The reason some people like XP on their netbooks is that they are familiar with how to use it and *install their own programs* on it so that it runs like a tiny version of their laptop or desktop.
If it was Windows CE, then they would no doubt be confused. and even more so if they found out that they can install *some* of their phone/pda programs on their netbooks. It's awkward, and Microsoft knows that.
#2 is spot on. A burglar is more interested in the movement of people in and out of the house, and where the valuables are likely to be. This is hard to get from streetview, all they could get is whether there is a little blue box with a flashing light on. That's pretty obvious if you've already been to the area, which you will have to in order find out when people leave their houses. This is especially true as in the UK, as not everybody drives, and it's impossible to tell just by seeing if their cars are on the driveway or not. Burglars don't like breaking into people's houses when they're in.
#3 is disputable. Burglaries happen, it's an easy way for some small-time criminal to get make quick money, and probably existed since the dawn of civilisation. Doesn't make it right though. Policing has to go back to the basics I think. There should be more coppers on the beat, not lounging around in their cars munching on a doughnut.
I have to disagree with your first assertion. The problem is that there are too many people that holds your view, without actually reading and understanding the history.
For the founding fathers, government is not the enemy, power is the enemy. Their distrust is not of government per se, but the risk that the power that government holds would be used tyrannically, oppressing people who do not have representation in government.
This is the reason that power is divided amongst the three branches of government, thanks in part to the political theories of a frenchman called Montesquieu. Thinkers like Montesquieu, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau and many others together formed the core political philosophy that all modern industrialized nations subscribe to - Liberalism.
Another idea - federalism - was also employed in drafting the constitution as an additional safeguard in this respect. This in effect created the supra-legislative nature of the constitution and the framework for political power distribution between the states and the federal government.
There is a lot of material we can cover so we can go on all day. The "government is necessary evil" moniker should actually be "government is a necessary part of society, that has the propensity to turn evil when lacking accountability". Of course, that doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?
Any power sufficiently concentrated is a threat to our liberty, not just government. This applies to any organization or individual.
Having said that, government is a necessary evil in our current social and economic framework. We try to mitigate it's downsides by making those in power accountable through various mechanisms. I'm not arguing for bigger government, but rather to put effective safeguards on government power, and to use this power when necessary for the common good.
I would very much prefer that I have a direct say in where taxpayer money gets spent. Right now, a large chunk of this money is spent on bailing out the financial industry (whom I may add spent considerable sums of money lobby for less oversight of themselves for innovation's sake). It may not be the best system, but the taxpayer does not want to see public money being spent frivolously by individuals and organizations that have been proven to be irresponsible in the past.
You say you have a fundamental problem with wealth redistribution, but in fact do you? You have a problem with the government redistributing your wealth, but do you have a problem when it is private persons doing is? For their own gain?
The market surely is a wealth redistribution system, but it is not perfect and prone to abuse, as can be seen currently even though in many cases it does work well. I for one, am glad that there are people in government that are willing to temper our tendency to idolize the market. Not to dismantle it, put to prevent power being concentrated in those that abuse it.
I would agree with you, only that I have a G1 now. The only thing the kept me from getting one before was the poor appearance from pictures. On daily use, however, I've found the build quality and the hardware itself is good and not toy-ish at all. If it came with a glossy black front and a chrome back then it would be even better, but you have to consider the number people putting rubber gimp masks on their iPhone to protect their little precious from getting hurt, so what's the point?
I'm sure you can see that the short sell ban is a way to distract attention from all the political wrangling.
This is what modern political discourse has become, and it saddens me. What we should be asking ourselves is this -
1. Should markets be regulated?
2. If so, where do we draw the line in the regulation (to make the markets function more effectively)?
Although the consensus answer for #1 with economists is yes in most cases, I'm sure a significant portion of the populace would say no, even though it doesn't take a lot of historical perspective to see that unregulated markets are a recipe for disaster (due to a variety of reasons, mostly to do with human behavior).
This is also what is providing the political support for redrawing the line in #2. Because such a big proportion of the population thinks that all regulation is big government and that must be bad, we frequently miss the point (which is the bit in the parenthesis). When we are discussing a bill which changes the dynamics of the market, are we doing that for legitimate reasons, or for ideological reasons? Worse still, is it for political favors? Who's asking these questions and who's paying attention?
To sum up: the proof of the pudding is in the eating; we've eaten a lot of pudding lately and it's given us diarrhea.
There's no need to restate what you mean. You can repeat it but that doesn't make it right.
You are basing your argument that mark-to-market is one of the main contributors to the credit crunch. That is absurd. It is a aggravating factor only, because mark to market did not cause the sky high leverage ratios in the first place! If you think it did, please educate me. I'd be very interested to know.
The only argument I can see is that MtM played a part in perpetrating the bubble by re-pricing these instruments in a positive feedback loop. However, the main problem is still with the nature of these instruments, and their fallibility. MtM only made it worse.
Just because you can make an argument on your version of the facts, does not mean that it is closer to the truth than any other version.
The questions are very simple - why were the investment banks able to maintain these absurd leverage ratios with so much from assets that are complex and opaque? Secondly, and probably more importantly, why did this have such a big effect on the credit market?
Were they so naive to think that high yielding complex financial instruments were a good constituent of your asset base (just because a ratings agency said it was)? Where did due diligence and risk management factor in? Banks should structure their asset base to be resistant to collapse in specific markets.
It's not that we haven't seen crises due to bad loans before. So what was done to help prevent this and how did it the crisis develop in the end considering this?
You can keep believing in your alternate reality, but the fact is, if there is no mark-to-market accounting used in the investment banks, they will still sink one way or another due to the structural problems in their business model. The reason why this came to be is up for debate, but it is becoming increasingly clearer by the day.
Finally, your analogy is *way* off the mark. I'm not saying people shouldn't fly. It's just that the pilot shouldn't be skipping pre-flight checks. That is all.
Do you honestly believe that mark to market is the main culprit in the crisis? It might be tempting to believe it as such and may be an aggravating factor, but to imply that it is the root cause in all of this is absurd.
In fact, the tearing down of the barrier between commercial banking and investment banking allowed multiple conflicts of interest in investment banks, now also involved in brokerage and insurance and other areas. These areas are intimately involved in CDO transactions and coupled with lax regulation of investment banks, the process was undermined allowing banks to pressure for lax lending standard to generate income from other areas, such as fees.
Well I'm assuming that the reader understands that it goes both ways.:)
Using qualifiers in that sense highlights that the submitter assumed a particular interpretation of the changes, but did not acknowledge his assumptions.
If you look at the repealing of the Glass-Steagall Act by the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, you will understand why investments banks were not creating SIVs and trading in CDOs before that time. Hint: It has to do with regulation.
You really have to question the submitters' motivation on this one.
If anybody bothered to read the diff, it is obvious that the page was re-written to improve accessibility, so that more voters can understand the issues. Long paragraphs were shortened and some of the details were omitted so that the page does not sound like a treatise.
Some of the items like immigration was taken out, I suppose, because it didn't belong on the technology page. A lot of the text was rearranged, I assume, for better structure.
If all you wanted to know about is net neutrality, then yes, a lot of the material that described the mechanism in detail is gone. However, this issue has been debated to death online and most people have less of an idea of how the internet works than Ted Stevens. I seriously don't think Obama has changed his stance on this, other than to put it on equal footing with other issues related to technology on that page.
The dot-com crash is a stock market bubble, and we've been through a lot of ups and downs in the stock market due to mass speculation, etc.. throughout history. Think of that as a huge stock market correction rather than anything being fundamentally wrong with the economy.
What we are going through now is a structural crisis in finance. This problem affects the business models of companies, because many look to the credit markets to fund operations or previous acquisitions. When these markets dry up, they are need to pay back existing loans, but many are not able to get new ones at prices that they can afford.
You can trace the origins of this back when the Glass-Steagall Act (created after the Great Depression) was repealed by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999. This effectively allowed, amongst other things, the creation of tje MBS, CDOs and SIVs, causing the current crisis.
The SEC capital ratio exemptions in 2004 for the big 5 investment banks added more fuel to the fire, allowing them to increase the leverage in their business.
You talked about Senator McCain. Well, Phil Gramm and John McCain? They go back a long way. Don't take my word for it, do some research yourself.
I don't know. Maybe it isn't a good idea to use your private email for official purposes. Maybe it isn't a good idea for a public figure to use a Yahoo email account at all. You know it's a public mail service...
Think of it as a strategic move. If he voted against the entire bill containing the immunity clause, then yes, he's probably get a whole lot of respect from people like you and me.
However, that's going to be a big thing that the McCain camp is going to harp on, and drill it in that Obama doesn't support measures to tackle terrorism.
Obama has already voiced his opposition to the immunity clause by voting for the amendment to ditch it. That's didn't go through so you can imagine it's not a easy move to play.
If demand is relatively inelastic, you can manipulate the market by speculation causing a restriction in supply. To get around the delivery problem, most of the speculators actually have oil reserves, and the oil is traded like currency on bank computers.
When demand finally gave way (due to high prices), the support for the speculation fell through, and that's the reason why you see a larger than expected drop.
Markets are not 100% efficient, they are prone to the same localized turbulence as with any system with complex dynamics. Speculators magnify market forces and are sometimes beneficial to the market as thay are market-makers, but in other circumstances, they hinder the efficient operation of the market by preventing it from finding the price equilibrium, in effect, a sort of freeloading by price manipulation.
It's not just about standard of living, although the economic justifications for American foreign policy is well-known. There are reasons for American involvement in places such as Iran and Panama that are very clearly because of economic and military interests. Anyways, that's not the point I was trying to make.
It is about lifestyle, or how one lives. Although how one person lives may not have a big impact on the world, taken in aggregate it does.
No. The fault is not with the messenger. It is the people themselves who were brought up with a false sense of national superiority, unwilling to accept the fact that the lifestyle they are enjoying may contribute to the suppression of peoples around the world by their government and corporations.
I'm sure all the middle class people in California giving thirty percent of their income to the government (soon to be more if we become an Obamanation) are really happy about it and wish the government would take more of their money.
Your tax numbers only make sense if you only classify the top 2% of earners as middle class.
Please stop spouting misinformation. In fact, with the McCain tax cuts, only the top earners will get a benefit. Everybody else will be just about the same. Now let's just cross our fingers and hope the trickle-down pixie dust work?
1. The opportunity cost of work from your perspective is calculated per unit of labor. From my perspective it is per unit of productivity.
The majority of labor hours worked per worker is relatively consistent across most of the labor market for those that are employed full-time. There is a reason for this, and that is because people do not work to maximize earning, but to maximize utility. Utility in itself is very hard to quantify, and consuming utility takes time.
If economists are making the assumption otherwise, they are ignoring the behavior of the labor market in a very fundamental way.
What you want to do is not to increase the hours people work, but to increase the amount of productivity for a particular unit of work. If people can work the same amount of time, but produce much more, then they would not mind being taxed a little bit more on the additional productivity. (Of course I am assuming that people are paid for the amount they produce, and often that is not a fair assumption to make:)
2. Let us put it this way. World-class track athletes are often in milliseconds of each other, but these milliseconds count like nothing else. The reference is often not one's own earning, but the earning of others in the society as a whole.
I applaud your efforts, but doing as you say will return us to the Victorian times when the poor were left in workhouses, hopeless and destitute. Now at least, they're only left just hopeless. Dickens would be turning in his grave.
Solutions to problems usually cause their own problems down the line. However, we must take history into account and not revive the original problem by rolling back what was the original solution.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason some people like XP on their netbooks is that they are familiar with how to use it and *install their own programs* on it so that it runs like a tiny version of their laptop or desktop.
If it was Windows CE, then they would no doubt be confused. and even more so if they found out that they can install *some* of their phone/pda programs on their netbooks. It's awkward, and Microsoft knows that.
It's actually MIPS, so even more obscure?
http://www.handtec.co.uk/product.php?xProd=1897
#2 is spot on. A burglar is more interested in the movement of people in and out of the house, and where the valuables are likely to be. This is hard to get from streetview, all they could get is whether there is a little blue box with a flashing light on. That's pretty obvious if you've already been to the area, which you will have to in order find out when people leave their houses. This is especially true as in the UK, as not everybody drives, and it's impossible to tell just by seeing if their cars are on the driveway or not. Burglars don't like breaking into people's houses when they're in.
#3 is disputable. Burglaries happen, it's an easy way for some small-time criminal to get make quick money, and probably existed since the dawn of civilisation. Doesn't make it right though. Policing has to go back to the basics I think. There should be more coppers on the beat, not lounging around in their cars munching on a doughnut.
I have to disagree with your first assertion. The problem is that there are too many people that holds your view, without actually reading and understanding the history.
For the founding fathers, government is not the enemy, power is the enemy. Their distrust is not of government per se, but the risk that the power that government holds would be used tyrannically, oppressing people who do not have representation in government.
This is the reason that power is divided amongst the three branches of government, thanks in part to the political theories of a frenchman called Montesquieu. Thinkers like Montesquieu, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau and many others together formed the core political philosophy that all modern industrialized nations subscribe to - Liberalism.
Another idea - federalism - was also employed in drafting the constitution as an additional safeguard in this respect. This in effect created the supra-legislative nature of the constitution and the framework for political power distribution between the states and the federal government.
There is a lot of material we can cover so we can go on all day. The "government is necessary evil" moniker should actually be "government is a necessary part of society, that has the propensity to turn evil when lacking accountability". Of course, that doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?
Any power sufficiently concentrated is a threat to our liberty, not just government. This applies to any organization or individual.
Having said that, government is a necessary evil in our current social and economic framework. We try to mitigate it's downsides by making those in power accountable through various mechanisms. I'm not arguing for bigger government, but rather to put effective safeguards on government power, and to use this power when necessary for the common good.
I would very much prefer that I have a direct say in where taxpayer money gets spent. Right now, a large chunk of this money is spent on bailing out the financial industry (whom I may add spent considerable sums of money lobby for less oversight of themselves for innovation's sake). It may not be the best system, but the taxpayer does not want to see public money being spent frivolously by individuals and organizations that have been proven to be irresponsible in the past.
You say you have a fundamental problem with wealth redistribution, but in fact do you? You have a problem with the government redistributing your wealth, but do you have a problem when it is private persons doing is? For their own gain?
The market surely is a wealth redistribution system, but it is not perfect and prone to abuse, as can be seen currently even though in many cases it does work well. I for one, am glad that there are people in government that are willing to temper our tendency to idolize the market. Not to dismantle it, put to prevent power being concentrated in those that abuse it.
Having been a forever scarred user of WinMo phones before, the Touch HD to me is like a fighter jet piloted by Sideshow Bob.
I would agree with you, only that I have a G1 now. The only thing the kept me from getting one before was the poor appearance from pictures. On daily use, however, I've found the build quality and the hardware itself is good and not toy-ish at all. If it came with a glossy black front and a chrome back then it would be even better, but you have to consider the number people putting rubber gimp masks on their iPhone to protect their little precious from getting hurt, so what's the point?
I'm sure you can see that the short sell ban is a way to distract attention from all the political wrangling.
This is what modern political discourse has become, and it saddens me. What we should be asking ourselves is this -
1. Should markets be regulated?
2. If so, where do we draw the line in the regulation (to make the markets function more effectively)?
Although the consensus answer for #1 with economists is yes in most cases, I'm sure a significant portion of the populace would say no, even though it doesn't take a lot of historical perspective to see that unregulated markets are a recipe for disaster (due to a variety of reasons, mostly to do with human behavior).
This is also what is providing the political support for redrawing the line in #2. Because such a big proportion of the population thinks that all regulation is big government and that must be bad, we frequently miss the point (which is the bit in the parenthesis). When we are discussing a bill which changes the dynamics of the market, are we doing that for legitimate reasons, or for ideological reasons? Worse still, is it for political favors? Who's asking these questions and who's paying attention?
To sum up: the proof of the pudding is in the eating; we've eaten a lot of pudding lately and it's given us diarrhea.
There's no need to restate what you mean. You can repeat it but that doesn't make it right.
You are basing your argument that mark-to-market is one of the main contributors to the credit crunch. That is absurd. It is a aggravating factor only, because mark to market did not cause the sky high leverage ratios in the first place! If you think it did, please educate me. I'd be very interested to know.
The only argument I can see is that MtM played a part in perpetrating the bubble by re-pricing these instruments in a positive feedback loop. However, the main problem is still with the nature of these instruments, and their fallibility. MtM only made it worse.
Just because you can make an argument on your version of the facts, does not mean that it is closer to the truth than any other version.
The questions are very simple - why were the investment banks able to maintain these absurd leverage ratios with so much from assets that are complex and opaque? Secondly, and probably more importantly, why did this have such a big effect on the credit market?
Were they so naive to think that high yielding complex financial instruments were a good constituent of your asset base (just because a ratings agency said it was)? Where did due diligence and risk management factor in? Banks should structure their asset base to be resistant to collapse in specific markets.
It's not that we haven't seen crises due to bad loans before. So what was done to help prevent this and how did it the crisis develop in the end considering this?
You can keep believing in your alternate reality, but the fact is, if there is no mark-to-market accounting used in the investment banks, they will still sink one way or another due to the structural problems in their business model. The reason why this came to be is up for debate, but it is becoming increasingly clearer by the day.
Finally, your analogy is *way* off the mark. I'm not saying people shouldn't fly. It's just that the pilot shouldn't be skipping pre-flight checks. That is all.
Do you honestly believe that mark to market is the main culprit in the crisis? It might be tempting to believe it as such and may be an aggravating factor, but to imply that it is the root cause in all of this is absurd.
In fact, the tearing down of the barrier between commercial banking and investment banking allowed multiple conflicts of interest in investment banks, now also involved in brokerage and insurance and other areas. These areas are intimately involved in CDO transactions and coupled with lax regulation of investment banks, the process was undermined allowing banks to pressure for lax lending standard to generate income from other areas, such as fees.
Well I'm assuming that the reader understands that it goes both ways. :)
Using qualifiers in that sense highlights that the submitter assumed a particular interpretation of the changes, but did not acknowledge his assumptions.
If you look at the repealing of the Glass-Steagall Act by the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, you will understand why investments banks were not creating SIVs and trading in CDOs before that time. Hint: It has to do with regulation.
Please do your research before posting.
You really have to question the submitters' motivation on this one.
If anybody bothered to read the diff, it is obvious that the page was re-written to improve accessibility, so that more voters can understand the issues. Long paragraphs were shortened and some of the details were omitted so that the page does not sound like a treatise.
Some of the items like immigration was taken out, I suppose, because it didn't belong on the technology page. A lot of the text was rearranged, I assume, for better structure.
If all you wanted to know about is net neutrality, then yes, a lot of the material that described the mechanism in detail is gone. However, this issue has been debated to death online and most people have less of an idea of how the internet works than Ted Stevens. I seriously don't think Obama has changed his stance on this, other than to put it on equal footing with other issues related to technology on that page.
The dot-com crash is a stock market bubble, and we've been through a lot of ups and downs in the stock market due to mass speculation, etc.. throughout history. Think of that as a huge stock market correction rather than anything being fundamentally wrong with the economy.
What we are going through now is a structural crisis in finance. This problem affects the business models of companies, because many look to the credit markets to fund operations or previous acquisitions. When these markets dry up, they are need to pay back existing loans, but many are not able to get new ones at prices that they can afford.
You can trace the origins of this back when the Glass-Steagall Act (created after the Great Depression) was repealed by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999. This effectively allowed, amongst other things, the creation of tje MBS, CDOs and SIVs, causing the current crisis.
The SEC capital ratio exemptions in 2004 for the big 5 investment banks added more fuel to the fire, allowing them to increase the leverage in their business.
You talked about Senator McCain. Well, Phil Gramm and John McCain? They go back a long way. Don't take my word for it, do some research yourself.
I don't know. Maybe it isn't a good idea to use your private email for official purposes. Maybe it isn't a good idea for a public figure to use a Yahoo email account at all. You know it's a public mail service...
Yeah.. and so is Rupert Murdoch!!
It's all a vast left-wing conspiracy!!
bankrupting them through legal expenses? Time to mirror the content folks.
Think of it as a strategic move. If he voted against the entire bill containing the immunity clause, then yes, he's probably get a whole lot of respect from people like you and me.
However, that's going to be a big thing that the McCain camp is going to harp on, and drill it in that Obama doesn't support measures to tackle terrorism.
Obama has already voiced his opposition to the immunity clause by voting for the amendment to ditch it. That's didn't go through so you can imagine it's not a easy move to play.
If demand is relatively inelastic, you can manipulate the market by speculation causing a restriction in supply. To get around the delivery problem, most of the speculators actually have oil reserves, and the oil is traded like currency on bank computers.
When demand finally gave way (due to high prices), the support for the speculation fell through, and that's the reason why you see a larger than expected drop.
Markets are not 100% efficient, they are prone to the same localized turbulence as with any system with complex dynamics. Speculators magnify market forces and are sometimes beneficial to the market as thay are market-makers, but in other circumstances, they hinder the efficient operation of the market by preventing it from finding the price equilibrium, in effect, a sort of freeloading by price manipulation.
It's not just about standard of living, although the economic justifications for American foreign policy is well-known. There are reasons for American involvement in places such as Iran and Panama that are very clearly because of economic and military interests. Anyways, that's not the point I was trying to make.
It is about lifestyle, or how one lives. Although how one person lives may not have a big impact on the world, taken in aggregate it does.
No. The fault is not with the messenger. It is the people themselves who were brought up with a false sense of national superiority, unwilling to accept the fact that the lifestyle they are enjoying may contribute to the suppression of peoples around the world by their government and corporations.
I'm sure all the middle class people in California giving thirty percent of their income to the government (soon to be more if we become an Obamanation) are really happy about it and wish the government would take more of their money.
Your tax numbers only make sense if you only classify the top 2% of earners as middle class.
Please stop spouting misinformation. In fact, with the McCain tax cuts, only the top earners will get a benefit. Everybody else will be just about the same. Now let's just cross our fingers and hope the trickle-down pixie dust work?
1. The opportunity cost of work from your perspective is calculated per unit of labor. From my perspective it is per unit of productivity.
The majority of labor hours worked per worker is relatively consistent across most of the labor market for those that are employed full-time. There is a reason for this, and that is because people do not work to maximize earning, but to maximize utility. Utility in itself is very hard to quantify, and consuming utility takes time.
If economists are making the assumption otherwise, they are ignoring the behavior of the labor market in a very fundamental way.
What you want to do is not to increase the hours people work, but to increase the amount of productivity for a particular unit of work. If people can work the same amount of time, but produce much more, then they would not mind being taxed a little bit more on the additional productivity. (Of course I am assuming that people are paid for the amount they produce, and often that is not a fair assumption to make :)
2. Let us put it this way. World-class track athletes are often in milliseconds of each other, but these milliseconds count like nothing else. The reference is often not one's own earning, but the earning of others in the society as a whole.
I applaud your efforts, but doing as you say will return us to the Victorian times when the poor were left in workhouses, hopeless and destitute. Now at least, they're only left just hopeless. Dickens would be turning in his grave.
Solutions to problems usually cause their own problems down the line. However, we must take history into account and not revive the original problem by rolling back what was the original solution.