Uh-oh.
Sounds like Trump charged the government 6 times the agreed rate of $200 a night for his own secret service’s rooms to the tune of at least $1.4 million in overcharges, possibly 10 times that amount or more.
Yet another criminal investigation, not to keep Trump from running, but because everything he was involved in involved multiple serious felonies.

Sorry, this news doesn’t include any vote fraud either.

The lookout in your example would have a felony murder charge, which is distinctly different from murder. If prosecutors overcharge and one juror doesn't agree, then they get off. I don't think the DA will risk that. I wonder how they are going to find an impartial jury though.

Agreed, but the landlord sets the rate ahead of time. If that's what she contracted for, she has no right to complain later. I also have to wonder if that's $50 each, so $200 per night, because that would be more in line with normal prices....although you can get insane deals if you're there in a storm, most people won't drive and/or ski in white out conditions so there are a lot of cancelations.
Or maybe it's really just a shed and $50 is overcharging? ;-)

The idea of consumerism will change so that we no longer need to purchase constructed things from companies which overcharge you by inflating the costs of resources. You'll just need to purchase the resources themselves.

And then when anything can be manipulated into anything, we will no longer purchase things from other people, but rather purchase their services.

"I can make my iPad Infinity with my own parts, I just need someone that can synthesize deuterium for the mini-reactor."

unless some killer exclusive comes out, I'm abandoning consoles this season. Both consoles are all about stupid tv, motion and camera gimmicks. and they overcharge for junk I don't want.

I enjoy the freedom and flexibility of PC far too much.

@renatojj Apologies for the late reply, have been running for work and it doesnt look like that will stop

True that some countries may have less cooperation, though is that dependent on the economic system used or something else? For instance, East Germany had 100% employment and a very active economy, more so then west Germany in some regards. It was ofc run top down with little choice and politically biased, but I am not sure if that lessons the amount of economic transactions, ie cooperation. I guess it comes down to what you define as cooperation.

BTW "those criticisms of the depletion of finite natural resources consists of the economic Law of Diminishing Returns, opportunity cost, and scarcity in economics" -- I never understood what they mean with that. Even if the resource cost goes up strongly due to scarcity it doesnt mean that that resource can be replaced by something else, or that the higher cost (than the original cost of the scarce resource) of the replacement can be born by its consumers.

Now you say something very interesting: I agree with you that capitalism isnt always about ever-increasing competitiveness, in practice. In cases where you have competition, you get ever-increasing competitiveness. (This is in theory what all capitalism strives for) In cases where you do not have competition you dont. That is exactly what we are talking about. Free market philosophy assumes there is always near perfect competition right? How else would the market balance itself if there is no competition? Would you agree that free markets only work where there is competition?

Lets see when we have competition:

"competition is proportional to the difference between supply and demand" That doesnt sound right. If there is large demand and little supply (the difference is big), there is little competition as all suppliers will overcharge like hell as they will be able to sell anything they can manufacturer anyway. If there is large supply and little demand there can be competition, though usually this results in companies leaving the market until you have: If the supply and demand are about equal, you SOMETIMES have competition that keeps things in balance. Or you can have a monopoly for whatever reason and that market has again little to no competition. In other words, in no single scenario is competition guaranteed. Actually, there is good reason to assume markets move to monopolies naturally in all cases. In a market that is turning from early adopters to mass market, there is always focus on economies of scale. Companies need to get bigger to make sure they have the lowest cost price (best competitive edge) and to keep their shareholders happy as they demand growth to make their investments worth more. Bigger companies means fewer companies on the long run, as the market is always limited. This means companies will take over other companies until only a handful remain. Voila. Actually, if it werent for (anti-free market) anti-monopoly rules lots of markets would only have 1 company left. That company would be so big it would be impossible for a new entry to push them out of the market or even get a foothold unless the market itself crumbles because a newer range of products exist that make the old one obsolete. Again, without rules governing economies, things just go bust.

Which was what happened in the derivatives market. It was a completely deregulated market that was exploding itself as there were no rules governing it. When it did explode (ie when the free market failed) there were 2 options left: Let all banks fail or bail them out. Think of the consequences of following your recommendation: If 1 bank fails, it will pull the others down with it as they are all strongly interconnected. As banks are key in the economical world, the entire system would collapse. The amount of devastation would be huge, would probably kill the entire system. Now, you can argue that would be good for us, as we could build a fully new system. But before we would get there, there would be years if not decades of nightmares.
I agree with you that the fall of the derivatives market should never have happened in the first place which is exactly the reason to not follow free markets.

Above clarifies a bit my way of thinking: for many of these markets (be it banks or utilities or employment) the consequences of letting that market fail are just too big. If you have the guts to follow free markets to the end, it might work (isnt proven though) but you come to a point where you destabilize your country in such a manner that things like revolts and all kind of nastiness are highly possible and even likely. That is not progress, that is barbarianism.

You mention yourself that there are practically no free markets anywhere. You say that is because they havent been tried. I say that they have been tried again and again but never last.

>> ^Fletch:

>> ^Jerykk:
If a protest involves hordes of people marching in the street, blocking traffic and generally being loud and annoying, I don't really consider that "peaceful." It may not be violent but it's entirely disruptive and hinders people's ability to get where they need to go and do what they need to do.
You can try and justify the disruption by saying that it's the only way to get attention but really, you would only say that if you agreed with the protestors. If a bunch of people marched on the streets because the MSRP of Twinkies was raised by 5 cents, would that protest still be "justified"? A disruption is a disruption, regardless of motivation. If the protestors in the video had permits and conducted their activity in a genuinely peaceful manner, I seriously doubt there would have been any police intervention.

You only see what you want to see. The only people being disruptive and blocking traffic in this video are the cops and their fucking horses.
And who said you have a right to life without "disruption" anyway? You gonna call the police when that asshole won't stop talking in the movie theater? You going to just keep your mouth shut and walk away peacefully when that cashier overcharges you for your Twinkies? Maybe your idea of protest is standing quietly on some street corner, permit in pocket, holding a sign. It's not my idea of protest (not any more), and if disruptions bother you, stay home and veg on VS all day. Just remember to be quiet and keep your opinions to yourself, because I feel they are disruptive, and they bother me.


Flawed analogies. If you're telling someone to quiet down in a theater, you are directly addressing the person you take issue with. If you tell a cashier that he overcharged you, same deal. Nobody aside from the people directly responsible for your grievances are affected. Conversely, when you block traffic so you can protest against police brutality, who are you actually affecting? The cops will show up and do what they get paid to do. Bystanders, on the other hand, get screwed.

If you want to protest police brutality, do it where only police are affected. Like a police station. Don't do it in the middle of a business area where you're just impeding people's ability to live their lives. If you're so self-centered that you're willing to promote your agenda at the expense of everyone else, don't surprised when people get irritated. And when these people have body armor, guns, tazers, tear gas, pepper spray, riot shields, etc, things probably won't end well for you.

>> ^Jerykk:

If a protest involves hordes of people marching in the street, blocking traffic and generally being loud and annoying, I don't really consider that "peaceful." It may not be violent but it's entirely disruptive and hinders people's ability to get where they need to go and do what they need to do.
You can try and justify the disruption by saying that it's the only way to get attention but really, you would only say that if you agreed with the protestors. If a bunch of people marched on the streets because the MSRP of Twinkies was raised by 5 cents, would that protest still be "justified"? A disruption is a disruption, regardless of motivation. If the protestors in the video had permits and conducted their activity in a genuinely peaceful manner, I seriously doubt there would have been any police intervention.


You only see what you want to see. The only people being disruptive and blocking traffic in this video are the cops and their fucking horses.

And who said you have a right to life without "disruption" anyway? You gonna call the police when that asshole won't stop talking in the movie theater? You going to just keep your mouth shut and walk away peacefully when that cashier overcharges you for your Twinkies? Maybe your idea of protest is standing quietly on some street corner, permit in pocket, holding a sign. It's not my idea of protest (not any more), and if disruptions bother you, stay home and veg on VS all day. Just remember to be quiet and keep your opinions to yourself, because I feel they are disruptive, and they bother me.

fossil fuels are profitable. first you overcharge for oily gunk, then you tax the people who need energy with a carbon tax

>> ^notarobot:

United breaks guitars, Delta overcharges for baggage. What airlines are left?


A whole bunch.

>> ^notarobot:

United breaks guitars, Delta overcharges for baggage. What airlines are left?


Korea Airlines... and all the hot stewardesses they hire.

United breaks guitars, Delta overcharges for baggage. What airlines are left?

I don't torrent movies simply because I feel movies are ridiculously cheap and easy to get. I also don't buy the "torrent as trialware" line either...either you like a movie enough to watch it, or you don't. If you are curious enough to watch a movie, you'll rent it, no one is forcing you to buy anything and there is a sort of unspoken consent that guess what...you may actually not like this movie. There is no such thing as a guarantee to liking a movie so every movie is a risk that I accept. Movies are ridiculously quick to be released on DVD so it's not exactly hard to wait for DVDs to be released and rented to find out if you like them, not to mention word of mouth from friends and family and critics reviews to add to your information to make an informed decision on whether or not you like or don't like a movie enough to actually buy it.

TV on the other hand is broadcast over the air and either never to be shown again or rarely to be shown again. Cable companies overcharge for their services and their equipment And for some reason, most season DVDs of TV are ridiculously expensive. And on top of it, once I've watched it...I rarely feel the need to watch it again so I delete it. Maybe a couple years down the road I'll want to watch it again, but ill download it, watch it, and delete it again. Movies I tend to re-watch over and over so I feel I get my money's worth even for the more expensive DVDs. And on top of it, many TV stations now stream their shows for free off the internet which, IMO is no different from torrenting.

Movie DVDs offer me value for my money, TV DVD's do not. I realize that may be a fleeting or subtle distinction, but that's how I see it.

Its intresting to see console games gradualy coppy and impliment things that have been in pc games for a long time and a shame that we have not seen more arcade games on pc although saying that that is kinda whats hapaning in pc casual where PC has replaced the role that Snes nes, typ consoles used to hold.

Im sure this will be a good console game its a shame it will probably be quite naff and not realy work as a pc game.

I quite enjoyed MW2 as a console game i do think however it would have been far more enjoyable if it was made around pcs , faster aiming , better graphics ( proper hosting ) Free custom maps.

The in thing now is for developers to do multiplatform but not actualy design for each platform so u have a game that only realy works well on 1 of the platforms and is pritty shoddy on the rest.

Its pritty bad how the Guy in this video didnot credit the mod makers that invented gun game and pritty much made out that it was there design team that came up with it. These developer videos are often such bullshit.

Just going to have to wait 4 months or so after this is out so i can pick it up for £10 second hand , GOt to love how publishers are drowning themselfs by producing game after game with limited content and overcharging for it , They claim that piracy is what killed pc gaming ( evan though for multiplayer games its not realy an issue) but whats amsuing is that they are going to be responsable for commiting suicide on the consoles as greed gets the better of them,

If youtube itself doesn't have the technology, then their parent company does. There are methods to detect fake click-bots on AdWords... otherwise paying customers would be overcharged, and then they would lose customers. They could put the same method into effect for their youtube users, but it seems the financial motivation is missing...