The creation of a "micro entity" encourages the individual inventor to get back into the patent game by reducing the fees required for filing an application.

This is a nice idea but I think its a political move intended as an answer to critics who point out that "first to file" systems in other countries have reduced participation by individual inventors in favor of large corporate entities. Nevertheless, its useful for potential startup founders to be aware of these rules.

The America Invents Act and the individual inventor

w1ld wrote:
Good message, but why does Jim have to yell so much??

Everyone in the Wallstreet media yells. They yell on CNBC too. I guess they are trying to sound like traders. It is annoying.

Flynn23 recently asked me what the impact of the Ron Paul campaign would be. Could the impact be the idea that it becomes more acceptable to criticise the federal reserve system? It strikes me that the "open process" that Cramer seems to desire is FAR less radical than Paul's objective.

YouTube - Ron Paul on Mad Money with Jim Cramer 12-14-07

"It's only when the markets are perceived to have exhausted themselves on the downside that they turn," he said. "Trying to prevent them from going down just merely prolongs the agony."

Taken as a general principal that argument is anarchocapitalist.

Greenspan sees early signs of U.S. stagflation: Reuters Business News - MSN Money

] The proposal to change the benefits calculation --
] adjusting only for inflation, not productivity growth --
] will dramatically cut the income-replacement rate for
] future retirees. The size of the cut will depend on when
] workers retire. The heaviest cuts would fall on the
] youngest workers. Those already retired or near
] retirement would be protected.
]
] Let's call it what it is: a tax hike
] The administration has not called this a tax increase,
] but that is exactly what it is: a massive tax hike
] reserved for the young and the young only. It is a tax
] increase because they will pay the same payroll tax but
] will receive less in benefits.
]
] The difference is who gets the money and benefits now. Older
] voters get the money, benefits and reassurances now. Our
] children and grandchildren get the shaft.
]
] Tell me, Mr. President, what's moral and good about that?

Now this makes sense, but I'd like to see this analysis get some peer review.

MSN Money - Social Security cuts: a tax hike for the young

] Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, said the
] administration has already looked into ways to compensate
] for future crunches on resources, pointing to a 2002
] White House appointed commission that advocated phasing
] out Social Security options for younger workers while
] allowing retired and near-retired persons to keep their
] benefits.

Social Security is a wealth redistribution system. Admit it. Thats what it is. When it started it was, on a demographic basis, taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. The reason its going to fail is that, on a demographic basis, its now stealing money from the poor and giving it to the rich. We ought to accept that its a wealth redistribution system and run it like one. You ought to get it only if you need it, and it ought to suck just enough that most people won't want it. I'm all for raising the amount of money one can put in tax deferred personal savings accounts if we can do that without bankrupting the government. However, the path to fixing social security is to see it for what it is and run it appropriately. In order to do that the people making decisions about it are going to have to agree to cut their own potential income. For the most part, politics doesn't work that way. So if you're between the ages of 20 and 40, prepare to get fucked, because you are the smallest generational demographic, and thus you have the smallest amount of democratic political power. You will witness the very definition of tyranny of the majority in your lifetime.

Good news -- and bad -- for baby boomers, says AARP

] Whether we protect intellectual property as an
] inalienable right or as a privilege vouchsafed by the
] sovereign, such protection inevitably entails making some
] choices that have crucial implications for the balance we
] strike between the interests of those who innovate and
] those who would benefit from innovation.

This is a worrysome and cryptic comment.

1. He raises the specter of Intellectual Property as an inalienable right. With respect to the Constitution that is an extremely radical position. It has gained ground in recent years because of careful marketing efforts by the media industries. His comment is too vauge to know what he really wants, only that he thinks IP should be strengthened.

2. The separation of "those who innovate" and "those who would benefit from innovation" into two separate and exclusive groups is crusty industrial age thinking.

3. Finance people often do not understand the economic importance of activity which occurs outside of the market. I didn't figure Greenspan to be one of those people. Your strong protections for innovators aren't going to do you much good if you can't innovate because all of your citizens are stupid. If you create a world where culture only exists for entertainment purposes and comment, criticisms, and derivative works are all impossible to produce your culture will stagnate and your people will become dull.

4. If you have to rebuild the entire operating system from scratch in order to make a small improvement to a particular feature, you aren't going to do it. IP maximalism hurts innovation.

Greenspan: Secure intellectual property

Yet with the U.S. economy now back to its stall speed, that's precisely the risk. Courtesy of the government's newly revised depiction of the U.S. economy, the odds of a double dip have risen, in my view. I would now place a 60 percent to 65 percent chance on such a possibility in the second half of this year.

Double dip alert

Federal regulators voted tentatively Wednesday to require chief executives to personally vouch for their companies’ financial reports, a Bush administration initiative inspired by the collapse of Enron Corp.
COMPANIES ALSO WOULD have to make public important changes in their operations much faster and report a wider group of changes under the new rules of by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The “8-K” form for reporting significant events or corporate changes important to investors would have to be filed with the SEC within two business days, rather than the current requirement of five days for some items and 15 days for others.
Among the new items that would have to be reported in the 8-K: the sort of off-balance-sheet transactions that helped topple Enron and unexpected departures of top executives, senior managers or directors.

SEC votes to require CEOs

(NYTimes login required)
Political leaders in Washington are casting about for measures to ensure that the Enron debacle will never be repeated. Unfortunately, one of the main ideas being considered — requiring companies to treat stock options as expenses on financial statements — addresses an issue that not only had nothing to do with Enron's failure but is, in fact, not a problem at all.

Leave Options Alone

"I think it could be Dow 3,000 or below, and the Nasdaq below 500. People think it can't happen, but it can. That's the way markets work; that's the way economic history works; that's the way companies work."

10 Questions With Prudent Bear Fund Manager David Tice