Normally, when you buy stolen goods, you don't legally own them. The person they were stolen from still does. Unless: Until 1995, if you bought them in
Bermondsey Market, London, between the hours of sunrise and sunset, they would then belong to you, even if
clearly stolen.
posted by Zarkonnen
on Feb 8, 2012 -
32 comments
BBC News asks independent trader Alessio Rastani "
what would keep investors happy, make them feel more confident?" and gets a surprisingly honest answer:
"Personally, it doesn't matter. See, I'm a trader. I don't really care about that kind of stuff. If I see an opportunity to make money, I go with that. So, for most traders, we don't really care that much about how they're going to fix the economy, about how they're going to fix the whole situation; our job is to make money from it. And, personally, I've been dreaming of this moment for three years. I have a confession which is I go to bed every night and dream of another recession, I dream of another moment like this." [SLYT]
posted by finite
on Sep 26, 2011 -
235 comments
A blogger for information security firm
Imperva reports the discovery of a
hacker site offering root access on US & foreign government, military & educational sites for sale for prices ranging from $55 to $499, or just database records for the reasonable price of $20/1000. Besides US sites the hacker(s) also offer government servers in India, Taiwan & Italy. The hacker(s) also provide what they claim is
proof of their access for the skeptical or cautious buyer. No credit card offers, please - the only currency they accept is
Liberty Reserve.
posted by scalefree
on Jan 21, 2011 -
29 comments
A philosophy professor takes on the financial system. Or perhaps that should read - a philosophy professor's take on the financial system. Daniel Cloud, teacher of philosophy at Princeton University and a founding partner in two hedge funds, makes the case in
a recent opinion piece that "... complicated explanations about derivatives, regulatory failure, and so on are beside the point. ... The truth is that ... models are most useful when they are little known or not universally believed. They progressively lose their predictive value as we all accept and begin to bet on them."
posted by woodblock100
on Apr 1, 2009 -
28 comments
They are known as “quants” because they do quantitative finance. Seduced by a vision of mathematical elegance underlying some of the messiest of human activities, they apply skills they once hoped to use to untangle string theory or the nervous system to making money. "
They Tried to Outsmart Wall Street." [spoiler inside]
[more inside]
posted by dersins
on Mar 10, 2009 -
38 comments
I’ve discovered that typically, a farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and vegetables — if the farmer decides to grow another commodity crop, or even nothing at all, there’s no problem.)
If you can't stop demand, curtail production.
One farmer's view on the power of commodity crops. [more inside]
posted by Toekneesan
on Mar 1, 2008 -
33 comments
"Find Good Food Near You. Want fresh, locally grown food, but don't know where to find it? The LocalHarvest community level map makes it easy to find sustainable farmers, farmers markets and Community Supported Agriculture projects (CSAs) in your area."
posted by dersins
on Sep 30, 2007 -
21 comments
Drugs on the Rez. It's a hell of a life going from utter poverty, where your mom gets you drunk so you'll stop complaining about being hungry, to being able to buy your kids toys with $100 accessories and sending them to private schools, to going back to literally not having a quarter to call your dad. In this case, the money came from Canadian
oxycontin. It's not just Native Americans who are targeted by the authorities. It's also
Indians. There's a pretty good newish book on the subject of black markets,
Illicit. Laos' opium market is apparently gone -- in favor of
meth and Afghanistan's
market is black in name only, so why keep up the
facade?
posted by raaka
on Feb 20, 2006 -
14 comments
My cattle grazing grounds are not my idea and vice versa. But thanks to laws I can "own" the idea as if the idea was a cow ; link goes to a interesting university-level paper [PDF].
The author makes some interesting analysis and points attention to the fact that current intellectual property laws can go against well established economic theories at the expense of free market competition theory, technical innovations and society-as-a-whole best interest.
Recommended to people with economic theory experience , but also to everyday public-goods-privatization opposers as the paper isn't (intentionally) way too technical.
posted by elpapacito
on Sep 10, 2004 -
4 comments
Netscape market share at an all time low? Not according to Heise Online, a major news site here in Germany. In their very substantial weblogs, Microsoft went from 66,9% down to 65% from March to August of this year, while Netscape/Mozilla rose from 21,3 % to 22,6 and Opera from 7,8% to 8,4%.
(Warning: Link in German, but you will understand the tables at the end of the article easily).
posted by vowe
on Aug 28, 2002 -
18 comments
There were more than 4 Crashes Today as the world markets were
hammered. Percentage-wise, Germany is down 10, Paris down 7, London down almost 6, and similar catastrophic drops in
the Americas forced nearly all of the world's markets to close for the day early. I'm worried about the Hang Seng and Nikkei which open very soon. Hopefully the NYSE and Nasdaq will not open for a week or so to let cooler heads prevail.
posted by Kevs
on Sep 11, 2001 -
16 comments
California Blackouts Inevitable says the U.S. Govt Energy Secretary. He is against price caps. It seems there is a lack of understanding on his part to grasp a *public good* that benefits all. Having a few producers control a market with a high cost for competitors to enter the market to form true competition screams for some control. Particularly for a commodity that business and people a like use to drive the overall economy. Since the economy is in such great shape maybe we don't need these controls [sic].
posted by vanderwal
on Mar 16, 2001 -
9 comments
