Precisely. I have a cell phone, a smart watch, a car, a motorcycle headset, a stereo headset, a tablet, a keyboard, a mouse, and a half-dozen other Bluetooth capable devices here. Two billion Bluetooth devices shipped in 2012, and they're expecting over 20 BILLION total devices by 2017 - about 3 per person on the face of the Earth. How is that not a "worldbeater"?
Really? I guess their increasing revenues and profit margins that are consistently higher than Apple or Google are signs of stagnant and shrinking markets then! I know it's all 2010ish to talk about the death of the desktop and Microsoft, but the numbers simply don't support such a claim.
Unless you travel to China. Then not so much... Given that it costs under $10/yr to get your own domain and your own mailserver (which won't be blocked by the Great Firewall of China), and you get your own IMAP backend, I don't see much attraction to GMail...
Actually, tax rates could be adjusted to bring highly skilled jobs back.
You could reduce the tax rates to zero and it would have at most a marginal impact. The biggest driver by far is wages and benefits.
Really? Labor costs in China of something like an iPhone or an Xbox are around $6; in the US it would be about $25 more (based upon productivity of the typical US worker versus the typical Chinese worker; it's not a 1-to-1 conversion). The cost of corporate income tax on that $300 product is well in excess of the increase. A huge amount of the offshoring I've been involved in has been because of corporate income taxation; in the case of the aforementioned iPhone, it's $120 for the US-built and sold unit, versus effectively zero for the China-built and sold unit.
If labor rates in China rise substantially (and they have been) you will see the business move back across the Pacific or elsewhere. Anything the President of Congress does will be a very tiny impact by comparison.
You are already most of China's business run out of Hong Kong or Singapore (both of which enjoy special privileges with China in terms of setting up shop) because of the tax-free advantage your company has. You only pay tax on the work done within HK or Singapore; manufacture in China, sell through HK or Singapore and you save a ton of cash.
Actually, tax rates could be adjusted to bring highly skilled jobs back. Corporate tax rates are rather high in the US, especially when compared to the other G20 nations. Cut the corporate income tax rate down to a reasonable level (the average of the EU, or the G20) - or better yet, eliminate it as corporate taxes are a small percentage of the total Federal revenues - and you'll see highly skilled, hard-to-automate jobs flood back into the US.
And that is something the President and Congress are most definitely in control of - taxation.
Hi there, previous China resident for 6 years, and now spend half-time there... Heavily involved in manufacturing within China.
There is a HUGE push towards automation within China, mainly as a means to lower costs (to stay competitive with Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand) as well as to increase quality. A serious issue under consideration from most of the provincial-and-down Governments is employment (not so much with the Beijing elite, yet) - job growth is stagnating in the face of automation. I've seen dozens of factories move from highly manual production lines of 60-70 workers per line to semi-and-fully automated lines where you need 3-4 workers per line to keep the machines fed.
One supplier in particular, just outside of Shanghai, is proud of the fact it's been able to automate their assembly of speakers to such a degree that they have reduced workforce by 70% - whilst reducing floorspace by 50% and INCREASING production volumes and revenues by 30%. All within the last 3 years. Profit is also up considerably, and as they are a publicly traded company (listed on the Shanghai exchange), their stock has seen significant gains in the last 3 years.
China is heavily automating, not just for cost but for quality. Employees come in hung over, pissed off at their boyfriend (most assembly lines are staffed with women), tired, or sick - and quality/consistency suffers. Machines don't have those issues. You get higher quality - which means fewer rejects, leaner operations, and happier customers. It is only a matter of time before the other SE Asian countries start their path towards automation as well as a means to combat China's increasing quality push. Lower cost labor won't help there...
Check out the JAG program which awarded $280 million last year to non-Federal police officers. Meaning State and local cops. The Feds don't have to employ the local police or Government office if they fund it - and use the power of the purse strings to control the office/officer. Same with schools, much of the roads, etc. The Fed uses the power of their purse to get what they want.
Cut the purse strings if you want real local Government. Otherwise there's a good chance your local Government is funded nearly as much by the State and Federal treasuries as it is from the local residents.
I don't think that Google takes away the consumer's choice in the way Microsoft's policies do. Microsoft doesn't provide links to competitors' software
Curiously I just went to bing.com and typed in "office software suite". First link was to a review site. Second link? OpenOffice.org! Microsoft's Office suite doesn't even show up in the first page. I know I'm a bit surprised...
Huh. I just Googled "Free email account" and the first three links were mail.com, gmx.com and yahoo.com. Google's GMail came in fourth. I guess Google doesn't understand how to properly bundle/discriminate against competitors given they're not doing what you say they can/are doing.
Because your fixated on whether there is competition. Whether or not there is competition is beside the point. If your bank forces you to open savings accounts and credit cards with them to have a mortage that bundling is anti-consumer and illegal... period. Because that sort of product tying has been deemed harmful.
What does Google bundle with its search engine? I do not need to use Chrome to access Google search. I do not have to have a GMail account, nor use Google+. I can use Google Search from iOS or Windows Phone or Blackberry OS. What is the bundling that you're concerned about?
How thick do those walls have to be? A foot or two? And a central control room could control quite a few such ANNUAL deposits. Seriously, 2200 tons of depleted uranium is simply not that big of a volume. You could locate it in just about any building in the US and no one would know. It's actually a very, very small size.
I'd rather have someone who has some business experience (ideally as a success, but I'd take failure as well) as President than someone with zero business management experience.
Actually, yes. Here in Southern California, many homes have two master bedrooms, or you can combine a master bedroom and "normal" bedroom to reach the volume of size needed. A typical 400 square foot apartment with an 8 foot ceiling would support complete storage. This is a tiny space.
Yes, 2200 tons sounds REALLY scary, but what is that, really? Depleted uranium is around 19.1 grams per cubic centimeter. Do the math, and that 2200 tons of spent fuel ends up being a cube about 15 feet a side. Not really all that much now, is it? You can store it in the space of two typical master bedrooms. An entire year's worth of spent uranium in a very small volume. I'd say that's actually a really good thing!
My little company (started just a year ago) is in the process right now. Albeit for an H1B holder from the EU, but the same process. In the real scheme of business, a $5000 expense is nothing to get a good quality worker...
Transferring your H1B from one employer to another is not hard. Takes about 3 months and about $5000. Just need to find a new employer willing to accept that. And whilst transferring your H1B, you do NOT have to leave the country, and can actually start working for your new employer as USCIS operates under the presumption your transfer will complete successfully.
Porting an H1B is quite simple, actually... Typically takes a few months - and the worker does NOT need to leave the country as there is a presumption that the conversion will go through. And converted/ported H1Bs do NOT count against the existing cap (meaning porting someone over does not require you fight for one of the scarce new H1Bs). Source.
Slashdot Mirror
Line 4 of your code fails to compile... Sigh...
Precisely. I have a cell phone, a smart watch, a car, a motorcycle headset, a stereo headset, a tablet, a keyboard, a mouse, and a half-dozen other Bluetooth capable devices here. Two billion Bluetooth devices shipped in 2012, and they're expecting over 20 BILLION total devices by 2017 - about 3 per person on the face of the Earth. How is that not a "worldbeater"?
Really? I guess their increasing revenues and profit margins that are consistently higher than Apple or Google are signs of stagnant and shrinking markets then! I know it's all 2010ish to talk about the death of the desktop and Microsoft, but the numbers simply don't support such a claim.
Unless you travel to China. Then not so much... Given that it costs under $10/yr to get your own domain and your own mailserver (which won't be blocked by the Great Firewall of China), and you get your own IMAP backend, I don't see much attraction to GMail...
Yes. Their market cap is about $400 billion, making them worth more than Google. Microsoft is actually doing quite well...
Actually, tax rates could be adjusted to bring highly skilled jobs back.
You could reduce the tax rates to zero and it would have at most a marginal impact. The biggest driver by far is wages and benefits.
Really? Labor costs in China of something like an iPhone or an Xbox are around $6; in the US it would be about $25 more (based upon productivity of the typical US worker versus the typical Chinese worker; it's not a 1-to-1 conversion). The cost of corporate income tax on that $300 product is well in excess of the increase. A huge amount of the offshoring I've been involved in has been because of corporate income taxation; in the case of the aforementioned iPhone, it's $120 for the US-built and sold unit, versus effectively zero for the China-built and sold unit.
If labor rates in China rise substantially (and they have been) you will see the business move back across the Pacific or elsewhere. Anything the President of Congress does will be a very tiny impact by comparison.
You are already most of China's business run out of Hong Kong or Singapore (both of which enjoy special privileges with China in terms of setting up shop) because of the tax-free advantage your company has. You only pay tax on the work done within HK or Singapore; manufacture in China, sell through HK or Singapore and you save a ton of cash.
Actually, tax rates could be adjusted to bring highly skilled jobs back. Corporate tax rates are rather high in the US, especially when compared to the other G20 nations. Cut the corporate income tax rate down to a reasonable level (the average of the EU, or the G20) - or better yet, eliminate it as corporate taxes are a small percentage of the total Federal revenues - and you'll see highly skilled, hard-to-automate jobs flood back into the US.
And that is something the President and Congress are most definitely in control of - taxation.
Hi there, previous China resident for 6 years, and now spend half-time there... Heavily involved in manufacturing within China.
There is a HUGE push towards automation within China, mainly as a means to lower costs (to stay competitive with Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand) as well as to increase quality. A serious issue under consideration from most of the provincial-and-down Governments is employment (not so much with the Beijing elite, yet) - job growth is stagnating in the face of automation. I've seen dozens of factories move from highly manual production lines of 60-70 workers per line to semi-and-fully automated lines where you need 3-4 workers per line to keep the machines fed.
One supplier in particular, just outside of Shanghai, is proud of the fact it's been able to automate their assembly of speakers to such a degree that they have reduced workforce by 70% - whilst reducing floorspace by 50% and INCREASING production volumes and revenues by 30%. All within the last 3 years. Profit is also up considerably, and as they are a publicly traded company (listed on the Shanghai exchange), their stock has seen significant gains in the last 3 years.
China is heavily automating, not just for cost but for quality. Employees come in hung over, pissed off at their boyfriend (most assembly lines are staffed with women), tired, or sick - and quality/consistency suffers. Machines don't have those issues. You get higher quality - which means fewer rejects, leaner operations, and happier customers. It is only a matter of time before the other SE Asian countries start their path towards automation as well as a means to combat China's increasing quality push. Lower cost labor won't help there...
Should we feel sorry because you're stuck with 3G, or because you're Canadian?
Check out the JAG program which awarded $280 million last year to non-Federal police officers. Meaning State and local cops. The Feds don't have to employ the local police or Government office if they fund it - and use the power of the purse strings to control the office/officer. Same with schools, much of the roads, etc. The Fed uses the power of their purse to get what they want.
Cut the purse strings if you want real local Government. Otherwise there's a good chance your local Government is funded nearly as much by the State and Federal treasuries as it is from the local residents.
How do you capture State legislatures, other than with a majority of the State vote?
I get that. However, in this case - there is no bundling. And there is no "search engine tied to other commercial interests" going on here.
I don't think that Google takes away the consumer's choice in the way Microsoft's policies do. Microsoft doesn't provide links to competitors' software
Curiously I just went to bing.com and typed in "office software suite". First link was to a review site. Second link? OpenOffice.org! Microsoft's Office suite doesn't even show up in the first page. I know I'm a bit surprised...
Huh. I just Googled "Free email account" and the first three links were mail.com, gmx.com and yahoo.com. Google's GMail came in fourth. I guess Google doesn't understand how to properly bundle/discriminate against competitors given they're not doing what you say they can/are doing.
Because your fixated on whether there is competition. Whether or not there is competition is beside the point. If your bank forces you to open savings accounts and credit cards with them to have a mortage that bundling is anti-consumer and illegal... period. Because that sort of product tying has been deemed harmful.
What does Google bundle with its search engine? I do not need to use Chrome to access Google search. I do not have to have a GMail account, nor use Google+. I can use Google Search from iOS or Windows Phone or Blackberry OS. What is the bundling that you're concerned about?
How thick do those walls have to be? A foot or two? And a central control room could control quite a few such ANNUAL deposits. Seriously, 2200 tons of depleted uranium is simply not that big of a volume. You could locate it in just about any building in the US and no one would know. It's actually a very, very small size.
I'd rather have someone who has some business experience (ideally as a success, but I'd take failure as well) as President than someone with zero business management experience.
Leaderships skills are, apparently, no longer a qualification for President... Charisma and good talking points suffice.
Actually, yes. Here in Southern California, many homes have two master bedrooms, or you can combine a master bedroom and "normal" bedroom to reach the volume of size needed. A typical 400 square foot apartment with an 8 foot ceiling would support complete storage. This is a tiny space.
Yes, 2200 tons sounds REALLY scary, but what is that, really? Depleted uranium is around 19.1 grams per cubic centimeter. Do the math, and that 2200 tons of spent fuel ends up being a cube about 15 feet a side. Not really all that much now, is it? You can store it in the space of two typical master bedrooms. An entire year's worth of spent uranium in a very small volume. I'd say that's actually a really good thing!
My little company (started just a year ago) is in the process right now. Albeit for an H1B holder from the EU, but the same process. In the real scheme of business, a $5000 expense is nothing to get a good quality worker...
It's known as OSX and allows one to "talk" with Steve Jobs...
Transferring your H1B from one employer to another is not hard. Takes about 3 months and about $5000. Just need to find a new employer willing to accept that. And whilst transferring your H1B, you do NOT have to leave the country, and can actually start working for your new employer as USCIS operates under the presumption your transfer will complete successfully.
Porting an H1B is quite simple, actually... Typically takes a few months - and the worker does NOT need to leave the country as there is a presumption that the conversion will go through. And converted/ported H1Bs do NOT count against the existing cap (meaning porting someone over does not require you fight for one of the scarce new H1Bs). Source.
What better way to show your displeasure with one group of people by attacking and destroying the property of a completely different group?