But only if the government is involved, it is all the fault of of the government, right?
When the government uses force to take money from ordinary people "invests" it for them, losing $10 billion on the deal, then yes. It's their fault.
If the people whose jobs/future that were saved by that "investment" now have an excess of $28 billion in cash, they should give it back to the people who were forced to help them (with threats of jail, etc. if they didn't).
I'm long past tired of "investors" suing for their losses. You want to gamble with your money, you take the risk of losing it.
It wasn't their money to gamble with. It belonged to the taxpayers.
The people at GM should be glad they still have a company and jobs to go to. Saying "thankyou" to the taxpayer doesn't make any sense to you? It's not like they don't have the money (in cash) to do so.
This isn't personal. His job is to protect shareholder value. He indicated, in the interview, that if he paid back the $10B loss he would be opening GM up to lawsuits from every other shareholder who lost money in the bankruptcy.
a) Those 'other shareholders' bought the shares voluntarily. The taxpayer didn't.
b) Those 'other shareholders' should probably be grateful that their shares aren't valued at $0 right now. Thanks to the taxpayer.
It's sad that the law can't ever make an exception to do the decent thing without exposing itself to a bunch of assholes who're just trying to game the system.
The government did not issue a loan, they bought a large amount of stock.
a) Would they have purchased that stock if it hadn't been a "bailout"?
b) A "loan" would have left them with nothing if the company had tanked. A stock purchase would entitle them to some company assets to sell off, this is what most people call "security".
Yep. There's no *legal* requirement for him to pay back the money he took from the people that are keeping him in a life of luxury, so why should he? It's not as if his management was in any way linked to the shitty cars that weren't selling enough to keep the company going. Nope. Not a bit.
It's not just a (physical, building) security system, it's ANY system. Why on earth would you choose to base your product (something that presumably companies will use for many, many years) on something that will have no security support in just 4 months?
a) It's not connected to the Internet. b) There's no idiot users surfing the web with it.
It's far too unstable to be a real currency. It's more like, eg. gold - something with limited supply that has a value to other people.
Except that right now it's far too unstable to even be compared to gold. It's more like a stock in a smallish company - the value goes up and down wildly every day.
the NSA doesn't care about tax cheats, they are concerned with terrorism. Since I have zero intention of ever being a terrorist, I'm not really worried about the NSA.
Really?
The NSA generates (and stores) data.
The trouble with having mountains of data is that sooner or later a politician will think "I could use that for...XXXX".
Or some police department will request it. Or the IRS.
If I aquire a load of highly prized poppies and don't report my acquisitions, how will they know?
Sooner or later you'll sell them and convert their value to real money.
Poppies are much safer than Bitcoin in this respect. Poppies are physical so can sell them for cash and keep it under the mattress. Bitcoin can only be exchanged for real money electronically, good luck keeping that a secret from the spies.
Slashdot Mirror
But only if the government is involved, it is all the fault of of the government, right?
When the government uses force to take money from ordinary people "invests" it for them, losing $10 billion on the deal, then yes. It's their fault.
If the people whose jobs/future that were saved by that "investment" now have an excess of $28 billion in cash, they should give it back to the people who were forced to help them (with threats of jail, etc. if they didn't).
I'm long past tired of "investors" suing for their losses. You want to gamble with your money, you take the risk of losing it.
It wasn't their money to gamble with. It belonged to the taxpayers.
The people at GM should be glad they still have a company and jobs to go to. Saying "thankyou" to the taxpayer doesn't make any sense to you? It's not like they don't have the money (in cash) to do so.
Why should he? This wasn't a loan. They took stock just like any poor shlub who tried to make a buck on GM stock.
Who's "they"?
Did "they" buy shares voluntarily or were they forced to buy them by a government who was trying to save people's jobs?
This isn't personal. His job is to protect shareholder value. He indicated, in the interview, that if he paid back the $10B loss he would be opening GM up to lawsuits from every other shareholder who lost money in the bankruptcy.
a) Those 'other shareholders' bought the shares voluntarily. The taxpayer didn't.
b) Those 'other shareholders' should probably be grateful that their shares aren't valued at $0 right now. Thanks to the taxpayer.
It's sad that the law can't ever make an exception to do the decent thing without exposing itself to a bunch of assholes who're just trying to game the system.
The government did not issue a loan, they bought a large amount of stock.
a) Would they have purchased that stock if it hadn't been a "bailout"?
b) A "loan" would have left them with nothing if the company had tanked. A stock purchase would entitle them to some company assets to sell off, this is what most people call "security".
Because:
a) It's the right thing to do, the money he took belonged to the people.
b) It won't affect him, personally, on any level. His paycheck will be as big as ever.
I guess he just enjoys being a tyrant and saying "no" to people when they come to him with reasonable requests.
Yep. There's no *legal* requirement for him to pay back the money he took from the people that are keeping him in a life of luxury, so why should he? It's not as if his management was in any way linked to the shitty cars that weren't selling enough to keep the company going. Nope. Not a bit.
It's not just a (physical, building) security system, it's ANY system. Why on earth would you choose to base your product (something that presumably companies will use for many, many years) on something that will have no security support in just 4 months?
a) It's not connected to the Internet.
b) There's no idiot users surfing the web with it.
WTF is "letter" paper anyway, and why do all my printers insist on using it as the default no matter how many times I try to configure them to A4?
Sounds like a currency to me.
It's far too unstable to be a real currency. It's more like, eg. gold - something with limited supply that has a value to other people.
Except that right now it's far too unstable to even be compared to gold. It's more like a stock in a smallish company - the value goes up and down wildly every day.
When it comes to getting money from citizens, you might be surprised how well they can mysteriously understand technology.
Ever hear of capital gains tax?
the NSA doesn't care about tax cheats, they are concerned with terrorism. Since I have zero intention of ever being a terrorist, I'm not really worried about the NSA.
Really?
The NSA generates (and stores) data.
The trouble with having mountains of data is that sooner or later a politician will think "I could use that for...XXXX".
Or some police department will request it. Or the IRS.
If you build it, they will come.
Well this applies to anything else.
Yes.
If I aquire a load of highly prized poppies and don't report my acquisitions, how will they know?
Sooner or later you'll sell them and convert their value to real money.
Poppies are much safer than Bitcoin in this respect. Poppies are physical so can sell them for cash and keep it under the mattress. Bitcoin can only be exchanged for real money electronically, good luck keeping that a secret from the spies.
how is Norway going to know if the person doesn't self report?
Same way as they do for every other exchangeable item - sooner or later you have to turn it into real money to be able to use it.
The IRS doesn't have access to bank accounts or other private financial transactions outside of a detailed audit.
That's what they want you to believe, so you think you're getting away with it.
They prefer *everybody* to be a criminal in one way or another. That way they'll have something on you when they need a 'favor'.
Paula Bean?
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The_Brillant_Paula_Bean.aspx
You mean my plans to build an Argon bomb and take over the world aren't going to work?
Damn.
I typed "IETF" into google and the very first hit was the answer.
If you don't know how to use google then I doubt you have anything useful to add here. Please move along to the next story.
HTTP Basic sends your password in clear text (base64).
True, but you're supposed to make an SSL connection before you send it.
I agree. But that's what makes this model useless. We shouldn't outsource trust to CA's, but push it to the users. Let them decide who do they trust.
Yes, most people are really good at making informed decisions based on complex technical information.
Not.
Oh, for a mod point.
A5 has been broken for *years*.
(Since 1994 according to wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A5/1#Security , with many improved attacks since then)
So this is hardly "news" ... but it's good to keep shining bright lights on the NSA to keep them scurrying.
A trio of 30" monitors just to play a video game isn't insane enough?
why aren't all the world's supercomputers on the job making a thousand bucks a minute?
A dozen basement dweller with a few dozen specialized ASICs each is probably as good as a "supercomputer" at mining bitcoins.
People who pay for supercomputers have better things to do than try to make a couple of hundred bucks in a lottery^W market speculation.