Politics What is happening????

ASU2003 · Nov 18, 2014

Add home prices and college costs to that list. Whenever you get a big loan, the bank wins.

Baraka_Guru · Nov 19, 2014

The U.S. economy in particular is rigged for economic disparity, to a ratio that rivals Russia and China.

Think about that for a while.

rogue49 · Nov 19, 2014

And as a followup on the now added strain and expectations that is on the worker these days.
Welcome to the Internet/International age...business 24/7
The Murky Boundaries of the Modern Work Day

Say goodbye to your personal life.
Unless you've made yourself a commodity and set your terms.
Unfortunately, you've got to "train" your management and clients not to expect you 24/7/365. (emergencies fine, urgent perhaps...but not commonly)
I remember when the biz culture and mindset at one firm was to allow that, even encourage it.
I ended up working 90+ hours a week, weekends and nights were interrupted constantly...I was tethered to my laptop. I even had staff go to the hospital for severe life-threatening issues. (for computer work!!)

Europe and other locations are much better at giving personal time and some R&R to people...but even there, it's slowly trickling away. In the interest of "business" and "making it happen" and "customer service" and "team players"
It can be potentially dangerous...especially accumulated long-term.

I set my terms now.
And rein it in and avoid environs and dynamics that feed into that.

rogue49 · Nov 29, 2014

If anyone knows this, I know I do...being in the data industry.
And the only thing that will stop this, will be the Congress having the balls to set some privacy standards and actually execute a bill doing it.
SCOTUS won't do it at the moment, it's too pro-corporate...so much for privacy notations in the Constitution...remember that Businesses are people too.

Online education run amok?
Private companies want to scoop up your child's data. - By CAITLIN EMMA 11/29/14

Massive open online courses (*MOOC), first envisioned as a way to democratize higher education, have made their way into high schools, but Washington is powerless to stop the flood of personal data about teenage students from flowing to private companies, thanks to loopholes in federal privacy laws.

Universities and private companies this fall unveiled a slew of free, open-access online courses to high school students, marketing them as a way for kids to supplement their Advanced Placement coursework or earn a certificate of completion for a college-level class.

But when middle and high school students participate in classes with names like “Mars: The Next Frontier” or “The Road to Selective College Admissions,” they may be unwittingly transmitting into private hands a torrent of data about their academic strengths and weaknesses, their learning styles and thought processes — even the way they approach challenges. They may also be handing over birth dates, addresses and even drivers license information. Their IP addresses, attendance and participation in public forums are all logged as well by the providers of the courses, commonly called MOOCs.

With little guidance from federal privacy law, key decisions on how to handle students’ data — including how widely to share it and whether to mine it for commercial gain — are left up to the company hosting the MOOC or its business partners. In fact, student data is even less protected by federal law since the Education Department updated regulations in 2012 to allow for even greater disclosure of students’ personal identifying information.

Parents, activists and a select group of lawmakers are clamoring for a fix. They’ve made student data privacy a top issue in state legislatures, and they’ve even dismantled major data collection efforts. For example, massive parent pushback led to the demise of inBloom — the $100 million student database funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — a little more than a year after its launch.

The White House also announced this month that course provider edX will give low-income high school students free completion certificates when they take the classes. And Coursera, another provider, will give teachers free online training. President Barack Obama lauded both commitments for advancing his ConnectED initiative, which aims to connect almost every student in the country to high-speed broadband and transform teaching and learning with technology.

Congress is divided on how to tackle federal privacy law, and existing proposals haven’t gotten traction. Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) proposed a bill in July that would prohibit the use of personally identifiable information to target advertising to students. Some advocates says it doesn’t go far enough. But Reps. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Luke Messer (R-Ind.), among others, want to ensure that fears over student data privacy don’t stifle innovation and make it hard for schools to use online resources that personalize instruction for every student.

They have more of an appetite for industry self-regulation — but critics argue that really isn’t regulation at all.

The people behind the online courses say the metrics they collect will help them better understand not just what students learn, but also how they learn. Less clear is the extent to which providers might profit from the information in other ways, be it by selling the data to other organizations or mining it themselves for marketing gold.

The trend is still young, but an Education Department official urges school districts that are contemplating MOOC instruction to bone up on The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and wade carefully through the often jargon-laden privacy policies of companies they work with.

“This is a space where districts need to get up to speed before they jump,” a department official said. “They need to have a common understanding with the MOOC provider about what would happen with the data.”

Murky federal privacy laws

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act gives parents rights to their child’s education records up to age 18, after which those rights are transferred to the student. While the department has received no complaints about MOOCs at the college level, “I anticipate receiving inquiries from K-12 officials on the subject,” the department official said.

Several states, including Colorado and Oklahoma, have filled the void with privacy laws of their own. In September, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed landmark legislation banning companies from using students’ personal information collected through online education technology for anything other than the purpose for which it was collected.

The National Association of Secondary School Principals recently issued strong recommendations suggesting that every shred of student data produced as students work online should be designated part of an official “education record” so it’s protected by FERPA. Districts should also appoint a chief privacy officer and ensure that all data involved in contracts with online service providers is protected. And the group said any federal agency or vendor storing student data should use strong encryption data.

So how is the ed tech industry approaching the issue? At the urging of Polis and Messer, 13 companies signed a pledge in October swearing never to sell student data or use it to target advertising at students. The pledge was signed by companies like Microsoft, Amplify, Edmodo, Knewton and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

But the pledge omits key protections, some privacy advocates say. And conspicuously absent were big names like Apple, Google, Pearson and Khan Academy, which offers free online tutorials used by millions of people worldwide.

Also not listed are edX and Instructure Canvas Network, two MOOC providers that offer courses to high school students.

EdX, a nonprofit founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, unveiled more than two dozen MOOCs for high school students in September. The nonprofit says it now offers more than 40 high school and AP courses. In January, a high school guidance counselor plans to offer a course called “The Road to Selective College Admissions.”

Instructure, a for-profit company, began hosting more than a dozen MOOCs for K-12 students and teachers in August on its platform called Canvas Network. One course, called “Mars: The Next Frontier,” is designed for students ages 14 to 18. There are also a few history courses, like “The Civil War Era,” “The Gilded Age to the Roaring Twenties” and “The Great Depression to the War on Terror.”

Melissa Loble, senior director of Canvas Network, said the company would never release student data for noninstructional or noneducational purposes. But the company is still trying to decide whether to share student data with third parties for educational or research purposes, she said. If the company did, it would severely limit third parties’ access to the data, said Jared Stein, Instructure’s vice president of Research and Education. Stein said most privacy issues would be handled through him or the company’s vice president of operations. Employees are educated about privacy protections under the law when they’re hired, he said.

But privacy advocates note that “educational purposes” is an extremely vague term. It can also mean commercial purposes. For example, providers can use the data to develop new products or market specific courses to students who look like they need help in a certain area — which could ultimately benefit their own bottom line.

EdX’s privacy policy stipulates that the company can “publish information, but not personal information, gathered about edX access, use, impact, and student performance” and use the information to “send you updates about online courses offered by edX or other events, to send you communications about products or services of edX, edX affiliates, or selected business partners that may be of interest to you, or to send you email messages about site maintenance or updates.”

Also, the policy notes, aggregate information that isn’t personally identifiable can be shared with the public, researchers and business partners. (EdX has a list of the schools and partners that it works with.)

The nonprofit’s mission “is to allow the use of data from MOOCs for research into how students learn, but we place learner privacy as the priority,” edX General Counsel Tena Herlihy said in a statement. EdX “has appropriate policies and procedures in place to protect privacy, and we protect learner data to the levels required under FERPA.”

The problem is, FERPA is “hopelessly out of date,” said David Hoffman, global privacy officer for Intel Corp., which offers some educational services for teachers.

An Education Department official said that if a student’s performance in one of the online courses is tied to the student’s grade, the MOOC becomes part of the curriculum and the data generated may be protected by law.

The department issued guidance in February to help schools, districts and ed tech vendors navigate the murky world of federal law and how to use student data without subjecting it to commercial exploitation. But even that guidance got some heat for being unclear. “It depends,” begins the answer to one question, about whether student information is protected. “Because of the diversity and variety of online educational services, there is no universal answer to this question.”

What complicates things even further is that the online courses for high school students, still in their infancy, often aren’t supplementing students’ grades. Teachers might use MOOCs, which are open to anyone with an Internet connection, for practice, or students might enroll on their own.

Indeed, some enterprising high schoolers were already taking edX’s free, online college-level courses before the company launched MOOCs for high school students. EdX estimated that about 150,000 of its 2.5 million students were already in high school.

“Our site is not intended for use by individuals under the age of 13, and edX does not knowingly collect personal data from those in this age group,” edX’s privacy policy says. “If we become aware that someone under the age of 13 has registered, we will expunge any related personal information from our records.”

Coursera, another major MOOC provider, has encouraged participation from younger students in the past. For example, an eighth-grader in Pakistan advised interested students to balance MOOCs with homework or take a course with their family. The eighth-grader, her twin brother and mother also blogged about their experience for Coursera last year.

Striking the right balance

The value of data to researchers is also sketchy. In the post-secondary world, striking a balance between sharing data for research purposes and maintaining privacy has proven difficult for the online courses. A study from August found that sharing MOOC data can yield tremendous potential for social science research. But stripping the data of information that can be traced back to students can render it useless, the researchers said. Polis worries that privacy concerns could turn any number of digital learning initiatives into the next inBloom.

“A lot of the practices that occur instill fear in families and prevent them from taking advantage of these new services,” he said. “We need to provide answers and understanding so parents and families have the confidence that they need to have in their kids’ privacy.”

Intel’s Hoffman suspects many start-ups would not be able to answer basic questions — such as “Who is your chief privacy officer? Can you show me your documented internal policy that says how you will use data and what uses of data are prohibited? Will you show me the educational policies you use internally? Can you describe the risk management process to make sure policies are being upheld? Are your third-party vendors being held to the same standards? Do you audit those vendors?”

The potential of the online courses to transform education globally is tremendous, Hoffman said. Policymakers and providers need to unlock the tremendous potential of MOOCs, he said — but they need to do it up front, and they need to do it responsibly.

“We’re transitioning into a new phase of privacy,” he said. “We’re entering the phase of data ethics.”
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* I added this initialization, since they forgot to.

The Congress needs to set laws, to protect privacy in classes, on the web, and most anything electronic. (WAY too easy to copy and/or use data)
Even Google would oppose limits on this...it's how they make their money.
Now, our kids are being absorbed too.

But hey, more work for me I guess.

rogue49 · Dec 8, 2014

To release or not release...that is the question.
Methinks, release.
You??

CIA Torture Report Set for Senate Release Over Bush Objections
By Chris Strohm - Dec 8, 2014

The Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee are preparing to issue their report on the harsh interrogation tactics the CIA used on terrorism suspects, defying the objections of current and former U.S. officials including former President George W. Bush.

The panel plans to release today a summary of a 6,200-page report concluding that the Central Intelligence Agency used extreme interrogation methods at secret prisons more often than legally authorized and failed to disclose all the activities to lawmakers and other officials.

Despite warnings from opponents of the report’s release, including some Republicans on the panel, that Americans would face retaliation overseas, President Barack Obama supports making the conclusions public, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said yesterday.

“The president believes that, on principle, it’s important to release that report, so that people around the world and people here at home understand exactly what transpired,” he said. Earnest said the administration has taken steps to improve security at U.S. facilities around the world.

Releasing the findings will give terrorists fresh ammunition to escalate their violence and put the lives of additional U.S. officials and allies at risk, said Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican and chairman of the House intelligence committee.

‘For What?’

“All they’ve got to do is find something they think indicates something and they’ll use it for their propaganda machine,” Rogers said yesterday at a meeting of Bloomberg Government reporters and editors. “Why are we going to risk the lives of some diplomat, for what? We’re going to risk the lives of some intelligence official who had nothing to do with this, for what?”

The Obama administration and Senate Democrats are firing back against such warnings.

The eight Democratic members of the intelligence committee, as well as Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, an ex officio member as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to “memorialize” what they said is his support for releasing the report in a Dec. 6 phone call with them, according to a U.S. official who’s read the letter.

“As the government official making the formal decision to declassify, it is your assessment that the public interest in disclosure outweighs the potential damage to national security and that you believe that you share the responsibility for making the committee’s study publicly available,” their letter says, according to the U.S. official and two congressional staff members, all of whom requested anonymity to discuss the internal correspondence.

‘Elegant Time’

“There will never be an ‘elegant’ time to release this study, as it describes in stark detail the detention and interrogation actions of the CIA,” the letter continues, according to the U.S. official. “As such, you believe it is better to release the report now so that the intelligence community can begin to move past this chapter of its history.”

The nine Democrats said they disagree with the accuracy of some statements in a classified Nov. 25 intelligence community assessment of the potential consequences of releasing the report, according to the official.

White House officials this morning are scheduled to brief former intelligence and counterterrorism officials who are prepared to defend the report’s release on television and elsewhere.

Kerry’s Support

Secretary of State John Kerry also supports releasing the findings, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters yesterday. Kerry discussed the implications of the release in a phone call with Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat and chairman of the intelligence panel, and said it was up to her to decide when to do so, Psaki said.

The final report, which cost $40 million and took six years to complete, is the most comprehensive assessment of the CIA’s so-called “black site” detention facilities and “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorism suspects following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Obama, who said the program amounted to torture, ordered that the practices never be used again when he took office in 2009.

Subjecting detainees to waterboarding, which simulates drowning, and other harsh tactics such as sleep deprivation and stress positions produced little timely, accurate or valuable intelligence in the U.S. war on terrorism, according to U.S. officials who asked to remain anonymous because the findings haven’t been released.

‘One-Sided’

Republican Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Jim Risch of Idaho, both members of the committee, criticized the report yesterday as “one-sided” and faulted Democrats on the panel for releasing it.

“This report does not qualify as either serious or constructive,” Rubio and Risch said in a statement. “This was a partisan effort that divided members of the committee, and the committee against the people of the CIA.”

Duke University law professor Charles Dunlap, a retired Air Force major general, questioned the warnings that the report will incite new violence, calling Islamic State by an earlier acronym.

“I don’t think that it will particularly directly endanger Americans or American allies because those who represent a danger are already doing everything they can to inflict harm,” he said in a statement. “After all, ISIS is beheading innocent Americans and others -- they hardly need more motivation for barbarism.”

Endangering Cooperation

Several U.S. military and intelligence officials and diplomats said the real risk is, as Dunlap put it, “really to the ability of U.S. intelligence agencies to get the cooperation it needs from other countries, not to mention the debilitating effect on morale of CIA and other intelligence professionals.”

U.S. officials are bracing for international blowback that could fuel riots and retaliation in countries hostile to the U.S. The Defense Department warned U.S. commands overseas on Dec. 5 to take appropriate force protection measures in anticipation of the findings release, and the State Department and U.S. intelligence agencies have directed overseas posts and personnel to review and in some cases bolster their security.

Some Democrats and human-rights activists have hailed the report for finally exposing flaws and possible crimes in the CIA’s rendition, detention and interrogation program, which largely operated from 2002 to 2005.

‘Off-Base’

The report appears to be “way off-base,” Bush said in an interview Dec. 7 on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“We’re fortunate to have men and women who work hard at the CIA serving on our behalf,” Bush said. “These are patriots. And whatever the report says, if it diminishes their contributions to our country, it is way off base.” Others who are part of the campaign include Bush’s former CIA directors George Tenet and Michael Hayden.

Congressional and administration officials said that current CIA Director John Brennan and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough have battled the Senate committee for months in an effort to redact as much of the report as possible.

Opponents of releasing the report also have created a website, CIASavedLives.com, where they plan to publish declassified documents, opinion pieces and media reports to rebut the Senate Democrats’ report. The site is being curated by William Harlow, Tenet’s former spokesman at the CIA.

Rewriting History?

Republicans and former Bush administration officials who ran the program condemned the report in advance as a biased attempt to rewrite history. They say the interrogations produced significant intelligence that helped capture terrorists and protect the country.

“Information from the detainees was absolutely crucial to us understanding al-Qaeda and helping disturb, disrupt, dismantle and, in many cases, destroy al-Qaeda networks,” said Charles Allen, who managed the intelligence community’s collection programs from 1998 to 2005.

“It’s hard for people in 2014 to understand how the world fell in on top of the” CIA after the 2001 attacks, said Allen, a principal with the Chertoff Group, a risk-management advisory firm. “There was no wide-scale abuse of any of the interrogation authorities, and CIA officers simply do not lie to the Congress.”

9/11 Planner

The CIA waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 183 times in March 2003, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum released in April 2009. The agency used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah, who’s an alleged al-Qaeda operative.

Allen, the former CIA official, said “very hard” choices had to be made, and the interrogation methods were necessary. He recalled a meeting in the spring of 2002 where then Tenet asked a group of inter-agency officials to raise their hands if they disagreed with the methods used.

A representative from the Federal Bureau of Investigation was the only one to object and walked out of the room, Allen said. That was acceptable to Tenet and the small group because they knew the FBI operated under different authorities, Allen said.

Another FBI agent, Ali Soufan, has argued in recent years that enhanced techniques are both unnecessary and ineffective. Soufan was the first to interrogate Abu Zubaydah.

“There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics,” Soufan wrote in a 2009 column for the New York Times.

‘Gentler Approach’

Allen disagreed. “Would we have gotten all the information through a more patient, more gentler approach over a period of months?” he asked. “You don’t know, and certainly the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence doesn’t know because it’s all hypothetical.”

Some high-ranking military and intelligence veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan disagree, saying their experience is that waterboarding, sleep deprivation, forced nudity and other “enhanced” techniques produce inaccurate, tainted and sometimes false information.

Other critics of the report, inside and outside the U.S. intelligence community, also say it fails to examine how officials in Bush’s White House and Pentagon kept demanding that the CIA extract more information from its captives, and Justice Department officials allowed them to do so by using techniques such as waterboarding that are widely considered torture.

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Get it over and done with...it is "known" already...and already being used for fodder.
At least, this will help prevent future potential actions...or at least discourage it.
IMHO - I think only those who "did it" or "authorized" it...are worried about being gone after by the World tribunals for "war-crimes"
But I think it will prevent it...since it will be acknowledged as wrong.

redravin · Dec 8, 2014

Just release the damn thing.
Let the chips fall they may.

Speed_Gibson · Dec 9, 2014

I find it somewhat amusing that the CIA could be construed as "terrorists" without stretching the term at all, especially with all of the black ops that have officially never happened. It all depends on what side you are on, to quote Carlin - ". “Israeli murderers are called commandos, Arab commandos are called terrorists, Contra killers are called freedom fighters."

Street Pattern · Dec 9, 2014

They better release it now, before Mitch McConnell has a chance to deep-six it.

Chris Noyb · Dec 9, 2014

How would the people behind & supporting "enhanced interrogation" techniques feel about having those "enchanced interrogation" techniques feel used on them and the people close to them?

"Mr. High Ranking CIA Official, we discovered that your teenage daughter has been keeping company with several persons of middle eastern heritage. Her answers to our questions were unsatisfactory, therefore we employed the enhanced interrogation techniques that were approved by you. We're not clear on why you have a problem with this, seeing that you're a very vocal supporter of national security at all costs."

ASU2003 · Dec 9, 2014

Release it to other cleared government workers, not to the world. The average American doesn't care, but this will be used by foreign media and organizations to show how evil America is. Maybe if there are 'concerned citizens' that want to see what happened, have there be a way for them to read it in a secure facility.

I'm sure the bad parts will get spun by the media, repeated over and over, to make it seem like that is what the whole CIA is about. The worst parts will be used by terrorists (who want to seek out and kill innocent people) to 'prove' that America is evil. It is just going to be another Abu Ghraib type of event all over again.

Plan9 · Dec 9, 2014

ASU2003 said: ↑

Release it to other cleared government workers, not to the world.
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That isn't releasing it. A constitutional republic works best with a certain degree of transparency.

ASU2003 said:

The average American doesn't care, but this will be used by foreign media and organizations to show how evil America is.
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What if I told you we do bad things? You know, evil in certain times and in certain ways. You don't get to be King Shit of Turd Mountain without being a little evil. "...rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf" and all that.

People act like good and evil are binary, exclusive and constant. They're not. Suppose we live in a Utilitarianism world. As such, we have people that get their hands dirty on occasion to keep in that way.

ASU2003 said:

Maybe if there are 'concerned citizens' that want to see what happened, have there be a way for them to read it in a secure facility.
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Might as well put it down the memory hole.

...

I wonder if the real lesson here isn't that that we fucked up, but that we got caught.

rogue49 · Dec 17, 2014

FYI...just a followup from the other thread.

Here are the first two articles...

Why America’s middle class is lost

The devalued American worker

Click to expand...

And the others in the series...

The college trap that keeps people poor

A black hole for our best and brightest

The great start-up slowdown

So basically what we have to somehow do...increase income, decrease outgo...and make it easier to adjust & grow.

Now, is this the responsibility of the govt? Yes & No
And is this the fault of big money and corps? Yes & No
And do you need to kick it up a notch? Yes & No

The government is not directly in control...nor can it directly improve...but it can influence things.
Stop giving away the keys to the henhouse to interests...start protecting your flock, setup some catches. You want them for wool year after year...not lambchops, not for the grinder. Make food and resources more reasonable.
And STOP posturing and spinning

The corporations are out for maximizing profit, controlling the bottomline...but stop treating your workers like tools, just a resource. They are not machines.
Start understanding that you need to invest...then they'll stay...and produce better...not just more. And stop fee'ing the public to death. (they can't budget for it...and they won't have money to spend, duh)
And STOP fuckin' lying.

People need to stop complaining...start taking charge. Get results, play firm.
Don't expect fairness...set your terms. Protect your assets. This is not a fantasy or ideal or the 50's It is not magic.
Your actions have consequences, your LACK of actions have consequences. Everything counts. STOP presuming.

The problem is not "them"...the problem is everybody.

ASU2003 · Dec 17, 2014

rogue49 said: ↑

The great start-up slowdown

So basically what we have to somehow do...increase income, decrease outgo...and make it easier to adjust & grow.

Now, is this the responsibility of the govt? Yes & No
And is this the fault of big money and corps? Yes & No
And do you need to kick it up a notch? Yes & No

The government is not directly in control...nor can it directly improve...but it can influence things.
Click to expand...

I am working on a new thread about this topic of starting up a business.

rogue49 · Dec 17, 2014

ASU2003 said: ↑

I am working on a new thread about this topic of starting up a business.
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Great, I'd be interested...I just started (or restarted) a new one myself. It can be a challenge, but interesting.

ASU2003 · Dec 17, 2014

Talking about the NYT article since it won't let me edit my post above, but this isn't the new thread one yet:

That article hits home. While we need nuclear engineers (and it is a good paying stable job), should she risk it all to start up a business? Does she know it is a popular idea that will take off? Does she have a spouse to support her living expenses if it fails? How many years does she have left on her mortgage or rent that never goes away? How about health insurance and property taxes in these expensive housing markets?

Would she be able to get another job or her old job back? Not too many nuclear engineers are needed outside of the one nuclear power plant in that area. She would have to move.

There is the education and experience that is helpful when starting a company. There are the legal and accounting issues that need to be setup. And there is the government taxes, licenses, regulations, rent, and utilities that need to be taken care of. Along with the designs, production, and any staff. If you want to know why American business loves outsourcing, it is probably because there is a lot more contract manufacturing of small orders being done overseas. You know what it will cost to make the first run, and it is much cheaper than doing all the work yourself with new machines and setting up a production line.

rogue49 · Dec 25, 2014

Some good cheer for the New Year and the holidays.

Everything is Awesome

Yep, I've been saying this for awhile...we need to look at the good things too, stop being pessimistic and skeptical.

Still have a lot to work on...but we've got the wind at our backs at the moment.
So enjoy the holidays.
It's good to be warm & cozy...the flames are not burning down the house.

redux · Jan 3, 2015

This should be an interesting fight in the coming months.

The FCC will release its rules on Net Neutrality and it is still not clear where the Chairman (appointed by Obama) stands. In an earlier draft, the Democratic chairman sided with the two Republicans on the Commission and was leaning towards allowing a tiered system of content rather than true net neutrality and treating all content equally. But push-back from Obama and overwhelming public comments may have persuaded him to join the other Democrats on the Commission.

And in anticipation, the Republican Congress will likely pass a bill to preempt the FCC.

Get ready: The FCC says it will vote on net neutrality in February - The Washington Post

And also in the ring, the clash of the titans: Comcast/Verizon... v Netflix/Amazon/Twitter...

rogue49 · Jan 7, 2015

Back to Oil...the stuff that lubes everything.

And this is the biggest global factor in the market...they've been sitting on a glut and speculated prices for a long time.
And it will affect the biggest players out there.

How $50 Oil Changes Almost Everything

Why Oil Is Dragging Down the S&P

IMHO...the Less than $50...goes WAY beyond changing things described in the article.
And It's only a short-term drag on the S&P...because the other companies will benefit in the long-run...there's just a lag time before it comes into play.

This is truly "trickle-down" economics. No spin like it usually is...this will affect everyone's bottom-line. (good for the users, not hot for the suppliers)
IF this stays this way for awhile...

Baraka_Guru · Jan 7, 2015

rogue49 said: ↑

Back to Oil...the stuff that lubes everything.

And this is the biggest global factor in the market...they've been sitting on a glut and speculated prices for a long time.
And it will affect the biggest players out there.

How $50 Oil Changes Almost Everything

Why Oil Is Dragging Down the S&P

IMHO...the Less than $50...goes WAY beyond changing things described in the article.

And It's only a short-term drag on the S&P...because the other companies will benefit in the long-run...there's just a lag time before it comes into play.
Click to expand...

Alberta is going to get hammered, but it might have a good impact on the rest of Canada. (If this is a long-term oil price adjustment, Alberta will have to rethink its flat 10% provincial income tax).

The oil sands in Alberta will be able to keep going for a bit, but if oil prices stay too low, exploration, development, and possibly even extraction will take a hit. It's costly to produce oil there, and if prices are too low, it doesn't make for good business. Some other areas, such as Iran or Saudi Arabia, say, can keep producing because it's cheaper to.

This is truly "trickle-down" economics. No spin like it usually is...this will affect everyone's bottom-line. (good for the users, not hot for the suppliers)
IF this stays this way for awhile...
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In Canada, it may work out okay if the Canadian dollar stays low and our production can increase with lower costs. (And, of course, if overall consumer demand in the U.S. continues.)

Realistically, though, the prices can't stay this low without detrimental long-term effects on global oil production capacity. The price of oil needs to be between $60 and $80 to make it worthwhile for a lot of producers. Many need the price to be between $80 and $100 or more.

Here are the breakeven oil prices for every drilling project in the world | Financial Post

Imagine a scenario where long-term production gets axed, and then demand suddenly spikes. Consequently, oil may not be produced fast enough, leading to price shocks on the opposite end of the spectrum.

This could be a recipe for eventual $200 per barrel.

Overall, I'm skeptical that this is mostly good. To me, this looks like volatility.

redravin · Jan 7, 2015

Alaska is hurting from cheap oil.
While the rest of the country was having serious issues Alaska was doing okay because oil kept it floating.
Now that the price is dropping (and the idiots decided to keep the Republicans give back to the oil companies so they aren't paying much in the way of taxes) suddenly the state can't pay its bills.
At least the new governor went in and cleaned out the gas and oil committee that was made up of executives from oil companies.
He also crowd sourced for suggestions as to ways of covering the huge deficit.
Some of the suggestions were the usual crap you get from the internet but many were well thought out and might be useful.
I'd say they were better than any of useless chatter he's going to get from out legislators.

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