Please don't take this personally, but OMG PLEASE STAHP. I hear this repeated all the time, and it frustrates me endlessly. Maybe this is the rule of thumb for speaking to mutants, farm animals or teenagers. But if you have an at least moderately intelligent audience whose attendance is not compulsory (e.g. a modern workplace), telling me the same thing three times will make me stop paying attention to you. Training people that you need to repeat themselves three times in a presentation is part of why many presentations are so boring and why we all ignore them which is why you have to repeat yourself three times and NOMAD ERROR. ERROR. ERROR. EXAMINE.

I do plenty of useful presentations all the time, using the crazy technique of just telling people what I want to communicate to them, one time. (Reiterating important points within a slide if necessary.) If they were multitasking, napping or ignoring the rest of my presentation because they expected to hear it three times, that's their problem. And I don't feel bad.

True as far as it goes, but I would argue that very, very few people are actually taught how to give presentations. Think about it - someone may have taught you how to use PowerPoint, but did anyone teach you to present? I am sure we have all gotten "coaching" at one point or another from some jackass reviewing our slides pre-presentation telling us that "you need more pictures" or "spell out the acronyms on slide six" but I doubt if more than a handful have actually received decent instruction on how to organize one's thoughts and communicate effectively to an audience. Not just that - for example, I have a few stupid, inoffensive canned jokes that I tell at the beginning of each presentation for a new audience at work. It's cheesy and groan-worthy, but it establishes an air of informality and receptiveness that makes the audience far more willing to listen. Does anyone get taught that kind of stuff anymore?

Plus, no amount of good or bad PowerPoint usage will make up for someone just being a bad communicator (especially in front of audiences). You can use PowerPoint as a crutch, but the greatest software in the world can't save your presentation from sucking if you have issues ranging from "stage fright" or "fear of public speaking" all the way to "just being an idiot who can't think linearly from A to B." I'd venture a completely unsupportable opinion that at least 2/3 of all humans in a modern white-collar workplace are either subpar thinkers or subpar communicators, so we can expect at least that percentage of presentations to suck.

Oh yes indeed - it all depends on what type of company it is. I am oversimplifying here, but there are (at least in the US four (and a half) types of companies based on ownership structure:

• Sole proprietorship : There is a dude named Bob Smith (BS) who owns Bob Smith Plumbing (BSP). BS and BSP are separate entities for tax purposes, but BS can do whatever the f**k he wants to with BSP - sell it, keep it, use its finances to expense hookers. The downside to Bob is that if BSP goes bankrupt, there is no barrier for creditors not to go after Bob personally.
• Partnership or Limited Liability Partnership: There is a group of people who own Bob Smith Plumbing, which may include Bob Smith, a rich uncle who gave him the money to finance his startup costs, whatever. The partners who own shares in it control 100% of what the company does, and nobody can force them to do anything they don't want to. But if things go tits-up the partners who aren't involved in day-to-day operation of the business (e.g. Bob's uncle) may be shielded from some bankruptcy or lawsuit claims while those who ran the business daily (e.g. Bob) are not.
• Corporation (private) : Here it gets interesting. Bob Smith Plumbing, Inc. is now legally separate from Bob or any of the owners - i.e., if BSP Inc. goes bankrupt, creditors can't come after Bob or the other owners. (In return for this legal separate personhood of the company, BSP Inc. must have independent board members, file quarterly reports and go through other legal oversight to prove that Bob isn't treating the corporation like a personal asset; if the books show that, creditors can "pierce the corporate veil" and hold Bob or the other shareholders personally liable.) Still, the owners are the owners and nobody can make them sell, not sell, or do anything else they don't want to. However, a large private corporation usually has a LOT of owners - founders, Venture Capitalists, etc. - and they all get to make big decisions based on the % of shares they own. If you get a buyout offer from $MEGACORP and the founders and employees (who own 49% of the shares) don't want to but the VCs (who own 51% of the shares) do, then you get bought out.
• Corporation (public): Same as above, but you are no longer owned just by founders, employees, VCs, etc.; you have started selling your shares to anyone who wants to buy (ranging from jackasses like you or me with E*Trade accounts to hedge funds and institutional investors). Going public is a goal for most companies because it converts your shares of the company into actual, you know, money (think turning potential energy into kinetic energy). But going public means that (as above) not only does your company have to follow the will of the Board (as elected by shareholders based on their % of shares held) but you also are subject to lawsuits from those shareholders (or criminal prosecution by the FTC) if you run the company in a way (e.g. turn down a lucrative buyout offer) that is deliberately against the monetary interest of shareholders. On a side note, public corporations can create ways to avoid hostile takeovers like Poison Pill plans, too... but if more than 50% of shareholders don't like your way of running the company, you are out.

I say "four and a half" (despite there being other business entity forms) because the last "half" is a company that's in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Long story short, once you file, the previous owners of the company don't own s**t. The US government - in the form of a bankruptcy judge - now gets to decide what to do with the company, whether that means shutting it down, selling parts of it off at auction, or allowing the previous owners/managers to demonstrate that they have a plan to get the company back on its feet. Regardless, in bankruptcy nobody but the judge gets to decide what will happen to the company.

Not really surprising. My guess is the microwave towers (expensive, subject to failures from windstorms blowing radio heads out of alignment or crazy tinfoil hat people who think all RF emissions are evil, etc.) have been replaced by buried fiber optic backhaul, as fiber has become more widely available. I don't think there's any net reduction in bandwidth there.

You are absolutely correct. I think the thing that people who dislike "fiat currency" or advocate a return to the Gold Standard tend to forget is the single core principle that, since Adam Smith's days and before, has always defined market-based economies: "A thing is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it."

And the same holds true for gold, silver, salt or Beanie Babies: whatever you think it's worth means nothing if you can't find someone to sell it to for that price. "Inherent value" of a commodity is a lie in the sense that it is never truly fixed and an unalterably safe store of value. Today, most people in the developed world think that a small piece of paper with a dead white American politician on it is worth something, and they agree on what that value is. You could say to them, "but I have gold!" but to most people that is actually worth nothing to them except for what they could turn around and convert it back into currency for. The only thing that has inherent worth is whatever you are trying to buy or sell from someone thinks has inherent worth.

It entirely depends on the band, their contract, and how much they sell. The Beatles made massive piles of money even though they stopped touring halfway through their career, and the Pink Floyd "The Wall" album saved the band's members from bankruptcy while the following tour lost them all money. You can read about the structure of traditional music industry royalties here.

The short version is that on a CD sale, artists might make a 10% royalty after packaging, breakage, marketing and costs of production (advance) are subtracted. The above linked article shows how quickly that 10% shrinks, as well. Digital play royalties - unless the band is savvy and has negotiated better rates - are about half of the CD rate.

However, if you wrote the song that was performed, you will see an additional cut. And the band also gets royalties each time the song is played on the radio, or used on TV or in the movies (the writer gets an even bigger cut). So ultimately, there is still a lot of money to be made in recorded music, not just concerts and merchandise... but your music has to be popular enough to appear on the radio or other media for you to cash in. For indie bands, concerts and merchandise will be the big moneymakers of course, but they never sold much recorded music anyway.

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Broadband in Seattle is in line with the rest of the country, thank you. And where is it in the city of Seattle that you can't get "faster than dial-up access" speeds?

You mention "CondoInternet" as though it is the only option for "fast" - as if 1 Gbps+ is the only definition of "fast." Not only are there two other providers (according to the FCC report above) offering 1 Gbps+ Internet in Seattle, there are several others offering reasonable Internet speeds: in Woodinville (25 miles outside Seattle and close to the boondocks) where I live, Comcast (cursed be their name) offers 100 Mbps at reasonable prices.

So long story short, "young men" (why young men?) are not leaving Seattle because they can't get "faster than dial-up access" Internet. Either you are making this up completely, or you were somehow trying to find a way to mention "CondoInternet," which I will now try to find a way to avoid.

Unfortunately, the period you're referring to was an inherently unsustainable one caused by the fact that the US emerged as a victor from a World War, and coincidentally the only one of the major powers in that war whose population and infrastructure were not seriously ravaged by it. Even among the victors - Britain, China, France, let's not even mention the Soviets - all paid a heavy price on their home territory. The losers received economic support from the magnanimous Western powers, but that was cold comfort to a populace largely bombed into ruins.

So the US got to live in a bubble for a decade or two where the rest of the world didn't have the technology or the infrastructure to compete with us in any meaningful economic area. (They either were rebuilding it, never had it in the first place, or were too busy tearing themselves apart in postcolonial revolutions.) As a result, we had near-autarky in an industrial economy buoyed by barely sustainable Cold War military and aerospace spending. Times were good.

But you do get that it was never going to stay that way, right? Eventually the US was going to have to compete with the rest of the world for things. And lo and behold, they could make transistors cheaper in Japan, then they could make automobiles cheaper (and noticeably better!) there, too. Textiles disappeared to Southeast Asia, and steel and other raw materials manufactures moved to Asia as well. By the time the '90s and NAFTA rolled around, it was pretty clear that American consumers would much rather pay a quarter for a can of Coke made in Mexico than 50 cents of one bottled in Virginia. Unless it shut itself off from the world completely - thereby hosing its own exports market - the US could not sustain living wages in low skill jobs forever. The modern equivalent of $55/hour for high school graduates in Detroit who welded three car doors together an hour between smoke breaks was never, ever going to last.

Technically true but not in practice. The President does propose a budget to Congress each year, which the House and Senate are free to embroider upon as they wish. Others have mentioned the fact that the President can veto the budget approved by Congress until they have the 2/3 majority for an override.

But most importantly, the President can commit the US to unwarranted, falsely justified conflicts overseas that eat up $2 trillion in budget over 10 years and duly expect a rubber stamping from Congress. (Because who is going to vote to not pay for the US soldiers you have already committed there to buy the bullets they now require?) So, yeah, in practice they can have a lot of impact, usually for the worse when neocons get involved in any way.

That's a brave thing for a wealthy person like yourself to say and I commend it. Wait, what? You aren't actually wealthy, and instead you just think that somebody who is "not you" should pay for it? Oh, that seems a little more convenient.

While marginal tax rates in the US are not nearly as high as those in many parts of Europe, our income tax system is progressive (i.e. rich pay more) and the lower tax burden is disporportionately structured to benefit the less wealthy. According to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, "taxpayers with income over $100,000 a year earn 60 percent of the nation's income and pay 95.2 percent of the income taxes in the United States." Additionally, according to that same source, "Those making over $200,000 comprise just over 5 percent of the nation's taxpayers, earn 32.3 percent of the income, but pay 46.7 percent of total federal taxes and 70 percent of federal income taxes." European systems are actually more "fair" in the sense that larger portions of their incomes are collected in regressive taxes (i.e. everyone pays the same so poor feel it more) like the VAT.

Let's be grown-ups and admit that where we stand depends on where we sit. You probably are not "wealthy," whatever that means to you, and taxing those smug bastards sure sounds good to you, right? Conversely, I am not a "one percenter" (at least not in my state or region), but am part of a family with two working spouses with tech management jobs, and my family's Federal tax bill this year before adjustments and deductions closely approached six figures, or just slightly less than double the median income of the United States.

To someone who is certainly comfortable but by no means rolling in it - child care is ludicrously expensive, and we save as much as is feasible for retirement, taking a lot off our topline income - "oh let's just throw more taxes on people with money" does not sound nearly as good to me as it apparently does to you.

Radio isn't "free." The radio stations had to pay the record labels, songwriters and artists for the music they played. In turn, they charged businesses money for - horrors - "unskippable" ads that you had to listen to. Or in the case of public radio stations, asking you for money directly to keep them on the air.

There is no free lunch.

Or perhaps he understood more than you, and those spending spikes reflect idiot speculators trying to unload bitcoins before they fall too far? Kind of like the spike in unloading any speculated currency or commodity when it starts to crash?

Also - honest question - you keep referring to "disinflationary." That's not a term I have heard before, can you explain where this term came from and how it differs from deflation?