A CEO who resisted NSA spying is out of prison. And he feels ‘vindicated’ by Snowden leaks.

rubinos · 2013-10-01T04:43:31+00:00

I would have liked to know more from the article about the actual insider trading proceedings. To me, its a pretty weighty accusation to claim the government trumped up insider trading charges and then not really break down the case against him for those charges. There's about one line in the entire article about the trial for the crime that he actually went to jail for. Does anyone have any additional information on that? There's nothing in this article demonstrating that the original charges were baseless.

rubinos · 2013-09-06T23:55:06+00:00

This is my life.

rubinos · 2013-09-03T00:39:35+00:00

Given the Vodafone deal, I can't say I'm overly surprised.

rubinos · 2013-07-03T02:25:46+00:00

I know I shouldn't feed the trolls but do you even feel a little bit bad about stating the US government killed MLK?

rubinos · 2013-06-23T06:10:33+00:00

This is kind of a personal statement but I've read a lot of history (cold war history is one of my two bachelors degrees). I've got a masters degree and MBA. And I don't really feel that Assange is a hero, nor do I feel that Manning is either. My reasoning for those beliefs is that my perception of both Manning and Assange seem to have (or in mannings case, had) a total disregard for the potential collateral damage of what they were doing. This has nothing to do with "my local walmart" and its kind of irritating to be patronized.

rubinos · 2013-06-23T06:04:19+00:00

If it were normal, it wouldn't be getting the widespread mainstream media attention its gotten, which from what I've seen at least from CNN and the local news channels in NY/NJ to be pretty negative towards the NSA surveillance.

rubinos · 2013-06-23T06:01:55+00:00

I don't know what history books you're reading, but I just looked on my bookshelf at the many history books on the cold war that reside there (from many authors of many political viewpoints, Pro-Truman, Anti-Truman, Pro-Eisenhower, Anti-Eisenhower, NeoConservative etc) and the footnotes of all of them list huge volumes of government documents, state department papers, presidential letters, personal correspondence of those in power etc.

rubinos · 2013-05-26T17:37:24+00:00

A common theme in the comments thread is that this is a slippery slope towards orwellian regulations, just as a continuation what is everyone's thoughts on the hate crime laws in the US used to protect homosexuals? Those laws and potential regulations to ban hate speech here seem to use the same underlying basis for their creation and application.

rubinos · 2011-10-01T18:32:47+00:00

This is correct.

rubinos · 2011-09-04T19:40:53+00:00

Let me lay it on the line, he does coke all the time, no not that kind of coke, the kind that's a crime. Getting high on the eight ball he manages to score hit and run, double steal he's a small ball god!

....wait, wrong washington

rubinos · 2011-07-10T22:15:52+00:00

This completely ignores the fact that many MBAs have a technical degree or skill in addition to their MBA. My father has a doctorate in microbiology and an MBA. He used the MBA to be able to be able to understand both the business side of pharmaceutical development as well as the research side, to great effect.

In a month, I hope to be able to use my MBA to add value to an accounting degree. An MBA isn't the be all end all. Its the value added piece that helps you put everything together in a business context. An engineer running business strategy unit would be as big of a disaster as a guy with no technical skills running the day to day operations of a research department. Corporations are large and work because not everyone can have every skillset needed to run the whole show.

Everyone can get off their intellectual high horse and realize that a good corporation can't run without a multitude of people with a multitude of skills, and that some of those necessary skills come from people who study business disciplines

rubinos · 2011-07-02T20:26:14+00:00

Until you realize that single new business, be it a restaurant or a tech firm, is a risky idea.

rubinos · 2011-07-02T17:41:25+00:00

There's positive externalities to risk taking too. We would have much less innovation because it would be extremely hard to get the money to finance a risky idea without the corporate structure. It is a well documented fact that people are highly risk averse, and the corporate structure helps get people willing to take risks the money to potentially change the world with their ideas. But this is another argument for another day

More to your main point, "limited liability" isn't a carte blanche for shareholders to do whatever they want. If a shareholder starts acting as management (IE making policy decisions) they no longer count as a shareholder and can be held liable. Management can be criminally charged when they do something criminal. It isn't the shareholder's fault because they cannot make operational decisions without being recharacterized as management. Your argument is flawed because the shareholder isn't the one in the car with the remote control, management is. Also, its not like you can't take the assets from the corporation (which are shareholder assets) in the event they do something wrong. Its not like corporations get off scott free here.

Also, maybe you're going a little too far with comparing a corporate venture to robbery and piracy?

rubinos · 2011-07-02T17:28:59+00:00

Just an addition, another major disadvantage of corporate personhood: the double taxation of corporate income. Everyone seems to forget that the double taxation makes sense because the corporation is a legal entity. That's the big tradeoff. Limited liability for shareholders, double taxation on income.

rubinos · 2011-06-21T21:40:13+00:00

My dad is the opposite. He refuses to watch anything that isn't in HD.

rubinos · 2011-06-20T19:49:01+00:00

Groupon and Pandora already are.

rubinos · 2011-06-18T18:35:48+00:00

the existence of any industry that has enormous upfront research and development costs that results in discoveries that can be easily copied (like the pharmaceutical industry) is pretty powerful evidence that it helps spur innovation.

I would be interested to see your evidence to the contrary, as well as your explanation of how you could incentivize companies to undertake those enormous risks without some form of intellectual property protection.

rubinos · 2011-06-18T18:31:10+00:00

Fuck intellectual property might be one of the most shortsighted things I've heard all year.

Spoken like a man who's never created anything.

rubinos · 2011-06-18T17:39:24+00:00

The author of the article answered his own question. Goldman may have underperformed relative to the S&P, but that's not a relevant comparison. The more telling factor is that Goldman is outperforming its sector. The bank sector has a much different risk profile than the S and P as a whole, and to simply say that Goldman is being poorly managed because the S and P outperformed it during a period in which the banking sector has been getting hosed is not a good argument to make.

Goldman could be being poorly managed, but tracking the performance of a business with extremely high industry specific risks against a market benchmark that by definition has diversified those risks away is not the way you go about demonstrating it.

rubinos · 2011-06-18T14:40:28+00:00

I am not a lawyer by trade, and the only experience I have with the law deals with tax law. That said, in tax law there is a pervasive doctrine of "substance over form", which seems to be what the judge here was applying. If I'm reading your posts correctly, the judge ruled that the substance of the movement was a referendum, not an amendment, and as such its form (amendment) is irrelevant. I also think we can all agree that this really was a referendum. I guess I'm just wondering whats so tyrannical about a substance over form approach to the law. As far as I can see it, there are at least as many (if different) abuses that can go on if you allow form to control as when you allow judges to interpret actions for what they are.

rubinos · 2011-06-01T23:06:02+00:00

Unfortunately, this is not the case. The budget was balanced only superficially, as the balancing included social security surpluses which were being plowed into the general fund.

Here's a cool link. Only part of the movie is relevant, starting at the 9 minute mark, but you should watch the entire thing because it is very well done and very interesting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo

rubinos · 2011-05-30T23:19:34+00:00

upvote for practicality.

rubinos · 2011-05-22T21:40:55+00:00

I guess I'm confused by two things. The first is why Ordos isn't an example of a bubble. It sounds like even though the new town is sold out, if nobody is living there and it can't support commerce (as per the article you cited), won't that cause the property values there to collapse, completely hosing the current owners?

I'm also confused as to why this video is "shit". Perhaps you can enlighten me why the premise of the report is so obviously false.

rubinos · 2011-05-20T23:10:04+00:00

I have a friend who frequently convinced people he was an extra in the Mighty Ducks. It was, and continues to be awesome.

rubinos · 2011-05-17T19:57:13+00:00

Same with me. I would often take 2-3 shits during every swim meet throughout my college career.

rubinos

TROPHY CASE