Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Palin's nightmare
Scott Horton of Harper's posted this video of Palin at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday where she "told the crowd that an Obama presidency would present the specter of a socialist state in which fundamental American freedoms are undermined."
Does Sarah mean a state:
- That snatches its victims off the street, denies them all form of legal process and whisks them away to secret “blacksites” where they can be tortured using all the techniques described in Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon?
- That arrests and prosecutes its political adversaries for imaginary crimes so as to eliminate them from the running in election cycles in which they could do some damage?
- That destroys the careers of professional military men because they got promotions under a prior regime and therefore considers them disloyal?
- That believes it can detain and hold its enemies forever without any charges or any evidence against them, denying them access to courts to prove their innocence?
- That constantly manipulates the population’s fear whenever its public popularity slips and elections begin to approach?
- That believes that it can make no errors, and that those who point to its errors are traitors?
- That systematically spies on millions of its citizens in direct violation of a criminal statute which forbids such surveillance?
- That signs new laws with its fingers crossed in the form of signing statements, so that no one knows whether the laws—or any part of them—will actually be enforced?
- That lies to its people about threats from abroad in an effort to build popular support for a series of wars and then cites the existence of those wars as a reason to suppress dissent?
- That nationalizes the debt of predatory capitalists so they suffer no punishment for their misconduct and then nationalizes major financial institutions, converting the nation’s free market system into a socialism in which crony capitalists are a privileged elite?
Sarah, you have no need to fear the future.
Capital One Changes Minimum Balance Calculations [Capital One]
A few readers have reported receiving letters from Capital One announcing that they credit card company is going to change how it calculates the minimum payment due amount. It used to be 3% of the balance, now it's going to be 1% of the balance, plus new interest, plus new late fees, or $15, whichever is greater. The change will be effective December, 2008. Most likely, Cap One saw more people not sending in their monthly payments so they changed it so that more people could afford to at least make their minimums. Maybe it's also a way to encourage people to be more loose with the plastic for Christmas. However, having a lower minimum monthly payment also encourages debtors to take longer paying off their debt, increasing their total cost in the long run. What's interesting though is the letter says the change is required by "federal banking regulators." Not sure what rule change they're referring to there. Scan of the letter inside.
(Thanks to Nathan and Jason!) (Photo: thivierr)
Target Pays $3.1 Million For Falsely Accusing Customer, Via Bulk Email, Of Passing Funny Money [Target]
A jury awarded Rita Cantrell $100,000 in actual damage and hit Target with $3 million in punitive damages after a Target employee sent a group email falsely accusing her of passing counterfeit bills. Rita was trying to buy stuff with a 1974 $100 bill which the store employees didn't recognize and thought was a fake. A loss-prevention employee then sent around a group email containing her picture and the false allegation to 31 different local, state and federal law enforcement offices, malls, department stores, home-improvement stores and grocery stores. The email result in the Secret Service interrogating Rita at her work place, but they were able to check out the bill and determine it was genuine. "Every aspect of Rita’s life was harmed by Target," said Cantrell's attorney.
Jury orders Target to pay $3 million in civil case [Greenville Online] (Thanks to Philip!) (Photo: maliavale)
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Banks Using $700 Billion Bailout To Buy Other Banks, Not Make More Loans [Swindles]
Washington told taxpayers a major rationale for us to fork over $700 billion to banks was to save the American economy by making loans more accessible, but it looks like at least at Chase they rather use it to buy other banks, NYT reports.
Times reporter Joe Nocera listened in on a Chase employee-only conference call and one employee asked, "Chase recently received $25 billion in federal funding. What effect will that have on the business side and will it change our strategic lending policy?"
Translation: When are we going to start making loans?The executive moderator replied:
Twenty-five billion dollars is obviously going to help the folks who are struggling more than Chase.. What we do think it will help us do is perhaps be a little bit more active on the acquisition side or opportunistic side for some banks who are still struggling. And I would not assume that we are done on the acquisition side just because of the Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns mergers. I think there are going to be some great opportunities for us to grow in this environment, and I think we have an opportunity to use that $25 billion in that way and obviously depending on whether recession turns into depression or what happens in the future, you know, we have that as a backstop.Later, the same executive said,
We would think that loan volume will continue to go down as we continue to tighten credit to fully reflect the high cost of pricing on the loan side.Translation: We'll use that $25 billion as a war chest to buy other banks, and hoard it in case times get tougher.
"Read that answer as many times as you want," wrote NYT, "You are not going to find a single word in there about making loans to help the American economy."
Furthermore, a new tax break allows banks to immediately deduct any losses they that are on the books of the banks they acquire.
What is the government doing to make banks use the money for loans? Apparently, jack, except for asking really really nicely. If this continues and banks don't use their government handout to open up loans, this bailout will be the single greatest ripoff in American history, and those responsible are naive if they don't think they'll have a giant bloody revolution on their hands—and I mean that in the literal sense.
So When Will Banks Give Loans? [NYT] (Photo: Getty)
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Scam: Prepaid Phone Cards Deliver About Half The Minutes Promised [Prepaid Phone Cards]
MSNBC says that a recent study by the FTC showed that on average, prepaid long distance phone cards only delivered about half of the minutes advertised.
Earlier this year, the FTC charged two major calling card distributors with cheating customers. In its lawsuits, the commission claims these firms charge hidden fees and make false statements about the number of minutes customers would receive.
During its investigation, the FTC bought and used dozens of calling cards from these two firms. None of the cards provided the number of minutes promised. On average, they delivered about half the minutes advertised. But in some cases it was much worse. A 360-minute card to Panama gave only 23 minutes of calling time.
In case you think this is no big deal — consider the fact that Americans spent $4 billion on prepaid phone cards in 2007. So how are they getting away with it? A combination of undisclosed fees and misleading advertising — the usual suspects.
Customers are charged connection fees, special fees for using a payphone, minutes are deducted for calls that did not connect and minutes are rounded up by three or four. Yuck.
Prepaid phone card industry under attack [MSNBC] (Thanks, Robert!)
(Photo: Tengaport )
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Restaurant's Creative Way Of Disguising Bad Health Inspection Report [Deceptions]
To disguise that they got a "C" on their recent health report, this restaurant incorporated it into a big sign on their front window. Tricky like a rock rhythm.
Sneaky Restaurant Fail [Fail Blog]
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Woman Says TSA Made Her Take Brace Off, Stand On Sprained Ankle []
A Washington woman says the TSA made her take off her ankle brace before passing through security. Now her sprained ankle is fractured. "Then she made me lift up each foot individually and put all the weight on it. It was incredibly painful," said Lona Dunlap. According to the TSA website, TSA agents don't make you take off your brace. Rather, they're supposed to swab the brace and look for trace explosive elements. The TSA is reviewing video footage and says it takes the allegation very seriously.
Woman Claims Pasco Airport Security Agent Hurt Her Foot [KERPTV] (Thanks to Matt!)
Priest Infects Church Network By Surfing the Web for Porn [Bad Padre Bad]
A priest has resigned from his parish after being caught viewing web porn in his computer at work. While I'm sure God doesn't give a damn about porn—no matter how close it is to heaven—or the weaknesses of this priest, the church's IT staff and the archbishop weren't so amused when they discovered that his porn surfing antics had infected all the computers parish network.
The parish padre, from the town of Strängnas, Sweden—my favorite country in the world—admitted his actions, saying that it was true he spent "a lot of time at work viewing pornographic websites" and he wished his lust would have remained between himself and God instead of infecting the computers with this "lethal computer virus". Well, Mr. Svenssonjohanssoncommandersson, seriously, don't flagellate yourself over a computer virus. This kind of things happens to the best, although archbishop Anders Wejryd is not so understanding as we are:
Priests are people too, but I have no understanding at all for someone sitting and surfing for porn on the parish computers.
Well, archbishop, better watching porn than touching little kids like some of your colleagues elsewhere in the world, that's for sure. Apparently, however, some definitive action was needed with the the Strängnas priest after another pastor in my beloved Göteborg "came under scrutiny for moistening post-it notes with his penis and sticking them up in an office." Inexplicably, this one was allowed to keep his job.
And yes, we need video of that. [The Register]
Monday, October 20, 2008
Oil Prices May Go Down, But Don't Expect Your Grocery Bill To Shrink [Grocery Store Economics]
Now that the price of oil has dropped — you should expect some of those skyrocketing grocery bills you've been paying to drop, right? Yeah... probably not.
It's called "sticky prices" — the tendency for companies to delay both raising — and then lowering prices in response to changes in the cost of raw materials. You see, what you pay at the grocery store has more to do with what competitors charge than it does with how much it actually costs to produce the item.
The AP explains:
Prices have been going up broadly across whole categories of products, meaning competitors have been hiking prices in unison. For example, both Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. and SABMiller's U.S. unit have been raising the price for beer, with neither one too worried that the price hikes will push customers to their competitor.
"They may be upset about it, but you really have fairly limited options as a consumer," Perner said.
For prices to drop, consumers have to hope that companies' competitive juices start flowing again. The drop in oil and ingredient prices is creating a high-stakes game of chicken in the shopping aisle, Perner said.
If companies keep their prices at current levels, they can reap higher profit margins. But if one company starts cutting prices to lure customers away from competitors, it could start a price war.
"As soon as the first (company) in a category reduces prices, the others will follow suit. But they're all hoping the other one doesn't" cut prices, Perner said.
...And in case you're wondering if the same applies to airfares... the answer is yes. Don't expect the airlines to let go of any of those new fees without a fight.
Grocery bill still high? Blame ‘sticky’ prices [Newsweek]
(Photo: Ben Popken )
Friday, October 17, 2008
The Atlantic: Verizon Did Give John McCain Special Treatment With Cell Towers [Verizon]
After the Washington Post ran a story about how both Verizon and AT&T tripped over themselves to put up cell towers at John McCain's Arizona ranch to patch up his crappy reception, Verizon came out huffing with remarkable speed that it "was wrong," and they just put those towers up because the Secret Service said so and they had to, not because it was John McCain and he's more specialerer than you. However, the Atlantic's Joshua Green lays out why Verizon's denial doesn't quite add up.
Yes, the temporary towers currently in place are response to a Secret Service request, though notably Service spokesman Eric Zahren told the Post in the original story that "this was something that was being addressed before we were out there," and that they could have used existing cell coverage in the area. The critical point, though, is that before the Secret Service tower happened, as Green notes, "whatever its motivation, Verizon plainly went to considerable effort and expense to pursue building a permanent tower on the McCains’ ranch," per Cindy McCain's original efforts, and it was "long underway until just recently."
The 200-page environmental assessment alone was an ordeal, with Verizon hiring consultants, sub-contractors, archaeologists and contacting over a dozen Indian tribes, not to mention all of the appropriate government agencies. It's clear Verizon went through a lot of trouble here.
So whether or not the McCains wanted special treatment, it looks like they got it—even Verizon's map of the sparse area (above) clearly denotes "McCain's cabin," so they definitely knew who it was for. And if the permanent tower "made no business sense," as Verizon spokesman Jeff Nelson put it, why did they go through all of that trouble in the first place? Wouldn't they have known how desolate it was before pouring lots of money and time into a bunch of regulatory crap? I guess that's one of the perks of having power—you don't have to ask for favors, you just get them. [The Atlantic]
P.S. If you have evidence T-Mobile put a tower on top of Obama's house, let us know.
High school student in Kentucky faces felony charges for writing a zombie story
Salim sez, "William Poole, an 18-year-old Kentucky high-school student wrote a story about a high-school over-ran by a plague of zombies. Not exactly the most original scenario, but just the sort of thing for a young writer to cut his teeth on. Unfortunately the kid's grandparents found the manuscript and assumed the very worst. The high-schooler was arrested on Tuesday morning and is currently being held at the Clark County Detention Center. The local police seem to be treating this work of fiction as if it were some kind of terrorist threat."
"My story is based on fiction," said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. "It's a fake story. I made it up. I've been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies."Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky," said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.
Student Arrested For Terroristic Threatening Says Incident A Misunderstanding (Thanks, Salim!)
Selling used CDs is still legal in America
The record industry lost a landmark battle last spring, when a court said that merely printing "not for resale" on an unsolicited promo CD does not prevent you from reselling it -- and certainly does not prevent me from buying it. The judgement establishes that "first sale" -- the legal doctrine that says that once you buy something, it's yours -- is still alive and well. This The Legality article unpacks it all for you:
Once again, the music industry overestimated the level of control they should be allowed to maintain over their copyrighted works. Just as when Sony invaded its consumers’ privacy by embedding software in CDs and when the five largest music distribution companies illegally corroborated to fix the price of CDs, the music industry has again violated the law. The United States District Court for the Central District of California concluded, via summary judgment, that the purported EULA included by UMG did not create a “license,” nor does it allow UMG to retain any control over the promotional CD. UMG gave away these CDs, and those who receive them are free to dispose of them as they see fit. Therefore, the court found, as the legal owner of the CDs in question, Mr. Augusto and Roast Beast Music broke no laws in selling these recordings, and may continue to do so.At least we can still sell our old CDs… Right?
It depends. While Mr. Augusto enjoys the right to sell his legally owned CDs, questions arise in a number of states as to who can purchase them. The music industry, it seems, is foregoing lawsuits in favor of promoting preventative legislation. Recent legislation in Florida, Utah, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island has made it more difficult to sell used CDs in those states than it is to get a driver’s license. In Florida, for example, anyone attempting to sell used CDs to a retailer must present identification and be fingerprinted, and any retailer looking to sell those same CDs must apply for a permit and submit a $10,000 bond with the Department of Agriculture and Human Services. Thankfully, those restrictions do not apply to online or person-to-person sales.
“Damn The Man!” The Ability To Sell Second-Hand CDs (Thanks, Steve!)
EFF sues to overturn telcom immunity
Remember when the Electronic Frontier Foundation discovered that the NSA had been wiretapping the entire Internet, illegally, with collaboration from the nation's phone companies? Remember when they sued the phone companies in order to discover the full extent of this illegal, warrantless domestic spying?
Remember when Congress -- including both presidential candidates -- voted to give the phone companies immunity from prosecution, even though they had clearly broken the law, on the grounds that the president had asked them to? (If the president asked you to shoot someone, would Congress let you off the hook, too?)
Well now EFF is suing to have the immunity -- the unconstitutional immunity -- overturned. Go EFF!
"The immunity law puts the fox in charge of the hen house, letting the Attorney General decide whether or not telecoms like AT&T can be sued for participating in the government's illegal warrantless surveillance," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "In our constitutional system, it is the judiciary's role as a co-equal branch of government to determine the scope of the surveillance and rule on whether it is legal, not the executive's. The Attorney General should not be allowed to unconstitutionally play judge and jury in these cases, which affect the privacy of millions of Americans."In the public version of his certification to the court, Attorney General Mukasey asserted that the government had no "content-dragnet" program that searched for keywords in the body of communications. However, the government did not deny the dragnet acquisition of the content of communications. In support of its opposition, EFF provided the court with a summary of thousands of pages of documents demonstrating the broad dragnet surveillance of millions of innocent Americans' communications. Eight volumes of exhibits accompanied the detailed summary, including eyewitness accounts and testimony under oath.
"We have overwhelming record evidence that the domestic spying program is operating far outside the bounds of the law," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "Intelligence agencies, telecoms, and the Administration want to sweep this case under the rug, but the Constitution won't permit it."
EFF Challenges Constitutionality of Telecom Immunity in Federal Court, Donate to EFF
Thursday, October 16, 2008
AT&T and Verizon Built Special Cell Towers at John McCain's House to Fix His Reception [America's Next Top President]
Cell reception sucks an elephant dong at John McCain's Arizona ranch. Or it did, until Cindy McCain "embarked on an expensive public process" for Verizon Wireless to build a permanent cell tower at their ranch, reports the Washington Post. That got scrapped, but Verizon did see fit to "navigate a lengthy county regulatory process that hit a snag on environmental concerns" in order to get the McCain's setup with at least a portable tower, absolutely free of charge. AT&T caught word of this, and brought in one of their own towers, also free. Wouldn't ya know, there's a laundry list of ethical concerns?
McCain is a senior member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which happens to oversee the FCC, which regulates the telecom industry—like AT&T and Verizon. Conflict of interest much? And it's not like McCain and Verizon are strangers to each other, anyway. Five of his campaign officials, including manager Rick Davis, have been soul-sucking lobbyists in Washington. A former staffer, Robert Fisher, is now Verizon's in-house lobbyist. Verizon chief Ivan G. Seidenberg, Fisher and other Verizon lobbyists have plowed over $1.3 million into McCain's campaign, and Verizon employees are one of its top 20 corporate donors over the course of McCain's career.
The AT&T situation is as bad, or worse: AT&T lobbyists have raised $2.3 million for McCain, and their employees are his no. 3 corporate donors of all time. His Senate chief of staff Mark Buse, and a whole bunch of others have been AT&T lobbyists.
There's even more in the Post's exclusive story, it's worth checking out if you wanna find out how to get Verizon and AT&T to build personal cell towers at your house if your reception sucks (fair warning, it helps to be a presidential nominee though). [Washington Post]
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
McCain To ACORN: You Are 'What Makes America Special'
John McCain used to like ACORN, back when it was convenient for him to do so. Here's a video of him heaping praise on ACORN.
McCain had no trouble fraternizing with ACORN in 2006 when their political interests coincided with his. Now, his campaign is writing e-mails in his name bashing ACORN as a tool of the Obama machine.McCain To ACORN: You Are 'What Makes America Special'
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The United States now has a Czar, for IP
On October 13, President Bush signed a highly controversial anti-piracy law. The dictator President has put into effect a law that will appoint an intellectual property czar (yeah folks, you heard it right) that will report directly to the President (again, you heard that right) on how to keep hax0rz from illegally obtaining copyrighted materials. The targets are primarily music, movies, and TV, but you can bet this will be leaking over to other stuff with copyrights. The bill was, of course, backed by none other than the RIAA and MPAA (our favorite institutions!). Say good-bye to the phrase “DRM Free” everyone. Apparently, counterfeiting and piracy costs the U.S. $250 billion annually… that’s a lotta billions for free tunes and movies. Any devices used in piracy may have to be forfeited to Big Brother, lest “firemen” come into your house and burn down your gadgets Fahrenheit 450 style.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Wireless Carriers Tell Senate: "Text Messaging Rates Have Dropped, And Your Queries Have Led To Lawsuits Against Us!" [Text Messages]
The national wireless carriers have responded to the Senate's request for information on why its text-messaging fees have doubled over the past three years. Their collective response: they haven't gotten more expensive, they've gotten cheaper—and your public suspicion of our business practices has led to lots of class action lawsuits!
RCRWireless reprinted part of T-Mobile's response:
“Although your letter states that carriers’ prices for text messaging appear to have increased since 2005, the opposite is true,” states Robert Dotson, president and CEO of T-Mobile USA Inc. “Since 2005, the prices that T-Mobile charges for text messages — 90% of which are purchased in texting package plans — have fallen by more than half.AT&T came right out and (almost) blamed Senator Dotson for the spate of lawsuits:
“As you probably know, since your letter was made public, 20 class-action lawsuits have been filed around the country against AT&T and other national carriers, specifically alleging price-fixing for texting messaging services. All but one of these cases cite your inquiry as one of the bases of alleged collusion. We are therefore eager to clear up any misunderstanding,” said Timothy McKone, executive VP for federal relations at AT&T.If fees for text messaging bundles have dropped, while fees for single-serve text messages have shot up 20 cents, then in a way both sides are right—but if that's the case, we think the carriers are being intentionally dense about the true meaning of the Senator's line of questioning, which (we think) is an attempt to determine whether the carriers colluded to hike individual rates enough to drive customers into more profitable bundle services.
Wireless carriers counter antitrust concerns over rising costs of texting [RCRWireless]
(Photo: Getty Images)
TSA screener ripped off hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of electronics from passengers, TSA itself didn't notice
MadScott sez, "TSA Screener Pythias Brown walked off with hundreds of thousands of dollars of passengers' belongings without ever being observed by the TSA, selling the items on Ebay (apparently he was good about customer service).
Pythias started small, stealing cameras, laptop computers, gaming consoles and eventually moved on to the good stuff including a video camera belonging to CNN, and a $47,900 camera stored inside the bag of an HBO employee.The items were sold on Ebay, and as you can see from his feedback listing, these were not cheap items.
His greed eventually came back to haunt him, when CNN found one of their cameras listed on Ebay. With a little help from the local police department and the USPS, Brown was apprehended.
When agents entered his house, they found 66 cameras, 31 laptop computers, jewelry, lenses, GPS devices and more.
TSA agent helped himself to a $47,900 camera (and more!) (Thanks, MadScott!)
Why Is Gas So Expensive? []
Did you know that gas price gouging almost never occurs as prices rise? Rather, it's most often when dealers keep prices artificially high even as their costs fall. As gas costs has recently been near $5 a gallon and oil companies earn around $100 billion each year, it's a good time to question what really goes into the price of gas. The numbers on the gas station sign hide a complex set of transactions. Before gas can power your car, it must be discovered as crude oil, traverse three markets, and be refined from crude into gas. Inside, we'll explain the three markets, walk you through the role of refineries, and show how oil companies use creative tactics to manipulate gas prices...
The Three Markets: Contract, Spot and Futures
Both oil and gas are traded on three markets: the contract market, the spot market, and the futures market. Each is influenced by different factors and impacts the price of gas at different stages of production. Unlike the futures market, the contract and spot markets are not the kind of markets found on Wall Street; they are informal networks of businesspeople.
The Contract Market
Though it seems like oil companies spend most of their time ruining your day by raising the price of gas, their primary business is exploration. Once an oil company finds a field and coaxes it into producing crude, it takes that unrefined oil and sells to refiners. The vast majority of oil is sold by contracts. A veritable orgy of contracts signed between oil companies and dealers, oil companies and refiners, refiners and independent dealers predetermine the fate of most oil and gas.Refiners plan their purchasing and refining activity to ensure that these contracts are fulfilled. In exchanged for this privileged standing, refiners charge contract customers a premium.
The Spot Market
Need some extra oil? Got a spare barrel you need to sell today? The spot market is for you. The spot market fills the gap left by the contracts market. When a refiner needs extra oil to meet its contracts, they find people with surplus oil on the spot market. Unlike the contract and futures markets, which trade pieces of paper, the spot market involves the trade of actual barrels.The best deals are often found on the spot market. Since neither the buyer or seller is locked into a prearranged deal, the laws of supply, demand, and free market are mostly in effect.
The Futures Market
Crude oil is the bees knees of the American Mercantile Exchange. A futures contract might stand for 1,000 barrels of West Texas Intermediate to be delivered at Cushing, Oklahoma. The futures market represents that collective state of the oil market at any particular moment. When you hear reporters talk about the price of oil reaching $100 per barrel, they're talking about the futures market. Because fluctuations on the futures market are driven by information, its prices guide the contract and spot markets.The people buying and selling futures rarely, if ever, collect on their contracts; a seven year period saw 5 billion barrels traded, of which only 31,000 were ever delivered.
Refineries
Refineries are the temples where crude oil gets Bar Mitzvah's into gas. Shifts in the refining world over the past two decades have helped ratchet up the price of gas. In the early 80's, there were over 350 refineries, mostly owned by the oil companies. The oil companies didn't see refining as a place to generate profit, but as an integral part of a larger operation.
By 2002, there were only 153 refineries, and most of them were no longer controlled by the oil companies. Refineries are now held privately and independently, and as with any independent businesses, profit is key. It is in the refiner's interests to supply only as much gas as is absolutely needed to stay on the profitable side of the supply and demand curve.
Gas emerging from a refinery is sold at what is known as the 'rack price.' The rack price is the cost of gas to dealers, and it is generally influenced by the spot and futures market. The rack price is also where branded gas begins to exert a price premium.
Branded gas from Exxon-Mobile, BP-Amoco, etc, isn't different from the unbranded gas found at Joe Schmoe's Gas Shack. Still, there are several costs associated with branding gas. The brand name carries a premium, since people might associate it with quality, and not grossly overcompensated executives. Branded gas is also sold under contract, giving buyers long-term stability that can't be duplicated by unbranded gas. Oil companies also add value to branded gas by providing ancillary benefits that command a price premium, like branded advertising and branded credit cards.
Refiner pricing strategies are almost as complex as the mating rituals of the red-sided garter snake. Though refiners want to maximize their profit, they don't necessarily want to gain additional market share. Refining capacity can't simply be ramped up on demand. Acquiring and refining crude oil takes considerable time, leading refiners to take a slow and steady approach to business. First and foremost, refiners care about fulfilling their contractual obligations. Leftover gas can be sold for profit on the rack.
If a refiner's rack price is consistently too high, dealers will take their business elsewhere when their contracts expire. If the rack price is too low, buyers might swamp the refiner, leaving it unable to meet its contractual obligations.
To ensure pricing continuity, refiners used to call each other and share pricing information. Activist judges on the Supreme Court called this "collusion." The refiners, unfazed by the justices, came up with a crafty alternative: publicly posting their rack prices. Somehow, the Ninth Circuit Court found this to be illegal, too. Nobody knows how refiners discuss their pricing arrangements nowadays, but we wouldn't be surprised if it involved a members-only group on Facebook.
Gas Stations
Ah, gas stations. Nourishers of our cars, wellspring of our rage. Gas stations are not all alike. Some are owned outright by the oil companies, while others are leased by dealers who sell only one brand of gas.
There are supposedly nine benefits to being a branded lessee-dealer:
(1) a wider variety of grades of gasoline than unbranded, which leads to higher gross profit margins,
(2) access to oil company credit card at no fee,
(3) oil company third party fee discount for VISA and MasterCard,
(4) "subsidies" in the form of soft loans and investments,
(5) marketing assistance,
(6) rebates based on incremental volume,
(7) training and support on how to run a profitable gasoline station,
(8) technical support and station startup design, and
(9) security of supply.There are also open dealers, who sign contracts with a particular brand, but can shift their allegiance whenever the contract expires. Open dealers interface with refiners through middlemen known as jobbers. A jobber will often supply several dealers, and depending on the size of the operation, will sign contracts, or buy unbranded gas either from the rack or the spot market.
Finally, there are the true independents. These folks shop around for the best unbranded gas price, sometimes aided by a jobber. They almost never sign long term contracts and almost always get their gas from the rack or the spot market.
At the turn of the 20th century, the U.S. had just under 175,000 gas stations. Of those, about 55,000 are run by independent operators. Of the remainder, half are run by open dealers, and the other half is split between company-owned and lessee-dealer stations.
Fixing The Price Of Gas
Oil companies set the price of gas at company-owned stations. What they say, goes. With lessee-dealers, the relationship is more complex.
Lessee-dealers are charged a 'Dealer Tank Wagon' (DTW) price by the oil companies. The DTW price is set either by the oil company's central or regional office, and is driven by both the spot and futures markets. Most importantly, oil companies determine the DTW price by looking at the prices of other stations in the market. This is why two stations with the same brand a block away from each other can have different prices.
Lessee-dealers can't negotiate a DTW price since they sign contracts with just one oil company that require them to purchase a minimum amount of gas. Oil companies allow dealers to sell gas at a slightly inflated margin to ensure a profit stream so the dealers can put food on their family's table. That margin can range from 3-10 cents per gallon.
Why don't dealers just raise the prices more, like 20 cents a gallon, so they can give their families even more food? Some do. If they're caught, you can bet anything the next DTW price will be higher, bringing their profit margins back to normal - only now, their gas is more expensive than their neighboring stations and they have a competitive disadvantage.
DTW pricing is the product of an exceedingly complex and secretive pricing scheme known as zone pricing. A zone can be as small as a single gas station, or as large as a city. The testimony of a Mobil representative in 1997 revealed that Mobil had 46 zones in Connecticut. Most dealers have no idea what zone they are in, even though the DTW price given to their neighboring stations can determine their standing in a local market.
Oil companies, like politicians reapportioning voting districts, rely heavily on technology to slice apart local markets. The DTW price in each zone will be different, taking account several factors including nearby competition, demographics, and the historical demand of the zone. Oil companies also seek to determine the price elasticity of each zone, or how much the zone will pay for gas before looking for alternative suppliers. For some zones, that breaking point is a penny, for others, it two or three cents, and some will stay with their station out of a sense of loyalty. These factors can cause the price of gas in neighboring zones to fluctuate by as much as a dime.
Oil companies adjust zone price by considering what their competitors are doing. The price of rival gas stations will be surveyed two or three times a week, or the data will be relayed to the oil companies by refiners.
Taxes
State and federal taxes account for about 18% of the price of gas. The cost is a constant and is factored into the baseline price of gas.
Eliminating those taxes would reduce the price of gas by a few cents, but would do nothing to otherwise address the underlying factors involved in pricing gas.
Ok... so why IS gas so expensive?
A butterfly flaps its wings in the Saudi desert, causing the State Department to release a warning of increased terrorist activity. The futures market flips out, sending the price of crude skyward.
The higher price on the futures market makes it more expensive for refiners to acquire crude to refine into gas. When the refiner's work is done, the emerging gas will be priced accordingly higher. This raises the rack price and the prices on the spot markets. Oil companies and jobbers with long-term contracts might be insulated from the higher price, depending on their contracts.
Refining oil into gas isn't instantaneous, and there can be a lag before the higher price of the oil is reflected in higher gas prices paid by jobbers and oil companies. That, of course, didn't stop them from raising prices the moment the futures market jumped. So now that the oil that was purchased for refining at a higher cost is ready to hit the market as gas, the oil companies will raise prices again.
This double-dipped price is passed onto dealers as the DTW price, which is then inflated yet again so the dealers can turn a profit.
You paid more for gas thanks to a butterfly.
"It's just a !@$% butterfly!," you say. Sure, but it scared the hell out of the markets. Since the oil companies all move in lockstep, that butterfly can cause the price of gas to rise for several days as one oil company sees another raising prices and adjusts accordingly.
Eventually the markets will calm and the price will begin to fall. This allows the introduction of a friend much more insidious than the butterfly: price gouging.
Despite popular misconceptions, price gouging almost never occurs as prices rise. Instead, price gouging occurs when dealers keep prices artificially high in order to gain a little extra profit or recoup costs, even though the DTW price has declined.
Sticking with our butterfly friend, let's say she caused the DTW price of gas to spike for four days. It may be ten days before dealers lower their prices. That's price gouging.
Most people never notice true price gouging. They will complain that the price went too high, but that's the fault of the oil companies, not the dealers. Prices that stay high for too long go unnoticed. Just because the price of gas stays high does not mean that a dealer is price gouging. The price may actually be higher. That's why it's almost impossible to prove, let alone prosecute, price gouging.
Conclusion
Most of the above draws on the excellent work of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which produced a 324 page report that makes for a fascinating read. Direct links to the report sections are below:
Executive Summary
Introduction
The Production and Marketing of Gasoline
The Effects Of Market Structure And Concentration On Gasoline Prices
How Gasoline Prices Are SetUnless you're a Saudi Arabian butterfly, you can't hope to control the oil market, but you can control your consumption. Reduce your gas costs by carpooling, biking, walking, using gas price finder sites to decrease the information asymmetry, and/or switching to a car with a better MPG.
RELATED:
What Goes Into The Price Of Gas?
Get 30 More Miles Per Tank: Turn Off Engine If Idling More Than 10 Seconds
Potentially Insane Ways To Increase Your Fuel Efficiency(Photo: Getty)
Editor's Note: This post was originally published May 2007. I decided to republish it now because it's one of my favorite posts Carey ever did, and it's incredibly relevant in the current economic situation.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Ticketmaster Is Evil And Must Die [Complaints]
Ticketmaster is an evil monopoly that steals cash from defenseless consumers. They are infinitely more evil than their hated 30% surcharge would suggest, and they must be destroyed.
A Modern Monopoly
Did you know you aren't Ticketmaster's primary customer? Sure, you and your friends bought 141 million tickets last year, but Ticketmaster's loyalty belongs to their true customers: venues and promoters. Ticketmaster secures its monopoly by goading them into multi-year agreements that empower Ticketmaster to act as their exclusive vendor. In exchange, Ticketmaster gives them money. Lots and lots of money. Several million dollars upfront, sometimes.
Ticketmaster doesn't earn a cent from a ticket's face value. It all goes straight back to the venue, promoter, and talent. To sweeten the deal, Ticketmaster also shares a slice of its exorbitant fees, giving venues and promoters an incentive to support Ticketmaster's outrageous markups. "It's not us!," they can whimper. "It's that damn TicketBastard!"
Ticketmaster's 9,000+ exclusive agreements makes them the gatekeeper to 90% of the nation's arenas and amphitheaters, 70% of our clubs and small theaters, and most of our basketball, hockey, and football games.
So What Am I Paying For?
All in all, the fees usually add up to 30% of the ticket price, sometimes even more for cheaper shows. And these are the fees that consumers pay. If you're in a band, Ticketmaster demands 3.5% of your gross sales, plus an administrative fee to cover the cost of processing credit card fees, which you would think might fall under the aegis of a "processing fee."
- The Service Charge
This is Ticketmaster's cash cow. The majority of their $1.2 billion in revenue comes from this all-encompassing charge. It appears on all tickets, and cannot be escaped.
- The Facility Charge
This is the venue's cash cow. Sure, they also take a slice from the ticket's face value, but they want more, dammit, and they get it here.
- The Processing Charge
Wait a minute... didn't you pay a service charge? What's the difference between processing and service? Right, there is none. Well, technically that's not true. The service charge is refundable and the processing charge is not. Ticketmaster claims that the processing charge covers their expenses for taking your order and finding you seats. Sounds like service to us.
- The Convenience Charge
By far, the most annoying name for a fee. It's the price you pay for printing out the tickets you bought, even after paying a service and processing fee.
It's supposedly an accomplishment that Ticketmaster is even willing to disclose its fees, but knowledge in this case leads to anger, not power. In any other instance, pricing transparency by itself is a good thing because it empowers consumers to compare prices and shop around. Ticketmaster's exclusive agreements, however, undercut any potential price shopping.
Why Hasn't Anyone Destroyed Ticketmaster?
Pearl Jam tried and failed. The band landed before Congress to publicly brand Ticketmaster as an evil monopoly.
The heart of their issue was ticket pricing, but Ticketmaster had a history of screwing Pearl Jam:
- For a Seattle concert, Ticketmaster agreed to donate $1 of their $3.25 service charge to charity. Right before the tickets were set to go on sale, Ticketmaster reneged and threatened not to sell the tickets unless they could boost the service fee by $1 to cover the cost of their "charitable" contribution. Ticketmaster ended up stiffing the charity.
- Ticketmaster then wanted to charge a $3.75 service fee on an $18 ticket. Peal Jam forced them to list the charge separately, and it wasn't until the band threatened to go to another venue that Ticketmaster acquiesced.
- When Pearl Jam tried to bypass Ticketmaster in Detroit by selling tickets through their fan club, the ticket giant threatened to sue the concert promoter for violating their exclusive agreement. Ticketmaster ended up disabling the promoter's ticket machine.
- In New York, Ticketmaster threatened the Paramount Theater for violating their exclusive agreement after Pearl Jam told fans over the radio to visit the theater to buy tickets at the box office.
In their Congressional testimony, Pearl Jam said: "all of the members of Pearl Jam remember what it is like not to have a lot of money, and we recognize that a teenager's perceived need to see his or her favorite band in concert can often be overwhelming."For the band's 1994 tour at the height of their popularity, they tried to cap prices at $18 and limit surcharges to 10%. Ticketmaster refused and the tour was canceled.
How The !@#$ Is This Not A Monopoly?
We dunno, but President Clinton's Justice Department thought Ticketmaster's arrangements were a-ok. Pearl Jam retained the über-corporate lawyers at Sullivan and Cromwell to needle the Justice Department into investigating Ticketmaster for antitrust violations. After a brief investigation, the Justice Department ruled that people were only indirect buyers, and that Ticketmaster's true customers were venues, since they were the ones consuming Ticketmaster's services. The venues weighed in on Ticketmaster's side and seemed to voluntarily hand over their business, so there was apparently no monopoly.
If Only They Weren't So Evil
Ticketmaster might be less reviled if it wasn't so frustratingly difficult for consumers to beat out resellers and other middlemen to buy tickets for themselves to popular events. Chicagoist's failed attempt to get tickets to the American League Championship Series is all-too familiar:
A refresh of the page gives us a new scrambled word to fill in and then we're thrown into a que. Wait time estimated at 15 minutes or more! WTF? We watch in anticipation for the number to get smaller and after a few minutes, it does. Now it says 11 minutes. A few minutes more, and it's down to 7 minutes.But wait! Now it says 14 minutes! What's going on here? We think something fishy's going on, so we open another browser window to see what those wait times do. It remains at 15 minutes. The first one keeps jumping from a short as 6 minutes all the way back to 15 minutes again. Not good
Finally, we seem to be getting close. Now this is about 25 minutes after Noon, but it's finally at 4 minutes. Then 2 minutes, back to 4, then 2, now 1 and then...
We get some sort of warning because another Ticketmaster window is open! We close that window, but in the meantime the first window sends us back to the original event page to select quantity and level again. We're shit out of luck! There will be no ALCS tickets for Chicagoist, all because Ticketmaster's computer system isn't built to handle exactly the type of transactions that are most critical to their business.
The same thing happened to us last year when we tried to buy playoff tickets for the Rangers. We were working computers, phones, anything with a hook into Ticketmaster, but we couldn't connect to anyone. Within 10 minutes, all the available tickets were gone. Real fair.
Are There Any Viable Alternatives?
Cracks are finally starting to form in Ticketmaster's money-encrusted shell, but the competition doesn't inspire confidence. Everyone looks at Ticketmaster's 30% surcharge and thinks how good all that undeserved cash would look in their pocket.
Live Nation, the largest U.S. promoter, is in the process of ditching Ticketmaster to build their own ticketing system, but only because they want to upsell junk and expensive packages while keeping the lucre for themselves.
Major League Baseball bought up a stake in Tickets.com, which will soon become their primary ticketing agent, but Tickets.com also levies a 30% service fee. MLB also ditched Ticketmaster for secondary ticket sales in favor of StubHub, which charges the buyer and seller a combined 25% fee.
TicketWeb was once an alternative for smaller shows, but they were gobbled up by Ticketmaster. Bandsintown is still around as an aggregator for small shows. While they don't sell tickets directly, the site will point you to Ticketmaster alternatives, if any are available.
You can also try using Brown Paper Tickets, which bills itself as "Fair Trade ticketing," but it can be difficult to find a participating venue.
Oh Come On, There Has To Be Some Viable Alternative
For the committed, there is really only one true alternative: abandon hope and the internet and take an urban field trip to the box office.
PREVIOUSLY: Why Do Ticketmaster Events Sell Out Instantly?
Ticketmaster Levies Entirely Believable $327 Per Ticket Convenience Charge
Live Nation To Challenge Ticketmaster, Sell Fans More Junk
Verizon Wireless says “text messaging not going up to $1,000,000 per text”
Verizon hit us up yesterday to let us know that what we reported the other day was just something being tossed around internally. It was not final. They’ve clarified their position on raising text messaging fees for content providers for us.
As Verizon Wireless continues to review the competitive marketplace, we constantly work to provide additional value to our customers, employees and other stakeholders.
We are currently assessing how to best address the changing messaging marketplace, and are communicating with messaging aggregators, our valued content partners, our technology business partners and, importantly, our friends in the non-profit and public policy arenas.
To that end, we recently notified text messaging aggregators - those for-profit companies that provide services to content providers to aggregate and bill for their text messaging programs - that we are exploring ways to offset significantly increased costs for delivering billions upon billions of text messages each month.
Specific information in one proposal, which would impose a small per-message fee on for-profit content aggregators for commercial messages, has been mistakenly characterized as a final decision to implement. We don’t envision this type of change to in any way affect non-profit organizations or political and advocacy organizations.
We have not increased the per-message cost to aggregators since our messaging service began in 2003, and we have never envisioned a cost to consumers or content companies, but rather on content aggregators themselves. That draft was intended to stimulate internal business discussions and in no way should have been been released to the public and represented as a final document.
At Verizon Wireless, we strive to provide our messaging customers with maximum value, and work to implement business decisions that encourage the use of messaging between individuals and organizations in both the marketplace of ideas and the commercial marketplace, and we will continue to strongly encourage the use of our services by charitable organizations as they perform their good works.
Couldn’t make it through all that? No problem, we will summarize it for you, “This document was not for the public. It was meant for internal business discussion in regards to content aggregators. (Think sports scores, constant text updates, etc.) This is only a proposal and not a final decision to implement. We secretly love BGR.” Hey, maybe they forgot about that leaked Storm thing already…
Friday, October 10, 2008
Panel finds Palin abused power; Judge orders email from her private accounts be preserved
(Image by Kate Black). In Alaska, a legislative panel investigating vice-presidential Sarah Palin has issued a report finding the governor unlawfully abused her authority by firing the state’s public safety commissioner. Also, remember that hacked Yahoo Mail account she used to hide correspondence from subpoenas? Snip from NYT:
In another setback for Ms. Palin, a judge on Friday ordered the state of Alaska to preserve any government-related e-mail messages that Gov. Sarah Palin sent from private accounts. The ruling, by Craig Stowers of Anchorage superior court, came as the result of a lawsuit brought by a resident, Andree McLeod, against Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee. Ms. Palin has occasionally used private e-mail accounts to conduct state business, and her Yahoo accounts were hacked last month. The judge ordered the attorney general to contact Yahoo and other private carriers to preserve any e-mail messages sent and received on those accounts. An assistant attorney general told the court that the governor was no longer using here private e-mail accounts to conduct state business.Legislative Panel: Palin Abused Authority (New York Times)Related: Wired reported earlier this week:
David Kernell, the student indicted this week for gaining unauthorized access to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's Yahoo account, was allegedly involved in computer intrusion about eight years ago when he was in middle school. He and another student guessed the password of a school server while attending Eastern Hills Middle School in Texas, and gained access to some lesson plans, according to one of Kernell's former teachers.. Palin Hacker Allegedly Involved in Another Computer Intrusion (Threat Level/WIRED)
Entertainment industry made up $250 billion/750,000 jobs losses due to piracy
Ars Technica's Julian Sanchez takes a long, investigative look at the entertainment industry's claim that piracy costs the American economy 750,000 jobs and $250 billion and discovers the truth: they made it up and repeated it until they forgot they had made it up.
With Customs a dead end, we dove into press archives, hoping to find the earliest public mention of the elusive 750,000 jobs number. And we found it in—this is not a typo—1986. Yes, back in the days when "Papa Don't Preach" and "You Give Love a Bad Name" topped the charts, The Christian Science Monitor quoted then-Commerce Secretary Malcom Baldridge, trumpeting Ronald Reagan's own precursor to the recently passed PRO-IP bill. Baldridge estimated the number of jobs lost to the counterfeiting of U.S. goods at "anywhere from 130,000 to 750,000."750,000 lost jobs? The dodgy digits behind the war on piracyWhere did that preposterously broad range come from? As with the number of licks needed to denude a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know. Ars submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Commerce this summer, hoping to uncover the basis of Baldridge's claim—or any other Commerce Department estimates of job losses to piracy—but came up empty. So whatever marvelous proof the late secretary discovered was not to be found in the margins of any document in the government's vaults. But no matter: By 1987, that Brobdignagian statistical span had been reduced, as far as the press were concerned, to "as many as 750,000" jobs. Subsequent reportage dropped the qualifier. The 750,000 figure was still being bandied about this summer in support of the aforementioned PRO-IP bill...
The number the ITC actually came up with, based on a survey of several hundred business selected for their likely reliance on IP for revenue, was $23.8 billion—the estimated losses to their respondents. That number was based on industry estimates that the authors of the study noted "could admittedly be biased and self-serving," since the firms had every incentive to paint the situation in the most dire terms as a means of spurring government action. But the figures at least appeared to be consistent and reasonable, both internally and across sectors.
The $60 billion number comes from a two-page appendix, in which the authors note that it's impossible to extrapolate from a self-selecting group of IP-heavy respondents to the economy as a whole. But taking a wild stab and assuming that firms outside their sample experienced losses totaling a quarter to half those of their respondents, the ITC guessed that the aggregate losses to the economy might be on the order of "$43 billion to $61 billion."
Kids who photograph themselves naked are child pornographers and sex offenders in Ohio
A fifteen year old girl in Newark, OH faces being labelled a "sex offender" for sending naked cellphone photos of herself (a minor) to other minors. If convicted, she'll spend the next ten years on public registries, classed as a producer of child pornography. No word on what compensation she (as the victim of the crime) will be able to get from herself (as the perp).
According to Ohio law, 2907.323(A)(3) states anyone possessing material that shows a minor in a state of nudity is guilty of a fifth-degree felony. The violation also might qualify the juvenile as a Tier I sexual offender, which requires annual registration for a decade.The section of the law the girl, who is a foster child, was charged with allows parents or guardians to take photos of their unclothed children for a list of acceptable purposes but does not provide an exemption for the child themselves.
Supermarket Chain Adds 10% At Register, But Only In Some Stores [Avanza]
This is just stupid, our prices on the shelves are cheaper than anyone else, but remember to add 10% to everything you see in the store, because you are going to be charged for it.
Nash Finch, a Minneapolis-based supermarket chain, adds a 10% fee to the bill at its stores catering to Hispanic shoppers in Colorado, reports 9News in Denver:
The Nash Finch stores Avanza, Food Bonanza and Wholesale Food Outlets add the 10 percent charge to food at the register and specialize in serving Hispanics, according to store workers.
However, the Nash Finch stores Sun Mart Foods, Econo Foods, Family Fresh Market, Pick N Save and Prairie Market stores do not charge extra at the register and do not cater to Hispanics, according to the store workers.
"Jim," a store manager, told the news station that the fee is to offset other costs, but it's clear that the 10% charge is at least partly a way to offer steeper "discounts" throughout the store that are effectively removed when you pay.
Nash Finch denies it's doing anything skeevy or illegal with its unclear pricing, but 9News points out their attempt at full disclosure is confusingly worded, perhaps deliberately so:
"The 'shelf-plus' pricing program is only used in certain store formats. These stores tend to be located where consumers are more price-conscious, as compared to our more conventional supermarkets," said Brian Numainville, Public Relations for Nash Finch Company. "The pricing policy is explained, not just in English, but also in Spanish, so that no customer is caught unaware at the cash register."
The stores do advertise that they are going to add a 10 percent fee in signs posted across the store, on the store shelves below the price of a food item on the store shelf and in flyers and circulars. However, the wording is confusing to many. For example, the flyers read, "A great way to save - Plus 10 % at the Register."
What do you think—is this an acceptable way to price groceries? In a series of questions Nash Finch answered for 9News' story, they claim that they're not the only chain to do this, and that it's not just Hispanic markets. Here's their final justifaction for the practice:
Question 9: Wouldn’t it be more honest/up front to just add 10 percent to the price of all of the products—so that people can see the actual price on the shelf and on the sticker?
Answer: The grocery industry is extremely competitive. Stores vie for customers. Customer loyalty is highly valued. Given the need to attract and retain customers, our stores cannot afford to alienate its customers by charging unexplained fees or unanticipated mark-ups. Our pricing is attracting customers—rather than losing them—demonstrating that the pricing policy is in fact fair, obvious, and well-understood by our shoppers.
"Some grocery stores add 10 percent fee" [9News.com] (Thanks to Randy!)
Lawsuits Claim Applebee's Weight Watchers Food Has Too Much Fat [Nutrition Information]
Awhile back we posted about some testing done by a group of local news affiliates that showed that the actual amount of fat (and calories) in certain "healthy" menu items from a variety of restaurants was different than what was listed on the menu.
Now it seems that the inevitable lawsuits have begun, (though we know of no direct connection between these particular test results and the lawsuits.)
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer says that a lawsuit filed earlier this month in King County Superior Court claims that Applebee's Weight Watchers menu has two to three times the amount of fat advertised.
"Applebee's made certain representations ... and independent lab tests showed that the representations they made were way off," says Jason Epstein, an attorney with Premier Law Group.
This isn't the only lawsuit to be filed about the issue. There's another one in Kansas. Applebee's parent company has responded to that one, telling the Washington Business Journal that the lawsuit is without merit.
According to the lab tests reported by WXYZ in Detroit, Applebee's Cajun Lime Tilapia was supposed to contain 6 grams of fat, but really had 14.3 grams of fat. Applebee's Garlic Herb Chicken also was advertised at 6 grams of fat, but really had 18. If you'd like to take a look at the results, click here. (PDF)
The P-I says that the Washington lawsuit is seeking class action status.
Suit accuses Applebee's of understating calorie counts [Seattle P-I] (Thanks, Rob!)
Verizon Charging $0.03 to Text Its Customers, Could Murder SMS-Based Services [Gougings]
Verizon the nickel and dime company of the cell phone world. let me get this straight they are charging their customers 0.20 per text message, and not they want to charge companies 0.03 per text that their customers use. They are going after the part of the business that brings them 0.20 per txt. It sound like double dipping, let see how many companies are just going to stop supporting Verizon wireless. I use so many of this SMS services, like Google, Twitter, and Facebook. this companies don’t make revenue on this, but they want to start charging them. I am so glad I am not a Verizon customer.
Verizon has decided to start asking for $0.03 per message from anyone who wants to send mobile-terminated messages to its customers, possible strangling SMS-based services like Google SMS, Yahoo! oneSearch. The move will also penalize any other company that uses text message notifications for its customers (though the change won't affect rates for mobile-to-mobile messaging.) Like others, Verizon used to charge a fraction of a cent to text their subscribers, during which time lots companies built up SMS notification services for everything from social networking to banking — services which may now be too expensive to operate.
Now that the userbase of (and companies' dependence on) such services is pretty huge, mobile terminated texting is kind of inevitable. In other words, all the SMS-dependent companies can't live without reaching Verizon's customers, so Verizon is in a position to pretty much charge whatever they want. And that's exactly what they're doing, because they're very classy. [RCRWireless via BGR]
Numbers Behind the War on Piracy Could Be Completely Bogus [War On Piracy]
Ars Technica did an in-depth investigation into the numbers behind the war against piracy and found that Congress might as well be telling people counterfeit goods cost the economy eleventy billion zillion, for all the truth behind its figures. The oft invoked $250 billion and 750,000 jobs lost because of intellectual property theft have been repeated for over a decade, with virtually no research to back it up.
It's not just industry groups like the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition that's quoting them either. Everyone from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the Patent and Trademark Office to the FBI will repeat the same numbers back at you, pointing evasively to each other when asked which body funded the extensive economic analysis needed to arrive at such figures.
Ars pointed out that, even without looking for their sources, the numbers don't make much sense. 750,000 would mean 8% of all unemployed people in the U.S. lost their jobs to counterfeiting. $250 billion is more than the combined 2005 domestic revenues of the movie, music, software and video game industries. Yet policies are made from this information every day. [Ars Technica]
Thursday, October 09, 2008
If It Walks Like A Duck and Talks Like a Duck Dept: The McCain-Palin Mob
The things that has always alarmed me most about the right wing Republican/conservative/FOX News-watching types is how they wear their own IGNORANCE as a badge of honor! I can't get my head around the notion of how unashamed they are of their own ignorance. It used to be that abject stupidity was something to be embarrassed about. Is it somehow now HIP these days to be a total dumbass? Did I miss the memo?
It's even worse when Republican politicians stoop to cultivate the least intelligent amongst us. Why is it that the Republican party seems to consist solely of the top 5% of America's wealth holders and the lower third of the IQ spectrum with NO ONE in between?
Here is what Blogger Interrupted saw at a McCain-Palin rally in Strongsville, Ohio:
The fact that my videos of McCain-Palin supporters are blowing up online tells me a lot.First, the media should be ashamed of themselves for not covering this until now. The McCain-Palin supporters in my videos are not new, they are not exceptional, they are not hiding. This is who they are. It has been brewing for months, and not one mainstream media outlet has taken the time to expose them. Not one. And that is dangerous. If America is about to decide on its president based on this level of hate and ignorance, without a single question being asked as to why, then America is in for a rude awakening.
There are some seriously ignorant people on display in these videos (and no, not just the governor of Alaska). These people are clearly SO DUMB that they'd believe any darn thing you told them! Be afraid, be very afraid... McCain-Palin Mob in Ohio McCain-Palin Mob in Ohio
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)