I'm sorry to hear about your wife's chronic asthma. I'll tell you a story about the woman I married: she had chronic asthma since she was a child, in the ER 3-4 times per year for steroids. When I met her, I told her she's crazy, it isn't asthma. I took her to 5 "professional" doctors, and she still had the problems. Then I went "underground" and did some research on her asthma. We cut back on her sugars, starches and anything that may convert to sugar in the blood (corn primarily). Within 3 months, she lost about 15 pounds, and never had an asthma attack again. Never. So I'd first look to make sure that her asthma is truly asthma and not a horrible reaction to her diet or things in her environment. I'm not saying she isn't sick, but in all honesty, I distrust those who don't do their duty (i.e., some doctors) in finding triggers to things that can look like a disease, but might just be a dietary condition that is easily fixed.
As for how to handle chronic illnesses, being self-employed is probably not for you. I used to have kidney stones, which were not covered by my insurance. Eventually, I found my doctors who I was able to negatiate VERY good prices to deal with my pre-existing condition. I will never, EVER use insurance for a doctor's visit, a prescription drug (I abhor them, generally), or anything that isn't life- or lifestyle- threatening. My deductible annually is around $10,000, if I remember correctly, and I haven't had an insurance claim for anything in probably 7 years. My healthcare for myself and my family is VERY cheap, and over 7 years I think I've paid that $10,000 deductible in savings 2 times over, maybe more. I'm thinking of kicking it up to a $20,000 deductible if I can find an insurer who will go that high.
For most, health care is a crutch that they think they need, but in all honesty health care in general is not that expensive, if you go and negotiate with your family doctor. Offer cash-on-the-barrel, and many doctors will cut their fees significantly since they won't have to deal with insurance companies or government agencies. My own doctor charges $150 for a visit (insured) but his cash-on-the-barrel rate is $45! He said most people pay a $20 co-pay, but he'd rather get $45 in cold hard cash when they visit. I do, and I'm fine with it.
My insurance is for accidents, cancer, stroke, heart attack, etc. It's not for day-to-day health care needs, but I've forced myself to live as healthy as possible, short of the excessive smoking, scotch drinking, high speed driving, sleep-deprived-weekends-in-Vegas, and the occasional illicit substance use. Oh, and binging on bacon, eggs, and butter probably isn't wise, either.
It's called being a contractor and the reason you charge 5x your old salary is because you have to pay your own social security, health insurance, 401K, etc etc etc.
But the perks for paying these yourself are worth it. Incorporate as an S-corp, pay yourself a low salary, issue quarterly dividends which are taxed at a lower rate, and you'll score more in-pocket money. Health care for individuals is ridiculously cheap if you do it correctly:
1. Live a healthy lifestyle (get off your rear, fatty) 2. Start an HSA (tax free, pay for doctor's visits with a debit card) 3. Get a high deductible health insurance policy ($5k-$10k) 4. Negotiate a cash discount with your doctor (many do, at a HUGE savings) and avoid using insurance
The wealthy always know what insurance is for: life catastrophes, not common colds, hail damage or minor floods. You pay for those out of your emergency savings, not out of your insurer's pocket. Insurance is CHEAP if you use it for emergencies only.
401Ks are also for idiots, IMHO. You're usually stuck in restrictive funds that issue no dividend profit distributions or anything worth investing in. When you're your own boss, you can invest in YOURSELF and get returns of 20-40% a year on those investments, if not more.
Social security is only paid for off of your salary income, so your dividend distributions are relatively tax-free except for income taxes (dividend taxes).
There are so many reasons to cut the W2-ties that it isn't funny. I can't understand why people put all their eggs in one employment basket.
You're missing the best way to do it, IMHO: contact an Asian microconsole manufacturer, and work with their ROM to develop your own game.
There are numerous (maybe hundreds?) Asian microconsole manufacturers, and all of them are happy to license their subsystems cheaply. The one I think of most often when I come up with my brilliant (and soon forgotten) video game idea is Jakks Pacific. They have a great subsystem that can probably unite more than one player, and it outputs to SDTV standard. I'm fairly sure (but not 100%) that they even have expandability options so you can even offer updates via a plug-in cartridge.
Contact one of these companies and see what they can offer you in terms of licensing their subsystems. Get their backend code structures, and start developing. Yes, I'm sure they're limited in resolution, game size, etc, but it's a great way to get your foot in the door for little money, and see if you have what it takes to develop an entire game from scratch.
Back in the late 80s and early 90s, I was a "developer-producer" of a series of BBS doors that ended up multiplayer. This was an amateur hobby, but one of our doors ended up successful enough (about 100 installations multinode). It took seriously 15 designers to make this text-based game, including copywriters, ASCII graphics artists, C or Pascal code developers, integration developers, alpha testers, beta testers, customer service people, and one MASM assembly language programmer who I don't think had any social skills or even knew how to dress himself. It was a BIG game to implement, and it had no real graphics or high end interactivity. So I'd think a video game with multiple players means a HUGE leap of faith, a big risk, but maybe a big reward.
Tax-wise, leaving your "stable" job adds to inherent features to your new job future: greater risk, greater reward.
I have had one W2 job in my life, and I will never do it again. All I saw around me was politics, inefficiency, vying for position, inefficiency, back stabbing, inefficiency, nepotism, and inefficiency. When I saw something that I could do better, faster, and cheaper, I had no reason to "sell the idea" to management because either they'd take it (and climb the ladder) or they'd sit on it due to a pet peeve.
This guy Peeler ignores the absolute greatest reason to quit and go solo: being called back in for sometimes 10X the pay, from your old employer. When I left my only W2 position (at a whopping $21 per hour back in 1992), within 3 months they called me back in, and I offered myself at $60 per hour. Within a year I was at $120 per hour, and had enough to hire own my W2 goons to play nice with the customer. And they were hired out at $120 per hour and paid quite a bit less (although I offer all of them the option to start their own business and subcontract, which many do).
For a gaming engineer, being an employed underling offers little other than so-called "stability." See how stable you are when you get fired or the company goes under. Out come the dreaded CVs, while you pound the pavement looking for another 40 hours a week W2 job. If you're a contractor, you can work for 10, 20, 50, thousands of firms on a regular basis, and if a few go under or cut you, you're out maybe 5% or 10%. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
It's like homeownership: if your boss knows you have a mortgage, you're screwed. He has no reason to offer you incentives (better pay, better hours, better perks, etc) because you have another God to pray to: your bankster. The same is true with a W2: your boss knows he's your only source of income, and as such you're stuck with bad pay, bad hours, bad perks.
Go solo, everyone. Cut the unbilical cord and if you're a hard worker, you'll prosper. Then find about 10 of your previous coworkers, offer them a few bucks more an hour, and bill them out at 5X their pay to not just your old employer but their competitors, too. 3. Profit!
In Beuharnais v. Illinois, Judge Jackson said "The 'liberty' which the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects against denial by the States is the liberal and identical 'freedom of speech or of the press' which the First Amendment forbids only Congress to abridge . . . the powers of Congress and of the States over this subject are not of the same dimensions, and that because Congress probably could not enact this law it does not follow that the States may not."
This means that the Supreme Court is NOT Incorporating the full First Amendment to the States' Constitutions, but more of a "watered-down" version. Again, this is not full Incorporation, it's partial Incorporation, even of the First Amendment.
See: Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 502-503 See: Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 10
Conflicting? Absolutely. And also in full support that you are completely wrong, as usual, because you see it in black and white, and I am correct, as usual, because I see it as shades of gray. As is usual, you will only pull sites that propose to preach to your choir, so I provided you with sites that preach to mine, in addition to easy-to-look-up court rulings documenting the proof that the SCOTUS has not fully proposed Incorporation of any Amendment.
Ok, so why not the 2nd and 4th? If the SCOTUS believe that the Fourteenth Amendment allows for full Incorporation, why haven't they fully incorporated it?
Just because some recent rulings seem to fall towards the belief that we now live with the BoR fully Incorporated does not mean that they are fully Incorporated. It's a sham to make that belief.
For the simple-minded who refuse to accept that there is no Incorporation, nor will there ever be, here are some resources by Constitutional scholars:
As I said in a previous comment, the text of the Fourteenth Amendment does not incorporate the Bill of Rights into State Constitutions.
Where in the Fourteenth Amendment do you even see the word "rights"? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Red Flayer?
Do this, my socialist friend: go and read on the Slaughterhouse Cases. The Supreme Court, in 1873, decided that the Fourteenth Amendment did NOT cover "rights" but exactly what it was written to cover: privileges and immunities, such as citizenship. It was not to guard against State dismantling of the Bill of Rights, but to protect some second level "rights" which are considered ones of privilege and not inherent.
Your interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment is flawed, because you have not read it, nor studied it. Yes, the Supreme Court has taken a pro-Incorporation view on this Amendment, but it has not been fully implemented, so we just don't know how SCOTUS can interpret some State laws as violations but not others. Without a full implementation of Incorporation, there is no Incorporation.
The Fourteenth Amendment does not incorporate the Bill of Rights into the States' Constitutions. In fact, in 1866 the ratifiers of the Fourteenth understood the Amendment to cover "rights" such as citizenship, etc.
The word "rights" does not exist in the Fourteenth Amendment. "Privileges and Immunities" does. They are exclusive terms.
Maybe it is you who should read your Constitution, friend. It is obvious you are confusing "rights" (inherent) and "privileges and immunities" as one and the same. They are not.
Good morning folks, your friendly neighborhood anarcho-capitalist here.
Is it confusing to anyone why such a law would be deemed unconstitutional? It makes no sense to me. If they're crying "1st Amendment violation!" we should note instantly that this is not the U.S. Congress passing a law infringing on the freedom of expression. This is a State-level body declaring their right, via the 9th and 10th Amendments, to regulate speech.
Now some of you are saying "Whoa, Mr. Anarchy says it's OK for States to regulate speech!" According to the U.S. Constitution, they can. If their own State Constitution has a declaration of what they can't do, and I hope many States do, then they should be bound by that. But if the People of a State decide that they want their speech regulated and restricted, nothing in the U.S. Constitution should prevent them from deciding it's OK to be nannied to death by their State governments.
I'm all for dismantling the State, piece by piece, top-down, but in this case, I don't see what the issue is. As long as the U.S. Congress does not try this tactic, as far as I know, it's constitutional, and people will get what they deserve at the State level.
I had every iteration of the Apple Newton MessagePad up to the last one (2100? Can't remember). I loved the size: smaller than my laptop (literally a laptop, not a portable, because it needed 120VAC), larger than a PDA. Everything about it was efficient for me. But they killed it.
If Apple could take the iPhone and make it 4x bigger (2x in each dimension), I'd jump on it in 3 seconds, even with the simple OS. There's just too much there that would destroy many of these netbooks, which in my opinion are just too limited to be functional. I want one, but not without a built in GPS hardware/stack of some sort for telecom.
My Trinity has a great GPS built in, so the TomTom could go. The iPhone 2 would almost get rid of 3 devices, actually, except for one feature that is missing/disabled: tethering.
I travel, a lot, for my businesses. Nationally and internationally, I use my cell phone for email, phone calls, and basic billing. A notebook is not in my list of gadgets, even though I usually have 2 on me some of the time. Being able to tether to my Trinity is a huge need. On the Trinity I run a WiFiRouter app that lets me tether any WiFi device to the web at full 3G speeds. If I am with clients, employees or subcontractors, having a great WiFi wireless router is a huge gain. But Apple refuses to allow it.
I'm sure some third party hackers will eventually get tethering to work. If so, Apple will gain a customer or 15 (I'd give this option to any of my staff who uses wireless tethering regularly or even irregularly). So why did Apple not offer this feature? Battery life? AT&T telling them not to?
I'm using tethering right now, in fact. On the go. I have two notebooks booted up and online, and they're working great. But I'd love to downsize all my devices to one.
So I'm calling you out Apple. Add a tethering feature to the next ROM update!
Good post. I had a similar experience with Lantastic, a BBS, and then moving on to WfW and what I called naively at the time, "Internet Multitasking" using the Trumpet WinSock. "Oh boy I can FTP and use Mosaic at the *same* time!"
I'm with you there. Trumpet WinSock was terrible coding, but it worked most of the time. It's amazing to me that we don't have to do any of that, and most IP applications work so well.
LANtastic was also terrible coding, but it also worked most of the time. I'm going to have to Google the software to see if the interface looks familiar to me.
Here's the ugliest part of LANtastic: IRQ management when you also had to deal with modems and other add-on cards. Soundblaster, modem, LANtastic NIC, etc. Ug-lee.
I could go back further. When I bought my first scanner, the HP ScanJet+, it came with a runtime version of Windows 2.0 or 2.1. It was TERRIBLE, but I was able to scan images in beautiful 8bit grayscale. My friends were impressed, and it was the first step to learning desktop publishing for me (in high school in the early 90s, late 80s) no less.
Windows 2.x was terrible, but I was able to run WYSIWYG scan tools provided by HP plus a WYSIWYG desktop publisher. For me, it was amazing, considering I used WordPerfect for DOS up to that point. I can't recall the name of the WYSIWYG app under Windows, but I will assume it was an Adobe or Quark program. QuarkXpress maybe? Can't recall.
When Windows 3.0 came out, I upgraded right away (the runtime Windows 2.0 free OS that came with the scanner was considered upgradable). I loved Windows because of the ability to multitask without the ugly DESQview DOS interface. I was much more productive under Windows 3.0, but DESQview was a better realtime multitasker because of the way it handled memory and processor slices. Windows 3.x was not very good at true multitasking, where different windows would actually RUN rather than just be accessible quickly. I tried running Renegade under Windows 3.x, but the nodes that weren't at the front of the screen ran terribly slow.
So I did have a positive experience with Windows 3.x. Also had a decent experience with XP, honestly, and still use it as my primary interface since Adobe CS3 runs just fine under it. Everything else can be forgotten.
nobody used networks to make a multinode bbs you god damned liar
Since you're an AC, it's not worth responding to YOU, but maybe as a lesson to those who don't recall the wonderful BBS days, here's a recap:
I ran two multinode BBSes concurrently as I tested various applications. Up until the age of 17, I made fairly decent money with my multinode BBS (primary) which ran a hacked version of Telegard called Renegade. Renegade ran multinodes either under DESQview or via a wired network. At the same time, I purchased the ultra-expensive but amazing multi-threaded BBS application called MajorBBS, which ran as a compiled solution (doors and other add-ons were either compiled into the runtime EXE, or eventually were DLLs that were called by the runtime EXE). MajorBBS did NOT need a network or DESQview for multinodes, but supported them internally in its wicked-fast C coding.
The problem with MajorBBS was the need for expensive multicomm cards. I believe I paid well over $2000 at the time for a 16-port serial adapter. This let me attach all the modems I needed. The other downside for MajorBBS is that doors (online games) were coded only by professional companies, and they cost a ton of cash. Renegade was DOS based and used a DOS exec command to run external doors, so amateur coders could, and did, write decent games. Some were even multinode using text files to pass data between the various PCs or DESQview "nodes." This was slower, but worked fine. I remember the latency in the chatroom at Renegade to being over 1 second, until we discovered that you could run a RAM drive and put the temp files there. This sped it up signficantly.
LANtastic was the de facto standard for multinode BBS operations that used more than one PC. I prefered this route because the processors at the time were used less in a heavy-intensity BBS. I had a ton of downloads, a ton of message boards (FIDOnet), and a ton of chatroom activity, so running DESQview was out of the question. The other problem was the fact that we had this war between Expanded memory and Extended memory (RAM over 640k accesible). The 286s I used didn't access RAM over 640k well, so they were cheap but limited for DESQview. The much-more expensive 386 processors would use up to 4MB (or 8MB or even 16MB) but RAM was expensive, and I received many donated 286's for the good cause. At one point I had 12 286s in my bedroom to handle the traffic and phone lines.
MajorBBS was much preferred by my users, since the multi-threading internally gave ZERO latency to multinode communications (in games and in the chat area). This meant that multinode games were very realtime in terms of battles between players or players and monsters, versus Renegade where you might attack another player, and the 1 second delay would mean the player though he got away freely, but you thought you hit him. Lots of ugliness there.
MajorBBS also had X.25 connectivity, which let me access national users without them paying a hefty phone bill.
So, yes, people did use networks for multinode BBSes. Troll.
I recall when the original WfW packs hit the stores many years ago (was it CompUSA?). Software + NIC, IIRC.
At the time, I was running LANtastic, a terrible networking package. It was cheap, and handled my multinode BBS fairly well, but it was REALLY proprietary and sometimes had no reason to crash but did.
I sold my multinode BBS about that time when I first noticed WfW. Since I was a bit flush with cash after selling the old BBS, I decided to purchase a WfW "starter pack" of some sort. A few hours later, and it was up and running on my now-smaller home network.
At the time I was working for a Novell installation company, and I detested Novell's interface. WfW was significantly better, even though it wasn't as geek-friendly as Novell. I was not very *nix concerned at the time, either, but at that point I had over 9 years of PC experience.
For me, WfW really beat down what my old standards were. LANtastic was out. DESQview was a dying application. Novell was too expensive for the small networks, and too hard to administer for the basic admins at the clients I was handling at the time.
I recall clearly saying "This is going to sweep the PC world." And it did. It was the beginning of a much more profitable venture for me, personally, and provided the basis for many jobs of the geeks who circle at/.
I think this is probably the greatest aspect and most tragic flaw of the Street. It's also why the market can be so fun and so painful all at the same time!
And what makes a stock jump or fall?
Let's look at General Motors... For decades they were booming in stock price. Why? Because individual consumers such as yourself went out and bought their merchandise. Sales of vehicles were up -- but not because you, a GM buyer, saw they had a high stock price. You bought their vehicle for decades because you liked what you drove. The investors said "The lonesome, tiny, poor consumer likes this product, I will invest my money." You, the individual, made that decision for the investor.
Now, GM is tanking. Why? You, the small, unimportant, ignored consumer decided to skip GM this year and maybe buy a Toyota hybrid. The big, bad, ugly and evil investor said "Crap, that tiny unimportant ugly and fat consumer decided not to buy GM, I better sell my stock!"
So the market is NOT about who owns YHOO or GOOG, it is about what the consumer wants and what they are putting their time or money towards.
Google stock can be manipulated by the consumer, just as Pets.com did or Novell, too. Just stop using the product. You don't have to go on a public boycott: find a better product, use it, and tell your friends to use it. I gave you an option to restrain Google: block only their ads, use another search engine, and stop using their subsidiary products.
I personally love Google products and hate Yahoo. Yahoo feels like Geocities to me. Google is fluid, easy to use, and gives me what I want. I'd love to see Google buy Yahoo, can their product line and incorporate their best engineers and geeks into new and better products in the future.
Modded 'Informative' are you kidding me? This is just regurgitated libertarian political rhetoric
Yet it has been proven time and again that it is our governments that restrict our ability to make our lives better. Look at deathanol, which is being added to fuels against many consumers' wishes. The scientific proof that corn-ethanol is worthless is there, but still the corn lobby gets it done. Anti-consumer, anti-nourishment, anti-poverty and it exists. Why?
So in the 19th century, when there was little or no government interference in the economy, people didn't starve?
Actually, it was the market that provided decreased malnourishment in the 19th century. Look at the investors who bought more boats to ship food from the West to England. Soon it was discovered (1880?) that the meat had disease, which caused new investors and farmers and produce makers to find ways to make the meat safe for consumption. If you dig deep into England's malnourishment in the 1800s, you'll see WHY it happened, and it wasn't the free market that caused it. There were a great many food regulations at the time. Thankfully, the market wanted to sell food, and in order to do so they had to learn how to NOT kill those they were selling to. So they found ways to combat airborne bacteria before the USDA and FDA even came into being.
Then he, like you was wrong. The number of malnourished people in the world is increasing, has been constantly since the end of the cold war when pretty much the entire world subscribed to American-style capitalism, and you can check that fact for yourself.
Please provide a link to this blatant bold-faced lie. I did a simple Google search and came up with this link, which to paraphrase says the proportion of malnourished children in the world is on a decline, as I said. The actual number might be increasing in total, but this is do to the poor having kids when they shouldn't be. Duh. If overall the percentage of hungry is going down, but the number overall is going up, it is due to population booms, not due to the inability to feed them properly. Farming, transporting and storing food is a process that points to longevity of the market you'll sell to. Hungry people should be reducing their offspring during hardship, not increasing more hungry children.
The universe doesn't run on market forces. Speculators can't make your soil more fertile or you crops flourish. Your market rhetoric is both tiresome and misguided.
Again, lies. Speculators CAN make your soil more fertile. If you're a farmer, and you want a profitable crop, you will sell a future price for that crop to a speculator. By bringing in a stable selling price, YOU can invest in techniques needed to make your farm more fertile. If the price of your crop skyrockets, you still get your fixed price. If it plummets, you still get your fixed price.
Speculators are working to better mankind by stabilizing the price that farmers need to survive no matter the weather. If you look at the speculators, you'll see that they create an incredible incentive for farmers to continue to make their farms healthier and more efficient.
It is when speculation is restricted and regulated that we have problems. Floods, droughts, bacteria and other problems can not be handled by government intervention, but they can be handled by speculation of others to stabilize the crop pricing for those outputting the desired items.
Because most people don't have the millions of dollars needed to buy enough shares to make a difference. And if they did, then they'd buy the shares and not vote to change anything because they would stand to benefit in the form of increased share value.
So you just proved my point!
If millions of people felt they were harmed in any way, what is the problem with each of them putting up $100 or $500 to control the so-called monopoly? Let's say that 50 million Americans would feel harmed by a merger. Let's say that each of them would, on average, feel harm to the tune of $1000 over 5 years. Let them take $1000, and each buy some stock together as the "We're going to keep Google from harming us" group. That's $50 billion, probably enough to get a decent say in a voting direction. Problem solved.
If millions of people don't see any harm, then Google has done nothing wrong. Government has to do NOTHING. The market works like it does because millions, billions of people each make completely unique and individual decisions hundreds of times a day. Together it makes a difference, but no single person can by themselves.
Don't like your local Starbucks? If you stop going, it means ZERO. If millions stop going, it harms them completely.
Heck, you can even beat down Google if you want by not using their search engine, blocking only THEIR ads, and staying away from their subsidiaries (blogspot, etc).
There's no need for government intervention. If people are harmed, they have the option to fix it, right there in front of them.
Oh, and if the harm is worth less than the cost to buy in, then it isn't a big harm, is it?
Considering that both these companies are publicly traded, I think it is more important for those who are investors to consider what is best for them. If the general public thinks it might be hampered by consolidation of two large competitors, than the public should invest en masse and vote against it.
I've always been confused how publicly traded companies can be considered "monopolies" in any situation except where your governments regulate them into becoming monopolies. If you don't like how a company acts, buy some stock and get your friends and family and cohorts to do the same, then go in and work to change it.
Owning a share is owning a voting right, albeit a tiny sliver minority share. But if you want to change things, do it from within, not from outside.
Yahoo is still profitable, but they're losing market share. Why? Because Google does a better job providing their users with services they want. Duh. If Yahoo can't compete, then it's time for liquidation. There are still thousands of search engines out there, so competition will work its magic.
IBM was the monopoly, but they were chopped down by Compaq. Compaq was the monopoly, and they were chopped down by Microsoft. Microsoft was the monopoly, and they were chopped down by Google. Google's the monopoly, and they'll be chopped down by the next 18 year old college drop out startup that implants a realtime search engine in your sunglasses.
In a severe food shortage, yes, the price of food shoots up. People who can afford it continue to eat well (albeit at the expense of other things), but others starve. As far as your typical affluent conservative is concerned, the market has efficiently "solved" the problem.
That's extremely short-sighted for a number of reasons.
1. Who creates the biggest food shortages in the world? Your governments do. They subsidize production of the wrong products (subsidizing means going against the market's forces), causing price increases for the wrong reason. They restrict growing of certain crops in certain areas, or monopolize which crops can be grown.
2. If you're living in poverty and are hungry, doesn't it make sense to cut back on producing offspring? Yet when I've traveled the world for work, I always tend to try to seek out the poverished areas. They're spending more time on replicating DNA than they are on devising new ways to grow food. Sad. Usually they're living under a fascist or communist regime, which means revolution is their only probably solution. I know that Professor Popkin (University of North Carolina) said in 2005 or 2006 that the world's obese are growing in number while the malnourished are shrinking.
3. Market economic theory may be predicated on supply and demand, but many people are ignorant of those who hamper both (again, usually governments). To me, the people who best stabilize markets are the speculators, who can often times stabilize pricing enough for farmers to weather bad seasons or deal with oversupply. If it wasn't for the speculators, pricing would be much more peak-and-valley, causing more hardship for those on relatively fixed or declining incomes.
eBay, while not a friend of mine, is a great tool to ascertain value in various markets. I use eBay daily to judge pricing for items I want to buy, or items I may wish to sell, notably collectibles (I hate collectibles, but own some). eBay's overhead is always passed on to sellers.
When eBay gets hit with a judgment for allowing someone else to sell a product, that judgment will only be passed on to sellers in the future. $60m is not a big figure, and considering that eBay lists hundreds of millions of items annually, the cost to offset this judgment as passed on to sellers is less than a penny per item. Not a huge cost to eBay.
The trademark holders are the ones who have a lot to fear, though, which is why they're going after eBay in friendly jurisdictions. I've seen some knockoff items sold online, and they're fairly good, and in some cases better quality, than the originals. With the coming economic recession, I'm sure many previous buyers of the overpriced consumer goods are likely pulling out of buying new products, so the trademark holders need these judgments collected just to keep their heads above water.
eBay should fight this, strongly, because they are merely a middle man, and they do offer the ability of a company to pull auctions if they're deemed illicit or illegal. Yes, eBay is probably slow on pulling every auction, but the fact that the market shows a demand for a given product, even a knock-off, means that the market isn't going away. Surely it will only hurt the trademark holders more when the news media tells consumers that knock-off products are so readily available and so cheap.
Good luck, eBay, I hope you win the appeal. If not, you'll just pass the cost on to sellers, and no one will be concerned a year or two from now.
My employees are allowed to work on their own schedule (start late, leave late, start early, leave late). I have one full timer who only works 3 days per week, all contract work, and he's leaving his house at 5am, taking an hour for lunch, and leaving the client's around 7pm. He puts in 34-38 hours a week on average, avoids traffic, and only has 6 trips per week for work.
My competitors, on the other hand, are still forcing their employees in at 8, out at 5, and running 5 day weeks. Ridiculous.
Also, your BS about "last mile problems" is completely wrong. There is no way the government will let people install two, three, four different cable connections to the same house. And in most cases, the ISPs have monopolies, or near monopolies anyway.
1. The government should have no say about what I do on my property as long as I don't pollute onto my neighbor's land (noise, chemicals, etc).
2. Monopolies are created by government regulations. In an open market free of most regulations, competition can come and go as the market allows for it. The only reason most people are tied to one or two providers is due to to local, state and some Federal regulations. Many local cities have agreements with providers (for cash) in exchange for monopolistic provisions.
You basically proved that the last mile problems are not real problems: they're ones created by the State.
I'm sorry but this is just a farce, there is NO gaurantee what-so-ever, that 'competition' will even appear. The barriers to entry are quite large enough now and that's why we don't see that many competitors. This market fundemntalist idea that 'things will just happen' is quite alarming, try to make a competitor to intel for instance 'just out of the blue', the experience needed and infrastructure takes a lot of capital and energy.
It's not a farce. In my own town, there were 3 attempts to provide local, wireless ISP services that were shut down by the town itself. Barrier to entry by the regulators. In a neighboring town that allows free ISP competition, there are 5 or 6 providers: 3 wired, 3 wireless. In a town of maybe 60,000 people. And all are making money.
Competition to Intel exists: there are literally hundreds of chip manufacturers in the world today. Not all of them make the main processors for a PC, but there isn't as much profit to be had at that level. Crack open your PC case or your cell phone or your microwave and look at the manufacturers of the chips on the mainboards. Intel has a ton of competition, and the competition might be more profitable in terms of cost versus profit than Intel is. Yes, Intel has a larger market cap and probably sells more products in terms of gross numbers, but there is so much room to develop a new chip manufacturing business that it's amazing that it isn't an overwhelmed market.
When people want something, others will find a way to provide it.
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I'm sorry to hear about your wife's chronic asthma. I'll tell you a story about the woman I married: she had chronic asthma since she was a child, in the ER 3-4 times per year for steroids. When I met her, I told her she's crazy, it isn't asthma. I took her to 5 "professional" doctors, and she still had the problems. Then I went "underground" and did some research on her asthma. We cut back on her sugars, starches and anything that may convert to sugar in the blood (corn primarily). Within 3 months, she lost about 15 pounds, and never had an asthma attack again. Never. So I'd first look to make sure that her asthma is truly asthma and not a horrible reaction to her diet or things in her environment. I'm not saying she isn't sick, but in all honesty, I distrust those who don't do their duty (i.e., some doctors) in finding triggers to things that can look like a disease, but might just be a dietary condition that is easily fixed.
As for how to handle chronic illnesses, being self-employed is probably not for you. I used to have kidney stones, which were not covered by my insurance. Eventually, I found my doctors who I was able to negatiate VERY good prices to deal with my pre-existing condition. I will never, EVER use insurance for a doctor's visit, a prescription drug (I abhor them, generally), or anything that isn't life- or lifestyle- threatening. My deductible annually is around $10,000, if I remember correctly, and I haven't had an insurance claim for anything in probably 7 years. My healthcare for myself and my family is VERY cheap, and over 7 years I think I've paid that $10,000 deductible in savings 2 times over, maybe more. I'm thinking of kicking it up to a $20,000 deductible if I can find an insurer who will go that high.
For most, health care is a crutch that they think they need, but in all honesty health care in general is not that expensive, if you go and negotiate with your family doctor. Offer cash-on-the-barrel, and many doctors will cut their fees significantly since they won't have to deal with insurance companies or government agencies. My own doctor charges $150 for a visit (insured) but his cash-on-the-barrel rate is $45! He said most people pay a $20 co-pay, but he'd rather get $45 in cold hard cash when they visit. I do, and I'm fine with it.
My insurance is for accidents, cancer, stroke, heart attack, etc. It's not for day-to-day health care needs, but I've forced myself to live as healthy as possible, short of the excessive smoking, scotch drinking, high speed driving, sleep-deprived-weekends-in-Vegas, and the occasional illicit substance use. Oh, and binging on bacon, eggs, and butter probably isn't wise, either.
It's called being a contractor and the reason you charge 5x your old salary is because you have to pay your own social security, health insurance, 401K, etc etc etc.
But the perks for paying these yourself are worth it. Incorporate as an S-corp, pay yourself a low salary, issue quarterly dividends which are taxed at a lower rate, and you'll score more in-pocket money. Health care for individuals is ridiculously cheap if you do it correctly:
1. Live a healthy lifestyle (get off your rear, fatty)
2. Start an HSA (tax free, pay for doctor's visits with a debit card)
3. Get a high deductible health insurance policy ($5k-$10k)
4. Negotiate a cash discount with your doctor (many do, at a HUGE savings) and avoid using insurance
The wealthy always know what insurance is for: life catastrophes, not common colds, hail damage or minor floods. You pay for those out of your emergency savings, not out of your insurer's pocket. Insurance is CHEAP if you use it for emergencies only.
401Ks are also for idiots, IMHO. You're usually stuck in restrictive funds that issue no dividend profit distributions or anything worth investing in. When you're your own boss, you can invest in YOURSELF and get returns of 20-40% a year on those investments, if not more.
Social security is only paid for off of your salary income, so your dividend distributions are relatively tax-free except for income taxes (dividend taxes).
There are so many reasons to cut the W2-ties that it isn't funny. I can't understand why people put all their eggs in one employment basket.
You're missing the best way to do it, IMHO: contact an Asian microconsole manufacturer, and work with their ROM to develop your own game.
There are numerous (maybe hundreds?) Asian microconsole manufacturers, and all of them are happy to license their subsystems cheaply. The one I think of most often when I come up with my brilliant (and soon forgotten) video game idea is Jakks Pacific. They have a great subsystem that can probably unite more than one player, and it outputs to SDTV standard. I'm fairly sure (but not 100%) that they even have expandability options so you can even offer updates via a plug-in cartridge.
Contact one of these companies and see what they can offer you in terms of licensing their subsystems. Get their backend code structures, and start developing. Yes, I'm sure they're limited in resolution, game size, etc, but it's a great way to get your foot in the door for little money, and see if you have what it takes to develop an entire game from scratch.
Back in the late 80s and early 90s, I was a "developer-producer" of a series of BBS doors that ended up multiplayer. This was an amateur hobby, but one of our doors ended up successful enough (about 100 installations multinode). It took seriously 15 designers to make this text-based game, including copywriters, ASCII graphics artists, C or Pascal code developers, integration developers, alpha testers, beta testers, customer service people, and one MASM assembly language programmer who I don't think had any social skills or even knew how to dress himself. It was a BIG game to implement, and it had no real graphics or high end interactivity. So I'd think a video game with multiple players means a HUGE leap of faith, a big risk, but maybe a big reward.
Good luck.
Tax-wise, leaving your "stable" job adds to inherent features to your new job future: greater risk, greater reward.
I have had one W2 job in my life, and I will never do it again. All I saw around me was politics, inefficiency, vying for position, inefficiency, back stabbing, inefficiency, nepotism, and inefficiency. When I saw something that I could do better, faster, and cheaper, I had no reason to "sell the idea" to management because either they'd take it (and climb the ladder) or they'd sit on it due to a pet peeve.
This guy Peeler ignores the absolute greatest reason to quit and go solo: being called back in for sometimes 10X the pay, from your old employer. When I left my only W2 position (at a whopping $21 per hour back in 1992), within 3 months they called me back in, and I offered myself at $60 per hour. Within a year I was at $120 per hour, and had enough to hire own my W2 goons to play nice with the customer. And they were hired out at $120 per hour and paid quite a bit less (although I offer all of them the option to start their own business and subcontract, which many do).
For a gaming engineer, being an employed underling offers little other than so-called "stability." See how stable you are when you get fired or the company goes under. Out come the dreaded CVs, while you pound the pavement looking for another 40 hours a week W2 job. If you're a contractor, you can work for 10, 20, 50, thousands of firms on a regular basis, and if a few go under or cut you, you're out maybe 5% or 10%. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
It's like homeownership: if your boss knows you have a mortgage, you're screwed. He has no reason to offer you incentives (better pay, better hours, better perks, etc) because you have another God to pray to: your bankster. The same is true with a W2: your boss knows he's your only source of income, and as such you're stuck with bad pay, bad hours, bad perks.
Go solo, everyone. Cut the unbilical cord and if you're a hard worker, you'll prosper. Then find about 10 of your previous coworkers, offer them a few bucks more an hour, and bill them out at 5X their pay to not just your old employer but their competitors, too. 3. Profit!
You have no idea what you're talking about.
In Beuharnais v. Illinois, Judge Jackson said "The 'liberty' which the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects against denial by the States is the liberal and identical 'freedom of speech or of the press' which the First Amendment forbids only Congress to abridge . . . the powers of Congress and of the States over this subject are not of the same dimensions, and that because Congress probably could not enact this law it does not follow that the States may not."
This means that the Supreme Court is NOT Incorporating the full First Amendment to the States' Constitutions, but more of a "watered-down" version. Again, this is not full Incorporation, it's partial Incorporation, even of the First Amendment.
See: Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 502-503
See: Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 10
Conflicting? Absolutely. And also in full support that you are completely wrong, as usual, because you see it in black and white, and I am correct, as usual, because I see it as shades of gray. As is usual, you will only pull sites that propose to preach to your choir, so I provided you with sites that preach to mine, in addition to easy-to-look-up court rulings documenting the proof that the SCOTUS has not fully proposed Incorporation of any Amendment.
Ok, so why not the 2nd and 4th? If the SCOTUS believe that the Fourteenth Amendment allows for full Incorporation, why haven't they fully incorporated it?
Just because some recent rulings seem to fall towards the belief that we now live with the BoR fully Incorporated does not mean that they are fully Incorporated. It's a sham to make that belief.
For the simple-minded who refuse to accept that there is no Incorporation, nor will there ever be, here are some resources by Constitutional scholars:
The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights (PDF!!) Berger, Raoul
Fourteenth Amendment and Selective Incorporation Links, Jim Allison
The Truth about the Fourteenth Amendment, Thomas DiLorenzo
States Rights Traditions that Nobody Knows, Thomas Woods
Google Raoul Berger, he has numerous articles and books on the matter as well.
As I said in a previous comment, the text of the Fourteenth Amendment does not incorporate the Bill of Rights into State Constitutions.
Where in the Fourteenth Amendment do you even see the word "rights"? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Red Flayer?
Do this, my socialist friend: go and read on the Slaughterhouse Cases. The Supreme Court, in 1873, decided that the Fourteenth Amendment did NOT cover "rights" but exactly what it was written to cover: privileges and immunities, such as citizenship. It was not to guard against State dismantling of the Bill of Rights, but to protect some second level "rights" which are considered ones of privilege and not inherent.
Your interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment is flawed, because you have not read it, nor studied it. Yes, the Supreme Court has taken a pro-Incorporation view on this Amendment, but it has not been fully implemented, so we just don't know how SCOTUS can interpret some State laws as violations but not others. Without a full implementation of Incorporation, there is no Incorporation.
The Fourteenth Amendment does not incorporate the Bill of Rights into the States' Constitutions. In fact, in 1866 the ratifiers of the Fourteenth understood the Amendment to cover "rights" such as citizenship, etc.
The word "rights" does not exist in the Fourteenth Amendment. "Privileges and Immunities" does. They are exclusive terms.
Maybe it is you who should read your Constitution, friend. It is obvious you are confusing "rights" (inherent) and "privileges and immunities" as one and the same. They are not.
Good morning folks, your friendly neighborhood anarcho-capitalist here.
Is it confusing to anyone why such a law would be deemed unconstitutional? It makes no sense to me. If they're crying "1st Amendment violation!" we should note instantly that this is not the U.S. Congress passing a law infringing on the freedom of expression. This is a State-level body declaring their right, via the 9th and 10th Amendments, to regulate speech.
Now some of you are saying "Whoa, Mr. Anarchy says it's OK for States to regulate speech!" According to the U.S. Constitution, they can. If their own State Constitution has a declaration of what they can't do, and I hope many States do, then they should be bound by that. But if the People of a State decide that they want their speech regulated and restricted, nothing in the U.S. Constitution should prevent them from deciding it's OK to be nannied to death by their State governments.
I'm all for dismantling the State, piece by piece, top-down, but in this case, I don't see what the issue is. As long as the U.S. Congress does not try this tactic, as far as I know, it's constitutional, and people will get what they deserve at the State level.
I had every iteration of the Apple Newton MessagePad up to the last one (2100? Can't remember). I loved the size: smaller than my laptop (literally a laptop, not a portable, because it needed 120VAC), larger than a PDA. Everything about it was efficient for me. But they killed it.
If Apple could take the iPhone and make it 4x bigger (2x in each dimension), I'd jump on it in 3 seconds, even with the simple OS. There's just too much there that would destroy many of these netbooks, which in my opinion are just too limited to be functional. I want one, but not without a built in GPS hardware/stack of some sort for telecom.
Apple, are you listening?
As a pro geek, my arsenal of electronic gadgets used to climb in number. In the past year or so, I've gotten down to 4 items I need and use daily:
1. iMate Ultimate 6150 (primary phone, T-Mobile, EDGE)
2. HTC Trinity P3600 (secondary phone, AT&T, 3G)
3. iPod Touch 16GB
4. TomTom GO 910 GPS
My Trinity has a great GPS built in, so the TomTom could go. The iPhone 2 would almost get rid of 3 devices, actually, except for one feature that is missing/disabled: tethering.
I travel, a lot, for my businesses. Nationally and internationally, I use my cell phone for email, phone calls, and basic billing. A notebook is not in my list of gadgets, even though I usually have 2 on me some of the time. Being able to tether to my Trinity is a huge need. On the Trinity I run a WiFiRouter app that lets me tether any WiFi device to the web at full 3G speeds. If I am with clients, employees or subcontractors, having a great WiFi wireless router is a huge gain. But Apple refuses to allow it.
I'm sure some third party hackers will eventually get tethering to work. If so, Apple will gain a customer or 15 (I'd give this option to any of my staff who uses wireless tethering regularly or even irregularly). So why did Apple not offer this feature? Battery life? AT&T telling them not to?
I'm using tethering right now, in fact. On the go. I have two notebooks booted up and online, and they're working great. But I'd love to downsize all my devices to one.
So I'm calling you out Apple. Add a tethering feature to the next ROM update!
Good post. I had a similar experience with Lantastic, a BBS, and then moving on to WfW and what I called naively at the time, "Internet Multitasking" using the Trumpet WinSock. "Oh boy I can FTP and use Mosaic at the *same* time!"
I'm with you there. Trumpet WinSock was terrible coding, but it worked most of the time. It's amazing to me that we don't have to do any of that, and most IP applications work so well.
LANtastic was also terrible coding, but it also worked most of the time. I'm going to have to Google the software to see if the interface looks familiar to me.
Here's the ugliest part of LANtastic: IRQ management when you also had to deal with modems and other add-on cards. Soundblaster, modem, LANtastic NIC, etc. Ug-lee.
Ha!
I could go back further. When I bought my first scanner, the HP ScanJet+, it came with a runtime version of Windows 2.0 or 2.1. It was TERRIBLE, but I was able to scan images in beautiful 8bit grayscale. My friends were impressed, and it was the first step to learning desktop publishing for me (in high school in the early 90s, late 80s) no less.
Windows 2.x was terrible, but I was able to run WYSIWYG scan tools provided by HP plus a WYSIWYG desktop publisher. For me, it was amazing, considering I used WordPerfect for DOS up to that point. I can't recall the name of the WYSIWYG app under Windows, but I will assume it was an Adobe or Quark program. QuarkXpress maybe? Can't recall.
When Windows 3.0 came out, I upgraded right away (the runtime Windows 2.0 free OS that came with the scanner was considered upgradable). I loved Windows because of the ability to multitask without the ugly DESQview DOS interface. I was much more productive under Windows 3.0, but DESQview was a better realtime multitasker because of the way it handled memory and processor slices. Windows 3.x was not very good at true multitasking, where different windows would actually RUN rather than just be accessible quickly. I tried running Renegade under Windows 3.x, but the nodes that weren't at the front of the screen ran terribly slow.
So I did have a positive experience with Windows 3.x. Also had a decent experience with XP, honestly, and still use it as my primary interface since Adobe CS3 runs just fine under it. Everything else can be forgotten.
nobody used networks to make a multinode bbs you god damned liar
Since you're an AC, it's not worth responding to YOU, but maybe as a lesson to those who don't recall the wonderful BBS days, here's a recap:
I ran two multinode BBSes concurrently as I tested various applications. Up until the age of 17, I made fairly decent money with my multinode BBS (primary) which ran a hacked version of Telegard called Renegade. Renegade ran multinodes either under DESQview or via a wired network. At the same time, I purchased the ultra-expensive but amazing multi-threaded BBS application called MajorBBS, which ran as a compiled solution (doors and other add-ons were either compiled into the runtime EXE, or eventually were DLLs that were called by the runtime EXE). MajorBBS did NOT need a network or DESQview for multinodes, but supported them internally in its wicked-fast C coding.
The problem with MajorBBS was the need for expensive multicomm cards. I believe I paid well over $2000 at the time for a 16-port serial adapter. This let me attach all the modems I needed. The other downside for MajorBBS is that doors (online games) were coded only by professional companies, and they cost a ton of cash. Renegade was DOS based and used a DOS exec command to run external doors, so amateur coders could, and did, write decent games. Some were even multinode using text files to pass data between the various PCs or DESQview "nodes." This was slower, but worked fine. I remember the latency in the chatroom at Renegade to being over 1 second, until we discovered that you could run a RAM drive and put the temp files there. This sped it up signficantly.
LANtastic was the de facto standard for multinode BBS operations that used more than one PC. I prefered this route because the processors at the time were used less in a heavy-intensity BBS. I had a ton of downloads, a ton of message boards (FIDOnet), and a ton of chatroom activity, so running DESQview was out of the question. The other problem was the fact that we had this war between Expanded memory and Extended memory (RAM over 640k accesible). The 286s I used didn't access RAM over 640k well, so they were cheap but limited for DESQview. The much-more expensive 386 processors would use up to 4MB (or 8MB or even 16MB) but RAM was expensive, and I received many donated 286's for the good cause. At one point I had 12 286s in my bedroom to handle the traffic and phone lines.
MajorBBS was much preferred by my users, since the multi-threading internally gave ZERO latency to multinode communications (in games and in the chat area). This meant that multinode games were very realtime in terms of battles between players or players and monsters, versus Renegade where you might attack another player, and the 1 second delay would mean the player though he got away freely, but you thought you hit him. Lots of ugliness there.
MajorBBS also had X.25 connectivity, which let me access national users without them paying a hefty phone bill.
So, yes, people did use networks for multinode BBSes. Troll.
I recall when the original WfW packs hit the stores many years ago (was it CompUSA?). Software + NIC, IIRC.
At the time, I was running LANtastic, a terrible networking package. It was cheap, and handled my multinode BBS fairly well, but it was REALLY proprietary and sometimes had no reason to crash but did.
I sold my multinode BBS about that time when I first noticed WfW. Since I was a bit flush with cash after selling the old BBS, I decided to purchase a WfW "starter pack" of some sort. A few hours later, and it was up and running on my now-smaller home network.
At the time I was working for a Novell installation company, and I detested Novell's interface. WfW was significantly better, even though it wasn't as geek-friendly as Novell. I was not very *nix concerned at the time, either, but at that point I had over 9 years of PC experience.
For me, WfW really beat down what my old standards were. LANtastic was out. DESQview was a dying application. Novell was too expensive for the small networks, and too hard to administer for the basic admins at the clients I was handling at the time.
I recall clearly saying "This is going to sweep the PC world." And it did. It was the beginning of a much more profitable venture for me, personally, and provided the basis for many jobs of the geeks who circle at /.
So RIP WfW. It was nice knowing you.
I think this is probably the greatest aspect and most tragic flaw of the Street. It's also why the market can be so fun and so painful all at the same time!
And what makes a stock jump or fall?
Let's look at General Motors... For decades they were booming in stock price. Why? Because individual consumers such as yourself went out and bought their merchandise. Sales of vehicles were up -- but not because you, a GM buyer, saw they had a high stock price. You bought their vehicle for decades because you liked what you drove. The investors said "The lonesome, tiny, poor consumer likes this product, I will invest my money." You, the individual, made that decision for the investor.
Now, GM is tanking. Why? You, the small, unimportant, ignored consumer decided to skip GM this year and maybe buy a Toyota hybrid. The big, bad, ugly and evil investor said "Crap, that tiny unimportant ugly and fat consumer decided not to buy GM, I better sell my stock!"
So the market is NOT about who owns YHOO or GOOG, it is about what the consumer wants and what they are putting their time or money towards.
Google stock can be manipulated by the consumer, just as Pets.com did or Novell, too. Just stop using the product. You don't have to go on a public boycott: find a better product, use it, and tell your friends to use it. I gave you an option to restrain Google: block only their ads, use another search engine, and stop using their subsidiary products.
I personally love Google products and hate Yahoo. Yahoo feels like Geocities to me. Google is fluid, easy to use, and gives me what I want. I'd love to see Google buy Yahoo, can their product line and incorporate their best engineers and geeks into new and better products in the future.
Modded 'Informative' are you kidding me? This is just regurgitated libertarian political rhetoric
Yet it has been proven time and again that it is our governments that restrict our ability to make our lives better. Look at deathanol, which is being added to fuels against many consumers' wishes. The scientific proof that corn-ethanol is worthless is there, but still the corn lobby gets it done. Anti-consumer, anti-nourishment, anti-poverty and it exists. Why?
So in the 19th century, when there was little or no government interference in the economy, people didn't starve?
Actually, it was the market that provided decreased malnourishment in the 19th century. Look at the investors who bought more boats to ship food from the West to England. Soon it was discovered (1880?) that the meat had disease, which caused new investors and farmers and produce makers to find ways to make the meat safe for consumption. If you dig deep into England's malnourishment in the 1800s, you'll see WHY it happened, and it wasn't the free market that caused it. There were a great many food regulations at the time. Thankfully, the market wanted to sell food, and in order to do so they had to learn how to NOT kill those they were selling to. So they found ways to combat airborne bacteria before the USDA and FDA even came into being.
Then he, like you was wrong. The number of malnourished people in the world is increasing, has been constantly since the end of the cold war when pretty much the entire world subscribed to American-style capitalism, and you can check that fact for yourself.
Please provide a link to this blatant bold-faced lie. I did a simple Google search and came up with this link, which to paraphrase says the proportion of malnourished children in the world is on a decline, as I said. The actual number might be increasing in total, but this is do to the poor having kids when they shouldn't be. Duh. If overall the percentage of hungry is going down, but the number overall is going up, it is due to population booms, not due to the inability to feed them properly. Farming, transporting and storing food is a process that points to longevity of the market you'll sell to. Hungry people should be reducing their offspring during hardship, not increasing more hungry children.
The universe doesn't run on market forces. Speculators can't make your soil more fertile or you crops flourish. Your market rhetoric is both tiresome and misguided.
Again, lies. Speculators CAN make your soil more fertile. If you're a farmer, and you want a profitable crop, you will sell a future price for that crop to a speculator. By bringing in a stable selling price, YOU can invest in techniques needed to make your farm more fertile. If the price of your crop skyrockets, you still get your fixed price. If it plummets, you still get your fixed price.
Speculators are working to better mankind by stabilizing the price that farmers need to survive no matter the weather. If you look at the speculators, you'll see that they create an incredible incentive for farmers to continue to make their farms healthier and more efficient.
It is when speculation is restricted and regulated that we have problems. Floods, droughts, bacteria and other problems can not be handled by government intervention, but they can be handled by speculation of others to stabilize the crop pricing for those outputting the desired items.
Because most people don't have the millions of dollars needed to buy enough shares to make a difference. And if they did, then they'd buy the shares and not vote to change anything because they would stand to benefit in the form of increased share value.
So you just proved my point!
If millions of people felt they were harmed in any way, what is the problem with each of them putting up $100 or $500 to control the so-called monopoly? Let's say that 50 million Americans would feel harmed by a merger. Let's say that each of them would, on average, feel harm to the tune of $1000 over 5 years. Let them take $1000, and each buy some stock together as the "We're going to keep Google from harming us" group. That's $50 billion, probably enough to get a decent say in a voting direction. Problem solved.
If millions of people don't see any harm, then Google has done nothing wrong. Government has to do NOTHING. The market works like it does because millions, billions of people each make completely unique and individual decisions hundreds of times a day. Together it makes a difference, but no single person can by themselves.
Don't like your local Starbucks? If you stop going, it means ZERO. If millions stop going, it harms them completely.
Heck, you can even beat down Google if you want by not using their search engine, blocking only THEIR ads, and staying away from their subsidiaries (blogspot, etc).
There's no need for government intervention. If people are harmed, they have the option to fix it, right there in front of them.
Oh, and if the harm is worth less than the cost to buy in, then it isn't a big harm, is it?
Considering that both these companies are publicly traded, I think it is more important for those who are investors to consider what is best for them. If the general public thinks it might be hampered by consolidation of two large competitors, than the public should invest en masse and vote against it.
I've always been confused how publicly traded companies can be considered "monopolies" in any situation except where your governments regulate them into becoming monopolies. If you don't like how a company acts, buy some stock and get your friends and family and cohorts to do the same, then go in and work to change it.
Owning a share is owning a voting right, albeit a tiny sliver minority share. But if you want to change things, do it from within, not from outside.
Yahoo is still profitable, but they're losing market share. Why? Because Google does a better job providing their users with services they want. Duh. If Yahoo can't compete, then it's time for liquidation. There are still thousands of search engines out there, so competition will work its magic.
IBM was the monopoly, but they were chopped down by Compaq. Compaq was the monopoly, and they were chopped down by Microsoft. Microsoft was the monopoly, and they were chopped down by Google. Google's the monopoly, and they'll be chopped down by the next 18 year old college drop out startup that implants a realtime search engine in your sunglasses.
In a severe food shortage, yes, the price of food shoots up. People who can afford it continue to eat well (albeit at the expense of other things), but others starve. As far as your typical affluent conservative is concerned, the market has efficiently "solved" the problem.
That's extremely short-sighted for a number of reasons.
1. Who creates the biggest food shortages in the world? Your governments do. They subsidize production of the wrong products (subsidizing means going against the market's forces), causing price increases for the wrong reason. They restrict growing of certain crops in certain areas, or monopolize which crops can be grown.
2. If you're living in poverty and are hungry, doesn't it make sense to cut back on producing offspring? Yet when I've traveled the world for work, I always tend to try to seek out the poverished areas. They're spending more time on replicating DNA than they are on devising new ways to grow food. Sad. Usually they're living under a fascist or communist regime, which means revolution is their only probably solution. I know that Professor Popkin (University of North Carolina) said in 2005 or 2006 that the world's obese are growing in number while the malnourished are shrinking.
3. Market economic theory may be predicated on supply and demand, but many people are ignorant of those who hamper both (again, usually governments). To me, the people who best stabilize markets are the speculators, who can often times stabilize pricing enough for farmers to weather bad seasons or deal with oversupply. If it wasn't for the speculators, pricing would be much more peak-and-valley, causing more hardship for those on relatively fixed or declining incomes.
eBay, while not a friend of mine, is a great tool to ascertain value in various markets. I use eBay daily to judge pricing for items I want to buy, or items I may wish to sell, notably collectibles (I hate collectibles, but own some). eBay's overhead is always passed on to sellers.
When eBay gets hit with a judgment for allowing someone else to sell a product, that judgment will only be passed on to sellers in the future. $60m is not a big figure, and considering that eBay lists hundreds of millions of items annually, the cost to offset this judgment as passed on to sellers is less than a penny per item. Not a huge cost to eBay.
The trademark holders are the ones who have a lot to fear, though, which is why they're going after eBay in friendly jurisdictions. I've seen some knockoff items sold online, and they're fairly good, and in some cases better quality, than the originals. With the coming economic recession, I'm sure many previous buyers of the overpriced consumer goods are likely pulling out of buying new products, so the trademark holders need these judgments collected just to keep their heads above water.
eBay should fight this, strongly, because they are merely a middle man, and they do offer the ability of a company to pull auctions if they're deemed illicit or illegal. Yes, eBay is probably slow on pulling every auction, but the fact that the market shows a demand for a given product, even a knock-off, means that the market isn't going away. Surely it will only hurt the trademark holders more when the news media tells consumers that knock-off products are so readily available and so cheap.
Good luck, eBay, I hope you win the appeal. If not, you'll just pass the cost on to sellers, and no one will be concerned a year or two from now.
My employees are allowed to work on their own schedule (start late, leave late, start early, leave late). I have one full timer who only works 3 days per week, all contract work, and he's leaving his house at 5am, taking an hour for lunch, and leaving the client's around 7pm. He puts in 34-38 hours a week on average, avoids traffic, and only has 6 trips per week for work.
My competitors, on the other hand, are still forcing their employees in at 8, out at 5, and running 5 day weeks. Ridiculous.
We've been clamoring for .head for a long time. AdamDada.head will show everyone that my family's origin is India.
Also, your BS about "last mile problems" is completely wrong. There is no way the government will let people install two, three, four different cable connections to the same house. And in most cases, the ISPs have monopolies, or near monopolies anyway.
1. The government should have no say about what I do on my property as long as I don't pollute onto my neighbor's land (noise, chemicals, etc).
2. Monopolies are created by government regulations. In an open market free of most regulations, competition can come and go as the market allows for it. The only reason most people are tied to one or two providers is due to to local, state and some Federal regulations. Many local cities have agreements with providers (for cash) in exchange for monopolistic provisions.
You basically proved that the last mile problems are not real problems: they're ones created by the State.
I'm sorry but this is just a farce, there is NO gaurantee what-so-ever, that 'competition' will even appear. The barriers to entry are quite large enough now and that's why we don't see that many competitors. This market fundemntalist idea that 'things will just happen' is quite alarming, try to make a competitor to intel for instance 'just out of the blue', the experience needed and infrastructure takes a lot of capital and energy.
It's not a farce. In my own town, there were 3 attempts to provide local, wireless ISP services that were shut down by the town itself. Barrier to entry by the regulators. In a neighboring town that allows free ISP competition, there are 5 or 6 providers: 3 wired, 3 wireless. In a town of maybe 60,000 people. And all are making money.
Competition to Intel exists: there are literally hundreds of chip manufacturers in the world today. Not all of them make the main processors for a PC, but there isn't as much profit to be had at that level. Crack open your PC case or your cell phone or your microwave and look at the manufacturers of the chips on the mainboards. Intel has a ton of competition, and the competition might be more profitable in terms of cost versus profit than Intel is. Yes, Intel has a larger market cap and probably sells more products in terms of gross numbers, but there is so much room to develop a new chip manufacturing business that it's amazing that it isn't an overwhelmed market.
When people want something, others will find a way to provide it.