of course you do, but most vendors don't charge anywhere near the apple premium. lumping dell, which charges significantly less for this upgrade, with apple, is just plain deceitful.
what are you comparing the price against (or better, what do you value the OS at over windows 7)?
I'm in the market for a laptop now, and I find the macbook pro, which was just released, to be about 25% more expensive than a similar equipped Sony, the most expensive windows laptop I can find. If I compare against the macbook, I have to struggle to find a computer that out of date.
Mileage is only so big of a factor when you are in the midsized to compact sedan market where you have hybrids that can get significantly better mileage.
Class of vehicle matters to most people. And within the same class of car (say, deciding between a prius and a fusion hybrid) reliability will matter a lot more in the long run. Now deciding between a ford f-450 and a prius, gas can be a major expenditure difference, but then, they are completely different classes of vehicle.
aren't the new tegra's that are due out this year (Kal-El) already slated for this resolution? While apple may wait a full year, there will probably be someone out earlier with hardware that can support this chip. I think it was debuted a couple months ago.
I'm sure the kid, who was working in a lab that has been doing CF research for quite a while, is well aware that he probably just recreated experiments done before.
If it was discussed a few months ago in a general journal (I'm not sure, but let's assume the parent is correct), it's more likely this was known several months ago in the specialized academic journals that the lab professor would read. So it's far more likely that he is an ambitious student who found a professor to tell him what to do so he could gain experience, not the inventor or discoverer of a cure.
It's not shitting on him to say he didn't put this together on his own. It's just the truth.
Why does everyone need to be called a genius in order to feel special enough to work hard in an industry? Have you done research before in a lab? If you had, you'd know that while the GP might be crass, it's exactly the most likely scenario.
yes they do. it's well proven that drug prices in the US are several time more expensive than other countries. I know for one particular example (as my friend worked at the implant company) the Japanese govt remitted 10% what they received for a sale in the US from our insurance companies (and Medicare). I've seen margins between 50-75% less on various drugs.
only rarely. if you sit down and look at the billing, the consult is worth only "x" and the doctor doesn't get paid more for ordering an MRI, blood work, etc. The lab techs, radiologist (a different doctor), and a large group of others do get that money.
The doctor can only get paid more if he can convince the insurance company your further visits are meaningful. Generally, this is a nontrivial problem
you realize you are off on malpractice insurance costs by an order of magnitude. In 2005, in florida, Orthopedics cost about 250k to insure, brain surgery about 500k, and even GP was 70k.
Incorrect, only a small subset of what they have released, but garnered the most press for, was vetted by professionals. Namely, the diplomatic cables. This document seems to be none of those. Wikileaks does not do big data dumps because they are trying to excite the press. Take, for example, the emails from a Bank executive, they have been milking that for press for quite a while, and they are not sifting through it to make sure no one is hurt, it's corporate docs, not government documents.
That they have fooled you into thinking them reputable because they did it that way once is a bit humorous.
Now, when the newspapers go into Afganistan and look up the named people and see if they are ok, I'll believe it makes sense to release the data wantonly. But since no one does any due diligence, it's a pretty weak argument to say there are no documented cases. it's a bit self fulfilling if no one ever looks.
So we should probably publicly release all information we have on the construction of nuclear weapons, intel gathering operations, and future weapons tech so that the nerd in you can happily see it but do nothing with it? That's a great idea, I wonder why every country doesn't do this.
no, you just lack imagination. there will be no limit to the number of enemies we have, and Al Qaeda is one group that currently centralizes those forces. Our goal to keep one central enemy that we can constantly monitor with many roads into through planning and activities. The worst possible outcome is the destruction of Al Qaeda leaving us with 50 small organizations which we cannot track, cannot infiltrate, and frankly, will have huge problems responding to.
We sat on this information for 3 years, through a presidential election when the republicans could have used a huge win. What in the world makes you think that only today we figured out Bin Laden was there? It's much more likely we let him think he was safe and used this information to track what they were doing. Only a fool think the forest is destroying Al Qaeda (which we have not moved one iota closer to, as the rest of the command structure we were probably trying to bring down with this inside scoop is still intact and probably safe). The forest is stopping future terrorist attacks, everything else is a pawn on a chess board.
Consider what happened to the terrorism against Israel after they responded to Munich.
being mindlessly cynical doesn't do anyone any good, and it may be worth mod points, but doesn't add much to the discussion. Many serious newspapers spend a great deal of money and time reviewing their work to make sure it doesn't cause the problems Wikileaks does. Read up on some of the procedures at the New York Times or other reputable sources. Considering their are trying to stay in business, it's pretty incredible what they go through to maintain integrity.
no, it would be better when national security is at risk that wikileaks grows up and realizes they are endangering lives, and lots of them, by their wanton approach. This isn't a reputable newspaper that tries to make sure they don't cause people to get killed by releasing information, and I'm not talking about the stupid idea of hiding the info because it's unpleasant.
For all we know, we had been using this information to intercept plans and derail them for several years and now with the document out, we had to kill the golden goose of knowing where the enemy leadership was and how they communicated.
and who said this had anything to do with corporations?
can't we pay for forced sterilization of the parents who can't raise proper children instilled with a respect for education and hard work? I think that is a lot more efficient than me carrying a shotgun around isn't it? I'll even pay for planned parenthood to do them....
just to correct you, buffett said he thought it unfair that he pays a lower average tax rate than his secretary. And it's true, I don't care about arguments about productivity, there is no reason for the average tax rates in this country to be regressive. But this is because we unfairly bias income taxes in favor of investment income rather than other types of work. I'm not saying it should be disfavored, but there is no reason to favor it and create a distortion. Let the labor market work, don't unfairly bias it in any one direction.
granted, this is because everyone wants to be a rich investment titan and those titans have tons of political pull when it comes to taxes.
it's not behavior, it's the definition of income. a great example is how rolls royce rose and fell with tax law. Back when income taxes were 94% in teh top bracket, several things allowed you to protect money. first, perks weren't taxed. So every executive had a driver, luxury vehicle, and other perks that weren't counted as income (they are now). Second, if you were paid overseas as part of a performance bonus, it wouldn't be taxed till the money was onshored. There were several other ways, but in general, most places kept accountants on hand to find the most efficient way to pay people and avoid all taxes. The AMT was created to combat this by giving much broader definitions of income and just flooring a rate on it.
there were many loopholes, but the reason the collected taxes stayed near 20% isn't some magic number, it has to do with the give and take in our system. your headline top marginal tax rate isnt' what you pay, unless you are an absolute moron. our country has basically settled in around that level.
many other countries collect quite a bit more in tax as a percent of the economy. It's not rocket science and behavior won't modify that far.
you sure you know anything about international relations? India, almost to its core, hates China. There were several wars and still unsettled territories in it's northwest, and India is the biggest support in teh world of the Tibetan movement.
you realize that is impossible right? the UK had to have the US as a friend so if we threaten to walk away, they suddenly are staring down teh USSR without us. It wasn't an option.
The US, on the other hand, couldn't care what China's opinion is. In fact, China needs to care about us a whole lot more. The US could, at any time, simply refuse to replay China (and only China) on any US debt obligations. Some 2 trillion+ in our debt would vanish as would 2 trillion in assets the PBOC uses to indemnify itself against the reserves it holds. What would China do? Really, suddenly every other nation would quickly learn to not fuck with us.
You know the last time a country wanted the US to stop it's inflation of it's debt? It was the early 1970's and it was West Germany. But they needed us so when we said no, they stepped up and started buying our debt as fast as they coudl to prevent a devaluation. Why? Because they already owned so much a devaluation would have been cataclysmic. But they couldn't buy enough. This is much more likely with China. What followed was quick devaluation and at that time, the biggest paper loss anyone could imagine for an investor.
I think your logic is backwards as to who has teh choice when it comes to treasuries between the US and China. The US can make the treasuries held by China go to 0 in an instant. The chinese, on the other hand, are a captive audience.
just to confirm, by your logic, the US enjoyed huge amounts of deflation between 81 and 99 as gold dropped from it's previous all time high to the lows you base your numbers off of?
How about we take another long term view, and instead of using gold, which no one uses for almost any useful purpose, let's take something useful like wheat. On average prices, it is barely changed from 1975! So obviously by your logic, the US dollar has hardly changed in value between 1975 and today, right? actually, as it was unchanged over the full period buy according to you, dropped by 75% in the last 8 years, it must have gained by that much in the preceding 28 years.
I can take any commodity and drop random chart lines and say look, it's gotten cheaper! or look, it's gotten so much more expensive. Hell, in terms of housing, the dollar has strengthened something like 35% in the last 4 years! and housing, unlike gold, is a real product that we use.
Gold is just another random, speculative commodity. I can pick lots of commodities that counter your argument. you realize you are basically picking and choosing random charts that support your view and ignoring every other chart out there.
But as cotton has started to tumble severely, I'll take that bet that food won't be 3x as expensive and clothing won't be 3x as expensive by the summer. I think your understanding of 3x more expensive is lacking. That is catastrophic hyperinflation. but then you also seem to ignore it is the US that is the major producer of those goods in the world (both food and cotton). I think if there is a food shortage, we will be letting the Chinese starve before we do.
that's funny. it's obvious you don't work and probably never have thought about working in international finance. The reason the US dollar, Euro, Sterling, and Yen are the reserve currencies of the world is liquidity, ease of use, stability (of the country, exchange rates have always been volatile), and lower default risk.
Going from one illiquid foreign currency to another is very hard on short order, especially when you require a large sum to be exchanged. It's much easier (and the markets have developed) regional powerhouse currencies from which local economies switch their liabilities (and as much as possible, their assets) into and then trade with other regions. You can always try to immunize your FX and interest rate exposure but it's extremely hard in an EM Currency due to lack of liquidity and lack of sophistication of the markets. So we use the majors to do it.
you realize this has only changed because stores cant' cash a guaranteed gain by exploiting stupid tourists right? When CAD trades 0.9 and you accept dollars 1:1 with CAD, you basically get an 11% revenue boost on stupidity.
it wasn't because the dollar was "strong", it was because you could take advantage of people who would happily pay 10% or 15% more for a good without thinking things through. It is a hindrance now to accept cash on a 1:1 basis because the exchange rate is on the other side. nothing deep or introspective going on.
this is questioned you know? China says it has 1.5 million people in detention. China Human Rights Watch in (I think) 2009 reported as many as 20 million detained for various levels of reeducation.
or more likely, it was FRANCE that called for immediate military action in Libya and supported the rebel government as the legal government, thereby forcing the hand of several members of Nato. After a short lived military expedition in Libya, we are now letting the French do it (well NATO, but with far less US involvement).
I know the US does a lot. But at least get your facts straight. Anyways, we have never said we want to intervene to stop war (though NATO says that quite often as does the UN). The US has, for at least the last 20 years, said they will intervene to support democratic movements (and we draw a hard line that a communist movement is NOT democratic because we have seen from experience how they end up). We have prioritized which governments we will support: Democratically elected, dictator, then communist/socialist with a communist bent. You could argue about why dictators are held higher than communists, but frankly, being a realist, we have to make a decision between the two even if both are equally disgusting.
those are the official numbers. Chinese Human rights groups have estimated upwards of 20 million in Jail. I'm sure those groups have a reason to exaggerate, but probably only as much of a reason as a repressive regime has to understate the number.
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of course you do, but most vendors don't charge anywhere near the apple premium. lumping dell, which charges significantly less for this upgrade, with apple, is just plain deceitful.
what are you comparing the price against (or better, what do you value the OS at over windows 7)?
I'm in the market for a laptop now, and I find the macbook pro, which was just released, to be about 25% more expensive than a similar equipped Sony, the most expensive windows laptop I can find. If I compare against the macbook, I have to struggle to find a computer that out of date.
Mileage is only so big of a factor when you are in the midsized to compact sedan market where you have hybrids that can get significantly better mileage.
Class of vehicle matters to most people. And within the same class of car (say, deciding between a prius and a fusion hybrid) reliability will matter a lot more in the long run. Now deciding between a ford f-450 and a prius, gas can be a major expenditure difference, but then, they are completely different classes of vehicle.
aren't the new tegra's that are due out this year (Kal-El) already slated for this resolution? While apple may wait a full year, there will probably be someone out earlier with hardware that can support this chip. I think it was debuted a couple months ago.
I'm sure the kid, who was working in a lab that has been doing CF research for quite a while, is well aware that he probably just recreated experiments done before.
If it was discussed a few months ago in a general journal (I'm not sure, but let's assume the parent is correct), it's more likely this was known several months ago in the specialized academic journals that the lab professor would read. So it's far more likely that he is an ambitious student who found a professor to tell him what to do so he could gain experience, not the inventor or discoverer of a cure.
It's not shitting on him to say he didn't put this together on his own. It's just the truth.
Why does everyone need to be called a genius in order to feel special enough to work hard in an industry? Have you done research before in a lab? If you had, you'd know that while the GP might be crass, it's exactly the most likely scenario.
yes they do. it's well proven that drug prices in the US are several time more expensive than other countries. I know for one particular example (as my friend worked at the implant company) the Japanese govt remitted 10% what they received for a sale in the US from our insurance companies (and Medicare). I've seen margins between 50-75% less on various drugs.
only rarely. if you sit down and look at the billing, the consult is worth only "x" and the doctor doesn't get paid more for ordering an MRI, blood work, etc. The lab techs, radiologist (a different doctor), and a large group of others do get that money.
The doctor can only get paid more if he can convince the insurance company your further visits are meaningful. Generally, this is a nontrivial problem
you realize you are off on malpractice insurance costs by an order of magnitude. In 2005, in florida, Orthopedics cost about 250k to insure, brain surgery about 500k, and even GP was 70k.
Incorrect, only a small subset of what they have released, but garnered the most press for, was vetted by professionals. Namely, the diplomatic cables. This document seems to be none of those. Wikileaks does not do big data dumps because they are trying to excite the press. Take, for example, the emails from a Bank executive, they have been milking that for press for quite a while, and they are not sifting through it to make sure no one is hurt, it's corporate docs, not government documents.
That they have fooled you into thinking them reputable because they did it that way once is a bit humorous.
Now, when the newspapers go into Afganistan and look up the named people and see if they are ok, I'll believe it makes sense to release the data wantonly. But since no one does any due diligence, it's a pretty weak argument to say there are no documented cases. it's a bit self fulfilling if no one ever looks.
So we should probably publicly release all information we have on the construction of nuclear weapons, intel gathering operations, and future weapons tech so that the nerd in you can happily see it but do nothing with it? That's a great idea, I wonder why every country doesn't do this.
no, you just lack imagination. there will be no limit to the number of enemies we have, and Al Qaeda is one group that currently centralizes those forces. Our goal to keep one central enemy that we can constantly monitor with many roads into through planning and activities. The worst possible outcome is the destruction of Al Qaeda leaving us with 50 small organizations which we cannot track, cannot infiltrate, and frankly, will have huge problems responding to.
We sat on this information for 3 years, through a presidential election when the republicans could have used a huge win. What in the world makes you think that only today we figured out Bin Laden was there? It's much more likely we let him think he was safe and used this information to track what they were doing. Only a fool think the forest is destroying Al Qaeda (which we have not moved one iota closer to, as the rest of the command structure we were probably trying to bring down with this inside scoop is still intact and probably safe). The forest is stopping future terrorist attacks, everything else is a pawn on a chess board.
Consider what happened to the terrorism against Israel after they responded to Munich.
being mindlessly cynical doesn't do anyone any good, and it may be worth mod points, but doesn't add much to the discussion. Many serious newspapers spend a great deal of money and time reviewing their work to make sure it doesn't cause the problems Wikileaks does. Read up on some of the procedures at the New York Times or other reputable sources. Considering their are trying to stay in business, it's pretty incredible what they go through to maintain integrity.
no, it would be better when national security is at risk that wikileaks grows up and realizes they are endangering lives, and lots of them, by their wanton approach. This isn't a reputable newspaper that tries to make sure they don't cause people to get killed by releasing information, and I'm not talking about the stupid idea of hiding the info because it's unpleasant.
For all we know, we had been using this information to intercept plans and derail them for several years and now with the document out, we had to kill the golden goose of knowing where the enemy leadership was and how they communicated.
and who said this had anything to do with corporations?
can't we pay for forced sterilization of the parents who can't raise proper children instilled with a respect for education and hard work? I think that is a lot more efficient than me carrying a shotgun around isn't it? I'll even pay for planned parenthood to do them....
just to correct you, buffett said he thought it unfair that he pays a lower average tax rate than his secretary. And it's true, I don't care about arguments about productivity, there is no reason for the average tax rates in this country to be regressive. But this is because we unfairly bias income taxes in favor of investment income rather than other types of work. I'm not saying it should be disfavored, but there is no reason to favor it and create a distortion. Let the labor market work, don't unfairly bias it in any one direction.
granted, this is because everyone wants to be a rich investment titan and those titans have tons of political pull when it comes to taxes.
it's not behavior, it's the definition of income. a great example is how rolls royce rose and fell with tax law. Back when income taxes were 94% in teh top bracket, several things allowed you to protect money. first, perks weren't taxed. So every executive had a driver, luxury vehicle, and other perks that weren't counted as income (they are now). Second, if you were paid overseas as part of a performance bonus, it wouldn't be taxed till the money was onshored. There were several other ways, but in general, most places kept accountants on hand to find the most efficient way to pay people and avoid all taxes. The AMT was created to combat this by giving much broader definitions of income and just flooring a rate on it.
there were many loopholes, but the reason the collected taxes stayed near 20% isn't some magic number, it has to do with the give and take in our system. your headline top marginal tax rate isnt' what you pay, unless you are an absolute moron. our country has basically settled in around that level.
many other countries collect quite a bit more in tax as a percent of the economy. It's not rocket science and behavior won't modify that far.
you sure you know anything about international relations? India, almost to its core, hates China. There were several wars and still unsettled territories in it's northwest, and India is the biggest support in teh world of the Tibetan movement.
you realize that is impossible right? the UK had to have the US as a friend so if we threaten to walk away, they suddenly are staring down teh USSR without us. It wasn't an option.
The US, on the other hand, couldn't care what China's opinion is. In fact, China needs to care about us a whole lot more. The US could, at any time, simply refuse to replay China (and only China) on any US debt obligations. Some 2 trillion+ in our debt would vanish as would 2 trillion in assets the PBOC uses to indemnify itself against the reserves it holds. What would China do? Really, suddenly every other nation would quickly learn to not fuck with us.
You know the last time a country wanted the US to stop it's inflation of it's debt? It was the early 1970's and it was West Germany. But they needed us so when we said no, they stepped up and started buying our debt as fast as they coudl to prevent a devaluation. Why? Because they already owned so much a devaluation would have been cataclysmic. But they couldn't buy enough. This is much more likely with China. What followed was quick devaluation and at that time, the biggest paper loss anyone could imagine for an investor.
I think your logic is backwards as to who has teh choice when it comes to treasuries between the US and China. The US can make the treasuries held by China go to 0 in an instant. The chinese, on the other hand, are a captive audience.
waht japanese inflation? you obviously never lived there. things are so much cheaper between now and 1990 it doesn't seem like the same country.
just to confirm, by your logic, the US enjoyed huge amounts of deflation between 81 and 99 as gold dropped from it's previous all time high to the lows you base your numbers off of?
How about we take another long term view, and instead of using gold, which no one uses for almost any useful purpose, let's take something useful like wheat. On average prices, it is barely changed from 1975! So obviously by your logic, the US dollar has hardly changed in value between 1975 and today, right? actually, as it was unchanged over the full period buy according to you, dropped by 75% in the last 8 years, it must have gained by that much in the preceding 28 years.
I can take any commodity and drop random chart lines and say look, it's gotten cheaper! or look, it's gotten so much more expensive. Hell, in terms of housing, the dollar has strengthened something like 35% in the last 4 years! and housing, unlike gold, is a real product that we use.
Gold is just another random, speculative commodity. I can pick lots of commodities that counter your argument. you realize you are basically picking and choosing random charts that support your view and ignoring every other chart out there.
But as cotton has started to tumble severely, I'll take that bet that food won't be 3x as expensive and clothing won't be 3x as expensive by the summer. I think your understanding of 3x more expensive is lacking. That is catastrophic hyperinflation. but then you also seem to ignore it is the US that is the major producer of those goods in the world (both food and cotton). I think if there is a food shortage, we will be letting the Chinese starve before we do.
that's funny. it's obvious you don't work and probably never have thought about working in international finance. The reason the US dollar, Euro, Sterling, and Yen are the reserve currencies of the world is liquidity, ease of use, stability (of the country, exchange rates have always been volatile), and lower default risk.
Going from one illiquid foreign currency to another is very hard on short order, especially when you require a large sum to be exchanged. It's much easier (and the markets have developed) regional powerhouse currencies from which local economies switch their liabilities (and as much as possible, their assets) into and then trade with other regions. You can always try to immunize your FX and interest rate exposure but it's extremely hard in an EM Currency due to lack of liquidity and lack of sophistication of the markets. So we use the majors to do it.
you realize this has only changed because stores cant' cash a guaranteed gain by exploiting stupid tourists right? When CAD trades 0.9 and you accept dollars 1:1 with CAD, you basically get an 11% revenue boost on stupidity.
it wasn't because the dollar was "strong", it was because you could take advantage of people who would happily pay 10% or 15% more for a good without thinking things through. It is a hindrance now to accept cash on a 1:1 basis because the exchange rate is on the other side. nothing deep or introspective going on.
this is questioned you know? China says it has 1.5 million people in detention. China Human Rights Watch in (I think) 2009 reported as many as 20 million detained for various levels of reeducation.
or more likely, it was FRANCE that called for immediate military action in Libya and supported the rebel government as the legal government, thereby forcing the hand of several members of Nato. After a short lived military expedition in Libya, we are now letting the French do it (well NATO, but with far less US involvement).
I know the US does a lot. But at least get your facts straight. Anyways, we have never said we want to intervene to stop war (though NATO says that quite often as does the UN). The US has, for at least the last 20 years, said they will intervene to support democratic movements (and we draw a hard line that a communist movement is NOT democratic because we have seen from experience how they end up). We have prioritized which governments we will support: Democratically elected, dictator, then communist/socialist with a communist bent. You could argue about why dictators are held higher than communists, but frankly, being a realist, we have to make a decision between the two even if both are equally disgusting.
those are the official numbers. Chinese Human rights groups have estimated upwards of 20 million in Jail. I'm sure those groups have a reason to exaggerate, but probably only as much of a reason as a repressive regime has to understate the number.