Category: News You Need to Know

It’s All About the Money

Education is supposed to be done for altruistic purposes, right? No, like most things, education is all about the money whether it’s provided by a private or public education facility. A private Germany school is demonstrating this very fact by suing a student for graduating early:

Marcel Pohl completed 60 examinations in 20 months, gaining a grade of 2.3, and was officially ex-matriculated in August 2011. Such a course usually takes 11 semesters, but he only needed three.

Now the Essen-based School of Economics and Management (FOM) want the 22-year-old to pay his fees up the end of 2011 – an extra €3,000.

[…]

Pohl completed his turbo degree by dividing up all the simultaneous lectures with two friends and then swapping notes. At the same time, he completed an apprenticeship in a bank.

[…]

“We’re always against slow students,” said his lawyer Bernhard Kraas. “But when someone hurries and finishes early, suddenly he has to pay. That can’t be right.”

But the FOM argues that its fees are the total price for the studies, independent of how long the studies last. But if that it is the case, it remains unclear why they are only calling for a part of the cost for 11 semesters.

The question that will arise from this is whether the students agreed to pay a fixed amount for their degree or payments were based on classes that were taken. It’s one thing if the contract says a degree will be given in exchange for passing various classes and payment of $10,000, it’s an entirely different thing if the contract says a degree will be given in exchange for passing various classes.

I’m guessing the school based payments on a per class basis and are upset that somebody found a way to game their system so they could graduate without having to actually pay for an attend all the classes.

Bankrupting the World

If something doesn’t work we just need to try it again harder, right? That must be what the United Nations (UN) is thinking because the globe is in an economic recession and so far taxing the wealthy hasn’t managed to pull us out of it:

The United Nations on Thursday called for a tax on billionaires to help raise more than $400 billion a year for poor countries.

An annual lump sum payment by the super-rich is one of a host of measures including a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, currency exchanges or financial transactions proposed in a UN report that accuses wealthy nations of breaking promises to step up aid for the less fortunate.

The annual World Economic and Social Survey says it is critical to find new ways to help the world’s poor as pledged cash fails to flow.

The report estimates that the number of people around the globe worth at least $1 billion rose to 1,226 in 2012.

It’s bad enough that crackpot economists are giving every country on the planet bad advice, we really don’t need a global organization of government advocating for the same kind of insanity. At least the various country governments can claim they provide useful goods and services with the money they steal, what is the UN’s justification? Do they need more money to wage wars… yeah.

The Existence of Mermaids is No Longer Debatable

I’m glad to see the United States government take time out of their busy schedule to finally put one of the most heated debates to rest:

There is no evidence that mermaids exist, a US government scientific agency has said.

The National Ocean Service made the unusual declaration in response to public inquiries following a TV show on the mythical creatures.

I’ve never been a believer in mermaids and it’s good to see my intuition was right. Now that the state has officially come out and given their official report we can all rest easy knowing there are no strange half-human half-fish creatures swimming around in the ocean.

Obviously a Good Use of Taxes

Of all the things to spend tax money on I’m sure this is the most crucial:

The University of California – Berkeley Police Department (UCPD) has acquired a $200,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security to purchase an “Armored Response Counter Attack Truck,” a police department spokesman told Campus Reform on Friday.

The eight-ton vehicle, commonly referred to as a “Bearcat,” is used by U.S. troops on the battlefield and is often equipped with a rotating roof hatch, powered turrets, gun ports, a battering ram, and a weapon system used to remotely engage a target with lethal force.

It makes sense that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is now giving armored personell carriers to campus police forces. DHS has already fully militarized state and city police departments so now they have to move on to arming campus police departments. I wonder when Berkeley will get rockets launchers?

A Slight Victory in the Donor Market

It’s not a secret that there is a severe shortage of organ and tissue donors in the world. Much of this can be attributed to law that prohibit those donating organs or other bodily substance from gaining financially. Thankfully it has been ruled that those donating bone marrow are no longer guilty of a crime when receiving compensation:

The Institute for Justice today announced a major legal victory for cancer patients and their families from across the nation when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder declined to seek Supreme Court review of a March 2012 decision of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that compensating most bone- marrow donors is not a crime. This decision will give doctors and their patients a powerful tool in the fight against deadly blood diseases.

“This decision will not only save lives, but also reinforce the principle that doctors and patients should have the freedom to make their own choices when confronted with deadly diseases,” said Jeff Rowes, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice and lead counsel on the case.

Many hold the erroneous idea that organs sold for money are somehow so inferior to those donated that they should not even be accepted. This has created a major shortage because people, being self-interested creatures, desire compensation for giving up their property. Laws barring organ donors from receiving compensation is a direct violation of voluntary association as it prevents those wanting to sell their organs from doing so. These laws have also created a black market for organs, which have lead to stories of individuals waking up in a bathtub full of ice missing their kidneys. Hopefully this ruling will set a precedence and we’ll see the act of receiving compensation for donations become legal.

A Look at Things to Come

Another United States city has declared bankruptcy:

The Californian city of Stockton is set to become the largest US city to declare bankruptcy.

Mayor Ann Johnston told the city council which endorsed the move it was “the most difficult and heart-wrenching decision” they had ever faced.

But she said it had to be done to begin the recovery process.

The river port city of 290,000 – which lies 90 miles (144km) east of San Francisco – suffered badly during the US housing market crash.

Filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection would allow the city to hold some of its creditors at bay while still paying for basic services like its police and fire department.

I think we’re going to see more and more cities declaring bankruptcy in the future. Cities, like the federal government and the governments of the individual states, decide it would be a good idea to give people “free” shit. What none of the mentioned governments appear to understand is that there is no such thing as “free” shit, eventually all those trains, buses, art museums, etc. have to be paid for.

Whether the work is done by private entities or state owned entities is irrelevant, employees of both want to get paid. If you don’t pay the private entities they will likely sue the city to recover the costs and if you don’t pay public employees they’re likely to stop working all together.

Isn’t everybody happy that the government listened to Paul Krugman:

To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.

Is there any wonder why I consider Krugman to be a complete idiot when it comes to economics?

Consumers Punished by Intellectual Property Again

Are you looking to by a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1? Too bad, sales of the device have been banned in the United States because of a patent dispute between Apple and Samsung:

A court has banned sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in the US while it decides on the firm’s patent dispute with Apple.

Apple has claimed that Samsung infringed its design patent and copied the look of its popular device, the iPad.

The Samsung tablet is considered by most analysts as the biggest rival to Apple’s iPad.

The ban does not apply to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 II, the tablet’s new edition.

This is yet another example of consumers losing because of the patent system. While Apple attempts to extort money from Samsung over a non-scarce resource consumers are unable to purchase Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1. Somebody could probably make a little money (not much mind you, the Tab 10.1 is getting up there in age now) by doing some agorism and selling Tab 10.1s in a “black” market.

Intellectual Property is Expensive

Intellectual property is an interesting concept to me. The state can grant a monopoly to somebody on an idea even though ideas aren’t scarce, if I tell you my idea I don’t lose it. Yet the state manages to use its violence to protect the monopolies it grants which has given rise to a whole new industry, the industry of patent trolls. Patent trolls are nothing more than companies that buy up patents for the express purpose of suing anybody violating said patents. This industry is certainly enriching lawyers:

In the past, “non-practicing entities” (NPEs), popularly known as “patent trolls,” have helped small inventors profit from their inventions. Is this true today or, given the unprecedented levels of NPE litigation, do NPEs reduce innovation incentives? Using a survey of defendants and a database of litigation, this paper estimates the direct costs to defendants arising from NPE patent assertions. We estimate that firms accrued $29 billion of direct costs in 2011. Moreover, although large firms accrued over half of direct costs, most of the defendants were small or medium-sized firms, indicating that NPEs are not just a problem for large firms.

$29 billion was completely wasted in 2011 by businesses defending themselves against patent trolls. That $29 billion could have been spent on productive endeavors, which would have given way to cheaper and better products for consumers. Instead a bunch of lawyers were enriched because the state has granted a monopoly on certain ideas to entities that exist solely to sue other entities that managed to have the same idea. When you boil it down patent violations are a form of thoughtcrime.

Alan Turing’s 100th Birthday

Alan Turing, who was basically the father of computer science, would have been 100 years-old today.

For those who don’t know the name Alan Turing he was British mathematician who developed methods of breaking German cryptography during World War II. After helping the Allies win the war Turing turned to developing one of the first stored program computers. What did this genius receive? Chemical castration because he was a homosexual. Even though he helped defeat Nazi German his government could look past the fact that he preferred other men in his bed than women. Eventually he was pushed to suicide due to the way he was treated.

His story is one of amazing accomplishments and sad tragedy. Without him it’s quite possible that you wouldn’t be reading this blog right now for no computer would exist.

Mission Creep

It appears that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expanded their mission:

A 70 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus Bataar, unearthed in the Gobi Desert, is to be seized by the US Department of Homeland Security.

Unless that Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton is somehow linked to a terrorist organization I’m at a complete loss on why DHS is the one doing this. Wouldn’t this be something local law enforcement or the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) should be doing?