November 29, 2009
PROFIT LOGIC
A good blog post via Amritas about how there's no logic to profit-based hatred:
while politicians routinely attack BIG oil for its high profits, the
same politicians are silent about the highER profit margins of Apple,
Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. For every dollar Exxon keeps after paying
their bills, Google keeps $3. Exxon is attacked because they sell more
units than Google, but in reality, Google is keeping more of the
customer’s money. Politicians don’t concern themselves with this kind
of stuff, because Google is very popular with the electorate, and oil
companies are not.
Read the whole thing, and see if you can guess ahead of time how much profit medical insurance companies make.
Posted by: Sarah at
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I totally agree and have been blasting liberals with this fact for years. Trust me, it's gets em every time. Next time you hear someone ranting about profits, ask them if they know what the profit margin is? Most don't which is the sad part. Thank you, Neal Boortz, for pointing this out to me because I too used to believe in the profit-bashing "logic."
The idea that Exxon produces a 3 - 10% profit margin and Google has around a 45% profit margin, yet all we hear is how "evil" Exxon is to the consumming public is such a double standard if there ever was one. In fact, in the Search Engine Marketing arena Google owns about 70% of the market share. To put it in perspective, around $20 billion is earned across all SEM annually, 70% of that would be around 14 billion to put it in perspective (just an estimation though). And we're not even talking about an industry that requires the overhead/operational expenses likes the oil industry.
Yet you don't hear a peep from Democrats about the near monopoly and out-of-control profits when it comes to Google. Good grief, I'm getting pissed off just writing about it.
Posted by: BigD78 at November 30, 2009 01:30 PM (W3XUk)
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Google also has the advantage that its infrastructure is relatively unobtrusive: no pipelines, rail lines, foundries, etc.
If all our politicians permit to exist is businesses of this type, though, we will soon find ourselves starving and freezing in the dark.
I'm not sure the Google founders have sufficient intellectual depth to understand how the well-being of their own business is linked to the well-being of the so-called "industrial age" businesses.
Some vaguely-related thoughts at my post myths of the knowledge society.
Posted by: david foster at November 30, 2009 01:35 PM (kpkkH)
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Sarah,
there's no logicThere
is a logic. Against each according to his unpopularity among the 'in' crowd. If given a choice to attack Apple or Microsoft, Leftists will choose the latter, even if Apple has a higher profit margin, because Windows is eeeevil and Macs Never Crashâ„¢.
I don't know what Apple's profit margin is. The point is that profit margins are irrelevant to Leftist targeting. And no, I wouldn't be happy if Leftists started obsessing over profit margins. The real problem is the Leftist anti-profit mindset. Even if profit margins were slashed to 0.0001%, it's not
fair that those greedy monsters keep anything, unlike oh-so-noble Obama. Waaaahhhh!
Ever notice that Leftists never go berserk about
Michelle Obama's old salary? Note the words in bold:
How much does she make? $325,000 a year last I heard. I break that down as follows:
$50,000 a year for being a Princeton/Harvard Law grad who no longer practices law—that is, what she would make if she were white
$120,000 a year for combining black skin with preppy pearls and vocabulary
$155,000 a year for being celebrity Barack Obama’s wife
Profits earned without fraud are the product of merit. Leftism, on the other hand, is obsessed with prestige, not merit. Michelle Obama has all the proper aristocratic traits, so of course she 'deserves' $325,000. Conversely, Sarah Palin lacks all those traits, so of course she 'deserves' contempt, just like Sam Walton. John T. Reed sums up this aspect of the Leftist mindset (emphasis his):
They hate capitalism because it lets the “wrong†people win [...]
The left does not want maximum prosperity for all. They want all [uncool] rich
people who disagree with them to be stripped of their money. [But cool rich people like Obama and St. Gore can keep their money.] They
understand that this will impoverish all but the government apparatchiks. That is what they want. They plan to be government apparatchiks. The left wants to wipe off the face of the earth anyone of whom their side is envious.
BigD78,
Yet you don't hear a peep from Democrats about the near monopoly and out-of-control profits when it comes to Google. [Emphasis mine.]
Nope. Not a single demand for the eeeevil monopoly of Google to break up. (Not that I want a broken Google. I love Google. I just hate hypocrisy.)
I wonder how much Exxon contributes to the Democrats. Possibly more than Google?
david,
I'm not sure the Google founders have sufficient intellectual depth to
understand how the well-being of their own business is linked to the
well-being of the so-called "industrial age" businesses.
Most people, including successful businessmen, are tunnelers - experts in their narrow field who are wholly unaware of the big picture. Leftists can fool them into applauding the destruction of the businesses they depend on outside their 'tunnel'. "See, you'll do just fine, unlike those losers over there who 'deserve' the full statist treatment." But coolness doesn't last forever, and those who fall out of fashion may be new targets of the infinitely envious.
Posted by: Amritas at November 30, 2009 03:39 PM (+nV09)
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November 26, 2009
November 24, 2009
JONAH ON THANKSGIVING
There's just so much funny and right in this that you have to
read the whole thing.
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November 21, 2009
SPEND MORE
A
good comment found at Althouse:
To those who point out that we in the US spend more on medical care
than other developed countries, I would like to say this. We also spend
more on education, charity, pet food, entertainment, and probably lots
of other things I don’t know about.
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November 14, 2009
PIGS FLY
I am hormonal lately and seem to cry easily, so I am blaming that for the wetness in my eyes as I read this:
Thank you former President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush (via AirForceWife)
I'm home. I missed a call from my husband today while I was on my flight. Two weeks and counting since we had a four-minute phone call. Oy. I am not a fan of this particular deployment.
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Yes, it must be the hormones. And I must have something in my eyes. Thanks for posting that. Glad you are home safe. Sorry you missed that call. Sometimes just hearing a voice is comfort enough.
Posted by: Mare at November 15, 2009 08:49 AM (HUa8I)
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Thanks for that link. The Bushes are special people. I was lucky to hear Barbara speak at a convention I attended several years ago. Maybe someday I'll be able to hear some others in this special family.
Posted by: Miss Ladybug at November 16, 2009 12:07 AM (YJ5uY)
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November 09, 2009
November 08, 2009
TWO MORE LINKS FOR TODAY
More links today. First from
Villainous Company:
Now the Army's largest base has suffered a devastating attack by a
deranged Islamist. And how does our Commander in Chief respond? He
gives a "shout out" to Joe Medicine Crow, "that noted Congressional Medal of Honor winner".
Tell me something: in a moment of national tragedy, is it really too
much to expect that the President of the United States not give "shout
outs"? Is it too much ask that he understand the difference between the
Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Medal of Honor? What we require
from our leaders at times like this is not much. They don't have to
actually care. What we want is precisely the kind of thing that comes
easily to Barack Obama: honeyed words and a show of empathy from a man
who thinks that quality is the most important attribute a Supreme Court
judge can possess. But somehow, asking the Commander in Chief of our
armed forces to to give the appearance of empathy even if the actual
feeling was not there - was too much.
Americans expect something more from leaders in times of trouble.
Grace. Empathy. Inspiration. A sense of gravity. When the Space Shuttle
Challenger exploded killing 7 astronauts, Ronald Reagan postponed the State of the Union report to address and assuage the nation's shock and mourning.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, was giving shout outs.
And an
absolute must-read from JR Salzman about
true PTSD:
Sometimes I would just wake up screaming in
agony as I relived the moment where my right arm was ripped from my body by an
Iranian shape charge. (I may not know
what childbirth feels like, but I know what it's like to go an hour with my arm
ripped off without painkillers (I'm allergic to morphine).) [snip] That's what fucking PTSD is like.
At no point in time have I ever felt the desire or need to grab a weapon
and go shoot someone or something up. At
no point in time have I ever grabbed a weapon and broken a law because I felt
the need to protect myself. PTSD urges
you mitigate the risk of events that happened in your life. But if you've never had anything traumatic
happen in your life, you can't fucking have PTSD.
Posted by: Sarah at
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I hope and believe that his monumental faux pas was a real "shot out" to many of his true believers about how he really is. Cold, narcissistic (sp?) and totally out of touch with Americans. I cannot imagine
any other president in my lifetime not addressing the massacre before any other thing.
As for the PTSD, shameful, shame on everyone who even thinks that would be his problem. My son-in-law was in Vietnam and he is totally disabled with PTSD and the whole family has been adversely affected by it.
And for TT who reads this too, you don't have to comment, Mama already did. ;D
Posted by: Ruth H at November 08, 2009 02:15 PM (CvvEA)
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The "winner" thing about spun my head around again when I had recovered from my shock at his off-shrugging of the Ft Hood terrorist attack. Semantics? Not in this case, by any means. You win something you work hard for and towards, something you deliberately aim yourself at. You are awarded a MoH, and the fact that the President doesn't recognize this gives me chills. Cold chills.
But then, there's that whole Nobel Prize thing... I guess if you get a Nobel Prize for doing nothing, you view other things through that lens as well.
Posted by: airforcewife at November 08, 2009 04:05 PM (uE3SA)
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I'm seriously dumbfounded at his lack of empathy. And absolutely disgusted that he doesn't even have the basic knowledge to know that the CMOH is usually awarded posthumously. Did the White House fire the protocal person to save money or something? I find it hard to believe he would purposely be this much of a dumbass.
Posted by: Mare at November 09, 2009 09:06 AM (HUa8I)
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It's the "Medal of Honor."
There's no "Congressional" about it.
The medal is approved by the respective secretaries of the service that awards it, and it is awarded by the President. Congress only authorized the issuing of the medal in general. They passed a resolution creating the medal, and take no part in awarding it. Calling it "the congressional medal..." is only correct if every other medal awarded by the services is also called "the congressional medal of X" as in the congressional army achievement medal" as congress has to approve the creation of all awards.
It is the Medal of Honor, it is awarded, not won. It was awarded much more often prior to the Spanish American War, as it was then the ONLY medal the military had to recognize valor.
Posted by: Chuck Z at November 11, 2009 08:01 PM (bMH2g)
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SPEAKING OF STEYN
Speaking of
Mark Steyn (and I
always like speaking of Mark Steyn):
And his superior officers and other authorities knew
about his beliefs but seemed to think it was just a bit of harmless
multicultural diversity — as if believing that “the Muslims should
stand up and fight against the aggressor†(i.e., his fellow American
soldiers) and writing Internet paeans to the “noble†“heroism†of
suicide bombers and, indeed, objectively supporting the other side in an active war is to be regarded as just some kind of alternative lifestyle that adds to the general vibrancy of the base.
And
here too:
Incredible, especially when you consider
that the only Muslims killed in the USA on 9/11 and in Britain on 7/7
were killed by Muslims.
Muslims may have as much to fear from
radical Muslims as any other American, Briton or Canadian... I'm rather
sick of the MSM interrupting our grieving to tell us that, to add
Muslims' insults to a Muslim's murderous injury, they suspect us of
wanting to attack their mosques now, even though we didn't the last ten
times a Muslim killed innocent people in the name of Islam. What are
they scared of? Grafitti?
That first sentence is worth bearing in mind when mendacious lobby
groups such as CAIR trot out their "fears" for Muslim safety. Muslims
died in the World Trade Center, the London Underground, the Bali
nightclub attacks, the Istanbul bank bombings, in Iraqi shopping
markets targeted by insurgents. The death toll of Muslims killed by
Muslims in any one year is staggering. Jihadists are very indifferent
to murdering their coreligionists and have been since the Grand Mufti
staged his uprising in Mandatory Palestine and wound up slaughtering
more Muslims than Jews or Britons.
After my comparative body count in my "fear for Muslims" post last
night - non-Muslims 13, Muslims 0 - a snotty liberal wrote to wonder
sneeringly how I knew the dead at Fort Hood were all non-Muslims. He
thinks he's refuting my point but in fact he's making it for me: The
soi-disant "moderate Muslim" has far more to fear from a coreligionist
boarding the subway train yelling "Allahu akbar!" than he does from the
allegedly "Islamophobic" Americans forever on the brink of
"backlash". That our media cannot see what the commenter above sees is,
even in a relativist age, a very advanced stage of decadence.
Posted by: Sarah at
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November 04, 2009
ALL OF A SUDDEN, HE HAD A POINT OF VIEW
Via a new Facebook friend: I never get tired of hearing
John Stossel's story.
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