You mean the socialist party and the communist party not union.
Few countries allowed or protected labor unions the end of WWI. Don't get confused on labor unions either, they are not the same as trade unions which was active since the building of pyramids or before. The free masons are one of these unions.
One of the first international labor unions was actually a political group of socialists that included Marx
OK you need to simultaneously replace the whole licensing system along with firing all the teachers, because the only purpose of the licensing system is to limit the supply to prevent strike breaking. OK fine. Then you rehire almost everyone. So having the same people with the same education and training doing almost the same stuff but lowering their pay and benefits will somehow make the kids smarter. We're beginning to stretch my imagination here.
If the licensing system isn't already controlled by the state, then it's a useless function that can be ignored altogether for a situation like this. There is no need to do anything complicated- just direct them to issue licenses or instruct the schools in question to ignore the license requirement for a period of time.
As for the same people doing the same thing, one thing they will not be doing is striking while students who should be in school are left to their own devices. Yes, even with the crappy teachers in much the same crappy positions, being in class and teaching verses being outside with a sign in their hand will result in smarter kids. At least smarter then they would become without an education which is what they are getting now.
And if management's demands are unreasonable, then... fire all the teachers again?
Well, I was thinking more along the lines of passing laws limiting their ability to become unreasonable in demands. But yes, why not fire them again? I mean what is the difference between the teacher having a job and not having one when instead of being inside the schools teaching, they are outside protesting and demanding unreasonable benefits or conditions? The job they were hired to do, the job they managed to lock others out of by licensing requirements, isn't being done by them.
So lets try your idea and check back in a theoretical 5 years.
Let me fix a couple of things for you.
1) Management got to fire all the incompetent teacher and the "troublemakers". The teachers are now evaluated to determine their effectiveness and can be sent for additional education or repositioned to difference grade levels or even class subjects where they are more productive.
(and yes, I have no problem with cleaning house in the management at the same time either. This isn't about punishing people, it is about getting what you paid for because society has decided that giving children education is just as important as having a police and fire department to help with fires and crime)
2)
We have about the same number of employees (status quo in class size, as you say) but we pay them less. That means we get worse applicants in general and those staying in and suffering are less happy. That will increase our test scores or whatever metric because... I would guess worse pay and benefits means the quality and results will drop.
Complete nonsense. If teacher pay was tied to performance, we wouldn't be in this position in the first play. You are repeating the old mantra of just throw money at them and that has worked well enough to keep the status quo from 1970 so far. In other words, it doesn't work at all. The entire concept of firing them and starting over is to get rid of the poorly performing teachers in the first place.
But please tell me, what is so magical about public servants that they can get by will less results and demand more pay at the expense of providing public services? I mean seriously, kids are not in school and you seem to think that if we do not appease these people, they will never get more education then they already are not getting.
If we had top of the world compensation and top of the world results, like our doctors and CEOs, perhaps, then dropping pay wouldn't really hurt worldwide competitiveness, but I don't think we've got the slack to dabble in 3rd world educatio
Do you somehow think that all teachers who could be qualified already have a job teaching or something? By your own explanation, it is just a matter of licensing which is pretty much arbitrary according to your accounting of the process. Do you somehow think that if an area fired all the striking teachers that a: the licensing board wouldn't certify some of these otherwise qualified people who do not have jobs and b: that like I already said, the employees who just were fired would not be looking for work too?
You could likely fire the entire lot of teachers, hire 80% or so back outside their existing union and grab teachers from other areas or who are unemployed and not drop a beat that wouldn't already be jeopardized by the strikes..And that is likely keeping the status quo in standards and class sizes. If they re-unionize, take it as it comes. If their demands are reasonable and their behavior doesn't disrupt the education of students compelled by law to attend, then fine.
This teacher's strike reminds me of police unions who fight random drug screening for cops.
Tell me, if the scientists strike because they do not like the policy set forth or somehow didn't get what they wanted from the government, does public services stop being provided?
If the police unions determine they do not want any investigations into the legitimacy of any shootings or complaints about misconduct or dereliction of duties, is that justified in your opinion? I ask this because this is what the striking teaches are essentially saying- they are demanding that they not be held accountable for their job performance. It isn't that they shouldn't be allowed to say we should be doing X, the problem is that the government said, we need to do X, here is the law, and the teachers saying wait, we are striking until X is no longer the law.
So many of your current entitlements (by which I mean safe working conditions, 8 hour days as opposed to 14 hour days, paid vacation) was won by unions. You should take a history lesson my friend!
You have a very distorted view of history. The 8 hour day and 40 hour work week was instituted by FDR, ruled unconstitutional and then overtime pay was created as a fix. This was all part of FDR's fix to unemployment during the recession. The concept was if spread a little work around it was better then someone grabbing a lot of work at the expense of others. It was a mantra of the Socialist parties and the communists parties in th3 first part of the 1900's.
Safer working conditions would have been the norm without unions too. As soon as the government got into the habit of playing insurer for occupational injuries, working condition standards began being implemented by law and tort. You can thank the Unions for getting some state workers compensation laws passed though. But they have been in place long before Unions had legal rights to exist (1906 for federal employes and earlier in some areas). To claim safe working conditions outside a specific factory or a specific job is a little misguided to say the least. OSHA and MSHA are direct results of the government paying out for on the job injuries. They were created in the 1970's specifically to increase workplace safety and reduce the worker's compensation payouts.
Check your numbers. If the real inflation rate was as low as their request, then gasoline would be about $1.50, a day at the hospital would be about $750, a loaf of bread would still be 50 cents, higher ed tuition would still be about $1000/semester....
Can you cite this? I'm interested in finding where you got your numbers from. In the US, food and fuel is specifically exempted from determining the amount of inflation. Perhaps it is the same in Canada.
The difference between a right to strike/protest and being able to strike then keeping your job after it is resolved is a law passed by the government. It is in fact these laws that force employers to recognize unions and collective bargaining in the first place.
With 8% unemployment or better depending on your local environments, replacing a work force will not be all that hard. I'm willing to bet that some if not a majority of the existing workforce would be willing to be part of the replacement workforce too. I saw it happen back in the 1980's when a local glassware plant went on strike, closed in the middle and reopened under a different name. I know people working there who were before this happened and they say they just recently started making the same kind of money they would make before the big strike 20 some year prior.
I think you are looking at it from and upside down viewpoint. It's not just that a large number of players were in the server concurrently, it's also that a group of modders who are not tied to the big game industry, in their spare time demonstrated it was possible.
If this was just about a large number of people in a single server, it probably wouldn't even be news. That happens all the time with other types of servers. Why it is news is because industry dominant forces appear to think it isn't possible or the hardware requirements are too large or something and a group outside the dominant companies proved them wrong by making a game that could do it.
I think you might have confused Microsoft with SCO. I think they (SCO) even acknowledged MS patents that linux violated but didn't elaborate in an attempt to steer business their way. (Or nam I thinking of Novell?)
There is a little more to it then just what he said at a specific point in time. The prosecutor wanted all the information like pics of followers tweeted to him and so on that may have been removed or deleted before any criminal accusation was made. The judge is limiting the information to what he tweeted as a concern for the prosecution and will filter the "private" information.
Imagine this being more like the cops stopping you for speeding and demanding to look through your Rolodex and the picture inserts of your wallet in addition to wanting to see your drivers license.
Except the neighbors surveillance system picked him up on a recording and he erased it not knowing there was a backup of the tape.
The entire he deleted before anyone could archive it is nonsense. Twitter archived it which is how they were able to comply with the order and produce the messages that were deleted. Obviously someone read the message too which is why the cops/prosecutor seems to think the contents specifically strengthen their case about how the guy knew what was happening.
The GPL code in question is only to make the filesystem available to the operating system and is part of the code that constitutes the patented filesystem in question. It is basically mount instructions to put it as simply as possible. Twin Peaks could rewrite their own implementation of this avoiding the GPL problems if they have the expertise to do so.
The real significance here might be that because the two are related but not the same, an award for one could be equal to an award for the other meaning either company is out only the amount of lawyer fees in the end. This less then zero sum gain potential could very well be the cornerstone to working some sort of deal out. This could work out to some agreement where in exchange for open sourcing the file system, Red Hat agrees to pay a royalty from it's enterprise implementations of the filesystem and works with twin peaks to develop a revenue stream from the open source uses of the filesystems (support and development).
I can't find any gpl version on the mount.mfs program that is supposed to be embedded within the filesystem but if it is GPLv3, their defense to the copyright claim could hurt their patent claim in the process because of the patent provisions. Of course that could lead to the same old FUD claims of the GPL poisoning and stealing code and so on. With windows 8 comming about and renewed talk of linux on the desktop, I have been waiting on something like this to come along and shoot the linux troops in the foot.
That's entirely possible. The problem is that the question is not really asked. Err let me rephrase that, the problem is that in all those patent cases, all those attempts to ensure they are not violating other people's patents, in all those cases where they are protecting their own patents, the questions being asked aren't the same questions leading to this answer.
The status quo for a normal company is not how to I force someone to let me use their patent or how can I violate their patent. It's does my product encroach the patent, what do I need to do to stop that. It's does that product violates my patent, I need to stop it. Almost every billion dollar company will have their own patents or licenses to a patent and will be looking into how they can protect their products, not how they can weaken their positions on them. It is not the normal forward looking face of those companies.
But would Prior Art include the reference implementation "on a phone" which seems to be the standard for at least one of those companies to claim new and novel instead of repeating and obvious.
Well, that might be true until some manufacturer tells congress that more babies are killed or harmed every day then if this AI had been driving. Then a few campaign donations later and its a law you can't sue the manufacturer. After all, think of the children.
neither, he lights a cigar, chugs a beer, and yells "bite my shiny metal ass".
Actually, although very likely ineffective, he could attempt to talk the guy with the explosives into not using them. That would be an action satisfying the inaction part. the law itself doesn't require the action to be effective, just that the robot doesn't stand idle allowing it to happen.
Actually, your failing to understand is obvious here. You say that someone gives someone else $100 to start a business revolving around cars for a stake in that business revolving around cars and then end with it being a front to sell drugs unknown to the investor who invested in a business revolving around cars which you claim he should somehow magically know this concealed behavior existed.
The shareholder does not have the ability in a lot of situations to check on the private dealings of the companies they invest in. They do not have the ability to direct the acts of the workers, they do not have the ability to do anything but inform the proper authorities if they know of illegal actions. But somehow, he should have known so he is responsible.
If the shareholder is not involved in running the company, they are not involved beyond their investment if something happens. Even if the shareholder is involved, if whatever happened was not a result of an act they participated in, they are not involved beyond their investment. In the US at least, we do not determine guilt by association or corruption of blood. We do not declare you are guilty of my drug dealing because we know each other or because you loaned me $100 one time. Suggesting that people who have no power to act all the sudden become liable personally for the acts of others because of an association with them is scary to say the least, but it goes against every grain of the concept of justice and due process as practiced in the US.
I don't understand why people don't know this already. The protection from liability is only there to protect you from actions not of your own in the course of doing business. If you tell an employee to use a substandard part, you can be personally liable even with a corporation if it breaks and causes harm. If an employee does this, you are liable to the extent of the corporation and the employee can be liable (in most cases). If the supplier ships the substandard part representative as the required part, its the corporation who is liable and that can be negated or recovered by the supplier's culpability.
In addition to conferring with an attorney, you should look into liability insurance to protect your assets against in case you become personally liable. In some areas this is called an umbrella policy and it pays in the event other insurance doesn't cover the complete damages or liability.
I think the big picture you are missing is that personal responsibility is relative to your own actions and interactions. The reason for separating the two is because you normally do not directly act or even have the power to act within a corporation. I acquiring debt as a corporation, the companies agreeing to extend it are also agreeing to limit their recovery to that of the corporation's assets.
Here is the challenge for you. Suppose we both have $100 and a car. I ask to borrow your $100 to purchase another car and resell it for profit and you agree. I then take that money and purchase drugs to resell while telling you I'm trying to purchase a car from a friend cheaply and I can resell for double the money. I pay back your $100 with $100 interest. The cops pull us both over on the way out of the parking lot of where we met, it seems that during my resale efforts, I sold to an undercover cop who paid in marked bills. They find the marked money in both my wallet and in the pile of cash I gave you.
You did legitimately help finance my efforts but had no clue I was doing something illegal, improper, or that isn't done legally every day and had no say in what i did. Are you also a drug dealer? What if someone I sold drugs to overdosed and died? Should their family sue you too? You have or should have no responsibility or liability for my actions unless you specifically knew of them before enabling them with the loan. But how can anyone prove that?
Incorporating cannot shield you from your own actions. IT can only shield you from actions you are not directly responsible for.
For instance, if you hire an employee and this employee is properly trained but makes a mistake that costs a failure in a product resulting in millions of dollars in damages, your corporation is the only extent responsible and your personal assets are separated. If you are that employee, you can technically be held liable (depending on the circumstances) personally beyond any corporate shield. Some areas will put limitations on the liability of employees who make mistakes and push the bulk of the liability onto the company they work for.
Here is a more detailed example. Suppose you owned a construction company who builds decks for commercial properties. You and 5 employees are at a job site working and discover some bolts are missing and you cannot install the next section of framing. Instead of waiting to get the proper bolts, someone says there is a hardware store down the street. You go and discover they carry bolts that look like what is needed but are a lesser grade (grade 3 or grade 5 instead of grade 8). Their supply is also less then you need but you decide that if you use one less bolt per segment, you can get the framing completed then replace the bolts the next day when you have enough of the proper bolts. This goes well until clean up time when the property owner's agent comes around to check on the progress. A wind kicks up and the structure saws to the left before it collapses causing structural damage to the building and breaks the leg and back of the agent sent to inspect the progress. In this case, you and your corporation liable if they sue because the fault was a direct act of your own and you should have known better. Now suppose you never left the office and one of your employees made the call, it is your employee and your corporation who are responsible. But suppose you had all the bolts and they were marked of the correct grade but where incorrectly marked from the factory, now it is just your corporation that is liable and there is a strong case to recover any losses from the supply chain within this liability.
Corporations only limit the liability over situations and actions that are not directly your fault. They do not allow you to become reckless or dangerous at the expense of others while protecting your BMW, 250 billion dollar house and whatever else you have accumulated by taking shortcuts in the field.
If you are ever in a position where you think you might need a corporation to protect your financial interest outside your business from your own acts, you are definitely in a position to consider liability insurance that would cover 2-3 times the value of your assets and pay out on the completion of a trial judgement. In fact, I would say it is more important to get this liability insurance then a corporation or alongside an incorporation if you are hoping to protect assets.
Yes, a semantics error on my part. Thanks for pointing that out,
In a case against Exxon Mobile, I think it was over punitive damages concerning the Valdez oil spill. The court ruled that statutory and other damages awarded can be punitive in nature therefore equal to a fine in consideration of excessive fines. The court reduced a 5 billion dollar judgement against Exxon and imposed something more reasonable.
An argument was also made successfully in the Jamie Thomas case that excessive damages even though they were within the statutory limits violated the due process clause and the court reduced a $675k judgement by 90% to about $67K. There seems to be a recent history of the courts saying excessive damages are akin to a fine and subject to constitutional provisions.
So it's almost 300k votes. Most areas will not even entertain recounts until the swing is less then 5% between candidates. Less then 4/10th of 1% is not likely to swing any large seats. The popular vote only matters for senators and congressmen and mayors and state officials anyways. The presidency is won by the electoral vote and it is entirely possible that a candidate can win the popular vote and lose the electoral vote and thereby lose the entire election.
I don't need the research, but I need the activity it prompts. With this and Zuckerberg's html5 rantings, perhaps my Facebook stock will go up enough that I can finally unload it.
But did they play a game on it? You see, it's all these innovative details like apple finding ways to talk but "on a phone or tablet" which makes it novel and patentable.;klrng.. Oh excuse me, I just sneezed. Now if someone could do that as part of playing a game or perhaps on a phone, they could get a patent and rule the world.
Slashdot Mirror
You mean the socialist party and the communist party not union.
Few countries allowed or protected labor unions the end of WWI. Don't get confused on labor unions either, they are not the same as trade unions which was active since the building of pyramids or before. The free masons are one of these unions.
One of the first international labor unions was actually a political group of socialists that included Marx
If the licensing system isn't already controlled by the state, then it's a useless function that can be ignored altogether for a situation like this. There is no need to do anything complicated- just direct them to issue licenses or instruct the schools in question to ignore the license requirement for a period of time.
As for the same people doing the same thing, one thing they will not be doing is striking while students who should be in school are left to their own devices. Yes, even with the crappy teachers in much the same crappy positions, being in class and teaching verses being outside with a sign in their hand will result in smarter kids. At least smarter then they would become without an education which is what they are getting now.
Well, I was thinking more along the lines of passing laws limiting their ability to become unreasonable in demands. But yes, why not fire them again? I mean what is the difference between the teacher having a job and not having one when instead of being inside the schools teaching, they are outside protesting and demanding unreasonable benefits or conditions? The job they were hired to do, the job they managed to lock others out of by licensing requirements, isn't being done by them.
Let me fix a couple of things for you.
1) Management got to fire all the incompetent teacher and the "troublemakers". The teachers are now evaluated to determine their effectiveness and can be sent for additional education or repositioned to difference grade levels or even class subjects where they are more productive.
(and yes, I have no problem with cleaning house in the management at the same time either. This isn't about punishing people, it is about getting what you paid for because society has decided that giving children education is just as important as having a police and fire department to help with fires and crime)
2)
Complete nonsense. If teacher pay was tied to performance, we wouldn't be in this position in the first play. You are repeating the old mantra of just throw money at them and that has worked well enough to keep the status quo from 1970 so far. In other words, it doesn't work at all. The entire concept of firing them and starting over is to get rid of the poorly performing teachers in the first place.
But please tell me, what is so magical about public servants that they can get by will less results and demand more pay at the expense of providing public services? I mean seriously, kids are not in school and you seem to think that if we do not appease these people, they will never get more education then they already are not getting.
Do you somehow think that all teachers who could be qualified already have a job teaching or something? By your own explanation, it is just a matter of licensing which is pretty much arbitrary according to your accounting of the process. Do you somehow think that if an area fired all the striking teachers that a: the licensing board wouldn't certify some of these otherwise qualified people who do not have jobs and b: that like I already said, the employees who just were fired would not be looking for work too?
You could likely fire the entire lot of teachers, hire 80% or so back outside their existing union and grab teachers from other areas or who are unemployed and not drop a beat that wouldn't already be jeopardized by the strikes..And that is likely keeping the status quo in standards and class sizes. If they re-unionize, take it as it comes. If their demands are reasonable and their behavior doesn't disrupt the education of students compelled by law to attend, then fine.
This teacher's strike reminds me of police unions who fight random drug screening for cops.
Tell me, if the scientists strike because they do not like the policy set forth or somehow didn't get what they wanted from the government, does public services stop being provided?
If the police unions determine they do not want any investigations into the legitimacy of any shootings or complaints about misconduct or dereliction of duties, is that justified in your opinion? I ask this because this is what the striking teaches are essentially saying- they are demanding that they not be held accountable for their job performance. It isn't that they shouldn't be allowed to say we should be doing X, the problem is that the government said, we need to do X, here is the law, and the teachers saying wait, we are striking until X is no longer the law.
You have a very distorted view of history. The 8 hour day and 40 hour work week was instituted by FDR, ruled unconstitutional and then overtime pay was created as a fix. This was all part of FDR's fix to unemployment during the recession. The concept was if spread a little work around it was better then someone grabbing a lot of work at the expense of others. It was a mantra of the Socialist parties and the communists parties in th3 first part of the 1900's.
Safer working conditions would have been the norm without unions too. As soon as the government got into the habit of playing insurer for occupational injuries, working condition standards began being implemented by law and tort. You can thank the Unions for getting some state workers compensation laws passed though. But they have been in place long before Unions had legal rights to exist (1906 for federal employes and earlier in some areas). To claim safe working conditions outside a specific factory or a specific job is a little misguided to say the least. OSHA and MSHA are direct results of the government paying out for on the job injuries. They were created in the 1970's specifically to increase workplace safety and reduce the worker's compensation payouts.
No it wasn't.
Can you cite this? I'm interested in finding where you got your numbers from. In the US, food and fuel is specifically exempted from determining the amount of inflation. Perhaps it is the same in Canada.
The difference between a right to strike/protest and being able to strike then keeping your job after it is resolved is a law passed by the government. It is in fact these laws that force employers to recognize unions and collective bargaining in the first place.
With 8% unemployment or better depending on your local environments, replacing a work force will not be all that hard. I'm willing to bet that some if not a majority of the existing workforce would be willing to be part of the replacement workforce too. I saw it happen back in the 1980's when a local glassware plant went on strike, closed in the middle and reopened under a different name. I know people working there who were before this happened and they say they just recently started making the same kind of money they would make before the big strike 20 some year prior.
I think you are looking at it from and upside down viewpoint. It's not just that a large number of players were in the server concurrently, it's also that a group of modders who are not tied to the big game industry, in their spare time demonstrated it was possible.
If this was just about a large number of people in a single server, it probably wouldn't even be news. That happens all the time with other types of servers. Why it is news is because industry dominant forces appear to think it isn't possible or the hardware requirements are too large or something and a group outside the dominant companies proved them wrong by making a game that could do it.
google "cops raid the wrong house". You will not only find where they went to the wrong door, but killed someone inside.
I think you might have confused Microsoft with SCO. I think they (SCO) even acknowledged MS patents that linux violated but didn't elaborate in an attempt to steer business their way. (Or nam I thinking of Novell?)
There is a little more to it then just what he said at a specific point in time. The prosecutor wanted all the information like pics of followers tweeted to him and so on that may have been removed or deleted before any criminal accusation was made. The judge is limiting the information to what he tweeted as a concern for the prosecution and will filter the "private" information.
Imagine this being more like the cops stopping you for speeding and demanding to look through your Rolodex and the picture inserts of your wallet in addition to wanting to see your drivers license.
Except the neighbors surveillance system picked him up on a recording and he erased it not knowing there was a backup of the tape.
The entire he deleted before anyone could archive it is nonsense. Twitter archived it which is how they were able to comply with the order and produce the messages that were deleted. Obviously someone read the message too which is why the cops/prosecutor seems to think the contents specifically strengthen their case about how the guy knew what was happening.
The GPL code in question is only to make the filesystem available to the operating system and is part of the code that constitutes the patented filesystem in question. It is basically mount instructions to put it as simply as possible. Twin Peaks could rewrite their own implementation of this avoiding the GPL problems if they have the expertise to do so.
The real significance here might be that because the two are related but not the same, an award for one could be equal to an award for the other meaning either company is out only the amount of lawyer fees in the end. This less then zero sum gain potential could very well be the cornerstone to working some sort of deal out. This could work out to some agreement where in exchange for open sourcing the file system, Red Hat agrees to pay a royalty from it's enterprise implementations of the filesystem and works with twin peaks to develop a revenue stream from the open source uses of the filesystems (support and development).
I can't find any gpl version on the mount.mfs program that is supposed to be embedded within the filesystem but if it is GPLv3, their defense to the copyright claim could hurt their patent claim in the process because of the patent provisions. Of course that could lead to the same old FUD claims of the GPL poisoning and stealing code and so on. With windows 8 comming about and renewed talk of linux on the desktop, I have been waiting on something like this to come along and shoot the linux troops in the foot.
That's entirely possible. The problem is that the question is not really asked. Err let me rephrase that, the problem is that in all those patent cases, all those attempts to ensure they are not violating other people's patents, in all those cases where they are protecting their own patents, the questions being asked aren't the same questions leading to this answer.
The status quo for a normal company is not how to I force someone to let me use their patent or how can I violate their patent. It's does my product encroach the patent, what do I need to do to stop that. It's does that product violates my patent, I need to stop it. Almost every billion dollar company will have their own patents or licenses to a patent and will be looking into how they can protect their products, not how they can weaken their positions on them. It is not the normal forward looking face of those companies.
But would Prior Art include the reference implementation "on a phone" which seems to be the standard for at least one of those companies to claim new and novel instead of repeating and obvious.
Well, that might be true until some manufacturer tells congress that more babies are killed or harmed every day then if this AI had been driving. Then a few campaign donations later and its a law you can't sue the manufacturer. After all, think of the children.
neither, he lights a cigar, chugs a beer, and yells "bite my shiny metal ass".
Actually, although very likely ineffective, he could attempt to talk the guy with the explosives into not using them. That would be an action satisfying the inaction part. the law itself doesn't require the action to be effective, just that the robot doesn't stand idle allowing it to happen.
Actually, your failing to understand is obvious here. You say that someone gives someone else $100 to start a business revolving around cars for a stake in that business revolving around cars and then end with it being a front to sell drugs unknown to the investor who invested in a business revolving around cars which you claim he should somehow magically know this concealed behavior existed.
The shareholder does not have the ability in a lot of situations to check on the private dealings of the companies they invest in. They do not have the ability to direct the acts of the workers, they do not have the ability to do anything but inform the proper authorities if they know of illegal actions. But somehow, he should have known so he is responsible.
If the shareholder is not involved in running the company, they are not involved beyond their investment if something happens. Even if the shareholder is involved, if whatever happened was not a result of an act they participated in, they are not involved beyond their investment. In the US at least, we do not determine guilt by association or corruption of blood. We do not declare you are guilty of my drug dealing because we know each other or because you loaned me $100 one time. Suggesting that people who have no power to act all the sudden become liable personally for the acts of others because of an association with them is scary to say the least, but it goes against every grain of the concept of justice and due process as practiced in the US.
I don't understand why people don't know this already. The protection from liability is only there to protect you from actions not of your own in the course of doing business. If you tell an employee to use a substandard part, you can be personally liable even with a corporation if it breaks and causes harm. If an employee does this, you are liable to the extent of the corporation and the employee can be liable (in most cases). If the supplier ships the substandard part representative as the required part, its the corporation who is liable and that can be negated or recovered by the supplier's culpability.
In addition to conferring with an attorney, you should look into liability insurance to protect your assets against in case you become personally liable. In some areas this is called an umbrella policy and it pays in the event other insurance doesn't cover the complete damages or liability.
I think the big picture you are missing is that personal responsibility is relative to your own actions and interactions. The reason for separating the two is because you normally do not directly act or even have the power to act within a corporation. I acquiring debt as a corporation, the companies agreeing to extend it are also agreeing to limit their recovery to that of the corporation's assets.
Here is the challenge for you. Suppose we both have $100 and a car. I ask to borrow your $100 to purchase another car and resell it for profit and you agree. I then take that money and purchase drugs to resell while telling you I'm trying to purchase a car from a friend cheaply and I can resell for double the money. I pay back your $100 with $100 interest. The cops pull us both over on the way out of the parking lot of where we met, it seems that during my resale efforts, I sold to an undercover cop who paid in marked bills. They find the marked money in both my wallet and in the pile of cash I gave you.
You did legitimately help finance my efforts but had no clue I was doing something illegal, improper, or that isn't done legally every day and had no say in what i did. Are you also a drug dealer? What if someone I sold drugs to overdosed and died? Should their family sue you too? You have or should have no responsibility or liability for my actions unless you specifically knew of them before enabling them with the loan. But how can anyone prove that?
Incorporating cannot shield you from your own actions. IT can only shield you from actions you are not directly responsible for.
For instance, if you hire an employee and this employee is properly trained but makes a mistake that costs a failure in a product resulting in millions of dollars in damages, your corporation is the only extent responsible and your personal assets are separated. If you are that employee, you can technically be held liable (depending on the circumstances) personally beyond any corporate shield. Some areas will put limitations on the liability of employees who make mistakes and push the bulk of the liability onto the company they work for.
Here is a more detailed example. Suppose you owned a construction company who builds decks for commercial properties. You and 5 employees are at a job site working and discover some bolts are missing and you cannot install the next section of framing. Instead of waiting to get the proper bolts, someone says there is a hardware store down the street. You go and discover they carry bolts that look like what is needed but are a lesser grade (grade 3 or grade 5 instead of grade 8). Their supply is also less then you need but you decide that if you use one less bolt per segment, you can get the framing completed then replace the bolts the next day when you have enough of the proper bolts. This goes well until clean up time when the property owner's agent comes around to check on the progress. A wind kicks up and the structure saws to the left before it collapses causing structural damage to the building and breaks the leg and back of the agent sent to inspect the progress. In this case, you and your corporation liable if they sue because the fault was a direct act of your own and you should have known better. Now suppose you never left the office and one of your employees made the call, it is your employee and your corporation who are responsible. But suppose you had all the bolts and they were marked of the correct grade but where incorrectly marked from the factory, now it is just your corporation that is liable and there is a strong case to recover any losses from the supply chain within this liability.
Corporations only limit the liability over situations and actions that are not directly your fault. They do not allow you to become reckless or dangerous at the expense of others while protecting your BMW, 250 billion dollar house and whatever else you have accumulated by taking shortcuts in the field.
If you are ever in a position where you think you might need a corporation to protect your financial interest outside your business from your own acts, you are definitely in a position to consider liability insurance that would cover 2-3 times the value of your assets and pay out on the completion of a trial judgement. In fact, I would say it is more important to get this liability insurance then a corporation or alongside an incorporation if you are hoping to protect assets.
Yes, a semantics error on my part. Thanks for pointing that out,
In a case against Exxon Mobile, I think it was over punitive damages concerning the Valdez oil spill. The court ruled that statutory and other damages awarded can be punitive in nature therefore equal to a fine in consideration of excessive fines. The court reduced a 5 billion dollar judgement against Exxon and imposed something more reasonable.
An argument was also made successfully in the Jamie Thomas case that excessive damages even though they were within the statutory limits violated the due process clause and the court reduced a $675k judgement by 90% to about $67K. There seems to be a recent history of the courts saying excessive damages are akin to a fine and subject to constitutional provisions.
In short,
So it's almost 300k votes. Most areas will not even entertain recounts until the swing is less then 5% between candidates. Less then 4/10th of 1% is not likely to swing any large seats. The popular vote only matters for senators and congressmen and mayors and state officials anyways. The presidency is won by the electoral vote and it is entirely possible that a candidate can win the popular vote and lose the electoral vote and thereby lose the entire election.
It's not a significant amount.
I don't need the research, but I need the activity it prompts. With this and Zuckerberg's html5 rantings, perhaps my Facebook stock will go up enough that I can finally unload it.
But did they play a game on it? You see, it's all these innovative details like apple finding ways to talk but "on a phone or tablet" which makes it novel and patentable. ;klrng.. Oh excuse me, I just sneezed. Now if someone could do that as part of playing a game or perhaps on a phone, they could get a patent and rule the world.