The Mac tax has always been about the actual parts they use and that there are cheaper alternatives. For this comparison, they try to match the parts exactly. That of course is going to cost more because you are paying 3rd party markup prices while Apple is being direct from the manufacturer. The article even admits that you can buy things like a different video card that is equivalent for half the price. The question isn't if you can make the exact same system (or as close as possible) for cheaper but whether you can make an equivalent system for cheaper, and the answer to that is almost always yes.

But these things are already happening without raising the minimum wage. If a company can replace a person with a machine, they will do it because it is best for their bottom line. If they can ship jobs overseas and save money they will do it. And they have been doing both of these things for the last 15 years (if not more).

The jobs that are still here are here because they have to be, especially the lower wage jobs. You can't take the janitor or cashier and ship that job to China, and those are the people making minimum wage.

I think you need to check your math. If we double the Tesla fires (because it only drove half the miles) it is still 1/3000, which is still less than the 1/1300 of gas cars.

I can see the intent of the law, and I think the people that do it are slimeballs, but who is going to decide this? If you post pictures and say "Look how hot my ex girlfriend was" are you trying to shame here? What if you include "I wish she would take me back but she is too good for me." Who is going to decide what your actual purpose was? And what if you are in the pictures as well? There are too many questions and judgement calls with this law.

If you have to burn money at the end of the year, then you DON'T need it. The very definition of having too much money in the budget is having to work and find places to spend it all so you don't lose it.

So let me get this right. He took over Nokia 3 years ago. In that time their stock price has dropped by more than a third. In any way you measure it, he has failed as the head of the company. So they decide to sell to Microsoft, because he has been unable to do his job well and do anything to keep them from sinking further. And he will be REWARDED with $25 million?!?!?! So for helping his company continue to fail, he will get a $25 million dollar bonus over what is I'm sure a fairly ridiculous compensation package.

And to top it off, he is on the short list of people to become the new Microsoft CEO? They really are considering basically giving him a huge promotion for being unable to turn Nokia around and letting them get so bad off that selling to MS was their only option? CEOs are absolutely rewarded for failure, because his performance can't be seen as anything other than a failure.

Part of the issue was you requesting an invoice for something they never provided for you. If they issue you an invoice for $5000 for something, there are legal ramification that go along with that. You could then claim that you never received the item/services and sue. They may have to set up a separate business entity to handle this business and pay a whole different set of taxes on it because they currently are not set up as a business that provides services/items. If you want to donate, just donate. It is silly to try and get them to jump through these hoops for your "donation" so your company can claim it isn't a donation.

Actually, often part of a person's court sentence is to attend AA. Yes, I guess they instead accept jail time, but that seems like a false comparison. And yes, it is often mandated that it be AA, not alcohol treatment in general. People have actually tried to attend other, non-AA, non-religious treatments and been told no, you must attend AA.

I think before we start analyzing why 12 step programs work, maybe we should determine if they work. While everyone just assumes 12 step programs are the answers, there is very little scientific evidence and studies on whether they work better than anything else. It is a hard subject to study, but I think something that should be done since the state is sentencing people to 12 step programs. Before we force people to go into programs (especially one that force people to accept that there is a "higher power") I think there should be strong studies done to show that these programs work better than other programs or at least better than a person just deciding to stop.

Another reason the torrent numbers probably wen up is that CBS also blocked TW customers from accessing their shows from the CBS website. If a TW customer went to the CBS website to try and watch a show, they weren't able to. So any money they could have made from that was gone as well. So really, CBS actually pushed people who would go through the next legitimate channel further down the line. Sure, they could possibly buy it from Amazon or iTunes, but at a dollar per show, that is a pretty hefty price for a show you will watch once and then delete.

Spoken exactly like someone who has no idea how a business works. Yes, they could sell songs for 10 cents a piece, and they would sell more of them. Let's say they sell 3 times as many songs as they do now. Their revenues have just dropped by 70% (and their profit by more) because they are while they are selling more, they are making basically nothing off each one. And yes, they could sell DVDs at $2 a piece, but again, would they sell 10 times the amount they do now? If not, they end up making less money and probably losing money. Lexus could also sell it's cars for $10000 a piece, but they aren't going to because they want to actually make money. A dollar a song is not some ridiculous amount (especially when you can sometimes find individual songs cheaper and if you buy a full CD it is usually less as well). But at 10 cents a song, they couldn't cover their bandwidth and programming costs, much less the costs of the songs themselves (because don't forget, the music actually does cost money to make).

Quit expecting everything for free or close to it.

Have you actually listened to it? No one attacked them. They asked them some very pointed questions, but even the pointed questions were generally in reference to what they said (while referencing what is now known because of the leaks). When they ask about which countries were "adversaries" it was because they said they analyzed the communications of "adversaries". So she asked what they considered adversaries, since we know they analyze the communications of our allies. A lot of hard questions were asked, but no one attacked them just because they worked at the NSA.

While they do have profiling, it is not the profiling people in the US think of. It is not religious or racial profiling. It is proper profiling based on real factors that make professional, trained profilers think you need extra scrutiny. They don't mark muslims for extra scrutiny because they are muslims. They mark people who act nervous and like they have something to hide for extra scrutiny.

There is nothing wrong with proper profiling. It is a very useful tool. Unfortunately in the US, profiling means having a poorly trained, poorly paid TSA agent check anyone who is brown. To proper profile you need intelligent, well trained profilers, which the US won't pay for.

The issue is that what is complaining about isn't really private information. Yes, the page he is entering the info into is https, but that doesn't mean everything on that page is private info. It is secure page to prevent man in the middle attacks for things like credit card numbers. Your name and address are not at all private information and can be found out in any number of public records (including telephone books). Just because my favorite type of ice cream is sent to someone on a page that is https doesn't make that information private. Hell, I can use https to post things to Facebook for Bob's sake. Should Facebook then be forces to treat that all with the same security as my password?

I think they are absolutely right that limiting their ability to bid on this spectrum will cause the price to be lower. That only makes sense since you are limiting the 2 biggest and best funded companies from going all out for it. But in the long term, I think it will be better and bring in more money to have more than just 2 strong competitors in the cell phone business. Revenue comes from more than just the money from selling the spectrum. If we can help open up the market so there are more successful companies in it, that is better for everyone involved and will hopefully spur both growth for the other companies and innovation in the industry, which will lead to further growth and a better economy in general.