Posts by Tim Worstal

Re: ?

Sure. But only for expenses incurred outside the US.

They can't use it for an expense inside the US, no way Jose.

Re: "metallic glass"

Transparent Aluminium

Which is sapphire, as we've discussed here (well, not quite, transparent alumina but close).

Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...

The bit of Bath I grew up in got bombed in the Baedecker raids. One plane dropped a stick right across the avenue the parentals house is in. Looking at it now you can see a new house on one side of the avenue, 80 years newer than those on either side: and exactly the same on the opposite side.

That's how the bombs fell.

About 3 years back the parents changed one of the bedrooms overlooking that middle of the avenue into a bathroom. On doing the alterations they found that the window boxes (ie, what the sashes fit into, not the plant pots outside) were still pushed in a few inches from the bomb blast of those WWII explosions.

Re: Sure..

Last I saw (and this isn't a story I particularly follow) they were working to get their Ti aerospace accredited. That's where all the money in Ti is, in making plane parts. And, given the way in which a metal failure in a plane at altitude produces a fiery burning death in a deep hole for hundreds of people, that accreditation takes time to get.

One industry contact worked with them on neodymium (the process should theoretically work on a number of metals) and was deeply unimpressed at the quality of produiction. Pity really, because we need a lot of Nd for all those windmills.

The most interesting part of the story to me is that when they did decide to commercialise they set up in Sheffield (or Rotherham? Some hellish Northern city anyway). Not quite where you'd expect for glamourous new tech. Except, that's where all the people who know how to make weird metals are, where all the support services are. Economic geography does produce clusters like that. If you're going to do weird metals then that area. Chlorine chemistry then Tyneside. Fluorine chemistry, Mersey area. Pottery, then Stoke (and indeed the most recent UK new pottery was in Stoke).

Path dependence to be posh about it........

Re: Easy fix

Err, that's actually what US tax law is right now. With one slight proviso. You only pay that difference between US tax rates and foreign tax rates if you take the profits back into the US.

The UK tax system worked pretty much this way until recently too. The Controlled Foreign Corporation rules. You, a UK company, stacked up your foreign profits in some tax haven. HMRC said "Yup, we see what you're fdoing. Please pay us the difference between UK tax rates and what you've already paid".

The only problem with this was that the EU decided it was illegal (this was the finding of the Cadbury and Vodafone cases).

Re: @Tim Worstall

But I have lived in the US South. Which is why I only use it occasionally.

Re: £50k

Sure.

I do get that.

My comment is rather that someone seeking risk capital is usually offering some piece of the action in return for it.

Do note also that risk capital doesn't have to be returned: the adventure goes bust then it's the adventure that does, not the entrepreneur.

I can imagine someone providing that 50k in return for (obviously, assuming the numbers stack up of course) some share in the adventure. In fact, I've got someone in mind who would probably do so. In fact, having had a very brief chat about it with him, really would probably do so.

On reasonable terms too. But this sort of thing: if you can finance it with loans and are willing to take on that personal responsibility for paying the loans back, well, good luck to you and all who sail in the adventure.

But if you want capital, not debt, then a slice of the action will have to be sold. The point at the end being that if a slice of the adventure is to be sold then that capital is there and available, assuming, as above, that the numbers do stack up.

Re: Hang on a minute

"The corporation is now viewed, at least under US law, as a natural person (flesh and blood)"

No, it ain't. The corporation is a legal person, just as it always has been. A natural person is, by definition, an 'uman being, not a legal person.

The question was rather different. It was "Do legal persons have the same First Amendment rights as natural persons?" and the answer came back "Pretty much, yes."

Re: Two choices with the interwebs economy...

"You sound deluded my friend, you really think Google, Facebook, et al really contribute that greatly to the domestic economy?"

Err, yes, yes I do.

The contribution of a company (or any organisation) is measured by the production of that company that we get to consume. The value of Google to us is that we get Google to use. Yes, I understand that that argument fails somewhat when discussing Facebook: but 1 billion people do like it.

Try this one. We're going to measure the contribution to hte domestic economy by looking at how much tax people pay, yes? You hint at that above.

Excellent: so, the NHS pays not corporate taxation at all, Google pays at least some. Google is therefore more valuable to the UK economy than the NHS, yes?

No, obviously it isn't, the conclusion is nonsensical. Therefore the original contention must be: that tax contribution determines the value to hte domestic economy.

The value of the NHS is reasonable even if not perfect health care for 65 million people. The value of Google is being able to use Google. Nowt about taxes paid in either case.

QED.

Re: @zmodem (Ugh!)

Your metals wide boy here.

Titanium oxide (TiO2) is indeed the white pigment in white paint. $500 a tonne or summat at the gates of the manufacturing plant. Easy to make (stick ilmenite into a furnace with coal, light coal, feed in chlorine, separate the bits through distillation of the various chlorides, all gases at these temperatures).

Ti metal is a great deal more expensive. Last I looked $15 a kg but could be very different from that now. The process of TiO2 to Ti is hugely energy intensive.

Re: ceteris paribus

Economics jokes usually aren't funny but that doesn't stop us trying.

That would be good

Given that I'm just about the only freelance around who both knows his mining stuff about weird metals and also has even a passing knowledge of tech......lots more commissions then!

Re: What will they do with the overseas assets?

"The last tax holiday for reparation back to the USA most of the funds went to stockholders and bondholders and bonuses to executives and things like that and did sweet F.A. to boost the economy."

And the money going to stockholders and bondholders and executives will do what: either be spent in hte US economy or be invested again, anew, in the US economy. Which is the very definition of stimulus in fact.

Re: Fact check (In other news ...)

Not to mention all that CO2 given off by brewing beer.....

Re: self-declared capitalist endorses evident misallocation of resources as a good thing

We are accepting that bubbles are capital misallocation. And that capitalists lose by such. We're also noting a silver lining: which is that sometimes, consumers benefit from such misallocation.

There's an awful lot resting on that "sometimes" tho.

BTW, I do jokingly refer to myself as a capitalist. And certianly, the day job involves me acting like one. However, in the political sphere, in the "what should we all be doing" thing, I argue that markets are much, much, more important than capitalism.

It wouldn't worry me particularly if we became socialist: companies are mutuals, worker or customer co ops like John Lewis, the Co Op itself for example. I'd argue that it's not optimal to try and run something like an oil company in that manner but it wouldn't really worry me.

If someone decided to abolish markets as the distribution mechanism and the great calculating engine then that would horrify me, have me on the barricades.

Re: A woman's point of view......

Indeed, there's an "optimal" length there.

Too long and the cervix, not really known as an erogenous zone, risks getting bruised (as goes the glans actually). Thus "too" long means not fully entering the vagina.

On the other hand, fully entering brings the mons pubis into contact, or at least aids in stimulation of, the clitoris (in most of the face to face variations at least).

Girth is another matter but length, definitely a trade off taking place there.

Re: Simples

"You'd still need to fit it in a cargo container"

Given that a full container load is 40 tonnes this really isn't a problem.

Many other problems exist, but the weight size one doesn't.

Re: A load of bankers

There's a time value to money. Perhaps there shouldn't be but there is. Humans just behave as if £1 today is worth more than £1 in 365 days time.

Thus interest.

I'm afraid that really is it.

As to banks, the real thing they do is maturity transformation. They take in short term savings (their deposits) and transform them into long term loans. Very few people want to save cash for 30 years but there's an awful lot of people who would like to borrow it for that time. Thus, someone, somewhere, must collect the shrt term deposits and make them into long term loans.

And that's banking. If you borrow short and lend long you're a bank. If you don't, you're not.

This doesn't mean that banks or interest have to be the way they are right now: but something or other that performs the same function as both of them will indeed exist.

Re: You'd be surprised

Now that is amusing.

"was in the RAF from the thirties (and knew and admired Aircraftman Shaw, i.e T.E Lawrence)"

My grandfather, about the same age, was also RAF and at one point in the 30s was TE Shaw's commanding officer.

That two RAF men who knew Shaw have grandchildren running around is not particularly unlikely. But that one would comment on a piece written by the other is rather more so.

Re: BWAAAAAAA!!!!!

Bounceback....I've seen one claim that it was extant in Pong. You know, the game Jobs and Wozniak worked on for Atari?