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Comment: Re:Confused! (Score 1) 57

by mesterha (#43168439) Attached to: Book Review: Hadoop Beginner's Guide



Comment: Re:Too bad. (Score 5, Interesting) 798

by mesterha (#42778485) Attached to: AT&amp;T: Don't Want a Data Plan for That Smartphone? Too Bad.

This doesn't make much sense. If the support for data plans is expensive then just refuse to give data support for people who don't have data plans. Of course, there is the associated cost of dealing with them on the phone and refusing to help. This could be offset by offering them a minimal data plan or a data support plan.

The real reason ATT doesn't want people to use this option is that lots of people would drop their data plans. There's a lot of wifi around and many people would be satisfied with just wifi. I guess this opens up an opportunity for someone to come up with a way to get a phone to report a false id to the cell phone company.

Comment: Re:What about people who bus, bike or walk? (Score 1) 686

by mesterha (#42478565) Attached to: Oregon Lawmakers Propose Mileage Tax On Fuel Efficient Vehicles

Nice example of equivocation. I say why not give the proper incentives to companies as in incentive to do something, and you change it to a regulatory incentive used by the government to get people to behave in "desirable" ways. While I am proposing government regulation, it is not some arbitrary incentive but is instead a way to correct for externalities.


by mesterha (#42472969) Attached to: Oregon Lawmakers Propose Mileage Tax On Fuel Efficient Vehicles

I guess you include paying a lot less as a more efficient way of paying for roads. I was confused as to what you meant as you said we're not going to get out of paying for it.

As for changing the regulatory framework, I claim that can be reasonably free market. It's a relatively easy way to deal with these types of market externalities. It's not too controversial to claim that a free market needs government interventation to create the market. I would also claim that includes correcting for these types of externalities.

Comment: Re:And this too shall pass away. (Score 1) 639

by mesterha (#42443027) Attached to: The U.S. Careens Over the Fiscal Cliff, Reaching Only Half of a Deal

Hoarding the money in tax havens and other such things essentially makes it useless to the economy.

Right. Because an investor putting money in a haven keeps it in cash.

What actually happens is that money is put into investment baskets which goes to buying debt in enterprise. That enterprise probably employs you.

Or that enterprise buys capital or employs some workers in a third world country. What we have is a tragedy of the commons. Corporations, in order to maximize profits, are outsourcing and cutting wages. To an individual corporation, this makes sense; however, when many corporations do it, they destroy the consumer base that create and buy their products. If every corporation slashed salaries of all their employees, their short term profits might rise, but in the long term who has the money to buy their products. Henry Ford had the right idea, but I doubt a publicly traded company could pull that off.

Comment: Re:Just a cheap H1-B visa scam, "for the kids" my (Score 2) 257

by mesterha (#41491979) Attached to: Microsoft Calls For $5B Investment In U.S. Education


Comment: Re:Just keep in mind the tradeoff (Score 1) 556

by mesterha (#39348123) Attached to: Indian Gov't Uses Special Powers To Slash Cancer Drug Price By 97%

You can pretty much look at any pill in a pharmacy and they all cost peanuts to actually produce, like software it's just a matter of pricing it so that the expected sales pay off.

This also says something about the massive over regulation of the generics industry by the FDA. Most generics should cost peanuts, but many do not. I would guess the pharmaceutical companies exert considerably lobbying to keep it that way. In fact there is currently a massive shortage of many generics. Instead people are forced to by the name brand version.

Comment: Re:One more issue (Score 1) 1065

by mesterha (#39015595) Attached to: The Zuckerberg Tax

Wealth tax seems pretty fair to me. Looking at how our government currently spends income tax, it mostly goes to defense. It can be interpreted that the government is spending that money to protect the wealth of the nation. Therefore people should pay proportionally to their wealth.

The idea that it's unfair because people might waste their income seems strange. If someone makes some bad investments and loses some wealth then they have less wealth to protect and should pay less tax. This is also true if they waste their money on things that have a high depreciation.

Comment: Re:Hardly surprising... (Score 1) 435

by mesterha (#38519656) Attached to: Prospects Darken For Solar Energy Companies

If EVERYONE say "that's a great deal, let's do it!", then you have to pay the subisdy to everyone, and tax everyone extra to pay the subsidies - so, your neighbor pays for your solar installation, you pay for your neighbor's solar installation, and effectively noone gets a subsidy.

The goal is to lower the cost of solar versus other energies. The hope is that it will create the demand and allow the market to increase production to lower the cost so that the incentives can be removed and solar will still be competitive. This can be effective with smaller industries that can substantially decrease cost either through research or larger factories.

Another motivation is to equal the playing field since many existing energy sources take advantage of subsidies and externalities. While it would be great to get rid of those unfair advantages, politically it's easier to give incentives to competing technologies.

Comment: Re:Thanks Obama (Score 1) 290

by mesterha (#38185250) Attached to: The $443 Million Smallpox Vaccine That Nobody Needs

You haven't explained this natural balance between labor and capital. Just because interest rates are high doesn't mean a business will hire more people. A company will only hire more people if it feels it can make a profit off their labor. Interest rates only effect the amount a company will borrow in an effort to make that profit. Also, any capital equipment they purchase can either increase or decrease the number of people they hire. A company that is already based on automation might expand their capacity. This requires more workers. A company that adds automation will reduce their workforce by replacing workers.
