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None of those systems (including unconstrained capitalism) are particularly good.

I think Milton Friedman summarized it best: "A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both." Focus on freedom, and equality will be a necessary result. The more you restrict the ability of people to move up or to change their own circumstances, the more stratification you will have. It's not a surprise that a lot of the recent growth in income inequality came at a time that the regulatory environment of the US literally exploded by orders of magnitude.

actually I think its more propaganda from Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Micro$oft. Its hard to buy that next-worlds-most-expensive-luxury-yacht if you have to actually pay your programmers what they are worth.

Oh that's nothing. Brace yourself. Here is the US Chamber of Commerce directory. Push the Search Directory button with no criteria. Notably on this list:

• Hong Kong - See People's Republic of China
• U.S. Department of Commerce China Gateway
• U.S.-India Business Council
• U.S.-Korean Business Council
• U.S.-Pakistan Business Council

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. It seems there's are a lot of non-American interests in the "U.S." Chamber of Commerce.

Since the US Government is spending so much on "security", they have to justify it by at least occasionally trying to catch somebody. As others have already pointed out, this has as much real world effect as putting a sign in you window telling the kids to stay off your lawn.

Many of the cyber attacks against US institutions and infrastructure are state sponsored. Picking out a few individuals and blaming them is a bad joke. The only time it might have an impact is if they go to Europe or a strong ally of the US like Australia and are arrested. I doubt they are that stupid.

Who is at fault for the horrible track record on cyber security in the US? How about the US Chamber of Commerce and the business interests it represents. Way back in 2012 the Obama administration tried to get a cyber security bill passed, and it got nowhere. It was viewed as being anti-business and government interference in private enterprise.

Democrats overwhelmingly supported the legislation, but for Republicans, it meant a stark choice between competing constituencies: national security officials and business leaders. Even after the bill's backers made the standards voluntary, the Chamber of Commerce, which spends more on lobbying than any other trade group, opposed it.

On Thursday, the Senate cyber-security bill failed to overcome a Republican-led filibuster. Analysts say the bill couldn't breach a wall of anti-regulatory sentiment that proved resistant to the dire warnings.

The measure fell short of the 60-vote threshold needed to end debate, 52 to 46, with 40 Republicans joined by six Democrats voting in support of the filibuster.

"Rarely have I been so disappointed in the Senate's failure to come to grips with a threat to our country," said Sen. Susan Collins, the ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security Committee and one of the bill's chief sponsors, who had tried in vain to sway her GOP colleagues. Just four sided with her.

Since then Obama has signed various executive orders, but they all boil down to voluntary participation outside the government. And since even government outsources the actual work, nothing has changed. That's what happened when the Office of Personal Management was hacked. The data was obtained from the contractor.

So what has the Chamber of Commerce been doing since then? How about holding CyberSecurity Summits. I'm sure that Chinese, Russian and Iranian hackers have just given up because they know how impossible it will be to penetrate US organizations after they hold a "Summit".

I don't know why you are linking to blogs, but you can read the Chamber of Commerce statements on the matter. They clearly favor comprehensive climate change legislation to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Catholic Charities -- conservative in a religious and social sense (not necessarily economically conservative) is extremely generous and funded by donations. EWTN is a conservative radio station (religiously, socially and for many shows economically) and is largely funded by donations. There is some division when it comes to Catholics, though: some seem economically conservative and others seem almost socialistic but none have advocated socialism as a governmental system or socialist policies for government because all governments that tend toward communism or socialism are anti-religious (Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba...).

The US Chamber of Commerce is partly funded by donations and fiscally conservative.

I would say that I am conservative in all three distinct ways given by AdamThor, above, and I tend to give a relatively large percentage of my income to charity; I know many others like me who give both time and money.

To be honest the internet is a threat to the digital economy --------- of the middle men, those that contribute nothing but, hmm, bullshit.

Contribute nothing? Perhaps, but consider the following (selected at random from the US Chamber of Commerce website):

The intellectual property (IP) generated by U.S. companies is critical to America's prosperity and leadership in the global economy. America's IP-intensive industries employ nearly 18 million workers, account for more than 50% of all U.S. exports, and represent 40% of the country's growth (Department of Commerce).

U.S. intellectual property is worth between $5 trillion and $5.5 trillion--more than the nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of any other country (USA for Innovation).

So yeah, you could make an argument that such companies contribute nothing, or make nothing, but you'd have to agree there's an awful lot of money and jobs (and corresponding political influence) tied up in those numbers, and without those companies doing the nothing that they do so well, a chunk of the economy goes poof.

Well said. You're posting annonymously so unfortunately you will probably not be read by most of the people here.

Thanks - sort of have to post that way as I'd be guessed in a heartbeat to one of the election software companies. I really hope more Slashdotters stop listening to the party crap and actually think. Follow the money. Think about the motivation. Ask serious, hard questions!

Consider the election fraud issue and ignore the red herring tossed out for us geeks to focus on. Ask yourself: Why do Democrats want illegals to vote? The answer is demographics. There's been enough coverage of the fact that Democrats don't replace themselves birthrate-wise, and they need a source of fresh blood. The funny thing is, so do the country club Republicans. All these fat cats also need cheap labor that can't fight back, organize, unionize and expect better compensation. Illegals. Necessary for making sure that $100 million CEO paycheck keeps coming in.

Here's some bad news: if you've ever used the expression "big business Republicans," you're going to have to update your firmware. Because of some foolish Republicans who didn't listen, the US Chamber of Commerce and several other lobbying organizations are pouring money into Democratic campaigns (see today's Wall Street Journal). The reason again is illegal immigrant labor. Better description is "cheap, powerless, expendible labor." They're pissed off that some stupid House Reps from red states dared listen to laborers and regular citizens trying to get by. It really is getting hard to tell the differences in the parties. The Dems and Country Club Republicans are now the party of big business, opposing the little guy, unions and the middle class.

Think they just want laborers for "work Americans won't do"? Nonsense. Another area they all are unified on is radically expanding H1-B visa programs so companies can replace overpaid technology workers with temporary, powerless immigrants. Think I'm full of crap? Good! Question every source. Here's what Speaker-To-Be Pelosi says about H1-B:

Representative Nancy Pelosi has voted for increases in permanent and temporary foreign work visas such as the H1-B. Sometimes foreign workers are desirable in fields where there is a lack of American workers to fill the positions.

What about the great moderate Senator McCain's position on H1-Bs?
Sen. John McCain, while on a Presidential campaign swing through California, stated that he supports a "large-scale expansion of the H1-B program". There are several bills pending in the Congress that would increase the annual cap on H1B visas, and/or create a new visa class for aliens receiving high tech degrees from U.S. universities.

That's you, Slashdotters. There's always a "lack of Americans to fill the positions" when the programmer, analyst, security engineer, network technician, etc. job pays only $22,000 a year. Yes, as boomers retire, there are issues with demographics that have to be faced, but the current H1-B expansion has nothing to do with that and ignores the reality that it forces younger educated workers into significantly lower earnings, at the same time the same generation X and Y workers are expected to pony up to nearly $40 trillion of Federal debt, social security payments to boomers and defaulted GM, Ford and airline pension programs they'll also have to fund. Care for a 70% tax on that decreasing paycheck?

Want to know why H1-B reform is picking up? It comes down to money again. The company I used to work for started to recognize that the devaluation of the dollar has pushed up the outsourcing costs (to India and the Philippines) to almost the level of contract domestic technology labor. Health insurance costs still push that over

Hi, how are you? I'm the mentally retarded child that donated money to help Tsunami victims in Asia. Private sector contributions

US Contributions Should we talk about how America responds to the aids crisis? famine? The tons of workers that volunteer time to help those in need around the world?

Based on your statement, the US responds to ANY stimuli with some type of war machine. I think the points I've made disprove your assumption and show you have a biased opinion of the USA. I'm sorry to hear that.

Coca-Cola, Gillete, the Washington Post, McDonalds, and Berkshire Hathaway are just some of the companies that do not provide quarterly earnings guidance. In addition the CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently called on businesses to end the practice in favor of better communication about long-term issues. The only reason Google seems to be singled out on this issue is because it's Slashdot.

Even Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has come out against quarterly earnings guidance, saying that it leads to companies managing to hit their numbers rather than grow a solid long-term business.

When technology first came along and swept music into our lives, it did so en mass. Further broadening the broadcasts will cost someone, that's for sure, but locking codecs into laws, linking ridiculous software patents to laws that won't expire without being smited by a judge with common sense? Here's a funny story. When Phillips and Sony finalized Red Book in 1979, it was done based off another technology source, Laserdiscs. If someone tried that today, they would be swamped by roughly 30 letters of patent infringment warnings, and if this law passes a startup that builds it's own machine (and for arguement's sake avoids stepping on toes) based on HD broadcasts would get slapped with a violation of this new ridiculous bill. (by way of bypassing the Customary Historic Use hardware regulations) Not only is this a blatant slap in the face for creativity in business, but it is also a "Pay to use our patented broadcast flag technology in your hardware or get sued for not doing so anyways!"

And just so I don't fire people up without giving them an outlet, here's some useful links. We need to hound the government EN MASS to get this proposal squashed.

Contact List
U.S. Chamber of Commerce - This law is anti-competitive for the above reasons (and likely more). Let them know.

State-sorted contact list of state senators - Can you write effectively, and do you want to make a difference? Go here and DO it. There's no reason to sit idle if you, as a citizen here, have an objection. Get others to do it too. Send them the link. Mass email it, mail in an old fashioned petition. Senators don't read Slashdot, and don't consult geeks unless it involves upgrading computers. Go here.