Economics really is everything...
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HIV Vaccine
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· Score: 1
Sorry, but that just isn't true. The truth is that identical drugs, made on identical lines, cost more in the US than they do in Canada. Why? Simple: the prices in Canada are negotiated by customers who have the time to study the actual costs of production, and who aren't desperately begging for the treatment right now. The result is drug prices which are genuinely negotiated between producer and consumer, rather that prices set by a producer with no feedback from a market.
God I hate people who get so wrapped up in their own BS that they believe it.;)
The reason that drugs are cheaper in [insert non-US country here] is plain and simple that profit maximizing entities are taking advantage of 3rd-degree price discrimination.
The costs of R&D need to be recovered and that is amortized into the US prices- After that point anything down to the actual marginal cost of producing the pills (pennies) increases profits. International borders are very effective ways to segment a market, and the government does the expensive work of preventing reselling... Get it?
Monopsony in an 'information' market (drugs are nearly such, all the expense is in R&D, with marginal production being nearly free) means a lower than competative price. Additionally, other countries don't have the same demand for drugs, nor the same marginal product of labor, and hence they won't pay as much for drugs in a competative market. The point is that they don't pay enough that the drugs would ever be developed. If we lower our prices, without being able to raise theirs, then we need a new way to stimulate innovation.... In essence we are decreasing the social-losses due to the patent-monopoly, but unfortunately outside our borders.
The question of 'what is the correct level of drug reasearch' is a totally different question.
PS I don't like the current patent system, and I got my ass smacked in my graduate Industriual Org class when I tried to posit some 'better ideas.' It really isn't just a political clusterf*ck, it's a really complicated problem.... The fact remains that this is more an example of how socialized medicine, as-exists, only works because someone *else* pays for it... In this case the US pays for foreign healthcare.
Dude! Look you obviously just DON'T understand statistical analysis AT ALL, ok? FTFA:
This multiple-regression analysis takes account of the following
variables by county:
- number of voters
- median income
- Hispanic population
- change in voter turnout between 2000 and 2004
- support for President Bush in 2000 election
- support for Dole in 1996 election
After they removed the effects of all of those factors they ended up with 99.0% confidence that e-voting corrolated to extra bush-votes.
Do you get it yet? Could it be something else that they didn't include as a variabe? Sure, but only if it was somehow specifically different in e-voting areas.
Of course 99% isn't 100%, but lets get real for a minute ok?
As a qualified/. MD... It is also associated with immunosuppression, ie in HIV infection or when on organ transplant medication to name a few.
This brings up a question that I had in reading his posting. Wouldn't prednisone be like the last thing you would want to give someone with a potentially serious infection?
I thought to ask because I know that with tick-born diseases [which tend to lead to similar patient-doctor difficulties] it is one of the more common treatment-screwups along the way. Based on your last sentence, I'm assuming you're saying what [it seems like] his various doctors were thinking: It's psychosomatic or autoimmune... And the latter is why prednisone?
Sigh, I know what a position this kinda thing puts MD's in, but I also know that [at least inregards to tick-born infection/coinfection] those two diagnosis' are often a clinical manifestation of the MD's hubris [;)] and/or frustration.
TIA
PS Jane, you ignorant sl, er I mean Patrick, find a Doctor that you TRUST and let them manage the treatment/diagnosis! Be proactive and educate yourself, but you need to stick with someone! Think of it like this: Right now you're killing and then execing a new doctor process based on a an uneducated guess at how to health-chech the running process, and the data is on a big slow tape device... You'd rather be letting a doctor [who has source access] exec() specialists, or in the case of a place like Mayo, pthread_create em;)...or something... IANAQ-MD or programmer!
Naturally if this is real error then this is really a lower bound, as we are treating the error to be 4,000 votes. The error was 4000 in a district of 1000, and this likely means the county was smaller than average (which means the true deviation would be much larger than +/-4k in an 'average' sized county).
Don't forget that 1 wrong vote causes a discrepancy in outcome of _2_. -1|+1....
FWIW Please understand that this is crap even by the standards of statistics, but it's at least as valid as 88*4000, unless it wasn't error...
Why aren't they doing it then? Or why aren't you doing it for them?
If the datacenter isn't insanely stupidly located, shouldn't be a big problem... Hell you could get right-of-way and lay private fiber for those kinda cubic-$s;)
I imagine with db's that big the issue isn't live replication, but cramming a full backup (or restore) through the pipe... Which would take a few hours at 10Gb for 20TB...
Actually totally forget I said anything. Whoever has 25PBs scares the f*ck out of me, as the largest single publicly known db is like 1PB, and CERN hopes to have a 20PB setup in a couple *years*...
In all seriousness, If they'll buy the redundant hardware (no idea what a 25PB NAS is going for, but I imagine it depreciates by 7-figures per month...) get in touch, it's worth putting the project together for that kinda margin:)
I must warn you, a full backup/restore of 25TB happens via a totally different layer-1.... Either asphalt or air;)
The interesting thing about this is that while it eliminates third-party carriers over the ILEC's laid lines, it actually will increase competition:
Now people can chose from the phone company (DSL, FTTP), the cable company (Docsis), the power company (BPL) or various assorted satellite providers (DirecPC, Starband) plus any community wireless solutions that may be there.
It keeps the companies happy...the ILEC doesn't have to sell its lines at a loss to CLEC, but there are still lots of choices.
Oooh so let me get this right... *caugh*
You think that basically limiting telecom to the 3 'former' monopoly industries will lead to greater competition?! That they won't be able to (or want to) re-exert [actually protect/increase] their market power? That CLECs *reduce* competition [They WILL be going out of biddiness because of this...]?
Dude, can I live in your reality?;)
The existing infrastructure represents a monumental barrier to entry! Believe it or not- it's only because of the accumulated rents that the ILEC can do this!
Wanna guess what the weighted mean rate of return for ILECs is? Just under 18%!! That includes the rediculous x-efficiency and stupidity due to R&D-through-government-regulation. [Go take a look at the FCC paper regarding reducing porting time windows if you don't get it;) Seriously! Ouch!]
Being an ILEC sure as hell isn't historically that 'risky,' and I don't know if it's possible to be capital-intensive enough to get like that kinda returns.
*I've got major problems with this 'we need to give them their monopoly back so they can affoard fiber' arguement..., not the least of which is that at 18%, if it's not non-competative, means capital should be rushing into it as is;) But I've ranted enough I think. *whistles*
Man I'm so waiting to get the "I'm sorry you need a Verizon telephone line to order FIOS" line when I call to order:/
BTW I hope you understand that UNE's being 'at a loss' really doesn't mean what you think it means.
The animosity between jews and arabs is longstanding and well known.
Sure, but the antimosity between the christians/pagans and arabs(and jews*) is even longerstanding...
It certainly says something about the author that he is a jew. If you think it's irrelevent then you are an idiot.
Yeah, it means you're a bigot and a fool- not irrelevent.
General rule of thumb: When your arguement is the exposition of bigotry against a race/creed/religion, try not to be so transparent about your personal bigotry. I think this is the 'pot v kettle' arguement...
Though basic knowledge of history sometimes would be just as usefull!
Fancy terms and fuzzy feelings aside, uhm, NO, damnit!
A Tragedy of the commons [hence: TotC] is a failure of people to consider the impact of _their own_ consumption...
You need to assume that everyone wants to maximize their personal benefit, and not being idiots, you know everyone else also will want that, and they know you know. See the thing is, each person thinks of themselves being the 'last one in.' Because of this, EVERYONE uses a little too much, and someone(everyone actually) can be made better off without making anyone worse off --> !Efficient(pareto)
The TotC is a situation where there is a cost and diminishing returns to utilization of a _common_[aka free to use] resource. Hence people grazing sheep on a common pasture. It is a special case of an externality, and frankly it really doesn't much apply to fossil fuels...
For what it's worth, TotC is usually discussed along with the Coase Theorem. The 'Coase' theorem basically says:
So long as property rights are assigned, an unregulated free market will reach an efficient outcome.
More specifically: It doesn't matter who gets it, so long as someone owns everything involved. Read: Private Property Rights correct any TotC.
Yeah that is a grand oversimplification, and I call it the 'Coase' theorem [not 'Coase theorem'] because Coase viohlently disavows the radical libertarian agendization;)
You're talking about 'real' externalities (negative ones at that), and.... you frankly didn't wanna bring up TotC to argue that 'government is the only mechanism,' because if anything you mistakenly picked the one that is generally used as an example of when an externality is best NOT handled by the government, and due to the last fifty-odd years of economics research'...
The fact that there are arguably plenty of negative externalities involved with fossil fuels is still valid.
The topic of how petroleum is priced / supplied is one that (while I probably know an order of magnitude more than you) I don't know nearly enough about to have an intelligent opinion.;)
Every time an industry 'gets away' with it, more are encouraged to do it. IMHO the corporations should be accountable to 3x total revenue on colluded-sales. Hell, RICO isn't just for getting the DOJ a new Gulfstream...
Just realize that this type of price-fixing hurts everyone.
PS To the person who said '$160mm less R&D,' all I can point out is that this behaviour is done so companies can avoid doing R&D.
One law is there to protect the consumer and the other is there to protect other suppliers.
Yes and no. They're both there to protect both.
With some special-case exceptions, any price but the 'competative' one is 'bad.' Without getting into big economics words, there is a net-sum-loss. ie The producers make 'less more' than the consumers 'lose,' or vice-versa.
The point is that both dumping and fixing hurt the economy as a whole, and in the long run they even hurt the BadCompanies(tm).
Unless companies can sustainably make profit from their silicon sales we're doomed to boom and bust cycles where we oscillate between RAM surpluses and RAM shortages. In the long run, we all lose if these companies cant stabilise and make reasonable profits.
Firstly, if you can solve the whole boom-bust cycle thing, by all means do it and collect your bazillions of dollars and 'Nobel'... But slightly more seriously... 'Surpluses' and 'Shortages' are caused, precisely and specifically, by market prices that differ from the competative [equilibrium] price. The industries inability to properly manage its output isn't something you should reward them for!
Secondly, once a [competative] industry 'stabilizes' it makes 0 'economic profit.' IOW nobody makes more in any market/industry than any other market/industry once risk is accounted for and things 'stabilize.' If you think 'accounting profit' matters in the long-run, lets talk about some investment opportunities I have to offer you;)
We all lose more if they 'stabilize' as a non-competitive industry. Besides I'd rather they innovate to keep making profit, wouldn't you?
Okay, how about: "I don't buy from people who try to squeeze out every last bit of producer surplus...
Erm, how about: Okay, how about: "I don't buy from people who try to squeeze out every last bit of comsumer surplus..."
Hehe, sorry about that, but I'm sure none of us mind minimizing the producers surplus. Refresher:
Consumers Surplus - The area under the demand curve, but above the price
Producers Surplus - The area above the supply curve, but below the price
[RANT]
What makes the whole discussion stupid IMHO is that we're all this anti-'piracy' crap is by definition not talking about internal market features. Attacking 'fair use' on the other hand is, if anything, going to lower the demand curve- we are talking about reducing the marginal utility of the widgets here.
If you were not willing to purchase the product at the 'market clearing price,' then the producers are not losing revenue.
People downloading free copies of various titles does not directly affect the relevant portion of the demand curve**! Nor does it cause translation along the demand curve! Think of it as 2-tier price discrimination, where a subset of the people who exist to the left/below the market get it at marginal cost:) Crap, that means some consumer surplus. I highly doubt there is a significant cross-elasticity of demand between.torrent's and movie tickets/DVD sales.
Bootlegging is an entirely seperate discussion. IANAL, but isn't there already a body of legislation that addresses that?
** The market externalities involved can in fact shift the demand curve. The marketing exposure can be priceless (bandwagon effects, knowing the product exists, being familiar with a product/brand, etc.), however it also has the [perhaps all too oft] effect of lowering the percieved utility of a product to it's actual value... If you know how much that InternetPrivateDick software [or the-other-12 tracks-on-the-cd, CuteNFuzzy-Jedi-Episode-2 1/2, etc...] suck, you're less likely to pay as much for it Naturally, anything that causes consumers to act more rationally or with more complete information might make Economics more workable, much to the distress of all those other social sciences... And likely most politicians...;)
And I won't even mention the fact that most restrictions that insulate producers from the market are bad for both society AND the producers, nor that these markets are already far from perfectly competative... Ok, I guess I did mention them...
Firstly, there are other ways of generating electricity, and massive measures are being put in place for this in the UK (wind farms, for a start). Not a bad thing.
It isn't a bad thing. Frankly it's about time the UK started addressing this issue!
Wait? You say surely I'm confused? Lets see: Wind generation capacity: US: 4,400,000 KW [est 2002, DOE] UK: 0,331,000 KW[foe.co.uk]
Oh my! Even with 4.67 times the population, the UK has only 35% the per capita wind generation capacity...
Secondly, your SUVs etc ARE damaging to the environment.
Frankly, I don't disagree with that statement. Selfish newbie 4-wheelers can destroy good trails in no time flat, cause severe erosion, and worse! But seriously... Shouldn't we really be more concerned with how much more or less they are doing so? The smartest people on earth, with the largest arrays of data can only guess at the relative environmental impacts of things like this. There are not only too many factors, but we just don't know how the 'environment' works. I'll give you that they would seem to be somewhat worse in many forseeable situations... [Like sitting stuck in traffic:) But Europeans stop and restart their engines... Is the saved NOx and CO2 emissions better than the severly increased engine wear and associated increase in toxic metals released? The added pollution of additional open-loop cycles? The decreased efficiency of both the cooler combustion chambers and catalytic components? The decreased life of the extremely dirty electrical components?].
Your "small" gasoline engines are far larger than they actually need to be. Why on earth do you need a five litre V8 to take the kids to school?
Why do you need a computer to read? You don't. I really can't explain 302's in trucks, except to guess that they're pretty old? Mine has a 415...
All of this crap being pumped out in inner-cities
Inner-cities are a completely different discussion. With small exceptions, this is not the clientel for $14k 1 seaters with no A/C...
But people who actually, unfathomably, look at other people who welcome progress and change as "traitors" will never listen.
Oh dear, another reactionary has gone and confused progress with change again... I'm not sure exactly who you're labelling what here...
I'd like to see you drive your V8 around those craters when the fuels run out.
Oh gosh, now I understand. It's evil Americans. I personally get annoyed at conservative 'everything is fine now' types AND reactionary freaks who run around labeling people evildoers... Do you know that most idiots think they're smart? I certainly do.
But seriously it would only seem like a 24" penis on a 160" screen if you've met too many men on the internet...:)
A 160" screen is probably about 6.5' tall, and you usually see about 4 verticle feet of bang-age, so it would only seem like maybe 12"... [16" if your watching genetic frea, erm, gifted 'actors'...]
Just installed a Sanyo Z2 16x9 projector at home, and despite the obvious dailight/sunlight issues, it's absolutely incredible to have a 3m x 2m high quality picture!
Even given that we've already established that I likely don't know how long a meter actually is, wouldn't a 3m x ~1 2/3+m 'high quality picture' be significantly more incredible [?credibly incredible?]?
Andrea: Sure! I think this concept can be adapted to several arts fields. As far as teenagers like me are concerned, I suppose it would be an interesting activity for their school time because its really useful for other people. It's a bit more difficult to know whether they'll spend a lot of their free time in such work. You know, when you are 15/16 years old you have several things on your mind other than work...;-)
I'll admit that I don't know anything about the Italian education system, but maybe you meant 4th form or something?
She's an entire 4th grader's age older than a 4th grader...
Dont have time for a proper reply, sorry about that.
The major problems in what you pointed out are:
-Knowledge is something that developing populations are gaining, and the first two derivatives are 'scary'/bad for the US.
-There need to be better job opportunities available for those workers, or it's not in our best interests [as described by comparative advantage]
I'll try to get back to your post later.
However it is an arguement against free-trade and unrestricted outsourcing.
It's not that the nomal costs of labor were cheaper here, but that the total/real costs were lower because of US policy.
Don't forget- pretty much everyone else has a lot more to loose in a trade war with america than america does. One of the benefits of our massive trade imbalance.
And producing products in the market they will be sold is not the same as off-shoring. It actually would tend to benefit your sales.
PS In a really tight, highly educated, labor market comparative advantage tells you to off-shore/outsource 'lower' jobs. The key being sustainably better opportunity to which that labor power can be used.
Make them demonstrate the 'comparative advantage' in unrestricted outsourcing.
Make sure to read up on 'opportunity costs' and the distinctions between rational/efficient and individual/social utilities.
Don't let anyone confuse 'future benefit' due to increased demand for US goods in the future. That has nothing to do with 'comparative advantage,' and uses two known false positions: 1)Says Law - Point out that 'Keynes' is so famous because of that one pesky observation that disagreed with accepted 'laws.'[Great Dep.]
2)There is not guarantee that we will have advantage in the future. [When their growth drives demand for 'advanced' goods.]
Also do not allow them to claim that 'Free Trade' is compatible with 'comparative advantage.' Corporate directives prevent a company from considering anything beyond it's own immediate absolute advantage. Policy needs to either change those directives, or bring those advantages closer to national comparative advantage.
A series of direct question mights be: "What more efficient use of the labor power did you identify for the workers you laid off?" "What was the US economic advantage?" "What was the accounting advantage to your firm?"
If you want to enrage/frighten, you could add: "How do you deny that the end goal of offshoring is increasing the available surplus labor pool in order to increase surplus value and malthusian wage pressure?" and "If you decrease the purchasing power of american laborers less than you increase that of others, how do you avoid accelerating the inherent arrival of the 'realization problem'?"
Warning: The last 2 questions will likely get you labelled a Commie;)
(One of 'em was probably from assuming the engine was running at 200-300 hp rather than 20 during the cruise, which is silly since you don't flat-out the engine during cruise. But I don't know where the other one came from.)
Your original calculation explains why we wont have radical-polymer powered boats that travel any speed...
Though the mental imagry of pulling your dandy Cafe up to the local Nuke plant and having them hook up some nice fat cables... Water boiling around the hull... Beverages approaching orbital velocity... Passengers having 30 second long metaphysical experiences... And let's just hope nobody had their keys in any inopportune location...
But my sophisticated arguement was against slightly different:
Scientists::drill for knowledge, was setting a scope and relationship which I challenged as was implied to capitalists::drill for oil.
All in all, my arguement is valid in such as pointing out his was sophist-icated, not in such that mine wasn't sophist-icated in the facetious nature in which I demonstrated what I meant.
So perhaps I can't see the meme through the sophist?;)
Thanks for a wonderful demonstration of Sophistry.
Them commies don't drill for oil, they respect the environment!
It always scares me when Reactionaries try to do this sort of thing. Not because they are particularly destructive people, but we all make mistakes, and we don't want this ruined.
;)
No it'd only be a justification for an ASS
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Testing Relativity
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· Score: 1
Erm, that's "American Space Station".
Why? Something that's been called the "American Technological Sublime." [Nye]
Europeans are nowhere near as good at doing stuff that isn't practical in a boring sense.
American's, historically, have this awe for the awesome.
Could be because we were where the adventurous europeans went... Or maybe it's because we have things like the Grand Canyon, multiple tectonic plates, 2 oceans, a gulf, a sea, great lakes, niagara falls, fake tits the size of Lichtenstein... ahh you get the idea.
Now run off and spout your hateful practicality elsewhere!
And now if it's not too big a problem, I'm going to go play with some velcro while drinking tang and getting excited watching a slideshow of the latest Hubble and MER images [which I got off the overgrown DARPAnet]. After that I'll fondle my viscoelastic foam pillow for a bit.
I only hope it proves people at CERN wrong or something...[ok, that CERN part was a joke;)]
Guess what everybody: There is another asteroid heading right for us. NEA 2004FH is due to arrive around 5pm EST today. Recently Discovered, the object is ~30kmmeters across, and will pass within 30k miles of earth. "Scientists look forward to the flyby as it will provide them an unprecedented opportunity to study a small NEA asteroid up close." Also worthwhile, the view showing it's orbit [superimposed over our's] notes "The locations of the asteroid and Earth are indistinguishable at this scale."
Which should be shattering to all those who felt their Solar-model-with-lightbulb-as-sun was truely 'to scale.'
Affleck was not immediately available for comment.
[caugh]How can this not be the 11th planet: it has a rather round orbit that is very similar to earths own?! [/caugh]
You don't owe me any explaination why you chose someone else's submission.
Don't get me wrong, I'd surely rather have my ego stroked, but it's not big enough to need soothing. Yet.
Now certain other editors, named after archangels, that reject my submissions, while selecting _crap_ stories, on a slow day- simultaneous to one of your comments magically modded down from + to -2 flamebait, should worry...;) j/k, I swear...
Slashdot Mirror
The reason that drugs are cheaper in [insert non-US country here] is plain and simple that profit maximizing entities are taking advantage of 3rd-degree price discrimination.
The costs of R&D need to be recovered and that is amortized into the US prices- After that point anything down to the actual marginal cost of producing the pills (pennies) increases profits. International borders are very effective ways to segment a market, and the government does the expensive work of preventing reselling... Get it?
Monopsony in an 'information' market (drugs are nearly such, all the expense is in R&D, with marginal production being nearly free) means a lower than competative price. Additionally, other countries don't have the same demand for drugs, nor the same marginal product of labor, and hence they won't pay as much for drugs in a competative market. The point is that they don't pay enough that the drugs would ever be developed. If we lower our prices, without being able to raise theirs, then we need a new way to stimulate innovation.... In essence we are decreasing the social-losses due to the patent-monopoly, but unfortunately outside our borders.
The question of 'what is the correct level of drug reasearch' is a totally different question.
PS I don't like the current patent system, and I got my ass smacked in my graduate Industriual Org class when I tried to posit some 'better ideas.' It really isn't just a political clusterf*ck, it's a really complicated problem.... The fact remains that this is more an example of how socialized medicine, as-exists, only works because someone *else* pays for it... In this case the US pays for foreign healthcare.
FTFA:
After they removed the effects of all of those factors they ended up with 99.0% confidence that e-voting corrolated to extra bush-votes.
Do you get it yet? Could it be something else that they didn't include as a variabe? Sure, but only if it was somehow specifically different in e-voting areas.
Of course 99% isn't 100%, but lets get real for a minute ok?
This brings up a question that I had in reading his posting.
Wouldn't prednisone be like the last thing you would want to give someone with a potentially serious infection?
I thought to ask because I know that with tick-born diseases [which tend to lead to similar patient-doctor difficulties] it is one of the more common treatment-screwups along the way. Based on your last sentence, I'm assuming you're saying what [it seems like] his various doctors were thinking: It's psychosomatic or autoimmune...
And the latter is why prednisone?
Sigh, I know what a position this kinda thing puts MD's in, but I also know that [at least inregards to tick-born infection/coinfection] those two diagnosis' are often a clinical manifestation of the MD's hubris [;)] and/or frustration.
PS Jane, you ignorant sl, er I mean Patrick, find a Doctor that you TRUST and let them manage the treatment/diagnosis! Be proactive and educate yourself, but you need to stick with someone! Think of it like this: Right now you're killing and then execing a new doctor process based on a an uneducated guess at how to health-chech the running process, and the data is on a big slow tape device... You'd rather be letting a doctor [who has source access] exec() specialists, or in the case of a place like Mayo, pthread_create emTIA
I believe the proper way to extrapolate is to treat this as a repetition of independent events...
Basically you would end up with:
n=88
Single event 'Interval': +/-4000
Expected 'Interval': +/- n*4000/sqrt(n)
Thats +/-37,500
aka a 75,000 vote range...
Naturally if this is real error then this is really a lower bound, as we are treating the error to be 4,000 votes. The error was 4000 in a district of 1000, and this likely means the county was smaller than average (which means the true deviation would be much larger than +/-4k in an 'average' sized county).
Don't forget that 1 wrong vote causes a discrepancy in outcome of _2_. -1|+1....
FWIW Please understand that this is crap even by the standards of statistics, but it's at least as valid as 88*4000, unless it wasn't error...
Why aren't they doing it then? Or why aren't you doing it for them?
If the datacenter isn't insanely stupidly located, shouldn't be a big problem... Hell you could get right-of-way and lay private fiber for those kinda cubic-$s ;)
I imagine with db's that big the issue isn't live replication, but cramming a full backup (or restore) through the pipe... Which would take a few hours at 10Gb for 20TB...
Actually totally forget I said anything. Whoever has 25PBs scares the f*ck out of me, as the largest single publicly known db is like 1PB, and CERN hopes to have a 20PB setup in a couple *years*...
In all seriousness, If they'll buy the redundant hardware (no idea what a 25PB NAS is going for, but I imagine it depreciates by 7-figures per month...) get in touch, it's worth putting the project together for that kinda margin :)
I must warn you, a full backup/restore of 25TB happens via a totally different layer-1.... Either asphalt or air ;)
Oooh so let me get this right... *caugh*
You think that basically limiting telecom to the 3 'former' monopoly industries will lead to greater competition?! That they won't be able to (or want to) re-exert [actually protect/increase] their market power? That CLECs *reduce* competition [They WILL be going out of biddiness because of this...]?
Dude, can I live in your reality? ;)
The existing infrastructure represents a monumental barrier to entry! Believe it or not- it's only because of the accumulated rents that the ILEC can do this!
Wanna guess what the weighted mean rate of return for ILECs is? Just under 18%!! That includes the rediculous x-efficiency and stupidity due to R&D-through-government-regulation. [Go take a look at the FCC paper regarding reducing porting time windows if you don't get it ;) Seriously! Ouch!]
Being an ILEC sure as hell isn't historically that 'risky,' and I don't know if it's possible to be capital-intensive enough to get like that kinda returns.
*I've got major problems with this 'we need to give them their monopoly back so they can affoard fiber' arguement..., not the least of which is that at 18%, if it's not non-competative, means capital should be rushing into it as is ;) But I've ranted enough I think. *whistles*
Man I'm so waiting to get the "I'm sorry you need a Verizon telephone line to order FIOS" line when I call to order :/
BTW I hope you understand that UNE's being 'at a loss' really doesn't mean what you think it means.
Sure, but the antimosity between the christians/pagans and arabs(and jews*) is even longerstanding...
Yeah, it means you're a bigot and a fool- not irrelevent.
General rule of thumb: When your arguement is the exposition of bigotry against a race/creed/religion, try not to be so transparent about your personal bigotry.
I think this is the 'pot v kettle' arguement...
Though basic knowledge of history sometimes would be just as usefull!
* more releveant to killjoe I would imagine...
A Tragedy of the commons [hence: TotC] is a failure of people to consider the impact of _their own_ consumption...
You need to assume that everyone wants to maximize their personal benefit, and not being idiots, you know everyone else also will want that, and they know you know. See the thing is, each person thinks of themselves being the 'last one in.'
The TotC is a situation where there is a cost and diminishing returns to utilization of a _common_[aka free to use] resource.Because of this, EVERYONE uses a little too much, and someone(everyone actually) can be made better off without making anyone worse off --> !Efficient(pareto)
Hence people grazing sheep on a common pasture.
It is a special case of an externality, and frankly it really doesn't much apply to fossil fuels...
For what it's worth, TotC is usually discussed along with the Coase Theorem. The 'Coase' theorem basically says:
More specifically: It doesn't matter who gets it, so long as someone owns everything involved. Read: Private Property Rights correct any TotC.
Yeah that is a grand oversimplification, and I call it the 'Coase' theorem [not 'Coase theorem'] because Coase viohlently disavows the radical libertarian agendization ;)
You're talking about 'real' externalities (negative ones at that), and.... you frankly didn't wanna bring up TotC to argue that 'government is the only mechanism,' because if anything you mistakenly picked the one that is generally used as an example of when an externality is best NOT handled by the government, and due to the last fifty-odd years of economics research'...
The fact that there are arguably plenty of negative externalities involved with fossil fuels is still valid.
The topic of how petroleum is priced / supplied is one that (while I probably know an order of magnitude more than you) I don't know nearly enough about to have an intelligent opinion. ;)
Every time an industry 'gets away' with it, more are encouraged to do it. IMHO the corporations should be accountable to 3x total revenue on colluded-sales. Hell, RICO isn't just for getting the DOJ a new Gulfstream...
Just realize that this type of price-fixing hurts everyone.
PS To the person who said '$160mm less R&D,' all I can point out is that this behaviour is done so companies can avoid doing R&D.
Yes and no. They're both there to protect both.
With some special-case exceptions, any price but the 'competative' one is 'bad.' Without getting into big economics words, there is a net-sum-loss. ie The producers make 'less more' than the consumers 'lose,' or vice-versa.
The point is that both dumping and fixing hurt the economy as a whole, and in the long run they even hurt the BadCompanies(tm).
Firstly, if you can solve the whole boom-bust cycle thing, by all means do it and collect your bazillions of dollars and 'Nobel'... But slightly more seriously...
'Surpluses' and 'Shortages' are caused, precisely and specifically, by market prices that differ from the competative [equilibrium] price. The industries inability to properly manage its output isn't something you should reward them for!
Secondly, once a [competative] industry 'stabilizes' it makes 0 'economic profit.' ;)
IOW nobody makes more in any market/industry than any other market/industry once risk is accounted for and things 'stabilize.' If you think 'accounting profit' matters in the long-run, lets talk about some investment opportunities I have to offer you
We all lose more if they 'stabilize' as a non-competitive industry.
Besides I'd rather they innovate to keep making profit, wouldn't you?
Erm, how about: Okay, how about: "I don't buy from people who try to squeeze out every last bit of comsumer surplus..."
Hehe, sorry about that, but I'm sure none of us mind minimizing the producers surplus. Refresher:
- Producers Surplus - The area above the supply curve, but below the price
[RANT]What makes the whole discussion stupid IMHO is that we're all this anti-'piracy' crap is by definition not talking about internal market features. Attacking 'fair use' on the other hand is, if anything, going to lower the demand curve- we are talking about reducing the marginal utility of the widgets here.
If you were not willing to purchase the product at the 'market clearing price,' then the producers are not losing revenue.
People downloading free copies of various titles does not directly affect the relevant portion of the demand curve**! Nor does it cause translation along the demand curve! Think of it as 2-tier price discrimination, where a subset of the people who exist to the left/below the market get it at marginal cost :) Crap, that means some consumer surplus. I highly doubt there is a significant cross-elasticity of demand between .torrent's and movie tickets/DVD sales.
Bootlegging is an entirely seperate discussion. IANAL, but isn't there already a body of legislation that addresses that?
** The market externalities involved can in fact shift the demand curve. The marketing exposure can be priceless (bandwagon effects, knowing the product exists, being familiar with a product/brand, etc.), however it also has the [perhaps all too oft] effect of lowering the percieved utility of a product to it's actual value... If you know how much that InternetPrivateDick software [or the-other-12 tracks-on-the-cd, CuteNFuzzy-Jedi-Episode-2 1/2, etc...] suck, you're less likely to pay as much for it ;)
Naturally, anything that causes consumers to act more rationally or with more complete information might make Economics more workable, much to the distress of all those other social sciences... And likely most politicians...
And I won't even mention the fact that most restrictions that insulate producers from the market are bad for both society AND the producers, nor that these markets are already far from perfectly competative... Ok, I guess I did mention them...
[/RANT]Random?!
Diebold?!
The company whos CEO, Walden O'dell, is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
Snigger... Oh the things one really shouldn't put on paper, sign, and mail to a buncha peopleWhere's my tinfoil....
It isn't a bad thing. Frankly it's about time the UK started addressing this issue!
Wait? You say surely I'm confused?
Lets see:
Wind generation capacity:
US: 4,400,000 KW [est 2002, DOE]
UK: 0,331,000 KW[foe.co.uk]
Oh my! Even with 4.67 times the population, the UK has only 35% the per capita wind generation capacity...
Frankly, I don't disagree with that statement. Selfish newbie 4-wheelers can destroy good trails in no time flat, cause severe erosion, and worse! But seriously... Shouldn't we really be more concerned with how much more or less they are doing so? The smartest people on earth, with the largest arrays of data can only guess at the relative environmental impacts of things like this. There are not only too many factors, but we just don't know how the 'environment' works. I'll give you that they would seem to be somewhat worse in many forseeable situations... [Like sitting stuck in trafficWhy do you need a computer to read? You don't. I really can't explain 302's in trucks, except to guess that they're pretty old? Mine has a 415...
Inner-cities are a completely different discussion. With small exceptions, this is not the clientel for $14k 1 seaters with no A/C...
Oh dear, another reactionary has gone and confused progress with change again... I'm not sure exactly who you're labelling what here...
Oh gosh, now I understand. It's evil Americans.
I personally get annoyed at conservative 'everything is fine now' types AND reactionary freaks who run around labeling people evildoers...
Do you know that most idiots think they're smart? I certainly do.
;)
But seriously it would only seem like a 24" penis on a 160" screen if you've met too many men on the internet... :)
A 160" screen is probably about 6.5' tall, and you usually see about 4 verticle feet of bang-age, so it would only seem like maybe 12"...
No, no, I'm not a Karma whore...[16" if your watching genetic frea, erm, gifted 'actors'...]
Even given that we've already established that I likely don't know how long a meter actually is, wouldn't a 3m x ~1 2/3+m 'high quality picture' be significantly more incredible [?credibly incredible?]?
Oh wait, most rips/cams/telesyncs are in 3:2
My bad, .torrent on...
I'll admit that I don't know anything about the Italian education system, but maybe you meant 4th form or something?
She's an entire 4th grader's age older than a 4th grader...
Dont have time for a proper reply, sorry about that. The major problems in what you pointed out are: -Knowledge is something that developing populations are gaining, and the first two derivatives are 'scary'/bad for the US. -There need to be better job opportunities available for those workers, or it's not in our best interests [as described by comparative advantage] I'll try to get back to your post later.
Yes it is.
However it is an arguement against free-trade and unrestricted outsourcing.
It's not that the nomal costs of labor were cheaper here, but that the total/real costs were lower because of US policy.
Don't forget- pretty much everyone else has a lot more to loose in a trade war with america than america does. One of the benefits of our massive trade imbalance.
And producing products in the market they will be sold is not the same as off-shoring. It actually would tend to benefit your sales.
PS In a really tight, highly educated, labor market comparative advantage tells you to off-shore/outsource 'lower' jobs. The key being sustainably better opportunity to which that labor power can be used.
Make them demonstrate the 'comparative advantage' in unrestricted outsourcing.
;)
Make sure to read up on 'opportunity costs' and the distinctions between rational/efficient and individual/social utilities.
Don't let anyone confuse 'future benefit' due to increased demand for US goods in the future. That has nothing to do with 'comparative advantage,' and uses two known false positions:
1)Says Law - Point out that 'Keynes' is so famous because of that one pesky observation that disagreed with accepted 'laws.'[Great Dep.]
2)There is not guarantee that we will have advantage in the future. [When their growth drives demand for 'advanced' goods.]
Also do not allow them to claim that 'Free Trade' is compatible with 'comparative advantage.' Corporate directives prevent a company from considering anything beyond it's own immediate absolute advantage. Policy needs to either change those directives, or bring those advantages closer to national comparative advantage.
A series of direct question mights be:
"What more efficient use of the labor power did you identify for the workers you laid off?"
"What was the US economic advantage?"
"What was the accounting advantage to your firm?"
If you want to enrage/frighten, you could add:
"How do you deny that the end goal of offshoring is increasing the available surplus labor pool in order to increase surplus value and malthusian wage pressure?"
and
"If you decrease the purchasing power of american laborers less than you increase that of others, how do you avoid accelerating the inherent arrival of the 'realization problem'?"
Warning: The last 2 questions will likely get you labelled a Commie
Your original calculation explains why we wont have radical-polymer powered boats that travel any speed...
Though the mental imagry of pulling your dandy Cafe up to the local Nuke plant and having them hook up some nice fat cables...Water boiling around the hull...
Beverages approaching orbital velocity...
Passengers having 30 second long metaphysical experiences...
And let's just hope nobody had their keys in any inopportune location...
But my sophisticated arguement was against slightly different:
Scientists::drill for knowledge, was setting a scope and relationship which I challenged as was implied to capitalists::drill for oil.
All in all, my arguement is valid in such as pointing out his was sophist-icated, not in such that mine wasn't sophist-icated in the facetious nature in which I demonstrated what I meant.
So perhaps I can't see the meme through the sophist?Thanks for a wonderful demonstration of Sophistry.
Them commies don't drill for oil, they respect the environment!It always scares me when Reactionaries try to do this sort of thing. Not because they are particularly destructive people, but we all make mistakes, and we don't want this ruined.
Why? Something that's been called the "American Technological Sublime." [Nye]
Europeans are nowhere near as good at doing stuff that isn't practical in a boring sense.
American's, historically, have this awe for the awesome.
Could be because we were where the adventurous europeans went... Or maybe it's because we have things like the Grand Canyon, multiple tectonic plates, 2 oceans, a gulf, a sea, great lakes, niagara falls, fake tits the size of Lichtenstein... ahh you get the idea.
Now run off and spout your hateful practicality elsewhere!And now if it's not too big a problem, I'm going to go play with some velcro while drinking tang and getting excited watching a slideshow of the latest Hubble and MER images [which I got off the overgrown DARPAnet]. After that I'll fondle my viscoelastic foam pillow for a bit.
I only hope it proves people at CERN wrong or something...[ok, that CERN part was a joke
- Which should be shattering to all those who felt their Solar-model-with-lightbulb-as-sun was truely 'to scale.'
[caugh]How can this not be the 11th planet: it has a rather round orbit that is very similar to earths own?! [/caugh]Affleck was not immediately available for comment.
In related news, Ron Page now claims this was the 'NEA' he was referring to as terrorist last month.
Im a facetious SOB.
You don't owe me any explaination why you chose someone else's submission.
Don't get me wrong, I'd surely rather have my ego stroked, but it's not big enough to need soothing. Yet.
Now certain other editors, named after archangels, that reject my submissions, while selecting _crap_ stories, on a slow day- simultaneous to one of your comments magically modded down from + to -2 flamebait, should worry... ;) j/k, I swear...
PS Congrats on the marriage.