It seems like the owners of the patent are called "trolls" in this case because they don't manufacture anything; I didn't see anything from the news coverage about whether the patent itself is strong.
Furthermore, the patent itself has been upheld and Cisco has been found infringing. The only issue surrounds "inducement to infringe", meaning whether Cisco intended to get other people to infringe as well. That's a legalistic detail; even if the "trolls" lose the case on induced infringement, they still have a big verdict against Cisco for direct infringement, and that stands.
The point is that private investors would not have "gambled" with their money like this;
Which is why Lehman Brothers is still a successful private bank, yes??
Lehman Brothers failed for many reasons, but making obviously stupid investments in Greece or solar energy are not among those AFAIK.
And good thing too that Lehman Brothers failed. The concern is over all the other companies that got bailed out, and they got bailed out by politicians who use the same rhetoric that you do: they rail against big banks, they ask for more regulation, but when all is said and done, they end up shoving the money into the hands of banks.
is pretty much the economic program of 20th century German fascists.
Let's not build roads, because the Nazis did it, too. What a solid argument.
When something was tried in history and it failed miserably, that is indeed a pretty solid argument against doing it again.
However, this observation didn't actually form part of my argument; I just noted disapprovingly how your arguments and views illustrate how common fascist beliefs still are among Germans.
No, you merely believe it's the other way around. Fact is that if the German government tells these banks to invest somewhere, they will do it (at least up to a point), because it's in their own interest.
You have an agenda here, and it is not to have an interesting discussion or provide useful information, therefore I'm wasting my time. Good bye.
Of course I have an agenda, as do you. Neither of us is going to change each other's mind. It's still useful to see what kinds of arguments and data people bring to the table. Of course, you have nothing at all.
Having lived and worked in those countries, I beg to differ.
Neither government, subsidy, not monopoly affects the speed of a bus.
Physically, no. But it affects labor costs, schedules, stops, frequency, bus size, and use of technology, and those affect travel time in a big way.
A large number of small, privately operated buses responsive to actual customer demand gets people from source to destination a lot faster than the government run behemoths that you are so fond of.
The "credit" from KfW was the german part of the bailout money. They didn't speculate in Greece, they were simple the vehicle through which the german government sent its share.
A little thought on your part should show that that makes no sense, KfW holds more than half of Greek foreign debt; since Greece obviously didn't pay back much of its original debt, that must be mostly original debt, not bailout money. The next two biggest exposures are Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank, which you yourself point out is also effectively run by the German federal government.
is primarily used as a low-interest credit bank for government subsidized investment. For example, because the government wants to support renewable energy, you can get very cheap credits from KfW if you want to build solar panels on your roof.
I.e., they are lending money for purposes where any rational investor would say "Hell, no, too risky!" You know, like solar panels and the Greek government.
Also, KfW is not a bank in the normal sense of the word.
No, it's a "bank" in the sense that you would like all banks to be: fully under government control and supposedly promoting the well being of the German Volk by making loans that promote German interests abroad. That's a nice theory, except that you just don't seem to understand that, like politicians worldwide, German politicians are a mix of selfish, corrupt, and incompetent. So instead of a reasonable return on their loans and investments, Germans get to pay for a massive bailout. And that's going to happen again and again until you actually learn better and stop advocating crap like "banks should be under government control".
Unfortunately, the same stupidity is taking hold in the US; I just hope we can stop it before it gets as out of hand as it has in Europe. At least in the US, this is still confined to a few institutions like the Ex-Im
As far as the partially government-owned banks are concerned, they're not owned by the German government, but by regional governments. The national government is too much in bed with the major banks (Deutsche Bank, etc.) to run their own.
That's a red herring. The point is that private investors would not have "gambled" with their money like this; the massive and risky investments in Greece happened because politicians wanted them. And the more you put these banks under governmental control, the more of this is going to happen.
I usually exit these discussions when people begin to argue ad hominem. You have no idea what I like, because we haven't talked about it. Also, you're wrong.
An "ad hominem" would be to say "you're wrong because you are Tom V." I'm merely calling you names because of what you say.
I would also point out that your economic beliefs, namely that banks and corporations should be put under tight political control for the benefit of society, is pretty much the economic program of 20th century German fascists. I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.
It's not about the USA but a country where proper public transport is much needed, and these mini-bus taxis are filling in for the lack of it.
Proper public transport as in the UK? Germany? France? Don't make me laugh. Buses in Europe are cumbersome and slow, for the same reason they are in the US: they are government-granted, subsidized monopolies (although they are still better than trains and light rail).
Actually not. Some of them are partially government-owned. That's a difference.
It doesn't make a difference with regards to their motivations: they invested in Greece not because they are run by private, profit-hungry investors, they invested in Greece because politicians wanted them to.
The only way a private bank or investor is going to give money to the Greek government is if he is reasonably assured by EU and/or German politicians ahead of time that he will be bailed out if Greece defaults.
Which is basically what happened.
If politicians tell banks that (1) they should do something and (2) the government backs those loans, then obviously the cause of the problem is the politicians, not the banks; and if you give politicians more control over banking, they are going to do more of this, not less.
First of all, that's the "Corruption Perception Index"; that is, it is an index of how corrupt people believe their country to be, not how corrupt it actually is.
Second, "corruption" means different things, from illegal bribing of low-level bureaucrats, to legal lobbying, rent-seeking, and even academic-honors-in-return-for-favors for high-level politicians.
Nobody has any good objective data on how "corrupt" different countries are objectively by different measures. I suspect, there is little bribery, but a great deal of rent seeking in the UK.
Sure it's scandalous, but mostly because candidates with this many flaws are still running at all.
Ah, how quaint: another naive kid who thinks that if we just elect flawless candidates, our government will be functional and do good.
Access to information is the greatest threat to rule of crooks and despots, which is why it is frowned upon in so many closed counties.
The greatest threat to the rule of crooks and despots is for the people to refuse to be ruled and only accept minimal government. Once you transfer large amounts of power to government, crooks and despots invariably are attracted to you like lions to hamstrung gazelles (and after they are through with you, like flies to a rotting carcass).
I suggest visiting Kampala or some other city in a sub-Saharan country sometime
I don't know about Kampala, but in other cities in developing nations, I've found transportation to be cheap and easy to get.
to the extent where fights actually break out and the passenger is physically pulled this way and that,
Lucky, then, that Uber addresses that issue.
30 people jammed into an 8 person minibus
That's not the same crowd that rides Uber or taxis; and those people are happy that they get cheap transportation at all. If you regulate away their overcrowded minibus, they have a big problem.
.If licenses weren't numbered, the proliferation of taxis would render city streets unnavigable.
And lion and sheep would lie down together and it would rain frogs. You're the economic equivalent of a young earth creationist and flat earther in one, except unlike you, they aren't harming anyone.
You're assuming that blocking access is the goal. In fact, the primary goal is likely increased Internet monitoring and surveillance; expansion of police powers.
It's even harder to see why taxpayers should pay for the gambling debt of big banks.
Because the "big banks" you're talking about are primarily state-owned. So the tax payer is going to pay for them no matter what.
What rational reason would private banks or investors have to put their money at risk in this way? The only way a private bank or investor is going to give money to the Greek government is if he is reasonably assured by EU and/or German politicians ahead of time that he will be bailed out if Greece defaults.
The loans were given under austerity conditions, i.e. orders to cut this and that and that in social services.
The original loans weren't given on austerity conditions, they were given as a supposed investment in Greek infrastructure and growth, with the idea that when all that public spending stimulated the economy sufficiently, it would be easy to pay back. That's exactly the kind of program you like: massive spending on public infrastructure, on giving pensioners and jobless more work, on subsidizing housing, etc. And it failed miserably.
The next round of loans was given under austerity conditions. They paid for keeping the Greek government running, i.e., they still paid for keeping schools and public services going, while Greece was supposed to cut back its free-spending ways. That also failed.
No, I call that we let the banksters actually suffer the consequences of a high-risk investment going wrong
As far as loans from Germany were concerned, the primary "bankster" was the German government.
The solution is to let the fucking "too big to fail" banks fail. But if they threaten to take down the whole system, bankrupt them the way you would any other essential service: By nationalising them,
The majority of the loans were made by "banks" owned by the German government already:
Furthermore the smaller amount of private lending was likely largely in response to governmental political pressure or explicit or implicit loan guarantees by the German government and the EU ("the EU isn't going to let Greece default").
We've weakened our governments so much that banks and corporations interfere with politics (telling governments what to do) and they are using that ability not for the benefit of society, but for their own economic beenfit and the profit interests of their shareholders and investors.
It's bloody fools like you who are responsible for this nonsense: even in light of the fact that most of the bad loans were made by state-owned banks, you still call for more nationalization and call for enabling even more abuse of power by politicians.
Governments want these loans because they are tied to Greek orders from German companies. That means jobs and the appearance of economic growth (since the risk is never accounted for). Politicians, unions, and corporations all look like they are doing good.
all of that is the direct result of banks deciding to game the system, and the blame is entirely theirs
Blaming banks for this suggests that more bank regulation and supervision is the solution, when bank regulation and supervision by governments is actually the cause of this problem. If you give governments and politicians the ability to interfere in the market (tell banks and corporations what to do), they are going to use that ability not for the benefit of society, but for their own political benefit and the financial benefit of their political and financial backers.
The problem is that far from the socialism you put up as the strawman, the very real corporate and elite socialism is bleeding government accounts dry.
That is indeed the problem. And you demonstrate the root of the problem in the next sentence...
and yet for the schools and public services, we don't have money.
The loans to Greece were for "schools and public services". All this government spending is always justified as "public services", "education", "stimulus packages", "investments in society", etc., otherwise it wouldn't pass in a democracy. Necessarily, that spending goes through banks and corporations at some point (many of which are at least partially government run and/or owned); how else do you think "schools and public services" ultimately get created in a country with any kind of private sector? But, surprise, when you funnel massive amounts of public money through banks and corporations, there is massive rent-seeking and corruption.
Your kind of call for more funding "for the schools and public services" is what is at the root of the crony capitalism, corruption, and debt problems societies are experiencing. And every time things go wrong, you want to pour more gasoline on the fire. Heck, you just again called for another massive transfer of money from French and German tax payers to banks and corporations, because that's what Greek debt forgiveness amounts to.
Greece didn't. They suffer from the same problem that many people did when the housing bubble burst: They had been talked into spending a lot by banks offering cheap credits with promises of a glorious future. That and a considerable amount of corruption within the political elite.
Yes, they were talked into doing something stupid and they elected corrupt governments. And now they need to pay the price for their choices, because ultimately it was still their choice. It is hard to see why German or French pensioners should pay for the stupidity of Greek voters.
If, on the other hand, you are saying that the Greeks are too dumb to make those choices for themselves, why should Greece remain a democracy or an autonomous country at all?
But instead of speaking about abstract entities, how about we speak about people. All these countries, banks, economic systems and so on are not a purpose in themselves, aren't they? Let's speak about what from a humanity perspective we would rather see: A bank going bankrupt, or a country?
Yeah, let's speak about this from the "humanity perspective": Greek debt is largely other people's retirement funds. That is, people in places like France and Germany agreed to consume less right now so that the Greeks could build factories and roads and produce useful stuff when the French and German workers retire. However, instead of spending the money usefully, the Greeks pissed it away on who knows what. Greeks not repaying their debt means that people elsewhere have less to retire on. That's the "humanity perspective" you should be thinking about.
Greece could be the vacation and retirement location for Europe. Of course, that would mean changing things: become more friendly and open to foreigners and foreign investments, reduce regulation, change their society, and generally say goodbye to a lot of cherished traditions. Why aren't they doing that? Because their internal politics doesn't allow it, and they aren't badly enough off yet that they are willing to change. Eventually, it's going to happen, but it's going to take a while.
Governments generally can't "devalue" a currency much; its value is set by markets. (They can, of course, print massive amounts of new money and that results in nominal devaluation, but that's merely another form of taxation and renaming the currency.)
everyone in the country takes a pay cut, at least with respect to imports. but internal prices don't change (at least not immediately)
That may have been true in the 19th century. In the 21st century, with nimble supply chains and electronic pricing, "internal prices" adapt rapidly. That is, if I produce a jar of olives, I'm going to sell it abroad tomorrow if I get more money from it than from a local supermarket. It also doesn't matter much when a country produces so little internally.
That's wonderful reasoning, but it makes no sense. If there is free trade and currency convertibility, what difference does it make whether I get paid two hundred Euros or the equivalent two hundred million quatloos? What difference does it make to a Greek olive producer whether his jar of olives sells for two Euros in Germany or two million quatloos in Greece?
Germany got the debt out of reunification condoned, even by Greece.
Whether you condone debt isn't a question of fairness or equality, it's a question of whether a person or country can be expected to use it responsibly and pay it back. Germany had much lower debt (relative to GDP) to begin with, did implement austerity measures, did act fiscally responsibly, and is servicing its debt. Hence, the decision then and now to extend credit to Germany was and is correct. If you look at Greece then and now, letting it borrow more is irresponsible.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems like the owners of the patent are called "trolls" in this case because they don't manufacture anything; I didn't see anything from the news coverage about whether the patent itself is strong.
Furthermore, the patent itself has been upheld and Cisco has been found infringing. The only issue surrounds "inducement to infringe", meaning whether Cisco intended to get other people to infringe as well. That's a legalistic detail; even if the "trolls" lose the case on induced infringement, they still have a big verdict against Cisco for direct infringement, and that stands.
Lehman Brothers failed for many reasons, but making obviously stupid investments in Greece or solar energy are not among those AFAIK.
And good thing too that Lehman Brothers failed. The concern is over all the other companies that got bailed out, and they got bailed out by politicians who use the same rhetoric that you do: they rail against big banks, they ask for more regulation, but when all is said and done, they end up shoving the money into the hands of banks.
When something was tried in history and it failed miserably, that is indeed a pretty solid argument against doing it again.
However, this observation didn't actually form part of my argument; I just noted disapprovingly how your arguments and views illustrate how common fascist beliefs still are among Germans.
No, you merely believe it's the other way around. Fact is that if the German government tells these banks to invest somewhere, they will do it (at least up to a point), because it's in their own interest.
Of course I have an agenda, as do you. Neither of us is going to change each other's mind. It's still useful to see what kinds of arguments and data people bring to the table. Of course, you have nothing at all.
Ah, there's the problem: you simply don't know any better.
Having lived and worked in those countries, I beg to differ.
Physically, no. But it affects labor costs, schedules, stops, frequency, bus size, and use of technology, and those affect travel time in a big way.
A large number of small, privately operated buses responsive to actual customer demand gets people from source to destination a lot faster than the government run behemoths that you are so fond of.
A little thought on your part should show that that makes no sense, KfW holds more than half of Greek foreign debt; since Greece obviously didn't pay back much of its original debt, that must be mostly original debt, not bailout money. The next two biggest exposures are Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank, which you yourself point out is also effectively run by the German federal government.
I.e., they are lending money for purposes where any rational investor would say "Hell, no, too risky!" You know, like solar panels and the Greek government.
No, it's a "bank" in the sense that you would like all banks to be: fully under government control and supposedly promoting the well being of the German Volk by making loans that promote German interests abroad. That's a nice theory, except that you just don't seem to understand that, like politicians worldwide, German politicians are a mix of selfish, corrupt, and incompetent. So instead of a reasonable return on their loans and investments, Germans get to pay for a massive bailout. And that's going to happen again and again until you actually learn better and stop advocating crap like "banks should be under government control".
Unfortunately, the same stupidity is taking hold in the US; I just hope we can stop it before it gets as out of hand as it has in Europe. At least in the US, this is still confined to a few institutions like the Ex-Im
That's a red herring. The point is that private investors would not have "gambled" with their money like this; the massive and risky investments in Greece happened because politicians wanted them. And the more you put these banks under governmental control, the more of this is going to happen.
An "ad hominem" would be to say "you're wrong because you are Tom V." I'm merely calling you names because of what you say.
I would also point out that your economic beliefs, namely that banks and corporations should be put under tight political control for the benefit of society, is pretty much the economic program of 20th century German fascists. I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Proper public transport as in the UK? Germany? France? Don't make me laugh. Buses in Europe are cumbersome and slow, for the same reason they are in the US: they are government-granted, subsidized monopolies (although they are still better than trains and light rail).
It doesn't make a difference with regards to their motivations: they invested in Greece not because they are run by private, profit-hungry investors, they invested in Greece because politicians wanted them to.
If politicians tell banks that (1) they should do something and (2) the government backs those loans, then obviously the cause of the problem is the politicians, not the banks; and if you give politicians more control over banking, they are going to do more of this, not less.
First of all, that's the "Corruption Perception Index"; that is, it is an index of how corrupt people believe their country to be, not how corrupt it actually is.
Second, "corruption" means different things, from illegal bribing of low-level bureaucrats, to legal lobbying, rent-seeking, and even academic-honors-in-return-for-favors for high-level politicians.
Nobody has any good objective data on how "corrupt" different countries are objectively by different measures. I suspect, there is little bribery, but a great deal of rent seeking in the UK.
Ah, how quaint: another naive kid who thinks that if we just elect flawless candidates, our government will be functional and do good.
The greatest threat to the rule of crooks and despots is for the people to refuse to be ruled and only accept minimal government. Once you transfer large amounts of power to government, crooks and despots invariably are attracted to you like lions to hamstrung gazelles (and after they are through with you, like flies to a rotting carcass).
I don't know about Kampala, but in other cities in developing nations, I've found transportation to be cheap and easy to get.
to the extent where fights actually break out and the passenger is physically pulled this way and that,
Lucky, then, that Uber addresses that issue.
That's not the same crowd that rides Uber or taxis; and those people are happy that they get cheap transportation at all. If you regulate away their overcrowded minibus, they have a big problem.
And lion and sheep would lie down together and it would rain frogs. You're the economic equivalent of a young earth creationist and flat earther in one, except unlike you, they aren't harming anyone.
Fuck off, slaver.
You're assuming that blocking access is the goal. In fact, the primary goal is likely increased Internet monitoring and surveillance; expansion of police powers.
Because the "big banks" you're talking about are primarily state-owned. So the tax payer is going to pay for them no matter what.
What rational reason would private banks or investors have to put their money at risk in this way? The only way a private bank or investor is going to give money to the Greek government is if he is reasonably assured by EU and/or German politicians ahead of time that he will be bailed out if Greece defaults.
The original loans weren't given on austerity conditions, they were given as a supposed investment in Greek infrastructure and growth, with the idea that when all that public spending stimulated the economy sufficiently, it would be easy to pay back. That's exactly the kind of program you like: massive spending on public infrastructure, on giving pensioners and jobless more work, on subsidizing housing, etc. And it failed miserably.
The next round of loans was given under austerity conditions. They paid for keeping the Greek government running, i.e., they still paid for keeping schools and public services going, while Greece was supposed to cut back its free-spending ways. That also failed.
As far as loans from Germany were concerned, the primary "bankster" was the German government.
The majority of the loans were made by "banks" owned by the German government already:
http://www.reuters.com/article...
Furthermore the smaller amount of private lending was likely largely in response to governmental political pressure or explicit or implicit loan guarantees by the German government and the EU ("the EU isn't going to let Greece default").
It's bloody fools like you who are responsible for this nonsense: even in light of the fact that most of the bad loans were made by state-owned banks, you still call for more nationalization and call for enabling even more abuse of power by politicians.
You're missing another piece of the puzzle here. In fact, most of the Greek debt to German "banks" is to state owned banks (e.g., KfW), and the remaining banks are likely pressured by governments to make those risky loans (with the implicit or explicit promise of government loan guarantees).
Governments want these loans because they are tied to Greek orders from German companies. That means jobs and the appearance of economic growth (since the risk is never accounted for). Politicians, unions, and corporations all look like they are doing good.
Blaming banks for this suggests that more bank regulation and supervision is the solution, when bank regulation and supervision by governments is actually the cause of this problem. If you give governments and politicians the ability to interfere in the market (tell banks and corporations what to do), they are going to use that ability not for the benefit of society, but for their own political benefit and the financial benefit of their political and financial backers.
That is indeed the problem. And you demonstrate the root of the problem in the next sentence...
The loans to Greece were for "schools and public services". All this government spending is always justified as "public services", "education", "stimulus packages", "investments in society", etc., otherwise it wouldn't pass in a democracy. Necessarily, that spending goes through banks and corporations at some point (many of which are at least partially government run and/or owned); how else do you think "schools and public services" ultimately get created in a country with any kind of private sector? But, surprise, when you funnel massive amounts of public money through banks and corporations, there is massive rent-seeking and corruption.
Your kind of call for more funding "for the schools and public services" is what is at the root of the crony capitalism, corruption, and debt problems societies are experiencing. And every time things go wrong, you want to pour more gasoline on the fire. Heck, you just again called for another massive transfer of money from French and German tax payers to banks and corporations, because that's what Greek debt forgiveness amounts to.
Yes, they were talked into doing something stupid and they elected corrupt governments. And now they need to pay the price for their choices, because ultimately it was still their choice. It is hard to see why German or French pensioners should pay for the stupidity of Greek voters.
If, on the other hand, you are saying that the Greeks are too dumb to make those choices for themselves, why should Greece remain a democracy or an autonomous country at all?
Yeah, let's speak about this from the "humanity perspective": Greek debt is largely other people's retirement funds. That is, people in places like France and Germany agreed to consume less right now so that the Greeks could build factories and roads and produce useful stuff when the French and German workers retire. However, instead of spending the money usefully, the Greeks pissed it away on who knows what. Greeks not repaying their debt means that people elsewhere have less to retire on. That's the "humanity perspective" you should be thinking about.
Greece could be the vacation and retirement location for Europe. Of course, that would mean changing things: become more friendly and open to foreigners and foreign investments, reduce regulation, change their society, and generally say goodbye to a lot of cherished traditions. Why aren't they doing that? Because their internal politics doesn't allow it, and they aren't badly enough off yet that they are willing to change. Eventually, it's going to happen, but it's going to take a while.
Governments generally can't "devalue" a currency much; its value is set by markets. (They can, of course, print massive amounts of new money and that results in nominal devaluation, but that's merely another form of taxation and renaming the currency.)
That may have been true in the 19th century. In the 21st century, with nimble supply chains and electronic pricing, "internal prices" adapt rapidly. That is, if I produce a jar of olives, I'm going to sell it abroad tomorrow if I get more money from it than from a local supermarket. It also doesn't matter much when a country produces so little internally.
That's wonderful reasoning, but it makes no sense. If there is free trade and currency convertibility, what difference does it make whether I get paid two hundred Euros or the equivalent two hundred million quatloos? What difference does it make to a Greek olive producer whether his jar of olives sells for two Euros in Germany or two million quatloos in Greece?
Whether you condone debt isn't a question of fairness or equality, it's a question of whether a person or country can be expected to use it responsibly and pay it back. Germany had much lower debt (relative to GDP) to begin with, did implement austerity measures, did act fiscally responsibly, and is servicing its debt. Hence, the decision then and now to extend credit to Germany was and is correct. If you look at Greece then and now, letting it borrow more is irresponsible.