Letters to the Editor
Electro Robot
Published Letters: 1114 Editor's Choice: 9
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This is why life insurance companies.....
[Read the article: The silver lining of the credit crunch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...Well that and the fact that insurance companies essentially keep two sets of books on the business. One for insurance operations and one for investment operations. The key is to show zero or less than zero gains on the insurance side of the business where the bulk of the taxes and regulation is, and to make most of the earnings off the investment side of the business concurrently which has a better regulatory and tax position.
Of course on the M+M book for life, DI and similar products, yes you're right, the experience rated policies are very well understood across selected populations.
But the wider issue is, you can't really have it both ways. You can't build a wall around all the financial institutions you choose to dislike today and arrange something so that you're not harmed by their failures while at the same time, your pension fund, IRA, personal equity and such are locked up in 'other' firms you choose to participate in. What for example should you do if TIAA-CREF chose to invest poorly and wiped out 50% of the worth of 10 million teachers' pension funds?
If we remember Enron, one thing that was crystal clear was that many of the people who lost their shirts did the ONE thing all financial professionals tell you NOT to do - invest all or most of your money in YOUR OWN company. That's ALWAYS a dumb thing to do. Now is Enron guilty? Yes, but people got chopped in the neck BECAUSE they did what any sane person told them not to do. If they had taken that advice they would have lost their jobs but not all their money.
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Ballmer's statement is legally questionable
[Read the article: Microsoft vs. Yahoo: First duel, then merge?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're not really allowed to threaten to artificially depress the market value of a company in order to buy it cheaply as an extortion/negotiating tool. We tend to call that oh, I dunno, RACKETEERING. The implication, is as I'm sure you see, a threat that NO ONE else would be allowed to bid either.
I've always had my doubts about Sweating Steve's sanity. He is truly an unhinged nut who's role has always been defined by his close personal relationship with Gates and his own schizoid maniacal personality. Maybe Napoleonic tirades work in-house but the law tends to frown on them.
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Redmond has never under the fundamental aspect of online businesses
[Read the article: Microsoft vs. Yahoo: First duel, then merge?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And that is, the 'customer' isn't locked into a vendor on the client end of the business. This is why every foray into online businesses for Redmond ends poorly for them. So if they Redmonize the Yahoo brand, it will only hurt everyone. No one wants "Microsoft Update for Yahoo". No one wants an online business model that relies on WGA checking to see if you've licensed the right products from Microsoft first.
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I can just picture being held hostage by the "Sun" states
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As much as I'm held hostage by the oil producing countries today. Arizona needs free healhtcare and a socialist pay you to stay home system for everyone? Guess who pays? The cold people of Michigan. Nevada decides to jack everyone's rates 20% to pay for the environmental impact of running those cells? Bingo. You get a gold plated Gila Monster.
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libertarian paternalism
[Read the article: Is Barack Obama a libertarian paternalist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is approximately what we used to call Mussolini's corporatism. FYI
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The article is about far more than that
[Read the article: Today's moral outrage: Bikini waxes for 8-year-olds]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The 8 year old wax-ee is mentioned in two sentences of a 6 page article. The article is about the industry of super-saloning one's younger children typically 10-14 including botox, surgery, all day sessions for hair care etc etc etc.
The trouble I have is picturing in my mind whatever unlucky sap gets roped into marrying what can only evolve into the world's most awesome bitch ever. You just know mom is going give the new groom his sexual instruction manual for the wedding night, don't you? He will discover it would have been better to die in childhood.
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Mike J Y Wood
[Read the article: Microsoft vs. Yahoo: First duel, then merge?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Google doesn't lock you in. Locking you in would mean requiring something like Passport to use it. Or at the least that bothersome idiot 'registration'. Google sells its service not its math. No one gets to see the math under the covers. For Google the user experience is the same whatever you use to come at it with. In the Microsoft world, everything works a little differently or only through Microsoft products. You see a little of this with Apple prods such as iTunes which just don't run as well in Windows as they do natively and that whole AAC encoding issue that crops up. None the less Apple is 1/10th the size of Microsoft.
BTW Microsoft went to Redmond because Bill Gates wanted to live near his parents. No other reason. Microsoft's 1st corporate HQ was in New Mexico
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haggismold
[Read the article: Is Barack Obama a libertarian paternalist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you for that vacuous content free post. Are you an editor here @ Salon?
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Yes and I remember asking myself why
[Read the article: Today's moral outrage: Bikini waxes for 8-year-olds]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There was never a super sweet 16 makeover show that addressed someone with a burn scar or some other deformity. Then I stopped worrying about the shallow blankness I see around me. I don't really care. If Uber Mom wants to fetishize her brood, fine. Have at it. Everyone is flawed everyone is broken everyone could benefit from some work. Soon their eyes will be as dead as their souls.
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Artificial sperm 'on the horizon'
[Read the article: MSNBC on the "pregnant man": "I'm gonna be sick"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://www.smh.com.au/news/science/artificial-sperm-on-the-horizon/2008/04/07/1207420287249.html
You will soon no longer need men for anything. Let the extermination begin.
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Salim
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I lived in Albany for 4 years. It was sunny maybe 25 days a year. Maybe. And crowded northern states don't have affordable land prices to erect massive arrays.
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Arrrggh rewr ewewrwww @!@@@1!1 !!!! `~ @!
[Read the article: This Modern World]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]REEWREW wqwerwqr e!!!@$#$# RRRRRR !!! 1! 1!!1 1! @!1@!21 3r4i3por2dsDSDFSfksl @@@@@!
Was there anything else?