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User: alexander_686

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  1. Re:IBM is dying on Lenovo Set To Close $2.1 Billion Server Deal With IBM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    IBM's stated goal is to ditch the low end commodity business and invest in high end high touch business. i.e. custom solutions provide by consultants and custom hardware. IBM has been shedding their commodity business for years. When Lenovo bought their desktop / laptop business – servers where not commodities. Now the x86 servers are – so away they go.

  2. Re:I would like to see a return... on Apple Faces Large Penalties In EU Tax Probe · · Score: 1

    If you have "a" presence in a given country, you pay taxes in that country.

    How does that work? If you have a presence in 2 countries you pay 78%? (2 X 39%) In 3 countries 117%?

    I will point out that America the only major country which works on a "domicile" approach – If you are a US subsidiary in a foreign country you pay US and local taxes. This can result in taxes over 100% - which the US fixed by putting in loopholes.

    The rest of the world work on a saner approach and uses "residency" – profits earned locally pay the local corporate tax rate. This still leaves the issue of transfer payments – figuring out what portion of the profits belong to which country.

  3. Re:Largest Ponzi Scheme Ever on Mystery Gamer Makes Millions Moving Markets In Japan · · Score: 1

    Nope. The magic phrase is Future "Free Cash Flow" (FCF ) to Shareholders.

    Now, how do you model FFC? Do you care if a company pays out dividends or takes the same cash and does a stock buy back? The only difference between the 2 methods is because of differences in taxes - and maybe some psychological signaling. When does it matter if a company stops paying a dividend but reinvests those earnings into new projects?

    The Dividend Discount Model is a classic model but is one of the simpler ones. I prefer models that use earnings, not dividends. This allows to figure out what I should be paying for a company that has profits but does not pay out a dividend, like Amazon or Google.

    .

  4. Re:Isn't random 50%? on Mystery Gamer Makes Millions Moving Markets In Japan · · Score: 4, Informative

    So who is selling when he is buying? Wouldn't he constantly be behind the curve? Paying too much for the stock and selling for too little?

    You are touching on one of the great debates. Momentum trading is one of those anomalies that should not work in theory but does in practice. Why? Ideas have been kicked around for the last 20 years. Here is a link to a possible explanation.

    http://www.economist.com/news/...

  5. Re:Largest Ponzi Scheme Ever on Mystery Gamer Makes Millions Moving Markets In Japan · · Score: 4, Informative

    As Warren Buffet says, in the short run the stock market is a voting machine, in the long run a weighing machine.

    In the long term, the value of a stock is it's future free cash to shareholders, discounted by time and
    risk. Over time this has been proven to be true. P/E is backwards looking, so the fact that you can find a few companies without P/E ratio doesn't prove much. (but yes, it is easier to model and discount cash flows when you have a stable and positive P/E ratio.)

    Short run – yeah – the market runs off on supply and demand, and tends to go with what is popular.

  6. Re:Buy low, sell high on Mystery Gamer Makes Millions Moving Markets In Japan · · Score: 1

    Which is a momentum strategy. There are plenty of hedge fund that plays that game.

    And that works just fine on the short side as well. You sell short what people are selling. That is hard to do when there is a up-tick rule in place, but I don't know if Japan has that rule or not.

  7. Re:is anyone really surprised here on The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes · · Score: 1

    To the point that the notional value (which is always far less than the economic or market value) of CDS was greater than the economy AND that this could have been avoid if we had only insured what people owns points to the fact that you don't understand how the market worked. I will use your excellent example of how insurance can offset risk by going to the reinsurance market. Insurance companies are heavily regulated. However, the reinsurance market – just like the CDS market – is a overseas unregulated market.

    Let me run you through a example of how CDS work.

    I am a portfolio manager who has a 100m portfolio that I want to ensure. So I call up broker X and we structure a custom contract, where I buy a CDS for 5 years.

      It is a year later and my risk profile has changed. Old CDS is not providing the protection that I want. I call up broker X to cancel the contract but they are going to charge me a arm and a leg. However, broker Y is interested, so I sell him a custom 100m CDS for 4 years at a lower price than X. I than buy a new CDS from broker Z for 100m for 5 years.

    So at this point I have 300m notional value of CDSs on my books but I am only net 100m - If we ignore counter party risk – the risk that broker X, Y, or Z would fail. Which was a huge deal during the finical crisis.

    The answer is not to create custom contracts that match what a portfolio holds at a given time. Costly and inflexible. The answer is create generic standardized products that can be cheaply traded and netted – like through a clearing house. I would point to the reinsurance market and CAT bonds as a way to do it correctly.

  8. Re:is anyone really surprised here on The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes · · Score: 1, Informative

    Yawn. I am so not impressed with that argument. Can you tell me why this is so bad? Most of the time to goes to dark conspiracy theories with people burning down companies just for the insurance money but nobody can point to an actually case.

    Here is the truth. CDS are insurance contracts on credit instruments. Portfolio managers can buy them for bonds that they hold. The problem with buying exactly the credit protection on the bonds they own they need to write a custom contract with a counter party. This is expensive to buy and hard to liquidate if a portfolio manager changes their holding. Or they can buy a generic CDS that does not exactly cover what they need but is close enough. That cuts their fees by 90% and can be traded.

    No, the issue was that they priced the insurance too cheaply. It was a quick way to juice the returns. A example would be insurance companies offering cheap earthquake insurance. All of the premiums they take in is free money until the big one hits. Then they all collapse. Which speaks to a different type of regulation.

  9. Re: password manager on Ask Slashdot: How To Keep Students' Passwords Secure? · · Score: 1

    What system forces you to change your password by at least 5 characters?

    If the system stores in password as a hash, like all good systems do, how would they know that you changed your password by at least 5 characters?

  10. Taxes and Win-Win. on Ask Slashdot: Who Should Pay Costs To Attend Conferences? · · Score: 1

    And one more point – Most places in the US pay for training because it is easier and more beneficial if the business can take the tax deduction. Employees might not be able to do so. Thinks like this get complicated fast so talk to somebody who knows taxes. In that sense it is a little like medical insurance – tax law favors this the corporation to pay for it. And I do see good training as a good benfit.

  11. Re:Your employer on Ask Slashdot: Who Should Pay Costs To Attend Conferences? · · Score: 2

    And this tells you what you really should be doing – updating your resume and start looking for a new job.

    You face a dilemma that can't be easily solved.

    You want to work with cutting edge technology AND work in informal environment (i.e., no clock punching). This points to small companies, which means your environment may not be stable and things may be run on a shoestring.

    Or you can work at a stable company that can afford to train (and thus retain) its staff. Which implies clock punching.

    There are exceptions out there – but you need to look for them. Reading between the lines of your post I suspect you would be happier in a larger, stable, clock punching company, which is why I suggested the job hunt.

    If not, then you are going to need to start laying the ground work for your company to pay for your conference next year. Influence them that it is a win-win situation, spend money now and get a happier, more productive employee. Part of the long term development of team talent. Get as many members of your team on board. Etc. I know as an introverted nerd that this can be a hard thing to do but it is what you would have to do to stay in the company that you are at. Of course, I am assuming that company is "right sizing" - shrinking to a profitable level – and not doing straight down the drain. If it is going down the drain – well – back the job hunt.

  12. Re:Not a problem... on New Study Projects World Population of 11B by 2100 · · Score: 1

    We can debate if cities have higher crime or not. People in cities tend to live longer lives - at least in developed countries. So I am not sure what to make of your dirtier and dangerous point.

    On innovation you are dead wrong. On almost every metric that I can think of - number of patents filed, research papers published, holders of advanced degrees, number of new business – on a per capita basis – cities do better than rural areas, and Big cities do better than medium sized cities.

    As for having neighbors – you are correct - you can't blast death metal at 3 a.m. That is a point for rural areas.

  13. Re:Not a problem... on New Study Projects World Population of 11B by 2100 · · Score: 1

    I think both of you are using the wrong metric.

    I suspect that the population density in the Midwest is lower than the Northeast. More importantly, for most of the Midwest, population density has been falling for the past 100 years even though the population has been growing. If that makes you scratch your head, just realize that 80% of farm and small town children find farming and small town life to be boring and low pay. IIRC, population in South Dakota has been falling in all but 5 counties – the counties with big cities.

    Which leads me to my 2 points.

    First, the Midwest is not really that empty. The white man has already stolen all of the good land from the red man and has filled it up with farms. It might be sparsely populated, but the tractor has made it as productive as it can be. Adding more people won't help. Adding biotech and robots will. (And let's face it, a tractor that can drive itself is almost a robot even if there is a person in the cab.)

    Second, the issue is not space. We don't want to cramp people into the empty Midwest, we want to cram them into cities. Thanks to networking effects city folk tend to be more productive. Cities also tend to be more efficient users of resources. Of course managing megacities in more complex, involving strong social structures (i.e. rule of law, not corruption), sophistication (i.e. education), and dedicated citizens (i.e. democracy).

  14. Re: I never thought I'd say this... on FCC Chairman: Americans Shouldn't Subsidize Internet Service Under 10Mbps · · Score: 2

    Let me put a finer point on that. Whenever you subside a product you
            Take money away from the average person (Boo!)
            Give some fraction of the subsidy to the buyer (In this case, poor people. Yeah!)
            The rest goes to the buyer (In this case, A large monopoly that does not it. Boo!)

    The way subsidizes are structured matters. I suspect that under this plan the monopoly will grab the majority of the benifit. In higher education, grants mainly benefit students – colleges tend not to jack tuition in these cases. Subsidize student loans however mainly benefit the college – they can jack up tuition and grab a larger fraction of the subsidy.

    Not sure what the right answer here is, but this is one case where I as a free market person favors turning the last mile to homeowners over to the city. Or a co-op – that would be even better.

  15. Re:14%? What a f***ing ripoff on Airbnb To Start Collecting Hotel Tax On Rentals In San Francisco · · Score: 1

    The fact that non-voters are paying the big is a big piece.

    Another piece is that "tourist" or "convention" taxes go back into providing services that tourist or convention goers use. Somebody has to pay to clean up the "free" beaches. The argument goes that those hotels are bars would not exist if the convention center did not exist. Or at least that is the fig leaf that is used.

  16. Re:WTF? on ISIS Bans Math and Social Studies For Children · · Score: 1

    I am not confusing correlation with causation. There are causal links.

    For example, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all encourage literacy and abstract though. Without those you can't read the holy book.

    It also can promote it indirectly. If you are running off of a lunar calendar, you are going to need astronomy, and if you have astronomy you are going to need math. If you are a proselytizing religion, with plans to run to a global empire, you are going to navigation and accounting – more math.

    If you are a pretentious group that wants to conquer the world using the internet and explosive, you are going to need to know math and chemistry – another banned subject.

    Or maybe I think radical nut jobs are smarter than I think they are.

  17. Re:WTF? on ISIS Bans Math and Social Studies For Children · · Score: 1

    That is true if the person had only daughters and sons by a single, was widowed, an only child, did not have grandkids, and was an orphan. Parents, siblings, half-siblings, grandchildren, and wives all have a claim. When you have polygamy, with multiple wives and kids over decades, things get crazily complex. It makes the issues of America's "blended families" seem simple.

    As a point of reference – though not exactly on point – try to figure out who the next king of Saudi Arabia is. IIRC there are 700 first cousins that are in line for the throne.

  18. Re:WTF? on ISIS Bans Math and Social Studies For Children · · Score: 2

    It is a little unexpected.

    Islam, but obviously not this particular splinter, has a long and glorious history of cultivating math and science. Specifically, they invented some aspects of linear algebra to solve inheritance issue – the Koran is very specific on how much the various wives and children get.

  19. Re:double non-taxation on New Global Plan Would Crack Down On Corporate Tax Avoidance · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You are way off on this.

    First,

    It takes advantage of weakness in Irish law that allows companies to not pay taxes on subsidiaries that are outside Ireland.

    IIRC, the US, Ethopia, and Eritrea are the only countries that charge taxes on foreign subsidiaries, so it is not a weakness exculsive to Ireland. And if you think about it, it is rational not to tax the foreign subsidiary. If a profit is earned in country X, country X shoudl get the tax. If not you get the complex and ineffectual of the US.

    Second, what you are talking about about abusive transfer payments, not about the "Double Irish", which this treaty is trying to fix. Ireland is not some great "loop hole", just low taxes. And by "Double Irish" I think you really mean the "Double Dutch", which requires a Irish and Dutch subsidary - they recognize income differently. This is, since they have different standards on when to declare income from whom they can structure income so it is never recognized by the tax authority. That is a true loop hole.

  20. Re:Ads on Microsoft To Buy Minecraft Maker Mojang For $2.5 Billion · · Score: 1

    Maybe when MSFT was young and desktops were new, but can you give me an example in the past 10 years? Past 20? Nook, Nokia, Skype? None of these have been a home run. MSFT has been growing been very slow over the past 10 years. IIRC, MSFT stock price has been growing slower than the S&P average. (It's late so I am not looking it up.)

  21. Re:Ads on Microsoft To Buy Minecraft Maker Mojang For $2.5 Billion · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think Minecraft has "legs" and will be around for a while. Longer than Farmville 2, less than Legos.

    But I do think it says something about Microsoft. They are having a hard time growing organically, which is the curse of many large mature companies. These companies tend to expand by buyouts and mergers, which we are seeing here. Buyouts and mergers have a poor history of returns on investments.

    I think Microsoft is trying for a single or double and not a home run. Maybe a 25% return over 5 years.

  22. Re:Why is this legal in the U.S.? on Direct Sales OK Baked Into Nevada's $1.3 Billion Incentive Deal With Tesla · · Score: 1

    I would like to know which country you are talking about. Two other points.

    First, there is a very thin line on helping an industry and helping out a specific company. I can think of many examples where a countries industrial policy to help an industry ends up only helping a single company.

    Second, take a look some of the big projects in your country. I bet we could find some accommodations, in particular with infrastructure. For example, Tesla needs a road so Nevada is going to build it but it is not like Tesla is going to have exclusive use of it. Roads, rail, water, sewer, etc. are all common. Stuff like this I can kind of approve of – it is a chicken and the egg problem.

    As an aside, I tend to think industrial policy is self-defeating and a waste of taxpayer's money. In America, it tends to be states racing to the lowest level.

  23. Re:Fair Use on Top EU Court: Libraries Can Digitize Books Without Publishers' Permission · · Score: 1

    You might want to reread your link. Free public libraries came into being after copyright. Before then, the libraries where state (restricted to officials) or subscription (think Blockbuster). It is one of the great inventions of America, Ben Franklin, and Andrew Carnegie. They existed, but before this they were as rare as hen's teeth.

  24. Re:It is called the trickle down effect on China Targets 2022 For Space Station Completion · · Score: 1

    But less than you think because we are talking about strong probabblities.

    IIRC S. Korea has 70%+ of the market share for LCD screens, while Japan comes in second. Together they control over 95% of the market. The glass is similar, the US has 70% market share, while Japan comes in second.

    We know where most of the foundaries are. We can debate where the various CPU, memory, and other control chips come from. We know the CPUs can't come from China. With the other chips, China is low in the league tables.

    Etc.

  25. Re:It is called the trickle down effect on China Targets 2022 For Space Station Completion · · Score: 1

    Lenovo, which oddly means in the US. But let us go a step further.
            The screen was made probabbly made in South Korea, but the glass for that screen in the US.
              The chips were probabbly made in a 1/2 dozen companies. Taiwan (is that part of China?), S. Korea, Japan, and the US are probabbly the biggest ones.
              The plastic probabbly came from the US even if it was molded someplace else.
              A good chunk of the design was also done in the US and other countries.

    For all the examples given (except maybe the can food, which I sincerely doubt since China is a net importer of food) China does the low end assembly work. This is changing, but I still think you need to reexamine your point.