Net Neutrality Will Increase Government Regulation - WSJ.com

So it turns out that Google's enthusiasm for government-imposed "net neutrality" is qualified. The Internet giant wants cumbersome network management rules applied to everyone—except Google.

Net Neutrality, like "health-care reform" and Global Warming initiatives have become religions. People are for them, without actually knowing what they consist of or what might fall out of them.

Google founders, like all libtards in modern academia have learned to question all that is traditional, while at the same time setting up new traditions that can't be questioned.

To put a positive spin on it, for the companies involved, I'd say that it's all about big companies encouraging new regulation to hold back the upstarts, and that is certainly true, in its effect.

But as religions, which these things have become they represent not competitive advantages, but a modern form of Luddism that simply desires a return to the "god old days" of five, ten, or fifty years ago (depending on your age).

Don't be surprised if Google (and other new companies) regularly act against their own best interest in the name of these modern replacements for religion.

How Porsche hacked the financial system and made a killing

Adolf Merckle, one of the world’s richest men, committed suicide yesterday by throwing himself under a train, Bloomberg reports. Financial difficulties, and particularly great losses he suffered on Volkswagen stock, are being cited as the key reason he ended his life:

[Merckle's company] VEM was caught in a so-called short squeeze after betting Wolfsburg, Germany-based Volkswagen’s stock would fall. Merckle lost at least 500 million euros on the bets on VW stock, people familiar said on Nov. 18. VEM lost “low three-digit million euros” on VW stock, the company said in November.

A “short squeeze” sounds inconspicuous enough; you wouldn’t tell it by Bloomberg’s language, but Merckle’s Volkswagen bet lost out to one of the most masterful hacks of the financial system in history.

For those of us who don’t live and breathe finance, this is that story.

Click title link for the gory details.

Meltdowns: The layoff lie

"To paraphrase Tolstoy: Successful startups are all alike. But every unsuccessful startup is unsuccessful in its own way.

And so with all the startups whose managers have jumped on the firebus. If they had run their businesses efficiently, they wouldn't have needed to fire anyone. They are laying people off now not because of an economic imperative, but because they have a convenient excuse to cover their mistakes."

It used to be much easier for a company to fire (or to be kind in some other way to dismiss) workers who were not top performers.

While being let go in times like this is no indication you are a slacker, you can bet companies are packing the lay-of lists with as many of those as they can manage.