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Your "freedom" stops at others' freedom

Your freedom stops where someone else's begins. You have no right

from your potentially reckless and harmful behaviour under the influence.

You mean like drunk people? Here is the science what drugs cause what harm

Pot gets you high much more easily than alcohol gets you drunk

citation please

http://www.economist.com/news/...

That's those well-known green activists at the Economist.

As there are no working EPRs out there, I don't want to pay EDF's dev costs. I like to technology like work first before I buy it. Kind of like a car :) Give the wheels a good kicking.

Given the uptick on global warming and the fact we're running out of time if we want to move to a zero-fossil fuels economy, I'd prefer a plutonium-recycling CANDU if at all. It works. It's there.

As the economist says, all available research and capital should be targeted at any non-fossil fuels. We should outlaw all fossil-fuel driven devices, as of yesterday.

British dental health is much better than in the US.

British Teeth Aren’t That Bad (American Teeth Are Far Worse)

Which countries' children have the worst teeth?

The poor people of Rio are paying for those games with their health and their lives. Sociopath is too strong a word but be honest: how they suffer doesn't bother you or anyone else living it up at the Olympic party at public expense. http://money.cnn.com/gallery/n... http://www.businessinsider.com... https://www.theguardian.com/sp... http://www.theatlantic.com/bus... http://www.economist.com/blogs...

The word he is looking for is Narcissism: the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one's own attributes. Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a long term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of others' feelings.

I hope it makes the points I was trying to make clearer.

http://www.economist.com/news/...

No - I am NOT trying to reduce the burden of taxation on capital - I entirely agree that it is appropriate to tax it, and the present mess over capital gains and all the rest is a disaster. But this is about the damaging distortions that taxing equity investment more harshly than loans does, and it is a problem. Unfortunately the correct solution - increasing taxation on loan payments by companies - would rightly be seen as discouraging investment.

How we get round the perception that companies should be taxed twice - as themselves and as their shareholders - is a clear and persistent problem which the ignorance of the 'Occupy' movements ignore. Capitalism works and does bring benefits to the poorest - as the record of the decline in poverty in China clearly indicates. The free trade that has accompanied this has left victims in the west, and it's their pain that Trump and Hillary are both channelling in a depressing outbreak of selfishness at the present time.

Should 'capital' be taxed more? Certainly dead capital - such as land investments and housing for rent should (nb - I write as a residential landlord!), and the abolition of tax relief on mortgage interest payments is one of the great achievement of the British government over the past 40 years - the US should do likewise. But 'real' investment that creates productive, long term jobs? There's the challenge; if you hit that too hard growth WILL stop...

[I used the word 'potentially' in my earlier post because a lot of tax avoidance is about getting past this sort of mess of taxation. However it's not as available to little people]

You have hospitals that can't provide proper care because of a shortage of latex gloves and syringes and basic medicines. And now the biggest riots in decades over waste, corruption, and spending billions on the olympics while cutting education funding and having teachers who haven't been paid in months going on strike.

Also, you're a liar. You wrote:

focus on your immense domestic problems before going around bashing other countries.

and then wrote

Posts like yours will never get away under my watch, as I never bash other countries.

You just did exactly that. BTW, my country has fewer domestic problems than either the US or the UK., The schools are funded, there's free healthcare for all, the police aren't going around shooting people with real bullets (the US) or the Brazil riots (rubber bullets). And we stand to benefit from global warming. The only actic nation that won't is the US. For the 7 others (Canada, Denmark (Greenland & The Faroe Islands), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Russia) life will get better. Brazil will get worse.

This does not mean I am in favour of global warming. I'm not - and there is no way that the world will meet the 2 degree limit, never mind the 1.5 degree limit, so we're all kind of screwed. Just some places will be less screwed.

It sure is. Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years. Or do you hate foreigners and support extreme poverty? Maybe we should keep them poor and send aid, it's another option.

captcha: disrupts

Since then they had a coup about once a decade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

1960 one ended with hanging of Prime Minister, Minister of Labor and Finance and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
1980 one ended with 50 (official) executions and half a million arrests.

So, is that why their economy has been stagnant for the past few decades? They've had *two* "lost decades" now? Oh, don't forget being overworked until you commit suicide, a phenomenon common enough to get its own term. How about making a whopping $26K a year as a key animator for anime? It's not exactly a fantastic place for women's equality in the workplace. And they're worried about their increasingly elderly population and how to care for them as fewer young people are choosing to have kids, resulting in a negative birth rate.

On the plus side, Japan has relatively few lawyers, their people tend to save a lot, are relatively healthy in general, and don't have nearly the violent crime problem we have in the US.

Japan has a lot going for it, but every society has its positives and negatives. It's typically not very practical to pick one single element and transplant it to a different society.

So, is that why their economy has been stagnant for the past few decades? They've had *two* "lost decades" now? Oh, don't forget being overworked until you commit suicide, a phenomenon common enough to get its own term. How about making a whopping $26K a year as a key animator for anime? It's not exactly a fantastic place for women's equality in the workplace. And they're worried about their increasingly elderly population and how to care for them as fewer young people are choosing to have kids, resulting in a negative birth rate.

On the plus side, Japan has relatively few lawyers, their people tend to save a lot, are relatively healthy in general, and don't have nearly the violent crime problem we have in the US.

Japan has a lot going for it, but every society has its positives and negatives. It's typically not very practical to pick one single element and transplant it to a different society.

This is the problem with referendums in general

But they do. The price of the article is not reduced when taxes go up. You just see a higher sales tax or VAT tacked onto that price, meaning you do pay more. Nothing is coming out of the company's hide. I have yet to ever see that happen. The market will bear a lot of abuse just to have the latest piece of gimmickry. Also, supply and demand hardly play a part. Prices are arbitrarily set. This goes on throughout every big market, oil, shipping, agriculture, and Walmart, not just banking. Prices are based on wagers made in the broker's office

What about it? Do you own a business, or work for one? Have you considered how well you'd fare if nobody was allowed to promote your business or try to find new customers, or remind people why your product or service is a good alternative to something else? Do you understand that private companies have to actually generate revenue or they can't do anything, because they'll be bankrupt?

Have you considered that there is a distinct difference between presenting information regarding the services one can provide, and presenting grandiose claims that seek to entice consumers in a manner that is misleading at best, an outright fraud? Do you understand that private companies can engage in less than honest practices in order to increase their profit margin?

But I expect you to cut these questions, just like you cut my earlier ones:

How much money does that cost, and what is its purpose? Where does all of the revenues of the pharmaceutical industry go? Is sending a sexy-dressed rep to a doctor really training them? Is lack of an erection REALLY a life-threatening disease?

Is there some reason you avoided these questions? Or did you not recognize their importance and meaning?

Except in order to use that financing program, you have to find doctors and facilities that are willing (usually at a financial loss) to conduct their operations and even their patient-by-patient, case-by-case decision making and prioritization according to Medicare's rules. That generally results in doctors losing money, which brings us to...

Oh my, are you saying other insurance companies don't have their own decision-making and prioritization processes? Because that's not true. But ok, you've made a claim. So how much do doctors lose, and how does what Medicare pays compare to what others pay?

Also, the doctors and healthcare facilities, if they're losing money, the question to ask is also why? What are they spending money on? I asked you already, what about their fountains and high-end landscaping and other actions?

No, it's not. It's rife with fraud and waste. Hundreds of billions of dollars' worth.

Oh, you're saying fraud is a problem then? Fraud by who? Medicare officials? Or is it somebody else?

Once you GET care. Or IF you get care.

Do you want them to instantly provide care with no questions asked then?

Then you may have some more fraud problems. And funding.

Good stewardship of my tax dollars would have seen at least ONE person lose their job over the truly terrible conditions and processes exposed year after year as third parties and the VA itself review how awfully run the agency is. Vets waiting months and years to be seen. Do you understand that?

Don't worry, Shinseki resigned, so that counts as losing a job. So do you have anything to suggest that? The VA has been complained about since as long as I can remember. I've heard demands to fire somebody over and over. It's been going on for decades. Because of that, I think it's just a political football that gets tossed back and forth rather than fixed.

Maybe we could fire the politicians then. Think that'll happen?

Yeah, better to just let all of that medical care and education grind to a halt.

Why would that result happen because someone told Bill Gates to stop taking certain actions?

Your idea of cause and effect seems detached.

Or you believe Bill Gates somehow is causing all medicare and education to exist, which no, no, that is not true.

I can't see how you would get that

I question if you've ever actually met any of these people.

Well, I haven't met many, but I was one. I graduated, with a Bachelor's in Computer Science, in 2008 right as the recession kicked off and had no money or job. Spent ~10 months and 2 states trying to find a job but, with student loans coming due, I got desperate and entered the military.

And Knightman is right.

Higher education is viewed negatively and if followed, will make you "not one of them any more."

"Them"? Do away with the tiptoeing and just directly say what you mean: "black people are poor and lazy". (Which is wrong.)

Human development has a inverse correlation with violence. Most parts of the world are developing, hence prosperity is up, violence is down. Most parts of the world are developing, hence prosperity is up, violence is down.

That would predict an upturn of violence during recessions, but that's not happening, either in this recession or others. In fact, there simply is no significant relationship between wealth/development and gun violence among first world nations.

Gun violence is merely a multiplier of violence so most intelligent places limit the power this has on society.

There is also no significant relationship between gun control and homicide rates among first world nations either, or in the US at state level, or over time after the introduction of gun control. Passing legislation based on knee jerk responses without solid facts to back it up is not "intelligent".

The US is the weird exception because 'freedom' seems to be more important than quality of life.

Yes, US quality of life is so low that absolutely nobody from those "intelligent places" ever wants to emigrate here. Never ever. Oh no.

And, yes, the view "Give me liberty, or give me death!" was prevalent during the US revolution. Maybe that has something to do with why the US muddled through the 20th century while Europe was torn between imperialism, colonialism, fascism and communism and committing genocide. And, yes, it wasn't just the Germans.

The US has stronger laws and a stronger tradition and culture of supporting freedom of expression. According to a Pew Research poll published in this week's Economist, 80% of Japanese, 70% of Germans, and 50% of French, think the government should be able to silence people offending others. In America, only a quarter felt the same. The next closest countries were Canada and Britain, both at about 40%.

US stewardship of the Internet has not been perfect, but I doubt if others can do better, either individually or collectively.

The exception to free speech laws in Europe relate to specific classes, such as inciting hate speech.

But public opinion aside, in practice, the US censors more actual content on the net under the guise of copyright or national security than many other nations. Why shouldn't Switzerland be the ONE government in charge, if the argument is that the most free and open one should have stewardship?

The point to me is that trusting a consortium of free governments is better than putting all faith in one government to do this right. Two hears are better than one. To me, it is just fundamentally flawed to entrust a global resource to one country that has its own self interests and that has demonstrably already been guilty of many intrusions on liberty and privacy on the net.

It's not like the US has an unblemished record of openness and propriety when managing this either.

The US has stronger laws and a stronger tradition and culture of supporting freedom of expression. According to a Pew Research poll published in this week's Economist, 80% of Japanese, 70% of Germans, and 50% of French, think the government should be able to silence people offending others. In America, only a quarter felt the same. The next closest countries were Canada and Britain, both at about 40%.

US stewardship of the Internet has not been perfect, but I doubt if others can do better, either individually or collectively.

Here is one of several articles: http://www.economist.com/blogs...

This is because it encourages corruption - the food is diverted away from the poor to be sold instead, and many ghost recipients emerge. As a result India is moving away from this model of poverty relief to one based on cash distribution to individuals on the basis of a unique identity.

http://www.economist.com/node/...

Here is one article that should not be behind a pay wall. : http://www.economist.com/news/...

If I have time I will try to dig up more. I don't think we are that far off from each other. I think their tech is better than "early promising research" even if it is not up to production quality.

I find BBC is a little better, but not much.

The BBC tends to be better because they are reporting on America from the outside. For the same reason, The Economist tends to be a good source of reasonably objective news about America. They are not as objective when reporting on Britain, where they tend to be pro-Tory, hate the SNP, and are rabidly anti-Brexit.

More criminals will be able to get sensitive jobs. How is this a bad thing?

It is not a bad thing. Employment drastically reduces recidivism, and a criminal record is not correlated with poor performance for most jobs. Many other things are better correlated with poor job performance, such as typing in all lowercase, or using IE as your browser when you fill out the application. So employers should look at those criteria instead of wasting time on background checks.

We already throw away almost half the food we produce. There's no reason not to throw a little into Mr. Fusion. And the price is arbitrarily set by the commodities markets. It has nothing to do with consumer demand.

You can't just throw "money" at drugs, poverty, disease, hunger, and despair, and expect them to go away. In most cases, the money you're throwing goes directly into the hands of people who do the most harm with the most money.

Strangely enough, you can just throw money directly into the hands of the people who suffer poverty and hunger (rather than the middle-men) and it does actually seem to work. Here's an example from The Economist:

http://www.economist.com/news/...

"Now enough of these programmes are up and running to make a first assessment. Early results are encouraging: giving money away pulls people out of poverty, with or without conditions. Recipients of unconditional cash do not blow it on booze and brothels, as some feared. Households can absorb a surprising amount of cash and put it to good use. But conditional cash transfers still seem to work better when the poor face an array of problems beyond just a shortage of capital."

(I remember another funny quote from someone but can't find it just now, along the lines "The common characteristic of the poor is they don't have money, and it turns out that by giving them money we can change that.")

I said a highly regulated industry. Aircraft safety and maintenance is not an industry. Every time you read the word regulation, replace it with "prohibitive law", because that's what it is. There's no argument that prohibitive laws are sometimes required. Not being allowed to sell poison as food, or murder people for profit, or fly thousands of people 20,000 feet off the ground with no regards for safety, are good prohibitive laws. Why? Because there's no natural incentive based system in competition. Prohibitive laws should be used as the last possible solution to a problem - today they are so often used as the first.

Norway is not a highly regulated industry either, it's a country. Norway is used a lot as a shining example of socialism in action, but I don't think many people even know a thing about Norway. I've met people there who are extremely worried. The government increasingly owns everything. You're a Norwegian citizen and want to start an oil company? You literally can't. We saw a political mass shooting in Norway recently because of the real outrage in what's happening there. Not racial, not religious, but political. An industry in Norway that is highly regulated is the oil industry. That is an example of a highly regulated industry that has done quite well. The problem is it's unsustainable. Norway will be a very very different place when the oil dries up. Their welfare based economy can't function without it, and has nothing to fall back on. If they had exposed this system to the free market it's very probable the increased free market activity could have produced other competitive industries too back it up. Look at the United States for proof. They were the major oil producers before the 1970s, now they lead the tech industry. Had the U.S. followed the Norway model in the early 20th century, it might be a very different place today.

You're right about the fraudulent activities of these corporations, what you're wrong about is the solution. Your solution to fix the complex tax code, is to complicate it further with new regulations, and presumably new agencies to enforce them? A much simpler approach is to remove the incentive these companies have to do that. Simplify the tax code? I completely agree. While you're at it, make its rates competitive with the rest of the free world. Norway, for example, is 25%. A full 10% cheaper than the US.

You might want to look at the LBJ quote regarding certain minority voting DNC for the next 200 years.

You might want to look it up yourself.

It's widely discredited, and there's a matching quote in the reverse sentiment. Namely that the Democratic Party would lose the South for a Generation.

So which is it? Well, I will quote Abe Lincoln, and say, you should not believe everything you read on the Internet just because it has a picture next to a quote.

Or in this case, because somebody printed it in a book. I get it, you want to take a side. It's exactly what you want to believe. It makes you feel better at night.

Take a look at who ran on the GOP vs DNC for the ticket this year, four old white people vs a diverse group of 17, black, white and hispanic. But the GOP is racist!

Good idea, use the list of Presidential candidates to completely understand the political parties, man, your analysis is so deep and probing it can't possibly be questioned.

Why don' t you just pass around the chain letter where Charles Guiteau and John Wilikes Booth are both called liberals? Trow in a slice of whining about Robert Byrd, while never mentioning Strom Thurmond to make it really apparent.

I honestly don't get it, do Fauxbitarians like you fail to realize you're actually sucking the partisan teat, or are you just false-flagging to make your professed side look bad?

It's a religious viewpoint fueled by memories of colonizing North America, conveniently overlooking dozens of engineering impossibilities, and a religious foundation of sci-fi ideologies that are very attractive to a large percentage of Asperger's programmer types. They are also very often misanthropic, depressed doomsday cultists.

You'll rarely hear about colonizing Mars from real engineers, they know it's not possible. But from programmers? They think all technology just consists of sitting on your ass and typing at a keyboard:

#include warpdrive.h
#include 3d-printer-replicator.h

They vastly oversimplify the complexity of space, reduce dangers, and invent all kinds of fantasy scenarios to justify their beliefs, aka a religion.

www.distancetomars.com
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the...
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the...
http://www.centauri-dreams.org...
http://www.economist.com/blogs...
http://www.thespacereview.com/...
http://www.theatlantic.com/tec...

also confuse inquiries, which politicians in both parties do all the time, with legislation.

Nobody has written and passed a law to regulate what news Facebook shows or how it ranks its news. If any Republican tried that, he would face the wrath of Conservatives who are staunchly philosophically opposed to such government mandates of the press. Sadly, you r confusion has some merit given the number of RINOs in congress who campaign as "conservative" but then go to Washington and behave like big government Democrats who have no qualms about meddling with the press (hence the rise of the TEA Party which was a reaction to the Bush43 admin bailouts of banks and auto companies and then to Obama doubling-down on that cronyism).

For actual press and media manipulation, look to Obama who went after Fox News reporter James Rosen as a Terrorist in order to get at his phone records and e-mails to try to squash some leaks. Or you could look at Hillary for blaming her incompetence in Libya on a YouTube video maker and promising to jail him and then the dude amazingly being jailed for a year at a time when prisons in California were overcrowded and actual criminals were being let out. You could also look at the current scandal where Obama's man has explained how easy it is to fool stupid left wing journalists at places like the NYT into lying for Obama.

Presumably, most of the /. readers produce ideas and other intangible and easily copied once created things for a living. In other words, we are paid for these intangible things.

as a software developer, my work is covered by copyright. however, both copyright and patent law are absurd. software patents are the single worst form of patent because they are not for a specific implementation but rather the mere idea of a design. here's the thing, software patents didn't exist until patent law was amended to allow it. so yeah, software patents need to die forever and copyright needs to be reduced back to it's original 14 year term.

Why, then, are most people so negative on other people selling and buying them?

for the same reason i'm against international arms deals who have no quibbles selling weapons to terrorists.

The hated "patent trolls" buy ideas from people, who have them — thus rewarding our colleagues.

developers don't make patents and developers don't get rewarded when their company sells a patent. so how are our colleagues rewarded again?

What is theirs, they are entitled to reselling — at whatever price the market will bear. This is normal and perfectly ethical.

there is nothing ethical about extortion.

Yes, the weaponized litigation practiced by some of these firms is most reprehensible, but they are hardly the only ones partaking of it. Until we change our legal practices to make sure, the loser pays winner's legal costs by default, the side with a bigger legal budget will keep "winning" before entering the courtroom.

you make a good argument for abolishing patents.

But none of it supports the abolishment of the very concept of intellectual property in general and patents in particular, which is so often suggested here.

widespread abuse and a total deviation of it's intended purpose isn't reason enough?

Are these suggestions coming from fools and/or folks short of their own ideas? What's going on?

no, they are coming from people who are fed up with the bullshit idea that because someone thought of an idea before them that somehow entitles them to exclusive ownership of the idea. very few patents are actually novel and everything will be reinvented given enough time.

Presumably, most of the /. readers produce ideas and other intangible and easily copied once created things for a living. In other words, we are paid for these intangible things.

Why, then, are most people so negative on other people selling and buying them? The hated "patent trolls" buy ideas from people, who have them — thus rewarding our colleagues. What is theirs, they are entitled to reselling — at whatever price the market will bear. This is normal and perfectly ethical.

Yes, the weaponized litigation practiced by some of these firms is most reprehensible, but they are hardly the only ones partaking of it. Until we change our legal practices to make sure, the loser pays winner's legal costs by default, the side with a bigger legal budget will keep "winning" before entering the courtroom.

But none of it supports the abolishment of the very concept of intellectual property in general and patents in particular, which is so often suggested here. Are these suggestions coming from fools and/or folks short of their own ideas? What's going on?

I can't blame them either.

I think the only reasonable system possible is one which has private ownership, free and competitive enterprise, and a government providing basic services, ensuring security and regulation, and promoting fairness and equality by e.g. making sure everyone has access to health care and education.

If this is 'capitalism', I'll take it. You can also call it the Rhineland model or social market economics, or whatever you want. I want it :)

What we're seeing now is:
- wage share of income falling relative to capital's share [1]
- real median income stagnant for the past 20 years even though real average income has increased by 25% [2]. Over 50 years median income increased by 25% (not even .5% per annum), while average income increased by 100%. In other words: the economic growth since the seventies has almost entirely gone to the above-median earners: the top 1% share of income jumped from 10% in the seventies to over 20% now, with a large part of this increase going to the top 0.1% (i.e., not us).
- governments are unable to provide basic services because the rich don't pay their fair share of tax [4]
- governments are unable to provide basic services because they are unable to reform entitlement/welfare systems which are in fact transferring money from the relatively poor young to the relatively well-off old [5]
- markets aren't acutally well regulated, especially in the US, and too many industries have (near-)monopolies, causing profits to be historically way too high [6]

In Europe, 'capitalism' means that old people have either permanent contracts with generous benefits, or are already enjoying their equally generous retirement which they entered between 55 and 65. Young people have temporary contracts at stagnant wages, are unable to buy a house because of (1) inflated prices due to government meddling (green belts, mortgage interest deductability); (2) they don't have a permanent contract; and (3) new lending regulations means banks are a lot more stingy than even 10 years ago; and will not retire before 67 on a defined contribution scheme, which is pretty bad news especially given the essentially zero interest rates and government bond yields. In the US (and increasingly the UK), added to this is a nice pile of student debt. If I were young(er), I'm not sure I would think this is such a good bargain...

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
2) https://research.stlouisfed.or...
3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
5) http://www.economist.com/news/...
5) http://www.economist.com/news/...

I can't blame them either.

I think the only reasonable system possible is one which has private ownership, free and competitive enterprise, and a government providing basic services, ensuring security and regulation, and promoting fairness and equality by e.g. making sure everyone has access to health care and education.

If this is 'capitalism', I'll take it. You can also call it the Rhineland model or social market economics, or whatever you want. I want it :)

What we're seeing now is:
- wage share of income falling relative to capital's share [1]
- real median income stagnant for the past 20 years even though real average income has increased by 25% [2]. Over 50 years median income increased by 25% (not even .5% per annum), while average income increased by 100%. In other words: the economic growth since the seventies has almost entirely gone to the above-median earners: the top 1% share of income jumped from 10% in the seventies to over 20% now, with a large part of this increase going to the top 0.1% (i.e., not us).
- governments are unable to provide basic services because the rich don't pay their fair share of tax [4]
- governments are unable to provide basic services because they are unable to reform entitlement/welfare systems which are in fact transferring money from the relatively poor young to the relatively well-off old [5]
- markets aren't acutally well regulated, especially in the US, and too many industries have (near-)monopolies, causing profits to be historically way too high [6]

In Europe, 'capitalism' means that old people have either permanent contracts with generous benefits, or are already enjoying their equally generous retirement which they entered between 55 and 65. Young people have temporary contracts at stagnant wages, are unable to buy a house because of (1) inflated prices due to government meddling (green belts, mortgage interest deductability); (2) they don't have a permanent contract; and (3) new lending regulations means banks are a lot more stingy than even 10 years ago; and will not retire before 67 on a defined contribution scheme, which is pretty bad news especially given the essentially zero interest rates and government bond yields. In the US (and increasingly the UK), added to this is a nice pile of student debt. If I were young(er), I'm not sure I would think this is such a good bargain...

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
2) https://research.stlouisfed.or...
3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
5) http://www.economist.com/news/...
5) http://www.economist.com/news/...

But Europeans have more social mobility than Americans.

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21595437-america-no-less-socially-mobile-it-was-generation-ago-mobility-measured

Simply doesn't work at the moment http://www.economist.com/news/...

"On Yale University's Environmental Performance Index, the Netherlands comes 20th out of the 27 EU countries.* It scores particularly badly on the quality of its soil, where those phosphates and nitrates linger in large quantities. They seep into surface water, the quality of which is also below EU guidelines. Emissions of nitrogen monoxide and dioxide are triple the EU average. Carbon-dioxide emissions rose by 15% between 1990 and 2010. Only vast purchases of emission rights keep the Netherlands below its Kyoto targets."

Source: http://www.economist.com/node/...

There are other articles along the same lines, removing auto exhaust is certainly going to have an effect but its not even close to the largest problem that needs immediate action

Your fallacy is you keep forgetting that copyright is for a LIMITED time.

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Originally it was 17 years. Now the duration is a retarded author's lifetime + 70 years.

Holding popular culture "hostage" for the sake of greed is immature.

The fundamental problem is copyright kills creativity, yet copyright is ignored in the fashion industry.

>> Q. How many friends can I loan my DVD / BluRay to before it becomes piracy?
> All of them. It only becomes piracy if they make a copy of it.

False.

1. If copyright is still ACTIVE then the answer is: All.
2. If copyright has EXPIRED then the answer is: None.
3. You're forgetting that in some places in the world, such as Canada, Germany, etc. you can loan your _original_ to a friend, and they CAN _legally_ make a copy, and return the original partially due to a) a levy tax on blank media, and b) due to a legal loophole:

With physical media like tapes or CDs the "owner" is the person in possession of the original copy. This definition made it legit, at least in Canada, to borrow original materiel, copy it, and then return.

Thankfully coercion for the criminal tax is ignored sometimes.

> It ain't fucking rocket science, dude.

No, shit Sherlock. However, Copyright Law is NOT black and white, when the law keeps changing:

* MPAA says making a backup copy is illegal. That is, you can NO longer legally archive your original DVD's which is retarded.

* When even lending your CD to a friend is illegal (WTF!?), the whole system has become corrupt.

You are under no obligation to follow bad laws.

Coal had it's day and natural gas is currently the top dog but renewable energy sources have drastically increased lately and will eventually take the cake.

I would tend to agree with you...

The problem is the use of the word "eventually". We are now past 400 PPM CO2. 500 PPM will come and go without issue, the more interesting question is 600 PPM.

Can we stop before we hit that? I have my doubts. Part of the problem is the oceans are stuffed full of CO2 and there is a limit to what they can absorb. We keep putting more CO2 out each year.

http://www.economist.com/blogs...

Even if we hold CO2 to current levels, that doesn't actually help. Lets say we cut them by 20%! Yea us! Except that also doesn't actually help.

So what do we have to do? What would it take to drop CO2 levels in the air to 350 PPM?

We'd have to cut 90% of CO2 worldwide.

Even if we all wanted to, I don't think that would be possible and keep anything remotely like our current standard of living.

Other sources disagree with Forbes.

For example, The Economist - http://www.economist.com/blogs... - says the formula is changing back, the low point was in the 50s, ever since the ratio of inherited vs. earned wealth has tilted back towards inheritance.

And The Wall Street Journal - http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/20... - directly picks apart the Forbes article you quote.

Maybe the US or the world is not as twisted as here, I only had numbers for Germany when I posted. But the WSJ article is a good read.

The same could be said for foreign aid, disaster relief, disability support, etc.

Indeed. In fact, foreign aid is exactly what what discussed, when Madison said the words I quoted. We should not be doing any of that either — leaving it to private charities — unless, perhaps, it demonstrably benefits the national security.

By the way, Madison was talking about giving aid to French refugees from the Haitian Revolution and not all charity in general.

The refugees were the topic on the agenda that day, but he was certainly talking about benevolence in general.

It could be said that it is good for the general welfare of a country to take care of their people who have disabilities.

Under such interpretation of the term "general welfare", there is no limit on the government power at all.

Would you accept a President's claim, that torturing suspects (and I don't mean mere waterboarding) will improve the "general welfare", for example? It probably will not, but you, hopefully, would not accept it even if it would...

Check out the cover of this week's Economist magazine (as shown for EU countries).

Perhaps you failed to notice that almost every news outlet, regardless of media type, is more interested in feeding cuntish groupthink on social wankfestery than actually covering news.

Nonsense. There are plenty of good sources of news. I subscribe to The Economist, and I consider it quality journalism, with plenty of good coverage of real issues, and never a mention of the Kardashians. Most American media is garbage, but that is because that is what most people choose to consume, and they DO have a choice.

Have you seen any Americans on the list? No? No surprise either.

Please note, I don't care for anybody enriching themselves, but this abundant who's who has a glaring abundance of abstentees, too. And then there's the thing with CIA running various banks. No, this isn't to exonerate, but you do have to ask why this gets published. This is far too much data, far too little exposition for the claimed data, and the onslaught of identikit websites in various languages far too organised and cutely timed. This thing smells in multiple layers, and that is something we need to be mindful of. Yes, there will be fall-out and it is probably going to be well-deserved. But leaving it at that is simply not enough. Who's playing what manipulation game here?

we do not really know how to defend ourselves against what is happening, not without turning into savages ourselves

Of course, we do:

• Enforce your visa laws.
• Do not provide governmental assistance and deport those, who sneak in despite your efforts

There is nothing "savage" about either of the two measures. Whoever feels sympathetic to the people displaced by war or any other kind of disaster, is welcome to help them in any way they choose directly.

The current situation makes no sense at all. Ukraine, for example — itself a European country with customs quite similar to those of EU members — has been struggling to obtain a visa-free status with EU for years. Meanwhile, folks with completely different ideas of how to live (and dress and pray) are allowed to immigrate en masse.

The US is different, but no less bizarre. For example, while the government actively prosecutes rich folks coming to US to give birth, who pay for it themselves and go back, the poor folks who can't afford healthcare themselves are effectively encouraged to come (illegally), give birth and stay . South Americans cross into the US daily while the Border Control intercepts only about 61%.

To America's credit, we seem to be better at dealing with the "wonderful tapestry of diversity", but there is nothing "savage" about wanting less of it — diversity is not strength, it is an expensive luxury.

We know how to do it and there is nothing "savage" about saying "no". But our current elites just would not do it — whether due to some misplaced compassion or desire for cheaper gardeners and cherry-pickers.

They are ignorant savages.

Yeah they're actually often not at all ignorant :
http://www.economist.com/node/...
http://www.slate.com/articles/...

Did you ever consider the population had increased by 100,000,000 since the 1980s?

Please educate yourself.

IN THE 20th century the planet's population doubled twice. It will not double even once in the current century, because birth rates in much of the world have declined steeply. But the number of people over 65 is set to double within just 25 years. This shift in the structure of the population is not as momentous as the expansion that came before. But it is more than enough to reshape the world economy.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21601248-generation-old-people-about-change-global-economy-they-will-not-all-do-so

In an ideal world which meets the assumptions of the models we studied in Econ 101 you're unassailably right. However in the real world empirical evidence that a minimum wage results in less labor demanded is mixed. Why would that be? Clearly it must mean that wages are unnaturally lower than what the model regards as optimal.

As the Economist notes:

Nor is a moderate minimum wage as undesirable as neoclassical purists suggest. Unlike those in textbooks, real labour markets are not perfectly competitive.

If the real world doesn't behave as your model predicts, it's not the real world that is wrong (unless you're Austrian School). Since in this case the model's predictive results are mixed, it makes the most sense to regard it as useful but too simplistic to be absolutely reliable.

Financial advisors are running a scam. Their "advice" is designed to maximize their own fees and commissions, rather than the interest of their clients. There was an article in the Economist last week that reported a significant percentage of financial advisors have been disciplined for misconduct, but most kept their jobs, including many repeat offenders.

A software program should be able to give better advice, since at the very least, it has no conflict of interest. Heck, a dart board should give better advice than most human advisors.

Whilst you are theoretically correct, actual nor, like whom, are largely extinct in the English spoken today. As this excellent article reminds us, things move on. A lot. http://www.economist.com/news/...

So you are saying that neither neither nor nor are in common usage?

Whilst you are theoretically correct, actual nor, like whom, are largely extinct in the English spoken today. As this excellent article reminds us, things move on. A lot. http://www.economist.com/news/...

"...subsidies "are aimed at occupying more market share within the short term and is competitively unfair for the taxi industry"

But it's okay when The Chinese decide to subsidize Chinese industries to give that same unfairness against non-Chinese Industry:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
http://www.economist.com/news/...