chemgator
02-09-2013, 09:39 AM
Anyone expecting a significant economic recovery anytime soon is deluding themselves, for two reasons. The first is the wasteful spending of GWB and Obama. You can argue till you are blue in the face over whether GWB's free spending (which occurred during good economic times) was more foolish, or whether Obama's reckless spending (which includes things like extended unemployment benefits and extended food stamp programs, which make the populace fatter, lazier, and more dependent on the gov't) is more foolish. But the bottom line is that there is a price to be paid for foolish spending. Eventually, you get inflation. You spend more and more on paying interest on the debt, and then you need to print money to make your payments.
The second reason is a little scarier. I was reading an article in Wired magazine about how the patent office works, and how American business has evolved to deal with changes to the patent office in the last 30 years. Patents are not used to protect the inventor, they are used to attack the competition. We have seen a little of this in the Apple - Samsung suit, where Apple was able to patent the shape of their cell phone and the row of icons on the display.
In some cases companies are set up to patent an idea, and then attack anyone who infringes on it. These companies never produce a product--they just defend their patents. One such "patent troll" company patented the idea of using software to read the information on a scanned document. It turns out that every bit of e-commerce that occurs over the internet uses this idea. This company started shaking down all the companies that did commerce on the internet, demanding millions of dollars. If the company balked at paying, they threatened them with a legal injunction that would stop them from doing e-commerce until the suit was settled (and sometimes the judge went along with it). Most companies paid up because it was cheaper than losing all that business. Basically, this person (the troll company was basically a 1-man operation, plus lawyers) owned the internet. A company finally fought back and defeated this lowlife, but the system is still in place.
The patent office is slowly starting to change its ways, but it will take decades before things are fixed in the system.
The second reason is a little scarier. I was reading an article in Wired magazine about how the patent office works, and how American business has evolved to deal with changes to the patent office in the last 30 years. Patents are not used to protect the inventor, they are used to attack the competition. We have seen a little of this in the Apple - Samsung suit, where Apple was able to patent the shape of their cell phone and the row of icons on the display.
In some cases companies are set up to patent an idea, and then attack anyone who infringes on it. These companies never produce a product--they just defend their patents. One such "patent troll" company patented the idea of using software to read the information on a scanned document. It turns out that every bit of e-commerce that occurs over the internet uses this idea. This company started shaking down all the companies that did commerce on the internet, demanding millions of dollars. If the company balked at paying, they threatened them with a legal injunction that would stop them from doing e-commerce until the suit was settled (and sometimes the judge went along with it). Most companies paid up because it was cheaper than losing all that business. Basically, this person (the troll company was basically a 1-man operation, plus lawyers) owned the internet. A company finally fought back and defeated this lowlife, but the system is still in place.
The patent office is slowly starting to change its ways, but it will take decades before things are fixed in the system.