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Comment Re:Time to show some balls (Score 0) 183

You cannot just finger point something and say it's communism and thus evil, just because it was financed by the government, it's not that simple. I am not saying that bank bailouts were good or bad. I'm just trying to make the point that ideology alone is not sufficient to make political decisions.

Would you say that Interstate Highways are communist? Maybe they are, but they are essential to the competitiveness of the US economy. Some people have never been on a highway in their entire life, but their taxes were still used to build these highways.

Similarly, banks are very important to the US economy. Not because of their direct contribution to the GDP, but because they provide an essential service to the economy. Had the banking system collapsed in 2008, it would have had very significant consequences. A few examples: how do you cash your paycheck when your bank is shut down? How do you pay for your groceries when the bank that emitted your credit card is shut down? How does your company get paid for the goods and services it provides, when its bank is shut down? How will you retire when your lifetime savings disappear when your bank goes bankrupt?

Again, I'm not saying that bailing out banks was good or bad. I'm saying that it wasn't an easy decision to take, and that it was done for a reason. Saying it's communism does not help much in the debate.

Comment Re:Advice (Score 5, Informative) 88

Actually, it has been a long time since banking secrecy in Switzerland does not hold when crime is involved. When any Swiss bank suspects funds originate from criminal activities (e.g. drug or weapon trafficking, etc), it has the legal obligation to report it to Swiss financial market authority. From there, an investigation will be open. More information here.

However, tax evasion is not considered as a crime in Switzerland. This means that until recently, Swiss banks or the government would not disclose any information to foreign governments when only tax evasion was suspected. In the past few years though, international pressure on the Swiss government obliged it to ease the banking secrecy to the point where there is no secrecy anymore, except for permanent Swiss residents.
Bitcoin

Submission + - After 10 months, Largest Bitcoin Ponzi collapses with a loss of 5.6 Million USD (dailytech.com)

beltsbear writes: Despite the many people calling it out as a Ponzi scam from the beginning, Pirateat40 was able to collect millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin from thousands of Bitcoin users. At almost every stage Pirateat40 copied the path of the EVE online Ponzi except on a much larger scale with a far more liquid take.

Comment Re:Not only UK, also many other European countries (Score 4, Informative) 62

You can overlay the cycling information for maps, but it doesn't seem to do the route planning for cycling; the only options there remain "per car" and "on foot". So for the time being, for actual cycling route planning in Germany, Komoot seems to remain the only good option for now.

In Switzerland, cycling directions are available (in addition to car, foot and public transport).

Comment Re:Thank you Elop (Score 1) 144

I haven't tried WP7 so I cannot speak for it, but I don't share your view on Android, especially on ICS. Android is now far from the early days when it was more for geeks (which I am) than average users. I just exchanged my faulty HTC Desire (Froyo) for a Galaxy Nexus (the SIII was too expensive in my opinion), and I was amazed by how smooth and polished it is. Very simple setup for both my private GMail (including Calendar, Contacts and Drive) account and my company Exchange account. Several missing features in were finally added (e.g. better contact search and sort capabilities) and the overall experience is really good. No need to tweak obscure settings or install half a dozen apps to palliate for missing features. I'm just a bit disappointed by the battery life (about one day for an moderate-intensive usage pattern).

Comment Re:And it took this long to "make the connection"? (Score 1) 248

Wrong. Gamma rays are also electromagnetic waves, but with a higher frequency than X rays. It is true, however, that alpha and beta rays are made of electrons/protons, which is different.

From what we know today, the only thing that matters for cancer risk is whether the radiation is ionizing or not. If it is (X rays, gamma rays, alpha and beta particles, ultraviolet rays), it CAN cause cancer. If it isn't (microwave, visible light, infrared, everything below), it CANNOT cause cancer (as far as we know). This is why it is unlikely that mobile phones can cause cancer (they use microwaves).

Comment Re:mod parent up (Score 1) 694

But is distribution of wealth important? Isn't standard of living more important? Could our imbalance have different causes than Uganda? You point to a CEO salary being 400 times larger than the workers - but now they run huge global companies. Take McDonalds. They operate in almost every country in the world. Compared to a chain that only operates domestically, they are going to have a lot more revenue. Why shouldn't the CEO be paid accordingly?

Their huge remunerations could be tolerable if they bear the responsibility of their actions, including the bad ones. Currently, they will be paid huge bonuses when quarterly profits are high. When these same profits are low or the company makes a loss, the CEO will leave with a huge golden parachute.

High remuneration of CEOs may be ok when there is a high risk, but today, where is the risk?

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