Goldman Sachs Tries To Shut Down Dissident Blogger 161
The Narrative Fallacy sends along a piece from the Telegraph on efforts by Goldman Sachs to silence a blogger who is posting commentary critical of the bank. "Goldman Sachs has instructed Wall Street law firm Chadbourne & Parke to pursue blogger Mike Morgan, warning him in a recent cease-and-desist letter that he may face legal action if he does not close down his website goldmansachs666.com. According to the C&D letter, dated April 8, the bank is rattled because the site 'violates several of Goldman Sachs' intellectual property rights' and also 'implies a relationship' with the bank itself. Morgan claims he has followed all legal requirements to own and operate the website and that the header of the site clearly states that the content has not been approved by the bank. In a post entitled Goldman Sachs vs Mike Morgan, the blogger predicts that the fight will probably end up in court. He went through a similar battle with US home builder Lennar a few years ago after he set up a website to collect information on what he alleged was shoddy workmanship in its homes. 'Since I went through this with Lennar, I've had advice from some of the best intellectual property lawyers, and I know exactly what I can and can't do. We're not going to back down from this.'"
Re:Um.... (Score:4, Informative)
Nor have they read this advice [steptoe.com].
bad law (Score:4, Informative)
The C and D letter itself undermines its argument. It notes that Goldmann Sachs owns the trademark "in the financial services market". Trademarks are restricted to particular market segments. The fact that Goldmann Sachs owns that trademark in the financial services market does not prevent others from using the same trademark in other market segments. If you want to start a chain of "Goldmann Sachs Cheeseburgers", you are free to do so. So, not only is GoldmannSachs666 clearly distinct from GoldmannSachs, but since it isn't in the financial services market, it wouldn't infringe even if it weren't distinct.
Blah-sucks.com (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Um.... (Score:0, Informative)
You have obviously not read the description at all.
Re:striesand effect (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Um.... (Score:3, Informative)
Did you mean "then" or "than"? Your post is interpreted differently with either word. You said "then" which makes this read as they left him to blog in obscurity and now they have decided to make a big deal about it which means they are doing the most effective thing, according to you.
Wow, did anyone RTFB? (Score:4, Informative)
Disclosure: Yes, I am short Goldman Sachs stock. I believe this company is evil and should not exist. We need to begin to break up companies that have as much control over world finances as Goldman Sachs.
Let me see if I get this right:
1. Short GS stock
2. Blog about how evil GS is
3. ???
4. Profit!
There's only one problem with this plan: GS stock has been rising [msn.com] since the start of the year. No wonder the guy believes GS "should not exist": Should GS stock continue to rise, there's no limit to how much the guy can lose.
(For those who have no clue what I'm talking about: "Shorting a stock" basically involves selling stock you don't own. Your only obligation is to return the stock you "borrowed." If you can buy said stock at a lower price than the price you sold it at, you profit on the difference. If the stock becomes worthless, you basically pocket whatever profit you made from the sale of stock you never owned in the first place.)
Re:Goldman is going to lose (Score:1, Informative)
Paypal's operation so shady, you expect them to be running numbers games, call girls, and speakeasys.
Actually, I take that back. It was kind of insulting to proprietors of illegal gambling houses, brothels, and underground bars.
Re:Why do they try to stop him? (Score:3, Informative)
They have saddled everyone of us with a debt of $165,000 for the bail out (so far) and most of that money goes into their pockets in bonuses, guarantees for their failed investments, and other devious ways they bilk people for cash.
You're way off in your figures. As you can see from this nifty little chart [wsj.com], the entire Federal Reserve balance sheet is only about $2 trillion. Include $700 billion for TARP and $787 billion for the stimulus, and it adds up to $3.487 trillion. Divide that by 250 million people in the United States, and you get $13,948 per person. And Goldman Sachs was only a small portion of that.
Personally I think we should have let them fail. When politicians say, "You must do X or the economy will collapse!" it sounds too much like "you must do X or the terrorists will win!"
Re:More of the many abuses by banks: (Score:5, Informative)
That's sort of true and not at the same time.
The fed actually holds a percentage of the money other banks own from deposits. Your local bank (or national/international conglomerate acting as a local bank) is required to keep so much of their deposits in reserve to account for normal withdraws and banking needs. The ratio usually is different for times deposits like a CD but for normal account deposits it's around 10% (last time I checked).
Now, here is where the fed comes in to play. The local banks don't really have the facilities or security to hold the entire amount of reserves. If a bank has 10 billion deposited (on paper), it needs to keep 1 billion in reserve. Most banks can don't have the capacity to keep more then a couple million on hand so the rest gets stored at the reserve. They transfer a portion of this (what they are capable of securing on site subtracted from the CRR applicable to the banks specifics) to one of the twelve district reserve banks. They do this for a small fee which is generally charged as the FDIC insurance. When the reserve lends money, they lend this money as their own and collect the interest on it.
They can do this essentially because 15 banks may have more then enough money deposited to cover the normal needs of all the banks in their district plus interbank lending. They aren't creating it our of thin air, they are using other people's money as their own for the purpose of stabilizing the monetary flow.
This can go awry and cause some disasters like when banks state trading loans and counting them as asset packages for the purpose of their reserve ratios (part of what got us into trouble recently). However, the system itself isn't inherently flawed or bad as you suggest. What this does is allow wealth and value to be created without the constant need to monitor the health of the economy. It doesn't really distort it as much as it keeps it stable. And best of all, it allows wealth to be created without causing inflation.
Now what I mean by wealth to be created without causing inflation is best explained in a short story/example. In a fixed system, there is a static amount of currency. When someone holds 90 percent of that currency, there is only 10 percent of it left for the community. The result is that people get paid less for their work and have to pay more for their goods and services they purchase. But with this reserve system and the ability to use other people's money, then you or I could do something of value and create wealth without lowing the amount of money in circulation or causing inflation. What happens is that if there was $100 in the entire country and $60 was in the hands or bank accounts of 2 of the 10 people living there, then when you convert your time and labor into value by going into the woods, cutting down a tree, cutting planks from that tree and manufacture rocking chairs or furniture or whatever, your not limited to selling them for the excess of the $5 the remaining 8 people control. Instead, they can temporarily use $2 each from the 2 with all the money and now you have your $5 plus $16 from the other 7 people with $5 and one of the 2 with $30 each. The effect is that the economy now has roughly $114-$116 and you purchase more stuff to better your life. This pays someone else more, allows them to do something to create wealth, purchase more, and the process repeats. At some point in time, they print more money to represent the actual value or wealth in the economy and you never knew it was short or in excess for that brief period of time.
This is a necessity with a fiat currency. It can be abused though. But that is actually rare. It is a little more complicated then I just attempted to explain but most people who attempt to understand it don't ever look at the good side of it and assume the bad because they can't see the benefits. I would say that this is because most people borrow to purchase things they can't afford that will eventually decrease in value (car, boats, big screen TVs, so on) instead of borrow to mak
Re:Blah-sucks.com (Score:1, Informative)
"To prove that a party committed trademark infringement or cybersquatting, or subjected the adverse party to unfair competition or deceptive trade practices, the adverse party must show that party's use of its trademarks is likely to cause an appreciable number of potential buyers to be confused about the source, affiliation, or sponsorship of the party's products. 15 U.S.C.S. Â 1125(d)(1)(A). In making this inquiry, courts consider a variety of factors, including the strength of the allegedly infringed mark, whether the designs that incorporate the registered mark are similar, whether the products sold by the parties are similar, whether the retail outlets and purchasers are similar, whether the parties use the same advertising media, whether the defendant intended to usurp the registered trademark, and whether any consumers were actually confused. The court must balance the factors according to its own judgment based. on the facts in the case before it." Smith v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 537 F. Supp. 2d 1302
Re:No a good choice of words, but basically correc (Score:4, Informative)
If you want a higher interest rate at any given time, just check out www.bankrate.com, which is a great site for researching the health of a bank and its various interest rates. Here's a page I often turn to in order to see what the highest rates are:
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/rate/mmmf_highratehome.asp?web=brm¶ms=US,416&prodtype=chksav&market=416&product=33&state=US&sort=2 [bankrate.com]
To choose a bank to deposit money into for savings, I generally will look at the bank with the highest interest rate that also has 4 stars(which indicates very good health). The bank I'm currently with for savings emails me whenever their rate changes, and they have excellent 24/7 customer service, with a competitive interest rate.
Another good site for this kind of thing is the finance section of www.fatwallet.com:
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/ [fatwallet.com]
The users keep a running list of the top returning CDs, Savings Accounts, and Credit Cards. They talk about all the minutiae of the different accounts and customer service, etc...
blue jeans cable, anyone? (Score:3, Informative)
Wow, nobody has posted the wondrous story of Blue Jeans Cable?
Monster Cable sent this small cable co a threatening letter with a grab-bag of patents that they claim he violated. Little did they know the owner was a former lawyer himself. His reply to Monster is absolutely priceless [audioholics.com].