This is one of the promises of the early web coming true. Hyperlinked text that will take you anywhere you want to go. Considering that it is advertisers (usually) that pay the salaries of online media folk it is not at all surprising that advertisers get what they want.
Are you high? Google is not helping the small investor. If they wanted to help the small investor they would not make you buy a minimum of 500 shares at 100+ a pop through their auction method. If anything they are trying to keep the small investor AWAY from the IPO (which may actually be helping them.)
There's lots of reasons for the FUD, mostly because when you're dealing with billions of dollars that may or may not be spent there is a lot of fear, uncertianty and doubt. I'm sorry if this clashes with your Capitalist = Evil mentality.
You don't spend $1000/year on maintaining an old lawnmower you buy a new one that is cheaper and requires less maintence. Likewise it's time to let the Hubble go.
Yes the company receives money. But they dilute equity. That equity has real value. It is PRECISELY that value that is used to entice employees to work there.
Depreciation is expensed and no money changes hands in that case either are you claiming that depreciation is not an expense?
The link I provided involves the trading of options that have a stike price, a purchase price, a vesting schedule and an underlying equity asset. Just like employee stock options.
And on an intuitive level the idea of employee compensation as an expense JUST MAKES SENSE.
Certianly the BS model lacks in many regards. The point I was trying to make, and I should have been more clear, is that if the market knows how much the options are worth then the company knows how much the options are worth.
If they have a known financial value then it is the company's responsibility to inform investors of this very real expense and to do it in a manner that is consistent with market observations.
Proof of the market knowing what an option is worth http://quote.cboe.com/QuoteTable.asp?TICKER =msft&A LL=0
Options are priced using the black scholes method (though typically it is a modified BS model.) Everyday thousands of options are traded on the open market using BS as the pricing method.
There is no reason that options shouldn't be expensed. Options are used as employee compensation. You expense payroll why WOULDN'T You expense options.
FYI In the foot notes you do get the number of outstanding options and their diluitive effect on the outstanding shares but nobody reads the footnotes. Hell I think most people don't even read the financial statements.
So let me get this straight.
You are saying you would prefer that 24 million people were kept under an oppressive regime because that regime kept Al-queda out? What do you think causes people to become so zealous that they begin to behave like Al-queda? Adequeate channels to express yourself politically and economically are needed to prevent the formation of rouge groups such as Al-queda.
If it was a contract to cut then the conservationists had no right to tie that land up forever. If it was a purchase of the land in question then they could do whatever they want.
Presumably it was a contract to cut and that means the proper land owner was selling rights to his land but not selling the land itself. Also, one can assume that the rightful owner of that land generates income from selling those rights. Why do you want to deny that person income? If the conservationists want to protect the forest maybe they should buy all the rights instead of just some of them.
Of course this interpretation has nothing to do with liberal or conservitive thinking but that won't stop you from getting a pot shot in, will it?
I know you're not going to like this answer but here goes anyway. Management has a DUTY to watch out for the people that made it all possible. The shareholders.
In good times taking care of the employees is the same thing as taking care of the shareholders. It is only in rough times that there is a conflict. And when that conflict comes the duty (and moral decision) involves honoring the commitment to the owners, nearly every single time.
The moral thing to do is for management is to uphold their DUTY to the shareholders, if it is not a corporation then management must uphold their duty to the stakeholders.
Either way the idea that outsourcing is somehow immoral when it fulfills the duties that management is committed to seems absurd.
The market is already getting quite crowded, so it will be interesting to see what affect the monopoly's entrance makes when this goes down in the 2nd half of this year.
For $86 million Microsoft has created an enourmous amount of chaos. There is little doubt they will make their $86M back on additional because of the FUD the SCO crap has caused.
That doesn't make it any less sneaky, underhanded and evil though.
I use excel at work all day and I have to say that no Open source solution comes close to providing what I expect a spreadsheet to do.
The idea that one should switch from excel to an open source solution because of a small set of statistics problems cannot be properly solved by excel seems a bit like throwing the baby out with the bath water. (unless you do nothing but statistical modelling all day)
If you bothered to even look at the bls.gov site you would see that they do keep tabs on exactly the people you are saying they don't.
But then that kind of defeats your sensationalism that everything "the authorities" tell us is "trash"
Look at the U-1 through U-6 then take a look at the rest of the site you might be surprised at what they find. And if you don't believe the BLS you can always benchmark it against 3rd party sources like challenger and gray.
Of course suppliers should foot the bill. Would you prefer that wal mart paid for this "innovation" and passed the price increases along to you? But it is more than that. Walmart has a business model of low prices. Everything (well most everything) they do is centered around shaving a penny off end price to the consumer. They use low price to drive up volume so they can beat their suppliers over the head. They succeed and people cry foul.
I have never understood this "I hate wal mart because they are a large company taking advantage of poor inefficent suppliers like P&G" mentality.
Slashdot Mirror
This is one of the promises of the early web coming true. Hyperlinked text that will take you anywhere you want to go. Considering that it is advertisers (usually) that pay the salaries of online media folk it is not at all surprising that advertisers get what they want.
More competition for Java
Are you high? Google is not helping the small investor. If they wanted to help the small investor they would not make you buy a minimum of 500 shares at 100+ a pop through their auction method. If anything they are trying to keep the small investor AWAY from the IPO (which may actually be helping them.)
There's lots of reasons for the FUD, mostly because when you're dealing with billions of dollars that may or may not be spent there is a lot of fear, uncertianty and doubt. I'm sorry if this clashes with your Capitalist = Evil mentality.
You don't spend $1000/year on maintaining an old lawnmower you buy a new one that is cheaper and requires less maintence. Likewise it's time to let the Hubble go.
Yes the company receives money. But they dilute equity. That equity has real value. It is PRECISELY that value that is used to entice employees to work there.
Depreciation is expensed and no money changes hands in that case either are you claiming that depreciation is not an expense?
The link I provided involves the trading of options that have a stike price, a purchase price, a vesting schedule and an underlying equity asset. Just like employee stock options.
And on an intuitive level the idea of employee compensation as an expense JUST MAKES SENSE.
Certianly the BS model lacks in many regards. The point I was trying to make, and I should have been more clear, is that if the market knows how much the options are worth then the company knows how much the options are worth.
R =msft&A LL=0
If they have a known financial value then it is the company's responsibility to inform investors of this very real expense and to do it in a manner that is consistent with market observations.
Proof of the market knowing what an option is worth
http://quote.cboe.com/QuoteTable.asp?TICKE
Options are priced using the black scholes method (though typically it is a modified BS model.) Everyday thousands of options are traded on the open market using BS as the pricing method.
There is no reason that options shouldn't be expensed. Options are used as employee compensation. You expense payroll why WOULDN'T You expense options.
FYI In the foot notes you do get the number of outstanding options and their diluitive effect on the outstanding shares but nobody reads the footnotes. Hell I think most people don't even read the financial statements.
So let me get this straight. You are saying you would prefer that 24 million people were kept under an oppressive regime because that regime kept Al-queda out? What do you think causes people to become so zealous that they begin to behave like Al-queda? Adequeate channels to express yourself politically and economically are needed to prevent the formation of rouge groups such as Al-queda.
If it was a contract to cut then the conservationists had no right to tie that land up forever. If it was a purchase of the land in question then they could do whatever they want.
Presumably it was a contract to cut and that means the proper land owner was selling rights to his land but not selling the land itself. Also, one can assume that the rightful owner of that land generates income from selling those rights. Why do you want to deny that person income? If the conservationists want to protect the forest maybe they should buy all the rights instead of just some of them.
Of course this interpretation has nothing to do with liberal or conservitive thinking but that won't stop you from getting a pot shot in, will it?
I know you're not going to like this answer but here goes anyway. Management has a DUTY to watch out for the people that made it all possible. The shareholders.
In good times taking care of the employees is the same thing as taking care of the shareholders. It is only in rough times that there is a conflict. And when that conflict comes the duty (and moral decision) involves honoring the commitment to the owners, nearly every single time.
The moral thing to do is for management is to uphold their DUTY to the shareholders, if it is not a corporation then management must uphold their duty to the stakeholders.
Either way the idea that outsourcing is somehow immoral when it fulfills the duties that management is committed to seems absurd.
Er... whatever
Never let facts get in the way of MS bashing.
How close is this to the "edge" ? Is it what we expected to see. Please, give a layperson like me some wowie zowie facts and figures :)
For $86 million Microsoft has created an enourmous amount of chaos. There is little doubt they will make their $86M back on additional because of the FUD the SCO crap has caused.
That doesn't make it any less sneaky, underhanded and evil though.
You can blame autozone for buying a product and not paying the fees associated with that product and that is exactly what SCO is doing.
Keep in mind the goal is not to display dominance on the linux desktop (or server) market but it is to get the money they feel they are owed.
You hit a big fish like autozone and every other company out there using a linux system pays attention.
I use excel at work all day and I have to say that no Open source solution comes close to providing what I expect a spreadsheet to do.
The idea that one should switch from excel to an open source solution because of a small set of statistics problems cannot be properly solved by excel seems a bit like throwing the baby out with the bath water. (unless you do nothing but statistical modelling all day)
Market Capitalization = # of shares * share price
This gives a rough indication of what a company is "worth" (of course it is much more complicated but it is a good rule of thumb)
Disney's Market Cap : 56.12B
Comcast's : 68.83B
So from a market value perspective Comcast should have no trouble generating enough stock, bond, cash to purchase Disney.
figures from finance.yahoo.com
If you bothered to even look at the bls.gov site you would see that they do keep tabs on exactly the people you are saying they don't.
But then that kind of defeats your sensationalism that everything "the authorities" tell us is "trash"
Look at the U-1 through U-6 then take a look at the rest of the site you might be surprised at what they find. And if you don't believe the BLS you can always benchmark it against 3rd party sources like challenger and gray.
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab12.htm
I mention there are words left out of the headline (you know, that thing that entices one to RTFA) and you tell me to RTFA.
God bless slashdot.
Be thankful. It is a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for. :)
Does this department have a name or can we assume that this is THE department?
I can do you one better than paper receipts.
:)
A totally paper based system.
Of course it isn't the whiz bang system that e-voting is but it's 10000 year track record says that it is ready for the mainstream
You say this like this is a bad thing.
Of course suppliers should foot the bill. Would you prefer that wal mart paid for this "innovation" and passed the price increases along to you? But it is more than that. Walmart has a business model of low prices. Everything (well most everything) they do is centered around shaving a penny off end price to the consumer. They use low price to drive up volume so they can beat their suppliers over the head. They succeed and people cry foul.
I have never understood this "I hate wal mart because they are a large company taking advantage of poor inefficent suppliers like P&G" mentality.
I forget where I read it but one of the nasa engineers said something very similiar to "It's like we got an internet upgrade overnight"
Would these things be related in anyway or am I making something out of nothing?