From blenders to refrigerators to Nuclear power plants. Sounds like something was put on a back burner for a while. Just a little difference from an electric motor to nuclear reactors!
GE has been doing that for decades - add in locomotives; lightbulbs, and plastics as well.
Rummy came in with ideas about making the Army more 'joint' and 'deployable' and got rid of his crony Army Secretary for just that reason: he wasn't working hard enough on those things.
The guy wants to transform the Army more than anything else, and when you evaluate his activities 100% through an Iraq lens, you aren't getting the whole picture.
True - the move to BCD and Stryker is to be a more deployable force; White's support of the Palladin (which doesn't fit into the BCD concept) was part of why he was fired; but Shinseki was fully supportive of transformation and the BCD but differed on IRAQ and was marginalized. Transformation will always be an uphill battle - many in the Army aren't convinced that it needs to happen in the way Rummy wants. Of course, he is fast becoming a lame duck so you'll probably see even more foot dragging and resistance.
Is he right? To some degree yes - the near term future conflicts probably won't involve mass tank battles and traditional combat; but as China develops a blue water Navy and flexes its muscles we're likely to see a return to the Cold War concept of power.
The bottom line is Iraq is taking a toll on transforming the force; in people, material, and time.
Possibly, but not every 06 gets their star and it's pretty clear real quickly if you will or will not. Most are neither bitter nor disgruntled - they've had fine careers; reached a level above the "done a good job" retiremnet point (i.e. LT Col or 05); and really acre about the Army (as an instituion) and it's Soldiers.
The telling point was how White and Shinseki were brushed aside because they didn't toe the line and had teh balls to say what they thought it would take to invade and occupy Iraq (every time I heard Rumsfeld talk about how several hundered thosuand was 200k not 300k it reminded me of Clinton's "that depends on what your definition of is is" defence.); it was equally telling how the Army had to go to a retired General to get a new Chief of Staff - a job that any GO would give their right nut or ovary for and the Vice Chief turns them down and umor had it so did several other GOs.
My relatively old camera has exposure bracketing, which has proved useful a few times for me. But focus bracketing would save MANY more of my photos. I'm imagining that the camera would take a photo at whatever the current focus system does, then focus out a bit, and focus in a bit (Ok, I don't know the terminology). It's far too often that my particular camera doesn't quite focus right. Either I aim it wrong, or the lighting throws it off, or maybe in hindsight, I just wish that I had focused on something else. Plus, editing the photos later would be much more interesting.
I call that depth of frield, achieved by changing the f-stop.
Finally, people who want to put their creations "conditionally" into the public domain (eg - GPL) should be protected. Although they aren't motivated by money, to see somebody else get rich by using your work (outside the rules) is a different kettle of fish.
Why? The original creator hasn't lost anything - their work is still avaiable via the GPL and it doesn't cost them anything if someone else does something with it.
Just send the reply envelope back empty - they still pay postage plus a service fee. If enough people sent every reply envelpe back the whole system would fall apart.
So, instead of just the store lying, Levis creates meaningless distinctions bettween two otherwise identical products, to allow the stores accomplish the same thing.
It's called segmenting a market; and there may or may not be any differences - sometimes a product will have higher tolerances for faults in stitching, sizing, color, etc to keep the cost down and support a lower price. Sometimes they create different brand names to differentiate the products in the market, sometimes they cripple a feature; others they just give it a different model number but the end goal is the same - sell as much as possible into different markets at the maximum price each consumer is willing to pay.
You're assuming that those are the same product - Levi (and other manufacturers)routinely SKU things differently so they are not the same product
Levi's 501s haven't changed in the past 100 years or so. If the only thing different is a single number on them, it's still a fraud.
Fraud? Hardly - they're simply selling into different market segments at prices the consumer is willing to pay. Nothing new or fraudulent there.They may be the exact same jeans, but they're priced and packaged differently based on the market they target.
Sometimes manufacturers have different model numbers to prevent price competition as well - Store A nd B may offer to match prices; but A has a model 400K TV and store B a model 400H - so they are not the same model. Of course, the real reason is for price matching is not to lower prices but to keep them higher than they would be if stores didn't have that policy.
All stores lie to their customers to PRETEND they're getting a discount.
The other day I was in a store and saw a sign for Levi's 501s for $38, MSRP $42. Then I went to the store next door and saw a similar sign: Levi's 501s for $34, MSRP $38. There isn't any way to reconcile this, other than realizing that stores are lying through their teeth.
You're assuming that those are the same product - Levi (and other manufacturers)routinely SKU things differently so they are not the same product although they may appear such to teh consumer; Levi use to and still may have different color tags for the their jeans (the little pocket tab) to differentiate discount product from high end retailer's product.
While I agree MSRP is a game to get peopel to buy more; varying MSRP's is not necessarily a lie.
Why not just deduct the rebate at the cash register? We all know that's doable. No, their dream is to extract from each customer the maximum personal price. Those willing to pay full price do, and those only willing to pay a lower price get it. Willingness to do senseless work determines who falls in what camp--it's just like coupon clipping.
Becasue that would hurt their revenue number - instead of $100 of reevnue they'd book $60 - and stores what to keep revenue growing because that's one thing Wall Street watches.
here's a formula you can use to help you figure this out.
A) Take the amount of money you're getting IN SALES of older product. Pull a number out your arse to represent the goodwill you get by supporting older products, and add it in.
B) Take the amount of money you're spending TOTAL to support older product. Include salaries, time estimates, etc. Add in the costs of anticipated sales you'd get by people upgrading to the newer version.
Profits=$A-$B;
when Profit is close to or less than zero, you need to drop it.
No - when the profit margin drops below the desired number, consider dropping support because it is dragging down your overall numbers and reinvest the money spent on supporting older browsers to more profitable things.
BTW - I'd leave out Goodwill and lost upgrade sales; they are hard to determine and distort the real costs of ongoing support.
What's in it for Apple to allow other hardware companies to sell OS X?
Who cares? What's in it for us to allow Apple the power to control what we can and can't do with OS X
Doesn't matter - it's theirs, and they can do whatever they want with it. They created it, they own it, and they decide how they want to sell it. Don't like it? Don't buy it.
You could make the same arguement about GPL'd software - what rights does anyone have to tell me what I can and casn't do with it and any changes I may make to it?
If Apple wants to sell a product then they need someone to sell it to and as long as software consumers continue to accept these "no rights but those we allow" stance currently offered by Apple and other software companies they will continue to make money. So I say, why stand for it?
If you don't like it, don't buy it. If enough people do that, then Apple will change how they sell and license it or go out of business. Apple is not infringing on your rights in any way - you can freely enter into a contract with them or not - it's up to you to decide if you like the terms and are willing to live with them.
Just like if you don't like the terms of the GPL don't create a product based on GPL's software; or if you do don't complain because you have to release the code. One company has decided to get around that by forever releasing beta version to people who suscribe to an update service - even though their product is good, I use one in my router that is more in keeping with the spirit of the GPL.
$50 an hour seems absurdly low - for a typical 2000 hour work year a comapny would only get $100K, which doens't leave a lot of room for salary and benefits plus the margins consulting services seek. Either the IBM Consulting has some real low billing rates, or they did this as a favor to a big client.
I've owned a Tavern for over 20 years now and those scum-sucking bastards have been trying to get me to buy a license in order to "legally" play the radio in my joint.
As I tell them ever year when they show up at my doorstep with a "bill", threatening to take me to court: "Blow Me"
The songs are sent out over the radio for free. If they don't want me using the radio, then they had better come here with a bigger gun than the one I have, or stop broadcasting their songs over the free airwaves.
Or they can blow me.
In any case, nothing has happened in 20 years. The license thing is a bloody joke.
US law provides for certain exemptions to licensing:
the Music Licensing Act [Copyright Term Extension and Music Licensing Act 17 USC 110] draws the line between private and public in terms of the type of public establishment, the size, and the stereo equipment used. Restaurants and bars under 3,750 square feet or retail establishments under 2,000 square feet are exempt from paying fees for playing radio or TV broadcasts for their customers. Public places of any size that play radio or TV broadcasts are exempt from paying fees if they use no more than six external speakers (not more than four speakers in each room) for playing music. Public places that play CDs or hire live musicians (that play cover songs or copy songs) are still subject to being licensed for fees.
no need to buy and switch SIM cards and phone numbers if I visit a place 3000KM away
Only if that place is in the US. Why do so many Yanks act like Yurp is just one country, it isn't it's a couple of dozen with separate histories, languages, and yes cell-phone companies. Try going to Mexico or Canada and see if the above statement is true.
Actually, I can call for no additional charge (beyond the basic flat fee) from a good bit of Canada and Mexico if I pick a plan with taht feature. While I realize Europe is seperate countries (despite the EU); in size it is roughly equal to the US and yet can't seem to get one Europe wide cell phone provider. I'm not saying one model is better or worse, just that the original poster's contention that US cell phone users have a bad deal is not true for most people.
no need to buy and switch SIM cards and phone numbers if I visit a place 3000KM away, plus part or all of the cost of the phone is spread over a 12 or 24 month
Which is exactly how it is in Europe too.
Except in Europe you generally can't call from say Poland to Portugal for no charge past your basic fee, or roam from Germany to England and call a number in Italy for no additional charge; OTOH in the US you can roam without any additinal charges nor long distance fees.
I think that they're moving in the wrong direction. Yes, solid state is cool (despite its price). Yes, it uses less power (but is noticeably slower). What I want to see as the future of portables is a thin client. Companies try to roll out thin client desktops every few years, but they never seem to think about thin client portables. Imagine a very small portable that is nothing but a thin client with wireless. It wouldn't take much power, could run resource hungry apps via an ssh tunnel to a real box and be and be relatively cheap to produce. Something like what I saw on one of the blogs at Sun a few days ago represents the future. Don't try to take the whole computer with you, just take a small phone to call your computer.
We used to call them mainframes and terminals - and were thrilled when laptops let us run apps away from the mainframe. Of course, there was this thing called a modem that actually connected a terminal at home to your mainframe, but data transfers were painfully slow.
Seriously, while it works for thethered systems it's a real pain unless you have a reliable high band width connection.
Every other country in the world has sane mobile phone pricing and services. Why not the US?
It depends on what you mean by sane. I can call an area the size of Europe for one flat rate - no roaming, no need to buy and switch SIM cards and phone numbers if I visit a place 3000KM away, plus part or all of the cost of the phone is spread over a 12 or 24 month period. Sure I can't take my phone overseas unless I make sure to get one that has the right GSM or CDMA bands and if I want that my phone choice is limited; but most US consumers probably never leave their home area very often and have no need to be able to roam world wide; in addition, most Europeans I meet here are loath to use their phone here because of the costs; if they really need a phone they can get a prepaid one dirt cheap or buy a SIM card which means they lose their number temporarily.
It's not that one system is better - ours works well for the US consumer based on their phone use habits.
Roberts took the company to court in October and won, with damages to be decided at a hearing on 4 January 2006. Just prior to Xmas, however, the company offered £300 as a final settlement which Mr Roberts agreed to. He is due to receive the cheque tomorrow.
I don't get it. The guy won in court and had an excellent chance to set a legal precedent, and settled for just £300? I don't say that he could get more in court but it would make a great victory in the anti-spam war. Why waste it for just £300?
By settling, he avoids a possible appeal - which probably would happen because a precedent would cost much more money to be spent on future lawsuits; so the company has a vested interest in overturning the decision. My guess is he figured to get something near that amount anyway, and this way he gets it in hand rather than facing an ongoing court battle. At some point, his time spent fighting becomes more valuable than what he'd win.
Why don't they just implement the fairtax and be done with all these other convoluted ideas?
The fair tax will just change the way people work to minimize taxes - the goal will be to reduce prices in order to lower taxes. So in the end you wind up with as convoluted a system, just with different ways to reach the end goal.
And before someone points out that prices can't go below a certain poiny (i.e. cost); let me point out that price and profit on a sale are not necessarily related.
College professors aren't supposed to be wishy-washy and neutral
Right, college professors should be bull-headed and dogmatic.
Heaven forbid they should consider more than one side of an issue! That sort of ridiculousness might be taught to the students!
Rigorous academic debate and backing up your ideas with solid analysis is not being bull headed or dogmatic. Good universities have professors on both sides of issues (such as Chicago's famous two man luge team of Fama and Thaler) and encourage vigorous defense of positions. That's what makes good ideas great.
Is the submitter on drugs? The reason most industries that are regulated are regulated is precisely because the market doesn't work for that industry!
Industries like regulartion because they protect them from the market by keeping out competition - why do you think utilities asked to be regulated at the turn of the century? They get a fixed rate of return on capital without having to worry about things like costs and competition. Politicians love it because they can use it to help their friends and themselves. Want to atrtcat a business - give them low utility rates by cross-subsidizing them. Cheap local calls - no prblem the high long distance and business rates keep voter costs down.
When natural gas was deregulated in my state, prices skyrocketed and a bunch of natural gas marketers (mine included) began outright stealing money from their customers. (Long story.) When cable television was deregulated, my cable prices skyrocketed and I got less and crappier channels. (Thank god for satellite, which itself is regulated to prevent it from competing with cable companies on their own terms.) After 9/11, the airline industry, which isn't regulated, liked the government enough to go begging for a $5 billion bailout. What did they do with the money? Well, Delta Airlines used $17.3 million of it to give executives bonuses while losing $1.3 billion more and cutting 16,000 jobs. But when anyone bought up the thougt of regulating the industry, god, you would have thought we were communists.
And don't even get me started on the phone company.
A healthy market depends on well-regulated businesses. If anything, I would say that customers are hardly ever better off when government gets out of the way and let the market work in an unfettered manner. The only exceptions are when the government bureaucrats are working in collusion with the industry, a sad state of affairs that is unfortunately becoming more and more common.
To use you airline example - deregulation has saved consumers tons of money. Fare staht used to be $3000 or $1500 are now $300 or $150. Airlines that built big networks when they were assurred of a profit through regulation are struggling; but once one or two major airlines fail then the remaining onse will make money. Unfortunately, our government can't seem to let them fail which just reinforces their refusal to change. Of ocurse, politicians realize teh marginal second tier cities that today get jet service will lose it once airlines price fsares at realistic costs and we can't have Podunk ID lossing its 2x a day jet service - think of the children!! So airlines get bailouts so politicians districts keep air service.
Regulation protects the incumbent - Dallas would benefit from cheaper flights from Love Field, but regulations (the Wright Amendment) forbid it by limiting direct flights to states adjoining TX. Yes, that is collusion between gov and iundustry - but that's what regulation eventually becomes - a way to keep the status qou.
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From blenders to refrigerators to Nuclear power plants. Sounds like something was put on a back burner for a while. Just a little difference from an electric motor to nuclear reactors!
GE has been doing that for decades - add in locomotives; lightbulbs, and plastics as well.
Rummy came in with ideas about making the Army more 'joint' and 'deployable' and got rid of his crony Army Secretary for just that reason: he wasn't working hard enough on those things.
The guy wants to transform the Army more than anything else, and when you evaluate his activities 100% through an Iraq lens, you aren't getting the whole picture.
True - the move to BCD and Stryker is to be a more deployable force; White's support of the Palladin (which doesn't fit into the BCD concept) was part of why he was fired; but Shinseki was fully supportive of transformation and the BCD but differed on IRAQ and was marginalized. Transformation will always be an uphill battle - many in the Army aren't convinced that it needs to happen in the way Rummy wants. Of course, he is fast becoming a lame duck so you'll probably see even more foot dragging and resistance.
Is he right? To some degree yes - the near term future conflicts probably won't involve mass tank battles and traditional combat; but as China develops a blue water Navy and flexes its muscles we're likely to see a return to the Cold War concept of power.
The bottom line is Iraq is taking a toll on transforming the force; in people, material, and time.
He didn't get his star.
Seriously.
Possibly, but not every 06 gets their star and it's pretty clear real quickly if you will or will not. Most are neither bitter nor disgruntled - they've had fine careers; reached a level above the "done a good job" retiremnet point (i.e. LT Col or 05); and really acre about the Army (as an instituion) and it's Soldiers.
The telling point was how White and Shinseki were brushed aside because they didn't toe the line and had teh balls to say what they thought it would take to invade and occupy Iraq (every time I heard Rumsfeld talk about how several hundered thosuand was 200k not 300k it reminded me of Clinton's "that depends on what your definition of is is" defence.); it was equally telling how the Army had to go to a retired General to get a new Chief of Staff - a job that any GO would give their right nut or ovary for and the Vice Chief turns them down and umor had it so did several other GOs.
My relatively old camera has exposure bracketing, which has proved useful a few times for me. But focus bracketing would save MANY more of my photos. I'm imagining that the camera would take a photo at whatever the current focus system does, then focus out a bit, and focus in a bit (Ok, I don't know the terminology). It's far too often that my particular camera doesn't quite focus right. Either I aim it wrong, or the lighting throws it off, or maybe in hindsight, I just wish that I had focused on something else. Plus, editing the photos later would be much more interesting.
I call that depth of frield, achieved by changing the f-stop.
Finally, people who want to put their creations "conditionally" into the public domain (eg - GPL) should be protected. Although they aren't motivated by money, to see somebody else get rich by using your work (outside the rules) is a different kettle of fish.
Why? The original creator hasn't lost anything - their work is still avaiable via the GPL and it doesn't cost them anything if someone else does something with it.
Just send the reply envelope back empty - they still pay postage plus a service fee. If enough people sent every reply envelpe back the whole system would fall apart.
So, instead of just the store lying, Levis creates meaningless distinctions bettween two otherwise identical products, to allow the stores accomplish the same thing.
It's called segmenting a market; and there may or may not be any differences - sometimes a product will have higher tolerances for faults in stitching, sizing, color, etc to keep the cost down and support a lower price. Sometimes they create different brand names to differentiate the products in the market, sometimes they cripple a feature; others they just give it a different model number but the end goal is the same - sell as much as possible into different markets at the maximum price each consumer is willing to pay.
You're assuming that those are the same product - Levi (and other manufacturers)routinely SKU things differently so they are not the same product
Levi's 501s haven't changed in the past 100 years or so. If the only thing different is a single number on them, it's still a fraud.
Fraud? Hardly - they're simply selling into different market segments at prices the consumer is willing to pay. Nothing new or fraudulent there.They may be the exact same jeans, but they're priced and packaged differently based on the market they target.
Sometimes manufacturers have different model numbers to prevent price competition as well - Store A nd B may offer to match prices; but A has a model 400K TV and store B a model 400H - so they are not the same model. Of course, the real reason is for price matching is not to lower prices but to keep them higher than they would be if stores didn't have that policy.
All stores lie to their customers to PRETEND they're getting a discount.
The other day I was in a store and saw a sign for Levi's 501s for $38, MSRP $42. Then I went to the store next door and saw a similar sign: Levi's 501s for $34, MSRP $38. There isn't any way to reconcile this, other than realizing that stores are lying through their teeth.
You're assuming that those are the same product - Levi (and other manufacturers)routinely SKU things differently so they are not the same product although they may appear such to teh consumer; Levi use to and still may have different color tags for the their jeans (the little pocket tab) to differentiate discount product from high end retailer's product.
While I agree MSRP is a game to get peopel to buy more; varying MSRP's is not necessarily a lie.
Why not just deduct the rebate at the cash register? We all know that's doable. No, their dream is to extract from each customer the maximum personal price. Those willing to pay full price do, and those only willing to pay a lower price get it. Willingness to do senseless work determines who falls in what camp--it's just like coupon clipping.
Becasue that would hurt their revenue number - instead of $100 of reevnue they'd book $60 - and stores what to keep revenue growing because that's one thing Wall Street watches.
here's a formula you can use to help you figure this out.
A) Take the amount of money you're getting IN SALES of older product. Pull a number out your arse to represent the goodwill you get by supporting older products, and add it in.
B) Take the amount of money you're spending TOTAL to support older product. Include salaries, time estimates, etc. Add in the costs of anticipated sales you'd get by people upgrading to the newer version.
Profits=$A-$B;
when Profit is close to or less than zero, you need to drop it.
No - when the profit margin drops below the desired number, consider dropping support because it is dragging down your overall numbers and reinvest the money spent on supporting older browsers to more profitable things.
BTW - I'd leave out Goodwill and lost upgrade sales; they are hard to determine and distort the real costs of ongoing support.
What's in it for Apple to allow other hardware companies to sell OS X?
Who cares? What's in it for us to allow Apple the power to control what we can and can't do with OS X
Doesn't matter - it's theirs, and they can do whatever they want with it. They created it, they own it, and they decide how they want to sell it. Don't like it? Don't buy it.
You could make the same arguement about GPL'd software - what rights does anyone have to tell me what I can and casn't do with it and any changes I may make to it?
If Apple wants to sell a product then they need someone to sell it to and as long as software consumers continue to accept these "no rights but those we allow" stance currently offered by Apple and other software companies they will continue to make money. So I say, why stand for it?
If you don't like it, don't buy it. If enough people do that, then Apple will change how they sell and license it or go out of business. Apple is not infringing on your rights in any way - you can freely enter into a contract with them or not - it's up to you to decide if you like the terms and are willing to live with them.
Just like if you don't like the terms of the GPL don't create a product based on GPL's software; or if you do don't complain because you have to release the code. One company has decided to get around that by forever releasing beta version to people who suscribe to an update service - even though their product is good, I use one in my router that is more in keeping with the spirit of the GPL.
or a Beowulf cluster...
$50 an hour seems absurdly low - for a typical 2000 hour work year a comapny would only get $100K, which doens't leave a lot of room for salary and benefits plus the margins consulting services seek. Either the IBM Consulting has some real low billing rates, or they did this as a favor to a big client.
I've owned a Tavern for over 20 years now and those scum-sucking bastards have been trying to get me to buy a license in order to "legally" play the radio in my joint.
h t/
As I tell them ever year when they show up at my doorstep with a "bill", threatening to take me to court: "Blow Me"
The songs are sent out over the radio for free. If they don't want me using the radio, then they had better come here with a bigger gun than the one I have, or stop broadcasting their songs over the free airwaves.
Or they can blow me.
In any case, nothing has happened in 20 years. The license thing is a bloody joke.
US law provides for certain exemptions to licensing:
the Music Licensing Act [Copyright Term Extension and Music Licensing Act 17 USC 110] draws the line between private and public in terms of the type of public establishment, the size, and the stereo equipment used. Restaurants and bars under 3,750 square feet or retail establishments under 2,000 square feet are exempt from paying fees for playing radio or TV broadcasts for their customers. Public places of any size that play radio or TV broadcasts are exempt from paying fees if they use no more than six external speakers (not more than four speakers in each room) for playing music. Public places that play CDs or hire live musicians (that play cover songs or copy songs) are still subject to being licensed for fees.
From http://publishing.wsu.edu/copyright/music_copyrig
no need to buy and switch SIM cards and phone numbers if I visit a place 3000KM away
Only if that place is in the US. Why do so many Yanks act like Yurp is just one country, it isn't it's a couple of dozen with separate histories, languages, and yes cell-phone companies. Try going to Mexico or Canada and see if the above statement is true.
Actually, I can call for no additional charge (beyond the basic flat fee) from a good bit of Canada and Mexico if I pick a plan with taht feature. While I realize Europe is seperate countries (despite the EU); in size it is roughly equal to the US and yet can't seem to get one Europe wide cell phone provider. I'm not saying one model is better or worse, just that the original poster's contention that US cell phone users have a bad deal is not true for most people.
no need to buy and switch SIM cards and phone numbers if I visit a place 3000KM away, plus part or all of the cost of the phone is spread over a 12 or 24 month
Which is exactly how it is in Europe too.
Except in Europe you generally can't call from say Poland to Portugal for no charge past your basic fee, or roam from Germany to England and call a number in Italy for no additional charge; OTOH in the US you can roam without any additinal charges nor long distance fees.
I think that they're moving in the wrong direction. Yes, solid state is cool (despite its price). Yes, it uses less power (but is noticeably slower). What I want to see as the future of portables is a thin client. Companies try to roll out thin client desktops every few years, but they never seem to think about thin client portables. Imagine a very small portable that is nothing but a thin client with wireless. It wouldn't take much power, could run resource hungry apps via an ssh tunnel to a real box and be and be relatively cheap to produce. Something like what I saw on one of the blogs at Sun a few days ago represents the future. Don't try to take the whole computer with you, just take a small phone to call your computer.
We used to call them mainframes and terminals - and were thrilled when laptops let us run apps away from the mainframe. Of course, there was this thing called a modem that actually connected a terminal at home to your mainframe, but data transfers were painfully slow.
Seriously, while it works for thethered systems it's a real pain unless you have a reliable high band width connection.
Every other country in the world has sane mobile phone pricing and services. Why not the US?
It depends on what you mean by sane. I can call an area the size of Europe for one flat rate - no roaming, no need to buy and switch SIM cards and phone numbers if I visit a place 3000KM away, plus part or all of the cost of the phone is spread over a 12 or 24 month period. Sure I can't take my phone overseas unless I make sure to get one that has the right GSM or CDMA bands and if I want that my phone choice is limited; but most US consumers probably never leave their home area very often and have no need to be able to roam world wide; in addition, most Europeans I meet here are loath to use their phone here because of the costs; if they really need a phone they can get a prepaid one dirt cheap or buy a SIM card which means they lose their number temporarily.
It's not that one system is better - ours works well for the US consumer based on their phone use habits.
From TFA
Roberts took the company to court in October and won, with damages to be decided at a hearing on 4 January 2006. Just prior to Xmas, however, the company offered £300 as a final settlement which Mr Roberts agreed to. He is due to receive the cheque tomorrow.
I don't get it. The guy won in court and had an excellent chance to set a legal precedent, and settled for just £300? I don't say that he could get more in court but it would make a great victory in the anti-spam war. Why waste it for just £300?
By settling, he avoids a possible appeal - which probably would happen because a precedent would cost much more money to be spent on future lawsuits; so the company has a vested interest in overturning the decision. My guess is he figured to get something near that amount anyway, and this way he gets it in hand rather than facing an ongoing court battle. At some point, his time spent fighting becomes more valuable than what he'd win.
Why don't they just implement the fairtax and be done with all these other convoluted ideas?
The fair tax will just change the way people work to minimize taxes - the goal will be to reduce prices in order to lower taxes. So in the end you wind up with as convoluted a system, just with different ways to reach the end goal.
And before someone points out that prices can't go below a certain poiny (i.e. cost); let me point out that price and profit on a sale are not necessarily related.
College professors aren't supposed to be wishy-washy and neutral
Right, college professors should be bull-headed and dogmatic.
Heaven forbid they should consider more than one side of an issue! That sort of ridiculousness might be taught to the students!
Rigorous academic debate and backing up your ideas with solid analysis is not being bull headed or dogmatic. Good universities have professors on both sides of issues (such as Chicago's famous two man luge team of Fama and Thaler) and encourage vigorous defense of positions. That's what makes good ideas great.
what's next? making bands play license fees when they play covertunes at a show?
Aren't they already doing this; except the venue pays the royalties for the songs?
lease, learn to type! You *may* have good points here, but they're lost when someone needs a decoder to understand what you type.
Only small minds can think of only one way to splell a word...
Is the submitter on drugs? The reason most industries that are regulated are regulated is precisely because the market doesn't work for that industry!
Industries like regulartion because they protect them from the market by keeping out competition - why do you think utilities asked to be regulated at the turn of the century? They get a fixed rate of return on capital without having to worry about things like costs and competition.
Politicians love it because they can use it to help their friends and themselves. Want to atrtcat a business - give them low utility rates by cross-subsidizing them. Cheap local calls - no prblem the high long distance and business rates keep voter costs down.
When natural gas was deregulated in my state, prices skyrocketed and a bunch of natural gas marketers (mine included) began outright stealing money from their customers. (Long story.) When cable television was deregulated, my cable prices skyrocketed and I got less and crappier channels. (Thank god for satellite, which itself is regulated to prevent it from competing with cable companies on their own terms.) After 9/11, the airline industry, which isn't regulated, liked the government enough to go begging for a $5 billion bailout. What did they do with the money? Well, Delta Airlines used $17.3 million of it to give executives bonuses while losing $1.3 billion more and cutting 16,000 jobs. But when anyone bought up the thougt of regulating the industry, god, you would have thought we were communists.
And don't even get me started on the phone company.
A healthy market depends on well-regulated businesses. If anything, I would say that customers are hardly ever better off when government gets out of the way and let the market work in an unfettered manner. The only exceptions are when the government bureaucrats are working in collusion with the industry, a sad state of affairs that is unfortunately becoming more and more common.
To use you airline example - deregulation has saved consumers tons of money. Fare staht used to be $3000 or $1500 are now $300 or $150. Airlines that built big networks when they were assurred of a profit through regulation are struggling; but once one or two major airlines fail then the remaining onse will make money. Unfortunately, our government can't seem to let them fail which just reinforces their refusal to change. Of ocurse, politicians realize teh marginal second tier cities that today get jet service will lose it once airlines price fsares at realistic costs and we can't have Podunk ID lossing its 2x a day jet service - think of the children!! So airlines get bailouts so politicians districts keep air service.
Regulation protects the incumbent - Dallas would benefit from cheaper flights from Love Field, but regulations (the Wright Amendment) forbid it by limiting direct flights to states adjoining TX. Yes, that is collusion between gov and iundustry - but that's what regulation eventually becomes - a way to keep the status qou.