But many of those people also wrote anonymously/psuedonymously, as did other "fathers" of our country: Hamilton and Madison writing the Federalist Papers, Paine writing Common Sense, and many many newspaper editorials and assorted broadsides. Note that the Federalist Papers were written after the revolution, so the fear of being hanged was less.
The Declaration of Independence was more the exception than the rule.
Take it from me, they don't give you better service if you're wearing at tie. And I look exactly like Buzz.
I've had too many bad experiences there as well, although I have at most of these chains. One day I went shopping for a ginormous TV. I went to Best Buy first because I got a flier with the TV I wanted on sale. After 45 minutes without the salespeople and various managers not being able to ring it up with the discount, I walked out. I assume they would have sooner or later (or "when Dave gets back from lunch" as they said). but I was too annoyed at that point. Then I went to Circuit City where I argued with the salesperson over why I didn't want the super-duper rip-you-off additional warranty for $15/month (or whatever) until I couldn't take it and left. So I went to 6th Ave Electronics and found the TV. My wife wanted to know why it took me four hours and where was the free DVD player Best Buy was giving away?
From there on in it was the internet for everything. I know what I want, why should I deal with incompetent salespeople?
This lawsuit presupposes that the plaintiff believed that a Microsoft product would actually work as expected. To show that, plaintiff would have to have been living in a bubble for the past 20 years.
Typical US news is more focused on sensation, compared to the BBC. Compared to most of the UK tabloids, the US press is a model of probity.
OK, maybe that's a little bit unfair. The UK has more good national newspapers than we do, but if you're walking into the underground past the guy hawking the latest picture of some royal topless, you'd never know it.
Face it, every nationality loves their gossip, scandal and celebrity.
I agree that the state of journalism in the US (and everywhere else) is horrendous. Network anchors chosen for their hairstyle, dirty-fingered newshounds trying to set off the next big scandal to make a name for themselves, and the clock-punchers (the vast majority of journalists) content to reprint press releases from corporations and politicians. You have to find your credible source of news and know what it's good at. The Economist (an english "newspaper", really a weekly newsmagazine) I find to be especially clear-eyed, but leaning libertarian in its economics. You might find that annoying, but at least you know and can adjust for it. LeMonde is the same, but left-leaning (one of their sports headlines today: "La victoire des Red Sox, un bon présage pour Kerry?" you should be able to muddle out even without any French)--you might be able to run it through babelfish. BBC is excellent, but euro-centric and a bit skimpy.
Nice thing about the free market is that there are so many choices, and that we are free to choose.
Re:Hear, hear! Just as a case in point, this elect
on
Press freedom
·
· Score: 1
The major media in America is owned by about 5 corporations
There are lies, damn lies and Slashdot. Here is a list of the 50 largest communications companies, as of 2002. No matter how you whittle down the list of below corporations you're going to get quite a few more than five. Not to mention that all of these are larger than $1 BILLION in turnover per year so many of the smaller but influential players are not shown. I would guess that there are another fifty smaller but influential players below these.
Head to a newstand and look at how many magazines and newspapers there are. More than five. Turn on your TV and see how many newschannels there are. Turn on your radio, well you get the picture.
Company (2002 revenue, in billions) 1. Time Warner ($43.5) 2. Viacom ($19.6) 3. Walt Disney ($16.4) 4. Vivendi ($11.6) 5. Sony ($10.8) 6. Reed Elsevier ($8.1) 7. Bertelsmann ($7.9) 8. Thomson ($7.6) 9. Omnicom Group ($7.5) 10. Comcast ($7.4) 11. Hughes [DirecTV] ($7.2) 12. GE [NBC] ($7.1) 13. Gannett ($6.4) 14. Interpublic ($6.2) 15. Clear Channel ($6.1) 16. Fox ($6.1) 17. WPP ($5.9) 18. Reuters ($5.8) 19. Pearson ($5.5) 20. Cox ($5.5) 21. Tribune ($5.3) 22. Echostar ($4.8) 23. McGraw-Hill ($4.8) 24. Nintendo ($4.7) 25. Charter ($4.6) 26. SBC ($4.5) 27. Verizon ($4.3) 28. CSC Holdings [Cablevision] ($4.0) 29. EMI Group ($3.9) 30. VNU ($3.2) 31. Publicis ($3.1) 32. New York Times ($3.0) 33. Knight Ridder ($2.8) 34. Reader's Digest ($2.4) 35. BellSouth ($2.1) 36 Havas ($2.1) 37. Grupo Televisa ($2.1) 38. Liberty Media ($2.1) 39. Quintiles (2.0) 40 Washington Post ($2.0) 41. SEGA ($1.7) 42. EA ($1.7) 43. PRIMEDIA ($1.9) 44. MGM ($1.7) 45. USA Networks ($1.6) 46. Scholastic ($1.5) 47. EW Scripps ($1.5) 48. IMS Health ($1.4) 49. Belo ($1.4) 50. Earthlink ($1.4)
Re:Media self-censorship a function of consolidati
on
Press freedom
·
· Score: 1
The report said that US ranking was hurt by problems over secrecy of sources, problems in granting visas to journalists and the arrest of several journalists at anti-Bush rallies.
Given these reasons, draw your own conclusions. This is not a survey of media bias, but one of restrictions on journalists.
Personally, the first reason, secrecy of sources, is one I am not sympathetic to. If a journalist is participating in a crime (in this case outing a CIA operative) then they should be subject to the same laws as anyone else. The journalists were instrumental in committing the crime and the only witnesses to it. Freedom of the press means the freedom to print, not the sacrosanctness of journalists.
And yet information diversity has exploded since the advent of the corporation. Adam Smith codified the principle that a mass of selfish agents leads to more choice. Each may try to minimize competition, but none can.
There are absolutely no facts behind your implication that media conglomeration, such as it is, has reduced the range of news and opinion available. I read the New York Times, the WSJ and several news and opinion websites (my favorite is www.aldaily.com) daily and the Economist weekly. When the US is embroiled in something that might distort local journalist objectivity (like during the initial phas of the Iraq war) I read Le Monde and the Guardian online. The only thing limiting my ability to glean insight is that I can only understand a few languages, all of them European.
Twenty years ago I was stuck with the New York-centric media view of the world, both in print and on TV. Twenty years ago there were a handful of media conglomerates I could access, now there are dozens. Most of this subjective proliferation is due to my government stepping away from regulation (over the airwaves, cable and the internet).
I understand the appeal of your argument, it just doesn't seem to have any basis in fact.
You're right. I have two kids, old enough to play on their own in the house. I always know where they are from the noises they make, even when they are not speaking.
The thing that spooks my wife and me is when, all of a sudden, there is no noise. Look at that, all of a sudden I'm my parents ("stop with all that noise!" to "why is it so quiet up there? what are you kids doing?")
I wonder if they ran this experiment by gender. When I'm watching the guys on TV throw the ball between themselves and at the hoop I never seem to notice my wife walking into the room and talking at me.
Sort of like many contemporary artists who don't actually execute the work, their assistants do that. They just ideate. Warhol did this quite a bit, as have many others.
There are works in the Saatchi collection by Warhol that he probably never touched, except to sign.
In the context of domestic US policy, I can think of many violent political acts over the past few decades (riots, killings, vandalism, etc.) that have not resulted in the planned political change (meaning any change was a backlash, not an accomodation). OTOH, I can think of many non-violent protests that have changed policy (if large enough and/or extended enough.)
I am in the same place. Kerry for President, republicans for Congress. Gridlock '04!
Sadly, I think this may be one of those seismic shifts in party platforms that takes place every generation. It may be quite a few years before there is a true conservative party again. If I had to guess, it would be that the democrats are migrating there.
Institutional investors stayed out of the auction, hoping that the IPO would fail for "ideological" reasons
Greed is a fluid ideology. It may have caused institutional investors to malign the auction process before it started, but it would also cause them to bid if they thought they could make a quick buck.
As I mentioned earlier, there's always the chance that the stock will go down. I believe you may only be allowed to opt for this tax treatment when the options are granted (perhaps when they vest, not sure).
In your example, you owe the $100 in taxes, and then the stock declines to $0.50, so if you sell you only get $50. You now don't have enough to pay your taxes. I saw something like this happen, except it was on about a million shares, not 100. The unlucky option recipient was unable to pay the taxes and declared bankruptcy.
The downside is if you do as you described and then the shares fall below the exercise price. You end up paying taxes on value you did not receive. I saw this happen to many people. I also saw the value fall below the amount of tax owed, leaving at least one person I know unable to pay his taxes and declaring bankruptcy.
You can elect to pay taxes earlier than when the option is exercised. The tax you pay is on the difference between the strike price and the fair market value. The reason you would do this is
a) if you pay tax at exercise, you pay ordinary income rates (ie 35%+) on the gain at time of exercise;
b) if you elect to pay tax earlier you pay ordinary income on the difference at the time of election and capital gains (ie as low as 10%) on any further gain--if your company was about to go public and you envisioned a boundless future you might do this--in fact it was 'recommended' by many ibanks to employees of companies they were taking public. When the stock went down after the IPO, the option recipient was stuck with no money to pay the bill that came due April 15th. They were doubly screwed if their options continued to vest.
C'mon, don't leave us hanging. I've seen the above scenario (and much much worse ones) several times in the past five years and I've never seen anyone get out of the taxes except through declaring bankruptcy. Remember, these employees generally had few assets except for the stock options and no income except for their salary. There isn't a lot of room for clever strategies.
So, give us your wisdom on how these taxes could have been avoided.
I was wrong, it's not integration. Much worse: just plain stupidity.
Look at this link: Recission. The offerings weren't registered but they weren't exempt either. My guess is they assumed they were exempt so didn't register them (where were their lawyers?) Since they were stock option plans, I assume they allowed for non-qualified investors (that would be boilerplate)--they must have gone over the dollar threshold for exemption. I think that complete recission may be their only option here... or civil penalties. They might be able to work something out with the SEC, since it seems a victimless and technical mistake.
Slashdot Mirror
I have 10,000 monkeys with MFAs. They're working on a novel right now.
But many of those people also wrote anonymously/psuedonymously, as did other "fathers" of our country: Hamilton and Madison writing the Federalist Papers, Paine writing Common Sense, and many many newspaper editorials and assorted broadsides. Note that the Federalist Papers were written after the revolution, so the fear of being hanged was less.
The Declaration of Independence was more the exception than the rule.
The dollar has inherent worth. That worth is: you can pay your taxes with it. If there were no taxes the dollar would be questionable as a currency.
Take it from me, they don't give you better service if you're wearing at tie. And I look exactly like Buzz.
I've had too many bad experiences there as well, although I have at most of these chains. One day I went shopping for a ginormous TV. I went to Best Buy first because I got a flier with the TV I wanted on sale. After 45 minutes without the salespeople and various managers not being able to ring it up with the discount, I walked out. I assume they would have sooner or later (or "when Dave gets back from lunch" as they said). but I was too annoyed at that point. Then I went to Circuit City where I argued with the salesperson over why I didn't want the super-duper rip-you-off additional warranty for $15/month (or whatever) until I couldn't take it and left. So I went to 6th Ave Electronics and found the TV. My wife wanted to know why it took me four hours and where was the free DVD player Best Buy was giving away?
From there on in it was the internet for everything. I know what I want, why should I deal with incompetent salespeople?
This lawsuit presupposes that the plaintiff believed that a Microsoft product would actually work as expected. To show that, plaintiff would have to have been living in a bubble for the past 20 years.
Case dismissed.
Typical US news is more focused on sensation, compared to the BBC. Compared to most of the UK tabloids, the US press is a model of probity.
OK, maybe that's a little bit unfair. The UK has more good national newspapers than we do, but if you're walking into the underground past the guy hawking the latest picture of some royal topless, you'd never know it.
Face it, every nationality loves their gossip, scandal and celebrity.
I agree that the state of journalism in the US (and everywhere else) is horrendous. Network anchors chosen for their hairstyle, dirty-fingered newshounds trying to set off the next big scandal to make a name for themselves, and the clock-punchers (the vast majority of journalists) content to reprint press releases from corporations and politicians. You have to find your credible source of news and know what it's good at. The Economist (an english "newspaper", really a weekly newsmagazine) I find to be especially clear-eyed, but leaning libertarian in its economics. You might find that annoying, but at least you know and can adjust for it. LeMonde is the same, but left-leaning (one of their sports headlines today: "La victoire des Red Sox, un bon présage pour Kerry?" you should be able to muddle out even without any French)--you might be able to run it through babelfish. BBC is excellent, but euro-centric and a bit skimpy.
Nice thing about the free market is that there are so many choices, and that we are free to choose.
The major media in America is owned by about 5 corporations
There are lies, damn lies and Slashdot. Here is a list of the 50 largest communications companies, as of 2002. No matter how you whittle down the list of below corporations you're going to get quite a few more than five. Not to mention that all of these are larger than $1 BILLION in turnover per year so many of the smaller but influential players are not shown. I would guess that there are another fifty smaller but influential players below these.
Head to a newstand and look at how many magazines and newspapers there are. More than five. Turn on your TV and see how many newschannels there are. Turn on your radio, well you get the picture.
Company (2002 revenue, in billions)
1. Time Warner ($43.5)
2. Viacom ($19.6)
3. Walt Disney ($16.4)
4. Vivendi ($11.6)
5. Sony ($10.8)
6. Reed Elsevier ($8.1)
7. Bertelsmann ($7.9)
8. Thomson ($7.6)
9. Omnicom Group ($7.5)
10. Comcast ($7.4)
11. Hughes [DirecTV] ($7.2)
12. GE [NBC] ($7.1)
13. Gannett ($6.4)
14. Interpublic ($6.2)
15. Clear Channel ($6.1)
16. Fox ($6.1)
17. WPP ($5.9)
18. Reuters ($5.8)
19. Pearson ($5.5)
20. Cox ($5.5)
21. Tribune ($5.3)
22. Echostar ($4.8)
23. McGraw-Hill ($4.8)
24. Nintendo ($4.7)
25. Charter ($4.6)
26. SBC ($4.5)
27. Verizon ($4.3)
28. CSC Holdings [Cablevision] ($4.0)
29. EMI Group ($3.9)
30. VNU ($3.2)
31. Publicis ($3.1)
32. New York Times ($3.0)
33. Knight Ridder ($2.8)
34. Reader's Digest ($2.4)
35. BellSouth ($2.1)
36 Havas ($2.1)
37. Grupo Televisa ($2.1)
38. Liberty Media ($2.1)
39. Quintiles (2.0)
40 Washington Post ($2.0)
41. SEGA ($1.7)
42. EA ($1.7)
43. PRIMEDIA ($1.9)
44. MGM ($1.7)
45. USA Networks ($1.6)
46. Scholastic ($1.5)
47. EW Scripps ($1.5)
48. IMS Health ($1.4)
49. Belo ($1.4)
50. Earthlink ($1.4)
The report said that US ranking was hurt by problems over secrecy of sources, problems in granting visas to journalists and the arrest of several journalists at anti-Bush rallies.
Given these reasons, draw your own conclusions. This is not a survey of media bias, but one of restrictions on journalists.
Personally, the first reason, secrecy of sources, is one I am not sympathetic to. If a journalist is participating in a crime (in this case outing a CIA operative) then they should be subject to the same laws as anyone else. The journalists were instrumental in committing the crime and the only witnesses to it. Freedom of the press means the freedom to print, not the sacrosanctness of journalists.
My $0.02.
And yet information diversity has exploded since the advent of the corporation. Adam Smith codified the principle that a mass of selfish agents leads to more choice. Each may try to minimize competition, but none can.
There are absolutely no facts behind your implication that media conglomeration, such as it is, has reduced the range of news and opinion available. I read the New York Times, the WSJ and several news and opinion websites (my favorite is www.aldaily.com) daily and the Economist weekly. When the US is embroiled in something that might distort local journalist objectivity (like during the initial phas of the Iraq war) I read Le Monde and the Guardian online. The only thing limiting my ability to glean insight is that I can only understand a few languages, all of them European.
Twenty years ago I was stuck with the New York-centric media view of the world, both in print and on TV. Twenty years ago there were a handful of media conglomerates I could access, now there are dozens. Most of this subjective proliferation is due to my government stepping away from regulation (over the airwaves, cable and the internet).
I understand the appeal of your argument, it just doesn't seem to have any basis in fact.
You're right. I have two kids, old enough to play on their own in the house. I always know where they are from the noises they make, even when they are not speaking.
The thing that spooks my wife and me is when, all of a sudden, there is no noise. Look at that, all of a sudden I'm my parents ("stop with all that noise!" to "why is it so quiet up there? what are you kids doing?")
Everyone has their weaknesses.
Or, more aptly, Everyone has their gorillas.
I wonder if they ran this experiment by gender. When I'm watching the guys on TV throw the ball between themselves and at the hoop I never seem to notice my wife walking into the room and talking at me.
She, OTOH, notices everything. And remembers.
Sort of like many contemporary artists who don't actually execute the work, their assistants do that. They just ideate. Warhol did this quite a bit, as have many others.
There are works in the Saatchi collection by Warhol that he probably never touched, except to sign.
with the ELF and submarines and all. I move that slashdot only allow links to pages with pictures of cute girls.
Who's with me?
You speak much sense Pastry-Pudding.
Dear Sir,
Seeing as how you know how to take credit for the hard work of others, we would like to offer you a position in management.
Sincerely,
Google
_____________________
Everything's always been about money. There's just more money in it now.
Don't agree with this one.
In the context of domestic US policy, I can think of many violent political acts over the past few decades (riots, killings, vandalism, etc.) that have not resulted in the planned political change (meaning any change was a backlash, not an accomodation). OTOH, I can think of many non-violent protests that have changed policy (if large enough and/or extended enough.)
I am in the same place. Kerry for President, republicans for Congress. Gridlock '04!
Sadly, I think this may be one of those seismic shifts in party platforms that takes place every generation. It may be quite a few years before there is a true conservative party again. If I had to guess, it would be that the democrats are migrating there.
Institutional investors stayed out of the auction, hoping that the IPO would fail for "ideological" reasons
Greed is a fluid ideology. It may have caused institutional investors to malign the auction process before it started, but it would also cause them to bid if they thought they could make a quick buck.
Apres moi, le deluge.
As I mentioned earlier, there's always the chance that the stock will go down. I believe you may only be allowed to opt for this tax treatment when the options are granted (perhaps when they vest, not sure).
In your example, you owe the $100 in taxes, and then the stock declines to $0.50, so if you sell you only get $50. You now don't have enough to pay your taxes. I saw something like this happen, except it was on about a million shares, not 100. The unlucky option recipient was unable to pay the taxes and declared bankruptcy.
The downside is if you do as you described and then the shares fall below the exercise price. You end up paying taxes on value you did not receive. I saw this happen to many people. I also saw the value fall below the amount of tax owed, leaving at least one person I know unable to pay his taxes and declaring bankruptcy.
It's a little risky is my point.
You can elect to pay taxes earlier than when the option is exercised. The tax you pay is on the difference between the strike price and the fair market value. The reason you would do this is
a) if you pay tax at exercise, you pay ordinary income rates (ie 35%+) on the gain at time of exercise;
b) if you elect to pay tax earlier you pay ordinary income on the difference at the time of election and capital gains (ie as low as 10%) on any further gain--if your company was about to go public and you envisioned a boundless future you might do this--in fact it was 'recommended' by many ibanks to employees of companies they were taking public. When the stock went down after the IPO, the option recipient was stuck with no money to pay the bill that came due April 15th. They were doubly screwed if their options continued to vest.
C'mon, don't leave us hanging. I've seen the above scenario (and much much worse ones) several times in the past five years and I've never seen anyone get out of the taxes except through declaring bankruptcy. Remember, these employees generally had few assets except for the stock options and no income except for their salary. There isn't a lot of room for clever strategies.
So, give us your wisdom on how these taxes could have been avoided.
I was wrong, it's not integration. Much worse: just plain stupidity.
Look at this link: Recission. The offerings weren't registered but they weren't exempt either. My guess is they assumed they were exempt so didn't register them (where were their lawyers?) Since they were stock option plans, I assume they allowed for non-qualified investors (that would be boilerplate)--they must have gone over the dollar threshold for exemption. I think that complete recission may be their only option here... or civil penalties. They might be able to work something out with the SEC, since it seems a victimless and technical mistake.