Why is Bookmarking Getting HARDER!?

Why do I feel like bookmarking is getting harder?  You would think that creating an easy to use interface to save, backup, retrieve, search, and browse bookmarks would be a problem that was solved a decade ago, wouldn't you?  But here it is 2014 and not only do I feel like bookmarking links has stagnated, I feel like it's actually going backwards.

I am a bookmark junky.  I admit it.  I have over a thousand bookmarks.  That many bookmarks is useless unless they are organized, sortable, and searchable so that I can find what I need.  And I need it across multiple devices and browsers.   The solution I've been using is an old, but still useful one:  Del.icio.us bookmarks

When delicious  first came out it was brilliant.  First of all it gave a FREE place to store your bookmarks online so that you weren't out of syn across multiple browsers.  The second innovation was replacing stodgy hierarchical folders with tags.  (Another innovation was sharing and early "social networking" but that's not important to this)

Now that the information was tagged and stored in the cloud, one still needed a user interface to browse, search, and find the bookmarks when you needed them.  Things didn't really improve right away on the U.I front.  Delicious had a website interface, but it wasn't(and still isn't) the fastest way to go.  Other programs and add-ons would take your list of bookmarks and arrange them just like your browser does.  It would take each of your "tags" and treat it like a folder with all your arrange them, it just made all your labels a "folder".

But then came... the delicious firefox add-on.  This add-on was the epitome of bookmarking User Interface.  It was fast, easy to use, and makes finding my obscure bookmarks fast, easy, and accurate.  More on the brilliance of this add-on later.

Delicious was king of cloud bookmarking, but then I it stagnated as other sites came along and innovated new features.  Features like grabbing a screenshot of a bookmark, or grabbing a copy of the whole page.  Others would remember how far down you had scrolled.  The whole time though, Delicious just stayed the same.  Why did Delicious stagnate?  I don't know.  Maybe it was yahoo's fault?  Maybe it the underlying technology that kept it from being further improved, I don't know.

But even as others got better bookmarks, none (in my not so humble opinion) ever created as great a U.I. as the official Delicious Firefox add-on.  Therefore, over the years, I have continued to use the Delicious service despite the stagnation.  I have remained content with it even though the add-on has also stagnated because it's still the best U.I. I have found.

But disaster struck.  Yahoo sold the Delicious service to AVOS.  At first, I was overjoyed at the news.  I thought that it might mean they would start investing in improving the add-ons(like maybe a Chrome add-on that's as good as the firefox one), and start making the bookmarks better.  They even took the existing add-on and rebranded it in the mozilla store.  Unfortunately, my experience with Delicious since AVOS took over has been a fucking nightmare.

One of the first things AVOS did was change the add-on to a web-based pile of shit.  I clung to the old add-on like a cat trapped in a tree.  I installed the old version and just kept using it.  But then AVOS started mucking around with API and it quit working.  Fortunately, some heroic netizen saved the old add-on and somehow modified it to keep working.

But, this month, my luck has finally run out.  I can't find the old version anywhere, and AVOS has mucked around with the API again.  This time by launching a new website.   My old add-on is dead, it'll never add, update, or remove a delicious bookmark again.  And the new "service" that AVOS offers really is a piece of shit.

So what was so great about the old one?  I'll show you.  This is a picture of the add-on.

The first thing that I like is that I can choose to always display my bookmarks in a sidebar.  Since most websites limit their width and I work on a widescreen, I lose no website real estate by having it there.  So it's always there that I can quickly go to it when I need something that I know I'd already found before.  But if I did want it to go away I could use either ctrl+b or click the "x" on the window.

The second thing is the separation of the Tag list from the bookmark list.  I can select a tag, and below it displayed the bookmarks under that tag.  This is far different from the traditional stodgy tree view where the bookmarks are inserted into the tag tree and it actually makes it more difficult to find other tags.

The third thing is the 1 layer of nested labels.  As you can see I have 3 sites under the tag "SQL", but 1 of the sites also has the tab "join" and another the tag "Programming" so that if I'm browsing for something I can further narrow down my search.

The fourth thing is the Search.  I can Search just Tags or tags and bookmarks.  And the search checks the bookmark URL, title, and description for matches.

The fifth thing is choosing how the tags and bookmarks are sorted in the display.  I can do oldest to newest, most frequently used, etc... and I can quickly change the option within the interface without opening a cludgy "options" page.

The sixth thing is the easy add bookmark integration.  There is a button that pulls up a new popup window to add the current page to a bookmark.  If text on the page is highlighted, it automatically adds it to the description page, it recommends tags for the page(if any) and also an easy check box to make the bookmark public or private.

Finally, the auto saving of the site's "favicon" is a great visual indicator when looking for a specific bookmark, and gives my eyes something to look at besides text.

The new integration isn't technically an "add-on" it is a "service" so I was able to leave the old one on for comparison sakes.  If you're like me, you took one look at the AVOS delicious "service" and said "What. The. Fuck. AVOS?"

Going down the list of things that I liked and compare.  First, It is a sidebar so that's good.(I don't care if it's on the left or right)

The second thing is that tags and bookmarks are separated.  I can choose a tag, but they are in a weird "word cloud" format that I have trouble looking at.  Also hard to look at is the giant text of the bookmark titles make it so that I can't easily scan the titles.  Oh and there is a bunch of junk at the top of the widgit so that I have to scroll half way down just to see the tags and bookmarks.  So this is mostly(but not totally messed up)

Third thing, no nested labels so that's completely busted.  Fourth, the Search option I have to scroll up and I can't choose just tags - so that's completely busted.  Fifth, can't sort tags or bookmarks - completely busted.  Sixth, the "add bookmark" feature is a clunky interface and it doesn't insert my highlights into the text - mostly busted.  Finally, no favicons.

The awfulness doesn't end there.  The "settings" button just takes me to a page where I can update my profile.  At the bottom it has a link for feedback(oh AVOS, don't even go there!  Maybe I'll send them a link to this post.)

I was DONE with Delicious when this happened and was going to finally make the move to google bookmarks since it had the most add-ons.  You know what I discovered, while it's add-ons (both for firefox and Chrome) are better than the new AVOS ones, they are all the old stodgy treeviews.  None of them are as streamlined as the old official Delicious firefox add-on.  None!  (if you find one, please let me know because it'll save me a TON of work)

So here is what I'm going to do dear readers.  I am taking matters into my own hands.  I am going to write a google Chrome Add-on for delicious bookmarks that works like the old Delicious Firefox Add-on.

I'm going to start with a Chrome Add-on since I've been meaning to move to it.  I'll have the U.I. work with Delicious first since that's where my bookmarks are still being held.  I am just going to recreate the features of the old one first.  Once that is up and ready I'll release it to the world and hopefully will get some feedback.

After that, my pipe dream would be to add some features to it.  I'd also like to make it work with google bookmarks since I don't think AVOS and delicious will be around for much longer.  And finally, maybe make a firefox add-on so that I can easily switch between the two browsers.

If you have an idea what to call my new add-on, leave me a comment.  Right now I'm leaning towards "Easy Bookmarks" with the tagline: "bookmarking done right".  But I bet some reader will come up with a better name.

Just in Case you Thought Patents protected the small from the big.

I strongly object to all forms of software patents. I also believe other patents need to be reformed or even outright abolished.  When I tell people this I usually get a lot of pushback.  One of the arguments I hear is that Patents are there so that big companies can’t “steal our ideas”.  Obviously, I disagree.  And last week’s revelation about Microsoft’s 2 Billion dollar patent profits from Android Phones illustrates my point.

The problem with this argument, I think, is people’s view of how new inventions come about.  I think we all have a collective image of a quirky scientist working away in a tiny lab in almost complete isolation. Another image is some small start-up company spends years of time inventing some revolutionary new gadget or process.  In both cases, you might feel that it would be unfair for a big company to swoop in and “steal” their work and make a bunch of money off it.

It is these images that, I think, drive public support for patents.  But in reality these are exceedingly rare cases.  In reality almost all inventions are either small improvements on existing products, and\or was the result of teams of people working for an already large corporation or public institute.

Instead, what happens more often is that big companies use their patents to file lawsuits or threaten to file a lawsuit to keep would-be competitors from offering better and lower cost products.  That is what is happening with Microsoft.  Just the threat of being sued by Microsoft has scared businesses to collectively pay Microsoft 2 billion dollars in tribute every year.

What effect does this have on competition?  Well, first of all, it’s going to scare companies from getting into the smartphone business.  Less competition is going to drive up cost and drives down quality.  Secondly, any company that wants to get into the smartphone business will have to make sure that they have the money to either pay the patent tribute or hire an army of lawyers to defend itself in court.  Thus raising the start-up costs and further driving away potential competition.

Now think back to that quirky scientist and start-up company with a revolutionary gadget.  Let’s say they come up with a software patch that makes the android phone’s battery last longer.  Now let’s say they try to sell it as a patch for Android.  Uh oh, here comes Microsoft claiming that the software violates a Microsoft patent.  Now the company can’t sell it, even though they may have come up with the idea completely separate from Microsoft.  So now, instead of patents protecting the inventor from big business, it is big business that is protected from the little guy.

You might think that my scenario from above is contrived.  But that is exactly what happened when General Electric sued the small medical imaging company, DR Systems.

The patent in the case, entitled “picture archiving and communication system employing improved data compression,” was issued to Fairfield, Conn.-based GE in October 2003. 

DR Systems and GE compete in the market for Radiology Information Systems (RIS) and Picture Archiving and Communications system (PACS).
RIS is used by radiology departments to store, manipulate and distribute patient radiological data and imagery. The system generally comprises patient tracking and scheduling, result reporting and image tracking capabilities. 

Of course it isn't just small companies.  Large companies waste a lot of time suing each other as well.  Patent trolls are a major problem in the computer and software industry.  There are now entire companies whose sole existence is to file or acquire software patents and then sue everyone in sight.

Of course, big companies aren't immune to all this patent absurdity.  Google and other Android makes are being sued by their smartphone competitors.

Google probably knew this was coming. When it lost out in the Nortel auction, the company's top lawyer, David Drummond, complained that the Microsoft-Apple patent alliance was part of a "hostile, organized campaign against Android." Google's failure to get patents in the Nortel auction was seen as one of the driving factors in its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola in 2011.
Rockstar, meanwhile, was pretty unapologetic about embracing the "patent troll" business model. Most trolls, of course, aren't holding thousands of patents from gigantic technology companies. When Rockstar was profiled by Wired last year, about 25 of its 32 employees were former Nortel employees.
The suits filed today are against Google and seven companies that make Android smartphones: Asustek, HTC, Huawei, LG Electronics, Pantech, Samsung, and ZTE. The case was filed in the Eastern District of Texas, long considered a district friendly to patent plaintiffs.

The problem of these patents gets even more absurd and harmful.  Monsanto has taken to suing small time farmers for "patent infringement" because they planted seeds that they cultivated themselves.

According to the report, Monsanto has alleged seed patent infringement in 144 lawsuits against 410 farmers and 56 small farm businesses in at least 27 U.S. states as of January of 2013. Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta together hold 53 percent of the global commercial seed market, which the report says has led to price increases for seeds -- between 1995 and 2011, the average cost of planting one acre of soybeans rose 325 percent and corn seed prices went up 259 percent. 

[snip] 

In the case of "Bowman v. Monsanto Co.," Bowman allegedly replanted second-generation seeds that had been purchased legally from a licensed Monsanto distributor instead of buying new seeds. Monsanto claims that in doing so, Bowman was essentially stealing its product. Monsanto has won battles in several lower courts.

Can you believe that?  If you purchase corn seeds and save 10% of your crop to replant next year, you're committing a crime!  I don't know if this patent absurdity can get any worse than this.  Whether it is a tech corporation like Microsoft extracting 2 billion from potential competitors, or Monsanto controlling small time farmers, patents are more likely to benefit the powerful at the expense of the small and the greater economy.

Syria - Trying to Understand What's Really Happening

The latest news is that Putin has successfully convinced the Syrian Dictator Al-Assad, to give up his chemical weapons in exchange for a guarantee that "The West" will not conduct air strikes against Syria.  Why would he do that?  Why would Assad agree?  To try and understand those questions, I think we have to know a little more about how other countries and regimes are reacting to the Syrian civil war.

As much as I'd like to believe that the Syrian civil war is about a group of people overthrowing a brutal dictator.  But while that might be what many Syrians are fighting for, that is not the only thing going on here.  I think the best way to think of Syria now, is as a Proxy war between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.

The Brutal Iranian theocracy is allies with Assad's Syrian regime.  It has been supplying the Assad Government with money, supplies, and weapons before and during the current uprising.  This is so well known, you'll forgive me if I don't provide a link backing up the claim.

Here's a lesser known fact.  The Saudi Royal dictatorship(along with Qatar) has been supplying the Syrian rebels with weapons and supplies for a long time.  First reported in June of last year(see here and here), it has been repeatedly confirmed since then over and over again (Qatar link).  So while it's lesser known to the public, it certainly isn't a secret.

Without getting into why the Saudi dictators and Iranian theocracy are enemies, let's explore why these two powers would be so bent on getting a "friendly" government in Syria.  There's the standard reasons:  Just to have another partner in the region, the country has some oil reserves - the lifeblood of economy in the middle east, is that it?  Before we answer that rhetorical question, let's ask the same thing of Russia.  What is their interest in Syria?  Russia has access to the second highest amount of oil and natural gas fields in the world and is a routine exporter of them.  So, therefore, Russia doesn't need Syrian (or for that matter, Iranian oil) like the U.S. and Western Europe does.  Often repeated in the media is the fact that Russia has a naval base in Syria.  This is cited as Russia's interest in the region.  Is one military base the reason to give free food, aid, and weapons to a regime that is about to collapse?  Why not stand back, and just buy off the victor to keep your facility?

These are all possible reasons why the leaders of these countries are spending so much to support "their side".  But the one thing almost never mentioned in all the analysis on TV news or front page papers is oil and gas.  No, it's not about Syria's oil reserves - they're pretty small compared to Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.  It's about geography.

Iran wants to build an oil and natural gas pipeline going from Iran, all the way through Syria, and Lebanon, and eventually even into Europe.  The agreement was about to be finalized back in 2011:

The deal of new pipeline to transfer Iran's gas to Iraq, Syria and Europe will be signed on Monday between three countries in Asalouyeh port, south of Iran, Mehr news agency reported on Friday.

The primary agreement on the strategic project was reached in May in Baghdad.

 

Under the new deal, a gas pipeline will be constructed to transfer Iran's gas to Iraq and Syrian territories feeding their power plants and next through southern Lebanon will extend to the Mediterranean Sea and Europe.

But guess what?  Qatar and Saudi Arabia want the same thing - especially Qatar(another Royal dictatorship government).  Since at least 2009 they've been trying to get a natural gas pipeline from their country to Turkey.  Syria was not open to that deal and has been a major sticking point.

Qatar has proposed a gas pipeline from the Gulf to Turkey in a sign the emirate is considering a further expansion of exports from the world's biggest gasfield after it finishes an ambitious programme to more than double its capacity to produce liquefied natural gas (LNG).
"We are eager to have a gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey," Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the ruler of Qatar, said last week, following talks with the Turkish president Abdullah Gul and the prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the western Turkish resort town of Bodrum. "We discussed this matter in the framework of co-operation in the field of energy. In this regard, a working group will be set up that will come up with concrete results in the shortest possible time," he said, according to Turkey's Anatolia news agency.

Furthermore, even if NO pipeline was being built, Qatar probably wouldn't care what happened in Syria.  Qatar ships natural gas to Europe and is a large player(next to Russia) in that market.  But with a cheap pipeline, they would lose their market share and profitability.

Here's where things really start getting murky.  Saudi Arabia, the foremost player in middle east oil and gas, would love nothing more than to block their rivals Iran from building out their infrastructure.  That, combined with the prospect of weakening Iran seems to be fueling their interest in Syria.

The Saudi stance on Syria is motivated by a combination of personal, sectarian, and, above all, political factors. First, the Saudis were never head over heels about Assad and his Ba'athist secular ideology. Second, the continuous crackdown of the mostly Sunni political opposition by the Alawite-dominated regime made Riyadh very uncomfortable. Third, and most significant, Saudi Arabia perceived the decline of the Assad regime as a golden opportunity to weaken Iran, their bigger regional competitor. Moreover, supporting the opposition would also play well within Saudi Arabia while deflating some of the regional criticism regarding the KSA’s policy with respect to the Arab Spring.

So with Saudi Arabia and Qatar backing up the rebels you would think they're allies.  But they're not.  Saudi Arabia and Qatar Royal dictatorships could best be described as "frenemies".  To the point that the two dicators are backing different rebel groups in Syria.

Qatar backs the Muslim Brotherhood and, it appears, would not object to a brokered deal to end the insurrection that allows the MB to get its nose in the political tent, then make its play for winning control of the new government through some combination of foreign pressure, domestic mobilization, and elections.
Saudi Arabia, it appears, has no love for the Muslim Brotherhood and is perfectly happy to crater the Assad regime through a bloody insurrection abetted by foreign jihadis,  in order to deny Iran a regional ally, score another victory for fundamentalist Sunni rollback, and increase the pressure on the Shi’a-led government of Iraq by adding the factor of a hostile, pro-Saudi and overtly Sunni Syrian regime to the increasingly disgruntled and emboldened Sunnis of western Iraq (some of whom are reportedly participating in the Syrian war).

Let's go back to Russia.  What's their interest?  Sure, that naval base is nice, but their interest ALSO involves natural gas lines.  Russia(or should I say, Putin?) wants the Iran\Iraq\Syria natural gas line as well.  Putin wants more control and more influence on the flow of it and his allies' natural gas.  It is the only power that takes gas from Turkmenistan and ships it to Europe.  So a Qatar or Saudi friendly government in Syria would provide competition to Russia.  It's no wonder Putin would continue backing Assad.

But wait, you might say, isn't Iran going to send Natural gas through Syria to Europe?  Well, yes.  But the Iranian theocracy and Putin's Russia are close allies.  Putin, Iran, and Turkenistan control the first, second, and fourth largest natural gas reserves.  And since they can control Turkmenistan, they can better control prices.  Russia has no leverage to control Qatar.  Besides, as stated above, Qatar already manages to ship quite a lot of natural gas to Europe.

So, to recap.  Qatar doesn't want Iranian natural gas competition via a gas pipeline.  Iran and Russia really want it.  And Saudi Arabia just wants to weaken it's rivals.  All three groups are backing different Syrian factions.  What started out as a popular uprising has turned into a proxy war over regional politics and oil\gas exporting economics.  All this before we even get to the possibility of U.S.\Western involvement("involvement"  here is a euphemism for "bombing and killing a bunch of people").

Even if we assume for the moment that the Obama administration is genuinely concerned about the use of chemical weapons, that doesn't explain why the CIA has been supplying rebel factions from the beginning.  Fortunately, when asked about the weapons the U.S. government is sending to Syria, it is surprisingly up front about who and why.  They are trying to fund a fourth, more western friendly rebel group.

“Movement of those items [directly] to Gen. Idriss,” Kerry said, “is going to have an impact, particularly in the south,” where rebel fighters have begun to gain territory. Donor nations meeting here also pledged to funnel all future aid — weapons largely provided by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and nonlethal assistance from the United States, Britain, France and others — through the military council to prevent it from falling into the hands of Islamist extremist groups that have grown in power within the anti-Assad ranks.
Idriss, Kerry said, could not have been more clear about “what he and the opposition are doing to separate themselves from what some of the extreme elements are doing. . . . We are quite confident that he is a strong leader with the capacity to make a difference.”

That report was from April of this year, before the Chemical weapons usage.  The goal of supporting "moderates" is repeated in this more recent Sept 11th. article.

In addition to boosting support for rebels under the command of Idriss, who speaks fluent English and taught at a military academy before defecting from the Syrian army last year, U.S. officials in southern Turkey are using aid to promote emerging moderate leaders in towns and villages in rebel-held areas. Across much of the north, Syrians have begun electing local councils and attempting to rebuild communities devastated by war.
Ward’s team — working primarily out of hotel lobbies — has spent the past few months studying the demographics and dynamics of communities where extremists are making inroads. Targeted U.S. aid, he said, can be used to empower emerging local leaders who are moderate and to jump-start basic services while dimming the appeal of extremists.

Now it becomes clear what the Obama administration is actually trying to do.  If the U.S. government does nothing in Syria, 1 of 2 things will most likely happen.  1.  Assad survives the uprising and Iran becomes stronger than ever.  Also boosting Russian economic influence  2.  Saudi Arabia or Qatar backed Muslim extremists will take over the country that are as hostile to America and the West as Iran.  Neither scenario is a good thing for America.  This is probably why Obama was going to try and act directly against Assad under the guise of responding to his use of chemical weapons.  End the war quickly and better able to coordinate action so support the so-called "moderate" factions.

I don't agree with the reasons.  But I think it's starting to become a lot more coherent than the excuse of "limited strikes" and chemical weapons.

Syria, Obama, and More Violence as the Only Option

When President George W. Bush was gearing up to launch the invasion of Iraq under the guise of the "war on terror", a common critique was that he was using only one tool.  The cliche` "When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" was used to suggest he couldn't see beyond the military for ways of fighting Islamic extremists.  President Obama, a strong critic of the Iraq invasion is making the same mistake.

I can't imagine the amount of suffering of the Syrian people are suffering during their civil war.  Their President for life, Bashar Al-Assad, appears to be ready to hang on to power, or destroy the whole country trying.  On top of targeting civilians, hiring thugs and mercenaries, he is now using chemical weapons to try and kill all the rebels.

Obama and his administration also appears to be moved by the suffering of the Syrian civilians.  So he reached into his Presidential tool bag and pulled out... the U.S. military.

The United States military has provided Barack Obama with a range of options for launching an attack on Syria and is "ready to go" with an offensive, the US defence secretary has said.

There is now a growing belief in Washington that a US strike against Syria, possibly involving cruise missiles or long-range bombers, could take place in the next few days.

I understand people wanting to do something to stop the killing, but is sending in the U.S. military to fire million-dollar-each missiles the only way?  Military action isn't clear cut.  There's no guarentee that it'll do more good than harm.  You can't kill people without expecting blowback.

Iranian lawmakers and commanders issued stark warnings to the United States and its allies on Tuesday, saying any military strike on Syria would lead to a retaliatory attack on Israel fanned by “the flames of outrage.”

This doesn't mean that U.S. policy shouldn't act based on threats of other dictators, but it's best not to pretend that launching missiles and dropping bombs is consequence free.  Also under consideration should be "collateral damage".  "Collateral damage" is, of course, a nice clinical term for accidentally killing civilians - including children.  It is also something that the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs recognizes.

Conducting limited “stand-off” missile and air strikes against “hundreds” of Syrian military facilities, advanced weapons depots and defense facilities. The operations would involve “hundreds” of aircraft, ships, submarines and other forces. Cost estimates would be “in the billions.” Syrian retaliatory attacks and collateral damage would be a likely byproduct;
(emphasis mine)

Even though they aren't targeted, and attempts will be made to avoid it, the cost of military action must be weighed against the fact that innocent people will die at the hands of American weapons.  So what else could the government do other than military action?

There's diplomatic pressure, helping Syrian refugees, supplying doctors without borders with medicine and supplies.  Those are all things that can save lives without resorting to violence.  There are Syrian refugees crammed into camps that could use additional supplies.  Think of the cost of 1 1.4 million dollar missile.  Now think about how many people could be fed and get medical care for that amount?  One might argue that it won't stop the killing, but in all likelihood, no military action would either, short of all-out invasion or treacherous, long-term airstrikes.

There could be other options that would be less destructive, like working to help seal the Syrian borders to keep the Al-Assad regime from bringing in his own troops and supplies.  In this case Obama might still be using the U.S. military, but at least it's in a way that might be less likely to get civilians killed.

Finally, I'd like to end with asking a few annoying rhetorical questions.  Why is reigning down death from American planes and ships the first and, really, only option being considered?  I read an article called Obama's 3 options in Syria and they were all varying degrees of military action.  Why is that?  Is this a product of our Culture?  A product of American Empire?  A result of 12 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Why?

Alternatives to blocking American-US Airways merger via Lawsuit

On Tuesday, the U.S. justice department announced that it was filing a lawsuit to prevent American Airlines and US Airways from merging.

The Justice Department and attorneys general from six states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the $11 billion merger of American Airlines and US Airways, saying the combination would lead to higher prices and less service for consumers. The merger, which would create the world's largest airline, would "substantially lessen competition" for commercial air travel, contends the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.

<snip>

A top concern is local markets, the Justice Department said. It cited the example of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, where the combined airline would control 69% of takeoff and landing slots, and 63% of the outbound nonstop routes.

All I can think is that the government and business are going to spend a whole lot of money and time fighting this.  Don't get me wrong, I agree with the goal of keeping the airline industry competitive and with smaller, not bigger airlines.  In the article the CEOs of the companies tried to portray the merger as "pro competitive", but that, to me, is an abuse of language.  Any time a market has fewer and bigger players, it is -almost by definition - going to be naturally less competitive.

Instead of using anti-trust law to break the increasingly large airlines, consume them by encouraging more start-ups to compete with them.  Smaller companies tend to be more nimble and better able to out compete niche areas of the market, and consume market share from the massive companies that become large and unwieldy.

The problem is that this hasn't been happening in the airline industry.  According to this site, there's only been about 1 new airline startup in the United State per year.  And just as many failing.  Why are there so few startups?  This article makes some suggestions as to why.

But getting an airline off the ground has become a lot more treacherous. High oil prices these days mean carriers must fly full planes to turn a profit, and smaller airports just do not provide enough passenger traffic. At the same time, the major domestic carriers are more entrenched than ever in their own hub airports, making it harder for a new entrant to wrangle gates there. And investors have become more cautious about lending to just any airline project.

But is that it?  I would add that the number or rules and regulations from the FAA, TSA, and other agencies piles on to the cost of startup airlines.  There are thousands and thousands of regulations on everything from plane specs, to passenger movements, and airports.

One might be tempted to think that those rules are put in place to protect passengers.  That may have been the intent, but the additional costs of compliance help further entrench the big airlines by raising the startup costs of potential competitors.

In some cases the big airlines may have helped write some of those regulations with the mind that it would cost them little to comply, but cost other's greatly.  Here a great article that goes into detail about how this has occurred in other industries.  How Regulations Help Sustain Corporate Monopolies

However, in the world which we inhabit, most in the “business community” (who are actually antithetical to true business), tend to favor the status quo where regulations are concerned. This conglomerate of business interests do their part to actually favor certain regulations, especially those that would save their huge corporate monopoly from the doomed-uncertainty and promise of competition a truly free  market would provide.

<Snip>

The example I shall be drawing from is documented on Bloomberg News, in an article published just yesterday. It is titled Accidental Death Becomes Suicide When Insurers Dodge Payouts by David Evans. Evans analyzes the case of Todd Pierce, a 46 year old cancer survivor killed in a horrific and fiery car accident. Through his employer, Todd took out accidental life insurance that would pay his wife were he to pass away unexpectedly, as did happen. Due to the pursuant contractual obligations mutually agreed upon by both parties, MetLife was expected to pay Todd’s widow an total of $224,000.  Despite the sheriff, the state medical examiner, and the official autopsy report concluding that Todd’s death had been an accident, however, MetLife made their own medical decision. They labeled the death a suicide, noting Todd’s previous battle with cancer and the toxicology reports which indicated he had a prescribed drug in his system. As any breach of contract would be submitted to, the case was brought to Federal court in Montana by Todd’s wife, Jane Pierce. What Jane didn’t know, however, is that she wasn’t just fighting for her husband’s benefits, she was fighting the corruption of the entire American corporate monopoly system.

This is but one existing example.  I'm willing to bet that the same is true with the airline industry.  It would be better, and more cost effective if the government started curtailing as many of these regulations as possible.  If it did, we might see more new competition and it wouldn't have to spend tens of millions of dollars to fighting lawsuits to keep the big guys from getting bigger.  Instead, the little guys could do that for us.

Latest Grand Bargain is (mostly) a Grand Waste of Time

It's so frustrating to know how the economy works(MMT), and then watch a bunch of men who don't, try and improve the national economy. Here is a one line sentence explaining how to grow an economy.

People need to spend more money so that there will be the increased demand for new jobs and new business.

That's it.  But let's look at Obama's latest Grand Bargain proposal from a critical MMT perspective.  Obama's plan has 3 parts.

1. Simplify the corporate tax code
2. Try to coax companies to "repatriate" their foreign money holdings
3. Use the tax increase to fund infrastructure jobs.

The first plan is to simplify the corporate tax code in 2 steps.  First, it's going to eliminate several deductions and so-called "special interest" loop holes.  That will increase the amount of taxes the government collects.  The second step is to lower the tax rate to the point where the money gained by closing loopholes is roughly equivalent to what's lost by lowering the tax rate from 35% to 28%.  Overall this is "revenue" neutral.  Will this help the economy grow?  Hell no!  At best it might make the economy run more efficiently(always a good thing!), but it won't grow.   It won't grow because all they're doing is changing who pays what, and not the total amount taxed.  No growth.

The second part is to get companies with foreign money holdings to bring the money into the country.  Normally, there is, apparently, a tax on doing that.  Therefore, companies leave their earnings overseas.  This estimate says there are over a trillion dollars out there.  Obama's proposal is to try and get those companies to bring in the money by offering a one time, low tax, to do so.  From an MMT perspective this would be bad for the overall economy because it's taking money out of the economy.

The third and final part of the Obama plan is to start funding infrastructure and job training programs.  From an MMT perspective, increasing government spending will be good for the overall economy because it will increase demand for jobs and business.  Hooray!

The reason I call this plan a waste of time is because, the first part offsets itself and the good in the third part is offset by the harm of the second part.  Making these plans revenue neutral will never give the economy the boost it needs.  Infrastructure jobs that aren't offset with tax increases will.  Tax cuts that aren't offset by tax decreases will also do the trick.

If there is any redeeming part of the proposed 'grand bargain' is the possibility that money will be shifted from those who are letting it sit, to those who will spend it.  That's why I added the qualifier(mostly) into the title.  If that money is truly just sitting in a foreign bank, collecting low interest dust, then shifting the money to infrastructure and creating jobs for the unemployed will help some.  My guess is that only some of that money is "just sitting there", the rest is being reinvested into other enterprises and will only end up moving around who gets it.

The thing that Obama, along with the GOP that's already dismissed the whole thing, don't understand is that the government doesn't need that money to spend on infrastructure.  The government can't run out of money anymore than a stadium can run out of points on a scoreboard.  Therefore, we can grow this economy until unemployment is back to a non-embarrassing level.

Who is the Next Big Winner in the Console Gaming Wars?

What do the Wii U, Playstation 4, and Xbox One have in common?  Answer:  All three run AMD processors inside.  AMD managed to find it's way into each of the three gaming consoles: Either as the Graphics processor or, Graphics AND Central processor.  That seems like a huge deal to me.

AMD has been a big player in the microchip market for a long time, but it's never been the biggest.  Currently nvidia is still the biggest player in graphics.  Providing all the graphics cards for the consoles might change that.  ExtremeTech explains how:

The real worry with AMD’s push for unified gaming is that games developers might shirk Nvidia optimizations. If it’s relatively simple to get Xbox One games up and running on PCs with AMD graphics, publishers might not see the need to spend the additional cash to optimize for Nvidia cards. This could be a huge hassle for the majority of PC gamers with existing Nvidia cards, but it would be even worse for Nvidia itself. While AMD has been lagging well behind lately, this PC-console strategy could help it leapfrog its competitors in a meaningful way.
Despite being the company that created the first x86 64 bit processor, and the first dual core x86 processor

It would be exciting if console and PC hardware started moving closer to each other.  Porting of top titles costs a lot of time.  If it's moving from one type of chip and hardware set to another will mean even more time to make sure it looks and plays the same.  But if the console hardware is similar to PC hardware, then it won't take as long.  That means more and quicker game ports.

AMD could really use the boost because right now, despite the legacy of creating the first 64bit x86 processor, and the first dual core x86 processor, AMD is getting it's butt handed to them by Intel in the x86 server market.  It's also losing ground on mobile devices.  Qualcomm and Samsung overtook AMD's second place in the mobile phone market.

Overall, I think this was one hell of a strategic coup for AMD.  One that keeps them a big player in the chip market.