Greed, like entropy, doesn't have to be "ingrained". It's a direct and predictable result of the benefits, to individuals in a complex environment, of being greedy, much as entropy is a predictable result of complex systems allowed to have random interactions.
No it does not have to be ingrained, and in fact will not be when the fixed-action patterns of behavior are "new" as far as evolution is concerned. However given enough time (again, as far as evolution is concerned), fixed-action patterns of behavior do and will become an ingrained instinct(as so much research has shown it is now accepted evolutionary theory). This is so true in fact, that even knowledge passed on by parents to offspring, if significantly beneficial over time - becomes ingrained instinct that no longer needs to be taught. Again this is fixed action behavior, a category that Greed falls into. Humans are not going to instinctively learn how to drive cars - but they may instincvly learn to fear road crossings if enough people died, over enough time. Thats just how it works. Oodles of evidence supporting this, but to stay on the New Zealand them you can brush up a bit here.
Now, can intelligence often do a better job of limiting the destructive and maximizing resources for the species? Sure. That's why we have civilizations and cultures, to preserve and spread information to the next generation. But don't ignore those "primitive" impulses. It's like ignoring physics when you try to design a computer: it keeps popping up, and you can't just ignore it.
Well, yeah. I suspect you don't get the point (I never said individuals can outgrow greed, never said it should be ignored - do your read the posts you reply to?). At a "civilizations and cultures" level greed is not only being ignored, but in most societies has been embraced as the modus operandi. Again, queue Financial "crisis" as a recent demonstration for your consideration - a small and completely insignificant event on the evolutionary scale.
Its not about outgrowing greed - not possible we are talking about an deeply ingrained evolutionary tuned instinct. It is about using just enough intelligence to not allow primitive instincts rule supreme in our societies. Just had a nice little demonstration in the financial industry, in case you didn't notice.
That tree is stuck in an endless recursion of time.
Not just the Tree is stuck - WE Humans are stuck with far worse repercussions than bunch of trees and shrubs. It was a great evolutionary advantage for us to all be greedy a few thousand years ago, where greedily stockpiling the cave with food, fur coats and "things" helped our kids get through the next harsh winter alive... but today that evolutionary baggage is going to get us all killed. More advanced human societies began to wake up to that, limiting greed with laws for the greater good - but then the primitive side of us helped hijack that greater good goal and create corporations. Legal structures obliged by law to be greedy... for the good of the shareholders, of course. Now certain corporations have firm control over our politicians...
I don't look forward to the stack overflow that is heading our collective way when the natural environment tips out of balance enough to remove that evolutionary baggage for us.
Not to mention that in the process of securing against the "cyber-terrorism" bogeyman, an big added benefit for ruling elites will be removing net anonymity and related speech in the name of national security, bringing all those blogs and uncontrollable information channels under heel in a more hierarchical system - or at least more accountable to an "authorized views", type system - ("Take down that anti-war protest site and uncensored video footage - preempt information warfare against our war, sir") and of course, only authorized p2p channels and protocols allowed in this future we are manufacturing, thanks.
many commentators are now levelling the accusation of fraud because that suits the purposes of much of the West... so it is essentially Mousavi's supporters who are a smaller faction trying to undermine democracy with violence. If they get anywhere (and whatever you think of the GP, covert Western support or promises of support for his followers is extremely plausible), then it would just push Iran back to a more totalitarian state because they certainly wont win whatever the West would like to pretend. They don't have the support of the common people and, quite frankly, they appear to have lost the election. Mousavi - good or bad (and he's no angel, just more amenable to Western interests), you can't just allow democracy when it elects the people you want elected.
In light of past US and British government/corporate behavior when it comes to securing rights to Iranian oil (i.e. Operation Ajax), the many fraud claims being thrown about reek of self-interest propaganda similar to that used in the plot to depose Mosaddeq - which any way you slice it was a very evil deed to secure oil rights. Anyway, today there is to much shit flying about (even more than in the Bush in Florida 2000 elections, at least on the international news circuit) to really know what the truth is. Best to step back and look at the big picture and Iran's history time line to put the current propaganda "news" into the context it deserves.
You have the same privacy-eliminating laws all over the EU, mainly because they are largely EU mandated, yet in most other countries, right-wing parties that call for even tighter monitoring and regulation won across the board.
The problem is the low voter turnout/voter apathy, which always favors right-wing parties (whose followers vote with religious like fervor): http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4310212,00.html It is of course in their interest to keep voter turnouts low in coming elections too, a job made easier now they have majority in the EU parliament.
Depends on the market. In the case of Microsoft software, the consumers don't pay the tax. Microsoft's main titles (Windows & Office) are both mostly market monopolies, which means that the price is set based on how much people are willing to pay for the software. The price is set based only on the contrast between number of sales and price per sale to optimize for maximum product.
In cases like this, the industry ends up paying the taxes. While the monopoly company has less funds to develop improvement in the software, users of the software receive less functionality. Software developers and domestic employees are hurt the most, having less employer competition due to work being outsourced.
Someone modded you troll, looks like your insight touched a raw nerve there, Penguinoflight
national security...It's about the economic well-being of the United States
As Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, Americas most highly decorated Marine by the time of his death pointed out in his short book War is a racket; all military/spy agency has ever been is about "economic well-being" for a select few, and was _never_ about National Security. Using his unmatched experience "protecting" the US around the world, he went on to explain why economic well being and real National Security are apposing goals.
US exports $5 billion+ pork each year. Mexico imports most of its pork from US/Canada. Other countries such as China know that the swine flu was much more likely to have incubated in the massive pig farms of US and Canada before transferring to humans, rather than the other way round as so called "news" like this try to make us believe.
"China was also selective, banning only pork from Texas, California and Kansas, while the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and Ecuador said theyâ(TM)re stopping all U.S. pork imports, according to Nefeterius Akeli McPherson of the U.S. trade representativeâ(TM)s office." China ban US pork
Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) committee Members contact details (Including emails), by country: http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/MEPs_ITRE Two clicks and a quick email/phone call to "urge [your] MEPs seating in ITRE committee to support the rapporteur by refusing any compromise neutralizing amendment 138 (now renumbered 46) on April 21st vote.".
(Thanks to Shawb for pointing out it is not bad form to reply to own post:)
URGENT: Two days to help Catherine Trautmann protect EU citizens. Paris, April 20th 2009 - The Council of the EU is strongly pushing Catherine Trautmann - rapporteur of the main directives of the "Telecoms Package" - to accept a useless, neutralized version[1] of amendment 138. This amendment, opposing to "graduated response - or "three strikes" â" schemes, has been overwhelmingly adopted by the European Parliament in its first reading on September 2008, and is crucial for safeguarding EU citizens' rights and freedoms. La Quadrature du Net calls European citizens to urge their MEPs seating in ITRE committee to support the rapporteur by refusing any compromise neutralizing amendment 138 (now renumbered 46) on April 21st vote.
[1] The Council wants to make it a merely indicative recital instead of an article that Member States must transpose into their law
from TFA: > It's a consumer's paradise: The Web has become the biggest store in history...
Telecom companies implementing tiered service models, destroying Net Neutrality will fix that temporary glitch. While they are at it, lets hand-out to them some public bail out tax^H^H^H printed money for the privilege.
Firefox is a standards-compliant program that does things via standard API's. MS is going behind Firefox's back and putting stuff in places where Firefox can't write/delete files. You do *NOT* want FF to be able to write/delete all over your system. That is one reason it's safer than IE.
Sure, fair enough. But FF can *ignore* said extensions in a standards compliant way without writing/deleting all over your system. A simple user authorised extensions list will do the trick.
Even more basic than ROE... Where the hell are they going to get all this money from for all these programs?
It is printed out of thin air [1] That is why the USD has a beautiful long term slide [2] Why does this happen? (A) Because It is a tax you cannot see or calculate into your yearly salary - purchasing power is lost without your noticing - so you do not complain. and (B) The money flows right off the printing press into the pockets of whatever industry the Government happens to favor at the time, which is usually the Military Industrial Complex but sometimes large scale social programs. The first one get the money hot off the printing press get the most value out of it.
If your really interested see the links in [3] for some more...
I know why Germany is so keen on keeping Nazism dead for good, an admirable goal, but it seems they are playing with the some of the same kind of fire when they use these laws.
Its for the children... example of Hitlers "big lie" theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie) propaganda.
also the quotes...
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people" "As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation." -- Mein Kampf, the Ralph Manheim translation published by Houghton-Mifflin ISBN0395078016, 1943. pg 403
Lets hold out some (false?) hope that it does not get as bad as the International Olympic Committee host country "Selection" process corruption I felt really sorry for all the French waiting out on the streets to celebrate London Vs Paris 2012 Olympic host "Selection" - it was so damn obvious they would not get it from the start. Your country defiantly don't get to host the Olympics for vocally opposing the Rape of Iraq - call it a political knuckle lashing punishment for not bending over, if you will. "Surprise. London won." (How about that FOX news story sarcasm, surprise indeed).
But Turkey have played good little lap dogs, pulled their weight in the war effortS though. And Surprise, guess who won the news rights to their blood-money-reward^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Successful Olympic Host Bid , why its Bush families close friend, Ex-Australian con Rupert Murdoch of Fox news fame Fox TV wins Olympic TV rights in Turkey for 2016 games
Anybody who thinks this is not all about backroom deals, political reward and punishment is just too damn naive.
There is loads of evidence, in the form of scientific research. Unfortunately the weight of evidence is growing at a rapid pace. Here is a collection of scientific articles from a broad range of research, rolled into one book/location for your convenience:
"The book Our Stolen Future brought world-wide attention to scientific discoveries about endocrine disruption and the fact that common contaminants can interfere with the natural signals controlling development of the fetus. This website tracks the most recent developments." http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/
"Rogue" agents are not the problem. Sanctioned industrial espionage is the problem
You got that right. Here is another "small" example - to the tune of 6 billion, with a 1.3 billion side show - all old news:
July 11, 2001: European Parliament Report: Echelon Data Provided to US Corporations Glyn Ford.Glyn Ford. [Source: British Labour Party]The European Parliament releases its final report on its findings about the secretive US surveillance program known as Echelon. The report, two years in the making, exhaustively details many of Echelon's surveillance capabilities, and lists many of Echelon's surveillance stations around the world. One of the more interesting sections of the report concerns its apparent use on behalf of US corporations. According to the report, Echelonâ"operated by the NSA as a highly classified surveillance program ostensibly for tracking terrorist threats and activities by nations hostile to the West is also being used for corporate and industrial espionage, with information from the program being turned over to US corporations for their financial advantage. The report gives several instances of Echelon's use by corporations. One is the use of Echelon to "lift... all the faxes and phone calls" between the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus and Saudi Arabian Airlines; that information was used by two American companies, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, to outflank Airbus and win a $6 billion contract. The report also alleges that the French company Thomson-CSF lost a $1.3 billion satellite deal to Raytheon the same way. Glyn Ford, the MP who commissioned the report, says he doesn't have a problem with Echelon itself, but in the way it is being used. "Now, you know, if we're catching the bad guys, we're completely in favor of that... What we're concerned about is that some of the good guys in my constituency don't have jobs because US corporations got an inside track onâ"on some global deal." http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=airbus_1
British Labor party spokesman above says that they are completely in favor of spying on European citizens - as long as they can benefit from industrial espionage as well. I guess the "bad guys" now means anyone, anywhere either corporation, country or individuals - who do not contribute directly or indirectly to their political campaign fund, roll their national resources over to foreign exploitation. Talk about fringe benefits from (mis)using public office.
Slashdot Mirror
Greed, like entropy, doesn't have to be "ingrained". It's a direct and predictable result of the benefits, to individuals in a complex environment, of being greedy, much as entropy is a predictable result of complex systems allowed to have random interactions.
No it does not have to be ingrained, and in fact will not be when the fixed-action patterns of behavior are "new" as far as evolution is concerned. However given enough time (again, as far as evolution is concerned), fixed-action patterns of behavior do and will become an ingrained instinct (as so much research has shown it is now accepted evolutionary theory). This is so true in fact, that even knowledge passed on by parents to offspring, if significantly beneficial over time - becomes ingrained instinct that no longer needs to be taught. Again this is fixed action behavior, a category that Greed falls into. Humans are not going to instinctively learn how to drive cars - but they may instincvly learn to fear road crossings if enough people died, over enough time. Thats just how it works. Oodles of evidence supporting this, but to stay on the New Zealand them you can brush up a bit here.
Now, can intelligence often do a better job of limiting the destructive and maximizing resources for the species? Sure. That's why we have civilizations and cultures, to preserve and spread information to the next generation. But don't ignore those "primitive" impulses. It's like ignoring physics when you try to design a computer: it keeps popping up, and you can't just ignore it.
Well, yeah. I suspect you don't get the point (I never said individuals can outgrow greed, never said it should be ignored - do your read the posts you reply to?). At a "civilizations and cultures" level greed is not only being ignored, but in most societies has been embraced as the modus operandi. Again, queue Financial "crisis" as a recent demonstration for your consideration - a small and completely insignificant event on the evolutionary scale.
Its not about outgrowing greed - not possible we are talking about an deeply ingrained evolutionary tuned instinct.
It is about using just enough intelligence to not allow primitive instincts rule supreme in our societies. Just had a nice little demonstration in the financial industry, in case you didn't notice.
That tree is stuck in an endless recursion of time.
Not just the Tree is stuck - WE Humans are stuck with far worse repercussions than bunch of trees and shrubs. It was a great evolutionary advantage for us to all be greedy a few thousand years ago, where greedily stockpiling the cave with food, fur coats and "things" helped our kids get through the next harsh winter alive... but today that evolutionary baggage is going to get us all killed. More advanced human societies began to wake up to that, limiting greed with laws for the greater good - but then the primitive side of us helped hijack that greater good goal and create corporations. Legal structures obliged by law to be greedy... for the good of the shareholders, of course. Now certain corporations have firm control over our politicians...
I don't look forward to the stack overflow that is heading our collective way when the natural environment tips out of balance enough to remove that evolutionary baggage for us.
plans for the JSF fighter were sold.
Fixed that for you. Seriously, you must mean ALL THIS DATA.
Not to mention that in the process of securing against the "cyber-terrorism" bogeyman, an big added benefit for ruling elites will be removing net anonymity and related speech in the name of national security, bringing all those blogs and uncontrollable information channels under heel in a more hierarchical system - or at least more accountable to an "authorized views", type system - ("Take down that anti-war protest site and uncensored video footage - preempt information warfare against our war, sir") and of course, only authorized p2p channels and protocols allowed in this future we are manufacturing, thanks.
many commentators are now levelling the accusation of fraud because that suits the purposes of much of the West...
so it is essentially Mousavi's supporters who are a smaller faction trying to undermine democracy with violence. If they get anywhere (and whatever you think of the GP, covert Western support or promises of support for his followers is extremely plausible), then it would just push Iran back to a more totalitarian state because they certainly wont win whatever the West would like to pretend. They don't have the support of the common people and, quite frankly, they appear to have lost the election.
Mousavi - good or bad (and he's no angel, just more amenable to Western interests), you can't just allow democracy when it elects the people you want elected.
In light of past US and British government/corporate behavior when it comes to securing rights to Iranian oil (i.e. Operation Ajax), the many fraud claims being thrown about reek of self-interest propaganda similar to that used in the plot to depose Mosaddeq - which any way you slice it was a very evil deed to secure oil rights. Anyway, today there is to much shit flying about (even more than in the Bush in Florida 2000 elections, at least on the international news circuit) to really know what the truth is. Best to step back and look at the big picture and Iran's history time line to put the current propaganda "news" into the context it deserves.
You have the same privacy-eliminating laws all over the EU, mainly because they are largely EU mandated, yet in most other countries, right-wing parties that call for even tighter monitoring and regulation won across the board.
The problem is the low voter turnout/voter apathy, which always favors right-wing parties (whose followers vote with religious like fervor): http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4310212,00.html
It is of course in their interest to keep voter turnouts low in coming elections too, a job made easier now they have majority in the EU parliament.
Depends on the market. In the case of Microsoft software, the consumers don't pay the tax. Microsoft's main titles (Windows & Office) are both mostly market monopolies, which means that the price is set based on how much people are willing to pay for the software. The price is set based only on the contrast between number of sales and price per sale to optimize for maximum product.
In cases like this, the industry ends up paying the taxes. While the monopoly company has less funds to develop improvement in the software, users of the software receive less functionality. Software developers and domestic employees are hurt the most, having less employer competition due to work being outsourced.
Someone modded you troll, looks like your insight touched a raw nerve there, Penguinoflight
national security...It's about the economic well-being of the United States
As Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, Americas most highly decorated Marine by the time of his death pointed out in his short book War is a racket; all military/spy agency has ever been is about "economic well-being" for a select few, and was _never_ about National Security. Using his unmatched experience "protecting" the US around the world, he went on to explain why economic well being and real National Security are apposing goals.
Didn't the European Parliament just rule that this sort of thing was illegal?
Yes, probably why they are trying to motivate the UK gov to resist (as if it needed any more motivation).
"according to an expert an the specialised area that is European politics, this amendment could be significant and might spike the guns of the pro-copyright "flog 'em and hang 'em' brigade" (now led by French President, Nicholas Sarkozy)."
http://web20.telecomtv.com/pages/?newsid=43004&id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10
spike the guns, indeed.
From WHO: "There is no indication of virus adaptation through transfer from human to pigs at this time."
http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_05_03a/en/index.html
US exports $5 billion+ pork each year. Mexico imports most of its pork from US/Canada. Other countries such as China know that the swine flu was much more likely to have incubated in the massive pig farms of US and Canada before transferring to humans, rather than the other way round as so called "news" like this try to make us believe.
"China was also selective, banning only pork from Texas, California and Kansas, while the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and Ecuador said theyâ(TM)re stopping all U.S. pork imports, according to Nefeterius Akeli McPherson of the U.S. trade representativeâ(TM)s office."
China ban US pork
Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) committee Members contact details (Including emails), by country: http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/MEPs_ITRE
Two clicks and a quick email/phone call to "urge [your] MEPs seating in ITRE committee to support the rapporteur by refusing any compromise neutralizing amendment 138 (now renumbered 46) on April 21st vote.".
(Thanks to Shawb for pointing out it is not bad form to reply to own post :)
Bad form to reply to own post, but I just saw this related news item at http://www.laquadrature.net/en
URGENT: Two days to help Catherine Trautmann protect EU citizens.
Paris, April 20th 2009 - The Council of the EU is strongly pushing Catherine Trautmann - rapporteur of the main directives of the "Telecoms Package" - to accept a useless, neutralized version[1] of amendment 138. This amendment, opposing to "graduated response - or "three strikes" â" schemes, has been overwhelmingly adopted by the European Parliament in its first reading on September 2008, and is crucial for safeguarding EU citizens' rights and freedoms. La Quadrature du Net calls European citizens to urge their MEPs seating in ITRE committee to support the rapporteur by refusing any compromise neutralizing amendment 138 (now renumbered 46) on April 21st vote.
[1] The Council wants to make it a merely indicative recital instead of an article that Member States must transpose into their law
Yes and no. Do those networks cross land that they own?
Send a clear message that this nonsense will not be tolerated... to help make an intelligent decision when voting in European elections, see:
http://www.laquadrature.net/en [laquadrature.net]
Check out the Political memory resource:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Political_Memory [laquadrature.net]
especially the "List of recorded votes" section to see who voted for what - before you reward them with your vote for them.
Also of interest, the Telecoms Package section: http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_Package [laquadrature.net]
Mod parent UP: 1975 Australian constitutional crisis
Kinda makes you wonder if government intervention is really necessary.
The summary uses words like "Surged", and "biggest" which is more than a little misleading for the overall renewable situation, given the tiny fraction renewable energy makes up of the total energy market (7% in 2006, wind 1% of that):
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/prelim_trends/rea_prereport.html
from TFA:
> It's a consumer's paradise: The Web has become the biggest store in history...
Telecom companies implementing tiered service models, destroying Net Neutrality will fix that temporary glitch. While they are at it, lets hand-out to them some public bail out tax^H^H^H printed money for the privilege.
Firefox is a standards-compliant program that does things via standard API's. MS is going behind Firefox's back and putting stuff in places where Firefox can't write/delete files. You do *NOT* want FF to be able to write/delete all over your system. That is one reason it's safer than IE.
Sure, fair enough. But FF can *ignore* said extensions in a standards compliant way without writing/deleting all over your system. A simple user authorised extensions list will do the trick.
Even more basic than ROE...
Where the hell are they going to get all this money from for all these programs?
It is printed out of thin air [1] That is why the USD has a beautiful long term slide [2]
Why does this happen? (A) Because It is a tax you cannot see or calculate into your yearly salary - purchasing power is lost without your noticing - so you do not complain. and (B) The money flows right off the printing press into the pockets of whatever industry the Government happens to favor at the time, which is usually the Military Industrial Complex but sometimes large scale social programs. The first one get the money hot off the printing press get the most value out of it.
If your really interested see the links in [3] for some more...
[1] http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/MoneySupply.html
[2] Decline in the U.S. dollar's purchasing power (1800-2005) Source: Barron's
http://seekingalpha.com/wp-content/seekingalpha/images/cash.gif
[3] Economist Rober Higss (of the ratchet effect theory):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Higgs
Banking Act of 1935 + Fedâ(TM)s Exercise of This Authority = New Deal Policy
http://www.independent.org/blog/?p=633
http://www.independent.org/blog/?p=201
I know why Germany is so keen on keeping Nazism dead for good, an admirable goal, but it seems they are playing with the some of the same kind of fire when they use these laws.
Its for the children... example of Hitlers "big lie" theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie) propaganda.
also the quotes...
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people"
"As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."
-- Mein Kampf, the Ralph Manheim translation published by Houghton-Mifflin ISBN0395078016, 1943. pg 403
If voting,be sure to check out these impressive tools to help make an informed choice in the European Parliament elections.
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Political_Memory
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Campaign-Save_amendment_138_and_Internet_Freedom_from_Council_of_EU#General_Advice
For example can sort by amendment 138, see who was against:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_package_directives_1st_reading_details_by_score
Lets hold out some (false?) hope that it does not get as bad as the International Olympic Committee host country "Selection" process corruption
I felt really sorry for all the French waiting out on the streets to celebrate London Vs Paris 2012 Olympic host "Selection" - it was so damn obvious they would not get it from the start. Your country defiantly don't get to host the Olympics for vocally opposing the Rape of Iraq - call it a political knuckle lashing punishment for not bending over, if you will. "Surprise. London won." (How about that FOX news story sarcasm, surprise indeed).
But Turkey have played good little lap dogs, pulled their weight in the war effortS though. And Surprise, guess who won the news rights to their blood-money-reward^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Successful Olympic Host Bid , why its Bush families close friend, Ex-Australian con Rupert Murdoch of Fox news fame Fox TV wins Olympic TV rights in Turkey for 2016 games
Anybody who thinks this is not all about backroom deals, political reward and punishment is just too damn naive.
There is loads of evidence, in the form of scientific research. Unfortunately the weight of evidence is growing at a rapid pace. Here is a collection of scientific articles from a broad range of research, rolled into one book/location for your convenience:
"The book Our Stolen Future brought world-wide attention to scientific discoveries about endocrine disruption and the fact that common contaminants can interfere with the natural signals controlling development of the fetus. This website tracks the most recent developments."
http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/
"Rogue" agents are not the problem. Sanctioned industrial espionage is the problem
You got that right. Here is another "small" example - to the tune of 6 billion, with a 1.3 billion side show - all old news:
July 11, 2001: European Parliament Report: Echelon Data Provided to US Corporations
Glyn Ford.Glyn Ford. [Source: British Labour Party]The European Parliament releases its final report on its findings about the secretive US surveillance program known as Echelon. The report, two years in the making, exhaustively details many of Echelon's surveillance capabilities, and lists many of Echelon's surveillance stations around the world. One of the more interesting sections of the report concerns its apparent use on behalf of US corporations. According to the report, Echelonâ"operated by the NSA as a highly classified surveillance program ostensibly for tracking terrorist threats and activities by nations hostile to the West is also being used for corporate and industrial espionage, with information from the program being turned over to US corporations for their financial advantage. The report gives several instances of Echelon's use by corporations. One is the use of Echelon to "lift... all the faxes and phone calls" between the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus and Saudi Arabian Airlines; that information was used by two American companies, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, to outflank Airbus and win a $6 billion contract. The report also alleges that the French company Thomson-CSF lost a $1.3 billion satellite deal to Raytheon the same way. Glyn Ford, the MP who commissioned the report, says he doesn't have a problem with Echelon itself, but in the way it is being used. "Now, you know, if we're catching the bad guys, we're completely in favor of that... What we're concerned about is that some of the good guys in my constituency don't have jobs because US corporations got an inside track onâ"on some global deal."
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=airbus_1
British Labor party spokesman above says that they are completely in favor of spying on European citizens - as long as they can benefit from industrial espionage as well. I guess the "bad guys" now means anyone, anywhere either corporation, country or individuals - who do not contribute directly or indirectly to their political campaign fund, roll their national resources over to foreign exploitation. Talk about fringe benefits from (mis)using public office.