Wells Fargo raised $12 billion in stock sale in plan to repay $25 billion

From CNN:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Wells Fargo said it raised more than $12 billion in a stock sale Tuesday as part of a plan to repay $25 billion in government aid.

The sale came one day after the lender joined Citibank (C, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) in announcing plans to return money received last year under the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Wells Fargo said it sold 426 million shares of common stock at $25 per share. The deal's underwriters, which include Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), exercised options to buy an additional 63.9 million shares.

Common Sense wonders where to begin with this one.

Lets see!  Wells Fargo who was so stunningly mismanaged that it needed $25 billion in your money to avoid going bankrupt now thinks, along with Goldman Sachs, that the company is now worth $12.5 billion more by selling stock!  Even more amazine, having sold the stock Wells proposes to pay back the $25 billion it borrowed!  Lets summarize.  First Wells borrows $25 billion from you via the government.  Then it raises another $12.5 billion from you as part of a plan to pay back the original $25 billion.

Common sense thinks this is a lot like a pyramid scheme, you know that's where money from the next bigger fool is used to pay the earlier fool!

How about instead of this nonsense Congress restores the laws that kept this kind of nonsense from happening for over 40 years!

Just some Common Sense.

The Health Insurance Industry Giveaway Act of 2009

AKA Health Care Reform

This one is so stunningly wrong headed that it's hard to know where to start.  Now the Senate is close to passing a bill.  The principal provision is that virtually all Americans have to buy health insurance!  The bill does essentially nothing to address the underlying issue of health care cost.  On a positive note it does restrict some of the most agregious health insurance industry practices.  But on balance calling this Health Care Reform is, well,  just dumb.  I'm forced to believe that Congress has decided that American citizens have no common sense at all!

In this regard there was a news item on PBS today where a young woman reporter for the Christian Science Monitor offered the opinion that come January after the non-reform health insurance giveaway bill passes that Congress would expand the coverage to include some provisions that might actually reduce health care cost.  She offered the argument that the original Social Security Act was very limited in scope (it was) and that it was subsequently extended to provide a wide variety of benefits (it has).  Common sense, however, notes that there is a very essential difference in Social Security and Health Care.  In the case of Social Security the act established the essential principal that we as a society have an obligation to our retired people.  That's not the case with the pending Health Care bill.  All they do is to require that individuals buy health care insurance.  No where do they go in any way to the notion that we as a society have an obligation to individual citizens to see that they get health care regardless of their ability to pay.  Common sense argues that this essential difference is fundamental.  Common sense argues that we do not have any obligation to one another concerning health given a bill that establishes a compulsion on individuals to buy health care insurance!

Disgusting.

Want some change?  Change Congress.  It's gotten beyond any sense of fair play.

Privacy rights when using employer owned property.

From the LA Times:

Reporting from Washington - The Supreme Court said today it would rule for the first time on whether employees have a right to privacy when they send text messages on electronic devices supplied by their employers.

The justices agreed to hear an appeal from a police department in Ontario, Calif., that was successfully sued by Sgt. Jeff Quon and three other officers after their text messages -- some of which were sexually explicit -- were read by the police chief.

The city had a written policy that the devices were for use on official business and subject to monitoring.  The police officers were told of that policy.  When they discovered that the police chief had read some of their messages they sued and prevailed in the 9th District Court.  The case is now on appeal to the US Supreme Court.

There are several things of note here.

First, the 9th District Court has a long and arguably sordid history of trying to change the law and being overturned on appeal.  I'm personally put out that we continue to have to pay for a court that seems to get it wrong so often.  Common sense suggest that the court needs to change.  Unfortunately, short of impeachment, retirement, or death those judges are appointed for life so there is little that can be done save to continue to pay to undo what the 9th does.

In the matter at hand, given the written policy and notice common sense suggests that the officers should have no real expectation of privacy.

Intellectual Property

There was an article in Sunday's Boston Globe that caught my attention having to do with intellectual property.  Briefly it seems that there are some litigations over web sites that provide copies of student notes for various college courses.  The colleges or professers assert that such sites violate their copyright in the material.

These cases are interesting on several grounds and present some interesting legal and common sense issues.

Consider first, does a professor have a copyright interest in the course taught?  Here I note that a college professor is an employee of the college.  Thus arguably any course materials that the professor creates is a work for hire and it would be the college not the professor that would have a copyright interest if one existed just as any work for hire belongs to the employer not the employee unless otherwise stipulated by contract.

Beyond the question of who, if anyone, holds the copyright interest in the course (not the student's notes) for any copyright to exist the course must be reduced to durable materials; that is course notes, presentations, recordings, and the like.  In todays colleges that is often the case so arguably a copyright can in fact exist.

Now comes the issue of the student's notes.  The student bought the course by paying the college to attend it.  Thus the student has a fair use interest in the course copyright just as a student has a fair use interest in any textbook the student buys.  Student notes are a work of the student not the professor or college and within the domain of fair use the student is entirely free to use those notes.  That's fairly settled law.

Finally we get to the issue of the use of the student notes.  Here's where things get interesting and a bit muddy. 

Suppose that a student takes notes and shares them with a study group.  Is that a copyright violation?  Is it within fair use?  The practice is common and often encouraged by professors.  Common sense says this is not actionable.  So in principal a student CAN share class notes with others without violation of copyright even if one exist.

But what if the student shares outside a study group?  Say a club such as a soriety.  Again the practice is common although generally not sanctioned and has not been a cause of action to my knowledge.  So in principal a student CAN share with an arbitrary outsider without violation of copyright.

Now suppose our student places the notes on a web page, say a personal web page?  Is this any different than placing the same notes in a group's file cabinet?  Does the fact that the scope of access is not NOT RESTRICTED to a group change things? 

Here things get a bit more complex.  Consider that if a newspaper wishes to publish a copyrighted picture or article, the newspaper must obey the copyright.  Even if the publication itself is free the publisher must get permission of the copyright holder before publishing.  So the issue of charging for the student's notes is not in and of itself a factor.

But the student's notes on the web are NOT the original copyrighted material, they are the student's interpretation of that material.  Rather like a sketch of a famous person in a cartoon, say a satirical cartoon.  Even though the famous person has a property and copyright interest in their image they can not enforce that interest on either the author of a cartoon or the publisher.  Here as well common sense argues against a copyright issue.

Consider, however, that the college has a business interest in selling access to courses to provide the student familiarity with the course's intellectual property.  Does publication by a student of notes taken by the student who paid for the course violate the colleges business interest or intellectual property interest?  Intellectual property law is a murky area.  Even so, common sense suggests that since the college and the professor (who is after all an employee and presumed to be party to the college's business proposition) engage in teaching, that is conveying intellectual property to students for the student's future use, that any claim based on intellectual property fails.  That is common sense says that any claim that the use of intellectual property violates an intellectual property right when the underlying purpose of the college's business is the CONVEYANCE of intellectual property fails.

All things considered then, it seems to me that common sense sides with placing student notes on the web without copyright violation.

Obama and Afganistan

From CNN:

• Extra 30,000 U.S. troops to secure uncovered areas, help Afghan security forces train
• Obama said he hopes to start transferring U.S. forces out of Afghanistan in July 2011.
  
• Troop buildup just one strategy to achieve goals in Afghanistan, Obama says
• U.S. also to pursue more effective civilian strategy, Obama says
• Better partnership with Pakistan also essential, Obama says

In October 2001 the US went to war in Afganistan following the Al-Queda 9/11 attacks.  After the initial invasion, the US gained significant control of most of the country and its nominal government relatively quickly.  However, contrary to much popular belief the Taliban and Al-Queda was not defeated, at least not in the sense of defeating an organized government as one can not defeat an idea.

Now, some 8 years on the US through its president proposes to send some 30000 extra troops hoping to improve the situation so that US forces can begin leaving in July 2011.

While I have been in wars and in Afghanistan I do regard myself as an expert in either.  That said I offer the following common sense:

Much of Afghanistan is very harsh and difficult terrain.  While additional forces can help, 30,000 is not nearly enough to actually subdue a very determined enemy under these circumstances.

This strategy depends on establishing a functioning government in Afghanistan.  Unfortunately, the country has never had a functioning government in the sense that the US or other western countries have.  There is in my view and the history of several other failures no hope of creating such a government in the hoped for time frame.

Notwithstanding the above, leaving Afghanistan and possibly Pakistan to the Taliban and Al-Queda is unacceptably dangerous for the US.  9/11 happened.  Al-Queda is a sworn enemy of the US.  An  enemy that finds motivation in a perverted interpretation of Islam.  In that part of the world such enmity is taken very seriously.  Much as everyone might wish it otherwise, the US is hated and while that hatred has means it will lead to continued attacks on the US.

I have no clever solution to offer but I note that common sense dictates that 30,000 troops will help but not lead to anything that can be understood as victory, 18 months is not nearly enough time to create sustainable government institutions it will take many years, and the US dare not allow the Taliban to regain control of the area and provide another haven for Al-Queda