What is an API? It's basically an agreement about the ordering and identification of arguments either in memory or in series of network messages. If the judge actually finds that the API itself is copyrightable, then any computer program that writes to a standard interface is completely screwed. Write your own SMTP client? Sorry, that interface is copyright. Your own web server? Ditto.
APIs are the most functional part of computer programming -- they tell you 'this is how you communicate between parts A and B.' Yet, copyright is intended to only protect expression, not 'how' you do anything -- that's the realm of patent law. And while Oracle has patent claims mixed in here, Oracle isn't claiming a patent on the Java API.
Absolutely. The US people, through their elected representatives, have decided what the tax code is. Along the way, there were horse-trade made: "Well, I don't want X taxed, and you don't want Y taxed, so let's tax neither," "We want to encourage people to do Z, so let's not tax it," etc. . . It is absolutely moral to pay exactly what the country has agreed is appropriate.
Now, it may be that there's a consensus on changing the law. If so, exercise that consensus and change the law. If your congressman stands in the way, you're in luck -- it's an election year.
There's no such a thing as "fair share." Your fair share is whatever the tax law says it is.
Apple employs thousands of people. Those people pay taxes on their paycheck, and Apple pays payroll taxes on those individuals. Apple pays property taxes. It collects and pays sales taxes. It generates revenue for the music industry, which pays taxes. It generates revenue for the movie industry, which pays taxes. It pays rent to hundreds of shopping centers where the Apple stores are located; they all pay taxes. It pays advertising agencies, who pay taxes. It pays for medical benefits for its employees, and those doctors pay taxes. Its cafeterias purchase millions of dollars worth of food every year. And, what's more, Apple makes products which make the lives of tens of millions of people better.
Here's what happens when you try to start imposing some sort of "You're an American Company; pay American taxes" argument: Apple re-incorporates off-shore; its US operations are shunted to a US subsidiary, who works under contract with the main off-shore company. In the end, it pays a lot less tax, but is now a Cayman Islands company.
There's a problem with your premise: speculators can NOT decide not to sell until they can "Get a certain percent profit." If they hold on to it for too long, then they will have 100 tanker trucks showing up at their front door. So, they eventually have to sell whether they get a profit or not.
Plus, consider that speculators aren't doing anything there that the original oil suppliers can't do. If it were possible to make money by refusing to sell a futures contract until the price went to a specific level, then the original oil producers (who the speculators bought from) could do exactly the same thing.
I did look at the report and at the chart and at the supposed analysis, which is in that second link. Please find where they included global oil production data or global supply data -- here's a clue: they didn't. All they did was try to find a correlation b/w US domestic oil production and US gas prices, controlled for inflation, but not controlling for any of the other dozen variables.
True, if there's only one seller. But, there's more than one seller. Think about it this way: If sellers actually had the ability to keep oil prices high and make big profits, then why do oil prices ever fall? If you were a seller, wouldn't you keep profits high?
That's silly. A global increase in oil production will lower prices globally (compared to what they would have been absent the increase), both for Chinese Consumers and US Consumers. Sure, it may mean more Chinese Road Trips. But, it will also mean more US Road Trips, among other things.
This is not responsible reporting. Anything that increases global supply will cause prices to fall, if you hold everything else constant (i.e. compared to where they would have been if you had not increased global supply). Domestic drilling is intended to increase global supply. The problems with the article were (1) it didn't look at global supply -- only domestic production, and (2) it didn't hold everything else constant.
In general, no. Those aren't assets that banks are allowed to count as "capital" on their books. They may make loans to people for oil and gas wells, but they do not invest in futures contracts on commodities.
As I posted elsewhere, please spell this out, because it just doesn't make sense. How do speculators increase the price of oil? What are the mechanics involved? Recall that every time a speculator bets that the price will rise by buying a futures contract, somebody else is betting that the price will fall, by selling a futures contract.
Yup. A lot of that is determined by government taxes on gasoline -- US taxes, by world standards, are quite low. Local factors certainly affect gas prices.
Please spell it out: what are the mechanics of speculation driving up gas prices?
Speculators buy and sell futures contracts. Every time they buy a contract, they are betting that the price of oil will go up. But, whenever they buy, somebody else is selling, betting exactly the opposite - that prices will go down. And, recall that speculators eventually have to sell those future contracts (or have 100 tanker trucks pull up to their homes.) When they do, the price will be determined by the actual facts on the group -- how much demand is there, and how much oil is being produced at the time.
This is the problem when journalists with political agendas pretend to be statisticians.
Oil is sold on a global market and goes to many different uses. You cannot look at one part of the supply and say "well, increasing this particular part of the supply didn't affect prices in this other particular market." There are too many other factors to consider: How much oil did other countries use? How much oil was diverted to purposes other than producing gasoline, such as plastics or heating oil? What happened to production in other areas? NONE of this is accounted for in this silly "analysis."
Most telling? The analysis excluded the oil shocks of the early 1970's. Why? That was the clearest time that domestic gas prices (and supply) are driven largely by the global oil market.
Yet, this analysis is being put into papers all across the US. For what purpose? Could it be to deflect criticism from the Presidents' drilling policies?
When an analysis concludes "therefore, the basic laws of economics don't apply," then just like one that says "therefore, the law of gravity doesn't apply," our first instinct should be to question the analysis, not the basic laws.
testament/testmnt/ Noun: A person's will, esp. the part relating to personal property.
Law has a bunch of these things that come from using both the Norman and Saxon words for the same thing. Other examples: "Good and Chattels," "aid and abet," etc.... Yes, the meanings aren't precisely the same, but it's silly to use two words when the same meaning can be conveyed by just one.
Wow. It's both Null *AND* Void?? I guess they really, really, really mean it.
Seriously, though, as a lawyer, I'm frustrated by this tendency to say everything twice "Will and Testament," "Cease and Desist," "says and declares," etc.... Say it once.
Employment is generally considered a 'trailing indicator' of an improving economy. Why? Hiring new employees costs money -- there's the time and expense of selecting the right candidate, screening them, making sure they have space to work, etc.... And then, there's the risk that you hire somebody who ends up being lousy. Plus, when the economy is still shaky (as it is now), you don't want to hire new people because you're worried that the economy will tank again and you won't have any work for them to do.
So, why would employers *ever* hire new people? Well, part of it is because you cannot continually drive your employees to work 60 hours per week, for many reasons that the article points out: you don't get as much out of them, they get burned out, etc.... Plus, at some point, it's impossible to stretch your current workforce any thinner. And, when you have an open position, now somebody from your competitor, whose tired of 60-hour weeks will apply. That competitor, to keep its employees from leaving (and for the other reasons), will have to reduce them back to a more sane work week, which means they'll hire people.
But, that process starts with trying to stretch more out of the people you already have. So, when you see companies starting to do that, it's a good sign that they'll soon start hiring.
Sure, it may be that every conceivable good idea is being worked on -- we've hit "peak drug development" and there's nothing worthwhile waiting to be discovered. And, based on that possibility, you don't worry about destroying the incentives for drug companies to do future work.
Of course, it may be that the opposite is true. And, if so, then destroying those incentives is really a bad idea.
Also, recognize that there would be spill-over effects in other industries: what would be the incentive effects on, say, medical devices? Or safer cars? Or iPads? Surely, when the government starts saying "Ok, you've had enough profit, thank you" to one industry, other industries need to ask if the government will do the same thing to them.
Your #2 is waaay off. Yes, the basic research is often academic, but doesn't cost more than a few hundred thousand dollars -- the institution then licenses the candidate to a commercial enterprise for a royalty (2% is typical). The company then embarks on a series of clinical trials which can easily cost $1B to get the drug to market, with big chunks of that money going to patients whose bodies are being used as test-tubes.
Now, for every successful drug candidate which makes it all the way through those rounds of clinical trials, there are maybe 20 which fizzle along the way, either because they're shown not to work or their side effects outweigh their benefits. The total cost of those trials may, conservatively, be another $5B (not $20B, because they don't go through all the trials). Again, a lot going to the patients whose bodies were used to test the unsuccessful drugs, with more going to their medical care if the candidate actually hurt them.
When was the last time you saw advertising for an anti-cancer drug? The advertising is for things that many people didn't know was a problem -- toenail fungus, restless leg syndrome or problems that they were embarrassed to see their doctors about (Viagra.)
So, schools do have the ability to regulate off-campus activity (even off-campus speech) if it could reasonably affect discipline or the learning environment in the school. If, for example, a student threatened another student in Facebook, the school could take action. Or, if a student posted material that was so outrageous that it would disrupt the school day, the school could take action, even before that disruption occurs.
Unfortunately, we're only getting one side here, but there's at least an allegation that the girl was bullying another student, and that might affect what happens at school. Does that justify forcing the girl to give up her passwords? I don't think so -- there ought to be other, less invasive, ways of getting the same info. But, it might justify suspending her for what she posted.
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Well, actually, I'm more wondering about the side of people USING the API. Oracle is suing google for implementing the API.
The API is only the interface. Why would it be copyright infringement to code to one side of the interface, but not to the other?
What is an API? It's basically an agreement about the ordering and identification of arguments either in memory or in series of network messages. If the judge actually finds that the API itself is copyrightable, then any computer program that writes to a standard interface is completely screwed. Write your own SMTP client? Sorry, that interface is copyright. Your own web server? Ditto.
APIs are the most functional part of computer programming -- they tell you 'this is how you communicate between parts A and B.' Yet, copyright is intended to only protect expression, not 'how' you do anything -- that's the realm of patent law. And while Oracle has patent claims mixed in here, Oracle isn't claiming a patent on the Java API.
Absolutely. The US people, through their elected representatives, have decided what the tax code is. Along the way, there were horse-trade made: "Well, I don't want X taxed, and you don't want Y taxed, so let's tax neither," "We want to encourage people to do Z, so let's not tax it," etc. . . It is absolutely moral to pay exactly what the country has agreed is appropriate.
Now, it may be that there's a consensus on changing the law. If so, exercise that consensus and change the law. If your congressman stands in the way, you're in luck -- it's an election year.
So, change the tax code, and watch what happens.
Nope. The could certainly hold board meetings elsewhere. And, anybody, foreign or domestic, can own US patents.
There's no such a thing as "fair share." Your fair share is whatever the tax law says it is.
Apple employs thousands of people. Those people pay taxes on their paycheck, and Apple pays payroll taxes on those individuals. Apple pays property taxes. It collects and pays sales taxes. It generates revenue for the music industry, which pays taxes. It generates revenue for the movie industry, which pays taxes. It pays rent to hundreds of shopping centers where the Apple stores are located; they all pay taxes. It pays advertising agencies, who pay taxes. It pays for medical benefits for its employees, and those doctors pay taxes. Its cafeterias purchase millions of dollars worth of food every year. And, what's more, Apple makes products which make the lives of tens of millions of people better.
Here's what happens when you try to start imposing some sort of "You're an American Company; pay American taxes" argument: Apple re-incorporates off-shore; its US operations are shunted to a US subsidiary, who works under contract with the main off-shore company. In the end, it pays a lot less tax, but is now a Cayman Islands company.
And pretty soon you're talking about real money. My kids are going to have to pay back $3.4M + interest for this study. Stupid.
There's a problem with your premise: speculators can NOT decide not to sell until they can "Get a certain percent profit." If they hold on to it for too long, then they will have 100 tanker trucks showing up at their front door. So, they eventually have to sell whether they get a profit or not.
Plus, consider that speculators aren't doing anything there that the original oil suppliers can't do. If it were possible to make money by refusing to sell a futures contract until the price went to a specific level, then the original oil producers (who the speculators bought from) could do exactly the same thing.
I did look at the report and at the chart and at the supposed analysis, which is in that second link. Please find where they included global oil production data or global supply data -- here's a clue: they didn't. All they did was try to find a correlation b/w US domestic oil production and US gas prices, controlled for inflation, but not controlling for any of the other dozen variables.
True, if there's only one seller. But, there's more than one seller. Think about it this way: If sellers actually had the ability to keep oil prices high and make big profits, then why do oil prices ever fall? If you were a seller, wouldn't you keep profits high?
That's silly. A global increase in oil production will lower prices globally (compared to what they would have been absent the increase), both for Chinese Consumers and US Consumers. Sure, it may mean more Chinese Road Trips. But, it will also mean more US Road Trips, among other things.
This is not responsible reporting. Anything that increases global supply will cause prices to fall, if you hold everything else constant (i.e. compared to where they would have been if you had not increased global supply). Domestic drilling is intended to increase global supply. The problems with the article were (1) it didn't look at global supply -- only domestic production, and (2) it didn't hold everything else constant.
In general, no. Those aren't assets that banks are allowed to count as "capital" on their books. They may make loans to people for oil and gas wells, but they do not invest in futures contracts on commodities.
As I posted elsewhere, please spell this out, because it just doesn't make sense. How do speculators increase the price of oil? What are the mechanics involved? Recall that every time a speculator bets that the price will rise by buying a futures contract, somebody else is betting that the price will fall, by selling a futures contract.
Yup. A lot of that is determined by government taxes on gasoline -- US taxes, by world standards, are quite low. Local factors certainly affect gas prices.
Please spell it out: what are the mechanics of speculation driving up gas prices?
Speculators buy and sell futures contracts. Every time they buy a contract, they are betting that the price of oil will go up. But, whenever they buy, somebody else is selling, betting exactly the opposite - that prices will go down. And, recall that speculators eventually have to sell those future contracts (or have 100 tanker trucks pull up to their homes.) When they do, the price will be determined by the actual facts on the group -- how much demand is there, and how much oil is being produced at the time.
This is the problem when journalists with political agendas pretend to be statisticians. Oil is sold on a global market and goes to many different uses. You cannot look at one part of the supply and say "well, increasing this particular part of the supply didn't affect prices in this other particular market." There are too many other factors to consider: How much oil did other countries use? How much oil was diverted to purposes other than producing gasoline, such as plastics or heating oil? What happened to production in other areas? NONE of this is accounted for in this silly "analysis." Most telling? The analysis excluded the oil shocks of the early 1970's. Why? That was the clearest time that domestic gas prices (and supply) are driven largely by the global oil market. Yet, this analysis is being put into papers all across the US. For what purpose? Could it be to deflect criticism from the Presidents' drilling policies? When an analysis concludes "therefore, the basic laws of economics don't apply," then just like one that says "therefore, the law of gravity doesn't apply," our first instinct should be to question the analysis, not the basic laws.
desist/disist/ Verb: Cease; abstain.
testament/testmnt/ Noun: A person's will, esp. the part relating to personal property.
Law has a bunch of these things that come from using both the Norman and Saxon words for the same thing. Other examples: "Good and Chattels," "aid and abet," etc.... Yes, the meanings aren't precisely the same, but it's silly to use two words when the same meaning can be conveyed by just one.
Are you SURE you're an anonymous coward. :)
Wow. It's both Null *AND* Void?? I guess they really, really, really mean it.
Seriously, though, as a lawyer, I'm frustrated by this tendency to say everything twice "Will and Testament," "Cease and Desist," "says and declares," etc.... Say it once.
Employment is generally considered a 'trailing indicator' of an improving economy. Why? Hiring new employees costs money -- there's the time and expense of selecting the right candidate, screening them, making sure they have space to work, etc.... And then, there's the risk that you hire somebody who ends up being lousy. Plus, when the economy is still shaky (as it is now), you don't want to hire new people because you're worried that the economy will tank again and you won't have any work for them to do.
So, why would employers *ever* hire new people? Well, part of it is because you cannot continually drive your employees to work 60 hours per week, for many reasons that the article points out: you don't get as much out of them, they get burned out, etc.... Plus, at some point, it's impossible to stretch your current workforce any thinner. And, when you have an open position, now somebody from your competitor, whose tired of 60-hour weeks will apply. That competitor, to keep its employees from leaving (and for the other reasons), will have to reduce them back to a more sane work week, which means they'll hire people.
But, that process starts with trying to stretch more out of the people you already have. So, when you see companies starting to do that, it's a good sign that they'll soon start hiring.
Sure, it may be that every conceivable good idea is being worked on -- we've hit "peak drug development" and there's nothing worthwhile waiting to be discovered. And, based on that possibility, you don't worry about destroying the incentives for drug companies to do future work. Of course, it may be that the opposite is true. And, if so, then destroying those incentives is really a bad idea. Also, recognize that there would be spill-over effects in other industries: what would be the incentive effects on, say, medical devices? Or safer cars? Or iPads? Surely, when the government starts saying "Ok, you've had enough profit, thank you" to one industry, other industries need to ask if the government will do the same thing to them.
Your #2 is waaay off. Yes, the basic research is often academic, but doesn't cost more than a few hundred thousand dollars -- the institution then licenses the candidate to a commercial enterprise for a royalty (2% is typical). The company then embarks on a series of clinical trials which can easily cost $1B to get the drug to market, with big chunks of that money going to patients whose bodies are being used as test-tubes.
Now, for every successful drug candidate which makes it all the way through those rounds of clinical trials, there are maybe 20 which fizzle along the way, either because they're shown not to work or their side effects outweigh their benefits. The total cost of those trials may, conservatively, be another $5B (not $20B, because they don't go through all the trials). Again, a lot going to the patients whose bodies were used to test the unsuccessful drugs, with more going to their medical care if the candidate actually hurt them.
When was the last time you saw advertising for an anti-cancer drug? The advertising is for things that many people didn't know was a problem -- toenail fungus, restless leg syndrome or problems that they were embarrassed to see their doctors about (Viagra.)
So, schools do have the ability to regulate off-campus activity (even off-campus speech) if it could reasonably affect discipline or the learning environment in the school. If, for example, a student threatened another student in Facebook, the school could take action. Or, if a student posted material that was so outrageous that it would disrupt the school day, the school could take action, even before that disruption occurs.
Unfortunately, we're only getting one side here, but there's at least an allegation that the girl was bullying another student, and that might affect what happens at school. Does that justify forcing the girl to give up her passwords? I don't think so -- there ought to be other, less invasive, ways of getting the same info. But, it might justify suspending her for what she posted.