Well, it seems more like Obama wasn't really convinced in his convictions after all. I mean he certainly did not need to write in a clause waiting for a separate government action before making it happen. He could have just as easily made club gitmo pay the other places for the detention, security, and prosecution out of it's already in existent budget. They could have used existing military budgets to transport the prisoners and so on. It wouldn't be the first time a president has done that. And according to your linked article, congress hasn't made any restrictions on something like that until the 2011 budget which not only is still in consideration, but won't go into effect until next year.
I have read your link and understand the problems he is facing. However, these problems, or many of them, were known largely before his election as they were answers to some of his campaign promises on the subject (the not in my back yard, the giving terrorists a public platform IE open trials, the security concerns, Geneva convention rules, and so on). It seems like he intentionally implemented a kill switch to closing club gitmo in order to save backlash.
I'm seriously questioning the political wherewithal of some of these people. Doesn't anyone remember that the cry for why 9/11 happened had something to do with the lack of intelligence and the inability to put the intelligence together to make a solid idea of the problems that lead to 9/11? Then we had the entire "failure of intelligence" problem that was blamed on Bush thinking Iraq had WMDs pre-2004.
So I can see why the intelligence budget increased enormously in the last decade. It's because so many powerful and devastating things were blamed on intelligence failures. It's idiotic to think we should pin it back to 1999 levels and avoid things like 9/11 or the misinformation that lead up to the Iraq war. Certainly 80 billion is cheaper then a war started on bad intelligence in Iraq or the costs of US lives and damage to the economy caused by terrorists attacks succeeding because we can't coordinate the intelligence properly to head off an attack.
I'm not even sure why this is even a controversy outside of it being close to an election. And I would say that some people are pretty desperate if they are attempting to ignore history in order to gain some political favoring.
Seems to me that you should be directing that to the democrats as well. The stories he posted seem to show the lack of courage from democrats.
Now I know we are approaching an election and your blinded by the fever to have your side win. But the question I have is, if your constantly electing people who themselves are no different, are you actually doing anything? Perhaps if you really feel the way you presented yourself, then you might want to take a real look at the situation and not some Republicans are evil look that ignores the very real problem of the democrats being no different.
You know, I could agree with you outside of the fact that every time this has been attempted in the past, it backfired. We had gangs using children to murder rivals and take the blame for crimes committed by others because being under the legal age meant they would have their sentences capped. Now we have children that can be charged as an adult and dace capitol punishment based solely on the seriousness of the crime and nothing to do with their mental capacity to understand the consequences of their actions.
What I'm getting at is that there are mindsets that simply cannot be changed by the image of integrity in the hearts and minds of those on the other side of this war. All it will be is another end run attempting to get around some formality. It's been demonstrated time and time again in different geographical places by separate entities. charging and convicting these people or even letting them go in civil court will not solve anything you are concerned with. It will do little more then encourage the behavior. history will repeat itself.
Where a government agency holds prisoners or detainees can be changed with an executive order and without the consent of congress at all. The president is well within his bounds to order the departments under him to act within a certain way. This is why he is constitutionally the head of the executive branch of government as well as the military. Baring a specific law on the books forbidding the placement of the prisoners at certain places which could be challenged in the courts as unconstitutional, nothing is stopping the executive order. Not even the senate.
It's simply amazing how much influence the right has in left leaning towns in Michigan seeing how they are primarily controlled by the left and have been for some time. Their reach must parallel those that can waive their hands and say the magic words "these are not the droids you are looking for". May the Schwartz be with you.
Remember - the right wanted GM go under and take down all of its supporting suppliers and ravage what's left of Detroit, and the right wants to destroy infrastructure by chronic underfunding (ya know, taxes are actually needed for stuff...), and wipe out the blue collar middle class through off-shoring (but don't worry white collar workers are now going away also, so you won't be left out of the fun).
Actually, it's the reaction to all the liberal policies that the left rejected. It's not that they embraced the hardships that were coming, they simply didn't think it was the government's job or position to prop up and bail out industry that should be able to take care of itself. This by the way is largely a left leaning principle until it came down to protecting their interests in Detroit and other high tax and union towns.
The demonstrable fact is - the U.S. economy in general, and the middle class in particular, does consistently better under Democratic than Republican administrations since the 1920s.
This would be interesting and perhaps informative if the economy tracked political control and the policies haven't changed throughout time or that the economic situations didn't have issues that were completely outside of political control.
But hay, I can see why you think the way you do with ignoring all the relevant factors in your previous paragraph.
ut please, carry on with your ideological, fact-free blather. (I know you will.)
I agree. And with you adding to the noise, we are assured that it will last for some time. But hey, this is America where anyone can twist the facts to their advantage. I mean this is largely why we are able to claim that opposite sides of the same issue without anyone being wrong. It's because the answer most likely lies in between the extremes but with clouded knowledge like both of you presented, it will be a long time before a compromise is ever reached.
It's sad when the American dream went from owning a house and making a comfortable living for you and your family to a day when politicians would just do the right thing with the least amount of intrusion into out personal and economic lives. I should have listened better to grandpa when he complained about government back in 1976 when Carter started screwing things way the fuck up.
This is the same utter BS that the Republicans have been trying to convince us of for over 3 decades.
Hmm.., It's been around for over three decades and yet the democrats haven't made it true by now. Let me guess, you are a lone wolf crying in the night to fix the injustices of the world and no one is listening? Or perhaps it's more like you are very confused and don't know what you are talking about?
I'm not going to bother dissecting your post point by point, but I will make a couple observations:
Why yes, cause details would only cloud the issue and weaken your mindset. You have convinced me, I'm with you now, lets ignore the entire point being made in order to foster out own misinterpretations and maintain our political agenda.
irst, Verizon isn't making the public whole. That's the whole point of Sonny's post. They're paying back less than a third of the *conservative* estimate of what they stole. That sounds like a great arrangement to me. Hell, I'd be happy to rob 30 grand from a bank, and then give them 10 grand back and have the case be dropped. That's a great way to make a quick 20 thou. Funny how Verizon gets away with it, but I'd be in jail for decades.
According to the FCC, they are being made whole. At least whole enough for what they were caught doing. Sonny's post is irrelevant as it makes up some arbitrary number and doesn't include charges already paid back or negated by Verizon customer contesting the billings. The FCC had access to that information, Sonny doesn't. Your and Sonny's hypothetical only exists as a hypothetical situation that may or may not have happened within the confines of it. You are essentially using a false analogy in order to paint a picture that doesn't exist.
Which brings me to my second: What was that you were saying about being fair in our judicial system and criminal prosecution?
Well, your first point was so flawed that I'm not sure if your second one can be remotely valid but lets see anyways.
Then you bring up the tired old Republican line of "Fines are REALLY punitive and REALLY teach corporations lessons.
Yes, that's right, it's all the republicans and not the democrats who held control in several years of the last 3 decades. I know, I know, with control of both the house or representatives, the senate, and the white house, they still cannot get anything done because of those evil republicans. And this is true even back in 1976-79 when Carter had both houses and the white house and again in 1992-1996 when Clinton had it too. Funny thing is that I don't remember any bills that the democrats purposed that was shot down by either party addressing this. Perhaps you shouldn't be tilting at windmills in Holland?
Microsoft made $6.66 BILLION in pure profit in Q42009. If they commit a crime and we fine them even a hundred million, which is a level of fine we almost never see levied on corporations, they will earn it back in about a day and a half. That's not a penalty. It's a minor annoyance.
And that's why fines aren't the only thing that happens when someone breaks the law. The people who broke the law can be held criminally liable for their actions as well as sanctions can be placed on the company. And all this doesn't negate the fact that restitution to the public can be ordered on top of the fine. But hey, it's not like it's the republican's fault when a liberal court in a democrat controlled state like California settles restitution as a coupon or discount in future purchases of Microsoft's products.
Here is a hint, even if you do have a valid argument on the penalties not being severe enough, you are loosing it completely by attempting to blame it on one political party. Something else you are not considering is the way the companies
Corporations are conglomerations of people who take no active role in the daily operations of it. It only makes sense that the corporation is capable of acting on it's own behalf in this regard. But as I mentioned earlier, the people running the corporation are responsible for their own actions (including any owners who may be running it).
Good lord, do you really think that the only way for the public to be fleeced is for a C level executive to give written orders to do it?
How in the world did you even remotely get that idea from what I wrote? I would think the words CEO and Board member would have made enough sense that you couldn't possibly think I was limiting my point to that. And no where did I say anything about written orders, the closest I came to was proof which shouldn't be limited to just that.
Here's a scenario: John the CTO goes down to the billing engineers and tells them, verbally, "we want to see a 5% increase in profits from spurious charges. Make it happen."
This isn't written down anywhere. The meeting happened, but it was just a generic meeting with the team - nothing special, nothing permanent. Other business was covered too. How do you prove he said that?
And why would you need written orders? The testimony of two or more, hell just one person for that matter would have be enough proof. I mean why is it that I can say I saw the guy pull a knife, stab the man in the chest, then take off running with the knife and be enough evidence for a conviction of murder and somehow a billing tech can't say he was verbally told these exact words? You prove that he said it by the fact that there is a dead body and you saw the murder happen. In other words, you prove that it happened by the fact that a crime was committed and you were a witness to the events.
BTW, Charges doesn't always mean punished or convicted. Just as the murder may have been somehow justifiable, so could some other act given the right circumstances.
Here's an even more common scenario: Joe the CEO tell John the CTO, "We're making money hand over fist. I want to make even more. Make it happen." So John the CTO runs his billing engineers ragged, and randomly weird charges and weird discounts start cropping up in people's phone bills. He throws fits about the weird discounts, they get fixed, but the weird charges - well, nobody really cares about them in the billing department, that's accounting's job.
So you are saying that it wasn't any specific purpose to increase erroneous charges but a byproduct of a crappy business mindset. Ok, where's the men rea? You see, if no one is specifically guilty of a crime but the other all actions constituted a crime, then the company is liable for the act but seeing how no one specifically set out to commit the act, a person isn't. I have no problem with not charging a person when they did nothing intentionally wrong and only charging the company being represented. It the billing engineers made an couple honest mistakes that ended up in erroneous charges being made, the wrong should be made right, but I can hardly see where they should be put to death or anything. And yes, there are already some pretty strict standards when it comes to billing for services so if they broke any other law in the process, it would be the billing engineers fault not the guy who said "we are seeing too many fantom credits, make it stop" (which is a legitimate business concern).
I mean, how do you think horribly defective products like the Ford Pinto make it to the market? Most of the time, it's not because the people engineering them suck - it's because management, up above them, is driving the engineers too hard.
You should probably look into the Ford Pinto case a little better before attempting to make it some poster child argument. Here are some facts about it that you should probably know. 1:, the gas tank location was common on a lot of cars at the time. 2:, the cost benefit analysis was done after the initial complaint of the problems and was done in compliance with excepted law at the time. It was done in order to respond to a NHTS inquiry which also sided with ford. (
Want to avoid the felony grand theft penalties PEOPLE face when they steal millions of dollars? Oh, well, OK, I guess you're not a person until the judge makes his decision on the penalty you face.
They are still a person in the same sense. The problem is how to you prove that they acted in a certain way instead of careless employees making mistakes or acting on their own (with and or without knowledge of the consequences)? It's very difficult. But rest assures, if there is proof that a CEO, Board Member, or any Manager gave orders to fleece the public, those people can and will be held criminally accountable. Being a company doesn't shield anyone from any criminal prosecution, it shields them from criminal prosecution through an act that was no fault of their own. And even to that point, carelessness can still be grounds for criminal prosecution, just ask the CEO of Tyco and World Com.
This country is founded on the basics of being fair in out judicial system and criminal prosecution. This means actually prosecuting people who committed the crime, not some stand in who you cannot prove had any role. We do not allow corruption of blood, metaphorically or literally. Thankfully, even when they cannot prove any single person at fault, but the crime or wrong was committed, there is a legal concept called"Respondeat superior" that allows vicarious liability to wrongs committed by people that are attributed to a corporation.
To my way of thinking, if corporations want to be considered people, then that's fine. But if the corporation commits a crime, it goes to jail, by which I mean no business transactions except for payment of debt, at ALL, for the length of the jail sentence. Verizon steals millions of dollars? Guess what folks? You're shut down for the 1-20 year jail sentence. Yes, that will ruin you, but you're the one who wanted to be a person.
Obviously, you haven't thought this through much. If a company is forced to not operate, it still owes it's shareholders/owners it's value. They can simply take that and start another company with new management doing the same line of business. That's why a fine is much more valuable to prosecuting a corporation. If you wanted to impose the same general liability of "no business for 1-20 years", then fine them an amount equaling the revenue minus expenses for that time period and enforce monitoring that generates a proper attitude towards serving the public. Then if they liquidate, which even convicted felons are allowed to do if the fruit is not borne of the crime they are convicted of, the fine has top priority in payout. In other words, they cannot simply open back up under a different name because the value goes to pay the fine before being returned to shareholders or debtors. The government gets theirs first.
But in this, you are still neglecting that corporations are not sentient beings and they cannot make decisions or operate on their own. There are people running the corporation (which is the basic component structure of why corporations are necessary) and it's those who did the deed that is criminal. Justice can be served just as well by prosecuting the people directly responsible for the crime and adding vicarious liability to the corporation for failing to stop it. In this case, once the problem was legally brought to Verizon's attention, they claimed it was a mistake (prove them different with facts and not innuendos and quick conclusions) and they were willing to make full restitution. And yes, that's the entire point behind actions like this, to make the public whole again. If Verizon refused to do so, they would have been prosecuted, most likely fined, and had to give refunds anyways.
Maybe you were asleep during the Clinton years. More then once, he took republican ideas and agendas as his own and crowed louder then the loudest cock in the barnyard. Democrats crow very loudly when they have a success. However, it just seems lately that they haven't had to many successes. At least none that they were proud of.
I think Obama should stand on the steps of the NYSE with a banner behind him that states "Recession Solved" in patriotic graphics and tell us all unequivocally how everything is better. Doesn't matter if anything is better, just that he says it is. This worked for Bush for a while.
Yes, stealing trade secrets is boring and open and shut so lets talk about HFT like everyone else.
Well, you did ask why is HFT legal and gaming the system isn't. I showed the distinct differences between the two that you presented.
Every trade changes the market,
That's true. However, there is a difference between changing the market by participating in it, and changing the market to manipulate the outcome. One is a legal side effect of legally being involved, the other is an illegal tactic attempting to take advantage of how people are legally participating.
HFT systems spamming a market with thousands of trade requests they never intend to make is far more market manipulating than taking advantage of a bug in a robot someone stupidly turned loose with their money.
Well no, it isn't. You see, one is only participating in the market the way it was designed, the other is manipulating it to your advantage. It's no different then insider trading.
The whole purpose of HFT is manipulating everything in a very small way where these Norwegians manipulated 1 trader in a big way.
No, the whole purpose of HFT is to benefit from slight changes in prices which is legal. The Norwegians manipulated prices in order to take advantage of someone else' stupidity which is illegal with or without HFT.
All of the HFT systems manipulate each other in exactly the same way and if they find a way to take advantage of each other, you better believe that they will be milking it until it gets fixed.
And if they do, they will be facing the same actions that the Norwegians did. You see, that's illegal even if it did happen with HFT systems. If you have proof of it outside of you just saying so, then report them to the proper authorities and they will be punished.
HFT is no different then a floor trader offering to buy or sell as a certain price and no one taking them up on it. Well, no different outside of it being a computer doing it instead of a live person. Manipulating the value of the stock in order to take advantage of that floor traders offer is illegal in every sense of the legitimacy of the markets. It's like all the appraisers who inflated the values of homes in order to make the selling price seem reasonable (hence the banks would loan the money) then getting a commission on the sale.
Schizophrenics in that time era were institutionalized. It used to be common to simply place anyone with a mental disorder into some institution to be out of sight and out of mind. Unruly children of the rich and powerful were often institutionalized in this manner with the objective of not embarrassing the family or hurting someone's political efforts. It wasn't until in the mid 1970's to early 1980's that the US Supreme Court ruled they couldn't be locked away unless they were a threat to themselves or others.
Because the event was real in the past and only happened because of time travel to the past.
And to avoid a paradox, it's possible that the future time traveler didn't know she was going to be in the certain movie until after she committed to doing it. All this talk of it today could be dismissed as bunk and not even be legend by the time the time is traveled. It could have been an excuse to revive interest in some of the oldies but goodies and some one else randomly picked the time and movie..
Probably something more like here inter-dimensional communicator got borked and she had to pop into the 21st century to get a device capable of being made to work in its stead, then go back in time to get raw elements that have been outlawed for personal possession to make it actually feasible. A lot of common things in the past are outlawed for personal possession or you need to jump through hoops to ensure your not a terrorist to access today.
The HFT is supposed to only be an action only to reaction to the market, the news article you linked to is where they manipulated the market for their gain which is illegal even though it primarily exploited a HFT program. Now, this court case is similar only in that it revolves around a HFT program. It's about someone taking the code and transporting it somewhere to use to their benefit/whatever (stealing trade secrets).
You can do whatever you want to gain an edge in the markets. Unless you actually manipulate the markets or break an existing law/rule in order to do that.
Your also forgetting that they have an interest in prosecuting without issues that could cause a verdict to be over turned.
With all the political fevoring out there and general distaste for wall-street right now, releasing this information or making this public could raise a number of legal and ethics challenges causing something to be overturned or vacated on appeal.
Suppose releasing this information caused a public outcry which tainted the jury or worse yet, caused protests on the court house steps that is later claimed to influence the trial disproportionately against the defense. The bottom line is that keeping it quiet, at least until the verdict is in, will avoid a lot of that. The constitution guarantees a fair trial, not having one is grounds for appeal, not being able to have one at all, can be grounds to avoid prosecution at all. It will make it extremely more difficult to get a conviction to stick if it's in the open before the trial is concluded.
IT will be open eventually, just not until someone is convicted. The court process is not about indirectly punishing someone for being charged, it's about determining innocence or guilt and only then punishing someone if it's appropriate. If there is a conviction, it will all be public. If not, then disclosing the source code and methods does little but harm the programmer.
I didn't know they offered anything like that. I'm going to have to check into it.
It's hard to valuate the costs of repairs when a lot of it is going to end up being custom work and/or fabrication because the OEM or even aftermarket parts aren't available. Your generally left with some bloated priced piece you need or restoring a junkyard- or less then perfect piece, or in some cases, even making your own. This is were sweat equity pays off.
Maybe the value of the '49 Ford was more then the blue book of my '69 Chevelle. But they do seem to concentrate on the book value (if they can find it) and if the repair is within 80% or so, they try to total it out. Or so it seems. That's where the vanity rider comes in, you claim it's worth X dollars and they go by that instead of the book value. And ironically, the insurance company uses a different version of the book value that is specific to junking cars so it doesn't even match the blue book value that your bank would loan as collateral against it. I rolled a 2 year old Geo Storm after hitting a cow that walked in front of me as I was rounding a curve the third day I had it. I gave 3k down and purchased it already at 2k below the bank's book value and ended up owing $1200 for the purchase price after the insurance paid out. Seems to me that I should have been a couple grand up on it. The worse part about it is that I had to pay for the cow too (another $900), even though something (dog or something) was chasing it into the road.
Actually, if a corporation commits crimes, the CEO, Officers and the BOARD of Directors should be held criminally responsible.
They already can be and have been criminally held accountable. The problem is finding enough evidence linking them close enough to the crime to assign blame.
Let me get this straight. Your saying that you are smarter then these highly educated men and women at the top of their field somehow?
I mean seriously, lets keep ideology out of this and look at the facts of law and the constitution. We are talking about a ruling that said, you can't discriminate with the law. The ruling said that because other groups of people are allowed to assemble for political speech, specific corporations shouldn't be singled out and forbiden (yes, unions are corporations, PACs are generally corporations).
Perhaps you are missing the argument in order to impose your beliefs over top of it?
That's where you guys (conservatives) shot yourselves in the foot in California. Since any person can opt out of having their union dues used for political purposes, union campaign spending in California is voluntary.
Not really. Obviously you have never attempted to do that. If your non-union in a union shop which is what that would be, you get harassed by union employees and in some cases, put in a working environment that encourages your leaving employment there. I opted once and it came back to bite me. I have heard from several at other places that it's all like that.
Even with strict laws against contributions by "groups", you'll have a hard time banning money from voluntary associations of individual persons.
If your going to ban money from groups, just ban all of it. If it's voluntary, then each individual can put their name beside the contribution or whatever and you don't need a group.
Yes, but the proximate benefactor is a person. This is not true of a corporation. When a union negotiates with a business a certain labor rate, a human being is the recipient of that rate. When a corporation "negotiates" a price for their good or service, a human being is not the direct recipient of that rate.
Are you sure what a corporation is? It's nothing less then a group of people who own the business. If the negotiation for the price or service benefits the corporation, it in essence benefits the owners or shareholders in other words. When a corporation profits, the owners profit. It's that simple.
I've not commented on whether unions should be able to make campaign contributions. The topic is corporations.
You can't really separate the two as that is the basis of the ruling. You have a law permitting one group of people to do something and forbidding another from doing the same thing based solely on nothing more that a like or dislike of the group. The court said that you can't allow one group of similarly situated people to do something while constraining the other.
That is where unions come into play. They are all corporations. If one group of like people can do something, then you can't discriminate against another group of like people. That's what the court said. If you want to limit one, you either need to limit both or limit neither, or find a way to specifically differentiate between the two that can stand up in court and then limit the different group.
For the insurance, you probably couldn't get a standard full coverage policy and would have to take out some sort of liability plus a vanity rider.
I had that problem with a restored 1969 Chevelle. Almost any damage to it and they wanted to blue book it and total it out. This was because it was out of production for so long, they simply treat it as too much to repair or something. I actually had a drunk back into me at a cruise in once. It only scratched the chrome on the bumper and their insurance company wanted to total the car out and give me $600. Mind you, this was the third trip out after a frame up restoration. Ended up costing me about $1200 to have the bumper sent out to be fixed and re-chromed.
Anyways, most insurance companies won't pay out for deliberate acts. So if you deliberately drive through the building, they would likely laugh and hang up.
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Well, it seems more like Obama wasn't really convinced in his convictions after all. I mean he certainly did not need to write in a clause waiting for a separate government action before making it happen. He could have just as easily made club gitmo pay the other places for the detention, security, and prosecution out of it's already in existent budget. They could have used existing military budgets to transport the prisoners and so on. It wouldn't be the first time a president has done that. And according to your linked article, congress hasn't made any restrictions on something like that until the 2011 budget which not only is still in consideration, but won't go into effect until next year.
I have read your link and understand the problems he is facing. However, these problems, or many of them, were known largely before his election as they were answers to some of his campaign promises on the subject (the not in my back yard, the giving terrorists a public platform IE open trials, the security concerns, Geneva convention rules, and so on). It seems like he intentionally implemented a kill switch to closing club gitmo in order to save backlash.
Quite a bit probably came early on in the 2000's.
I'm seriously questioning the political wherewithal of some of these people. Doesn't anyone remember that the cry for why 9/11 happened had something to do with the lack of intelligence and the inability to put the intelligence together to make a solid idea of the problems that lead to 9/11? Then we had the entire "failure of intelligence" problem that was blamed on Bush thinking Iraq had WMDs pre-2004.
So I can see why the intelligence budget increased enormously in the last decade. It's because so many powerful and devastating things were blamed on intelligence failures. It's idiotic to think we should pin it back to 1999 levels and avoid things like 9/11 or the misinformation that lead up to the Iraq war. Certainly 80 billion is cheaper then a war started on bad intelligence in Iraq or the costs of US lives and damage to the economy caused by terrorists attacks succeeding because we can't coordinate the intelligence properly to head off an attack.
I'm not even sure why this is even a controversy outside of it being close to an election. And I would say that some people are pretty desperate if they are attempting to ignore history in order to gain some political favoring.
Seems to me that you should be directing that to the democrats as well. The stories he posted seem to show the lack of courage from democrats.
Now I know we are approaching an election and your blinded by the fever to have your side win. But the question I have is, if your constantly electing people who themselves are no different, are you actually doing anything? Perhaps if you really feel the way you presented yourself, then you might want to take a real look at the situation and not some Republicans are evil look that ignores the very real problem of the democrats being no different.
You know, I could agree with you outside of the fact that every time this has been attempted in the past, it backfired. We had gangs using children to murder rivals and take the blame for crimes committed by others because being under the legal age meant they would have their sentences capped. Now we have children that can be charged as an adult and dace capitol punishment based solely on the seriousness of the crime and nothing to do with their mental capacity to understand the consequences of their actions.
What I'm getting at is that there are mindsets that simply cannot be changed by the image of integrity in the hearts and minds of those on the other side of this war. All it will be is another end run attempting to get around some formality. It's been demonstrated time and time again in different geographical places by separate entities. charging and convicting these people or even letting them go in civil court will not solve anything you are concerned with. It will do little more then encourage the behavior. history will repeat itself.
Where a government agency holds prisoners or detainees can be changed with an executive order and without the consent of congress at all. The president is well within his bounds to order the departments under him to act within a certain way. This is why he is constitutionally the head of the executive branch of government as well as the military. Baring a specific law on the books forbidding the placement of the prisoners at certain places which could be challenged in the courts as unconstitutional, nothing is stopping the executive order. Not even the senate.
It's simply amazing how much influence the right has in left leaning towns in Michigan seeing how they are primarily controlled by the left and have been for some time. Their reach must parallel those that can waive their hands and say the magic words "these are not the droids you are looking for". May the Schwartz be with you.
Actually, it's the reaction to all the liberal policies that the left rejected. It's not that they embraced the hardships that were coming, they simply didn't think it was the government's job or position to prop up and bail out industry that should be able to take care of itself. This by the way is largely a left leaning principle until it came down to protecting their interests in Detroit and other high tax and union towns.
This would be interesting and perhaps informative if the economy tracked political control and the policies haven't changed throughout time or that the economic situations didn't have issues that were completely outside of political control.
But hay, I can see why you think the way you do with ignoring all the relevant factors in your previous paragraph.
I agree. And with you adding to the noise, we are assured that it will last for some time. But hey, this is America where anyone can twist the facts to their advantage. I mean this is largely why we are able to claim that opposite sides of the same issue without anyone being wrong. It's because the answer most likely lies in between the extremes but with clouded knowledge like both of you presented, it will be a long time before a compromise is ever reached.
It's sad when the American dream went from owning a house and making a comfortable living for you and your family to a day when politicians would just do the right thing with the least amount of intrusion into out personal and economic lives. I should have listened better to grandpa when he complained about government back in 1976 when Carter started screwing things way the fuck up.
Hmm.., It's been around for over three decades and yet the democrats haven't made it true by now. Let me guess, you are a lone wolf crying in the night to fix the injustices of the world and no one is listening? Or perhaps it's more like you are very confused and don't know what you are talking about?
Why yes, cause details would only cloud the issue and weaken your mindset. You have convinced me, I'm with you now, lets ignore the entire point being made in order to foster out own misinterpretations and maintain our political agenda.
According to the FCC, they are being made whole. At least whole enough for what they were caught doing. Sonny's post is irrelevant as it makes up some arbitrary number and doesn't include charges already paid back or negated by Verizon customer contesting the billings. The FCC had access to that information, Sonny doesn't. Your and Sonny's hypothetical only exists as a hypothetical situation that may or may not have happened within the confines of it. You are essentially using a false analogy in order to paint a picture that doesn't exist.
Well, your first point was so flawed that I'm not sure if your second one can be remotely valid but lets see anyways.
Yes, that's right, it's all the republicans and not the democrats who held control in several years of the last 3 decades. I know, I know, with control of both the house or representatives, the senate, and the white house, they still cannot get anything done because of those evil republicans. And this is true even back in 1976-79 when Carter had both houses and the white house and again in 1992-1996 when Clinton had it too. Funny thing is that I don't remember any bills that the democrats purposed that was shot down by either party addressing this. Perhaps you shouldn't be tilting at windmills in Holland?
And that's why fines aren't the only thing that happens when someone breaks the law. The people who broke the law can be held criminally liable for their actions as well as sanctions can be placed on the company. And all this doesn't negate the fact that restitution to the public can be ordered on top of the fine. But hey, it's not like it's the republican's fault when a liberal court in a democrat controlled state like California settles restitution as a coupon or discount in future purchases of Microsoft's products.
Here is a hint, even if you do have a valid argument on the penalties not being severe enough, you are loosing it completely by attempting to blame it on one political party. Something else you are not considering is the way the companies
Corporations are conglomerations of people who take no active role in the daily operations of it. It only makes sense that the corporation is capable of acting on it's own behalf in this regard. But as I mentioned earlier, the people running the corporation are responsible for their own actions (including any owners who may be running it).
How in the world did you even remotely get that idea from what I wrote? I would think the words CEO and Board member would have made enough sense that you couldn't possibly think I was limiting my point to that. And no where did I say anything about written orders, the closest I came to was proof which shouldn't be limited to just that.
And why would you need written orders? The testimony of two or more, hell just one person for that matter would have be enough proof. I mean why is it that I can say I saw the guy pull a knife, stab the man in the chest, then take off running with the knife and be enough evidence for a conviction of murder and somehow a billing tech can't say he was verbally told these exact words? You prove that he said it by the fact that there is a dead body and you saw the murder happen. In other words, you prove that it happened by the fact that a crime was committed and you were a witness to the events.
BTW, Charges doesn't always mean punished or convicted. Just as the murder may have been somehow justifiable, so could some other act given the right circumstances.
So you are saying that it wasn't any specific purpose to increase erroneous charges but a byproduct of a crappy business mindset. Ok, where's the men rea? You see, if no one is specifically guilty of a crime but the other all actions constituted a crime, then the company is liable for the act but seeing how no one specifically set out to commit the act, a person isn't. I have no problem with not charging a person when they did nothing intentionally wrong and only charging the company being represented. It the billing engineers made an couple honest mistakes that ended up in erroneous charges being made, the wrong should be made right, but I can hardly see where they should be put to death or anything. And yes, there are already some pretty strict standards when it comes to billing for services so if they broke any other law in the process, it would be the billing engineers fault not the guy who said "we are seeing too many fantom credits, make it stop" (which is a legitimate business concern).
You should probably look into the Ford Pinto case a little better before attempting to make it some poster child argument. Here are some facts about it that you should probably know. 1:, the gas tank location was common on a lot of cars at the time. 2:, the cost benefit analysis was done after the initial complaint of the problems and was done in compliance with excepted law at the time. It was done in order to respond to a NHTS inquiry which also sided with ford. (
Dude, pass that bong your sucking on over here.
They are still a person in the same sense. The problem is how to you prove that they acted in a certain way instead of careless employees making mistakes or acting on their own (with and or without knowledge of the consequences)? It's very difficult. But rest assures, if there is proof that a CEO, Board Member, or any Manager gave orders to fleece the public, those people can and will be held criminally accountable. Being a company doesn't shield anyone from any criminal prosecution, it shields them from criminal prosecution through an act that was no fault of their own. And even to that point, carelessness can still be grounds for criminal prosecution, just ask the CEO of Tyco and World Com.
This country is founded on the basics of being fair in out judicial system and criminal prosecution. This means actually prosecuting people who committed the crime, not some stand in who you cannot prove had any role. We do not allow corruption of blood, metaphorically or literally. Thankfully, even when they cannot prove any single person at fault, but the crime or wrong was committed, there is a legal concept called"Respondeat superior" that allows vicarious liability to wrongs committed by people that are attributed to a corporation.
Obviously, you haven't thought this through much. If a company is forced to not operate, it still owes it's shareholders/owners it's value. They can simply take that and start another company with new management doing the same line of business. That's why a fine is much more valuable to prosecuting a corporation. If you wanted to impose the same general liability of "no business for 1-20 years", then fine them an amount equaling the revenue minus expenses for that time period and enforce monitoring that generates a proper attitude towards serving the public. Then if they liquidate, which even convicted felons are allowed to do if the fruit is not borne of the crime they are convicted of, the fine has top priority in payout. In other words, they cannot simply open back up under a different name because the value goes to pay the fine before being returned to shareholders or debtors. The government gets theirs first.
But in this, you are still neglecting that corporations are not sentient beings and they cannot make decisions or operate on their own. There are people running the corporation (which is the basic component structure of why corporations are necessary) and it's those who did the deed that is criminal. Justice can be served just as well by prosecuting the people directly responsible for the crime and adding vicarious liability to the corporation for failing to stop it. In this case, once the problem was legally brought to Verizon's attention, they claimed it was a mistake (prove them different with facts and not innuendos and quick conclusions) and they were willing to make full restitution. And yes, that's the entire point behind actions like this, to make the public whole again. If Verizon refused to do so, they would have been prosecuted, most likely fined, and had to give refunds anyways.
Maybe you were asleep during the Clinton years. More then once, he took republican ideas and agendas as his own and crowed louder then the loudest cock in the barnyard. Democrats crow very loudly when they have a success. However, it just seems lately that they haven't had to many successes. At least none that they were proud of.
Oh god, were you being facetious and I missed it?
Well, you did ask why is HFT legal and gaming the system isn't. I showed the distinct differences between the two that you presented.
That's true. However, there is a difference between changing the market by participating in it, and changing the market to manipulate the outcome. One is a legal side effect of legally being involved, the other is an illegal tactic attempting to take advantage of how people are legally participating.
Well no, it isn't. You see, one is only participating in the market the way it was designed, the other is manipulating it to your advantage. It's no different then insider trading.
No, the whole purpose of HFT is to benefit from slight changes in prices which is legal. The Norwegians manipulated prices in order to take advantage of someone else' stupidity which is illegal with or without HFT.
And if they do, they will be facing the same actions that the Norwegians did. You see, that's illegal even if it did happen with HFT systems. If you have proof of it outside of you just saying so, then report them to the proper authorities and they will be punished.
HFT is no different then a floor trader offering to buy or sell as a certain price and no one taking them up on it. Well, no different outside of it being a computer doing it instead of a live person. Manipulating the value of the stock in order to take advantage of that floor traders offer is illegal in every sense of the legitimacy of the markets. It's like all the appraisers who inflated the values of homes in order to make the selling price seem reasonable (hence the banks would loan the money) then getting a commission on the sale.
Schizophrenics in that time era were institutionalized. It used to be common to simply place anyone with a mental disorder into some institution to be out of sight and out of mind. Unruly children of the rich and powerful were often institutionalized in this manner with the objective of not embarrassing the family or hurting someone's political efforts. It wasn't until in the mid 1970's to early 1980's that the US Supreme Court ruled they couldn't be locked away unless they were a threat to themselves or others.
Because the event was real in the past and only happened because of time travel to the past.
And to avoid a paradox, it's possible that the future time traveler didn't know she was going to be in the certain movie until after she committed to doing it. All this talk of it today could be dismissed as bunk and not even be legend by the time the time is traveled. It could have been an excuse to revive interest in some of the oldies but goodies and some one else randomly picked the time and movie..
Probably something more like here inter-dimensional communicator got borked and she had to pop into the 21st century to get a device capable of being made to work in its stead, then go back in time to get raw elements that have been outlawed for personal possession to make it actually feasible. A lot of common things in the past are outlawed for personal possession or you need to jump through hoops to ensure your not a terrorist to access today.
I know this happened to me once.
Because they are not one in the same.
The HFT is supposed to only be an action only to reaction to the market, the news article you linked to is where they manipulated the market for their gain which is illegal even though it primarily exploited a HFT program. Now, this court case is similar only in that it revolves around a HFT program. It's about someone taking the code and transporting it somewhere to use to their benefit/whatever (stealing trade secrets).
You can do whatever you want to gain an edge in the markets. Unless you actually manipulate the markets or break an existing law/rule in order to do that.
Your also forgetting that they have an interest in prosecuting without issues that could cause a verdict to be over turned.
With all the political fevoring out there and general distaste for wall-street right now, releasing this information or making this public could raise a number of legal and ethics challenges causing something to be overturned or vacated on appeal.
Suppose releasing this information caused a public outcry which tainted the jury or worse yet, caused protests on the court house steps that is later claimed to influence the trial disproportionately against the defense. The bottom line is that keeping it quiet, at least until the verdict is in, will avoid a lot of that. The constitution guarantees a fair trial, not having one is grounds for appeal, not being able to have one at all, can be grounds to avoid prosecution at all. It will make it extremely more difficult to get a conviction to stick if it's in the open before the trial is concluded.
IT will be open eventually, just not until someone is convicted. The court process is not about indirectly punishing someone for being charged, it's about determining innocence or guilt and only then punishing someone if it's appropriate. If there is a conviction, it will all be public. If not, then disclosing the source code and methods does little but harm the programmer.
Stop attempting to insinuate that liberals are genetic mutants.
I didn't know they offered anything like that. I'm going to have to check into it.
It's hard to valuate the costs of repairs when a lot of it is going to end up being custom work and/or fabrication because the OEM or even aftermarket parts aren't available. Your generally left with some bloated priced piece you need or restoring a junkyard- or less then perfect piece, or in some cases, even making your own. This is were sweat equity pays off.
Maybe the value of the '49 Ford was more then the blue book of my '69 Chevelle. But they do seem to concentrate on the book value (if they can find it) and if the repair is within 80% or so, they try to total it out. Or so it seems. That's where the vanity rider comes in, you claim it's worth X dollars and they go by that instead of the book value. And ironically, the insurance company uses a different version of the book value that is specific to junking cars so it doesn't even match the blue book value that your bank would loan as collateral against it. I rolled a 2 year old Geo Storm after hitting a cow that walked in front of me as I was rounding a curve the third day I had it. I gave 3k down and purchased it already at 2k below the bank's book value and ended up owing $1200 for the purchase price after the insurance paid out. Seems to me that I should have been a couple grand up on it. The worse part about it is that I had to pay for the cow too (another $900), even though something (dog or something) was chasing it into the road.
They already can be and have been criminally held accountable. The problem is finding enough evidence linking them close enough to the crime to assign blame.
Let me get this straight. Your saying that you are smarter then these highly educated men and women at the top of their field somehow?
I mean seriously, lets keep ideology out of this and look at the facts of law and the constitution. We are talking about a ruling that said, you can't discriminate with the law. The ruling said that because other groups of people are allowed to assemble for political speech, specific corporations shouldn't be singled out and forbiden (yes, unions are corporations, PACs are generally corporations).
Perhaps you are missing the argument in order to impose your beliefs over top of it?
Not really. Obviously you have never attempted to do that. If your non-union in a union shop which is what that would be, you get harassed by union employees and in some cases, put in a working environment that encourages your leaving employment there. I opted once and it came back to bite me. I have heard from several at other places that it's all like that.
If your going to ban money from groups, just ban all of it. If it's voluntary, then each individual can put their name beside the contribution or whatever and you don't need a group.
Are you sure what a corporation is? It's nothing less then a group of people who own the business. If the negotiation for the price or service benefits the corporation, it in essence benefits the owners or shareholders in other words. When a corporation profits, the owners profit. It's that simple.
You can't really separate the two as that is the basis of the ruling. You have a law permitting one group of people to do something and forbidding another from doing the same thing based solely on nothing more that a like or dislike of the group. The court said that you can't allow one group of similarly situated people to do something while constraining the other.
That is where unions come into play. They are all corporations. If one group of like people can do something, then you can't discriminate against another group of like people. That's what the court said. If you want to limit one, you either need to limit both or limit neither, or find a way to specifically differentiate between the two that can stand up in court and then limit the different group.
For the insurance, you probably couldn't get a standard full coverage policy and would have to take out some sort of liability plus a vanity rider.
I had that problem with a restored 1969 Chevelle. Almost any damage to it and they wanted to blue book it and total it out. This was because it was out of production for so long, they simply treat it as too much to repair or something. I actually had a drunk back into me at a cruise in once. It only scratched the chrome on the bumper and their insurance company wanted to total the car out and give me $600. Mind you, this was the third trip out after a frame up restoration. Ended up costing me about $1200 to have the bumper sent out to be fixed and re-chromed.
Anyways, most insurance companies won't pay out for deliberate acts. So if you deliberately drive through the building, they would likely laugh and hang up.