rkbabang

Private system? Please tell me about this unregulated private system? I've lived in the US my entire life and didn't know it existed. All this time I've been using the inefficient highly regulated system which gets worse and worse every year. I'd love to know where this private system of which you speak is and how I gain access to it?

Yes, probably not this year. But this is an indication of what they are thinking. Maybe it gets through in two years with the cap at $10M rather than 3, in some kind of compromise. That will be a foot in the door to loot a little out of these accounts. They can reduce the cap in the future and of course inflation will be reducing the cap passively year in and year out, allowing them to loot more and more each year. This is why I've never trusted the Roth IRA. I want my tax break now, while I can get it. I don't want to have to trust that these accounts will work anything like they do now someday when I retire.

Eric, I think you'll find that (all campaign rhetoric aside) Republicans aren't all that keen on reducing taxation. There's billions of people in the world in need of bombing and that takes cash. Lot's of it. The two party system is a ratcheting effect for increasing the size and scope of the state. The D's create programs and raise taxes which the R's never repeal, the R's pass drug laws and start wars which the D's won't end. Back and forth, up and up, and on and on it goes, with both of the constituencies always blaming the other side, and neither ever realizing that both sides are really just two faces of the same coin. Government is what it is, it does what it does. This has been the case for over 5000 years. If you have it, this is what you get.

The government is looking at the huge pile of money sitting in these accounts and is salivating at the prospects of getting their hands on it. This is just the fist salvo in a process that will lead to just that. There is no escape from the looters. None.

The poll asks if bitcoin is a safe store of value. To which I answered "No". Your first post asked "Would you ever consider holding/trading Bitcoins?" I have considered it, but haven't done so yet. I've been watching bitcoin since the exchange value was well below $1, but have done nothing but watch. If bitcoin catches on it will be worth many many multiples of where is now, because there will never be more than 21Million bitcoins in existence. People will be trading with small fractions of a bitcoin for most items. What has stopped me is that I am not convinced of the safety of the whole thing. There are flaws in the way bitcoin works that I'm not comfortable with. When Uncle Sam wants it to stop they will stop it. One such flaw off the top of my head is that everyone needs to keep a copy of the blockchain on their computers for bitcoin to remain decentralized. This blockchain contains every bitcoin transaction. I won't even get into the fact that this file is already huge and will grow significantly over time. But hackers have already done things like structure transactions in such a way as to encode pictures in the blockchain. What if someone did this to encode childporn into the blockchain? This would effectively shutdown bitcoin as a legitimate currency, as no one would want to be caught with this file on their computers. I've read about other flaws, but this is the easiest one to pull off for anyone who wants to shutdown bitcoin and drive it permanently underground. I hope something like bitcoin will eventually become a replacement for government money, but I don't think bitcoin is quite robust enough to manage it.

After reading your summary I was hoping the link would be from The Onion, not the Washington Post, but I should have known it had to be true. You just couldn't make something like this up.

Not really the same as charging a membership fee. Once you pay your Costco fee you can walk in and browse around everyday (or multiple times per day) if you want at no extra charge. And I'm not sure, but I think you can go in and walk around Costco anytime you want, you just need to be a member to buy something. I've never been in a Costco, but BJ's wholesale club in my area works this way. You can go in and look around anytime, they only check for your membership card at the register before you checkout. They want you to look around so that you will see what you could get if you were a member. This store is the exact opposite. If you do not already know what is in there, you'd have to pay just to find out.

I had to laugh at this: If that were true the problem wouldn't exist. Why would people buy elsewhere if they were already in your store and your prices were just as good? And how could people possibly buy elsewhere if the product isn't available anywhere else? I wouldn't pay someone $5 just to enter a store, unless I already knew what I wanted and was sure I wanted to buy it there. In other words, they will no longer have any customers at all in the store who are "just looking". Idiots!

Elon Musk at TED Video

I'm not sure where to put this, but it's interesting so I'll put it here. These glasses "cure" red/green color blindness. They were invented to help doctors, surgeons, and phlebotomists, see blood vessels, it was only later that it was discovered that color blind people could distinguish between red and green while wearing them. There is all kinds of other uses for the technology that is under development. Such as light bulbs (for dressing rooms in clothing stores for instance) that make you look younger. As well as light bulbs with the equivalent effect as the glasses I mentioned above without the glasses. How Mark Changizi Conquered Colorblindness With Glasses The web site for the glasses: o2amp.com The research company that created them: http://2ai.org/

I've been using Feedly since I got the notice. If you go into settings and make the index page your start page and change the default view to "condensed" it is quick and minimal like reader was. Also right now they are basically a front end for google reader, but plan on seamlessly transitioning all of their users when reader shuts down: Transitioning from Google Reader to feedly I'm planing on trying some of the other readers as well when I have some time. Feedly is good enough for now though.

My broker (Fidelity) doesn't charge for partial fills if they all happen in the same day. But if part of the order fills today and another part on another day, I would be charged twice. I've built positions in stocks which didn't even trade a single share on many days. I've done this by picking off offers that I've wanted (and paying the commissions) over a number of months and years. And disposed of it the same way. If the stock is sufficiently undervalued then the commissions ($7.95/trade for me) are negligible in the end. If your valuation turns out to be wrong then the commissions will be the least of your problems. Getting out of these stocks can be nearly impossible (without massive losses anyway) if the excrement hits the fan. I'd imagine (but I don't know) that there would be a hefty fee to call a full service broker and have them trade it the way Sanjeev does. Probably equal to quite a few $7.95 trades.

Or it could be that Apple doesn't target price segments that other companies do, so they have a free reign on those segments. that's true. but then they lose market share and become a product for the 1%. :) I think Apple does target upper income consumers, but it isn't just the 1%, it is more like the 25%.

Excellent footage of it from a distance in this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QIMKQihoYRI

I think to be successful and make a positive difference in the world you need to believe and have a tremendous amount of faith.... in yourself. "But you're a profoundly religious man, Mr. Roark—in your own way."

TO SELL IS HUMAN, by Daniel H. Pink giofranchi Another book added to my ever growing to-read list. I seem to add 3 books to the list for every one I am able to read and take off the list. Thank you for posting this, though, if the rest of the book is nearly as good as that snippet it should prove a fascinating read.

I'd estimate if you took my entire TV watching over the last year it would average about 2-3 hours per week. I like Boardwalk Empire, that is the only series I watched in the last year. I used to like The Sopranos back when it was on and I like Dexter, but I don't have Showtime so I wait until I can get the season DVDs from Netflix. When Boardwalk Empire was on I probably averaged 3 hours per week, when it wasn't probably about 2 hours or less. The only TV I watch regularly is a DVD per week from Netflix on a Friday or Saturday night. I've never been into sports very much. There have been years I'd watch the Red Sox, but I don't think I've seen a game in the last 2 years. I probably haven't watched a football or basketball game since I was a teenager (20+ years ago), I don't even watch the superbowl. And I don't think I've ever watched a complete hockey or soccer game on TV. I read probably 8-10 hours per week though.

Thanks for the link. I don't follow Olympus (or any other Japanese company), so I never read that thread before today. Interesting. Japan is a culture I have a very hard time understanding. Not only the business culture, but all of it. Probably for this reason alone, I've never been very interested in Japanese stocks.

I couldn't find anything searching for Olympic Camera. Do you mean Olympus Camera? They seem to still be around. What happened to them?

There is also a large cultural component to violence. Many people like to point to homicide statistics between the US and the UK and make a correlation between the current gun laws and the current homicide rates forgetting that correlation doesn't equal causation. What you find if you look at the statistics over time is that 1) the UK always had a much much lower homicide rate than the US even back when neither country had any gun laws to speak of. And 2) the UK's rate is much higher today than earlier in the last century when it had no gun laws to speak of. You could take that data and conclude that all else being equal gun laws increase violence. Statistics can be used to prove just about anything as the IE vs homicide rate chart shows. Again correlation doesn't imply causation. http://i.imgur.com/47D7zGq.png

The original gun control laws in the US were passed as a direct result of the fact that whites didn't want blacks to own guns. In Massachusetts where I lived up to about 14 months ago you still have to ask your police chief to issue you a license and he gets to use his "discretion" to decide if you are an "appropriate person" (read: white). I find it disgusting that even in a liberal state such as Massachusetts these old clearly racist laws are still on the books and supported whole heatedly by the so-called progressive liberals (the white ones anyway). Oh wait a minute... or are you suggesting that we discriminate against the blind?

Seriously? Can you provide any substantive evidence of your claim? I can't provide any proof of that, but it certainly appears that way from the things they say and support. I tend to agree more with republicans than democrats when it comes to taxes and social programs, but the racism, homophobia, hatred of foreigners/immigrants, war mongering (although Obama seems to be trying to outdo them in this regard), religious intolerance (for any religion other than extreme Jesus worship), really gets to me. I have nothing to go on except what I hear Republicans I know saying and their presidential candidates, etc. Democrats are a bunch of utopian socialists with an unrealistic view of what problems government is capable of solving, but in general they are decent people not likely to look at you funny or treat you differently because you're white and your adopted son is black, or you're a gay male who is walking hand in hand down the street with the love of your life, or you're a Muslim, or you don't speak English. Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc,........ You can't provide any proof so you go on to state your opinion as fact. Amazing how labeling those who don't agree with you as intolerant just highlights your intolerance. Maybe they look at you funny and treat you differently not because your white and your adopted son is black, but because your an "____", (keeping it family friendly), and you would still be one even if your adopted son was white. Easier to blame things on appearances than your own character. I admit that it is my opionion based on what I see and people I've talked with. I'm not sure I wrote anything that wasn't "family friendly", sort of adds to my observational data.

I have run into all of those things personally in various people I know. Although obviously not all republicans are racists and hate gays, or are super religious, it's just that of the large minority of Americans who fit this description most are republicans. But when it comes to the extreme flag-worshiping and war mongering, I'm not sure I've ever met a republican who doesn't fit that mold of extreme nationalistic pride, which I find almost equally appalling. I've been accused of "hating America" or "Blaming America first" more times than I can count when discussing the wars. That's from republicans, the democrats are of course completely silent about the slaughter because it is now their guy ordering it.

Seriously? Can you provide any substantive evidence of your claim? I can't provide any proof of that, but it certainly appears that way from the things they say and support. I tend to agree more with republicans than democrats when it comes to taxes and social programs, but the racism, homophobia, hatred of foreigners/immigrants, war mongering (although Obama seems to be trying to outdo them in this regard), religious intolerance (for any religion other than extreme Jesus worship), really gets to me. I have nothing to go on except what I hear Republicans I know saying and their presidential candidates, etc. Democrats are a bunch of utopian socialists with an unrealistic view of what problems government is capable of solving, but in general they are decent people not likely to look at you funny or treat you differently because you're white and your adopted son is black, or you're a gay male who is walking hand in hand down the street with the love of your life, or you're a Muslim, or you don't speak English. Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc,........

But no reporting or journalism ever is. There is always a million different ways to say the same thing. A million different ways to frame any event. A choice of which photos to display, etc. The way one chooses to do so is always colored by their prejudices even when they are making a conscience effort to be neutral. Every human being is biased in ways they don't even realize consciously. So this is a problem that is impossible to solve, yet the cable news networks have problems above and beyond this sub-conciseness bias. They are all consciously and intentionally biased in either the left or the right direction as a corporate policy. None of them even make an attempt to be neutral. And none of them have a libertarian/anti-government/pro-individual bias, either intentionally or otherwise.