"Betting on a horse has less repercussions, though then betting on investors and stocks. The later effects companies, employees, and the greater economy"
Not true. The latter (directly) affects only those companies that accepted the bet of going into the trade market. How is it in a free market that it's socially acceptable for an entity to allow for the gains and resign from the loses?
"But here's the thing, their behavior wasn't honest or genuinely based on real belief in the value of the "stocks."
As is the case with 100% of trading and has been since at least 1974.
Your point is, again?
"It's a bad kind of manipulation, as opposed to the good kind which is accepted by all."
How can you have it so backwards? The "good kind" is the one accepted by the big tycoons (because it benefit them); the "bad one" is whatever doesn't please the big tycoons.
"Just know that you don't want to break the rules."
True. Then there is the point about who is making the rules (it's no wonder that somebody doesn't break the rules when he's the one making then -for their own profit).
"like breaking into your neighbor's home to show them they need to lock their windows will just get you into trouble."
Here it's more like "That's the law that you can go into whichever home you like, unless it happens to be my home, for in this case you will be prosecuted".
" there is a good reason why the rule is in place."
Certainly. But such a "good reason" is not there to take care of the overall society's benefit, only the big ones since the rule is in place only for the big tycoons to take benefit of it (i.e.: subsecond operations are good because they allow big firms to make big bucks; whenever it allows for the clever little one to make the benefits at the big ones' expense, then we declare the operation void).
In other words: one of the basic pillars of free market is that it selfregulates because when someone tries to outsmart it too much, such someone will pay dearly for his (now failed) experiment; but we have a system where there's no danger in outsmarting the system as long as you already are one of the big fishes.
No wonder that since I'm not one of the big fishes I find trobles on the current system.
"These orders gave the impression to both people and software that the market had changed for real."
Were they false orders? No, they didn't. Those orders did in fact changed the market for real.
"They then cancelled their "fake" orders"
They were not "faked". They were for real and well within the rules for the system. The problem was that those rules were introduced so the big tycoons could make more money. Of course, once the rules were not used on the best interest of those tycoons, the operation was declared illegal, instead of the more much sensible "change the rules or deal with them".
"It is similar to the idea of leaking fake news and trading against the move"
They are not "fake" news. They are *false* news. If you spread the rumour that you are willing to buy [some company], the ones that follow the rumour are willing to bet (and take advantage of) their privileged position (by trading before the rumour gets to spread). It's only on trade markets that you manage to take the risk, only if/when is to your advantage.
and then making a profit when people figured out it was fake.""
You would never take benefit once people figures it's a fake: you always need to recall gains *before* it's known it's a fake. And by doing it, you are taking your own risks too!
So, all in all, we built a system where big fishes get to recall benefits when it's the lower ones that pay, but calling illegal otherwise.
""Cheating" the system is easy, but checking algorithms will catch you every time. A "simple" way to cheat around 80-90% of automated brokering systems, and likely what the two Norweigians did: Get two accounts with the system Find a stock that rarely sells Buy a ton of this stock with account 1 (low priced is good) Place a BID for a few of the stocks significantly over current value with account 2 Price rises Now sell all of your cheaply purchased stocks on account 1 at the new price"
1) That's not the way it works: for a "stock that rarelly sells" you won't be able to buy a ton of it -no paper in the floor. You -maybe, will be able to buy it progressively at increasing prices. Now, there is a ton of stocks for that; you won't be able to significantly increase its value by re-buying just a few stocks and even if you did, it's still a stock that rarely sells, you yourself already told that: where the buyers of your stocks will suddenly come from? And even if they appeared, are you forcing them to buy? Is not the selling value the real selling value? How are you fooling them into buying at a stock price they are not willing to buy? Or are they the ones that are fooling *themselves* into buying at a price they don't want to buy? I buy to win; how is it that they won't put back my money when I fool myself and don't get the expected result but they get to recall their money when they fool themselves and don't get the expected result?
2) Re-read your procedure: no specific mention to computers or automated algorithms, see? Now, how is it possible that this would be perfectly legal if I tried that in person on the trade floor (It just could happen that I own two different corporations with different needs and expectations, so I infact trade for them two) and it becomes illegal if I happen to use a computer? What's that? another version of the "the same old stuff... in a computer!" kind of patents? Specially when we take into consideration that no one forced the other party to use computers to start with: if they are so prone to fail, they simply shouldn't use them! Or would we protect a trader that by the end of the day told us, "hey! I lost a ton of cash today, but it was because my mechanical calculator was faulty -bring my money back!".
No: it's obvious that the *only* reason that's "The Law" is because "The Law" is there to protect big investors: whenever they win (i.e.: subsecond transactions), it's legal; when they happen to lose is illegal (this case) or, at least invalid (the case few months ago when someone with big thumbs managed to trade for peanuts for some minutes).
"In fact they can ban you from their property because "you were winning" and be perfectly within the law."
Which gets you straight into square one: "the reason these guys were brought up on charges was because they aren't a big investment house, and beat a big investment house at its own game".
Casinos are not "just" private property, they are opened-to-the-public bussiness and, as such, subjected to specific normatives regarding access appart from, say, your own home, which basically come down to "you opened to the public for a specific service, you can't reject somebody because of exercising that service"... unless, of course, you happen to be a big trade/corporation with deep pockets, in which case you set your own rules.
"What makes you think this can't happen with Microsoft?"
Nothing. But it really doesn't matter: it's Microsoft.
"If I was a patent troll and I had a patent I knew MS Office infringed, I wouldn't even look at Microsoft. I'd start suing all their customers -- which is everybody."
Exactly! And since it's "everybody", it can't be *my* fault, can it?
In example: How many people got fired (or fined, or even amonested) for exposing their companies to one of the clearest examples of technical corporate incompetence, the Slammer worm?
"With all due respect, that's rather utopian thinking. Just ask the Japanese how their roads and bridges to nowhere are serving them."
You mean, Japan, as in the second biggest economy in the whole world, as in Japan, that little country that basically was reduced to ashes merely 50 years ago? Well, with all due respect, I think Japaneses will tell you that all those roads and bridges do serve them quite OK, thanks.
"i.e. make useless work for people to keep everyone fed."
Even if that was the only think that could be achieved by corporate money, I wouldn't diminish "keeping everyone fed" as a lowerish goal -with all due respect, you can ask about 2/3 of the world population about that.
"If people spent their money on books, for example, they would be far better off than either buying hamburgers with that money or having someone lend money for the sake of busy work like building bridges."
It's only that without roads, and bridges, and trains, and corporations a book would be a matter for the top rich people because they'd cost a fortune.
"I don't understand why people keep bringing "bridge" up as an example."
Because it's a clear and obvious example that properly illustrates the theme at issue (expending collective money on building infrastructures, here). In other words, it's a paradigm.
"Look, building bridges and roads in the middle of the century helped because US actually produced things."
"Building bridges and roads will do nothing [...] We do not produce anything anymore"
Or will do it? You need maintenance and USA could take advantage for a better railway system, for instance. And if USA really does not produce nothing, you'd better start changing this which, again, will take removing obsoleted infrastructures (physical, logical, political) and developing new ones: such a process is are covered too by the "building bridges" paradigm.
"Fixing up the crumbling infrastructure will do almost nothing (short term construction gain)"
"Short term"? Short sighted, I'd say. Let your highway infrastructure cripple and you will see what happens to your Walmart services. The fact that it would lead to a short number of direct employments says nothing about its overall impact.
"IT is getting outsourced [...] Financial instruments? Pffft, can be run from anywhere"
Do you know why IT can be outsourced and why financial instruments can be run anywhere? Because they can be serviced by those new "bridges" that are called the Internet (probably "the intertubes" for you). And do you know how those new bridges can be built? Because there are big thingies called "corporations" that by means of limited liability can collect savings of lots of people and apply them to projects (which, again, are identified by the "bridge" paradigm) that couldn't have been achieved by any single individual.
"R&D, okay maybe, until other countries surpass us in physics and chem"
So don't allow them to surpase you. And, do you know how you can do that? By, again, building "bridges": founding education and R&D, in this case.
"If it were not for amazingly brave/fearless/reckless adventurers who KNEW BEYOND ANY SHADOW OF A DOUBT that risking their life (and the lives of their crew) was worth it, to make such an amazing new discovery YOUR NATION WOULD NOT EXIST TODAY."
Yeah, sure. The problem is that what's worth is based on expected profit. Which in turn is based on the difference between percieved cost and expected gains.
What I mean is that you tend to have more people risking their lives when they percieve that their life sucks (if you reduce percieved costs, it's easy to achieve percieved net benefits). You wouldn't have a gold rush out of a bunch of self-satisfied overweighted people.
Or, in other words: you yourself, Mr Crypto Gnome, have enough stamina to tell people to hit their History books, from the comfortability of your basement supported by a full fridge, but you don't go yourself to find a new diamond mine in the middle of a war territory. Ask yourself why.
"Lets say you are given $1 [...] putting $1 in a savings account (due to good FDIC rules) has a limited effect on how much a bank can lend out."
Good logics... it's only a pitty that both History and Economics theory from the fifteen century onwards shows otherwise.
If you have one dollar you can buy a Mac mini burger. If one hundred people have one dollar, they can buy 100 Mac mini burgers. If they save their dollars, the bank has 100 dollars and can start the building of a bridge which will do much more for the economy than you 100 mini burgers.
That's the very basic rationale for limited liability corporations (say, all of them).
What it's true is that you need a ballance, just like Henry Ford found. In order for the economy to grow you need savings, so you can build up a Ford factory out of money from investors, and you need pocket money on each individual so they can buy the cars you produce.
The current situation only seems to give you the reason because there is saved money: rich people is richer now, even after the crisis, than 20 years ago, so this part of the equation is OK. But mid class is poorer now than 20 years ago, specially after the crisis, so that's the part of the equation you need to ballance: look for means so mid class comes to have expendable money, so they can start buying Henry's cars again.
"The correct way to fix the economy is to cut 99% of all government spending, fire 99% of government workers, stop all wars of-course, bring all troops home from all over the world, get rid of SS, EI, all regulations, wage laws, all subsidies and all income taxes."
Hummm... that certainly explains why Haiti is one of the most powerful economies of the world!
"I don't see how spending money in OTHER economies is supposed to help stimulate the US economy"
That's because you are a blatant ignorant.
Just have a look at your own recent History; you don't have to look too far away, just to post-IIW to see how exactly spending money in other countries stimulates USA economy. If you still don't get it, take a hint: how do you expect to sell your goods and services on undeveloped poor countries? Remember Henry Ford.
"But, you know, there is a good compromise in this all. Why don't computer manufacturers just install both Windows and Ubuntu, making the machine dual boot?"
Because Microsoft wouldn't want that.
Do you want OEM price for the licenses? Exclusivity Do you want early access to our betas so you can certify your drivers? Exclusivity. Do you want per sold box rappeled license refound? Exclusivity
"For many companies, the productivity lost spending a few hours on the phone is worth quite a bit more than $50."
Truly.
But then, the financial gain when those few hours can save you 50*1000 desktops, overcome the nuisance.
If getting a computer rid of Windows takes, say, four hours, do you really think that getting 1000 desktops without OS will take you 4*1000 hours?
But the reality is that when you are talking about these kind of bulky contracts you won't get them with Dell's standard system image but with your company's one, so you won't pay unneeded licenses anyway.
"Yes, they are a tax burden, but don't forget, IBM isn't going to give stuff away for free"
You can play the "true Scotsman" game as much as you want, but it won't change neither my mind nor the real situation. I already stated "provided you substitute them with a more efficient service" so your point is moot.
"It'd be a tiny itty bitty planet. All the asteroids together are only 4% of the Moon's mass."
Yes, but that's because they are the remainders from the planet. Only 1% of its mass was recaptured after the armaggedon, so the planet was in fact about the size of the Earth.
"I don't see how laid off government employees will contribute to producing anything exportable"
Do you think that it might be your problem? That you don't see it doesn't means it isn't there.
"If anything they will create an extra tax burden on those who can produce exportable goods by consuming unemployment money"
How can that be, specially in the case of the government? Since they are civil servants they *already* are a tax burden. So, provided you substitute them with a more efficient service, you can fire them and expend the difference between the old and new system to pay their unemployment and still stay ahead because of the gained effectiveness that you can rewire to other activities (like producing something exportable).
And then, those people neither are going to recieve unemployment forever nor they are going to be unemployed forever, so this means further gains along the road.
But all of this is Economics 101: whenever you make a process more efficient you can get the same for less so you can create wealthness on the long run out of the difference.
"I don't see how to switch to e-government or any of the rest of this stuff will make any difference."
That's because you are WROOOOOOOONG!
"The only way to reduce the national debt is by selling more stuff to other nations than you buy from them."
FALSE! As false as it can go.
The only way to reduce the national debt (long term) is by selling stuff to other nations for more MONEY than the MONEY we spend buying from them.
Once you get this clear, you can see there are different paths you can go to correct the imbalance: 1) You buy less from foreigners 2) You sell more to foreigners
Since government is an operational cost, if you reduce how much does it cost to you, you get more money that you can put into:
* Producing more local goods, so you can buy less from foreigners (see 1).
* Producing local goods at reduced cost since you have less overhead, so you can compete with foreign goods in both local (see 1) and foreign markets (see 2).
* Expending more on R&D so you can produce new goods which foreigners lack off so you can sell them overseas (see 2).
"Should we be suspicious when the IBM CEO thinks the U.S. needs a massive IT overhaul?"
Nope.
But we should be suspicious because the signaturees of the document are the CEOs of some of the very companies that helped creating the mess in first place. One should ask why those CEOs didn't do what they prey a step at a time, given that they already are contractors for the government.
"Just boot the infected computer with a life CD, clean its hard disk and reboot. What's the problem with that? Nothing at all. I'm sure everyone who gets infections also has a live CD sitting around their house."
Well, surely it's more probable they'll have the tools and the guts to open their PC, take off the HDD mount it in their other PC (this kind of people always have more than one, yeah surely), which will have to open too, and after the disinfection revert all of that.
Surely that's more probable.
On the other hand, the question was about what's the problem booting from a live CD (no one), not about who is going to do it (the friend that knows computers, maybe?).
"I haven't seen the title of System or computer operator used since the late 80's"
That's another "gift" we owe Microsoft (do you think is per chance the date coincidence?).
Of course, "system operator" seems derogatory when compared to "system administrator" and that's right, since a system operator is lower ranked than a sysadmin. If all you do is following already layed out menus, click on already programmed radio buttons, make use of functionality already provided from an internal or external third party and all you need to know is the user manual for the application/system whitout need to know the underlying protocols and architectural choices, then you certainly are an *operator* of such application/system.
Now, tell me how many Windows "system administrators" are able to debug a SMTP or HTTP session from a telnet prompt, how many know how to detect what's the blocking factor for a system underperforming, if it's memory, networked or disk-based I/O; if it's a delay in name resolution or if the system is exhausting its networking sockets. How many Windows "system administrators" know how to properly dimension a new environment on paper, how many servers it will need, what are the advantages/disadvantages of competing topologies, etc?
But, of course, they prefer to be known as "system administrators": it looks better and makes Microsoft systems to look more tweakeable than they are. No wonder that under the "new" deprived definition for "system administrator" you end up declaring that "not all system administrators require programming knowledge". Well, if you downsize "civil engineer" to mean "the guy that puts the bricks", you would end up declaring that "not all civil engineers require structural calculus knowledge" too.
"Most companies use the title Network Administrator for what really is a Windows System Administrator role, my ability to setup VPN, OSPF and BGP has nothing to do with exchange or active directory."
That "role inflation" is expectable on "soft" parts of the company like marketing. But now we need to welcome our new overlords of inflated roles even on the technical side of the company.
Slashdot Mirror
"Betting on a horse has less repercussions, though then betting on investors and stocks. The later effects companies, employees, and the greater economy"
Not true. The latter (directly) affects only those companies that accepted the bet of going into the trade market. How is it in a free market that it's socially acceptable for an entity to allow for the gains and resign from the loses?
"But here's the thing, their behavior wasn't honest or genuinely based on real belief in the value of the "stocks."
As is the case with 100% of trading and has been since at least 1974.
Your point is, again?
"It's a bad kind of manipulation, as opposed to the good kind which is accepted by all."
How can you have it so backwards? The "good kind" is the one accepted by the big tycoons (because it benefit them); the "bad one" is whatever doesn't please the big tycoons.
"Just know that you don't want to break the rules."
True. Then there is the point about who is making the rules (it's no wonder that somebody doesn't break the rules when he's the one making then -for their own profit).
"like breaking into your neighbor's home to show them they need to lock their windows will just get you into trouble."
Here it's more like "That's the law that you can go into whichever home you like, unless it happens to be my home, for in this case you will be prosecuted".
" there is a good reason why the rule is in place."
Certainly. But such a "good reason" is not there to take care of the overall society's benefit, only the big ones since the rule is in place only for the big tycoons to take benefit of it (i.e.: subsecond operations are good because they allow big firms to make big bucks; whenever it allows for the clever little one to make the benefits at the big ones' expense, then we declare the operation void).
In other words: one of the basic pillars of free market is that it selfregulates because when someone tries to outsmart it too much, such someone will pay dearly for his (now failed) experiment; but we have a system where there's no danger in outsmarting the system as long as you already are one of the big fishes.
No wonder that since I'm not one of the big fishes I find trobles on the current system.
"These orders gave the impression to both people and software that the market had changed for real."
Were they false orders? No, they didn't. Those orders did in fact changed the market for real.
"They then cancelled their "fake" orders"
They were not "faked". They were for real and well within the rules for the system. The problem was that those rules were introduced so the big tycoons could make more money. Of course, once the rules were not used on the best interest of those tycoons, the operation was declared illegal, instead of the more much sensible "change the rules or deal with them".
"It is similar to the idea of leaking fake news and trading against the move"
They are not "fake" news. They are *false* news. If you spread the rumour that you are willing to buy [some company], the ones that follow the rumour are willing to bet (and take advantage of) their privileged position (by trading before the rumour gets to spread). It's only on trade markets that you manage to take the risk, only if/when is to your advantage.
and then making a profit when people figured out it was fake.""
You would never take benefit once people figures it's a fake: you always need to recall gains *before* it's known it's a fake. And by doing it, you are taking your own risks too!
So, all in all, we built a system where big fishes get to recall benefits when it's the lower ones that pay, but calling illegal otherwise.
""Cheating" the system is easy, but checking algorithms will catch you every time. A "simple" way to cheat around 80-90% of automated brokering systems, and likely what the two Norweigians did:
Get two accounts with the system
Find a stock that rarely sells
Buy a ton of this stock with account 1 (low priced is good)
Place a BID for a few of the stocks significantly over current value with account 2
Price rises
Now sell all of your cheaply purchased stocks on account 1 at the new price"
1) That's not the way it works: for a "stock that rarelly sells" you won't be able to buy a ton of it -no paper in the floor. You -maybe, will be able to buy it progressively at increasing prices. Now, there is a ton of stocks for that; you won't be able to significantly increase its value by re-buying just a few stocks and even if you did, it's still a stock that rarely sells, you yourself already told that: where the buyers of your stocks will suddenly come from? And even if they appeared, are you forcing them to buy? Is not the selling value the real selling value? How are you fooling them into buying at a stock price they are not willing to buy? Or are they the ones that are fooling *themselves* into buying at a price they don't want to buy? I buy to win; how is it that they won't put back my money when I fool myself and don't get the expected result but they get to recall their money when they fool themselves and don't get the expected result?
2) Re-read your procedure: no specific mention to computers or automated algorithms, see? Now, how is it possible that this would be perfectly legal if I tried that in person on the trade floor (It just could happen that I own two different corporations with different needs and expectations, so I infact trade for them two) and it becomes illegal if I happen to use a computer? What's that? another version of the "the same old stuff... in a computer!" kind of patents? Specially when we take into consideration that no one forced the other party to use computers to start with: if they are so prone to fail, they simply shouldn't use them! Or would we protect a trader that by the end of the day told us, "hey! I lost a ton of cash today, but it was because my mechanical calculator was faulty -bring my money back!".
No: it's obvious that the *only* reason that's "The Law" is because "The Law" is there to protect big investors: whenever they win (i.e.: subsecond transactions), it's legal; when they happen to lose is illegal (this case) or, at least invalid (the case few months ago when someone with big thumbs managed to trade for peanuts for some minutes).
"In fact they can ban you from their property because "you were winning" and be perfectly within the law."
Which gets you straight into square one: "the reason these guys were brought up on charges was because they aren't a big investment house, and beat a big investment house at its own game".
Casinos are not "just" private property, they are opened-to-the-public bussiness and, as such, subjected to specific normatives regarding access appart from, say, your own home, which basically come down to "you opened to the public for a specific service, you can't reject somebody because of exercising that service"... unless, of course, you happen to be a big trade/corporation with deep pockets, in which case you set your own rules.
"What makes you think this can't happen with Microsoft?"
Nothing. But it really doesn't matter: it's Microsoft.
"If I was a patent troll and I had a patent I knew MS Office infringed, I wouldn't even look at Microsoft. I'd start suing all their customers -- which is everybody."
Exactly! And since it's "everybody", it can't be *my* fault, can it?
In example: How many people got fired (or fined, or even amonested) for exposing their companies to one of the clearest examples of technical corporate incompetence, the Slammer worm?
"With all due respect, that's rather utopian thinking. Just ask the Japanese how their roads and bridges to nowhere are serving them."
You mean, Japan, as in the second biggest economy in the whole world, as in Japan, that little country that basically was reduced to ashes merely 50 years ago? Well, with all due respect, I think Japaneses will tell you that all those roads and bridges do serve them quite OK, thanks.
"i.e. make useless work for people to keep everyone fed."
Even if that was the only think that could be achieved by corporate money, I wouldn't diminish "keeping everyone fed" as a lowerish goal -with all due respect, you can ask about 2/3 of the world population about that.
"If people spent their money on books, for example, they would be far better off than either buying hamburgers with that money or having someone lend money for the sake of busy work like building bridges."
It's only that without roads, and bridges, and trains, and corporations a book would be a matter for the top rich people because they'd cost a fortune.
"I don't understand why people keep bringing "bridge" up as an example."
Because it's a clear and obvious example that properly illustrates the theme at issue (expending collective money on building infrastructures, here). In other words, it's a paradigm.
"Look, building bridges and roads in the middle of the century helped because US actually produced things."
"Building bridges and roads will do nothing [...] We do not produce anything anymore"
Or will do it? You need maintenance and USA could take advantage for a better railway system, for instance. And if USA really does not produce nothing, you'd better start changing this which, again, will take removing obsoleted infrastructures (physical, logical, political) and developing new ones: such a process is are covered too by the "building bridges" paradigm.
"Fixing up the crumbling infrastructure will do almost nothing (short term construction gain)"
"Short term"? Short sighted, I'd say. Let your highway infrastructure cripple and you will see what happens to your Walmart services. The fact that it would lead to a short number of direct employments says nothing about its overall impact.
"IT is getting outsourced [...] Financial instruments? Pffft, can be run from anywhere"
Do you know why IT can be outsourced and why financial instruments can be run anywhere? Because they can be serviced by those new "bridges" that are called the Internet (probably "the intertubes" for you). And do you know how those new bridges can be built? Because there are big thingies called "corporations" that by means of limited liability can collect savings of lots of people and apply them to projects (which, again, are identified by the "bridge" paradigm) that couldn't have been achieved by any single individual.
"R&D, okay maybe, until other countries surpass us in physics and chem"
So don't allow them to surpase you. And, do you know how you can do that? By, again, building "bridges": founding education and R&D, in this case.
"If it were not for amazingly brave/fearless/reckless adventurers who KNEW BEYOND ANY SHADOW OF A DOUBT that risking their life (and the lives of their crew) was worth it, to make such an amazing new discovery YOUR NATION WOULD NOT EXIST TODAY."
Yeah, sure. The problem is that what's worth is based on expected profit. Which in turn is based on the difference between percieved cost and expected gains.
What I mean is that you tend to have more people risking their lives when they percieve that their life sucks (if you reduce percieved costs, it's easy to achieve percieved net benefits). You wouldn't have a gold rush out of a bunch of self-satisfied overweighted people.
Or, in other words: you yourself, Mr Crypto Gnome, have enough stamina to tell people to hit their History books, from the comfortability of your basement supported by a full fridge, but you don't go yourself to find a new diamond mine in the middle of a war territory. Ask yourself why.
"In what company does the CEO ever deal with customers?"
I'd say most if not all of them.
It is not a matter if the CEO deals with customers but which customers the CEO deals with.
"Lets say you are given $1 [...] putting $1 in a savings account (due to good FDIC rules) has a limited effect on how much a bank can lend out."
Good logics... it's only a pitty that both History and Economics theory from the fifteen century onwards shows otherwise.
If you have one dollar you can buy a Mac mini burger. If one hundred people have one dollar, they can buy 100 Mac mini burgers. If they save their dollars, the bank has 100 dollars and can start the building of a bridge which will do much more for the economy than you 100 mini burgers.
That's the very basic rationale for limited liability corporations (say, all of them).
What it's true is that you need a ballance, just like Henry Ford found. In order for the economy to grow you need savings, so you can build up a Ford factory out of money from investors, and you need pocket money on each individual so they can buy the cars you produce.
The current situation only seems to give you the reason because there is saved money: rich people is richer now, even after the crisis, than 20 years ago, so this part of the equation is OK. But mid class is poorer now than 20 years ago, specially after the crisis, so that's the part of the equation you need to ballance: look for means so mid class comes to have expendable money, so they can start buying Henry's cars again.
"The correct way to fix the economy is to cut 99% of all government spending, fire 99% of government workers, stop all wars of-course, bring all troops home from all over the world, get rid of SS, EI, all regulations, wage laws, all subsidies and all income taxes."
Hummm... that certainly explains why Haiti is one of the most powerful economies of the world!
"I don't see how spending money in OTHER economies is supposed to help stimulate the US economy"
That's because you are a blatant ignorant.
Just have a look at your own recent History; you don't have to look too far away, just to post-IIW to see how exactly spending money in other countries stimulates USA economy. If you still don't get it, take a hint: how do you expect to sell your goods and services on undeveloped poor countries? Remember Henry Ford.
"But, you know, there is a good compromise in this all. Why don't computer manufacturers just install both Windows and Ubuntu, making the machine dual boot?"
Because Microsoft wouldn't want that.
Do you want OEM price for the licenses? Exclusivity
Do you want early access to our betas so you can certify your drivers? Exclusivity.
Do you want per sold box rappeled license refound? Exclusivity
"For many companies, the productivity lost spending a few hours on the phone is worth quite a bit more than $50."
Truly.
But then, the financial gain when those few hours can save you 50*1000 desktops, overcome the nuisance.
If getting a computer rid of Windows takes, say, four hours, do you really think that getting 1000 desktops without OS will take you 4*1000 hours?
But the reality is that when you are talking about these kind of bulky contracts you won't get them with Dell's standard system image but with your company's one, so you won't pay unneeded licenses anyway.
"Your statement is off by about two orders of magnitude...."
Sorry dude, but your maths are off not only two orders of magnitude, but beyond recognition.
"Yes, they are a tax burden, but don't forget, IBM isn't going to give stuff away for free"
You can play the "true Scotsman" game as much as you want, but it won't change neither my mind nor the real situation. I already stated "provided you substitute them with a more efficient service" so your point is moot.
"It'd be a tiny itty bitty planet. All the asteroids together are only 4% of the Moon's mass."
Yes, but that's because they are the remainders from the planet. Only 1% of its mass was recaptured after the armaggedon, so the planet was in fact about the size of the Earth.
"I don't see how laid off government employees will contribute to producing anything exportable"
Do you think that it might be your problem? That you don't see it doesn't means it isn't there.
"If anything they will create an extra tax burden on those who can produce exportable goods by consuming unemployment money"
How can that be, specially in the case of the government? Since they are civil servants they *already* are a tax burden. So, provided you substitute them with a more efficient service, you can fire them and expend the difference between the old and new system to pay their unemployment and still stay ahead because of the gained effectiveness that you can rewire to other activities (like producing something exportable).
And then, those people neither are going to recieve unemployment forever nor they are going to be unemployed forever, so this means further gains along the road.
But all of this is Economics 101: whenever you make a process more efficient you can get the same for less so you can create wealthness on the long run out of the difference.
"I don't see how to switch to e-government or any of the rest of this stuff will make any difference."
That's because you are WROOOOOOOONG!
"The only way to reduce the national debt is by selling more stuff to other nations than you buy from them."
FALSE! As false as it can go.
The only way to reduce the national debt (long term) is by selling stuff to other nations for more MONEY than the MONEY we spend buying from them.
Once you get this clear, you can see there are different paths you can go to correct the imbalance:
1) You buy less from foreigners
2) You sell more to foreigners
Since government is an operational cost, if you reduce how much does it cost to you, you get more money that you can put into:
* Producing more local goods, so you can buy less from foreigners (see 1).
* Producing local goods at reduced cost since you have less overhead, so you can compete with foreign goods in both local (see 1) and foreign markets (see 2).
* Expending more on R&D so you can produce new goods which foreigners lack off so you can sell them overseas (see 2).
"Should we be suspicious when the IBM CEO thinks the U.S. needs a massive IT overhaul?"
Nope.
But we should be suspicious because the signaturees of the document are the CEOs of some of the very companies that helped creating the mess in first place. One should ask why those CEOs didn't do what they prey a step at a time, given that they already are contractors for the government.
"Just boot the infected computer with a life CD, clean its hard disk and reboot. What's the problem with that?
Nothing at all. I'm sure everyone who gets infections also has a live CD sitting around their house."
Well, surely it's more probable they'll have the tools and the guts to open their PC, take off the HDD mount it in their other PC (this kind of people always have more than one, yeah surely), which will have to open too, and after the disinfection revert all of that.
Surely that's more probable.
On the other hand, the question was about what's the problem booting from a live CD (no one), not about who is going to do it (the friend that knows computers, maybe?).
"I haven't seen the title of System or computer operator used since the late 80's"
That's another "gift" we owe Microsoft (do you think is per chance the date coincidence?).
Of course, "system operator" seems derogatory when compared to "system administrator" and that's right, since a system operator is lower ranked than a sysadmin. If all you do is following already layed out menus, click on already programmed radio buttons, make use of functionality already provided from an internal or external third party and all you need to know is the user manual for the application/system whitout need to know the underlying protocols and architectural choices, then you certainly are an *operator* of such application/system.
Now, tell me how many Windows "system administrators" are able to debug a SMTP or HTTP session from a telnet prompt, how many know how to detect what's the blocking factor for a system underperforming, if it's memory, networked or disk-based I/O; if it's a delay in name resolution or if the system is exhausting its networking sockets. How many Windows "system administrators" know how to properly dimension a new environment on paper, how many servers it will need, what are the advantages/disadvantages of competing topologies, etc?
But, of course, they prefer to be known as "system administrators": it looks better and makes Microsoft systems to look more tweakeable than they are. No wonder that under the "new" deprived definition for "system administrator" you end up declaring that "not all system administrators require programming knowledge". Well, if you downsize "civil engineer" to mean "the guy that puts the bricks", you would end up declaring that "not all civil engineers require structural calculus knowledge" too.
"Most companies use the title Network Administrator for what really is a Windows System Administrator role, my ability to setup VPN, OSPF and BGP has nothing to do with exchange or active directory."
That "role inflation" is expectable on "soft" parts of the company like marketing. But now we need to welcome our new overlords of inflated roles even on the technical side of the company.
"Sounds like you answered your own question. You don't use the infected computer to fix itself"
Why the hell not? Just boot the infected computer with a life CD, clean its hard disk and reboot. What's the problem with that?