slashdot is crawling with Austrian-School anarchist whackjobs..../me rolls eyes. Take all these "anarcho-capitalists" and put them on a desert island for a week... the one left alive after that week probably wont be an anarcho-capitalist anymore.../me is center-seeking and dislikes all extreemes.
Where do people like you get off. If you said this in any real context, you would be the one considered extreme. When they said the earth centered arround the sun - that was considered an extreme position. When they said that people didn't need a king to rule them - that was considered an extreme position. When they said, we should sail east to create new trading routes - that was an outrageous notion. When they said that government need not choose peoples religion to ensure stability - that was an extreme position. When they said slavery should be abolished and not compromised - that was also an extreme position. The entire renissance and the entire protistant reformation was considered extreme. The magna carta, the declaration of independence, evolution... all of these were once considered extreme positions too. The people who wanted racial equality and interracial relationships were considered extremists.
There is a reason why they say "I like my tea hot, or I like my tea iced, but give me warm tea and I will spit it out. Sir, you have pretty much deligated yourself to the trash heap of history. Stop careing about what feels extreme, and start caring about what is correct and you might just get somewhere in life.
...that there's nothing else important going on the country or the world, so Congress can address the dire scourge of online gambling.
Seriously, there is something important. The war in the middle east, and this law has everything to do with it. I myself am somewhat sympathetic to the war, but the simple honest truth is that the government simply can't pay for it. Really, Congress could care less about people who are down and out from gambling, but they care alot about people escaping the overbearing and unjust taxes by moving their money to offshore tax havens. This has nothing to do with gambling, and everything to do with attempting to contain that flow of money (and tax revenue).
When we were considering my daughters education options, it became very clear very quickly that nobody on the planet is going to be more interested in her best interests than we are. While the school system always talked about programs, and money, they never never talked about responsibility and accountability. If a child's parent doesn't care, they are doomed anyhow - and IMHO to aid and abbet that doom by puting them into the state schools is unforgivable.
Kids don't socialize in public schools. First off, people in the real world must socialize and deal with all age groups, not just the ones in their grade level. Home schools, and homeschool support groups reflect that reality far more than any public school. Second off, 5 seconds at any public school will tell you what most of us already know anyhow. There is nothing sociable or "real world" about the way the kids interact, that is unless they want to grow up to be incarcerated, drug infested, gang-bangers. It would be more accurate to say that public schools hide kids from the real world, and manipulate impressionable minds in a way that favors social control over individualality and success.
I know this is blasphemy to say this, but even the teacher of the year in NYC 3 times said it. We would be better of if public schools were shut down alltogether. No fixes, no modifications, no new programs, just shut it down and force the responsibility back onto the parents - who would probably turn to private schools, home schools, and community voulnteer schools. Will some kids fall thru the cracks? That's the point. So many already are - when are people going to get it that a public school system isn't about a public education and can guarantee no such thing no matter how desperately people wish otherwise.
Consider: People bring personal laptops to work, plug in to the LAN, and a virus spreads because the primary virus scanners are at the perimeter firewall. The ENTIRE FUCKING COMPANY is now down for between six and 72 hours. Oh, but that's OK because you didn't have to submit your laptop for scanning, and could start working immediately. Clearly your work is more important than anyone else's in the whole company.
Basically what you're saying is, "well we got poor end-point security, so we need massive centralized port control". But in all fairness, this is more of an argument for beefing up end point security than it is an arguemtnt for centralized control (and for ditching windows, but that's another topic all tigether). The guy in the parent post was probably legitimately fusterated, and really has a point. The internet is a multi billion node network with open ports, and it hums along inspite of all the issues. The internet scales and works because the intelligence is at the end-points and not the infrsatructure - the same is true with a large orginisation. Any effective security model needs to focus on the enpoints, otherwise the people in IT are going to be completely bogged down with with stupid authorization and access issues instead of on genuine problem solving and security. IMHO, you're better off saving all the extra resources for a bigger pipe then you are trying to control every port on the network.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe they are, but IBM is still on our side for this battle anyhow. IBM's big money comes from services, Sun's big money comes from expensive hardware. Even though Solaris runs on x86, Sun is basically trying to make Solaris a value proposition for it's hardware. If Sun doesn't have a distinct Solaris value, people will then start to switch to Linux on x86 much quicker. Sun is attacking this on two fronts. 1) Free solaris just enough so that those who have pressing needs for freedom from that controll do not switch for Linux on x86 platform, 2) offer an x86 platform of their own to try and controll the flow of movement (minimize it) into the x86 market for their customer base. Also, since they are probably (I think) aware that they can't stop the x86/Linux tsunami, they can at least hold it back long enough so as not to kill their revenue base while they transition. They might also be trying to look for nitche markets (like the Mac)
The tone of the posts under this topic confirms that this is indeed a which hunt.
First off, the amount of stocks set aside for options is typically already known well in advance and already priced into the price of the shares. If someone exercises an option they bought at 1-cent, and sells for $100 dollars that will have the same effect on the price of the stock as if they bought options at $99 and sold them for $100.
Second off, while executives benefit from options, the people who benefit the most are employees. People are so blinded with envy over a few boys-club executives, that they are shooting themselves more than they are shooting the 'good-ole-boys'.
Third off, artificially reducing the option price would take money away from the company, but typically this price is minimal and reflected in other compensation. If a hot-shot programmer got 100K in value from 50K of options + 50K of salary, or got 100K in value from 25K of options + 75K of salary. The company and the share holders are pretty much out the same expense either way. The former actually benefits the company more because it increases the companies cash on hand that it can use for other activities.
Fourth off, noone seems to understand what's driving this, and it's not greed, but taxes. Between sales, property, state, federal, social security, and medicare eating the majority of peoples pay - it is humanly impossible to have any independent savings or any decent retirement. Now people go thru all these crazy schemes to aviod taxes that are clearly unjust and like fools we start whining about these crazy schemes. Well bullshit.
Fith, stock options are not inflationary. Over the last 5 years the Fed has doubbled the amount of money in circulation. People who have held on to dollars, or are paid in dollars have been screwed and not by the companies. They get screwed because the value of their pay gets watered down, and they get screwed because as their pay adjusts for inflation they get pushed into higher tax brackets. So then when people counter by back-dating their options - we call them thieves?, well bullshit again.
That's because they are responsible ones.
IMHO, they need to treat copyrights like sewage that leaves no room for free speech in the information age, rather than some honorable law that just needs clear boundaries set. The RIAA understands this is an all or nothing game and they are acting off that understanding, and so should we. We never got rid of the 55 speed limit by proclaiming that it was an honorable law that just needed better boundaries set, no we got rid of it because millions of people treated it like the worthless burden that it was eventually forcing the system to change.
No they havent, what are you talking about, the government is winning the war on drugs big time! It has turned out to be every thing they have ever dreamed of and more.
They have gotten massive funding for their police state apparatus, and prision facuilities, and for their law enforcment cronies, and for the judges, and have gotten massive abilities to spy and pry into other peoples lives. They have more power and controll over peoples lives than ever before - yes in their eyes they are absolute victors in this drug war. Not to mention all the extra money they get to siphon off to special interests.
They even have massive authority to invade American's financial privacy and deter them from putting their money into tax havens so people can't protect themselves from the massive tax impositions. As a bonus, they even get authority to impose these controls on other countries in other parts of the world. Just think of all that extra taxes they get to collect from people who are too afraid to protect themselves - what a major victory. And if people trying to protect their money get a little to brave, no problem, just go out and shoot a bunch of niggers to set an example and scare them back into line. You see, it even gives the police live firearms practice - it is a win win situation for them.
Right to privacy - they have won that war. Right against unreasonable search and seisure - they have won that war too. WTF are you talking about, this war has been an astounding success for the government. They even get to incarcerate a large number of black people and get them off the voting rolls and influence elections.
Nope, the war on drugs is a stunning success. Things worked out so well, that many have decided that it is time to expand this war. Yes, we now need a war on terrorisim. Three cheers. The war against fair trials, or even having trials at all for that matter is on. The war to get total access to every thing you say and do without even the pretext of permission or checks and balances is on. The war for controll over the internet is on. The war to disarm the people (like in New Orleans) is on. The war to controll all your travel and movement is on. The prospects for victory in this war too are so promising, it is almost salivating.
So I don't know WTF you are talking about. Thes wars are a stunning success for the government by every measure they use.
Has anyone ever noticed how the PC industry is not like other industries - eg cell phones which are all fragmented and incompatable and the user is mostly locked out from the hardware, or even laptops - try buying a laptop case and building your own at home. Try taking a tire off a chevy and putting it on a ford, or the breaks, or even the engine.
The PC industry is the way it is because IBM just assumed they could patent the interfaces - when they couldn't. When people started to copy them, billions and billions of dollars worth of lawsuits started to fly all over the place. IBM against Compaq, Intel aganst AMD - inspite of great effort and costs, they were given no rights to impose patents over the interface. Maybe this was a failure for IBM and Intel, but it created a nuclear explosion of business, commerce, opportunity, and R&D for the rest of us.
The moral of the story is that patnets do not help R&D and do not help finance R&D, they help lock out competition, and force the industry to fragment and center around a licensing model (which is good for lawyers and bad for engineers) instead of a service model (which is good for engineers, but bad for monopolies).
As I said, they would make money from invention services instead of invention controlls
According to the constitution they are not. That's why they have an expiration date (in theory) Also, it doesn't say "to protect property rights" but to encourage sharing inventions into the public domain...
I think you are confused. I never implied that patents are slavery, but the logic used is certinly the same. The same bullshit logic that was used to justify those phoney property rights happens to be used to justify these ones too.
Well, you made a very compelling argument that the FDA needs to get the hell out of the way. You also made another argument about patents that I forgot to mention - patents drive R&D costs to the moon.
f) In a non patent world, people and companies don't mind collaberating and sharing research because if another uses that research to make a killer breakthru, every body gets to produce and profit off of it. However, when patents are in place, then people and companies need to be very secretive and isolated in their research, because if another company uses that research to make a breakthru - then all their efforts are for nill. Hence, every one reinvents the wheel from scratch every time, and R&D costs go to the moon.
So here patents drive up R&D and, and kill collaberation and community research - and then now say we need patents to capitalize on the high costs of R&D and to protect rugged lone inventors who tinker in their grage for ten years. No, patents are a fraud and a lie. Also, this has nothing to do with anarchy. Is getting rid of slave properties anarchy? No, because patnets are a fradulent property and not incentive to begin with.
People need to understand that patents are a lie, and pure evil. There are several reasons for this ....
a) Inventions are usefull, they are beneficial that's why there will always be a need for them with or without patents. The choice is not between patents and no innovation, the choice is between wether invention revenue will derive from a service model vs an invention control model.
b) When you have patnets that forces the market to center around invention controlls, when you don't have patnets that forces the market to center around invnetion services. So the notion that patents help small inventors, and incentivize invention is complete fraud.
c) Inventors are good at inventing things, big-business and government and lawyers are good at controlling things - patents do not help inventors. Patents help some large businesses, lawyers, governments, and anyone else who likes to control and deny other peoples liberties. They hurt inventors and do not promote innovation.
d) Patents are not a property right. Property rights exist because of natural scarcity, not because of human made scarsity. Slaves on the plantation were not a property right either. All the argument about incentive, business, commerce, and the wealth of America was crap back then and is now too.
e) Patents are a pure evil, and even genocidial. Those millions Africans who suffered and died of AIDS while pharmacuticals sued in the world court to forbid African nations from making generics - they suffered and died in the name of patetns. Those millions of people who died in auto accidents while patents held back air-bags and anti-lock breaks for 20 years - they suffered and died in the name of patents.
In sum, patents are a fraud, they are a lie, they harm inventors, they stiffle innovation, they are not property, they are anti free market, and they are evil to the point of genocide. We shouldn't be trying to reform them, we should be trying to kill them and hammer anyone else who dares try to impose them on us.
WTF, if I loose a production monopoly on my $50K idea, but I get access to $100,000,000,000 worth of patentes to research and innovate - then that INCREASES my chance to make a profit off of inventing, and increases invention related opportunities because it forces the economy to rotate arround invention services instead of invention controlls.
That's a red-herring, the problem isn't big companies copying the xyz idea from a small inventor and putting him out of business. The problem is that all the small businesses and inventors are getting the crap sued out of them, and all small companies walking on eggshels wondering when the next big lawsuit is going to hit them and shut them down.
Your parent poster is right. Patents are anti-free market trash that need to be killed. They aren't a "property" or an "incentive" any more than slaves on the plantation were, and are arguably more harmfull. Like the millions of Africans who died of AIDS while they were being sued not to make generics in the world court, like the millions people who died in car accidents while air-bags and anti-lock breaks were held bac 20 years.
Another big problem is that that would tend to consolidate power in the patent office.
I renember when they decided to create a seperate patent court. The side effect was that the judges in that system were now only patent judges, so they had a biased interest in expanding the scope, influence, and imposition of the patent system to expand their own scope and influence. Putting this kind of power into the patnet off will make this problem even worse.
INAL, but treaties are authroized in the constitution, but most of our rights are secured in the amendments. Legally, the core constitution takes more votes to change than the bill of rights, and trumps it.
That means that if a foriegn country wishes to screw over our free speech rights, and the US government agrees with them - then the constitution becomes irrelavent.
I'm loosing patience with propriatary software vendors who embrace doing the minimal amount of free software necissary to hold back free alternatives. They're getting washed over, and they deserve every bit of it.
The real failure isn't that this person died. The real failure is the costs and debts that have been placed on our sholders, and it is ongoing. No one has even aplologized for it yet, no one has even investigated yet, no one has been held accountable yet.
Who knows what other good things could have been done with that money, but no, it was siphoned off to corrupt contractors and corrupt bureauocrats who don't even deserve a food-kitchen plate from us, no less squander millions of our dollars. If people were actually entitled to the money they worked hard to earn - who knows what other good deeds they would have done with it. Perhaps they would have given more charity to children starving in India, or children dying of AIDS in Africa. Perhaps they would have put it towards their childrens college education, kids who would have then gotten careers and possibly found a cure for cancer. Sheesh, nobody even dares talk about the *REAL* death toll.
Today we live in a country that has more debt that they can ever pay off, and with total taxes ranging from 20% to 45% for every person, and paper money that has depreciated 95% over the last 95 years - and so nobody is able to be independent anymore. Nobody but the top 1% can pay out of pocket for their retirement anymore. Nobody but the top 1% can pay cash for their kids college any more. Nobody but the top 1% can buy their own house for cash any more. We are all dependent on a system that can only grow to hate us - that is the REAL failure, and REAL death toll has yet to kick in.
In fact, maybe people would just spend their money on beer. It doesn't matter, becaue even the act of taking peoples money (for good sounding deeds) is inherently evil. Today the US has more debt than it can ever pay off. Ever. There are three choices:
1) default = great depression
2) print up money to pay it off = hyperinflation
3) do both = stagflation
Any of the three options are going to destroy the lives of millions. So please, The REAL damage hasn't even scratched the surface.
Whats happening is that as scoiety enters the information age, the service value of information is becoming more valuable than the content value. That's causing the rules to change up and down the board, and is making it so that the industry is starting to rotate around information services instead of content controlls like copyrights. While Linux is very nicely positioned for this future, Microsoft isn't, and they know it. Microsoft needs to be friendly with Linux because they need that to make it in this future. They're not like the RIAA, whose crap mostly has no commercial service value at all. Miscosoft is eventually going to need to compete in the service area head on with the likes of IBM, Oracle, and Sun. Each of these companies are positioning themselves with strategies to deal with and benefit from open source, while maximizing the revenue coming from their current core.
Microsoft will probably try to milk the OS, Office, and the dominance of IE for all they can get with the right hand, while pushing a full end open source service assult with the left. While this is nice, to me it's a day late, a dollar short. There are already companies deeply entrenched in this space who can provide for my needs far better. Also, it is a dangerous strategy. Not only is the company likely to go skitso as profit center butts heads against its service center. But they are also likely to reach a point where they can't increase their service core as fast as their licensing core is decreasing. When that happens they will likely go into panic mode and all freakin hell will break loose - making SCO look like the tooth fairy.
My messg to Microsoft. If you really want to play in our playground - open up your damn patents!
IMHO public schools are inherently evil. No matter how irresponsible they are, no matter how bad they are, no matter how incompetent they are, they are still entitled to coerce people to give them funding. That takes away direct accountability to results in one way or another, and always ends up with strange consequences (eg students get neglected to the point that some break and go off the deep end). Instead of trying to make a bad system work, why not make a bad system good. For the longest time the system in HK was completely private, and we didn't have zillions of uneducated dweebs like pundits predicted. People kicked in grants, schools awarded scholars, parents offered extra funds. Did some students slip thru the cracks, sure, but anyone would be a fool to think that it isn't happening just as much in the public school system already. Even the teacher of the year in NYC three times in a row said that the only way to fix public schools was to shut them down. Columbine was a hint of the fundamental problem and blaming it on video games is disingenuious.
In a normal world, individuals create wealth, and that wealth creates discressionary money that eventually gets pooled into big R&D projects. But we don't live in a normal world, we live in a world with....
In sum, this "good ole days" story of real innovation is complete crap. Most of the innovation has happened inspite of these institutions, not because of them. In stead of giving credit to AT&T, give credit to the people who got fed up with AT&T, left it, and formed a small semiconductor startup in silicon valley. Instead of giving credit to IBM, give credit to enterpernual individuals who took their control away from their OS and proprietary interfaces causing a PC revolution. Instead of giving credit to Xerox-parc, give credit to those who acted inspite of xeroxes leanings to write off the technology as complete crap. In stead of giving credit to ARPA and the NSF, give credit to those who lied to congress thru their teeth to get the internet released for use in the private sector (hint it wasn't Al Gore). The only reason why innovation has ever happened is because individuals have been free enough to act inspite of these systems, not because of them. The USSR had a lot of innovation too, but it was useless without the freedom and liberty to apply and use it and most of it got burried and sidelined for just that reason. What people don't understand is that innovation is not about science and funding, it is about liberty and being able to apply it. Only when people understand that will real innovation come to take place.
While companies do conspire to keep down peoples pay when they can. The truth is that in countries where they control the companies less - pay (and the standard of living) tends to be higher, and where they control companies more it tends to be lower. IMHO, what most people fail to understand is that companies and governments aren't leaders, they are followers. When their power is reduced, and they stand out of the way, people tend to succede and innovate, but when companies have lots of regulations protesting them and there is lots of government interference on work and pay - then peoples chances tend to go down. Minimum wage is a great example, it tends to lock out the lower people from getting jobs keeping them from learning new skills and opportunities. Other companies do things like petition government to put in 'enviromental regulations' to make it more expensive for smaller competitors to break into the market.
Energy and most other commodities will probably do well for similar reasons. But gold and silver are what is called natural money. They are malable, splitable, do not rot burn rust or fade away, are safe and non toxic, total circulation does not fluxuate by large amounts, and their rarity makes them valuable enough to hold a reasonable amount of value in your poket. Even though gold is not consumed very much accept for jewlery, silver is used for lots of industrial processes and there is a shortage at this time. The most important part is that you are able to have posession, so they are the ultimate form of insurance. You can't have posession of a barrel of oil, or store a ton of copper without great difficulty, do you really just want a certificate if all hell breaks loose? Paper backed assets are also more vulnerable to manipulation. Tthe risk in energy is that in the event of serious economic slowdown, it's demand will decreses just when you need it the most, the opposite is true with gold and silver.
It's not the workload, it's the monitary policy. Over the last 90 years the value of money has slowly been watered down putting a bigger and bigger squeese on middle income families. For example, in 1920 gold was about $25 per ounce, but today it is about $620. One would think that the price of gold would go down because it isn't even demanded or accepted in stores as a currency anymore, but the fact that it's gone up really means that over that amount of time the dollar has lost at least 95% of it's value. In fact, over the last 5 years almost all commodities have doubbled and trippled in price. Sorry, it's not some global corporate conspiracy, it is bad monitary policy - our paper dollars have been watered down in value - plain and simple.
Banks learned a long time ago that when you print up money and spend it - that causes hyperinflation, so most modern economies now print it up and loan it out. When people start to notice higher prices, then they raise the interest rates on the loans squeesing people to lower their prices and profit margins to keep hyperinflation under control. The unfortunate conesquence of this policy over time is high debt, low savings, and stock and housing market bubbles. Hmmm, look at the US now?!!!!
So why are we really starting to feel it just now? because of two forces - overseas economies, and technology deflation. In "normal" inflation, all that extra money floating around would eventually find it's way into peoples pay checks, but that's not happening this time because overseas workers can work for a fraction of what US workers make and because technology is causing things to be so much cheaper that it is driving down costs (and profit margins) on manufactured goods.
Moral: we need gold money. In a gold based economy there is a near fixed amount of money - that tends to encourage savings, keep prices in check, limits the amount of debt, and limits the amount of corruption and government interference (the US constitution says gold and silver for a reason). Also, in a gold based economy you need to be a savings earner before you become a savings loaner which leads to a certain wisdom and dicipline and tends to make it so that loans are used for productive activities like business and commerce and savings are used for other stuff like consumer purchases, cars, and homes. Imagine being able to save for 4 years and buy up a house ... well before the federal reserve act of 1913, that used to be the norm.
So what is going to happen? Thrid world economies will continue to come alive for several decades, and technology deflation will continue to happen for several decades as well. That will drive down prices in labor and profit margins for many more decades. For the long term, that is very good because goods will become cheaper and cheaper, for the short term that is an economic disaster because the whole US economy has way way more debt and obligations than is possible to pay off. The US is in check-mate because political forces will make it impossible for wall street to default on it's debts so they will print up money to pay them off causing price hyperinflation. The only problem is that will drive up prices, but not pay making it impossible for regular people to pay on their housing debts. So prices will skyrocket at just the same time when business activity collapses and mass unemployment follows, and everyone looses their houses.
So what do you need to do? Stay out of debt no matter what. Get gold and silver with every spare penny you can afford. And buy a gun and store food, because all freakin satanic hell is about to break loose. PS: This geopolitical tension in the middle east isn't a cooncidence, the pressures are everywhere and will probably cause WW3 to break out. Please be carefull, all freakin satanic hell really is about to break loose.
Where do people like you get off. If you said this in any real context, you would be the one considered extreme. When they said the earth centered arround the sun - that was considered an extreme position. When they said that people didn't need a king to rule them - that was considered an extreme position. When they said, we should sail east to create new trading routes - that was an outrageous notion. When they said that government need not choose peoples religion to ensure stability - that was an extreme position. When they said slavery should be abolished and not compromised - that was also an extreme position. The entire renissance and the entire protistant reformation was considered extreme. The magna carta, the declaration of independence, evolution ... all of these were once considered extreme positions too. The people who wanted racial equality and interracial relationships were considered extremists.
There is a reason why they say "I like my tea hot, or I like my tea iced, but give me warm tea and I will spit it out. Sir, you have pretty much deligated yourself to the trash heap of history. Stop careing about what feels extreme, and start caring about what is correct and you might just get somewhere in life.
Seriously, there is something important. The war in the middle east, and this law has everything to do with it. I myself am somewhat sympathetic to the war, but the simple honest truth is that the government simply can't pay for it. Really, Congress could care less about people who are down and out from gambling, but they care alot about people escaping the overbearing and unjust taxes by moving their money to offshore tax havens. This has nothing to do with gambling, and everything to do with attempting to contain that flow of money (and tax revenue).
PS: the war on drugs is used in a similar way.
When we were considering my daughters education options, it became very clear very quickly that nobody on the planet is going to be more interested in her best interests than we are. While the school system always talked about programs, and money, they never never talked about responsibility and accountability. If a child's parent doesn't care, they are doomed anyhow - and IMHO to aid and abbet that doom by puting them into the state schools is unforgivable.
Kids don't socialize in public schools. First off, people in the real world must socialize and deal with all age groups, not just the ones in their grade level. Home schools, and homeschool support groups reflect that reality far more than any public school. Second off, 5 seconds at any public school will tell you what most of us already know anyhow. There is nothing sociable or "real world" about the way the kids interact, that is unless they want to grow up to be incarcerated, drug infested, gang-bangers. It would be more accurate to say that public schools hide kids from the real world, and manipulate impressionable minds in a way that favors social control over individualality and success.
I know this is blasphemy to say this, but even the teacher of the year in NYC 3 times said it. We would be better of if public schools were shut down alltogether. No fixes, no modifications, no new programs, just shut it down and force the responsibility back onto the parents - who would probably turn to private schools, home schools, and community voulnteer schools. Will some kids fall thru the cracks? That's the point. So many already are - when are people going to get it that a public school system isn't about a public education and can guarantee no such thing no matter how desperately people wish otherwise.
Basically what you're saying is, "well we got poor end-point security, so we need massive centralized port control". But in all fairness, this is more of an argument for beefing up end point security than it is an arguemtnt for centralized control (and for ditching windows, but that's another topic all tigether). The guy in the parent post was probably legitimately fusterated, and really has a point. The internet is a multi billion node network with open ports, and it hums along inspite of all the issues. The internet scales and works because the intelligence is at the end-points and not the infrsatructure - the same is true with a large orginisation. Any effective security model needs to focus on the enpoints, otherwise the people in IT are going to be completely bogged down with with stupid authorization and access issues instead of on genuine problem solving and security. IMHO, you're better off saving all the extra resources for a bigger pipe then you are trying to control every port on the network.
4 blue screens of death for the price of one.