Posts by Charlie Clark

I certainly like his style, the company finances less.

So more Musks and fewer solitionists and data-grabbers, please.

Re: The elephant knitting lady will have a field day

Playing for time. Broadcom's leverage will get more difficult all the time especially once it relocates to the US, which it says it plans to do. Intel could probably buy Broadcom at a discount and asset strip it and sell the rest to keep the regulators happy for once. Nice to see the table turned on the private equity lot.

Re: quite the contrary

Do you disagree that the ECB is the official bank of the EU?

Most certainly. The ECB has no relation to European Commission or any other EU institution, hence, the somewhat difficult legal wrangling as in 2011. The ECB is responsible to the member states of the Euro Group.

Re: quite the contrary

Codejunky talking shit as usual:

Advantages of a single currency? Tell that to Greece, Italy, etc.

Greece would most certainly have had to go to the IMF for a bailout without the Euro and, as I noted, Italy has had a discount on interest rates since joining the single currency and even more so since 2011.

You seem to ignore Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia's experience of adopting the currency despite the problems.

And yes there are transfer arrangements, they pay federal tax's which redistributes from richer to poorer states…

Typos, factual inaccuracies and false comparisons all in one sentence! Your handler won't be pleased. While the EU does have official redistribution policies, including the CAP, regional development and cohesion funds, the US doesn't: federal taxes pay for federal obligations. See the discussions over Obamacare for a more detailed explanation of how it works over there.

Having a currency too high is what pushed high unemployment in the Eurozone and the ECB is struggling to devalue the currency to fix the economic problem.

Unemployment in France, Italy and Greece was high in 2008. Again, as I noted, the lack of wage restraint and economic reforms caused unemployment in these countries before the crisis. Or, if a high currency caused unemployment then why does Germany have low unemployment? Currency devaluations do not solve structural problems, which is one of the reasons behind a commons in the first place. Currency devaluations are generally followed by inflation, which quickly negates any price advantages of a deflation, and debts not denominated in the local currency will become more expensive. Greece, France and Italy have repeatedly devalued over the years and never solved problems as a result. In France in fact it was only when Delors introduced effective wage restraint in the 1980s that the devaluation-inflation cycle was broken.

People being given less money than before is a serious problem economically while devaluing the currency has the same real effect on the take home pay but less damage economically.

Which is why Lithuania chose internal devaluation prior to joining the single currency? Internal devaluations may be politically unpopular initially but avoiding a wage-price spiral has advantages.

But Italy is still an issue. And politically have moved anti-euro.

Again your handler won't be pleased by the grammatical error. But what is your point? France elected its most ardently pro-European president ever last year. The two winners of the Italian election have since revised their stance on the Euro saying that "now is not the right time to leave". Leaving now would mean no one would be buying Italian debt and interest rates would spike leading to a recession much more severe than that in Spain during the crisis. Italy needs economic, legal and political reform and won't see any improvement without it.

Re: quite the contrary

So the Euro isnt the official currency of the EU?

Er, only for accounting purposes. As a suprantional organisation the EU doesn't have a currency only member states do.

And the ECB being the official bank for the EU?

Again no: the central banks of the member states issue Euros directly and, more importantly, conduct financial transactions on behalf the ECB.

Re: before the EU existed

Yes, and now we're 50 years further on, and Labour still hasn't got a clue about the economy.

And neither does the other lot.

Re: before the EU existed

That doesn't mean, of course, that the Pound here in Britain, in your pocket or purse or in your bank, has been devalued

You are Harold Wilson and I claim, er, my 5 pounds. Not sure they're going to be worth much, though!

Re: quite the contrary

The currency is both undervalued and overvalued depending on which member state you are in but had no fiscal transfer system to support the overall area and so is extremely vulnerable without considering its years behind economic recovery

The same could be said of the dollar: California is much more expensive than Missisippi and has no transfer arrangements. But the advantages of a single currency within a single market are that it increases the efficiency of the single market by reducing currency risk.

Anyway economically the comments of undervaluing or overvaluing are incorrect: those countries that didn't exercise wage restraint simply priced themselves out of the market. The bigger problem is the ECB's monetary policy is that by holding interest rates down not only does this lead to a transfer from savers to debtors, particularly governments and of these especially Italy, the repression is causing increasing problems in the pensions, insurance and savings industries. But it is politically easier to blame austerity imposed from outside rather than government failure. For example, Italy's total debt would lead to default at some point and this, in turn would lead to austerity imposed by the creditors. By joining the Euro it got some insulation from the credit markets (you can see the interest rates on IT debt dropped significantly on joining the Euro and has since stayed below historical levels ever since) that successive governments failed to take advantage of to reform the economy, particularly two-class employment practices.

Re: They're probably right

It will be easy because there will be no replacement and no money for farmers. The plan is not to tell them until it's too late. Anyway, they're likely to be too busy looking for people to replace them immigrant labour anyway.

Cash payments to non-farming landowners but can probably done by tax rebates.

I wish I making this up.

Re: "Simultaneous use of multiple cameras at once"

Sounds more like a chat / WebRTC extension so that you can both see the person you're talking to and what they're looking at.

Re: I don't care about running water, where are my internets?

Wimp! ;-)

Re: Used or available?

What else would expect from a lobbyist? Sort of odd that there still seems to be a monopoly of supply, which can only drive up costs on new developments, whereas pretty much anyone qualified should be able to lay the fibre and the provider can be put out to tender. Also, seems to imply that homeowners are either aren't involved or don't care: what kind of utilities would you like in your new house?

Now, be a good boy and try out my revolutionary new tobacco ingestion device: studies show how much healthier it is than comparable models and how much happier new smokers are.

Sorry, couldn't afford a dig at the tobacco lobby: cunts.

Re: Superfast

Welcome to term inflationism…

Re: BBC from the days of Yes Minister and Spitting Image - yes

I once heard the argument from a media type that, by not selling advertising and taking a chunk of that finite pool of money, the BBC was in fact supporting commercial broadcasters.

Based on the experience in other countries there is an element of truth in this. For example, in Germany the public stations do carry some advertising (before 20:00) and when it was suggested that they stop this, it was the advertisers who complained that it would both deprive them of some of the market; and drive up the overall cost of advertising by reducing the number of providers. This was the argument when the number of commercial channels was limited but I suspect it still has some merit even in our brave new multi-channel world.

I'm all for a blanket ban of advertising of advertising and sponsoring on all public service broadcasting services.

Re: Is this the same in other large corporations?

For example, I wouldn't be surprised if this was not uncommon in workplaces where the testosterone level was quite high

I know a few women who prefer that kind of environment to one where the oestrogen levels are high. There might not be any sexual harassment but women-only environments can be just as toxic: people can be real shits to each other.

Not that this is an excuse for the behaviour, because there isn't one.

Re: Don't Play Well With Others

It's Google's responsibility to maintain a professional environment.

Maybe — I'm not sure if this is legally definable let alone enforceable but be that as it may — the big problem is it can only do something if it knows about it. If you can't provide evidence that complaints were made and ignored then there is no case.

Also, going after the company in a civil suit rather than the individuals smacks of ambulance-chasing for a bigger payout. Sure, that's the American Way™ but it's hardly suited to changing behaviour.

FWIW recently a friend of mine received a fairly obscene image from a colleague. It was tasteless, uninvited and well beyond anything you can laugh off, ie. bordering on harassment, which is a criminal offence and should be reported to the police.

But I've no idea what to do when F1 goes to Sky full time next year.

Put a bag of angry wasps over your head?

I'd say it's age-old trope found in many comic sketches, though with an idiot savant or an animal.