Unless America falls apart first. Things are bad here, too. I abhor the Chinese government (but not the Chinese people), but the standard of living in the U.S. is also declining. Real wages have stagnated for over a decade. http://www.epi.org/publication/bp195/ We went from a single income household to a two income household without significant gains in middle-class wealth. Now we're saddling a generation of kids with unpayable student loans in a market with zero jobs. I'd say if there's going to be revolution anywhere, it's the U.S.

Well, smaller components are more expensive because they are produced in lower volumes. laptops are still outselling tablets 10 to 1.

When you want to have your Device (tm) manufactured in China or whereever, you approach a factory. That factory is also making laptops and stuff for lots of other computer brands. So they are making standard parts in the configuration you outline. Its super cheap because they have all their equipment set up to make common parts.

Once you bring in a custom display (that needs to be touch-sensitive), custom connector, custom battery, custom chip... then the factory is going to charge you quite a bit more. They may have to source a battery that is more dense than the standard n-cell battery that is sold in most laptops. They may have to re-tool their molding/milling machines for whatever shape or connectors you are developing.

Once the tablet market is sufficiently saturated and the components are more standard you'll see cheaper prices.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-build-the-ipad-2-2011-3

The reason that Netflix can get buy on $9 a month is because they have low debt, and low overhead. Larger margins.

Companies like Blockbuster loaded up on debt and rapidly expanded during the good times. Of course, debt is easy to carry during the good times.

If Blockbuster had kept its leverage low it could have used this time where corporate valuations are lower to get out of leases, buy a subsidiary that could compete w/ Netflix in the streaming space, or kept fees low. But because it has close to 1 Billion dollars in debt to service, and tons of long-term leases to pay for, they are inflexible.

Sure, Netflix saw that DVDs by mail and DVD streaming was the way to go, but it was only a part of it that lead to Blockbuster's demise. Most of it can be traced back to poor business decisions unrelated to technology. Plenty of companies are smart enough to make a transition between dying business models and thriving ones. Blockbuster couldn't because they tied their hands with financial obligations.

>Wall street "quants" have changed the financial game without knowing finance

Great example. Look where the Wall Street quants drove the economy to...

Its a violation of the law to commit fraud. Most, if not all, of the major banks engaged in fraudulent accounting, at the very least. They used this fraudulent accounting to show excess paper profits, and used those profits as a justification to pay very large bonuses. Then, when the winds turned, none of these banks had enough cash on hand to weather the storm.

There should be a Pecora Commission, and a perp walk, to say the least. These banks did exactly what Enron did. Enron saw its comeuppance, so should these banks.

>It's not the same thing in practice, though. The actions of a corporation with a near monopoly on the market have different repurcussions than the same actions performed by a minority player

That's kind of a horseshit argument. That's like saying that if a poor minority smokes crack, its worse because he makes less money and it has a larger impact on his family; but if a rich white guy does it, it's less of a big deal since he's rich and he's not influencing his neighbors and setting a bad example.

Shouldn't the law be blind to the status of the offender? Shouldn't the action itself be the only arbiter of what is a crime, and not the action biased by WHO is committing it? I think it is a terrible precedent to have two sets of laws, one for the 'little guy' and one for the 'big guy'. Then it becomes a less objective 'which guy am I', not 'what actions can I perform'.

LOL! Code is work but music isn't!

Come on, admit it. This one touches a nerve because computer programmers take ownership and pride in their software; they recognize the inherent value because they know how much time and mental effort goes into making software, scripts, and tools. However, those same individuals cannot ascribe the same value to a music file; they either blame the companies the artists work for (artists don't get more than a penny per download!), or that they aren't hurting anyone because music is just a digital file nowadays. All excuses, software making and music making are the same thing, and yet the attitudes towards 'sharing' are significantly different.

If Apple ever gained the dominant position in the market, would you support forcing them to remove their browser in their OS?

Do you have evidence that the flaws that caused large numbers (I've heard estimates that its 1/3rd of all consoles that have had to be RMA'd) of xbox to go bad are due to corners cut? MS has been mum about what specifically causes the 360's to fail. Couldn't it just be that MS ordered a part from a factory/supplier and a flaw in the production process, or a flaw in design of the item, caused failures that weren't apparent in short term testing?