opening line of argument is incorrect: police helicopters do fly patrol, for uses as mundane as targetting highway speeding, and are profitable in that respect.
look here, pal, when i make a counterpoint around on the internet, i expect a stiffly ideological rebuttal, not any of this earnest bullshit
srs though, i agree with you on this to a certain point. i also think that every business should be allowed to do most any retarded thing with their budgets that they want to, for their own reward and their own risks.
where we diverge, i think, from reading your other posts, is that you might believe that businesses should be able to get as large as they want, and then also fail. there is truth to the phrase, "too large to fail." the truth is, that if these banks had failed, this would have (directly) lead to the banks and other institutions that they owed money, to also fail. this would have meant that the institutions that held most of america's money (both businesses and private citizens) would fail, and not have enough money to pay out to citizens withdrawing their funds. then a run on the banks, which leads to many more banks failing as all of their capital is being withdrawn by scared citizens, increasing the problem to the point of, well, great depression.
this isn't an exaggeration. in two days in sept 2008, WaMu (largest savings and loan), and wachovia (4th largest financial institution) had a combined $21 billion bank run: businesses and citizens withdrawing their money and stashing it. if the government hadn't taken swift action, we'd be having a very different conversation right now. there aren't many things i thank the bush administration for, but this is one of them. since i'm made of point of my distaste for bush just now, i should make very clear i don't blame his admin for the crisis. the 2008 situation was the result of very hard work by banking execs, and nearly thirty years of hodgepodge financial regulations by every congress and president that sat.
i'm not saying the bailout was a good thing all over. i wished that the concept of the economy being strong enough to withstand a run on the banks without a lost decade (or three) was a realistic one, but it wasn't.
i think i'm getting chatty and off-topic. where i think you're right: the bailout laid the framework for businesses to repeat the same mistakes with the notion that they can forever get away with it, profiting when their luck is good, bailed out by the taxpayer when it isn't.
the solution, though, wasn't to deny a bailout, instead, it was to use regulation to limit the size of businesses in an industry (in this case, finance industry) to stop them from growing so large that their failure could destabilize the national economy. to catchphrase it, "don't say there isn't too large to fail, prevent there from being too large to fail.
fannie+freddie were not forced by law to to give subprime loans. they were compelled by the market forces, as propelled by de/unregulated banks (2004 lowered Debt Capital Rule, unregulated derivatives and CDO market, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, DIDMCA, adjustable-rate mortages), which allowed the major institutions to over-leverage themselves while dealing out predatory ARMs.
if fannie+freddie had not existed the 2008 FC would have still happened in the private sector alone. northern rock, countrywide, bear stearns, lehman brothers, merril lynch would have still all collapsed/required government takeover. the (de)regulatory framework simply allowed them astronomic profits at substantial risk, with the knowledge that any failure would cause systemic collapse, thus requiring government action, thus mitigating any risk to the personal wealth of the execs and traders.
yes, fannie+freddie were headed by some fuckups that made decisions very similar to the large banks. but they were the decisions of private executives; these organizations were not compelled by law to seek inappropriate mortgages and then leverage them on the CDO market. they were compelled by high profits and low effective risk, just like the other speculative lenders.
in any areas where population density is a problem, the cable has already been laid for decades now. any equipment upgrades that needed done were also completed many years ago.
in areas where population density is not a problem, "laying cable" is incredibly cheap work, and often subsidized.
the "expense" is that the large telecoms have lobbied their way into regional monopolies, and legally prevent competitors from supplying better products (unlimited packages).
in louisiana, i was getting Cox's 8Mbps connection with no cap for $55 a month. i typically used about 170GB/month
in quebec, Videotron's 8Mbps connection cost $45 a month, but only had a 50GB cap. unusable. Videotron's 60Mbps connection costs $83 a month with a 150GB cap. unreasonable price for the cap, still, and absurd speed - what kind of residence would need that? i can't find any slowdowns in anything i do with 15Mbps
i settled for videotron's 15Mbps connection: $55 a month, 90GB cap. toe the line every month and am getting sick of watching the (6-12 hours behind) meter on their website. hunted for an alternative two weeks ago, came up short considering the home phone/basic cable bundle.
it might be that i didn't get the point of your comments (assuming you are also the grandparent AC) in relation to the commentary about idle reserves created by corporate tax cuts.
to recap the conversation i think we're having so far: Aighearach says "corporate tax cuts are not keynesian as they create wealth for large businesses that isn't being used." AC says "that money isn't just sitting around doing nothing." i say "these companies do have all this cash, and are doing nothing with it but hoarding, certainly not stimulating economy. citations provided, mothafucka." AC says "(assumed: the money is actually in the banks) the banks don't actually have this money on hand, most is tied up in financial instruments and loans." i can't tell if your point is a semantic one (the money is not in GE's big cash room, it is being used by banks!) or an economic one (the money in use by the banks is therefore stimulating the economy).
am i on the same page as you, now? if your point was the latter...
if so, i would reply that this money is doing very little positive for the economy as a whole; financial instruments favored by banks produce nothing of actual value, though they do create bubbles which have the short-term appearance of value, until the eventual pop. loans are being given to non-major industry players even more rarely than before, and the large profitable businesses (as noted by their 1s and 0s) have little need for the leverage. this leaves national bonds, which is not unlike stuffing the cash in the mattress.
none of these would produce anywhere near the good, services, and wages that there would have been if the large companies had spent the money, by a long shot.
if your point was just the semantic "the money isn't just sitting in Microsoft's money warehouse," goddamnit for making me type all that.
let's be honest. no keynesian thinks the stimulus was enough, nor spent in the correct places, regardless of economic growth rate. it was certainly stimulus (and mostly ineffective), but not keynesian stimulus.
these policies are at the university or state level. most university policies of this sort are not enforced (cost:benefit prohibitive, as exemplified here), have loop-holes (cannot collect royalties on books they require for their own classes, so professors collude and require each other's book). i haven't heard of (and couldn't find) a state prosecuting a professor who broke a relevant law.
chinese political prisoners are already rich chinese citizens (if they weren't rich, they'd be dead instead of in prison). tax-deduction money wouldn't effect any change here.
this is about funding organizations to assist governments in disrupting human trading.
YOUR UNINFORMED PET CAUSE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS
comparing an operation requiring expensive specialized equipment and several hours, to an operation that requires a.99 USB cable that came with the phone and 16 minutes...
The iPhone line on the other hand has all the products on the latest version of the OS even if every phone doesn't support the latest and greatest features
i don't feel like this is a super valid comparison, unless you mention that the iPhone ran like horseshit on iOS 2 onward, and the iPhone 3G always ran poorly. now my wife's 3GS runs like butt on iOS 5. further, all the products are not on the latest version of the OS: the iPhone caps out at version iOS 3, and the 3G caps out at version 4. history suggests that iOS5 is the last straw for the 3GS.
if, perhaps, you mean that all the iPhones currently for sale are on the latest OS, i would point out that all the Nexus phones currently for sale are on the latest OS, and that will be true when ICS is released, also.
a more accurate comparison of HTC and Google's upgrade path to iOS: the original iPhone used the current OS until it didn't get iOS 4, so from 2007-06 to 2010-06, three years, half of which it ran poorly. you have no options for upgrading for new features even if you wanted to. the iPhone 3G used the current OS until it didn't get iOS 5, so from 2008-06 to 2011-10, three years and some change, all of which it ran poorly. you have no options for upgrading for new features even if you wanted to. the Nexus One is using the current Android phone OS until it doesn't get ICS, so from 2010-01 to ~2011-11 or 12, just under two years, all of which ran excellently. you will have the option of installing custom ROMs with ICS features if you choose to.
anecdotal, my nexus one also had the defective power button, but since it had previously been dropped onto the highway from my motorcycle (whoops), it was in too ugly a condition for me to send back to the manu for a repair: i figured repair center drones would return it to me as user abuse, and that they'd be right to do so. since i have the option of rooting the phone and installing a custom ROM, i did so and use an app to power down the phone, and the volume buttons to wake it up.
considering it survived a 75mph bounce and skid on the highway (i had to file down burrs on the metal face), i forgave HTC for the eventual failure of the power button. it is my first HTC phone, but they've sold me on their build quality. my first-gen iPhone was had an unusable crack on the screen that needed replacing after a three-foot drop, and once i repaired that, i found that the impact had also killed the battery, as it wouldn't last longer than half an hour idle, or a few minutes in call.
HTC's build quality despite my abuse, and their vow to not stop hobbyists from rooting Android phones has guaranteed that my next phone will be an HTC again; probably their first ICS phone that supports NFC. my wife's next phone was looking to be an Apple, but now she's frustrated with how poorly it has been performing this last month so we'll see.
last thing, i don't agree with Synerg1y's take, "Ya but u can do more on any build of android than any ios build so the comparison isn't really that fair." while the capabilities of the OS are pretty similar, the fine details is pretty objective: i definitely respect that some people (my wife) just want a simple, option-less phone that also connects to the internet. what i mean is, the feature set does not need be mentioned in the same conversation as build quality (though build quality perhaps need be mentioned in the conversation about feature set).
i've read a few (only ones that have been front-page story'd on slashdot) and they all seemed reasonable and factual so far. from what i understand the guy has written several entries per week for the last umpteen years, i think just directing me to his hundreds of entries is a bit unreasonable. if you don't want to go link diving, that's fine, i don't want to go digging either. do you remember any particular topics that he lied or misrepresented, so that i might try my google fu for a couple minutes?
ed bott makes a living writing publicly (for news sites and publishing his own books) on technology topics, mostly about windows - he likes windows, he writes about it, and publishes his work. getting paid to do what you like in a field that you like doesn't make you a shill. it makes you happy. it's a pretty cynical worldview, to assume that people aren't doing honest things because they like them, but instead dishonest things because a MegaCorp is paying them BIG BUX.
Not going to RTFA and almost didn't RTFS because of his name.
choosing to remain in your echo chamber will leave you with few new ideas. if that's your prerogative, though, knock yourself out.
Even your founding fathers knew this when Franklin said "democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what is for dinner".
Ben Franklin did not say this. People on the internet - trying to make their goofy arguments sound intellectual and/or support a non-literal interpretation of the second amendment - said this.
bingo! dial-up was "fine," but without future-minded broadband infrastructure (as we know it today), we'd never have had services like netflix, last.fm, pandora, or skype.
if you build a road just for the number of cars that would travel it today, you'll have a road that is too small by the time that it is done.
i'll further clarify (i should have done so to begin with). it wasn't a matter of rights and protest. it was a matter of paying for it. the artwork in question wasn't owned by the city, it was leased; the city was paying for it.
taxpayers were able to enjoy the artwork as they pleased - even take photos. professionals who wanted to capitalize by taking photos paid the city for a permit, which helped the city pay for the cost of the park. professionals did not pay copyright royalties or licensing fees. this was a city revenue issue, not a copyright issue.
the restriction wasn't changed by brave, insightful protesters fighting for rights yadda yadda (there were none), it was changed by a new monetary policy.
re: "Even in a country and a world where copyright can be claimed as an excuse to prevent you from taking a photo of a giant sculpture in a public, tax-paid park,"
that policy for Millennium Park was removed, permits are only required for filming crews 10 persons or larger.
Slashdot Mirror
opening line of argument is incorrect: police helicopters do fly patrol, for uses as mundane as targetting highway speeding, and are profitable in that respect.
WHOA WHOA WHOA
look here, pal, when i make a counterpoint around on the internet, i expect a stiffly ideological rebuttal, not any of this earnest bullshit
srs though, i agree with you on this to a certain point. i also think that every business should be allowed to do most any retarded thing with their budgets that they want to, for their own reward and their own risks.
where we diverge, i think, from reading your other posts, is that you might believe that businesses should be able to get as large as they want, and then also fail. there is truth to the phrase, "too large to fail." the truth is, that if these banks had failed, this would have (directly) lead to the banks and other institutions that they owed money, to also fail. this would have meant that the institutions that held most of america's money (both businesses and private citizens) would fail, and not have enough money to pay out to citizens withdrawing their funds. then a run on the banks, which leads to many more banks failing as all of their capital is being withdrawn by scared citizens, increasing the problem to the point of, well, great depression.
this isn't an exaggeration. in two days in sept 2008, WaMu (largest savings and loan), and wachovia (4th largest financial institution) had a combined $21 billion bank run: businesses and citizens withdrawing their money and stashing it. if the government hadn't taken swift action, we'd be having a very different conversation right now. there aren't many things i thank the bush administration for, but this is one of them. since i'm made of point of my distaste for bush just now, i should make very clear i don't blame his admin for the crisis. the 2008 situation was the result of very hard work by banking execs, and nearly thirty years of hodgepodge financial regulations by every congress and president that sat.
i'm not saying the bailout was a good thing all over. i wished that the concept of the economy being strong enough to withstand a run on the banks without a lost decade (or three) was a realistic one, but it wasn't.
i think i'm getting chatty and off-topic. where i think you're right: the bailout laid the framework for businesses to repeat the same mistakes with the notion that they can forever get away with it, profiting when their luck is good, bailed out by the taxpayer when it isn't.
the solution, though, wasn't to deny a bailout, instead, it was to use regulation to limit the size of businesses in an industry (in this case, finance industry) to stop them from growing so large that their failure could destabilize the national economy. to catchphrase it, "don't say there isn't too large to fail, prevent there from being too large to fail.
not sure if trolling, or just revisionist
fannie+freddie were not forced by law to to give subprime loans. they were compelled by the market forces, as propelled by de/unregulated banks (2004 lowered Debt Capital Rule, unregulated derivatives and CDO market, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, DIDMCA, adjustable-rate mortages), which allowed the major institutions to over-leverage themselves while dealing out predatory ARMs.
if fannie+freddie had not existed the 2008 FC would have still happened in the private sector alone. northern rock, countrywide, bear stearns, lehman brothers, merril lynch would have still all collapsed/required government takeover. the (de)regulatory framework simply allowed them astronomic profits at substantial risk, with the knowledge that any failure would cause systemic collapse, thus requiring government action, thus mitigating any risk to the personal wealth of the execs and traders.
yes, fannie+freddie were headed by some fuckups that made decisions very similar to the large banks. but they were the decisions of private executives; these organizations were not compelled by law to seek inappropriate mortgages and then leverage them on the CDO market. they were compelled by high profits and low effective risk, just like the other speculative lenders.
/r/relevant_username
what? no.
in any areas where population density is a problem, the cable has already been laid for decades now. any equipment upgrades that needed done were also completed many years ago.
in areas where population density is not a problem, "laying cable" is incredibly cheap work, and often subsidized.
the "expense" is that the large telecoms have lobbied their way into regional monopolies, and legally prevent competitors from supplying better products (unlimited packages).
in louisiana, i was getting Cox's 8Mbps connection with no cap for $55 a month. i typically used about 170GB/month
in quebec, Videotron's 8Mbps connection cost $45 a month, but only had a 50GB cap. unusable.
Videotron's 60Mbps connection costs $83 a month with a 150GB cap. unreasonable price for the cap, still, and absurd speed - what kind of residence would need that? i can't find any slowdowns in anything i do with 15Mbps
i settled for videotron's 15Mbps connection: $55 a month, 90GB cap. toe the line every month and am getting sick of watching the (6-12 hours behind) meter on their website. hunted for an alternative two weeks ago, came up short considering the home phone/basic cable bundle.
getting fed up with this.
The summary does not say this.
it might be that i didn't get the point of your comments (assuming you are also the grandparent AC) in relation to the commentary about idle reserves created by corporate tax cuts.
to recap the conversation i think we're having so far: Aighearach says "corporate tax cuts are not keynesian as they create wealth for large businesses that isn't being used."
AC says "that money isn't just sitting around doing nothing."
i say "these companies do have all this cash, and are doing nothing with it but hoarding, certainly not stimulating economy. citations provided, mothafucka."
AC says "(assumed: the money is actually in the banks) the banks don't actually have this money on hand, most is tied up in financial instruments and loans." i can't tell if your point is a semantic one (the money is not in GE's big cash room, it is being used by banks!) or an economic one (the money in use by the banks is therefore stimulating the economy).
am i on the same page as you, now? if your point was the latter...
if so, i would reply that this money is doing very little positive for the economy as a whole; financial instruments favored by banks produce nothing of actual value, though they do create bubbles which have the short-term appearance of value, until the eventual pop. loans are being given to non-major industry players even more rarely than before, and the large profitable businesses (as noted by their 1s and 0s) have little need for the leverage. this leaves national bonds, which is not unlike stuffing the cash in the mattress.
none of these would produce anywhere near the good, services, and wages that there would have been if the large companies had spent the money, by a long shot.
if your point was just the semantic "the money isn't just sitting in Microsoft's money warehouse," goddamnit for making me type all that.
except it very often doesn't, and sits still in quite large quantities.
let's be honest. no keynesian thinks the stimulus was enough, nor spent in the correct places, regardless of economic growth rate. it was certainly stimulus (and mostly ineffective), but not keynesian stimulus.
these policies are at the university or state level. most university policies of this sort are not enforced (cost:benefit prohibitive, as exemplified here), have loop-holes (cannot collect royalties on books they require for their own classes, so professors collude and require each other's book). i haven't heard of (and couldn't find) a state prosecuting a professor who broke a relevant law.
all of my classes that i felt required a textbook to get an A, the book happened to have been (co)authored by the professor.
academic instruction as an avenue for royalties hooooo
Or are not all attention spans created equal?
chinese political prisoners are already rich chinese citizens (if they weren't rich, they'd be dead instead of in prison). tax-deduction money wouldn't effect any change here.
this is about funding organizations to assist governments in disrupting human trading.
YOUR UNINFORMED PET CAUSE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS
now i have to use that site with zero logins instead of my usual zero.
haha please with the car analogies
comparing an operation requiring expensive specialized equipment and several hours, to an operation that requires a .99 USB cable that came with the phone and 16 minutes...
that is the perfect example of apples to oranges.
The iPhone line on the other hand has all the products on the latest version of the OS even if every phone doesn't support the latest and greatest features
i don't feel like this is a super valid comparison, unless you mention that the iPhone ran like horseshit on iOS 2 onward, and the iPhone 3G always ran poorly. now my wife's 3GS runs like butt on iOS 5. further, all the products are not on the latest version of the OS: the iPhone caps out at version iOS 3, and the 3G caps out at version 4. history suggests that iOS5 is the last straw for the 3GS.
if, perhaps, you mean that all the iPhones currently for sale are on the latest OS, i would point out that all the Nexus phones currently for sale are on the latest OS, and that will be true when ICS is released, also.
a more accurate comparison of HTC and Google's upgrade path to iOS:
the original iPhone used the current OS until it didn't get iOS 4, so from 2007-06 to 2010-06, three years, half of which it ran poorly. you have no options for upgrading for new features even if you wanted to.
the iPhone 3G used the current OS until it didn't get iOS 5, so from 2008-06 to 2011-10, three years and some change, all of which it ran poorly. you have no options for upgrading for new features even if you wanted to.
the Nexus One is using the current Android phone OS until it doesn't get ICS, so from 2010-01 to ~2011-11 or 12, just under two years, all of which ran excellently. you will have the option of installing custom ROMs with ICS features if you choose to.
anecdotal, my nexus one also had the defective power button, but since it had previously been dropped onto the highway from my motorcycle (whoops), it was in too ugly a condition for me to send back to the manu for a repair: i figured repair center drones would return it to me as user abuse, and that they'd be right to do so. since i have the option of rooting the phone and installing a custom ROM, i did so and use an app to power down the phone, and the volume buttons to wake it up.
considering it survived a 75mph bounce and skid on the highway (i had to file down burrs on the metal face), i forgave HTC for the eventual failure of the power button. it is my first HTC phone, but they've sold me on their build quality. my first-gen iPhone was had an unusable crack on the screen that needed replacing after a three-foot drop, and once i repaired that, i found that the impact had also killed the battery, as it wouldn't last longer than half an hour idle, or a few minutes in call.
HTC's build quality despite my abuse, and their vow to not stop hobbyists from rooting Android phones has guaranteed that my next phone will be an HTC again; probably their first ICS phone that supports NFC. my wife's next phone was looking to be an Apple, but now she's frustrated with how poorly it has been performing this last month so we'll see.
last thing, i don't agree with Synerg1y's take, "Ya but u can do more on any build of android than any ios build so the comparison isn't really that fair." while the capabilities of the OS are pretty similar, the fine details is pretty objective: i definitely respect that some people (my wife) just want a simple, option-less phone that also connects to the internet. what i mean is, the feature set does not need be mentioned in the same conversation as build quality (though build quality perhaps need be mentioned in the conversation about feature set).
i've read a few (only ones that have been front-page story'd on slashdot) and they all seemed reasonable and factual so far. from what i understand the guy has written several entries per week for the last umpteen years, i think just directing me to his hundreds of entries is a bit unreasonable. if you don't want to go link diving, that's fine, i don't want to go digging either. do you remember any particular topics that he lied or misrepresented, so that i might try my google fu for a couple minutes?
You have to be stubborn to refute the repeated lies that Ed and so-called journalists and "analysts" like him will spew. It gets old quick.
i don't mind being wrong, and would like to be as informed as possible. could you link to me an article he wrote containing verifiable lies?
said it before, still relevant:
not sure what the /. issue with the guy is.
ed bott makes a living writing publicly (for news sites and publishing his own books) on technology topics, mostly about windows - he likes windows, he writes about it, and publishes his work. getting paid to do what you like in a field that you like doesn't make you a shill. it makes you happy. it's a pretty cynical worldview, to assume that people aren't doing honest things because they like them, but instead dishonest things because a MegaCorp is paying them BIG BUX.
Not going to RTFA and almost didn't RTFS because of his name.
choosing to remain in your echo chamber will leave you with few new ideas. if that's your prerogative, though, knock yourself out.
Even your founding fathers knew this when Franklin said "democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what is for dinner".
Ben Franklin did not say this. People on the internet - trying to make their goofy arguments sound intellectual and/or support a non-literal interpretation of the second amendment - said this.
bingo! dial-up was "fine," but without future-minded broadband infrastructure (as we know it today), we'd never have had services like netflix, last.fm, pandora, or skype.
if you build a road just for the number of cars that would travel it today, you'll have a road that is too small by the time that it is done.
fastflip wasn't in flash.
anyway, i'll also miss fastflip.
i'll further clarify (i should have done so to begin with). it wasn't a matter of rights and protest. it was a matter of paying for it. the artwork in question wasn't owned by the city, it was leased; the city was paying for it.
taxpayers were able to enjoy the artwork as they pleased - even take photos. professionals who wanted to capitalize by taking photos paid the city for a permit, which helped the city pay for the cost of the park. professionals did not pay copyright royalties or licensing fees. this was a city revenue issue, not a copyright issue.
the restriction wasn't changed by brave, insightful protesters fighting for rights yadda yadda (there were none), it was changed by a new monetary policy.
re: "Even in a country and a world where copyright can be claimed as an excuse to prevent you from taking a photo of a giant sculpture in a public, tax-paid park,"
that policy for Millennium Park was removed, permits are only required for filming crews 10 persons or larger.