I should trademark "squaredbook" and "booksquared".

Applying the summary judgement standard described above, the judgement of the superior court was reversed, the case was remanded back to the superior court with instructions to dismiss the plaintiff's claim with prejudice. Therefore, Doe was permitted to remain anonymous.

That doesn't hold water. Extrapolate to the extreme: what if the Chinese did subsidize everything and then cut the subsidy and take huge profits, not to mention strategic control of vital industries?

First off, they can't. They don't have enough tax capability to subsidize more then a very few industries. And whatever they don't subsidize and export, well, they have to buy from foreigners, and their very own policies will have made the foreigners better competitors in those fields which they chose to not subsidize.

Second, monopolies are overrated as damaging to the economy and consumers. What happens if any monopolist strangles competition that way? It's the same old story: the foreigners will quickly start producing the product themselves, probably in a different manner, and the subsidized industry will be locked in to the old way of making the product and fall on its face.

Rare earths is a fine example. Mines in the US at least, no doubt elsewhere, which had been closed because they couldn't compete, suddenly sprang back to life, the Chinese backed down, and now not only is the Chinese price still dropping, the US mines are still in operation. The Chinese wasted a lot of taxes to very little end, and the rest of the world got cheap resources for a while at their expense, and a lot of new mines opening up which will result in lower prices overall.

Look at how well the oil embargoes of the 1970s worked. They caused short term disruption, but inflation adjusted prices still haven't recovered.

There are all sorts of examples in all sorts of industries. Monopolies cause short term disruptions, but the backlash impoverishes the monopoly and enriches the world in the long term.

Try some actual, you know, *ideas* next time, some arguments.

When society / the government insists that we have to pay more for something because we demand tat it be made here, we suffer in two ways: first and most obviously, in higher prices. Second, in rewarding inefficient producers who would be more useful in some other field where tey are more efficient than the subsidized foreigners.

Rewarding inefficiency while punishing consumers is the epitome of stupid economic thinking and the natural way for bureaucrats to think; they like to spout simple minded nonsense while distracting attention from logic because votes are easier to get that way.

I fail to understand the completely backward argument. What the heck is wrong with them taxing themselves to reduce our prices?

All I hear is "it puts our workers out of jobs!" which is EXACTLY the point of distributing manufacturing and other jobs around the world. If some region, whether it be a different country, state, or city, can produce something cheaper than most other regions, regardless of why, what is the point of the other regions insisting in producing it themselves? Better to put those inefficient factories and companies and workers on something else that they are better at.

Everyone should do what they ar ebets at, not what others are best at, because that leads to ridiculous things like subsidies (you have to make your inefficient products appear cheaper) and tariffs (you have to make the other efficient products look more expensive).

I would really like to know why so many people have such a knee jerk reaction as to think there is something wrong with letting foreigners tax themselves to make something cheaper for us, and why they think it good to raise prices for our consumers so our workers and factories and companies can continue to be inefficient in one area at the expense of not being more efficient than the foreigners at something we could be doing instead.

Factory jobs moved offshore because the union workers and retiree benefits were too expensive, not because the factories or workers were crap. You have a sorry opinion of American workers and factories if you think the workers wouldn't be hired and factories bought once bankruptcy cleared the baggage from years of mismanagement.

Factories and workers are expensive. Other manufacturers would snap them up in a heartbeat, at least some of them, since they wouldn't be liable for the union contracts or retiree benefits.

Instead of moderating it as flamebait (the coward's way), why don't you list some Microsoft innovations other than Clippy?

We all know the answer -- anonymous moderating is easier than writing fiction.

Microsoft has never innovated. Their biggest own-work was Clippy. They got where they were pre-Ballmer due to lockin and monopolistic practices. Gates bailed in time, Ballmer was left holding a banana which was starting to get past its sell-by date. Ballmer's biggest flaw was being too shortsighted to see what Gates saw and gladly taking over control of what he thought was an automatic money factory. Gates' biggest flaw was not caring about Microsoft any more and handing over control to an unimaginative fanboy who couldn't lead into the new reality.