It depends on which media you are talking about. CNN/Fox/MSNBC? Doubtful. CNBC? Absolutely. You can thank Elliot Spitzer for that, whether you like him or not...
There are very stiff penalties in the financial world for not disclosing conflicts. When CNBC has a speaker or guest, you'll notice they put up a disclosure screen that shows information on whether the speaker has any conflicts with the company he is discussing. It's not perfect but it is a step in the right direction. It wasn't always like this....back in the day, there were serious and glaring conflicts that were known but never discussed outside of those "in the know".
One that comes to mind is a stock analyst who's employer does investment banking for the company the analyst is writing about. ie: Citibank does invesment banking business with Wal-mart. The Citibank analyst who covers Wal-mart has a conflict because if he pans Wal-mart, they take their investment banking business elsewhere. So there is a strong incentive for the analyst to write glowing reports, despite whether or not they are true. That is precisely what Spitzer put a stop to. Henry Blodget was the worst offender but he was not alone.
Is this number right? For $90/yr/pc, I can install any MSFT operating system?
Why isn't this program publicized? I am a small business and I have to tell you...the entire Windows licensing system is very very difficult to navigate. And I am 100% certain that is "by design". The more confused they can make me, the more money they can extract out of me and my company (or so they think).
In actual practice, I don't mind spending money where needed and $90/yr/pc seems about fair for a Windows OS.
Bonus points if someone can point me to a vendor who will sell it to me.
Do you not think they know what they are doing? They know this very well. But they also know they are not in a competitive industry so they can do whatever they want.
And therein lies the rub. While they aren't a monopoly in technical or legal terms, they are a monopoly in practical terms. Until we reconcile that, the only thing certain is that AT&T will continue to try to fuck customers as much as they can. You would too if you had a business model like they do and a regulatory environment that allows it.
As they say....common sense isn't so common. We all know it isn't right. But nothing is being done to correct it. After 30+ years, I am not holding my breath for positive progress in this area. In other words, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
I have many friends who hypothesize that states become more dysfunctional, the closer they get to Louisiana.
Have a look at a US map and see if you agree....
Thanks for posting in a much more graceful manner than I have on this thread. I was not as clear in my responses to this guy so thanks for laying it out much more clearly.
Got it. Thanks for the clarification. You are right that we have to define what we mean when we say "hacker". I used the old school definition so thanks for pointing out the difference. It is helpful to the discussion.
The very idea that you could create any kind of meaningful "hacking curriculum" is laughable. Books and Professors? Are you really serious with your reply? Are they really the best source of hacking info? No...no they are not. They never have been. Sure, they can teach you the basics and get you in the game but in reality, that's where their capability ends. Last I checked, professors had nothing to do with 2600, Phrack, LoD, Code Red, Sasser, or any other hacking effort in the last 25+ years. Have you ever seen some of the pure genius that has come from true hackers? Some of it makes you step back in awe of how they "figured that out". Go back and read some of the ezines from the late 80's and 90's. They are quite dated by now but they covered topics that NO BOOK or class could ever touch.
I mean, think about it....many hackers know more about the equipment than the people who actually designed and built it. And you think books are going to teach them to hack it? C'mon....
Methinks you are confusing "security professional" with "hacker". Sometimes they overlap, but not always. I know plenty of INFOSEC guys who don't know a damn thing about hacking. If you were to put them into a room with a real hacker, you would quickly see the hacker run circles around the pro. Now, why would that be?
Riddle me this: IF what you say is true, then why aren't we swimming in hackers all around us? Why is the govt having such a hard time finding qualified applicants? Why aren't there more uber hackers "out there"? After all, if I want to be 1337, all I have to do is go to the right classes and have an active interest. So what is stopping millions of wannabe kids from doing just that?
Your post is hilarious! I mean no offense by this reply so please don't get mad....
The idea that there is "hacking training" or even college is hilarious! Hacking, by definition, means you do things that were not designed to be done. IOW, you hacked them to make them work together. It could be computers...or it could be stereo speakers. They only differ in form.
Things like this can not be taught by books or professors. They are learned by experience and tinkering. There are no shortcuts to becoming a hacker. Only time, an inquisitive nature, and quite a bit of OCD can make you one. You'll probably need some Jolt cola too....but that's a topic for another post. The very idea that hacking can be taught is laughable. That's like teaching someone to 'be successful' or to 'live healthy' or some other cockamamie abstract concept.
Simply put: you are looking in the wrong place for your training and education.
I would think the very culture of the DoD would be adversarial towards the very people they are trying to recruit.
What's the hook? What I mean is: why would some high schooler join this program vs the alternatives? -which by the way....are way more fun. Would you really want to hack for some PHB who has TPS Cover Sheets to fill out? I can't imagine a less rewarding situation
This seems like wishful thinking to me. How many "hacker recruiting" programs have we seen/heard about now? I can count 3 or 4 off the top of my head. Methinks they are not having much success finding good hackers.
Also, I would argue that all stock really represents is voting power. It is not an asset in any real way. Your share is not equal to Company Worth/Total Shares.
You'd be wrong. It is an asset. And you do own, like a bike, equal percentage to the Company worth/total shares. That's *exactly* what the word "share" means. As in, "your share of the company". Lucky for you, you can go to a market (NYSE) and, most likely, someone will buy those shares from you for a price. The price he/she offers will fluctuate everyday. That is why everything you said above is 100% incorrect.
I have no idea how US law treats "prediction markets". I have never ever heard of such a concept addressed by law.
What you describe is basically a derivatives markets. Common stock equity is what my original post was about. That's way different than any derivative. You misunderstand what "backs" each financial instrument.
The CBOT is just that - a board of trade. IOW, a market.
They trade all kinds of things there. Derivatives of equity, commodities, debt insurance, and a whole host of other things I am sure.
I don't understand your question. They fit in just like the NYSE or Nasdaq or any of the other markets around the world (DAX, Nikkei, etc). I have re-read your post a few times and I just don't get what you are insinuating. Spell it out for me.
Some of those Atari games were downright embarrassing. Example A: E.T.
But give us old timers a break...we didn't know any better. At the time, that was as good as it got. We weren't asking questions about making the graphics better, we were just excited we could play the games in OUR house and on OUR T.V.
People forget how cool it was to have those first consoles. Colecovision, Intellivision, Atari, etc, etc.
Ok, I was going to let your post slide because I know where you are coming from but...just to be clear...
Stocks and gambling are NOT equivalents. Not even close. When you buy a stock, you own a piece of a company. As in, you own it just like you own a bike or a computer or any other asset in your house. You have (some) legal rights and some "claim" on future earnings. That's what stock, aka common equity, represents.
Additionally, the price of stocks is determined "by the market". In other words, all the buyers and sellers of stock determine the prices as they go along based on the value that they subjectively assign to each stock. That's the market we are speaking of and that's why the prices move. For every sell, there is a buy. And for every buy, there is a sell. The price is arrived at by this process and this process alone. In other words - it is not random.
Wayyyyyy different than gambling. Gambling is random and even worse, the end results (risk/reward profiles) are heavily skewed toward your competitor (the house). Stock price moves are determined by the market. Just a bunch of buyers and sellers agreeing on the price - but it isn't random, like gambling.
Ok, I have to go take the stick out of my ass now....carry on. Thx.
Ok, so we need an IP based piece of infrastructure in public hands. ie: government hands. Owned by the people for the people. Answer me this: What technology should we use? Wireless? 3G? ISDN? FutureTech?
See, that's the problem. What you are advocating is that the government can best answer the question I raise above. I disagree. I think past history suggests free market capitalism can best answer that question by letting the providers duke it out over my dollar. That provides more choice, better quality, and a better price for me. It also means they constantly improve services, lest they lose me as a customer.
No such incentives are present if the government directly provides the service to me and tells me which technology I get to use. At that point, all I can do is cast a vote which really doesn't do shit to change things with my government provided ISP.
Riddle me this: What incentive does your municipal internet have to improve services over time? or even offer the level of service you desire?
ISP's are very different from a "utility" like sewer, fire, and police. I can't buy the "super speedy package" from my police force. Or at least, I shouldn't be able to legally. I can't get the "extra water" package from my fire department. All of those services, and sewer, are the same for everyone. Government might be appropriate when the same offering is offered to all people but with bandwidth, I can buy at many different price and performance points. Your government is not prepared to handle all of those various offerings and when you throw profit into the mix, along with government power, you have a nasty mess. It just doesn't make sense for government to provide that service. Regulation? That's another story.
Do you want private companies having to compete with the government? Generally, past history suggests that is a bad idea. The government is a special entity with special powers so you have to be very very careful when you allow government to go into "profit based business" - which is what this is. Tax spending on services/infrastructure is one thing. Profit based business is an entirely different animal.
I have no problem with the idea of busting up the monopolies but you don't do that by making your government compete with private industry. No, instead you encourage OTHER private players to come in and compete with the monopoly (or you pass legislation, tax cuts, or whatever that does the same). If you insist on putting your government "in business", then you will eventually drive out all the other competitors aside from the government. Remember, the government can do LOTS of things that private industry can't so, by default, it's an unfair playing field. Look no further than the banking system right now for an example of how that plays out. Government was never designed to "be in business".
For a bunch of tin-foil hat guys, the slashdot crowd really puts a lot of faith in government solutions of all kinds.....
I hate Comcast as much as the rest of you. But I cringe at the idea of my city government being in the ISP business.
There are several posts advocating larger ISP involvement and nobody has mentioned the obvious slippery slope with ISP's being put into a "policing" role.
If ISPs are allowed to "track down" botnets and botnet zombies, then why can't they "track down" torrents? Or porn? or any other thing that the powers-that-be don't want you downloading? Am I the only one who sees major problems with ISP's being put in a watchdog role?
I can't believe nobody has brought this up. Am I in the right place? Is this slashdot?
I've seen this situation before and I know exactly what to do: send over the bombers and let's bomb them back to the stone age. Then we'll have our chance to change things.
What's that you say? Why no, I did not know Bush was no longer president.
If you don't think so, then ask yourself this: Why aren't other (private) investors clamoring to "get a piece" of Tesla? If a joe-sixpack model is so lucrative and such a good idea, why aren't investors running to give Tesla money? Why aren't YOU giving them money?
Answer: Because investors don't see it as a good investment.
So why does the US government?
A capitalistic society already has places it can go to get investment capital. If the government is the only source of investment capital, then you no longer have capitalism. It can not be made any simpler than that. You really do not want your government "investing" in anything. You want individuals to do that instead. That's what makes capitalism work. When the government gets involved, the incentives get all fucked up. Think: communism.
They tapped into what their target audience wanted, hired the best speech writers, and pulled it off.
So, are you saying the people got what they wanted? Uhh, without being obtuse, isn't that was democracy is all about? Of course it's a marketing campaign! The whole idea of our government is a marketing campaign. We must all believe in it or it will go away and be replaced by something else. This is how revolutions happen -- the people don't get what they want. And in response, they pick up pitchforks, torches, and guns.
The achilles heal of democracies is that the voters eventually figure out they can vote themselves entitlements. Once they get to that point, it's all about who "gives them the most". Unfortunately, that is generally at odds with the economic vitality of said country. Nobody can sell tough-love to a group who only knows Gimme, Gimme, Gimme....
Back in the day, we had a mechanism to deal with this: The Senate.
You see, in years past, Senators were APPOINTED by the states. They were not elected by the general population. It was designed that way to balance the "people's" choice of representatives (congressmen). Somewhere along the way, Senators were voted into office. And things have changed dramatically since that time.
A new entity (the government) came in which is not bound by those contracts
When you buy or assume ownership of a company, what makes you think you can just ignore contracts already put in place? AIG has not filed bankruptcy. AIG was "nationalized" to the tune of 80%. In other words, the government seized 80% ownership - but make no mistake, it is still a (dis)functioning corporation with a corporate charter and everything. It is still bound by SEC rules for filing financial statements. Etc, etc. Your insinuation that they are not bound to those contract terms is just plain wrong because the legal structure of AIG has not changed at all. The only difference now is that your government (you and I) own 80% of it. It was an ownership change.
If AIG had declared bankruptcy and the government bought it THEN you would be right. You see, this is exactly what bankruptcy is all about -- wiping out past debts and contracts. But until you go through that process, everything is still in effect (and should rightfully be).
AIG, without question, is bound to these contracts. If the government unilaterally overrules that, then heaven help us all. We will scare away any and all investors because who the hell wants to do business in a banana republic that can unilaterally change contracts just because the political winds change. Chavez and Morales do that kind of thing, not Americans.
Slashdot Mirror
It depends on which media you are talking about. CNN/Fox/MSNBC? Doubtful. CNBC? Absolutely. You can thank Elliot Spitzer for that, whether you like him or not...
There are very stiff penalties in the financial world for not disclosing conflicts. When CNBC has a speaker or guest, you'll notice they put up a disclosure screen that shows information on whether the speaker has any conflicts with the company he is discussing. It's not perfect but it is a step in the right direction. It wasn't always like this....back in the day, there were serious and glaring conflicts that were known but never discussed outside of those "in the know".
One that comes to mind is a stock analyst who's employer does investment banking for the company the analyst is writing about. ie: Citibank does invesment banking business with Wal-mart. The Citibank analyst who covers Wal-mart has a conflict because if he pans Wal-mart, they take their investment banking business elsewhere. So there is a strong incentive for the analyst to write glowing reports, despite whether or not they are true. That is precisely what Spitzer put a stop to. Henry Blodget was the worst offender but he was not alone.
Is this number right? For $90/yr/pc, I can install any MSFT operating system?
Why isn't this program publicized? I am a small business and I have to tell you...the entire Windows licensing system is very very difficult to navigate. And I am 100% certain that is "by design". The more confused they can make me, the more money they can extract out of me and my company (or so they think).
In actual practice, I don't mind spending money where needed and $90/yr/pc seems about fair for a Windows OS.
Bonus points if someone can point me to a vendor who will sell it to me.
Henry, is that you?
AT&T does not care if you "drop their ass".
Do you not think they know what they are doing? They know this very well. But they also know they are not in a competitive industry so they can do whatever they want.
And therein lies the rub. While they aren't a monopoly in technical or legal terms, they are a monopoly in practical terms. Until we reconcile that, the only thing certain is that AT&T will continue to try to fuck customers as much as they can. You would too if you had a business model like they do and a regulatory environment that allows it.
As they say....common sense isn't so common. We all know it isn't right. But nothing is being done to correct it. After 30+ years, I am not holding my breath for positive progress in this area. In other words, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
I have many friends who hypothesize that states become more dysfunctional, the closer they get to Louisiana.
Have a look at a US map and see if you agree....
Thanks for posting in a much more graceful manner than I have on this thread. I was not as clear in my responses to this guy so thanks for laying it out much more clearly.
Got it. Thanks for the clarification. You are right that we have to define what we mean when we say "hacker". I used the old school definition so thanks for pointing out the difference. It is helpful to the discussion.
The very idea that you could create any kind of meaningful "hacking curriculum" is laughable. Books and Professors? Are you really serious with your reply? Are they really the best source of hacking info? No...no they are not. They never have been. Sure, they can teach you the basics and get you in the game but in reality, that's where their capability ends. Last I checked, professors had nothing to do with 2600, Phrack, LoD, Code Red, Sasser, or any other hacking effort in the last 25+ years. Have you ever seen some of the pure genius that has come from true hackers? Some of it makes you step back in awe of how they "figured that out". Go back and read some of the ezines from the late 80's and 90's. They are quite dated by now but they covered topics that NO BOOK or class could ever touch.
I mean, think about it....many hackers know more about the equipment than the people who actually designed and built it. And you think books are going to teach them to hack it? C'mon....
Methinks you are confusing "security professional" with "hacker". Sometimes they overlap, but not always. I know plenty of INFOSEC guys who don't know a damn thing about hacking. If you were to put them into a room with a real hacker, you would quickly see the hacker run circles around the pro. Now, why would that be?
Riddle me this: IF what you say is true, then why aren't we swimming in hackers all around us? Why is the govt having such a hard time finding qualified applicants? Why aren't there more uber hackers "out there"? After all, if I want to be 1337, all I have to do is go to the right classes and have an active interest. So what is stopping millions of wannabe kids from doing just that?
Your post is hilarious! I mean no offense by this reply so please don't get mad....
The idea that there is "hacking training" or even college is hilarious! Hacking, by definition, means you do things that were not designed to be done. IOW, you hacked them to make them work together. It could be computers...or it could be stereo speakers. They only differ in form.
Things like this can not be taught by books or professors. They are learned by experience and tinkering. There are no shortcuts to becoming a hacker. Only time, an inquisitive nature, and quite a bit of OCD can make you one. You'll probably need some Jolt cola too....but that's a topic for another post. The very idea that hacking can be taught is laughable. That's like teaching someone to 'be successful' or to 'live healthy' or some other cockamamie abstract concept.
Simply put: you are looking in the wrong place for your training and education.
I would think the very culture of the DoD would be adversarial towards the very people they are trying to recruit.
What's the hook? What I mean is: why would some high schooler join this program vs the alternatives? -which by the way....are way more fun. Would you really want to hack for some PHB who has TPS Cover Sheets to fill out? I can't imagine a less rewarding situation
This seems like wishful thinking to me. How many "hacker recruiting" programs have we seen/heard about now? I can count 3 or 4 off the top of my head. Methinks they are not having much success finding good hackers.
Gopher, checking in....
Also, I would argue that all stock really represents is voting power. It is not an asset in any real way. Your share is not equal to Company Worth/Total Shares.
You'd be wrong. It is an asset. And you do own, like a bike, equal percentage to the Company worth/total shares. That's *exactly* what the word "share" means. As in, "your share of the company". Lucky for you, you can go to a market (NYSE) and, most likely, someone will buy those shares from you for a price. The price he/she offers will fluctuate everyday. That is why everything you said above is 100% incorrect.
I have no idea how US law treats "prediction markets". I have never ever heard of such a concept addressed by law.
What you describe is basically a derivatives markets. Common stock equity is what my original post was about. That's way different than any derivative. You misunderstand what "backs" each financial instrument.
What do you mean, where do they fit in?
The CBOT is just that - a board of trade. IOW, a market.
They trade all kinds of things there. Derivatives of equity, commodities, debt insurance, and a whole host of other things I am sure.
I don't understand your question. They fit in just like the NYSE or Nasdaq or any of the other markets around the world (DAX, Nikkei, etc). I have re-read your post a few times and I just don't get what you are insinuating. Spell it out for me.
Some of those Atari games were downright embarrassing. Example A: E.T.
But give us old timers a break...we didn't know any better. At the time, that was as good as it got. We weren't asking questions about making the graphics better, we were just excited we could play the games in OUR house and on OUR T.V.
People forget how cool it was to have those first consoles. Colecovision, Intellivision, Atari, etc, etc.
Ok, I was going to let your post slide because I know where you are coming from but...just to be clear...
Stocks and gambling are NOT equivalents. Not even close. When you buy a stock, you own a piece of a company. As in, you own it just like you own a bike or a computer or any other asset in your house. You have (some) legal rights and some "claim" on future earnings. That's what stock, aka common equity, represents.
Additionally, the price of stocks is determined "by the market". In other words, all the buyers and sellers of stock determine the prices as they go along based on the value that they subjectively assign to each stock. That's the market we are speaking of and that's why the prices move. For every sell, there is a buy. And for every buy, there is a sell. The price is arrived at by this process and this process alone. In other words - it is not random.
Wayyyyyy different than gambling. Gambling is random and even worse, the end results (risk/reward profiles) are heavily skewed toward your competitor (the house). Stock price moves are determined by the market. Just a bunch of buyers and sellers agreeing on the price - but it isn't random, like gambling.
Ok, I have to go take the stick out of my ass now....carry on. Thx.
Chances are: Junk Bonds, not public funds laid the cables.
Ok, so we need an IP based piece of infrastructure in public hands. ie: government hands. Owned by the people for the people. Answer me this: What technology should we use? Wireless? 3G? ISDN? FutureTech?
See, that's the problem. What you are advocating is that the government can best answer the question I raise above. I disagree. I think past history suggests free market capitalism can best answer that question by letting the providers duke it out over my dollar. That provides more choice, better quality, and a better price for me. It also means they constantly improve services, lest they lose me as a customer.
No such incentives are present if the government directly provides the service to me and tells me which technology I get to use. At that point, all I can do is cast a vote which really doesn't do shit to change things with my government provided ISP.
Riddle me this: What incentive does your municipal internet have to improve services over time? or even offer the level of service you desire?
ISP's are very different from a "utility" like sewer, fire, and police. I can't buy the "super speedy package" from my police force. Or at least, I shouldn't be able to legally. I can't get the "extra water" package from my fire department. All of those services, and sewer, are the same for everyone. Government might be appropriate when the same offering is offered to all people but with bandwidth, I can buy at many different price and performance points. Your government is not prepared to handle all of those various offerings and when you throw profit into the mix, along with government power, you have a nasty mess. It just doesn't make sense for government to provide that service. Regulation? That's another story.
Do you want private companies having to compete with the government? Generally, past history suggests that is a bad idea. The government is a special entity with special powers so you have to be very very careful when you allow government to go into "profit based business" - which is what this is. Tax spending on services/infrastructure is one thing. Profit based business is an entirely different animal.
I have no problem with the idea of busting up the monopolies but you don't do that by making your government compete with private industry. No, instead you encourage OTHER private players to come in and compete with the monopoly (or you pass legislation, tax cuts, or whatever that does the same). If you insist on putting your government "in business", then you will eventually drive out all the other competitors aside from the government. Remember, the government can do LOTS of things that private industry can't so, by default, it's an unfair playing field. Look no further than the banking system right now for an example of how that plays out. Government was never designed to "be in business".
For a bunch of tin-foil hat guys, the slashdot crowd really puts a lot of faith in government solutions of all kinds.....
I hate Comcast as much as the rest of you. But I cringe at the idea of my city government being in the ISP business.
There are several posts advocating larger ISP involvement and nobody has mentioned the obvious slippery slope with ISP's being put into a "policing" role.
If ISPs are allowed to "track down" botnets and botnet zombies, then why can't they "track down" torrents? Or porn? or any other thing that the powers-that-be don't want you downloading? Am I the only one who sees major problems with ISP's being put in a watchdog role?
I can't believe nobody has brought this up. Am I in the right place? Is this slashdot?
I've seen this situation before and I know exactly what to do: send over the bombers and let's bomb them back to the stone age. Then we'll have our chance to change things.
What's that you say? Why no, I did not know Bush was no longer president.
No, they ARE asking for a bailout.
If you don't think so, then ask yourself this: Why aren't other (private) investors clamoring to "get a piece" of Tesla? If a joe-sixpack model is so lucrative and such a good idea, why aren't investors running to give Tesla money? Why aren't YOU giving them money?
Answer: Because investors don't see it as a good investment.
So why does the US government?
A capitalistic society already has places it can go to get investment capital. If the government is the only source of investment capital, then you no longer have capitalism. It can not be made any simpler than that. You really do not want your government "investing" in anything. You want individuals to do that instead. That's what makes capitalism work. When the government gets involved, the incentives get all fucked up. Think: communism.
They tapped into what their target audience wanted, hired the best speech writers, and pulled it off.
So, are you saying the people got what they wanted? Uhh, without being obtuse, isn't that was democracy is all about? Of course it's a marketing campaign! The whole idea of our government is a marketing campaign. We must all believe in it or it will go away and be replaced by something else. This is how revolutions happen -- the people don't get what they want. And in response, they pick up pitchforks, torches, and guns.
The achilles heal of democracies is that the voters eventually figure out they can vote themselves entitlements. Once they get to that point, it's all about who "gives them the most". Unfortunately, that is generally at odds with the economic vitality of said country. Nobody can sell tough-love to a group who only knows Gimme, Gimme, Gimme....
Back in the day, we had a mechanism to deal with this: The Senate.
You see, in years past, Senators were APPOINTED by the states. They were not elected by the general population. It was designed that way to balance the "people's" choice of representatives (congressmen). Somewhere along the way, Senators were voted into office. And things have changed dramatically since that time.
A new entity (the government) came in which is not bound by those contracts
When you buy or assume ownership of a company, what makes you think you can just ignore contracts already put in place? AIG has not filed bankruptcy. AIG was "nationalized" to the tune of 80%. In other words, the government seized 80% ownership - but make no mistake, it is still a (dis)functioning corporation with a corporate charter and everything. It is still bound by SEC rules for filing financial statements. Etc, etc. Your insinuation that they are not bound to those contract terms is just plain wrong because the legal structure of AIG has not changed at all. The only difference now is that your government (you and I) own 80% of it. It was an ownership change.
If AIG had declared bankruptcy and the government bought it THEN you would be right. You see, this is exactly what bankruptcy is all about -- wiping out past debts and contracts. But until you go through that process, everything is still in effect (and should rightfully be).
AIG, without question, is bound to these contracts. If the government unilaterally overrules that, then heaven help us all. We will scare away any and all investors because who the hell wants to do business in a banana republic that can unilaterally change contracts just because the political winds change. Chavez and Morales do that kind of thing, not Americans.