> Her friend comes over and wants a copy and she gives it to them thinking nothing of it.

In our company, we call that "lead gen" and seek to encourage it. In the attention economy, trading marginal costs (literally zero, in your example) in exchange for a referral is good business. Many of those referrals won't become customers. But for the ones who do, the cost-to-acquire-customer is again literally zero. It helps to have good branding and more than one product. But this isn't rocket science.

Do you understand how insurance WORKS? You're supposed to make claims!

The insurers won't do prevention, even if it benefits them. Markets think in quarterly reports. Governments can take a longer view.

Why, I do declare, I do not understand how these charlatans wrongly associate SECESSION and RACE. As any son of the South knows, secession has always been an issue of states rights, with the Negro Question being a trivial, secondary concern...

Actually, no. Texas is going to be a swing state in a few cycles, because while some Texans are moving to the right, a lot of other folks are moving to the north, and they tend to vote Democratic. While Texas may be the craziest, it's not nearly as solid red as the current elected officials would suggest.

Seriously. I voted for the guy who said he's end the wars and raise taxes, because there's a deficit, yo. The guy who implemented the Heritage Foundation's plan for healthcare, which was based on the idea of individual responsibility paired with a fair and transparent dealing from the insurers. The guy who overthrew the Libyan government under force of arms with four American fatalities, and didn't do the same in Syria because he thought it was too risky. Oh, and he's on the right side on the inclusion of gays, women(!?), immigrants and host of other basic-human-freedom issues that used to be considered part of the conservative promise.

We need a conservative party in this country, and I'm not sure the GOP is going to be it. I think the best thing you could do as a conservative in this country is start electing Greens and then plan to be a Democrat for the next 50 years.

Not when you're in debt. It's a subtle but system-wide benefit for those folks.

Pics or it didn't happen. Hang on, someone's at my door...

Please refrain from predicting 2014 election outcomes for at least another week.

Over the past 100 years, the incumbent president has lost seats in the House every cycle but two. It's the fall-off from the coattails in the prior cycle. Anyone who expected otherwise wasn't all that serious.

The story of 2010 wasn't losing the house, it was losing the House to crazies. Dems got elected in '06 and '08, ejecting moderate Republicans. When the GOP took those seats back, it was with hard right candidates, almost exclusively (see XKCDs excellent chart on this).

As Nate Silver pointed out, many times, over the course of the campaign, predicting what will happen one day before the election is easy. Very easy. Most everyone gets that right.

Predicting what will happen in June is hard. And much more interesting.

They're so targeted to my interests, it actually adds value to the experience? It makes it easier and more intuitive to find the products I need? The costs would otherwise be passed on to the consumer?

Fuck you.

Actually, costs aren't passed on. Apple and most other large cap companies are highly profitable. The prices, in the markets which are competitive, are set by consumers, with profits being whatever is leftover. Taxes would eat away at those profits. Right now, public institutions are laying off teachers and firefighters into massively high unemployment while profits are currently at record highs. Yeah, some taxes seems like a pretty good trade.

Parent is currently modded +2 Troll. [slowclap]

Inefficiency while delivering value to the public is preferable to organizations which are highly efficient at screwing people. Apple v Samsung may have been executed with great efficiency, but I'd rather have a subway system.