The message, if the USA Legal System manages to delivery it, will be : "We will catch you, no matter how much time it takes."

We will catch you and then do what?

Even if IBM gets amount they are seeking, $1.3B is only 0.60% of MSFT's market cap today. Microsoft's business has been climbing the exponential-like part of the logistic curve for 17 years since this happened; their market cap grew from $23.06B on 1 Jan 1994 to $216.78B now. Dollar figures that were meaningful then are just not meaningful now. By pushing the damages out 18 years, Microsoft got a giant interest-free loan from the government which they were able to invest into their illegal, profitable, and fast-growing business.

We need to be able to deter corporate actions contrary to the common interest (ones which are anticompetitive, risky to the economy at large, environmentally damaging, harmful to consumers, or exploitative of employees). If not through our legal system, then how will we accomplish this? If through our legal system, it needs to be quick or at the very least have damages structured in a way to have much more teeth years later. In particular, if the damages were structured as "$XB or $XB*(market cap when paid)/(market cap when alleged violation took place), whichever is greater", the second half of the 'or' would kick in and make the damages nearly 10X greater. That would be 5.6% of MSFT's market capitalization (or $12.2B). I'm not sure that'd be enough to act as a real deterrent, but it'd be much closer anyway.

It was definitely the 'build team' who did this.

Hmm. My first impression is they did the right thing but had an unforeseeable freak accident, but on the other hand maybe it was another "What's on the other side of that berm?" moment. IMHO one should know what's on the other side of a berm before sending a car its way at 70 mph (even if there was supposed to be a braking system). There was a "don't try this at home; we're professionals"-style line later in that episode, and it was hard to take them seriously. It seemed to be a low moment in Mythbusters safety planning / professionalism...

"Got milk" is just shortened from "Honey, did you remember to pick up some milk"...

The innovation is being able to say "yes" (because your phone reminded you just as you approached the dairy section) instead of having to drive back to the store. Location/time of the reminder matter a lot. Obvious, maybe (I haven't read the patents; there might be details not mentioned in the summary), but also useful and not currently implemented in a mass-market product.

(Full disclosure: I work for one of these companies but not on this.)

That's a silly argument. Let's assume you're right: Bob has made his fortune, no longer cares about profit, and won't move back. Well, if the head of the company no longer cares, that's a short-term problem that will be resolved by the market. So let's look first at Carol, who still produces things in the US (there are some of these left) and is considering moving to China today. She sees we're about to create a tariff on goods manufactured in China (or even are just thinking about doing so) and hesistates. The tariff has been successful. Now let's look at David, who has just bought a company from Bob, which was foundering because Bob was off at the North Pole instead of keeping prices competitive, introducing new products, updating marketing/advertising efforts for changes in media, etc. David says that it's better to move manufacturing back because of the tariff.

Having no pressure to keep jobs in the US (a country with strong labor and environmental laws) essentially means that we're gutting its economy in favor of sending jobs to places where companies can do whatever the hell they want. Not only is that bad for the US, one could argue it's bad for the world. (Obviously China's economy is improving as a result, but they and other countries are paying an environmental cost for that.) I'm not decided on the issue, but I could see the merits of a tariff imposes on goods manufactured in any country that hasn't signed some key environmental and labor regulation (and perhaps passes audits by the UN or some other relatively neutral party) that starts at near-zero and increases to something huge over a period of 20 years. At the end, either there really is a relatively level playing field in terms of laws or there's an artificial incentive that keeps manufacturing in a better place. And the gradual increase hopefully avoids any major impact on the economy from a major price change.

Mr. Pincus' employees need to start wearing voice recorders to meetings.

Bad advice. That's illegal in California without the consent of all parties. I know of a guy who got fired (ostensibly) for that reason. (It was really because he was a jerk who didn't do any work, but the HR people were too risk-adverse to fire him until this convenient excuse came along.) I think Mr. Pincus's employees should carefully avoid giving him "cause" to fire them right now.

You know, returning an insult such as, "So what you're saying is, you don't trust educational systems at technical universities like MIT or RPI, or certification boards like CompTIA capable of weeding out good minds from poor ones."

"Trust but verify." Someone who is really good can answer my dead-simple question in a couple minutes, leaving plenty of time to go on to something more interesting. But unable or unwilling, the result is the same: "don't hire".

Keep in mind that interviewers aren't just trying to establish if someone is smart; they're also trying to establish "culture fit". Successful candidates have to work as part of a team of smart people, some more junior, some more senior. They have to be prepared to learn and to teach. They have to contribute to a pleasant environment where people want to stay. They have to accept that they're not going to be calling all the shots; in fact that for every patch they write they'll have to get a code reviewer to sign off on their change. They have to be that code reviewer many times as well. They have to give and receive yearly peer performance reviews in which strengths and weaknesses are communicated in a respectful way. They have to interview candidates themselves. None of this is a major focus of my interviews, but occasionally people make it obvious to me that they can't do it, and those people never get hired. If I were you, I'd gently suggest to your friends that they adjust their attitudes before they get rejected from many positions for this reason.

Like some of my PhD friends have told me, putting a technical quiz in front of well educated and experienced job candidate is a great way to insult them, and is deserving of a good punch in the face.

I don't ask the multiple-choice, one-right-answer, no-need-to-show-work questions you seem to be referring to, but you've reinforced my belief that it's good to start with dead-simple technical problems.

* I already do so because I've met enough supposedly well-educated and experienced job candidates who have completely failed simple technical problems that I know it's absolutely necessary to start from scratch in an interview, no matter how impressive their resume may be. (And I mean failed. Getting some syntax wrong or even initially writing buggy code is not a deal-breaker, but being unable to debug their own buggy code when I simulate the execution environment for them surely is.) And candidates who don't know these idiots are floating around are either inexperienced (forgivable...if this fact matches their resume and expected seniority at my company) or don't realize they are the idiots (don't hire).

* You've reminded me of another reason: I don't want to work with people who are easily insulted and potentially violent. Apparently these questions sometimes reveal such people. Good interview question then. I wouldn't hire your friends.

I think it's crazy that only 50% of the country pays federal income taxes, but I don't think making them pay them without otherwise changing their situation is the right answer.

$12k is about what our household spends on sales taxable expenses per year. I have a family of four. Granted, I excluded "big ticket" items such as cars because they, if purchased at all, are almost always purchased used and around every 5 years or so at the low end of the economic ladder... If it pleases you, add an extra $1000-$2000 per year for big ticket items.

Hmm, interesting. I guess sales taxable doesn't include rent - I was thinking that it was just part of the check I write, but I was wrong - looks like there's no sales tax on rent in California. Okay, point taken.

The point I think you are missing is that it doesn't matter HOW much other taxes they pay if none of it contributes to the Fed.

I heard you, but I just don't think this matters so much. We all pay taxes, we all understand that programs are paid for with taxes, most people hope to some day be more prosperous than they are today and know that means they're likely to pay higher taxes (including federal ones), etc...

I think it's crazy that only 50% of the country pays taxes, but I don't think making them pay taxes without otherwise changing their situation is the right answer.

Explain to me how it is moral for the government to do what would be immoral for you individually to do. If we have a government of delegated powers, then how can you delegate a power you yourself do not have?

Every government in history has used the threat of jail and violence to do things which advance the common good in violation of individual's wishes. Police, military, IRS, etc. It sounds like you're unsure about that basic principle. And specifically with regard to progressive taxation:

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion

That's a quote from Adam Smith, often called the father of modern capitalism. If you don't accept that argument, you're so far ideologically from myself or voters in our democracy that your best move is probably to move to this floating city and talk with its other inhabitant about Atlas Shrugged all day.

"Investing in the poor" has been the rallying cry for ever expanding government and ever expanding pubic debt for the last 100 years. How has that worked out for us? Have the poor been raised up? Surely after 100 years of social programs, welfare, public education the poor are now well off, right? Oh, they aren't? More people are on public assistance than every before and there are no signs of that changing?

You started with a pretty reasonable question, but I think you're oversimplifying the answer...

I'm saddened by the fact that society has somehow gotten to the point where the "logic" of "he has more so we can steal it from him!" some how is both morally and ethically justifiable.

Taxes have never been voluntary, and the wealthy person benefits from the stability that comes from not having a huge number of desperate, homeless, starving people. I don't think anything has qualitatively changed in your lifetime; it's just the numbers.

Hell, why stop at 50%? By your so called logic we surely can justify taking 95% of what they earn. They can afford it, right?

Funny you should say that. In the history of the federal income tax, the top marginal income tax bracket peaked at 86.45%, according to this history of top rates in wikipedia. It was over 70% from 1936 to 1971. I don't know the full brackets to say exactly what rate someone who makes more than that would pay on his/her overall income, but I expect people who make twice that ended up paying more than 50%, and society didn't fail. One could argue that this created the most prosperous time in our nation's history.

I'm not advocating rates this high. I'm just saying that it's worth investing in the poor for many reasons. fwiw, if I were to single-handedly set the federal income tax code, I might do something vey simple: your rate would be log(income/(people * per-person poverty level)) / log(c), capped at 0% on one side and m% on the other, with c and m chosen every year based on inflation-adjusted amounts of a 20-year exponentially weighted moving average of what it would take for 1% of people to hit the cap and the government to have no deficit or surplus. And I'd have sufficient social services for the poor to become not so poor if they're willing to work. Call it communism if you want, but there'd still be rich people, and it's not fundamentally different from how we've done things for generations.

Their $600/year sales tax burden does NOTHING to reduce our 14 trillion dollar deficit. And if they pay nothing, they have no problems asking for "more" stuff.

Sales taxes range from 5%-10%, right? You're suggesting that a family of four spends only $6,000-$12,000 / year? Even considering that sales taxes in many states exclude some necessities like unprepared foods, that sounds way too low to me. If they're really able to have a comfortable existence saving 60+% of their income (that includes a generous allowance for other state/local taxes), I'd agree with you, they should be able to cough up some federal income tax. But I don't think you're using realistic figures. The poverty level for this family is $22,500/year; I think you should expect they spend at least that much on taxable items and therefore pay at least $1,125-$2,250/year in sales tax alone. They probably also pay at least 10% of their income in state income tax, so add on another $5,000/year. Their total tax rate is at least 12.25% - 15%. Admittedly, this family could likely afford another 1% in federal income tax without problems, but of course you've picked the most outrageous example (beyond the income EIC covers...this is a different set of deductions); there are others who could not.

I had a lesion on my larynx. LA County picked up the tab.

I'm sorry to hear that, and about your father's passing. It's very good that LA County was able to pick up the tab, though. I wonder if after this round of budget cuts they would still be able to help out people like you. I don't know anything about lesions on the larynx...if you had gone untreated, would you have been able to work? would it have been life-threatening? To me it sounds like there are many ways in which you came very close to not making it as far as you have, and I wouldn't want to make it any harder.

In my own life, I had pneumonia once and anaphylaxis once. They were relatively minor inconveniences for me (a couple weeks sick and 5-10 pounds lost in the first case; just a really itchy rash in the second), but I also had good medical care and medication. If I hadn't, they would have been much more serious, maybe even fatal. I also used to get a lot of sinus infections, treated with antibiotics, and eventually had sinus surgery. I got allergy shots for five years. And if I'd been homeless, I probably also would have been likely to have more illnesses... I doubt I could have gotten where I am today.

What's silly is someone with a degree in 16th century literature and a $100,000-$200,000 debt is upset that they cant find a job that will help pay their student loans... Sounds to me that they would have been better off picking a different major/career path. A little "expected income" research when planning a major would have helped.

Yeah, my fiancée made the mistake of not thinking about how she got a job when she picked her major. (She eventually went to graduate school and got a degree that let her get a real job.) I'd thought of it as more of a middle-class mistake, though...do you know how often student loans don't get paid back for this reason? It wouldn't be too crazy for government-paid student loans to be only issued for majors that can be reasonably expected to return their investment...

In recent years, credits for low- and middle-income families have grown so much that a family of four making as much as $50,000 will owe no federal income tax for 2009, as long as there are two children younger than 17, according to a separate analysis by the consulting firm Deloitte Tax.

I can live with that. If you're thinking they're not paying taxes, you're wrong. They're just not paying federal income tax. This family of four making up to $50,000 will spend a far greater proportion of their income than I do and therefore also pay a far greater proportion of sales tax. There's also property tax, taxes paid by their employer(s), etc.