idk why everyone hates IE. What are these "holes" everyone is talking about? I've been using IE for as long as I can remember and I've been fine. Maybe you all just need to learn how to secure yourself better rather than depend on the software to do it for you.

Exactly!!!  Which is in Asia... ie, China, India, Taiwan, etc.  And while the companies would hasten to pull the patriot card if they needed a local workforce for drt cheap, next to eff all, there was eff all patriotism when they pulled the plug on millions of local jobs.

If it sounds like I'm angry about what happened in the US to tens of thousands of workers, yes, I am.  I'm angry for them and their families, and I'm angry brcause whatever your mongrel bosses did to them, our mongrel bosses took a leaf out of their book and found ways to hurt our workers and their families even more.  Not only did they relocate jobs offshore, many went into liquidation, declared bankruptcy and workers lost all their entilements they'd worked hard for, some of them decades.

Sadly, the horse has bolted in many industries and there is nothing to bring it back to.  One of the main reasons for that is that the companies who profitted immensely aren't going to plow any of it back into the economy to restart manufacturing on any grand scale. No, they're just going to take the money and run.  I mean, put yourself in their shoes.  If you hatched a scheme to reap a greater profit at the expense of your workers, would you relinquish control of that profit, and risk losing it to provide jobs for people who'd like to see you at the end of a rope for the betrayal?  Like I said, they'll take the money and run. And why ordinary people, everyday Americans support Capitalism beats me when the people running it are self-serving greedy bastards who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.

Bit of an oversimplification, that.  What keeps it going is the opportunity to become one of those self-serving greedy bastards.  Except that virtually no company was ever successfully built with that goal, and no other, in mind.

Not sure you can blame Management more than the Unions. Look what happened at Hostess recently. Instead of taking the business off shore, the were forced to close. The Union workers demanded raises to the point that Hostess could no longer afford to pay the wages.

Sad thing is, now as taxpayers, we have to foot the bill for these Union workers that gambled and lost. Talk about BS.

A company has to stay competative to stay in business. That means controling expenses while maxamizing profit for the shareholders. Do you really think most employers want to take the jobs offshore? No, they only do it when the workers wages have reached a point that they are no longer affordable.

Here's one that most people in the US won't see coming...a lot of them may be losing thier heath care benifits. With Obamacare, that was forced onto the American employers, it may end up being cheaper to pay the fine than it will be to pay for health insurance. What do you think employers will do in that case?

With this President spending us into debt that our children will never be able to pay and wanting to raise taxes, I wonder if income from the fines to further fund his spending spree were his plan all along.

Obviously the successful companies with longevity have balanced out profit and customer satsifaction, and there are a few businessmen who have given back greatly to benefit humanity and the environment.  However, that small handful of businessmen/women who make charitable donations do not change my cynical view of the majority.  Most I've met would steal their granny's purse and sell it back to her empty.

Not at all what happened.

Over many years, Hostess' assets were sold off.

If you'd like some real history (like union workers refusing a 17% pay cut while executives voted themselves raises), look at this Snopes article:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/hostess.asp

.

Perhaps Hostess was a bad analogy.

I wasn't there so I can't tell you exactly what happened or why the pay raises were allowed. Perhaps the raises were allowed because of the additional hours that management were working due to the bankrupcy. One thing you failed to mention, a few of the managers turned down the raises and some took a pay cut. Some even worked for $1.00 a year.

Either way, at the end of the day the taxpayers are flipping the bill for it.

BTW, don't rely on Snopes to be 100% correct as they are not all the time. It's kinda like believing that everything in Wikipedia is factual and doesn't lean to the left.

Actually Hostess was bought and sold some 118 times.... all its assets were stripped and ended up without the asset funded health/pension plan... 

No matter. Snopes isn't perfect, but it doesn't have any political leaning I've managed to detect - possibly because it deals with so much right and left leaning crap put out for willing mass consumption.

Very hard to glean truth anymore.

You hang with a tough crowd.

That is a indeed a cynical, and wrong, view of the majority.  Most are just like my (late) father, small businessmen/women/persons entirely dependent on customer satisfaction for survival.

No, I never hung out with people like that.  Some of them were past bosses, others I met in connection with my work.  However, I'm not referring to the ma and pa businesses, where more personal relationships develop between the firm and its customers... AND employees.  No, I'm on about the corporate bigwigs who are so far removed from the customers and competitors they inflict so much ill will and pain upon.  They sit in their ivory towers pretty much immune to the damage they cause, so not only are they bastards, often they are unaccountible bastards who get away with pretty near murder.

As for being cynical, it was/is that type who made me so.  I also worked for small a couple of family businesses, and for the most part, they more than gave a shit about their customers and staff and would often go out of their way to see they that were happy with the products and service... the job.

No doubt there are bastards out there (see Google, GE, CountryWide), but they really are a minority.  Nobody (other than lottery winners) gets really rich without an awful lot of other folks getting wealthy in the process.  Thanks to my 'greed', a staff of 10 have paid their mortgages & sent kids to college.  More than half of what I earn goes to other people in one way or another, not counting taxes (Ha! - I'm a redistributionist! Who knew?).

I'm as cynical as the next guy, but way more about government than private industry.

See, you're the family-type business I'm talking about... you do give a shit, and for that I applaud you.

I can understand that.  The US Government is something I don't trust, either.  While I do not live directly under its rule... and I mean RULE, it's not as democratic as it purports to be, I have been indirectly affected by some of its decisions.  For example, the 'so-called' free trade agreement our idiot Prime Minister, John Howard, signed with it.  While Howard thought it was great, Australia got the shitty end of the stick on that one.  It was too heavily weighted in favour of the US goverment, the drug and oil companies in particular. 

As a result of this f**ked up agreement and US drug companies insistence, the price of prescription AND over the counter medications rose sharply... and for someone who depends on up to 8 - 10 doses per day, that's quite a chunk of money.  While we have the PBS, a Pharmecuetical Benefits Scheme to provide pensioners and low income families cheap medicines, something US drug companies tried to get abolished, many drugs are not covered by that scheme.... like one particular medication I need to help manage pain, cost me $68.00 a month for 30 tablets.  Add this to my other medications and I'm forking over $130 + a month every month. 

So yeah, I'm pissed at the US government and the drug companies who have it in their pocket.

http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-also-falls-to-malware-small-number-of-pcs-affected

The particular piece of malware likely in question here, which was a zero-day Java vulnerability injected into an iOS developer site, has been just one of a number of Java-related security issues cropping up this year. It's also not going to be the last, as hackers continually look to new vulnerabilities and threats to try and access unauthorized data, meaning it's more important than ever to strongly protect vital corporate systems.

Oh Java, if you were actually any good what would Minecraft users cry about every night. 

@starkers  re: "our" businessmen exporting jobs to China.  The essential problem is that uber-businesses(men/leaders/major stockholders) are no longer tied to / loyal to / care about the country they are from.  They have more in common with the uber-rich of other nations than they do with people of their their homeland. The world is their oyster, and we are the grains of sand that make the pearls they harvest possible. They are not "our" businessmen.  We have become their wage slaves / servants.

Making the world smaller has put the elites of various nations into closer contact. Its not a conspiracy (IMHO) but the natural confluence of the elites' shared common interests - self interest.