What I said was that Apple's decision to charge crazy high premium prices for Macs in the late 80's made money for them hand over fist, but set them up to nearly go bankrupt in the 90's as Windows surged. Had Apple adopted the Microsoft licensing model, I think the Windows surge wouldn't have happened; it could have been a Mac OS surge instead.

Wrong. When Jobs came back and saved Apple, he didn't take your approach. In fact, he killed the Mac clone. And he cut Apple's endless confusing product line down to four. But Jobs did not cut margins - they are as high as ever. Since then, Apple stock has increased like 100-fold and it's now the biggest, baddest company on earth.

OBTW, Apple is poised to become the #1 PC maker next year.

"By only employing people selfish and/or stupid enough to want to work for the CIA."

I can assure you they do not hire stupid people.

First off, only about 1% of Americans have a net worth of $1M or more, not counting their homes.

Second, I've held Apple (and other stocks) for 20 years. I bought and $4 and $5. It's now a split-adjusted $15XX.

"Unless you derive enjoyment from the process of trading, you would be better off stuffing your money into an index fund and never touching them again" Nonsense. The Dow has been flat for 10 years. The stocks I've picked (like Apple, IBM) have not been, to say the least.

An index fund is like betting on every horse in a race, including the slowest ones. I'd rather just bet on the fast horses.

I didn't buy anything on margin. I bought and held stocks for the last 20 years. How do you know what I can afford?

Some people actually buy less house and car than they need, not more.

I'm an individual retail investor, and I've done quite well in the market, thanks. In fact, it's lifted my middle class family well into the "one percent" (net worth).

Of course, I remain unconvinced FB can sufficiently monetize all those users to make the IPO a good deal for the average innvestor. But the point of the OP was that the workers were somehow being stolen from when they are already holding FB stock and will be enriched come IPO day. Just makes no sense.

So, basically, Facebooks business plan is to take the investors money and go blow it away on toys? Yeah, that will be really great for the future value of their stock.

No, I believe that is the plan of FB employees who already have FB stock. You know, those poor workers the OP claimed were being stolen from?

The money will come from an IPO, not "stolen" from any workers (my understanding is that FB actually pays their workers and does not use slave labor). Investors - many if not most of them will likely be these poor little "workers" you speak of and their pension funds - will buy the stock on IPO day.

There are ways to make money apart from someone else handing you a paycheck.

Apple's a dinosaur? Do you have any idea what Apple's growth rate is? It's like 100%. They make more in a quarter than Google does all year.

And perhaps you haven't heard of iCloud.

Wish I had a nickel for everyone who wrote off Apple the last 20 years. Fortunately, I've had something better: AAPL stock.

I've seen every episode and film of the Star Trek universe. But Roddenberry never told us how they eliminated crime and poverty, or apparently how they changed human nature which is prone to crime and greed, since they also banned genetic manipulation.

And then there's the banning money part I never understood. Really, a world without currency? How did Starfleet officers pay for things on other worlds, as they often did in the TV shows? They always seemed to have money when they needed it. Like in the last season of DS9 when Sisko buys Cassidy an engagement ring from Quark.

For the record, Roddenberry used to live in Bel Air and drive a Rolls Royce, about 10-15 miles from some really poor people, at least my US standards.

Mass becomes infinite as it approaches the speed of light, if I remember my physics correctly.

Nixon lived most of his adult life feeling insecure about the rich, Hah-vahd educated Kennedy and his fellow ivy league establishment types in DC and the media. It's why Nixon despised the State Department, full of Ivy League grads. Nixon spent his college days at Whittier College studying in a janitor's closet, working his way through school, while Kennedy had it all laid out for him.

I purposely left JFK off the list. The Kennedys were the closest thing to a hereditary royal family we had in the US. We finally have a congress without one of them, for the first time since like 1954.

Did you mean Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton?

Why on earth would you want a one-world government? The more you remove power from the people, the less popular sovereignty they have, the less representative the government becomes. Bureaucrats in Washington are bad enough at ignoring the people. You want international Bureaucrats running the world? Why?

This is the real world, not Star Trek. Newsflash: People in the world disagree with each other, and frankly, I'd be scared of a Star Trek-like world where everyone on earth agreed on things. I'm almost certain I'd disagree with them.

I always thought the sounds the Pfhor made as they came after you in Marathon were scary. Something eerie about that game when it first came out. I'll have to play it some again over 15 years later and see if it still holds up.

The good old days when I had a Mac, the one cool Mac-only game. I networked it and played with friends for hours before there was a name for LAN parties. Good times, good memories.