Probably about the same as murder rate drops in death-penalty states. Which is to say, not much.

And if they award points for cooperation?

This is taking KPI (Key Performance Indicator) to a personalized level and giving them scores. Of course, as with current KPIs you get what you measure, and they rarely measure what senior management thinks they do.

The most effective way to stop getting customer complaints is to stop answering the phone.

I wrote a paper about God and time from the perspective of St. Augustine during my seminary time. You can read it if you need help falling asleep some time:

The Importance of Time in Augustinian and Contemporary Theological Thought

I managed to work Stephen Hawking and St. Augustine into the same paper. I don't think my professor had ever read Stephen Hawking before. :-)

Right. Save a couple billion on expanded water treatment facilities but you need a little extra per litre to cover the pipe maintenance.

It's not a net loss.

Next time your boss pulls out his list of Key Performance Indicators remember that they will get what they measure; game the system for your review.

Perhaps it'll help with conditional aggregates which are painfully slow in Libreoffice with only a few thousand records.

For example, sum the $D column when the $E column matches year '2013'. Basically anything involving squiggly brackets around a SUM equation:

{=SUM(($E$1:$E$65518=$A6) * ($D$1:$D$65518))}

I see you've met the US Customs agent I had the other day.

It may have been Samsungs idea in the first place.

Large companies like to poo-poo regulation, fees, etc. but they also realize it increases the barrier to entry which greatly benefits them.

Samsung has healthy profit margins and can cover the cost. Other manufacturers Samsung competes against will struggle just a bit more as a result. Some new guy on the block is really going to struggle if it's up-front per device manufactured and not done on a per-sale basis.

A $20k/year electricity bill is rather abnormal and would not qualify for this kind of thing.

If China builds a moon base with the primary purpose of mining rare-earth metals; it will be defended.

I'd treat it the same as any other currency transaction. It's fairly well defined how to handle gains while playing Forex.

A Russian can import goods from China into the United States. They pay duties and other fees at the border of the United States as the goods enter the country; even if they intend to pay Americans to take the product.

The internet needs some kind of enforced border to ensure duties and other fees are paid on content as they arrive. The ads, in this case, would require payment in order to be presented to an Italian client. The "good" is being consumed by an Italian and taxes/fees should be paid when it crosses the border or by the local company regardless of where the purchaser or the manufacturer are located.

In my experience, one never stops creating bugs, they just get more subtle and harder to find. Nothing personal against you of course, but the statement above calls to mind the study that demonstrated how the less a person knew about a particular topic, the higher his level of confidence about his competence in that topic.

They'll notice the same way they find out about other hidden income. Bank activity and assets in your possession.