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<p>Hmm…depends on your definition of “overcharge.” Microsoft engages in a lot of price discrimination (e.g. different prices for different consumers) that actually keeps prices fairly cheap for groups that usually couldn’t afford their products (like poor grad students!)</p>
<p>I mean, I’m not a huge MS fan, but I actually think Intel’s a much more monopolistic monopoly.</p>
<p>alwaysamom–I attribute money as the reason why doctors come to the US from Canada and all over the world. I also believe being forced to work for far less than you are worth is not a good economic system. </p>
<p>The stories they see are repeated every week. Three years to get surgery for a pro-lapsed rectum. No it won’t kill you but you don’t want to walk around that way for three years either. Trust me.</p>
<p>Just look at Microsoft’s profit percentage compared to the “evil” Exxon. They are just investing in you now in case you go to work and make software decisions later. Plus what is the marginal cost of a few software items. Pennies. I don’t know about Intel but we hear all about MS all the time here.</p>
<p>you’re right barrons about the small store shopping in many ways and the big box stores serve a purpose (beyond economic) also. I guess living in a smaller community, one tends to know the owners of the small stores and it is nice to walk in, they know your name, and you don’t have to traipse all over creation to find one screw. I’m sure they don’t pay employees more and most probably don’t offer any benefits–however many that I frequent are run totally by family members and the occasional high school student.</p>
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<p>The marginal cost is not that high, but the sunk costs are astronomical. </p>
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<p>Nothing wrong with that.</p>
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<p>Intel controlled, until fairly recently, more of a share of its market than Microsoft could’ve dreamed of.</p>
<p>zooz,</p>
<p>"How do you feel about the treatment by employers of illegal immigrants? " Good question. Walmart is also an employer of illegals, they got caught locking these people inside their stores. Chaining the doors, bad for fire codes.</p>
<p>I think employers of illegals should be heavily penalized moreso than an illegal coming over to work for food. The illegal is here to feed his/her family. The employer here is trying to boost his/her profits as they don’t report the illegal labor hours. There’s a difference of need.</p>
<p>“How do you feel about that group depressing wages and causing native-born blacks to be unemployed?”</p>
<p>OOOOHHHH? did you think about this sentence before you wrote it? Why are you assuming illegals only effect blacks? Ouch. I won’t say more other than to give you an opportunity to bail yourself out of this comment.</p>
<p>"OOOOHHHH? did you think about this sentence before you wrote it? Why are you assuming illegals only effect blacks? "</p>
<p>Only? Where did you see the word only? Please show me. Ouch yourself, slick. I don’t need to bail myself out, I live in an extremely diverse community, my daughter goes to a predominantly black school, and I know for a fact that young blacks are affected because my older daughter is training to be a manager at her job and is now interviewing applicants. I did not, however, say that ONLY blacks are affected, much as you might like to create words where none existed.</p>
<p>on why it is “more fun being a Republican.”</p>
<p>You are always delighted to watch the opposition go–within almost an instant–from the booming crescendo of joyous celebration to the shrill pitch of righteous indignation. </p>
<p>It is, while obviously leaden, rhythmically dependable.</p>
<p>Walmart’s day will come, just as it has for many business before and many different ones after. Business has a life cycle. I don’t support Walmart’s business model as it does stress local and state governments dollars (re:taxpayers) to provide for what Walmart is not willing to do. </p>
<p>However, they only do it becuase it’s allowed. In some states legislation is changing to force them to pay for the social needs of their employees. Look for this trend state by state forcing larger employers to assist their employees needs. </p>
<p>So either Walmart is going to pay for benefits (lower profits) or leave (again lower profits). Leaving while threatened is only a threat, Saddam like. You might win the momment but by leaving the market and revenues… you won?</p>
<p>The alternative is going to be provide benefits for employees, use that as pr in the community and raise prices and reduce but not eliminate revenues. We’re already seeing this as they are using “we provide for our employees” pitch in the same way they tell the community “we build environmently friendly stores”. They just don’t mention the law required it in the first place. </p>
<p>It’s one thing for Walmart to close a store to prevent a meat cutters union. It’s another thing to pull out of a state. Providing benefits is a cost of doing business and if the current state healthcare loopholes disappear, walmart and others will adjust.</p>
<p>mini - with regard to taxing investment income (at a MUCH higher rate)…personal savings and investment are supposed to take the place of government programs like SS and corporate defined-benefit pension plans for the baby-boomers especially. </p>
<p>Are we to have no manner to provide for retirement? Basically, it takes about a million plus $$ in investments (a lot of scrimping and saving!) to provide for a decent income when one is older…if this gets the heck taxed out of it, why bother to do it (save) at all? Might as well move $$ offshore to avoid confiscatory tax rates - the exact opposite of the Republican concept of lowering taxes, reducing the bite and generating greater and more universal tax compliance.</p>
<p>This notion of avoiding high taxes generally begins the failure of many socialistic tax plans, wherein the motivating concept is transference of wealth, not generating savings.</p>
<p>Look: I asked a very simple question: who should pay for the spendthrift conservative boondoggle: You pay? Your kids pay? The rich pay? None of the above.</p>
<p>Choose, and then we can have an intelligent conversation.</p>
<p>“Are we to have no manner to provide for retirement?”</p>
<p>If the conservatives have their way, that is absolutely correct, for about 85% of the U.S. population.</p>
<p>"Look: I asked a very simple question: who should pay for the spendthrift conservative boondoggle: You pay? Your kids pay? The rich pay? None of the above.</p>
<p>Choose, and then we can have an intelligent conversation."</p>
<p>I don’t know who you’re referring to, but if it’s me, I already answered.</p>
<p>mini, why do you think you get to dictate the terms of this discussion? You’d like to fall back on the old socialist model where everyone is equally poor – the state confiscates assets and income and redistributes it as it wants. Usually that means to some favored class of politicos. </p>
<p>Like Parent2noles, we prefer to invest now to support ourselves in the future with minimal government assistance.</p>
<p>Everyone will pay - in one form or another. The rich (please define ‘rich’) pay the most now - by far in taxes. This issue did not start with the republican Congress or GWBush, btw - not that it really matters. </p>
<p>The elephant in the living room is actually Medicare and Social Security. Benefits will have to be reduced (starting now), the age of eligibility will have to be raised (starting now) and we’ll all pay more. Otherwise it goes broke.</p>
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Works in North Korea…and I understand Daniel Ortega is about to take another kick at that can.</p>
<p>“The rich (please define ‘rich’)”</p>
<p>Already did that. Those who receive the bulk of their income from assets, and investment of same. </p>
<p>But I like “everyone will pay”. Each according to their ability to. </p>
<p>Medicare is an easy one. The overhead on Medicare is so low (in the 2.5/3.5% range) that simply expanding it to cover everyone in the U.S. would not only free up the 25-30% of “administratrative overhead” in the private boondoggle, but also move people away from emergency rooms and to cost-preventive primary care. </p>
<p>But you still didn’t answer the question: who pays for the spendthrift conservative boondoggle? (when you count in future Vet benefits as well as continuing the occupation past 2010, we are talking in the two trillion range.)</p>
<p>“the state confiscates assets and income and redistributes it as it wants. Usually that means to some favored class of politicos.”</p>
<p>Got that right. Corporate socialism has been doing that for more than 150 years. They even created this legal fiction that the corporation is legal person protected under the 14th Amendment (wasn’t that supposed to have freed and enfranchised the slaves?) Where ya been?</p>
<p>“But I like “everyone will pay”. Each according to their ability to.”</p>
<p>Well now. At least we know without question where you stand.</p>
<p>Dollar amounts, please - you can’t get off that easy. Who is ‘rich’ in your analysis?</p>
<p>Many currently retired folks of modest origins have significant assets that produce some income for them to live on. Being a ‘millionaire’ is not what it used to be…plus, with the increased valuation of land in some areas this came sometimes with little effort.</p>
<p>Medicare is not easy -otherwise it would already have been done. If anything, politicians know how to seek easy cover from heat. </p>
<p>Again, we will all pay. No one will escape the bills…except, hopefully, the poor and disabled.</p>
<p>‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his need’ - Hmmmm, isn’t that from Karl Marx?. They tried this in Soviet Russia. It failed terribly.</p>
<p>The question of assets vs income is tricky, particularly in retirement. If someone has a defined pension plan, providing somewhere around $40,000 a year, that’s like having $1 million in an IRA account. So who is rich? The person with the pension plan might feel secure, but probably not rich. The person with the IRA sounds rich, but has to be careful not to withdraw too much per year, and also bears the burden of administering his/her own pension plan. It’s not that easy these days to say who’s rich.</p>
<p>^^Not to mention the risk of that plan they assume - the less risk, the less income they get.</p>
<p>Look, mini - not to pick on you (I apologize if it seems I am :)) but there are no easy, painless or simple answers to these questions. Each solution has a down side…even proposed socialistic answers.</p>