talkpolitics | Entries tagged with property

It's not just Dyadya Vanya, Russians want to replace IKEA with IDEA and sell AUDI washing detergent. For more ridiculousness, do read on.

More than 50 well-known Western brands that have left Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine have been attacked by Russia's Patent Office Rospatent in an attempt to register their fake equivalents.

This was announced by the Russian business media RBC, which reports that it has found claims by Russian entrepreneurs to brands such as Mastercard and American Express, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Levi's, Christian Dior and many others.

( Read more... )

abomvubuso.livejournal.com

Out in the suburbs of Tianjin, China, a dozen gargantuan, half-finished skyscrapers rise over the horizon like some sort of monument to optimism about the Chinese real estate market. They're witness to the estates balloon that has become a feature of the most powerful emerging economy.

The objective of that project is the construction of Yujiapu, a financial district mimicking Wall Street. When it gets finished in 2019, it's supposed to be considerably bigger than the London City. But after years of soaring prices and crazed construction activity throughout the whole country, the Chinese real estate balloon is now showing some serious signs of dangerous tension, and the destiny of such projects like Yujiapu is in question.

( Read more... )

johnny9fingers.livejournal.com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27883685

Now, I wonder, in the light of this small story, how the US Christian supporters of Israel react to the occupation of land held by generations of folk being forcibly removed from them?

And, for example, does that fact that these particular Palestinians are Christians, rather than Muslims, change your opinion about their entitlement to keep land upon which they have farmed for generations?

Hath not a Palestinian eyes? Hath not a Palestinian hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as an Israeli is?

You see, it is my opinion that a family who has lived on their land for a generation or three may have to put up with paying for grazing rights on public land, but to have the military come in and appropriate your family's land, your housing, and your livelihood (because land is a farmer's livelihood) wouldn't be something that certain small-government types could happily support: but I may be wrong about that. After all, some of these Palestinian types are almost brown, you know.

rose-undone.livejournal.com

Hello all. With a brief intro, I would like to state that this is my first post to the community and while I enjoy your many political posts I'm unsure if my first one qualifies to your heavy hitting, sometimes International topics. I'm posting this in the hopes of hearing some feedback. I'm currently aware of my rights about police searches, having been through this awful experience, and don't require too much advice there. However, I am wondering what others would think of myself, these cops, and the situation the American government appears to heading for.

My grandfather has recently witnessed a motorcycle officer carrying an assault rifle on their bike. I have seen far too many police brutalities and illegal personal searches go unpunished. I think we are in the makings of a police state at this very moment; I'm just wondering how long the fuel will burn before it blows sky high. I am aware that my own experience does not constitute police brutality, or even a truly illegal search, however they did terrify me and made me more aware than ever how helpless I am to protest officers violating my rights.

( My Personal Encounter )

Mood: anxious
Location: United States, California, Sacramento

enders-shadow.livejournal.com

I'll admit this was sparked by a comment to a specific person; this is not, however, directed at that person alone. I am interested in how any/all of you respond to this.

What is it that permits a person to OWN land?
It is from land that all other private property comes from, right? Need the land to build the house, or the factory or the oil drill. Without owning land, you may pick an apple from a tree and say "This is my apple" but anyone else can walk up to that tree and take an apple too. But if that apple tree is on MY PROPERTY, I can deny others the apples of that tree.

But, fundamentally, what is it that permits a person, any person, to OWN land? What makes ownership legit?

This is a question I have wrestled with, and while I am no Jacob, I am almost sure that owning land is a fabricated idea and that it's actually a pretty bad one.
Not that I suggesting we do away with it; but while I may not know the cure, I can spot a disease. Private property is antithetical to communal living and I think communal living may be way healthier for the homo-sapien than this private property thing we have going.

Please do not argue for the MERITS of the idea. Justify the idea ITSELF.

How does one lay a stake to this or that being MY LAND?

htpcl.livejournal.com

Greetings, my ~~Lenin followers~~ worshipers of freedom-dom & democracy-cy! An ongoing case here at the ass of the Balkans (which in turn is the ass of Europe) is causing a lot of discussions on the subject of private and public interests and their role in the state affairs. Is a sensible equilibrium even possible between them? And what's needed to maintain it? Not an easy question.

I don't watch much TV, but when I occasionally do, I always somehow happen to come across some weird folks fuming over political issues for hours and hours on. So a few days ago I saw this TV political talk-show host, with his greased hair and predatory look in the eyes, wanking all over his interlocutor who looked rather shy but intelligent well over the average level you might expect to see on such a show. The question was, "Aren't we returning to communism these days, now that the state has proposed to buy off the failed non-ferrous metal processing plant in the underdeveloped region of Kardzhali?" The other guy just gave the host an odd look, which prompted Mr Greasyhair to go on with his rant, "Is it commie times all over again? We're returning to September 9, 1944, right? We're effectively sliding back down with all this nationalization! Do you have anything to say on that, Sir?"

Frankly, I would've just stared at him and maybe burst into hysterical laughter, or something. Or just say, "Cheers, mate! To communism!" But the other guy obviously had nerves of steel, and quite some spare time on his hands, so he started to calmly explain that similar measures are often taken in some of the most developed democracies in the West, including in America and the "more normal" EU member states, and this isn't the same thing as the nationalization of entire sectors (like in Russia), but rather an effort to find a sensible balance between private and public interests, and obtain a structure of the economy that might actually work better. Of course the host would have none of it, and he interrupted the guy so many times that the latter just gave up eventually.

( Here's the thing, though. )

rick-day.livejournal.com

Some of you may have been following the story of one man's fight against a suburban Town Constable here in the Great State (sic) of Georgia. He is known as Chicken Man because he wanted to raise chickens and other barnyard critters in his rural home.

Only thing is, a neighbor complained. God damn Roosters! This lead to other complaints, and Chicken Man soon found himself afoul of the law. In a comedy of drama, one thing led to another until yesterday, confronted with eviction of his home (missed payments because he was in jail on code citations, severely damaged by floods, etc) he simply did the American thing and instead of giving up his property that he was in arrears on, instead he he had a chicken bake.

The battle between one man and the city of Roswell that started over his keeping of chickens ended Monday afternoon in a fiery explosion. Investigators believe that rather than be evicted from his home, Andrew Wordes poured gasoline throughout the house and set it on fire.

Now, I know there are those within this community that believe in 'rugged individualism'. Here is a man whose last 3 year of life could be played in a movie by Tommy Lee Jones or Clint Eastwood (older white males). Chicken Man was no liberal.

I speculate Chicken Man listened to Boortz/Limbaugh daily. I speculate that Chicken Man bought into "The American Dream" scheme of property ownership being the 'ultimate right'. To men like The Chicken Man, land ownership, even if shared with a bank, is 'the defining paradigm of being a Man in the US).

Ayn Rand's kind of man. Ayn would have approved of this mans' defiance in the face of those who would take from his hard work and property. After all, what is unreasonable about wanting to raise chickens, goats and hens?

Lots of stories like this are accumulating on the internet news wires. This is not an isolated incident.

Has the American Dream finally died? Or was there never really one, just a way for the banks and construction firms, the ad agencies and the cheap furniture stores to all profit off Dreamers like The Chicken Man?

Dd the empty rhetoric of the GOP kill Chicken Man? Did he believe so much that Republicans had the 'right' answer because he was taught for decades to ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS mistrust the "left"? Then they went and elected that...well..you know!

Are you still buying the empty rhetoric of the GOP? Do you believe a persons property is what defines them, and if they can not have unfettered access to their property (the government's got guns pointed at us, yall!) then you are less than human? How many of you are clinging to bad debt, to ridiculous financial situations, just to have a 'place to call your own'?

Who among us is one step away from being the next Chicken Man?

Location: Atlanta, GA USA

rick-day.livejournal.com

I would like to start a conversation on property rights. We have had some strange issues involving the rote concept of ownership; of the right to own and to assign value to things or places.

Seeds, genes, creative efforts, everything but the air we breathe can or has been claimed by someone/government as being 'owned by X'

Some things seem to generic, to much commonplace, to 'everyone uses it!' like, oh, some of the most common features of the World Wide Web.

Or is it?

There is some deep shit going down in Texas.

Michael Doyle, a low-profile Chicago biologist, claims that it was actually he and two co-inventors who invented — and patented — the “interactive web” before anyone else, while they were employed by the University of California back in 1993. Doyle argues that a program he created at the UC’s San Francisco campus, which allowed doctors to view embryos over the nascent World Wide Web, was the first program that allowed users to interact with images inside of a web browser window.

Feel free to read the story, it takes about 5 minutes.

Clearly, if the facts are correct as presented, Doyle is about to become an extremely wealthy man, benefiting off the work of others. That he has waited so long to file the actions is pretty smart on his part, the bigger Google and Yahoo get, the deeper their pockets are. Ultimately, it is all paper wealth, shifted from one account to the next but there is this nagging idea that he really didn't earn this money.
( And the argument seems valid as well )

This is about as big a case of property rights as it gets. The fact he has pursued this, and the players have fought him over this since 1993 pretty much settles any question of "Patent Troll". If you were on the jury and only had the info provided in the links and the story, which side would prevail? My opinion would be I would fall on the side with the best argument as to the validity of the patents. That the PTO reversed its decision and affirmed the validity, I am Sure UC/Eolas will point this out to the jury.

Mood: calm

sophia-sadek.livejournal.com

In our discussion of libertarian heroism, an interesting misconception came to light. There is a belief that private property is an aspect of human nature. The people who espouse this notion are not experts on what does and does not constitute human nature, nor are they experts on what constitutes privacy or property. The science on human nature is problematic because scientists are themselves sheltered from nature. The scientific discipline is an elevation above the level of the natural homo sapiens to a highly disciplined degree.

Are human beings selfish, greedy, lacking in compassion by nature, or is it a conditioned state of being demanded by the economic system into which homo sapiens is indoctrinated? Does the rat race program human beings to behave like rats, or is homo sapiens naturally rodent-like? Sometimes we can hear the soft patter of rodent feet scampering across the drop ceiling of Internet punditry.

Before Roman enslavement, educators did not own property. Property management was a mundane responsibility that prevented people from experiencing a full life. It was not a highly valued occupation although it was important for the sustenance of the general population. Education was a more rigorous discipline and its practitioners were better respected than they are today.

Whenever I hear people speak of property rights, I am reminded of an organization I encountered on the streets of New York back in the eighties. It is a retrograde Catholic group whose politics seem to resemble those of Opus Dei called the Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (aka TFP). My partner was on their mailing list and regularly received their high production value newsletter. It was filled with quasi-fascist propaganda.

I am also reminded of Jeremy Bentham's arguments against the idea of equal property rights. It can be summed up by the argument that if your neighbor had property rights equal to yours, she has just as much a right to sleep in your bed as you do. (I know that a number of the guys in this community would probably welcome that.)

The traditional Tory slogan for rights runs along the line of the right to "life, liberty, and property." In America, broader minded people reconsidered this slogan and came up with "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Which right do you think is more important, the right to property or the right to the pursuit of happiness?

malasadas.livejournal.com

Back in the mid-1990s, I was enjoying my weekly ritual of having biked to my neighborhood Safeway, picking up the West Coast edition of the Sunday New York Times and taking to my favorite coffee house in Manoa Valley for a thorough read. I came across an interview with Esther Dyson talking about the new world of digital content that was springing up on the World Wide Web. Dyson, daughter of the physicist Freeman Dyson who is famous for his futurist notions and a noted commentator on emerging technologies in her own right, proposed that in the digital future, no artists would be paid for the creation of content -- such content would be freely available via electronic means. Writers would make their living by speaking and teaching. Artists by paid gallery shows. Musicians by concerts. And so on.

The idea ruined my Sunday by leaving me in a viscerally sour mood. Dyson's ideas were fairly repellent to me on some very personal levels. I was working as a high school English teacher, and many works I included in my curriculum were by writers who were notably brilliant but hardly the kind of people who could make a living by public speaking. My internal argument with Ms. Dyson demanded to know how there could ever be another J.D. Salinger in her world -- it being an imaginary argument, of course, that question stumped her.

( It is almost 20 years later...Was Esther Dyson right? )

sophia-sadek.livejournal.com

Given that the official American religion values capital, property, and other material possessions, it is no wonder that insurance has come to be understood as a financial product for sale to the public on the market. Insurance did not start out that way. It began in the form of mutual aid societies committed to protecting their members from the abuses of landlords and from the disasters of nature. It is no wonder that insurance companies are now managed by abusive landlords and will not cover damage from natural causes.

The corruption of the insurance "industry" by "liberalism" is something that conservatives hold dear. Heaven forbid that people be protected from vicious lords and natural cataclysm! What horror would occur if traditional institutions of mutual assistance replaced the predatory barons of wealth! Mutual aid is a socialist concept that was pioneered by Sufi sages. It must be attacked tooth and nail in order to preserve the primary right of predation guaranteed in the Bible.

To which paradigm of insurance do you subscribe: mutual aid or financial product, and why?

gunslnger.livejournal.com

This is from an email magazine and I thought some might be interested given the recent discussion on patents.

Does the U.S. patent process encourage or discourage innovation? While the answer depends on who you talk to, the traditional view has generally been that patents are good for innovation. Not willing to accept this prevailing view at face value, Bill Tomlinson of the University of California-Irvine and Andrew Torrance of the University of Kansas developed PatentSim, an online game that simulates the U.S. patent system.

PatentSim features an abstract model of the innovation process, a database of potential innovations, and a network through which users can interact with one another to license, assign, buy, infringe, and enforce patents. PatentSim was created using standard web protocols including Ruby on Rails and MySQL.

The software lets players simulate the innovation process under: a traditional patent system, a "commons" system in which no patent protection is available, or a system with both patents and open-source protection. Tomlinson and Torrance measured the effectiveness of the three systems by comparing the rate of innovation, productivity, and value to society.

So what's the answer? According to the researchers in their paper Patents and the Regress of Useful Arts, a system that combines patent and open-source protection for inventions (like modern patent systems) generates lower rates of innovation, productivity, and societal utility than does a commons system.

A round in the game only takes about 1 hour to complete. If you'd like to participate in the study by playing PatentSim, send email to dhann@ku.edu. You must be at least 18 years old to participate

-- Jonathan Erickson
jerickson@ddj.com

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Talk politics.

A place to discuss politics without egomaniacal mods.

Entries tagged with property

Friday WTF. Dyadya Vanya, story of rampant counterfeiting

The next estates balloon

A different perspective on how to be Christian.

Local Police Encounter--US Justice System Fails

Ownership of land

Private vs public interest: the balance

Chicken Man and the American Dream

(no subject)

The Myth of Natural Property

(no subject)

Insurance: a tad of history

Does the Patent System Foster Innovation?

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June 2025

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