This:

and this:

those are contradicting statements and also at least one of them stems from a huge misunderstanding. There is no 'economic recovery', there is only a deepening recession (depression actually) and that's why people aren't buying, between the growing food and energy prices and falling employment levels (and staggering debt obligations) people just don't have the money to spend on luxuries such as more expensive Internet connection.

A company that is not a government will use your data to push more direct ads at you, but that's just a service that actually saves your time. If you are going to be served ads anyway (which I don't see, FF + Adblock), then why would you prefer to have ads that are completely random over ads that may have something to do with your interests in the first place? After all, maybe, just maybe at some point somebody will give you an ad for something that you would actually find really useful?

Now, that's a company trying to make money, it uses your information not against you but actually in a way that can help you (if you ever buy from one of their ads, then in fact they did help you!) that's a company giving YOU information.

That's the exact opposite of what a government is and what it does and why. Government just wants to imprison you or to tax you or to steal from you or murder you or regulate against you in whatever way possible. It also is possible that there are rogue agents within governments that will sell your information to private companies anyway to make a buck, and governments can collect much more aggregate data about you than any company ever could, because governments coerce people (companies) to give up data that many wouldn't give up (especially to other businesses).

So yes, there is much more to fear from governments than companies. I do not fear companies, I fear governments, that's why I am against governments and for individual freedoms of people, people who can start and run companies.

TIPS? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! TIPS are for people who are looking for safety and yet they are jumping from a pan into an open fire. TIPS are nonsense, they are tied to the official measure of inflation, which is complete nonsense, real inflation is higher by an order of magnitude than what the government pretends it is.

Also in the worst case scenario (hyperinflation and the inevitable depression) you'll get some of your nominal dollars from TIPS but dollars won't have any value.

AFAIC it's much safer to be in foreign currencies than in USA dollars or bonds and it's better to be in foreign stocks than in companies that mainly derive their revenues from sales in USA.

Also it's much better to be in real money (gold) than in any fiat currency, because they are all following the same self-destructive pattern of behaviour because the entire world is an interconnected Keynesian hell, but at least in countries that are productive you can own productive assets and ride out the problem.

Oh, and in case of a hyper inflation it surely is safer to own property than dollars, at least you'll have the land, but don't buy residential, that shit is very overvalued, buy useful land, farm land, mines, land with water wells, something like that.

AT&T? What a gigantic fail on your part, AT&T was granted the monopoly status BY government, which killed 3000 of its viable competitors. As I said, you are as stupid as you are ignorant and I have no time for you.

This place here is filled to the top with those exact sentiments, if you want to understand where the legs grow on this puppy, take a look at my comments and replies to them (and moderation as well), those are the symptoms of the failed society based on the weakminded mob with gigantic feelings of entitlement, that is itching for other people's money and are absolutely explicitly and implicitly standing with any government that promises to steal and subsidise them.

That's the extent of it, that's the same exact thing, as long as we get our share of the loot we DO NOT CARE about individual freedoms that are destroyed by government actions that are aimed not at the entire populations but at groups of people that are split by categories, be it ownership of resources or income levels or being an employer vs being an employee, being straight vs gay, men vs women, white vs blacks or other 'minorities', able bodied vs invalids, etc.etc.

Let me cut right through your nonsensical pro-government fearmongering bullshit.

Standard Oil was broken into pieces by the violent government that destroyed private property rights right there and then on the very same premise, that company was 'dumping' so that later it could 'jack up' prices, yet the company spent about half a century lowering prices while the owners (including Rockefeller) became insanely wealthy selling to an ever increasing consumer base at ever falling prices.

When was the last time you have heard of a 50 year stretch when prices were going DOWN for energy and not up? Standard Oil was it, an economy of scale using that exact business model, destroyed by the powerful government that destroyed individual freedoms.

I would say that was one of the the defining moments in history, when the people running businesses realised just how dangerous it is to allow the mob to set the tone, the rules (if anybody didn't get the hint then, they surely got it by the time of 'great society', which was clearly not great from point of view of individual freedoms).

So the guy wants to build up productivity, energy production, water desalination, entice thousands more people to come to the island, to settle their permanently; he wants to extend and build up the tourism and agriculture industries, yet all he is doing that for is not to increase his own productivity and to sell into more markets than ever at LOWER prices but only so that later he could 'jack up prices' on WATER on his island?

You are as deluded as you are stupid.

Ellison wants to build up his productivity, bring all costs to the lowest points he possibly can so that he can sell to the biggest audience there possibly is.

Everybody BUT governments want lower prices, including manufacturers and investors, I am sure you can never actually understand that fine point, and I don't have 100 more years to explain it to you.

and with enough government you are NSA, haven't you been paying attention to the current US history?

- I said income streams, perhaps you mistook that for 'subsidies'.

Private enterprise builds infrastructure all the time, the difference is that to use it you have to pay for it directly and not by using threat of violence (taxes) but pay for it as you use it, which is why it is preferable for all infrastructure projects to be private, that means self sustainable and not dependent on theft and subsidies.

There is difference between money and power, not understanding the difference doesn't change that fact.

Power is what either a dictator with an army that is head of State or some other government system (including democratic system) has over lives of people in either the legal sense and or ability to modify what legal is or go outside of boundaries of legal without being challenged, because it is perceived as legitimate or it just has majority support, explicit or implicit.

Real money is a function of productivity, productive output and savings. Ellison is one of the more productive people in the world, he was able to devise a machine that is his company, that makes him one of the most productive people out there. All of his employees, all of his properties, they are all extensions of this machine.

This machine is powerful in its industry, but IF the government is NOT corrupt, then it cannot be used to obtain government level of power.

Of-course if and when people give government unauthorised power (which is given to governments in order to create discrimination, to steal from minorities, like the rich, and to redistribute to voting majority and then this process is what starts the destruction of a lawful government, which grows in size and creates new branches and laws and systems that destroy individual freedoms and take over everything) then largest companies, wealthiest people MUST fight against such systems before they are devoured by them and possibly they just want to buy power because they also like wielding it.

So if your complaint is that with enough money one can buy power, you should really ask yourself: who gave government all that power to sell?

This is impossible, no private enterprise builds infrastructure, works on long term projects, etc. Only governments do that.

--

For the sarcastically challenged: Ellison is expecting some form of a return from this purchase, all purchases that are not for consumption are investments and he is not going to 'consume' his properties, so whatever it is he does with infrastructure, etc., it's all designed to try and create revenue streams, which is what private enterprise does and which is why infrastructure projects should all be privately funded, then their economic viability, success or failure are on the backs of the owners and not tax payers.

It's an energy and useful material source:

It lowers water freezing point:

and it's a poison for humans:

So read these signs, Mars is even more difficult for human exploration than previously understood, but it provides potential energy source for machines to fuel themselves.

This only means that if we are going to do something in the near future, it's going to be more robots powered by perchlorate chemical reactions.

Government discriminates and over time government grows to become more and more abusive, especially when government connected people's interests are at stake, news at 11.

The forums right now are filled with comments that are calling for Snowden's head, I have heard calls to radio shows that lust for Snowden's blood. He has proven to be damaging not only to the politicians, but also to egos of the 'common' people, who find him to be too good of a person to compare themselves to him and so they hate him for showing what they are to themselves.

Here is an example of such a phone call, scroll to the beginning of the second hour (minute 60 of the show) and just listen to a guy named Gregory calling in.

There are plenty of NSA and other government agents flooding the Internet with all this propaganda, but there are likely 1000 times more actual USEFUL IDIOTS living their pathetic empty every day lives, being used as an instrument of fearmongering and hate, being used as a voting block or by these 'opinion polls', they provide the necessary background noise and support for the governments destroying individual freedoms.

I hope Ed Snowden thought hard before he did what he did and understood that the response to his actions will not be all rosy from the public, he knew what the response would be from governments, hopefully he didn't fool himself into thinking that the public will be united on his side and the side of individual freedoms.

After all, the people actually do deserve the governments that they had (though personally I think we must at some point get over this very idea that central governments are even necessary at all and shut them down entirely).

For a dollar?

Large majority of the population chooses to be kept in the dark, it's their ideal world, where they are kept in the dark as long as the gov't delivers on the promise to subsidise their daily routine nonsense.

Don't believe me? Look at the comments following mine and the moderation as well, isn't that a choice?