Well then, how about this: he gets the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nobel Peace Prize, a Presidential pardon, a million dollars and a ticker tape parade... and then we draw and quarter him in Times Square.
This was definitely my first thought--a lot of value is in the IBM mark. If Lenovo can't brand the hardware and services and IBM, they're going to lose a lot of business relative to the value of the sold hardware and related services business prior to purchase. I would think a bunch of people would continue to use them for legacy equipment or when they want new hardware to function especially smoothly with legacy equipment, but for a lot of institutional clients, I think you just wouldn't consider Lenovo.
That may be true for American companies, but consider Chinese companies, who have no small concern about the US's spying activities. It's a lot more likely a Chinese company is going to be able to sell into the Chinese market than a US one would. Remember that after the Snowden revelations China cancelled a hefty number of orders for IBM equipment, sufficient to do some pretty substantial damage to IBM's revenues and stock price. I suspect Lenovo is going to be a lot more successful in China than IBM has any hope of being.
Presumably IBM will retain an interest in Lenovo's server business as part of the deal, the same as they did with their PC business, but will have no involvement in running the business.
In this week’s issue of Radish, the Carlyle Club tries to fathom the motives of an ethno-nationalist terrorist and political mass-murderer. And when we’re done talking about Nelson Mandela, we’ll discuss Anders Breivik.
By "money is left to its own," one of course means "the rich are left to their own" (being the ones with the most money, which controls how money is used to produce more money for the rich, etc.).
Why shouldn't the rich be left to their own?
"Capitalism" left to its own is an inevitable slide into oligarchy, with an oppressive tiny elite at the top.
Ok, name me a system that isn't an oligarchy with an oppressive tiny elite at the top. Government is always small group with power over a large group without power. Capitalism, at least, is something of a meritocracy, even if not perfect.
The "invisible hand of the free market" is not a beneficent God working for the good of all if only entrusted with our full hearts; it is the manipulating iron fist of whoever has the most money, squeezing the labor and life out of those with less.
I call bullshit. Show me anywhere in the capitalist western world where anyone is forced to labor. If you've taken a job, I suspect it's because you're better off taking it than not taking it. If you have a valuable skill to sell, then you have options. If you have a lack of options, that indicates you have a lack of valuable skills. Your failure to better your skills isn't the fault of the market economy.
Even if it ends badly, it'll still pay off in the acquired expertise. The first few attempts by Russia and the US didn't pan out so hot, either. It may be an expensive education, but it's an education nonetheless.
For those hoping that Europe might be redressing the imbalance in R&D innovation compared with the United States, two recent reports make gloomy reading. According to a competitiveness report published in November 2006 by the European Commission's high-level Pharmaceutical Forum, the US has established itself firmly as the key innovator in pharmaceuticals since 2000.
Advocates of national health insurance cite an apparently devastating fact: the United States spends more of its gross domestic product on medical care than any nation in the world, yet Americans do not live longer than Western Europeans or Japanese. More Americans lack insurance coverage as well. It is no wonder that so many people demand reform.
But the American health care system may be performing better than it seems at first glance. When it comes to medical innovation, the United States is the world leader. In the last 10 years, for instance, 12 Nobel Prizes in medicine have gone to American-born scientists working in the United States, 3 have gone to foreign-born scientists working in the United States, and just 7 have gone to researchers outside the country.
You aren't obliged to discuss anything with me. However, as to you're claim to being the arbiter of whether I'm welcome here, I'll point out I've been posting here since the inception of Slashdot, which I suspect is a damn sight longer than you have. And I don't recollect extending an invitation to you, either.
But the point of what "freedom" means in regard to transactions between humans and what "freedom" means in regard to transactions between corporations and humans, and corporations and other corporations is what's very hard to pin down.
What, effectively, is the difference? In each case, both parties have something of value the other one wants. In each case, they agree on terms under which the exchange takes place. That's just as true whether I'm dealing with an individual or a corporation.
For example, our "most free" economy here in the US occurred during a period about a half-century ago, and that happened to be the very height of the organized labor movement. It also happened to be the period during which the federal government was exercising some rather new and rather large influence over the actions of the marketplace. We see the beginnings of the regulatory regime we still live under today, for example.
Well, let's see here - about a half century ago, Europe was still recovering from the world wars, as was Japan, and China and India were producing nothing but famines. So what happened to the organized labor movements, such as in manufacturing? Automobiles and steel? Oops! As soon as the aforementioned countries were sufficiently able to compete with us, those industries fled offshore! Guess the labor movement sure showed 'em, ain't it?
Yet, the employers and corporations would say that this was an indication of decreasing freedom for them to treat employees as they damn well please.
They never had the freedom to treat them as they damn well please: at least since 1865, workers can quit whenever they damn well please. If the workers don't quit, I'd consider that a strong indication they're better off having the job than not having it.
Seriously, does anyone work at a job where they'd be better off not working? I sure wouldn't!
So a "free" market for one person might not be a "free" market for another.
Either party is free to walk away from a transaction where the terms are unacceptable. What you're arguing is not that the market is not free to all parties, your complaint is that in a free market you're not getting terms as good as you'd like. Boo hoo.
So, my notion is not that we just abandon the idea of a free market and embrace systems that grant the government more power, but rather that we should accept that "free markets" are an impossible state that cannot and do not exist in nature, and instead we should focus on agency for individuals rather than for "the market".
Rather a silly statement. Assume an anarchy where there's no regulation (i.e. the default state of nature). All transactions would by definition have to be free. As for agency, as I've already pointed out - everyone is free to walk away from a transaction where the terms are not acceptable. If you agree to the terms, I'd consider that evidence that you're still better off making the transaction than not making.
You might want to keep in mind, in the mid-20th century the US was the only game in town. Europe was recovering from 2 world wars, made in Japan was synonymous for cheap junk, Korea had just emerged from a civil war, and China and India were mostly known for mass famines. If you wanted to play in the big leagues, you played in the US.
Try charging those kind of tax rates now, and see if you can count to 10 before a major amount of capital flees to friendlier shores.
Perhaps someone could explain what gets accomplished by capping salaries in the first place. I can tell you for sure, if the salary of the CEO at my company were capped, I wouldn't be a nickel richer for it. I don't see how anyone else gets richer, either. Assuming a company generates just as much revenue with or without the caps, where do you suppose the money not paid to the CEO will end up, anyway?
No, but while they can't be outsourced overseas, they can be purchased thru 3rd party services, and usually are. Meaning those positions usually aren't performed by workers on the company payroll, anyway. Which means they wouldn't affect the CEO's salary.
I submit that Gates did more good for the world amassing his fortune then he'll ever do giving it away. Love them or hate them, Microsoft revolutionized the tech industry. What have his philanthropic efforts amounted to?
The only one in that position is Germany, which is prospering as an export economy by maintaining the Euro to keep it's exports cheap enough for it's neighbors to buy. Unfortunately, maintaining the Euro is imposing it's own costs.
You might want to consider that in the 50s and 60s our government could get away with that because we really had no competition. Europe was still recovering from 2 world wars, India and China were mostly known for famines, and Made in Japan was a synonym for cheap junk. If you wanted to operate in a world-class industrial environment, the US was your only option. Try to tax someone at 90% today, and the smart money says they'll be moving themselves and their assents to a friendlier location, but fast.
And at the same time, it'll discourage some from starting up. The question is, on balance, will it encourage more than it will discourage? I think the jury is still out on that one, although I tend to think it'll favor discouragement. The cases where it would be an encouragement sound marginal at best.
I'm not sure that it's a hard and fast rule that more technology necessarily creates more jobs. We know that that has been true up to this point. However, a lot of those new jobs were for maintaining and supporting the new technologies. When your technology develops to the point where it supports and maintains itself, I'm not sure that will be true any longer.
For example, when I first started working in IT, at a medium sized mainframe installation you needed a staff of about a dozen operators per shift to perform manual tasks such as fetching tapes and running printers, and recovering and restarting failed jobs. Now that you have automated tape libraries, outputs are now directed to online archival systems, and you have software that can correct and restart failed jobs with little or no human intervention, most of those jobs are gone.
Also, robotics technologies are now becoming sophisticated enough to perform tasks such fruit picking and other manual labor which was previously impractical to automate.
So I think the question is still on the table. Is there an inflection point where technology will begin destroying jobs on net? I don't think we really know that yet.
Slashdot Mirror
Well then, how about this: he gets the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nobel Peace Prize, a Presidential pardon, a million dollars and a ticker tape parade... and then we draw and quarter him in Times Square.
has some salient things to say about this book.
This was definitely my first thought--a lot of value is in the IBM mark. If Lenovo can't brand the hardware and services and IBM, they're going to lose a lot of business relative to the value of the sold hardware and related services business prior to purchase. I would think a bunch of people would continue to use them for legacy equipment or when they want new hardware to function especially smoothly with legacy equipment, but for a lot of institutional clients, I think you just wouldn't consider Lenovo.
That may be true for American companies, but consider Chinese companies, who have no small concern about the US's spying activities. It's a lot more likely a Chinese company is going to be able to sell into the Chinese market than a US one would. Remember that after the Snowden revelations China cancelled a hefty number of orders for IBM equipment, sufficient to do some pretty substantial damage to IBM's revenues and stock price. I suspect Lenovo is going to be a lot more successful in China than IBM has any hope of being.
Presumably IBM will retain an interest in Lenovo's server business as part of the deal, the same as they did with their PC business, but will have no involvement in running the business.
Indeed. Only a mere twenty years ago, South Africa was a merely nuclear power with a space program, and now it's a....
Oh, never mind....
A man truly worthy of the title 'hero'. Rest in Peace. You achieved the goal to which you devoted your entire life.
He sure did.
In this week’s issue of Radish, the Carlyle Club tries to fathom the motives of an ethno-nationalist terrorist and political mass-murderer. And when we’re done talking about Nelson Mandela, we’ll discuss Anders Breivik.
http://radishmag.wordpress.com/2013/07/05/volume-3-issue-2-breiviks-norway/
By "money is left to its own," one of course means "the rich are left to their own" (being the ones with the most money, which controls how money is used to produce more money for the rich, etc.).
Why shouldn't the rich be left to their own?
"Capitalism" left to its own is an inevitable slide into oligarchy, with an oppressive tiny elite at the top.
Ok, name me a system that isn't an oligarchy with an oppressive tiny elite at the top. Government is always small group with power over a large group without power. Capitalism, at least, is something of a meritocracy, even if not perfect.
The "invisible hand of the free market" is not a beneficent God working for the good of all if only entrusted with our full hearts; it is the manipulating iron fist of whoever has the most money, squeezing the labor and life out of those with less.
I call bullshit. Show me anywhere in the capitalist western world where anyone is forced to labor. If you've taken a job, I suspect it's because you're better off taking it than not taking it. If you have a valuable skill to sell, then you have options. If you have a lack of options, that indicates you have a lack of valuable skills. Your failure to better your skills isn't the fault of the market economy.
Even if it ends badly, it'll still pay off in the acquired expertise. The first few attempts by Russia and the US didn't pan out so hot, either. It may be an expensive education, but it's an education nonetheless.
What you're ignoring is that with our for-profit health care, we also lead development of medical treatments, largely because of the profit incentive. See Nature, April 2007, Price controls seen as key to Europe's drug innovation lag
For those hoping that Europe might be redressing the imbalance in R&D innovation compared with the United States, two recent reports make gloomy reading. According to a competitiveness report published in November 2006 by the European Commission's high-level Pharmaceutical Forum, the US has established itself firmly as the key innovator in pharmaceuticals since 2000.
Also see the New York Times, Poor U.S. Scores in Health Care Don’t Measure Nobels and Innovation.
Advocates of national health insurance cite an apparently devastating fact: the United States spends more of its gross domestic product on medical care than any nation in the world, yet Americans do not live longer than Western Europeans or Japanese. More Americans lack insurance coverage as well. It is no wonder that so many people demand reform.
But the American health care system may be performing better than it seems at first glance. When it comes to medical innovation, the United States is the world leader. In the last 10 years, for instance, 12 Nobel Prizes in medicine have gone to American-born scientists working in the United States, 3 have gone to foreign-born scientists working in the United States, and just 7 have gone to researchers outside the country.
Half of the country believes Kennedy was assassinated as part of a conspiracy. The other half of us know it for sure, because we were in on it.
You aren't obliged to discuss anything with me. However, as to you're claim to being the arbiter of whether I'm welcome here, I'll point out I've been posting here since the inception of Slashdot, which I suspect is a damn sight longer than you have. And I don't recollect extending an invitation to you, either.
But the point of what "freedom" means in regard to transactions between humans and what "freedom" means in regard to transactions between corporations and humans, and corporations and other corporations is what's very hard to pin down.
What, effectively, is the difference? In each case, both parties have something of value the other one wants. In each case, they agree on terms under which the exchange takes place. That's just as true whether I'm dealing with an individual or a corporation.
For example, our "most free" economy here in the US occurred during a period about a half-century ago, and that happened to be the very height of the organized labor movement. It also happened to be the period during which the federal government was exercising some rather new and rather large influence over the actions of the marketplace. We see the beginnings of the regulatory regime we still live under today, for example.
Well, let's see here - about a half century ago, Europe was still recovering from the world wars, as was Japan, and China and India were producing nothing but famines. So what happened to the organized labor movements, such as in manufacturing? Automobiles and steel? Oops! As soon as the aforementioned countries were sufficiently able to compete with us, those industries fled offshore! Guess the labor movement sure showed 'em, ain't it?
Yet, the employers and corporations would say that this was an indication of decreasing freedom for them to treat employees as they damn well please.
They never had the freedom to treat them as they damn well please: at least since 1865, workers can quit whenever they damn well please. If the workers don't quit, I'd consider that a strong indication they're better off having the job than not having it.
Seriously, does anyone work at a job where they'd be better off not working? I sure wouldn't!
So a "free" market for one person might not be a "free" market for another.
Either party is free to walk away from a transaction where the terms are unacceptable. What you're arguing is not that the market is not free to all parties, your complaint is that in a free market you're not getting terms as good as you'd like. Boo hoo.
So, my notion is not that we just abandon the idea of a free market and embrace systems that grant the government more power, but rather that we should accept that "free markets" are an impossible state that cannot and do not exist in nature, and instead we should focus on agency for individuals rather than for "the market".
Rather a silly statement. Assume an anarchy where there's no regulation (i.e. the default state of nature). All transactions would by definition have to be free. As for agency, as I've already pointed out - everyone is free to walk away from a transaction where the terms are not acceptable. If you agree to the terms, I'd consider that evidence that you're still better off making the transaction than not making.
You might want to keep in mind, in the mid-20th century the US was the only game in town. Europe was recovering from 2 world wars, made in Japan was synonymous for cheap junk, Korea had just emerged from a civil war, and China and India were mostly known for mass famines. If you wanted to play in the big leagues, you played in the US.
Try charging those kind of tax rates now, and see if you can count to 10 before a major amount of capital flees to friendlier shores.
Perhaps someone could explain what gets accomplished by capping salaries in the first place. I can tell you for sure, if the salary of the CEO at my company were capped, I wouldn't be a nickel richer for it. I don't see how anyone else gets richer, either. Assuming a company generates just as much revenue with or without the caps, where do you suppose the money not paid to the CEO will end up, anyway?
No, but while they can't be outsourced overseas, they can be purchased thru 3rd party services, and usually are. Meaning those positions usually aren't performed by workers on the company payroll, anyway. Which means they wouldn't affect the CEO's salary.
I submit that Gates did more good for the world amassing his fortune then he'll ever do giving it away. Love them or hate them, Microsoft revolutionized the tech industry. What have his philanthropic efforts amounted to?
The only one in that position is Germany, which is prospering as an export economy by maintaining the Euro to keep it's exports cheap enough for it's neighbors to buy. Unfortunately, maintaining the Euro is imposing it's own costs.
You might want to consider that in the 50s and 60s our government could get away with that because we really had no competition. Europe was still recovering from 2 world wars, India and China were mostly known for famines, and Made in Japan was a synonym for cheap junk. If you wanted to operate in a world-class industrial environment, the US was your only option. Try to tax someone at 90% today, and the smart money says they'll be moving themselves and their assents to a friendlier location, but fast.
Ok treatment cost you nothing directly in your country. But how many new treatments get developed there?
This is what economists call an "opportunity cost".
And at the same time, it'll discourage some from starting up. The question is, on balance, will it encourage more than it will discourage? I think the jury is still out on that one, although I tend to think it'll favor discouragement. The cases where it would be an encouragement sound marginal at best.
Hence, I offer you the Dark Enlightenment.
I'm not sure that it's a hard and fast rule that more technology necessarily creates more jobs. We know that that has been true up to this point. However, a lot of those new jobs were for maintaining and supporting the new technologies. When your technology develops to the point where it supports and maintains itself, I'm not sure that will be true any longer.
For example, when I first started working in IT, at a medium sized mainframe installation you needed a staff of about a dozen operators per shift to perform manual tasks such as fetching tapes and running printers, and recovering and restarting failed jobs. Now that you have automated tape libraries, outputs are now directed to online archival systems, and you have software that can correct and restart failed jobs with little or no human intervention, most of those jobs are gone.
Also, robotics technologies are now becoming sophisticated enough to perform tasks such fruit picking and other manual labor which was previously impractical to automate.
So I think the question is still on the table. Is there an inflection point where technology will begin destroying jobs on net? I don't think we really know that yet.
No kidding. Liberia has bigger problem than college admissions.
Perhaps you can explain why Ethiopia, which has never experienced any colonization, is in even worse shape than any of the countries that did?
You do realise that there are more whites on food stamps than blacks, do you not?
No matter how many times that old canard is stated, it's still not true.