Schlagwort-Archive: quicklink

Economics, quicklink, US Politics

Much Ado about not much.

The McKinsey Quarterly looks at the incentive effects of the Bush dividend-cut proposal and decides that it, well, is largely a placebo. Won’t hurt, won’t heal, as most shares are held by tax-exempt entities anyway –

“The fact, however, is that tax-paying US individual shareholders own a minority of all US shares?28 percent in 2002, whereas tax-exempt US institutions and individuals who hold shares in tax-exempt accounts owned 61 percent. (The remainder was in foreign hands.) … Since these investors are indifferent to the issue of taxes on their dividends, they are unlikely to set in motion the kinds of changes in their portfolios that would drive up share prices.”

Standard
Iraq, oddly enough, quicklink, US Politics

Saddam Hussein, MBA.

This is good. Condoleeza Rice has presented a new rationale for the current lack of Iraqi WMDs – while admitting that

“Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program is less clear-cut, and probably more difficult to establish, than the White House portrayed before the war”,

she readily explained why that should have been expected anyway – Saddam knew about “Just-In- Time” manufacturing – “Just-in-time assembly” and “just-in-time inventory”. Now really. But speaking of management buzzwords, I guess one could make a real case for Saddam excelling in “global sourcing”… (from the Autralian f2-netowork via Tom Tomorrow).

Standard
quicklink

Welsh & Scottish regional and British local by-elections

The Guardian is looking at yesterday’s Welsh & Scottish regional and British local by-elections and decides that, even though the Tories fared siginificantly better in the local elections than expected, they are still no threat to anyone but themselves. Fair enough. The problem with this conclusion is, however, that the same must then be true for NewLabour. And that’s why it’s actually useful that the voters sent their government this message. Here’s more coverage from The Guardian.

Standard
intellectual property rights, Iraq, music industry, oddly enough, quicklink

They take no chances.

If this report by Telepolis is right, then Hillary Rose, the former chief RIAA lobbyist, is currently rewriting the copyright laws of Iraq. Just in case the Iraqi ideas about intellectual property rights should differ from the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Actually, the journalist Gregory Palast is not unjustifiedly wondering whether the combination of sharia and the DMCA would result in hands being chopped off for filesharing. Hmm, I guess I am favoring a kinder, gentler version – just chop off the index-finger. After all, isn’t it always that bad guy that clicks on ‘download’?

Standard
Germany, quicklink

0190-spam.

In Germany, phone-numbers starting with 0190 can be charged at imaginary rates by a service provider. No wonder some doubtful service providers call mobile phones and wait for unwitting users to just press callback. But according to heise online it is not even illegal to send spam like “Someone would like to get to know you, dial 0190-xxx to find out who”. Do I agree with this? The question basically comes down to – what kind of cultural and technological knowledge can be safely assumed from mobile phone users. What about my tech-unsavvy dad? Should he be protected or learn the hard way? I think he should be protected. If lying per se is not fraud, it should be, when it comes to a corporation lying about the underlying principle for their call.

Standard
almost a diary, quicklink

I’m Bill Clinton.

OK you’re right. I cannot be Bill Clinton: As the most powerful politician of the world, I would not have picked Monica Lewinsky for an affair… But anyway, he’s the one the creators of this US political quiz show used as reference for my score. Ah, and let me just add that any one dimensional scale is necessarily problematic… and for Germans taking the test – US ‘liberal’ is not German liberal, it is more like German ‘left’. (via Lillimarleen.)

Standard