Further, Israelis require extensive background information on every flier, which is also retained, cross referenced, and checked over and over again.
So does the USA.
For Americans that is pretty transparent, as the government can access that information easily. But it is very obvious to foreign travelers and they keep on asking for more
The Nigerian was on a terrorist watch list, was he not?
He was but not on the no fly list (ask the US intelligence services why not, your mother is probably on the list but someone reported by his own family is not?), not that it would have not done much good because what TSA and most authorities like to overlook is the simple fact that he bypassed not only most security checks but also basic passport control.
He was a transfer passenger from Nigeria flying via Amsterdam. Nigeria is not exactly known for it's security and little to no checks were done in Amsterdam.
He managed to get on the plane with a bomb because of poor intelligence, the one thing most intelligence experts (and Israel demonstrates) is the best defence against terrorists you can have.
1000 times more valuable than 101 baggage checks or the most expensive security systems money can buy
Total protectionism is not good, no argument against that. Properly done it should be a balancing act, enough to keep prices/costs down, but not so much as to lead to mass exporting of jobs/importing of cheaper labour
But in the west (mainly English speaking west) the scale has gone too far the other way. Not only has it been made ridiculously easy to import staff on the cheap but they have made just as easy and more importantly cost effect to export the rest of the job's
Like to use your worst case scenario "just means the whole freaking company moves abroad", if the company has moved all its low paying/manual labour job's abroad, is mainly onshoring cheaper foreign labour for the higher level stuff and is probably arranging it tax affairs in such a way that it is paying virtually no tax's in its "home country" in the west...what exactly is the point in trying to keep the company from moving abroad? They are not benefiting the economy or the locals in any meaningful way.
Countries in the west not only need to start seriously tightening up their immigration rule's but also need to start raising their import tax's and closing tax loopholes so that it no longer is so damn cost effective for companies to do what they are doing, because while the current situation might lead to cheaper goods in the short term, in the long run no one is going to be able to afford those goods in the west because all the locals will be out of work or be on the local equivalent of minimum wage
"It doesn't need an "iPhone competitor", it has a portfolio of those."
As someone who generally hates Apple (control freaks) and won't buy an Iphone on principal and who own's a N97, one of Nokia's latest attempts at a "iphone competitor" i would dispute that statement, what Nokia has is a portfolio of "Failed iPhone competitors"
If there were enough skilled American workers to fill those jobs, then perhaps. If there aren't, then you have an issue.
God not the old line of "not enough of the local workforce skilled enough to do the job", surely you can do better than?
The real truth is "not enough of the local workforce skilled enough to do the job on the cheap"
Take for example the case in the UK with ICT's (Intra Company Transfers) which is the main method companies use to bring in staff these days due to outsourcing offshore falling out of favour.
In 2008, some 30,000 IT people were brought into the UK under the ICT route, 44% of them by just 7 Indian based outsourcing companies and coincidentally the IT sector contains not a single occupation on the skills shortage list.
We quite litterly had thousands of people working their notice periods training their cheaper imported Indian replacements to do the exact same job they had been doing.
And it's not the case with these Indians that they would raise their prices to the normal local levels over time due to cost of living either, because if they leave their job's, guess what? they have to leave the country (Nor is it a case that they bring in much tax revenue as they get the bulk of their pay back in India with just subsistence salary paid in the UK)
This all sounding familiar?
Sure, H1B and ICT's, on paper and if not abused, are great things that can benefit the destination country as much if not more so than the imported workforce, but the problem is the companies not abusing them are a distinct minority not majority. The majority are just using them to give them access to a cheap "indentured" workforce close by
"That's exactly what I was going to say. People go to movies in the theater for the experience"
After a recent trip to the cinema while holidaying in Bangkok decided never going to the cinema in the west again...at least until they make the "experience" equivalent to what I experienced there
Bangkok: Free standing leather 'Lazy boy' recliner chairs sectioned into stalls for privacy (2 chairs per stall), pillow, blanket, seat side service for drink/food, sound at the proper 'comfortable' level, pay slightly more for the tickets than you would in the west (taking into account cost of living differences) but drinks/snacks are appropriately priced for what they are so it all balances out
In comparison 'cinema experience' in the west is torture that they should be paying us to go though
UK cinema: cramped chairs, probably not to clean, sometimes downright hard seating, no decent elbow room, sound at levels to induce headache, especially if watching action movies. Totally rip off prices on things like drinks/ snacks (experienced all this in many trips to cinema in the US as well)
"And, in the case of the Premier League, Scudamore seems to be leaving out an awful lot of important facts, such as how incredibly limited an online offering the Premier League has put forth,"
There is a very good reason for this, TV rights, just the UK rights alone are worth to them close to 1.5 billion USD a year and international rights about the same again.
If they start offering online versions directly, the likes of Sky (getting the near exclusive rights pretty much "made" Sky broadcasting when it started up) and other major broadcasters would not pay these crazy amounts
Sure potentially they might earn more if they offered the games online directly themselves, but then they could not get the lucrative multiyear broadcast contracts they currently do, which would make it hard for the clubs to know in advance how much money they have to waste each season on over-paying for players
While I in no way agree with the whole kicking people off the net, cannot really blame the premier league doing anything they can to keep their games offline, they are already earning astronomical amounts (far more than they deserve), why risk it?
If the students grades are relevant (not saying they are) then the orginal and current prosecutors, judges, witnesses and cops grades, grading criteria, student evaluations, and private notes and and off-the-record interviews are 10000 times more relevant as they were all part of the original case
So if i was the students i would just issue a counter subpoena
$10 the prosecutor drops their subpoena 10 mins after receiving the counter
"They did... you just ignored it. Some ridiculous percentage of kids would rather get sued than lose their internet connection. Fear, being the biggest motivator for the human race, would push them to maybe go the legal route."
Fear does not get them "interested in buying music", it might get them to stop sharing music (but highly unlikely, people have been sharing music since the cassette tape at the very least, long before internet file sharing) but it does not entice them to go out and "buy it"
Those who want to and are able to buy music already do, nothing short of laws telling people they must buy X amount of albums per month or go to jail will force the rest to go out and buy it
After a weekend of non stop calls from friends and family related to stupid computer problems/difficulties (PC locked up = reboot / Cannot print = plug printer into pc / cannot find an email I received = use search) I would like to see compulsory training for everyone before they are allowed near a PC. Once they pass they get their licence
Re: Re: Fewer Foreigners Coming To US Grad Schools: This Is A Problem
"So, what you are saying is that the American management of that company is stupid, lacks foresight and are not noticing or quite accepting that they are building an inferior product?"
Truth? Probably. Sadly, as the current recession has proven, most business no longer care about the long term or quality, it's all about short term saving and profit. Who cares about the long term? That does not affect this years bonus's/shareholder profits.
Why would current management care if actions/savings done now have negative effect 3 to 4 years down the road when the people who made those decisions will be long gone
Current place I am working is a prime example, they got into the outsourcing craze big time back in early days and made huge savings, initially.
Now though they are getting ripped off left and right by outsourcers because they know they have them over the proverbial barrel because the company no longer have the internal expertise so they cannot bring stuff back in house and it would be way to complicated to move outsourcers for very little benefit. And guess what? Ones responsible for jumping on that outsourcing bandwagon to such an extent collected their bonus's long ago and are now long gone
"If a $80,000 job can be done by someone for $50,000 then why should ANYONE be paid more to do it? As a customer, why would I want to pay more for an equivalent product that could be produced cheaper?"
It can be done for $50,000 because that guy has no intension in remaining long term in the county and building a life there, thus is not looking at paying out for mortgage, kids collage, savings so forth, he will be doing those things back home where the purchasing power of the $50,000 probably buys him the equivalent of $120,000 life style
Really depends on the "skilled foreigners" and who is bringing them in and even more importantly why
Take the UK with the ICT (Intra Company Transfers) "visas", initially these were put in place so companies could move their high level skilled staff around the world, say skilled project manager from India who has been with company X for 10 years, so not only skilled in his chosen profession but also very familiar with the inner workings of the company.
That's how things were meant to work, the reality though has been very different, basically companies setting up subsidiaries in places like India, hiring staff though those subsidiaries and bringing them straight over to the UK, where the staff in the UK have to train them in their job's so they can replace the UK staff.
And why are companies doing this? Because they are vastly cheaper (not only because of lower salaries but also by combining it with fiddles so those staff don't have to pay UK tax's).
Last year alone, nearly 30,000 IT workers were imported via these methods, during a period with the highest unemployment seen in IT for nearly a decade, and most of them were not filling new roles, but rather directly replacing UK/European staff. Big abusers of this have been the like's of BT and the financial sector
Ability to bring in skilled staff is good and needed, but if you create a system that is to open or that can be abused you can bet your last dollar it will be abused by companies, to the extream detriment of your local skilled workforce and a local workforce that is not working is not good for the economy, no matter how many start up's the foreigners might create
And Shawn, that is exactly what the politicians are hoping for, what people hearing about this are as ignorant about the sex offenders register as you are.
Currently there are over half a million people in the US on the registries, put on there for things ranging from serial rapists, violent kidnap and sexual molestation on children, parents abusing their children, men caught with prostitutes, 16 year olds having oral sex with their 15 year old BF/GF, people caught urinating in public, even flashers/strekers at public events and in many/most states once you are on that list you are on it for life
Reason premier league "don't do internet" is simple, it would greatly devalue their existing business model, which mainly consists of selling game transmission rights to the main TV/Sat stations.
If they start transmitting online they undercut that market and set themselves as competitors to their existing clients.
Cannot really blame them for not wanting to take the risk of changing their business model when their current one is so successful and any alternative would have a huge impact on the existing one
Do hourly Employee's make sense? Really depends on the country and it's labour laws, even more so than the particular industry/job
If you look at the US, a country with one of the least amount of employee protections in the western world (outside of unionized industries, which go completely the other way), where it is common for permanent employee's to work overtime/weekends unpaid, where law mandated sick/holiday payments and benefits are minimal, then no I would say hourly does not make that much sense
But if you take rest of western world, with vastly greater employee protections/benefits in comparison to the US, lack of culture/expectation of the employee "working overtime for free" outside of most industries, then yes in many cases it makes sense for companies to hire hourly
I know you did not mean that, but actually you are 100% correct.
The content is not and has never been what was "valuable", it was the method/medium of distribution. Otherwise we all would have been happy with radio (or even further back, going to taverns and just listening to singers/bards) and no one would have ever bought tapes/CD's.
Now the world has moved on and we no longer need CD's as we can get digitally what we want when we want
Now that distribution is virtually unlimited and free the Industry needs to take a page out of retailers play book and realise the "content" is the loss leader, it get's people though your door (in this case into your "brand"), your profit comes from the other things they buy once you get them "in the door"
Only reason they even tried is they are virtually only ISP with a monopoly over their particular market in the UK (small geographic area in the north east).
Any other ISP in any other part of the country would not even try something so draconic as all their banned customers could move to any of the 100 possible competitors within a few days
On the post: Guy Buys $3 Billion CD-ROM
This case, transaction (funds transfer) never took place
Thus two senarios are not compareble
If Amazon had actually managed to get hold of the money would say the CD would have actually arrived
On the post: Time For 'Israelification' Of U.S. Airports?
Re:
So does the USA.
For Americans that is pretty transparent, as the government can access that information easily. But it is very obvious to foreign travelers and they keep on asking for more
On the post: Time For 'Israelification' Of U.S. Airports?
Re: Re: Different situation
He was but not on the no fly list (ask the US intelligence services why not, your mother is probably on the list but someone reported by his own family is not?), not that it would have not done much good because what TSA and most authorities like to overlook is the simple fact that he bypassed not only most security checks but also basic passport control.
He was a transfer passenger from Nigeria flying via Amsterdam. Nigeria is not exactly known for it's security and little to no checks were done in Amsterdam.
He managed to get on the plane with a bomb because of poor intelligence, the one thing most intelligence experts (and Israel demonstrates) is the best defence against terrorists you can have.
1000 times more valuable than 101 baggage checks or the most expensive security systems money can buy
On the post: Court Overreacts And Orders Full Takedown Of Anti-H-1B Websites Over Contradictory Libel/Copyright Claims
Re: Re:
But in the west (mainly English speaking west) the scale has gone too far the other way. Not only has it been made ridiculously easy to import staff on the cheap but they have made just as easy and more importantly cost effect to export the rest of the job's
Like to use your worst case scenario "just means the whole freaking company moves abroad", if the company has moved all its low paying/manual labour job's abroad, is mainly onshoring cheaper foreign labour for the higher level stuff and is probably arranging it tax affairs in such a way that it is paying virtually no tax's in its "home country" in the west...what exactly is the point in trying to keep the company from moving abroad? They are not benefiting the economy or the locals in any meaningful way.
Countries in the west not only need to start seriously tightening up their immigration rule's but also need to start raising their import tax's and closing tax loopholes so that it no longer is so damn cost effective for companies to do what they are doing, because while the current situation might lead to cheaper goods in the short term, in the long run no one is going to be able to afford those goods in the west because all the locals will be out of work or be on the local equivalent of minimum wage
On the post: Nokia Launches Another Patent Attack On Apple, Uses ITC Loophole To Get Second Shot At Hurting Apple
As someone who generally hates Apple (control freaks) and won't buy an Iphone on principal and who own's a N97, one of Nokia's latest attempts at a "iphone competitor" i would dispute that statement, what Nokia has is a portfolio of "Failed iPhone competitors"
On the post: Court Overreacts And Orders Full Takedown Of Anti-H-1B Websites Over Contradictory Libel/Copyright Claims
Re: Re: H-1B not needed
God not the old line of "not enough of the local workforce skilled enough to do the job", surely you can do better than?
The real truth is "not enough of the local workforce skilled enough to do the job on the cheap"
Take for example the case in the UK with ICT's (Intra Company Transfers) which is the main method companies use to bring in staff these days due to outsourcing offshore falling out of favour.
In 2008, some 30,000 IT people were brought into the UK under the ICT route, 44% of them by just 7 Indian based outsourcing companies and coincidentally the IT sector contains not a single occupation on the skills shortage list.
We quite litterly had thousands of people working their notice periods training their cheaper imported Indian replacements to do the exact same job they had been doing.
And it's not the case with these Indians that they would raise their prices to the normal local levels over time due to cost of living either, because if they leave their job's, guess what? they have to leave the country (Nor is it a case that they bring in much tax revenue as they get the bulk of their pay back in India with just subsistence salary paid in the UK)
This all sounding familiar?
Sure, H1B and ICT's, on paper and if not abused, are great things that can benefit the destination country as much if not more so than the imported workforce, but the problem is the companies not abusing them are a distinct minority not majority. The majority are just using them to give them access to a cheap "indentured" workforce close by
On the post: One Misguided Tweet Is 'Indisputable' Evidence That Piracy Harms Movies?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
After a recent trip to the cinema while holidaying in Bangkok decided never going to the cinema in the west again...at least until they make the "experience" equivalent to what I experienced there
Bangkok: Free standing leather 'Lazy boy' recliner chairs sectioned into stalls for privacy (2 chairs per stall), pillow, blanket, seat side service for drink/food, sound at the proper 'comfortable' level, pay slightly more for the tickets than you would in the west (taking into account cost of living differences) but drinks/snacks are appropriately priced for what they are so it all balances out
In comparison 'cinema experience' in the west is torture that they should be paying us to go though
UK cinema: cramped chairs, probably not to clean, sometimes downright hard seating, no decent elbow room, sound at levels to induce headache, especially if watching action movies. Totally rip off prices on things like drinks/ snacks (experienced all this in many trips to cinema in the US as well)
On the post: If We Don't Kick People Off The Internet For File Sharing, Football Will Die
There is a very good reason for this, TV rights, just the UK rights alone are worth to them close to 1.5 billion USD a year and international rights about the same again.
If they start offering online versions directly, the likes of Sky (getting the near exclusive rights pretty much "made" Sky broadcasting when it started up) and other major broadcasters would not pay these crazy amounts
Sure potentially they might earn more if they offered the games online directly themselves, but then they could not get the lucrative multiyear broadcast contracts they currently do, which would make it hard for the clubs to know in advance how much money they have to waste each season on over-paying for players
While I in no way agree with the whole kicking people off the net, cannot really blame the premier league doing anything they can to keep their games offline, they are already earning astronomical amounts (far more than they deserve), why risk it?
On the post: Prosecutors Subpoena Tons Of Info On Student Journalists Who Provided Information To Reopen Murder Case
Re: Grades are VERY Relevant
So if i was the students i would just issue a counter subpoena
$10 the prosecutor drops their subpoena 10 mins after receiving the counter
On the post: UK ISP Shows Why Kicking People Off The Internet Based On An IP Address Is Dumb
Re: ...
Fear does not get them "interested in buying music", it might get them to stop sharing music (but highly unlikely, people have been sharing music since the cassette tape at the very least, long before internet file sharing) but it does not entice them to go out and "buy it"
Those who want to and are able to buy music already do, nothing short of laws telling people they must buy X amount of albums per month or go to jail will force the rest to go out and buy it
On the post: Yet Another Call For A 'Computer User's License'
Like this idea!!
After a weekend of non stop calls from friends and family related to stupid computer problems/difficulties (PC locked up = reboot / Cannot print = plug printer into pc / cannot find an email I received = use search) I would like to see compulsory training for everyone before they are allowed near a PC. Once they pass they get their licence
On the post: Court Dismisses Case Against Yahoo From Woman Upset How She Appeared In Results
This had never anything to do with her being "upset". The real reason can be found on her profile, or more accurately her current job description
"Manage financial and marketing aspects of Stayart Law Offices."
It was all about raising the profile of her family law firmOn the post: Fewer Foreigners Coming To US Grad Schools: This Is A Problem
Re: Re: Fewer Foreigners Coming To US Grad Schools: This Is A Problem
Truth? Probably. Sadly, as the current recession has proven, most business no longer care about the long term or quality, it's all about short term saving and profit. Who cares about the long term? That does not affect this years bonus's/shareholder profits.
Why would current management care if actions/savings done now have negative effect 3 to 4 years down the road when the people who made those decisions will be long gone
Current place I am working is a prime example, they got into the outsourcing craze big time back in early days and made huge savings, initially.
Now though they are getting ripped off left and right by outsourcers because they know they have them over the proverbial barrel because the company no longer have the internal expertise so they cannot bring stuff back in house and it would be way to complicated to move outsourcers for very little benefit. And guess what? Ones responsible for jumping on that outsourcing bandwagon to such an extent collected their bonus's long ago and are now long gone
"If a $80,000 job can be done by someone for $50,000 then why should ANYONE be paid more to do it? As a customer, why would I want to pay more for an equivalent product that could be produced cheaper?"
It can be done for $50,000 because that guy has no intension in remaining long term in the county and building a life there, thus is not looking at paying out for mortgage, kids collage, savings so forth, he will be doing those things back home where the purchasing power of the $50,000 probably buys him the equivalent of $120,000 life style
On the post: Fewer Foreigners Coming To US Grad Schools: This Is A Problem
Take the UK with the ICT (Intra Company Transfers) "visas", initially these were put in place so companies could move their high level skilled staff around the world, say skilled project manager from India who has been with company X for 10 years, so not only skilled in his chosen profession but also very familiar with the inner workings of the company.
That's how things were meant to work, the reality though has been very different, basically companies setting up subsidiaries in places like India, hiring staff though those subsidiaries and bringing them straight over to the UK, where the staff in the UK have to train them in their job's so they can replace the UK staff.
And why are companies doing this? Because they are vastly cheaper (not only because of lower salaries but also by combining it with fiddles so those staff don't have to pay UK tax's).
Last year alone, nearly 30,000 IT workers were imported via these methods, during a period with the highest unemployment seen in IT for nearly a decade, and most of them were not filling new roles, but rather directly replacing UK/European staff. Big abusers of this have been the like's of BT and the financial sector
Ability to bring in skilled staff is good and needed, but if you create a system that is to open or that can be abused you can bet your last dollar it will be abused by companies, to the extream detriment of your local skilled workforce and a local workforce that is not working is not good for the economy, no matter how many start up's the foreigners might create
On the post: Illinois Says Sex Offenders Can't Use Social Networks
Re: Good.
Currently there are over half a million people in the US on the registries, put on there for things ranging from serial rapists, violent kidnap and sexual molestation on children, parents abusing their children, men caught with prostitutes, 16 year olds having oral sex with their 15 year old BF/GF, people caught urinating in public, even flashers/strekers at public events and in many/most states once you are on that list you are on it for life
On the post: Premier League's Fear Of The Internet A Case Study In What Not To Do
If they start transmitting online they undercut that market and set themselves as competitors to their existing clients.
Cannot really blame them for not wanting to take the risk of changing their business model when their current one is so successful and any alternative would have a huge impact on the existing one
On the post: Do Hourly Employees Even Make Sense Any More?
If you look at the US, a country with one of the least amount of employee protections in the western world (outside of unionized industries, which go completely the other way), where it is common for permanent employee's to work overtime/weekends unpaid, where law mandated sick/holiday payments and benefits are minimal, then no I would say hourly does not make that much sense
But if you take rest of western world, with vastly greater employee protections/benefits in comparison to the US, lack of culture/expectation of the employee "working overtime for free" outside of most industries, then yes in many cases it makes sense for companies to hire hourly
On the post: EU Gov't Study: People Won't Pay For Content; New Business Models Needed
Re: Re: Re: Backend Payment
The content is not and has never been what was "valuable", it was the method/medium of distribution. Otherwise we all would have been happy with radio (or even further back, going to taverns and just listening to singers/bards) and no one would have ever bought tapes/CD's.
Now the world has moved on and we no longer need CD's as we can get digitally what we want when we want
Now that distribution is virtually unlimited and free the Industry needs to take a page out of retailers play book and realise the "content" is the loss leader, it get's people though your door (in this case into your "brand"), your profit comes from the other things they buy once you get them "in the door"
On the post: UK ISP That Used To Cut Off Users On Accusation Now Wants Court Order
Any other ISP in any other part of the country would not even try something so draconic as all their banned customers could move to any of the 100 possible competitors within a few days
On the post: How You Feel About Rorschach Tests On Wikipedia Says A Lot About You
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