The thing is, arbitrage doesn't create liquidity, it simply capitalizes on the mistakes other people make.
Generally speaking arbitrage depends on the existence of liquidity (the ability to sell an asset without greatly moving the price) in order to work. It's impossible to capitalize on a "mis-priced" asset if there is no market for that asset. That doesn't mean however that arbitrage is without value. Price convergence is a common result of arbitrage and it tends to reduce price discrimination.
In a certain sense, all business is an exercise in statistical arbitrage - exploiting the difference in prices between two or more markets. You buy goods where they are cheap (possibly assembling them) and sell them where they are dear. Without the ability to exploit price spreads profit is impossible. If someone makes a "mistake" in pricing, we should expect someone to step in to take advantage of that mistake.
They technically have a right to control your license to read the ebook.
If you are going to be "technical" get it correct. No one has a right to control what we read. They may have a right to control whether an ebook is accessible on a particular reading device. Once I have access (regardless of the means) I have the legal ability to read the document. The license is a license to copy and/or access. It is NOT a license to read.
Remember ebooks are licenced, not owned.
If you are talking about the data in the book, the same is true for physical books. The only thing you actually own is the medium, not the copyrighted contents. Since they cannot be separated on a physical book, the first sale doctrine matters. Things get less clear once the data and the physical means for displaying it are separable.
Especially since you can usually re-download them if you lose it...
There is a great deal of software that IS a commodity from the perspective of the people who purchase/use software. Commodities are fungible which means there are easy substitutes available. The commodity is undifferentiated from the view of the person/entity who purchases or uses it. As an example, the software on my cell phone that allows me to make calls is from my perspective undifferentiated. I have 3 phones in my house, all from different manufacturers, and from my perspective there is no meaningful difference between them for purposes of calling. It is a commodity and I would not pay any of the makers a premium over any of the others for that feature. The code is undoubtedly different in many respects but as the actual user, I either can't tell or don't care about the differences. Products do not actually have to be identical to be a commodity or to be treated as one. Computers from Dell and HP are not identical but it is reasonable for consumers to treat them as commodities because either will serve my needs equally well.
There is plenty of software that is NOT a commodity but we shouldn't pretend for a moment that all software is differentiated. Much software is (by design) completely interchangeable for a given purpose. This does not mean it is less important or less worthy of respect. Gold is a commodity, but no one will argue it isn't valuable.
Operating in Detroit has its own problems. The weather is harsh. Crime is high. Most of the people with competence and ambition moved out when the jobs did.
Bullshit. The weather is fine unless you are a huge sissy and in case you didn't know, manufacturing occurs indoors. The workforce and engineering talent ALREADY lives here. Crime is not particularly high in most of Michigan. Since you are obviously ignorant about how things work in Detroit, most of the manufacturing does not take place in high crime areas. Very few companies actually make anything in Detroit proper - everyone moved out to the suburbs LONG ago. Oakland County (the one immediately to the north of Detroit proper) is one of the wealthiest counties in the entire country and one of only 10 or so with a AAA credit rating.
The dumbest comment though is the last one you made. No one with any competence in Detroit? Spoken like an ignorant jackass who doesn't actually know anything about Detroit or what goes on there. Michigan has the 4th highest amount of high tech employment of any major metro area in the US. The place is absolutely crawling with engineering talent. Might not be as glamorous as microchips and software but make no mistake that there are a LOT of very smart people in Michigan.
Good luck convincing the best and the brightest that they want to live in Detroit instead, despite a much cheaper cost of living.
To use your own logic, "you can convince them to move out there. It might cost you, but you can do it if it's important enough."
Detroit has a FAR worse reputation than it deserves. Michigan is actually an amazing place to live and much of the manufacturing doesn't actually take place in Detroit itself. The summers are beautiful and the winters have lots of activities for those not afraid to step outside, you are never more than about 80 miles from the coast of one of the Great Lakes, cost of living is reasonable, and believe it or not a lot of the best and brightest are ALREADY HERE. Michigan has the 4th highest amount of high tech employment in the US among major metro areas. You think those people are here against their will?
Are they kidding? Silicon Valley already doesn't do a lot of it's hardcore manufacturing. Neither does Detroit anymore.
Detroit doesn't do manufacturing? That would be news to those of us who live in Detroit. Despite all its problems, Detroit still is the beating heart of manufacturing in the US. EVERY automobile company has a presence in Detroit. Every major auto supplier has a presence in Detroit, many headquartered here. There is still heaping gobs of manufacturing jobs throughout Michigan even despite the recent problems. Major defense contractors like General Dynamics as well as lots of biomedical engineering goes on in Detroit. It's also one of the top 5 finance hubs in the US.
Silicon Valley won't be the Detroit of green cars because Detroit will be almost certainly be the Detroit of green cars. Little known fact: Detroit metro has the FOURTH highest amount of high tech employment in the US. Detroit already has huge expertise in building cars, existing infrastructure, tons of engineering talent, idle manufacturing capacity and a work force in need of employment. Michigan is investing huge into battery manufacturing. Silicon Valley will get involved to be sure - especially in the electronics that are going to be an ever more important part of the vehicles. Not to say things are roses in Michigan; they aren't but anyone who thinks Michigan is out of the manufacturing business doesn't understand manufacturing.
There's no good reason that the Valley can't be the R&D center for even conventional cars.
Sure there is. The engineering talent and the companies that need it already live elsewhere. Moving to Silicon Valley would require uprooting a lot of existing investments, people to relocate to a place with no particular advantages in technologies specific to automobiles besides electronics and software. There is auto R&D that occurs in California already but Silicon Valley isn't remotely the only place with engineering talent in the US. Could it happen? Sure. Likely? Very very doubtful.
An electric car would be no different from an iPod in this respect.
Right, because building iPods makes Apple/HP/etc perfectly suited to get into the auto manufacturing business. No difference whatsoever... [/sarcasm]
Forgive me for taking their estimate with a grain of salt, but something tells me 15 years is a long time to be out of the technology manufacturing business.
What makes you think the US is or will be out of the manufacturing technology business? China has decided to subsidize production of rare earth minerals to the rest of the world. They are available to be mined elsewhere and if China decides to stop selling them for whatever reason, other sources will appear. Quickly if there is sufficient need. China can huff and puff all they want but they can't afford a trade war with the US which is by a wide margin their largest trading partner and buyer of those products.
Actually they do have to buy US debt. China manages their currency and the only way to maintain their currency at a weak exchange rate to the dollar is to buy US Treasuries. China cannot stop buying dollars in the short term even if they want to.
Especially if commodities start trading in something other than US dollars.
Won't happen any time soon. The dollar is the world's de-facto reserve currency. Many commodities (including oil) trade in US dollars. This is not likely to change.
After all, why the hell would you support the dollar today? The interest rate sucks,
Which interest rate, out of curiosity, are you referring to? Currencies don't have interest rates. Treasury bills do, but yields on government debt are low everywhere except on governments in risk of default (like Greece). Furthermore, the coupon on US treasuries is almost always lower than for most other debt because it is considered safer than any other debt. US treasuries are backed by the ability of the US government (which has never defaulted) to raise taxes on the biggest single economy in the world. Nothing is perfectly safe but that's about as good as it gets.
the US government is spending more than ever before, and the US economy (which has been in the tank for a while now) continues to struggle.
It's a global recession. Every major economy is struggling, not just the US.
Plus add this to the fact that US banks have no idea who they have loaned money to -
I have no idea where you got this idea or what you are referring to. I'm pretty sure the US banks have a very good idea who they have loaned to. They have other problems but knowing who their debtors are is not one of them.
no, there are far wiser places to put your money today than US treasury notes. In fact, almost anywhere BUT US T-bills will get you a better return.
No one invests in T-bills to get a big return. The return on Tbills has been very low for most of the last century when compared with alternatives. Hell, the calculations for cost of investments is usually found starting with the so called risk-free rate (normally US Treasuries which are considered the world around to be the closest thing to a risk free investment) plus some additional interest to compensate for additional risk. The reason people buy them is because they are safe or because (like China) they are trying to manage their exchange rates. If you are looking for a big return, government debt is rarely the best option out there.
Considering that the US needs China to buy its public debt, more than China needs the US to buy its goods, there isn't much the US can do.
Nonsense. The Chinese government maintains what amounts to a peg to the dollar for their currency in order to make their exports cheaper. (Nominally it is to a basket of currency but really it's still a managed peg to the dollar) The only way to maintain such a peg is to buy treasury bonds. China can (and does) buy public debt elsewhere but they have elected to maintain a currency that is relatively cheap compared to the dollar to maintain exports to their largest trade partner (the US) and elsewhere. It has logic from the Chinese perspective but it isn't like they can suddenly dump all that currency or elect to stop buying it. China is trying to diversify their peg but there isn't a ready buyer for over $1 TRILLION US dollars. They've got no one to sell it to in the short term without trashing their economy in the process.
In 2009 China did almost $300 billion in trade with the US, including $220 billion in exports to the US. That's over $120 billion more than China exports to any other nation (I don't count Hong Kong since that's actually part of China now). You think China is easily going to replace the US in the near future as a buyer for all those exports? Who do you think is going to do it? In time China's domestic market should rival the US but that isn't going to happen for years - possibly decades. China needs the US and they know it.
Much of what they US currently buys in China can be produced elsewhere, albeit at non-trivial cost to move production. I know this first hand because I've had a job doing global sourcing. For most goods China is not the only option, though it is unlikely that much of the production currently in China will move elsewhere. China does not have a ready replacement for the US as an export market, nor do they have the option to stop buying US Treasuries in the short run.
Countries like Canada, Australia, and others that provide a lot of mineral and energy resources to China would have a lot more influence.
Canada isn't even in the top 10 trade partners with China and Australia is way down at number 7 (6 if you don't count Hong Kong). China does more business with the US (both import and export) than both of them combined. Further, Canada isn't in the top 10 for Chinese imports either. I think you greatly overestimate Canada's influence in China.
Remember that China does not produce sufficient mineral and energy resources, not to mention food, for its economy and to feed its population.
In a global economy the same can be said of almost any nation. Learn about comparative advantage and why it matters.
As a Canadian, I hope that our government demands guarantees that China not to restrict rare-earth shipments to Canada, or Canada will block all resource and food shipments to China.
I'm sure the Chinese are shaking in their boots...
Well, if we're picking nits, any depreciating asset IS tax deductible - over time.
True. It can reduce the tax bill but my point is that it is indirect. Saying that buying a computer is tax deductible is really oversimplifying things too far. The fact that something ultimately reduces profits and thus taxes is not by itself a sensible reason to buy the asset. Buying a $1000 asset merely to save at most $300 on the tax bill isn't good business.
While the useful life of the asset is generally used for internal accounting purposes, for tax purposes it's not always relevant. (For those following along at home, businesses track depreciation on their own books using generally accepted accounting principles, but deduct depreciation expenses on their tax returns based on current tax codes.)
The depreciation schedules for capital assets is often different for tax accounting versus accrual accounting but the principles are no different. Depreciation is over the useful life of the asset, no matter what depreciation schedule you use. The only difference is in what is considered the useful life. You can make a very reasonable argument that the useful life of a computer is 1 year or 3 years or 5 years or more. To be frank it's quite arbitrary.
In this decade alone, the Canada Revenue Agency has placed computer hardware in four different asset classes with 30%, 45%, 55%, and 100% depreciation rates.
I rest my case about the arbitrary nature of depreciation schedules.:-)
So, a computer is a 100% tax writeoff in year one, but still gets treated as a capital asset. I'd call that tax deductible.:)
If the full cost of the asset is realized within 1 year, that asset has been expensed. There are circumstances where that is allowed in the US as well. Your point is pretty much accurate though. Whatever tax benefit will be realized, will be seen that year.
Unless of course their company expanded their IT department to accommodate the plan and, of course, hired people who have experience doing such things.
Even then, except for rare circumstances, it's just not cost effective. Except for companies like HP which happen to be in the business of making computers, it is almost impossible for an in house IT staff to build and service large numbers of commodity PCs for less money than Dell, even taking into account Dell's profits.
Think of it this way. They ONLY reason for any company to outsource anything is because another company can do it cheaper and/or better. Dell, HP and the like have massive economies of scale in building PCs which any few companies and no government agencies can match. They make money because they have a genuine cost advantage.
Furthermore, the IT department in any company is a cost center. A necessary and important one, but it does not create a dime of revenue. It would take a fairly impressive return on investment for any sane CFO to green light building in house what probably can be bought more cheaply (not to mention quickly) from an outside vendor.
It is a legitimate expense to buy a computer; it's tax-deductible on corporate level
Disclosure: I'm a certified accountant. It is not true that buying a computer is tax deductible. A computer is normally a capital expense. It is purchased and then depreciated over the useful life of the asset to emulate "using up" the asset over time. While this does reduce profits to the corporation and thus normally reduces their tax bill, saying that a computer is tax deductible is not true for businesses of any size under normal circumstances.
Aside from that nit, I agree. Building your own machines on any significant scale is a most likely a very bad idea. High chance of serious problems and it's only cheaper if you don't factor in the time required by the staff to assemble the machines. Unless you work for HP, thinking that you can build 1000 computers cheaper than Dell is delusional. As an accountant, I'm quite sure it would be cheaper, even at $1000 a machine to buy the computers from Dell or another similar vendor than to have my staff build the machines in house.
The only way to (legally) distribute "profits" outside the company is through dividends.
Not even remotely true. Profits can be distributed many ways, not all of them direct. A stock buyback is a way to distribute (indirectly) profits by using the to prop up the share price, thereby allowing investors to sell their stock at a higher price. Companies can liquidate assets or spin off parts of the company and send the profits to the investors. Companies can purchase assets for individuals or corporations. Companies can give cash donations (both charitable and non-charitable) outside the company which are not dividends. A company can be sold in part or entirely and profits can be distributed in the sales.
you're trying to go 100% electric a bike is actually a much easier, more efficient way to do it than a car.
??? It's only more efficient under certain circumstances but being more efficient doesn't mean more practical. For instance I've worked as a contractor in the past. I couldn't get my gear and myself to the job site in a Prius much less an electric bike. I also live in an area that gets very cold in winter and receives significant rain and snow. I don't remotely relish the thought of trying to ride any sort of two wheel vehicle (no matter what the power source) in much of the weather where I live. I get the physics but there is more to why we drive cars than just maximizing MPG. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge supporter of energy efficient transportation - but it's just not that simple.
The majority of car trips are an easily-bikeable distance, and if electric bikes get people cycling, then great.
Yes, most trips are short but there are no trips I would take an electric bike on that I wouldn't just pedal myself. I very much enjoy cycling but the way our infrastructure has developed in the US, it isn't a practical form of transportation for most of my trips.
An electric car is still a car--an absurdly overweight waste of energy.
That depends entirely on the application you are using the car for. If you are talking about very short trips where you have to haul yourself and not much else, then a car is definitely pretty wasteful. Otherwise the picture isn't so clear for most people. Whether something is wasteful depends on both the circumstances and available alternatives.
If you want something that can really make a difference, get an electric bicycle: cheaper, cleaner, healthier, and ~1000 mpg equivalent.
That'll be loads of fun doing my 20 mile commute to work when the temperature is -10F.
Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. I saw them on television recently, discussing all the things they had in common.
How they are both fringe loonies that few people take very seriously? I've met Dennis Kucinich in person. Not a guy I'd vote for.
For example, both think the Federal Reserve (central bank) is a business monopoly that screws the customers by devaluing paper money...
A retarded notion. First off, only a tiny percentage of the money in the economy is actual paper/coin currency. We're talking single digit percentage. Second, the fed adjusts the amount of money in circulation both up and down to respond to the needs of the economy. Devaluing (usually called weakening) the currency is not necessarily bad because it makes exports more competitive. This is exactly what China has done with their currency - they hold it below its natural market value because it makes their exports cost less in other markets. Conversely, if you strengthen the dollar (take dollars out of circulation) you make imports cheaper but you hurt exports.
, and should be audited at least once per decade to find out where the money is being spent, and possibly dissolved.
While there are limits which are deserving of criticism, the Fed is regularly audited by the GAO. There are as we speak transparency laws and some (recently successful) lawsuits that should address some of these issues.
As for dissolving the Fed, you'll need to first address how you are going to resolve the issues that the Fed currently exists to handle including check clearing, being a lender of last resort, managing nation wide payment systems, balancing the interests of private for-profit banks with that of government, keeping reserve funds for the banking system, adjusting the money supply, providing liquidity to lending institutions, reducing the chance of and impact of bank runs, controlling systemic financial risk and more. While the Fed is hardly a perfect institution (far from it), it serves a number of vital purposes. I have yet to hear anyone who proposes eliminating the Federal Reserve System actually address in any detail a replacement system. Central banks exist for some very good reasons.
Yes the president can do this. He can order an immediate withdrawal of all troops. There are consequences to doing this, many of them seriously bad in the long run. Immediate withdrawal creates a chaotic power vaccum. It can be done but that doesn't make it a good idea. Bear in mind too that I'm someone who strongly opposed any involvement in our current ongoing conflicts.
End "Department of X". Dismiss and/or reassign every appointee, refuse to nominate any new candidates.
And aside from possibly pissing off a lot of voters and perhaps Congress and perhaps causing a lot of hardship depending on what is being eliminated, what will this ridiculous hypothetical accomplish? Sure, with some restrictions the president can reorganize the executive branch, but there needs to be a good reason. Every one of those departments was created for a reason and there are consequences to eliminating any of them. Might be a good idea in some cases but certainly not always.
3) Eliminate the Deficit. Veto, veto, veto. Line-item-veto, even.
The president doesn't have a line item veto. Furthermore, Congress can override a presidential veto.
Who would have the power to stop any of this?
Congress does and in many cases so does the Judiciary. Congress can pass laws without presidential approval provided enough of them vote together. Furthermore Congress does have the power to remove the president from office. The Judiciary has the power to stop the administration from doing things as well. There is a little thing you might have heard about in the first grade called "Checks and Balances". They work and we all benefit because they do.
A) New people are more likely to do as they're told.
Ha! Have you ever actually managed anyone? I have and what you just said is complete nonsense.
There's zero reason the Federal government needs to employ millions of people
Perhaps but the fact is that they do employ that many people and that isn't likely to change.
Congress has no Constitutional authority over how the executive branch is structured. E.g. 'czars'.
Congress has immense formal and informal power over how the executive branch is structured and how it operates. From the Constitution's Necessary and Proper Clause: "...make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." Congress has considerable power of oversight over the executive branch. Furthermore, Congress can pass laws to override executive branch decisions, expand or reduce the jurisdiction and regulatory authority of federal agencies, restrict or expand funding, and more.
So fire them. Hire someone that will do as you say.
Not always possible. Lots of federal employees are unionized. Lots more of them don't actually report to the president, even indirectly. Even those that do are much harder to hire/fire than you suppose and most really important jobs actually require Congressional approval. We limit the President's power for very good reasons and while this has some undesirable side effects, I'm not about to vote to give anyone unlimited power over staffing in the federal government.
CEO's do it in the real world every single day.
The president isn't a CEO and the two jobs bear little resemblance to one another. Seriously, the two jobs are nothing alike.
And if there are laws in your way, get those changed first.
Only Congress can change laws. The president can influence, suggest, cajole and threaten but it's up to Congress to actually change the laws.
Failing that, line-item-veto any spending for their salaries and wait for them to quit.
The President of the US does not have a line item veto. President Clinton briefly held that power but it was declared unconstitutional in 1998 for violating the Presentment Clause.
Failing even that, use your executive ability to set their schedules to nil, or require them to report to Alaska, etc.
Again, lots of people don't report to the president and his ability to hire/fire is far more limited than you seem to suppose. Even if he fires someone, many jobs require approval from Congress to fill and that is not something any president wants to try to get more than necessary. Sometimes the president does direct those who report to him to de-fund programs and use his executive authority to circumvent the law and the federal bureaucracy but the president is just one man and has some (thank $diety) severe limits on his power and is badly outnumbered.
It really isn't that hard.
Bullshit. If it was easy it would have already been done. People in power will use any powers they have. If it were so easy to fire people and otherwise shape the federal bureaucracy it would be done.
People made this same argument towards Ron Paul's campaign promises, and they failed to see the same simplicity of it.
No they didn't. The world is a more complex place than Ron Paul makes it out to be and most people dismissed his rhetoric as populist nonsense. Perhaps he appeals to you but most people think of him as a fringe weirdo, myself included.
The dot com bubble more or less correctly predicted the eventual value of ebay, amazon, and google.
This makes little sense. Their value is whatever people think it is at a given time. It's not hard to make an argument that each of those companies is overvalued even today. Amazon has a Price/Earnings ratio of around 63 which is an absolutely absurd valuation. Anyone who thinks that is a rational value for the stock is out of their mind. It's what people are willing to pay at this moment but don't for a moment think that sort of valuation is based on sober consideration of the future earnings prospects of the company.
a) no one had any idea who the winners would be
This is true of business in general. The only company from the original Dow Jones Industrial Average to still be in that index after 100+ years is GE but I guarantee you that no one knew that fact 100 year ago. No one EVER knows who the winners and losers will be - asset bubble or no.
b) the game was sort of a tournment for firms so there were going to be many losers and only a few winners, and
Over 90% of businesses fail within 2 years of startup. The dotcom bubble was not unique in this regard either. The only difference was the amount of money being thrown around was higher than normal. Everyone was playing a game of musical chairs betting that someone else would buy their overpriced stocks at an even higher price. Eventually the music stopped.
c) most of the dot com companies issued very small portions of the company.
Want to go do some actual research on that? It think you'll find for most companies the exact opposite was true. Some owners managed to hold on to a majority of the shares but that doesn't describe most. Even during the dotcom bubble, if you go looking for VC money, chances are you get scalped. You heard about the cases like Google where the owners managed to retain control but this did not and still does not describe most companies that seek equity investment.
I've been involved with this sort of fund raising personally. If you ask someone for a lot of money they are going to want a lot of say in what is done with that money.
In stock terms, the seller's asking price is the current price.
Not until it is matched with a buyer. I could ask a billion dollars for for a share of Microsoft but that doesn't make it worth that amount. Since we are so fond of car analogies here, just because Ford asks $30,000 for a car doesn't make that the actual price until I as the buyer accept that price.
Current price is something a bit like quantum mechanics. It's somewhat vague until you make an "observation" (or in this case a deal) and then it coalesces to a specific value for an instant but no longer. Until the seller accepts a buyers bid, the actual price is somewhere in the spread between the bid and the ask. The price that gets displayed is the last matched bid/ask but that isn't necessarily the price for the next buyer/seller pair.
Then we disagree. I think Win7 is fine but there is little/no reason for me to upgrade anytime soon. If it comes on a new machine that I need Windows on, I'd be fine with Win7 but that doesn't come close to being a reason to change my already working systems. I'd upgrade in a heartbeat if I saw any real advantage to me in doing so but so far there isn't one. Seems like most XP users have come to a similar conclusion.
1) Far more secure 2) Far more stable
You're going to have a hard time backing this up. XP is pretty darn stable and Win7 users have no lack of security problems compared with XP users. It's not as if we are hearing a mass sigh of relief from Win7 users that they no longer have security problems. Windows security issues run far deeper than that.
3) Doesn't seem to suffer from 'windows rot' like XP (where it gets slower and slower over time)
Since Win7 has only been out for just over 1 year, how could you possibly know this?
4) Better UI with more hot-keys and short-cuts, makes for more efficient usage
Better is pretty subjective so you'll need more than a blanket assertion that it is better. I've used every version of Windows since version 2 and Win7 is not enough improved over XP for me to justify any outlay of cash. The only people that make any significant use of hot-keys (aside from copy/past/etc) are geeks like those of us here.
5) Up to date technology support 6) PnP just works, better drivers, smoother hardward support (device stage) 7) Easier/better network management, especially wireless 8) Some great time-saving laptop-specific features turn things that were a pain in XP into a breeze
All my hardware works just fine under XP. All the hardware I am likely to buy anytime soon will work just fine under XP. Win7 provides me precisely zero additional benefit in this regard. I'm geeky enough that even the "pain" setup problems are not that big a deal and once they are set up I rarely have to deal with them again.
9) Can run the latest versions of Windows Live Essentials and the soon-to-be-released IE9, and the list of software that relies on Win7 features will keep growing
I don't use Windows Live Essentials nor do I know anyone personally who does. Obviously some people use it but this is again no reason to upgrade for most of us. I use Firefox or Safari for most of my browsing and really don't give a flying monkey's ass if IE9 will not run on my machine.
10) Smoother multi-tasking and UI due to refinements in the kernel and GUI subsystems 11) Real 64-bit support, vastly improved Media Center, vastly improved Media Player, "Play to" feature, easier sharing, etc.
All marginal improvements at best, most of which don't affect me at all. I don't have a 64 bit machine, I don't have any meaningful problems with the multitasking, and I don't run a Media Center. No value to me there. Furthermore Win7 requires significantly more hardware to provide what I already have with XP. Don't get me wrong, I'd upgrade in a heartbeat if it provided some real value but for most of us, Win7 is just a prettier and more resource hungry version of XP. The benefits do not justify getting rid of XP in favor of Win7.
12) Far less "naggy"... doesn't interrupt you, nag you, and bother you all the time.
Are you seriously claiming that Win7 is less naggy than XP? If so I want whatever you are smoking.
Then buy the OEM version, its only $109 for home premium.
Only $109? You have a funny notion of value. That's $109 more than I'm willing to spend on any version of Windows for my current XP running machines which are working-just-fine-thank-you-very-much. Why would I spend even half that much on an operating system that requires significantly more hardware for no actual features I need?
Even if I wanted Win7, the hardware in my current machines would be barely adequate. I've got 2GB of RAM on the machine I type this on which is typically more than adequate for my needs with XP but I'd run out of headroom fast on Win7 unless I severely restricted the enabled features. If I do that there really isn't much point in "upgrading" now is there?
Power supplies are not a full system failure, do tend to crap out, and are also easily replaced.
Problem with power supply failures is that they too often will take other components with them when they die. I have replaced power supplies on numerous machines where the power supply was the only problem. Easy fix but probably 1/3 of the time (my own anecdotal experience) the problem that took out the power supply took out some other components as well. Again, not necessarily permanently fatal but sometimes so expensive to fix a new machine is warranted.
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The thing is, arbitrage doesn't create liquidity, it simply capitalizes on the mistakes other people make.
Generally speaking arbitrage depends on the existence of liquidity (the ability to sell an asset without greatly moving the price) in order to work. It's impossible to capitalize on a "mis-priced" asset if there is no market for that asset. That doesn't mean however that arbitrage is without value. Price convergence is a common result of arbitrage and it tends to reduce price discrimination.
In a certain sense, all business is an exercise in statistical arbitrage - exploiting the difference in prices between two or more markets. You buy goods where they are cheap (possibly assembling them) and sell them where they are dear. Without the ability to exploit price spreads profit is impossible. If someone makes a "mistake" in pricing, we should expect someone to step in to take advantage of that mistake.
They technically have a right to control your license to read the ebook.
If you are going to be "technical" get it correct. No one has a right to control what we read. They may have a right to control whether an ebook is accessible on a particular reading device. Once I have access (regardless of the means) I have the legal ability to read the document. The license is a license to copy and/or access. It is NOT a license to read.
Remember ebooks are licenced, not owned.
If you are talking about the data in the book, the same is true for physical books. The only thing you actually own is the medium, not the copyrighted contents. Since they cannot be separated on a physical book, the first sale doctrine matters. Things get less clear once the data and the physical means for displaying it are separable.
Especially since you can usually re-download them if you lose it...
Only if the publisher is feeling magnanimous.
I have never seen a laptop with only one USB port.
Allow me to introduce you to the Macbook Air which had only one USB port on the original version.
Software is treated like a commodity...
There is a great deal of software that IS a commodity from the perspective of the people who purchase/use software. Commodities are fungible which means there are easy substitutes available. The commodity is undifferentiated from the view of the person/entity who purchases or uses it. As an example, the software on my cell phone that allows me to make calls is from my perspective undifferentiated. I have 3 phones in my house, all from different manufacturers, and from my perspective there is no meaningful difference between them for purposes of calling. It is a commodity and I would not pay any of the makers a premium over any of the others for that feature. The code is undoubtedly different in many respects but as the actual user, I either can't tell or don't care about the differences. Products do not actually have to be identical to be a commodity or to be treated as one. Computers from Dell and HP are not identical but it is reasonable for consumers to treat them as commodities because either will serve my needs equally well.
There is plenty of software that is NOT a commodity but we shouldn't pretend for a moment that all software is differentiated. Much software is (by design) completely interchangeable for a given purpose. This does not mean it is less important or less worthy of respect. Gold is a commodity, but no one will argue it isn't valuable.
Operating in Detroit has its own problems. The weather is harsh. Crime is high. Most of the people with competence and ambition moved out when the jobs did.
Bullshit. The weather is fine unless you are a huge sissy and in case you didn't know, manufacturing occurs indoors. The workforce and engineering talent ALREADY lives here. Crime is not particularly high in most of Michigan. Since you are obviously ignorant about how things work in Detroit, most of the manufacturing does not take place in high crime areas. Very few companies actually make anything in Detroit proper - everyone moved out to the suburbs LONG ago. Oakland County (the one immediately to the north of Detroit proper) is one of the wealthiest counties in the entire country and one of only 10 or so with a AAA credit rating.
The dumbest comment though is the last one you made. No one with any competence in Detroit? Spoken like an ignorant jackass who doesn't actually know anything about Detroit or what goes on there. Michigan has the 4th highest amount of high tech employment of any major metro area in the US. The place is absolutely crawling with engineering talent. Might not be as glamorous as microchips and software but make no mistake that there are a LOT of very smart people in Michigan.
Good luck convincing the best and the brightest that they want to live in Detroit instead, despite a much cheaper cost of living.
To use your own logic, "you can convince them to move out there. It might cost you, but you can do it if it's important enough."
Detroit has a FAR worse reputation than it deserves. Michigan is actually an amazing place to live and much of the manufacturing doesn't actually take place in Detroit itself. The summers are beautiful and the winters have lots of activities for those not afraid to step outside, you are never more than about 80 miles from the coast of one of the Great Lakes, cost of living is reasonable, and believe it or not a lot of the best and brightest are ALREADY HERE. Michigan has the 4th highest amount of high tech employment in the US among major metro areas. You think those people are here against their will?
Are they kidding? Silicon Valley already doesn't do a lot of it's hardcore manufacturing. Neither does Detroit anymore.
Detroit doesn't do manufacturing? That would be news to those of us who live in Detroit. Despite all its problems, Detroit still is the beating heart of manufacturing in the US. EVERY automobile company has a presence in Detroit. Every major auto supplier has a presence in Detroit, many headquartered here. There is still heaping gobs of manufacturing jobs throughout Michigan even despite the recent problems. Major defense contractors like General Dynamics as well as lots of biomedical engineering goes on in Detroit. It's also one of the top 5 finance hubs in the US.
Silicon Valley won't be the Detroit of green cars because Detroit will be almost certainly be the Detroit of green cars. Little known fact: Detroit metro has the FOURTH highest amount of high tech employment in the US. Detroit already has huge expertise in building cars, existing infrastructure, tons of engineering talent, idle manufacturing capacity and a work force in need of employment. Michigan is investing huge into battery manufacturing. Silicon Valley will get involved to be sure - especially in the electronics that are going to be an ever more important part of the vehicles. Not to say things are roses in Michigan; they aren't but anyone who thinks Michigan is out of the manufacturing business doesn't understand manufacturing.
There's no good reason that the Valley can't be the R&D center for even conventional cars.
Sure there is. The engineering talent and the companies that need it already live elsewhere. Moving to Silicon Valley would require uprooting a lot of existing investments, people to relocate to a place with no particular advantages in technologies specific to automobiles besides electronics and software. There is auto R&D that occurs in California already but Silicon Valley isn't remotely the only place with engineering talent in the US. Could it happen? Sure. Likely? Very very doubtful.
An electric car would be no different from an iPod in this respect.
Right, because building iPods makes Apple/HP/etc perfectly suited to get into the auto manufacturing business. No difference whatsoever... [/sarcasm]
Forgive me for taking their estimate with a grain of salt, but something tells me 15 years is a long time to be out of the technology manufacturing business.
What makes you think the US is or will be out of the manufacturing technology business? China has decided to subsidize production of rare earth minerals to the rest of the world. They are available to be mined elsewhere and if China decides to stop selling them for whatever reason, other sources will appear. Quickly if there is sufficient need. China can huff and puff all they want but they can't afford a trade war with the US which is by a wide margin their largest trading partner and buyer of those products.
China doesn't have to buy US debt.
Actually they do have to buy US debt. China manages their currency and the only way to maintain their currency at a weak exchange rate to the dollar is to buy US Treasuries. China cannot stop buying dollars in the short term even if they want to.
Especially if commodities start trading in something other than US dollars.
Won't happen any time soon. The dollar is the world's de-facto reserve currency. Many commodities (including oil) trade in US dollars. This is not likely to change.
After all, why the hell would you support the dollar today? The interest rate sucks,
Which interest rate, out of curiosity, are you referring to? Currencies don't have interest rates. Treasury bills do, but yields on government debt are low everywhere except on governments in risk of default (like Greece). Furthermore, the coupon on US treasuries is almost always lower than for most other debt because it is considered safer than any other debt. US treasuries are backed by the ability of the US government (which has never defaulted) to raise taxes on the biggest single economy in the world. Nothing is perfectly safe but that's about as good as it gets.
the US government is spending more than ever before, and the US economy (which has been in the tank for a while now) continues to struggle.
It's a global recession. Every major economy is struggling, not just the US.
Plus add this to the fact that US banks have no idea who they have loaned money to -
I have no idea where you got this idea or what you are referring to. I'm pretty sure the US banks have a very good idea who they have loaned to. They have other problems but knowing who their debtors are is not one of them.
no, there are far wiser places to put your money today than US treasury notes. In fact, almost anywhere BUT US T-bills will get you a better return.
No one invests in T-bills to get a big return. The return on Tbills has been very low for most of the last century when compared with alternatives. Hell, the calculations for cost of investments is usually found starting with the so called risk-free rate (normally US Treasuries which are considered the world around to be the closest thing to a risk free investment) plus some additional interest to compensate for additional risk. The reason people buy them is because they are safe or because (like China) they are trying to manage their exchange rates. If you are looking for a big return, government debt is rarely the best option out there.
Considering that the US needs China to buy its public debt, more than China needs the US to buy its goods, there isn't much the US can do.
Nonsense. The Chinese government maintains what amounts to a peg to the dollar for their currency in order to make their exports cheaper. (Nominally it is to a basket of currency but really it's still a managed peg to the dollar) The only way to maintain such a peg is to buy treasury bonds. China can (and does) buy public debt elsewhere but they have elected to maintain a currency that is relatively cheap compared to the dollar to maintain exports to their largest trade partner (the US) and elsewhere. It has logic from the Chinese perspective but it isn't like they can suddenly dump all that currency or elect to stop buying it. China is trying to diversify their peg but there isn't a ready buyer for over $1 TRILLION US dollars. They've got no one to sell it to in the short term without trashing their economy in the process.
In 2009 China did almost $300 billion in trade with the US, including $220 billion in exports to the US. That's over $120 billion more than China exports to any other nation (I don't count Hong Kong since that's actually part of China now). You think China is easily going to replace the US in the near future as a buyer for all those exports? Who do you think is going to do it? In time China's domestic market should rival the US but that isn't going to happen for years - possibly decades. China needs the US and they know it.
Much of what they US currently buys in China can be produced elsewhere, albeit at non-trivial cost to move production. I know this first hand because I've had a job doing global sourcing. For most goods China is not the only option, though it is unlikely that much of the production currently in China will move elsewhere. China does not have a ready replacement for the US as an export market, nor do they have the option to stop buying US Treasuries in the short run.
BTW for those who think the US doesn't produce anything anymore, bear in mind that the US manufacturing sector produced almost $2.7 trillion (versus the $220 billion imported from China). In 2008 US manufacturing output was greater than that of China, India and Brazil COMBINED despite manufacturing being a considerably smaller percentage of the overall US economy than for those countries.
Countries like Canada, Australia, and others that provide a lot of mineral and energy resources to China would have a lot more influence.
Canada isn't even in the top 10 trade partners with China and Australia is way down at number 7 (6 if you don't count Hong Kong). China does more business with the US (both import and export) than both of them combined. Further, Canada isn't in the top 10 for Chinese imports either. I think you greatly overestimate Canada's influence in China.
Remember that China does not produce sufficient mineral and energy resources, not to mention food, for its economy and to feed its population.
In a global economy the same can be said of almost any nation. Learn about comparative advantage and why it matters.
As a Canadian, I hope that our government demands guarantees that China not to restrict rare-earth shipments to Canada, or Canada will block all resource and food shipments to China.
I'm sure the Chinese are shaking in their boots...
Well, if we're picking nits, any depreciating asset IS tax deductible - over time.
True. It can reduce the tax bill but my point is that it is indirect. Saying that buying a computer is tax deductible is really oversimplifying things too far. The fact that something ultimately reduces profits and thus taxes is not by itself a sensible reason to buy the asset. Buying a $1000 asset merely to save at most $300 on the tax bill isn't good business.
While the useful life of the asset is generally used for internal accounting purposes, for tax purposes it's not always relevant. (For those following along at home, businesses track depreciation on their own books using generally accepted accounting principles, but deduct depreciation expenses on their tax returns based on current tax codes.)
The depreciation schedules for capital assets is often different for tax accounting versus accrual accounting but the principles are no different. Depreciation is over the useful life of the asset, no matter what depreciation schedule you use. The only difference is in what is considered the useful life. You can make a very reasonable argument that the useful life of a computer is 1 year or 3 years or 5 years or more. To be frank it's quite arbitrary.
In this decade alone, the Canada Revenue Agency has placed computer hardware in four different asset classes with 30%, 45%, 55%, and 100% depreciation rates.
I rest my case about the arbitrary nature of depreciation schedules. :-)
So, a computer is a 100% tax writeoff in year one, but still gets treated as a capital asset. I'd call that tax deductible. :)
If the full cost of the asset is realized within 1 year, that asset has been expensed. There are circumstances where that is allowed in the US as well. Your point is pretty much accurate though. Whatever tax benefit will be realized, will be seen that year.
Unless of course their company expanded their IT department to accommodate the plan and, of course, hired people who have experience doing such things.
Even then, except for rare circumstances, it's just not cost effective. Except for companies like HP which happen to be in the business of making computers, it is almost impossible for an in house IT staff to build and service large numbers of commodity PCs for less money than Dell, even taking into account Dell's profits.
Think of it this way. They ONLY reason for any company to outsource anything is because another company can do it cheaper and/or better. Dell, HP and the like have massive economies of scale in building PCs which any few companies and no government agencies can match. They make money because they have a genuine cost advantage.
Furthermore, the IT department in any company is a cost center. A necessary and important one, but it does not create a dime of revenue. It would take a fairly impressive return on investment for any sane CFO to green light building in house what probably can be bought more cheaply (not to mention quickly) from an outside vendor.
It is a legitimate expense to buy a computer; it's tax-deductible on corporate level
Disclosure: I'm a certified accountant. It is not true that buying a computer is tax deductible. A computer is normally a capital expense. It is purchased and then depreciated over the useful life of the asset to emulate "using up" the asset over time. While this does reduce profits to the corporation and thus normally reduces their tax bill, saying that a computer is tax deductible is not true for businesses of any size under normal circumstances.
Aside from that nit, I agree. Building your own machines on any significant scale is a most likely a very bad idea. High chance of serious problems and it's only cheaper if you don't factor in the time required by the staff to assemble the machines. Unless you work for HP, thinking that you can build 1000 computers cheaper than Dell is delusional. As an accountant, I'm quite sure it would be cheaper, even at $1000 a machine to buy the computers from Dell or another similar vendor than to have my staff build the machines in house.
The only way to (legally) distribute "profits" outside the company is through dividends.
Not even remotely true. Profits can be distributed many ways, not all of them direct. A stock buyback is a way to distribute (indirectly) profits by using the to prop up the share price, thereby allowing investors to sell their stock at a higher price. Companies can liquidate assets or spin off parts of the company and send the profits to the investors. Companies can purchase assets for individuals or corporations. Companies can give cash donations (both charitable and non-charitable) outside the company which are not dividends. A company can be sold in part or entirely and profits can be distributed in the sales.
you're trying to go 100% electric a bike is actually a much easier, more efficient way to do it than a car.
??? It's only more efficient under certain circumstances but being more efficient doesn't mean more practical. For instance I've worked as a contractor in the past. I couldn't get my gear and myself to the job site in a Prius much less an electric bike. I also live in an area that gets very cold in winter and receives significant rain and snow. I don't remotely relish the thought of trying to ride any sort of two wheel vehicle (no matter what the power source) in much of the weather where I live. I get the physics but there is more to why we drive cars than just maximizing MPG. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge supporter of energy efficient transportation - but it's just not that simple.
The majority of car trips are an easily-bikeable distance, and if electric bikes get people cycling, then great.
Yes, most trips are short but there are no trips I would take an electric bike on that I wouldn't just pedal myself. I very much enjoy cycling but the way our infrastructure has developed in the US, it isn't a practical form of transportation for most of my trips.
An electric car is still a car--an absurdly overweight waste of energy.
That depends entirely on the application you are using the car for. If you are talking about very short trips where you have to haul yourself and not much else, then a car is definitely pretty wasteful. Otherwise the picture isn't so clear for most people. Whether something is wasteful depends on both the circumstances and available alternatives.
If you want something that can really make a difference, get an electric bicycle: cheaper, cleaner, healthier, and ~1000 mpg equivalent.
That'll be loads of fun doing my 20 mile commute to work when the temperature is -10F.
Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. I saw them on television recently, discussing all the things they had in common.
How they are both fringe loonies that few people take very seriously? I've met Dennis Kucinich in person. Not a guy I'd vote for.
For example, both think the Federal Reserve (central bank) is a business monopoly that screws the customers by devaluing paper money...
A retarded notion. First off, only a tiny percentage of the money in the economy is actual paper/coin currency. We're talking single digit percentage. Second, the fed adjusts the amount of money in circulation both up and down to respond to the needs of the economy. Devaluing (usually called weakening) the currency is not necessarily bad because it makes exports more competitive. This is exactly what China has done with their currency - they hold it below its natural market value because it makes their exports cost less in other markets. Conversely, if you strengthen the dollar (take dollars out of circulation) you make imports cheaper but you hurt exports.
, and should be audited at least once per decade to find out where the money is being spent, and possibly dissolved.
While there are limits which are deserving of criticism, the Fed is regularly audited by the GAO. There are as we speak transparency laws and some (recently successful) lawsuits that should address some of these issues.
As for dissolving the Fed, you'll need to first address how you are going to resolve the issues that the Fed currently exists to handle including check clearing, being a lender of last resort, managing nation wide payment systems, balancing the interests of private for-profit banks with that of government, keeping reserve funds for the banking system, adjusting the money supply, providing liquidity to lending institutions, reducing the chance of and impact of bank runs, controlling systemic financial risk and more. While the Fed is hardly a perfect institution (far from it), it serves a number of vital purposes. I have yet to hear anyone who proposes eliminating the Federal Reserve System actually address in any detail a replacement system. Central banks exist for some very good reasons.
1) End the wars.
Yes the president can do this. He can order an immediate withdrawal of all troops. There are consequences to doing this, many of them seriously bad in the long run. Immediate withdrawal creates a chaotic power vaccum. It can be done but that doesn't make it a good idea. Bear in mind too that I'm someone who strongly opposed any involvement in our current ongoing conflicts.
End "Department of X". Dismiss and/or reassign every appointee, refuse to nominate any new candidates.
And aside from possibly pissing off a lot of voters and perhaps Congress and perhaps causing a lot of hardship depending on what is being eliminated, what will this ridiculous hypothetical accomplish? Sure, with some restrictions the president can reorganize the executive branch, but there needs to be a good reason. Every one of those departments was created for a reason and there are consequences to eliminating any of them. Might be a good idea in some cases but certainly not always.
3) Eliminate the Deficit. Veto, veto, veto. Line-item-veto, even.
The president doesn't have a line item veto. Furthermore, Congress can override a presidential veto.
Who would have the power to stop any of this?
Congress does and in many cases so does the Judiciary. Congress can pass laws without presidential approval provided enough of them vote together. Furthermore Congress does have the power to remove the president from office. The Judiciary has the power to stop the administration from doing things as well. There is a little thing you might have heard about in the first grade called "Checks and Balances". They work and we all benefit because they do.
A) New people are more likely to do as they're told.
Ha! Have you ever actually managed anyone? I have and what you just said is complete nonsense.
There's zero reason the Federal government needs to employ millions of people
Perhaps but the fact is that they do employ that many people and that isn't likely to change.
Congress has no Constitutional authority over how the executive branch is structured. E.g. 'czars'.
Congress has immense formal and informal power over how the executive branch is structured and how it operates. From the Constitution's Necessary and Proper Clause: "...make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." Congress has considerable power of oversight over the executive branch. Furthermore, Congress can pass laws to override executive branch decisions, expand or reduce the jurisdiction and regulatory authority of federal agencies, restrict or expand funding, and more.
So fire them. Hire someone that will do as you say.
Not always possible. Lots of federal employees are unionized. Lots more of them don't actually report to the president, even indirectly. Even those that do are much harder to hire/fire than you suppose and most really important jobs actually require Congressional approval. We limit the President's power for very good reasons and while this has some undesirable side effects, I'm not about to vote to give anyone unlimited power over staffing in the federal government.
CEO's do it in the real world every single day.
The president isn't a CEO and the two jobs bear little resemblance to one another. Seriously, the two jobs are nothing alike.
And if there are laws in your way, get those changed first.
Only Congress can change laws. The president can influence, suggest, cajole and threaten but it's up to Congress to actually change the laws.
Failing that, line-item-veto any spending for their salaries and wait for them to quit.
The President of the US does not have a line item veto. President Clinton briefly held that power but it was declared unconstitutional in 1998 for violating the Presentment Clause.
Failing even that, use your executive ability to set their schedules to nil, or require them to report to Alaska, etc.
Again, lots of people don't report to the president and his ability to hire/fire is far more limited than you seem to suppose. Even if he fires someone, many jobs require approval from Congress to fill and that is not something any president wants to try to get more than necessary. Sometimes the president does direct those who report to him to de-fund programs and use his executive authority to circumvent the law and the federal bureaucracy but the president is just one man and has some (thank $diety) severe limits on his power and is badly outnumbered.
It really isn't that hard.
Bullshit. If it was easy it would have already been done. People in power will use any powers they have. If it were so easy to fire people and otherwise shape the federal bureaucracy it would be done.
People made this same argument towards Ron Paul's campaign promises, and they failed to see the same simplicity of it.
No they didn't. The world is a more complex place than Ron Paul makes it out to be and most people dismissed his rhetoric as populist nonsense. Perhaps he appeals to you but most people think of him as a fringe weirdo, myself included.
The dot com bubble more or less correctly predicted the eventual value of ebay, amazon, and google.
This makes little sense. Their value is whatever people think it is at a given time. It's not hard to make an argument that each of those companies is overvalued even today. Amazon has a Price/Earnings ratio of around 63 which is an absolutely absurd valuation. Anyone who thinks that is a rational value for the stock is out of their mind. It's what people are willing to pay at this moment but don't for a moment think that sort of valuation is based on sober consideration of the future earnings prospects of the company.
a) no one had any idea who the winners would be
This is true of business in general. The only company from the original Dow Jones Industrial Average to still be in that index after 100+ years is GE but I guarantee you that no one knew that fact 100 year ago. No one EVER knows who the winners and losers will be - asset bubble or no.
b) the game was sort of a tournment for firms so there were going to be many losers and only a few winners, and
Over 90% of businesses fail within 2 years of startup. The dotcom bubble was not unique in this regard either. The only difference was the amount of money being thrown around was higher than normal. Everyone was playing a game of musical chairs betting that someone else would buy their overpriced stocks at an even higher price. Eventually the music stopped.
c) most of the dot com companies issued very small portions of the company.
Want to go do some actual research on that? It think you'll find for most companies the exact opposite was true. Some owners managed to hold on to a majority of the shares but that doesn't describe most. Even during the dotcom bubble, if you go looking for VC money, chances are you get scalped. You heard about the cases like Google where the owners managed to retain control but this did not and still does not describe most companies that seek equity investment.
I've been involved with this sort of fund raising personally. If you ask someone for a lot of money they are going to want a lot of say in what is done with that money.
In stock terms, the seller's asking price is the current price.
Not until it is matched with a buyer. I could ask a billion dollars for for a share of Microsoft but that doesn't make it worth that amount. Since we are so fond of car analogies here, just because Ford asks $30,000 for a car doesn't make that the actual price until I as the buyer accept that price.
Current price is something a bit like quantum mechanics. It's somewhat vague until you make an "observation" (or in this case a deal) and then it coalesces to a specific value for an instant but no longer. Until the seller accepts a buyers bid, the actual price is somewhere in the spread between the bid and the ask. The price that gets displayed is the last matched bid/ask but that isn't necessarily the price for the next buyer/seller pair.
Well, there are lots of reasons to upgrade, imho:
Then we disagree. I think Win7 is fine but there is little/no reason for me to upgrade anytime soon. If it comes on a new machine that I need Windows on, I'd be fine with Win7 but that doesn't come close to being a reason to change my already working systems. I'd upgrade in a heartbeat if I saw any real advantage to me in doing so but so far there isn't one. Seems like most XP users have come to a similar conclusion.
1) Far more secure 2) Far more stable
You're going to have a hard time backing this up. XP is pretty darn stable and Win7 users have no lack of security problems compared with XP users. It's not as if we are hearing a mass sigh of relief from Win7 users that they no longer have security problems. Windows security issues run far deeper than that.
3) Doesn't seem to suffer from 'windows rot' like XP (where it gets slower and slower over time)
Since Win7 has only been out for just over 1 year, how could you possibly know this?
4) Better UI with more hot-keys and short-cuts, makes for more efficient usage
Better is pretty subjective so you'll need more than a blanket assertion that it is better. I've used every version of Windows since version 2 and Win7 is not enough improved over XP for me to justify any outlay of cash. The only people that make any significant use of hot-keys (aside from copy/past/etc) are geeks like those of us here.
5) Up to date technology support 6) PnP just works, better drivers, smoother hardward support (device stage) 7) Easier/better network management, especially wireless 8) Some great time-saving laptop-specific features turn things that were a pain in XP into a breeze
All my hardware works just fine under XP. All the hardware I am likely to buy anytime soon will work just fine under XP. Win7 provides me precisely zero additional benefit in this regard. I'm geeky enough that even the "pain" setup problems are not that big a deal and once they are set up I rarely have to deal with them again.
9) Can run the latest versions of Windows Live Essentials and the soon-to-be-released IE9, and the list of software that relies on Win7 features will keep growing
I don't use Windows Live Essentials nor do I know anyone personally who does. Obviously some people use it but this is again no reason to upgrade for most of us. I use Firefox or Safari for most of my browsing and really don't give a flying monkey's ass if IE9 will not run on my machine.
10) Smoother multi-tasking and UI due to refinements in the kernel and GUI subsystems 11) Real 64-bit support, vastly improved Media Center, vastly improved Media Player, "Play to" feature, easier sharing, etc.
All marginal improvements at best, most of which don't affect me at all. I don't have a 64 bit machine, I don't have any meaningful problems with the multitasking, and I don't run a Media Center. No value to me there. Furthermore Win7 requires significantly more hardware to provide what I already have with XP. Don't get me wrong, I'd upgrade in a heartbeat if it provided some real value but for most of us, Win7 is just a prettier and more resource hungry version of XP. The benefits do not justify getting rid of XP in favor of Win7.
12) Far less "naggy"... doesn't interrupt you, nag you, and bother you all the time.
Are you seriously claiming that Win7 is less naggy than XP? If so I want whatever you are smoking.
Then buy the OEM version, its only $109 for home premium.
Only $109? You have a funny notion of value. That's $109 more than I'm willing to spend on any version of Windows for my current XP running machines which are working-just-fine-thank-you-very-much. Why would I spend even half that much on an operating system that requires significantly more hardware for no actual features I need?
Even if I wanted Win7, the hardware in my current machines would be barely adequate. I've got 2GB of RAM on the machine I type this on which is typically more than adequate for my needs with XP but I'd run out of headroom fast on Win7 unless I severely restricted the enabled features. If I do that there really isn't much point in "upgrading" now is there?
Power supplies are not a full system failure, do tend to crap out, and are also easily replaced.
Problem with power supply failures is that they too often will take other components with them when they die. I have replaced power supplies on numerous machines where the power supply was the only problem. Easy fix but probably 1/3 of the time (my own anecdotal experience) the problem that took out the power supply took out some other components as well. Again, not necessarily permanently fatal but sometimes so expensive to fix a new machine is warranted.