Comment kph? (Score 4, Informative) 419
It is nice to pick international system units, however it would be better to do it right. This should be km/h, not kph.
If uber can come in at lower cost without subsidy, then the question, I think, is what is public transportation doing wrong?
They grab the profitable lines, leaving the unprofitable to public transport. This means public transport deficit increase and must be funded. Since the gap was created by Uber's benefit, it makes sense to tax them to fund unprofitable lines.
Alternatively, Uber could be mandated to operate both profitable and unprofitable lines, but since the sum is not profitable...
The goal of public transit is not to make money. Money paid from passengers may not pay the trip, and taxpayers money may be used to fill the gap.
If Uber widens the gap, when why not tax it? Uber benefits are just taken from taxpayer money use to finance public transit, after all.
Indeed, farmers don't have debt right now, but that can change.
If some company wants to sell them proprietary seeds that cost ten time the cost of the regular ones, then there is obviously a plan to extract money. Since farmers have no money, one can loan them some to buy seeds and pay the debt over the production enabled by the wonderful proprietary seeds. At least if market price help.
Of course you could argue that there is a huge chance of failure, but this is not a problem for finance genius. There are many financial product that will let them make money whatever happens.
Isn't x86/x64 notorious for wasting a crap ton of silicon for stupid functionality no one wants or needs?
Indeed, the cost of backward x86 compatibility is huge, and it is not easy to say what it can be used for on a tablet or smart phone.
It's why deflation is not a good thing (it slows down the economy because people save), slight inflation is desirable (under 2% or so), and massive inflation is horrible (because it results in people not being able to spend their money, slowing down the economy).
I agree but the "inflation below 2%" rule is not always appropriate. France knew a huge economic growth with 10-15% inflation rate until the beginning of the eighties, and today it is unable to perform with 3-5% (European treaties mandates 3%, and now 0.5%, something France will never achieve without destroying itself)
The government of the USA is the largest spending thing. Ever.
During a crisis, everyone lower expenses, and the economy enter a vicious slow down cycle. The government is the only actor able to act counter-cyclically. By maintaining expenses, it can restart activity. Hence it is not surprising we see a peak of government expenses these years. Remove it and things will get really ugly. See Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and now even Germany and France.
"Little else matters than to write good code." -- Karl Lehenbauer
