You'd think so, but it's a long, slow buildout to get that return, so growth! would be slow. Companies don't much care about stable profits, since that just means a stock price that stays flat, no it has to be about growth! Without growth! how does a CEO prove he's the guy to make your stock price go up?

It's the most infuriating thing about modern America, really - everyone's chasing capital gains, and dividends are often seen as a bad thing. For a long time there was a good tax reason for that - that's largely fixed now - but the culture is stuck on growth! regardless.

Titanic and Avatar had better visuals than Serenity, to be sure, and Titanic had some good performances. I thought Avatar was a bucket of problems and flaws with some pretty colors, but really there's few of it's many, mnay flaws that I'm blame on a director. Bad story, bad characters, bad writing is every possible way, sure, but good direction, and the acting wasn't bad relative to the script (there's little an actor, even with great direction, can do to rescue a horribly trite and shallow character, but no one seemed to be phoning it in.)

I wouldn't want Cameron to make a Star Wars movie, because he wouldn't just direct, he'd control other things. I wouldn't want Whedon either - just the wrong tone. Just like Abrams entirely missed the tone of Trek.

It's really obvious from the directors commentary to the Start Trek reboot that most of the flaws in that film come directly from him trying to make a Star Wars film in the wrong franchise! I look forward to his Star Wars movie, lens flares and all, because he'll at least get the tone right.

Weekly World News had "facts" and photographs too! Some sources are so far from credibility that they actually hurt the credibility of your argument. Zerohedge is one of them.

If it's true, you can find an article about it somewhere credible. If you can't find an article somewhere credible, if it's only on zerohedge, then it's not true.

You do realize that a zerohedge link is about as credible as a timecube link, and less entertaining, right? The timecube guy likely gives better investment advice, as well.

Again, the usual cases are either there is overlap between large shareholders and company officers (almost always founders), which can get a bit dirty but is mostly just a numbers game, or there's a bidding war for the guy perceived as the best for the job (how much difference in skill there really is between these guys is an unrelated matter).

Isn't that what I was suggesting. A fine of say $3 billion structured over 10 years wouldn't put them out of business, but it would be an ongoing 30% hit to earnings. Even if you think they were going to double or triple before, that will significantly hamper growth just coping with the need to come up with the outgoing cashflow. You'd likely see a longterm 20-30% hit to the stock price. Pension and mutual funds don't just shrug that sort of thing off -- their analysts and decision makers have to look smart quarter-by-quarter -- and will do something about gross executive incompetence of that sort.

I've worked at 2 different companies where the CEO was fired, along with most of the top execs. In one case, most of the board was fired too. CEOs live in fear of that sort of thing - they give 0 shits about what you or I think, but they know who their actual bosses are.
 

They aren't. There's a normal "power curve" distribution of salaries. You have to understand that CEOs (and to a lesser other extent senior execs of larger companies) are professional entertainers, just like movie actors and professional athletes, and you'll find the same salary distribution in each of the three groups. Sure, they entertain investors and analysts instead of the hoi polloi but even so.

Sometimes the CEO is a founder, of course, and then his real compensation is as a major shareholder, and any salary is just number games, but when it's not there's a bidding war for those seen as the best. If you can make a company of 100,000 people just 1% more productive than the next guy, how much is it worth to the stockholders to get you instead of the next guy? Of course, it's often illusion, but that's just a risk factor in that calculation.

The principals are disposable, interchangeable, replaceable. Fines big enough to cause a shareholder revolt will have a lasting effect, on more than just this company (as the large shareholders of Dish are likely large shareholders of many other companies). Fine em a significant percentage of the market cap of the corporation, and that will leave a mark.

My car certainly out-accelerates a Tesla (well, dunno about that twin-engine job in the video, but at that price point there are faster choices too) - Teslas are freaking heavy.

Except for the "accelerate hard" part, sure. "Not stopping quite as much", maybe.

Works just fine, compared to reddit, where everyone even mentioning #gamergate was shadowbanned. I've been moderated up repeatedly for pro-immigration comments, and even once or twice for pro-Microsoft comments. Also, just browse at -1 like most people do.

It would merely require people to be good at doublethink and maintaining inconsistent views. Since that's pretty much the core of the modern extreme left, the overlap could be significant. (SJW, BTW, is a handy label for 3rd wave "I bathe in male tears" feminists, race-baiters, and others seeking to use identity politics for personal/ideological gain. Seems we need a word for that, as its so damn common now.)

Ah, you're coming from the perspective that VPNs are actually secure against the government. I get what you were saying. You might be a bit behind on events, however.

Very well put, sir.

Slashdot has been fairly in the bag for the SJWs over the whole #gamergate thing, but this is a bit much. Really, we need be a advertizing platform for pet projects of the SJW crowd now? A "gender equality in tech" story 3 days a week wasn't enough? WTF happened to Slashdot? Broad political clickbait was a bit understandable but this is starting to look like a Gawker site.

We miss you Taco, but it's becoming clear why you left.

Way to completely miss the point.

If the FBI can skip the warrant for anyone using VPN, and that's basically every /.er, the powers being granted are broader than a non-technical person would suspect.