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I have a gut feeling that this is the judge who filed for bankruptcy. Sorry, I had to mention this.

Yeah it's a good thing no one's buying into this whole cloud thing. What a scam! It's not like the US Department of the Interior would move their 90,000 users to it, that would just be naive.

Honestly, I hadn't heard of the Sony one, either, but I did pay a bit of attention to options presented at CES.

"Oh, and they're storing every search you do and attaching it to the same ID too. Nice."

See my first point

Doesn't apply. ISPs and other search engines aren't keeping all your search history against your identity. Government can't get what doesn't exist.

"And they're tracking people with cookies, even when they set their browser not to be tracked."

I'm going to need a citation before I'll take your word on that one. They may use cookies, but...

It's not even up for debate. It's illegal. The FTC fined Google $22.5 million for doing it.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303933704577532572854142492.html

There is an apparent corruption of the word process that confused a physical process with a logical process. The process for making steel is not the same as a process describing how to manage the making of steel.

The very fact that you have to add the adjectives "physical" and "logical" to "process" undermines your argument. You've admitted that "process" is generic to both, and we can see that "process" is the word that was used.

You're not happy with patents for business methods. Many people aren't. But let's not pretend that the principal architect of the 1952 act was anyone other than man who ruled that there is no business method exception to patentable "methods" and "processes". Then, turn to the fact that even the Supreme Court is not willing to back your interpretation.

The argument concerning the meaning of the law is over and done with. If you refuse to turn to arguments concerning policy and changes to the law, you may as well change your name to Don Quixote.

I guess it really doesn't take any facts for the idiots to start clamoring about how all business' are evil.

Dunno about that. But since most ISPs have a gross margin of 90% on their broadband traffic, they can under-report by 2x and still be vastly over-charging.

stating that RIM is now Blackberry(RIM makes Blackberry phones, that's like saying Apple is now Mac/iPhone).

Please see sentence 3 of TFA: Well, it seems BlackBerry (the company formerly known as RIM). Heck it was all over the news in nearly all tech forums...

If you had a greater understanding of this subject, you would not have made such an egregious insinuation.

Good advice. You should heed it yourself...

But what are they going to fill it w/?

Congress is still going forward w/ plans to close the Federal Helium Reserve:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443545504577567102314948314.html
http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2012/12dec/helium1212.cfm

and has intentionally been pricing helium low, so as to allow it to be used in party balloons instead of MRI units, &c.

It's not rubbish. It's reality.

Take the US Fish and Game code that says that is illegal to be in possession of any plant or animal life that is prohibited in any country. You'd never believe that such an open and sweeping law would ever be used, but it has been to arrest an innocent man and send him to prison for several years for a crime he didn't even commit. (It turns out the persons he bought his supplies from didn't properly fill out their paperwork.) Source.

Or, how about the grandmother in NY who took pictures of her grandchildren in the bathtub playing and ended up going to prison for making child porn (she had her film developed at a Walmart who reported her)?

You're incredibly naive and shortsighted (as well as delusional) if you don't realize how common the misuse of law is, and how creative prosecutors get when they try and shoe-horn otherwise innocuous actions into crimes so they can get another notch on their belt and look better when it comes time for re-election / promotion.

You commit 3 felonies every day.

A few observations:

• -Last October, prior to Obama's reelection, Kimberly Strassel writing in the Wall Street journal documented Barack Obama's record of consistency and dedication to principle.
• -More recently Daniel Kessler has assessed the promises Obama made when selling Obamacare, concluding "Every one of the main claims made for the law is turning out to be false."
• -Gun and ammunition sales surged immediately following Obama's reelection.
• -We have just learned President Obama has secretly granted himself the power to assassinate U.S citezens without due process.

Some people, with reasonable cause, do not trust Obama. Their suspicions have been vindicated.

A few observations:

• -Last October, prior to Obama's reelection, Kimberly Strassel writing in the Wall Street journal documented Barack Obama's record of consistency and dedication to principle.
• -More recently Daniel Kessler has assessed the promises Obama made when selling Obamacare, concluding "Every one of the main claims made for the law is turning out to be false."
• -Gun and ammunition sales surged immediately following Obama's reelection.
• -We have just learned President Obama has secretly granted himself the power to assassinate U.S citezens without due process.

Some people, with reasonable cause, do not trust Obama. Their suspicions have been vindicated.

How soon can I browse the salary history of CEO's, Congressmen, the chairmen of the FED, ...

As far as CEO salaries are concerned, the shareholder proxy statement will tell you their total compensation. Many times just Googling it will tell you: CEO Apple: Time Cook

But the sucky part for us is that, while CEOs can get away with hundreds of a percent in compensation increases because of market forces, we peons are stuck with what is deemed "reasonable" by the HR and hiring manager. Example, back in the 90s, my contract was ending and the body shop I dealt with (doesn't matter who - they all do it) wanted to know what I wanted for a rate. I looked online and saw that a rate of $55/hr for a W2 with my experience and skills - I was at $47/hr as a W2 with the previous contract. The recruiter said, "Gee! That's a big increase!" even though THEY would be billing out at market rates.

Companies have a problem paying market rates for their employees when they go up but have no problem cutting when things get bad. We peons only take the downside risk and get none of the upside - unlike that CEOs and Congressmen - they can go and become highly paid lobbyists if they lose their election.

.dummy!!

I guarantee you that those people running FAILED banks will never work again(except at McDonalds), and those proposing the same kind of "banking" will never get promoted again.

Keep drinkin' the kool aid bud!

Case study from the Netherlands.

A couple years ago we 'had to' nationalize the remainder of the ABN bank after the credit crisis and the failed takeover by RBS, Fortis, and Santander. The shareholders received (afaik) a ton of money because there was no legislation in place as you suggest.

After this, 'we' enacted legislation to intervene in banks and nationalise them as needed. A week ago, the fourh biggest bank, SNS, failed and they were nationalised. The shareholders and "subordinated bondholders" (?) got due compensation for the price of their holdings assuming SNS would have gone bankrupt without the intervantion, i.e. nil. Normal bondholders and people with savings accounts (even above the government guaranteed 100k) don't notice anything.

This is leading to a lot of public discussion. First is a (knee jerk?) call for the responsible to be put to justice, both the bank's old management and the overseers, especially the Dutch Central Bank. Second there is a group of shareholders and especially subordinated bondholders who think that they are ripped off by the expropriation. Third is a discussion on whether the government should not have just let them gone bankrupt and deal with the results rather than the 3.7B euro bailout, even if the owners of the bank loose all their investment and the management is replaced.

As a social capitalist / rheinland model adapt with strong liberal (in the european sense, e.g. free market) leanings, I think this is a test case of how we as a culture should react to the obvious problem of private gains / public losses with the current banking sector.

Some English language sources:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323701904578277253567195598.html
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/dutch-government-takes-control-of-sns-reaal/
http://blogs.wsj.com/eurocrisis/2013/02/04/when-not-all-bonds-are-bonds/

Case study from the Netherlands.

A couple years ago we 'had to' nationalize the remainder of the ABN bank after the credit crisis and the failed takeover by RBS, Fortis, and Santander. The shareholders received (afaik) a ton of money because there was no legislation in place as you suggest.

After this, 'we' enacted legislation to intervene in banks and nationalise them as needed. A week ago, the fourh biggest bank, SNS, failed and they were nationalised. The shareholders and "subordinated bondholders" (?) got due compensation for the price of their holdings assuming SNS would have gone bankrupt without the intervantion, i.e. nil. Normal bondholders and people with savings accounts (even above the government guaranteed 100k) don't notice anything.

This is leading to a lot of public discussion. First is a (knee jerk?) call for the responsible to be put to justice, both the bank's old management and the overseers, especially the Dutch Central Bank. Second there is a group of shareholders and especially subordinated bondholders who think that they are ripped off by the expropriation. Third is a discussion on whether the government should not have just let them gone bankrupt and deal with the results rather than the 3.7B euro bailout, even if the owners of the bank loose all their investment and the management is replaced.

As a social capitalist / rheinland model adapt with strong liberal (in the european sense, e.g. free market) leanings, I think this is a test case of how we as a culture should react to the obvious problem of private gains / public losses with the current banking sector.

Some English language sources:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323701904578277253567195598.html
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/dutch-government-takes-control-of-sns-reaal/
http://blogs.wsj.com/eurocrisis/2013/02/04/when-not-all-bonds-are-bonds/

Sure, the carrier's are the spawn of the devil.

But all this (having to get your phones from a carrier instead of buying a phone outright and then buying service) isn't just their fault. It's also the fault of users, who like the ability to get a "free" phone, which is really being payed for by their monthly payments.

But, beyond that, it's the fault of the government (the Fed, specifically), for lending out free money, basically. 0 or (in a sense, even negative) interest rates. Think about what percent you get for your savings account. The price signals being given out are simply to consume, consume, consume.

The same loose money policy which was responsible for the housing bubble is also responsible for the smartphone bubble (though it's possible that's about to burst).

Then he became Secretary of Energy and it became inconvenient and he retracted it.

thanks for confirming my point.

Some of the other ideas Chu proposed were a glucose economy as part of a progressive, diverse, alternate energy plan, and was decried for practical ideas such as smart grids and painting house roofs and pavements white to reduce heating and cooling costs.

They are funding this one ongoing. Accoring to the Wall Street Journal, 80% of Tor's funding comes from the U.S. government.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324677204578185382377144280.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Good luck with that. You probably commit three federal crimes per day (as of 2009 -- they add more crimes every year) without even knowing it and your intent to be a good citizen is of no relevance.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842.html

This is about pure oppressive power. When the laws are so vague and vast that anyone can be imprisoned in the largest prison system in the world for virtually their entire life for totally random acts -- the government has absolute control over any forms of dissent.

this is why the banks are a perfect hacker target. they are full of arrogant, ignorant people whose main judgment on whether something is important or not, is what their buddies think. since their buddies are all bankers, they kind of have a myopic view of the world.

I assure you, the people who do IT here know exactly what they're doing. You're talking to one of them right now. Besides a corporate culture and management that supports and leverages their IT resources, the lawyers and reams of federal laws governing the business simply won't allow what you're proposing to happen here or at any other major financial institution in this country. Again, I cannot comment directly on specific business practices, nor can I act as a spokesperson for the business I work for, but as an IT professional, I would stake my reputation on the security here being sufficient to prevent the kind of damage discussed in the article. Is it perfect security? Of course not. It is sufficient security.

i used to work at a 'financial institution', and let me tell you, its running everything from DOS to WinNT to WinXP ---- everyone brings their cellphones and USB sticks and plugs them into their computers to charge, everyone visits any website that pops into their mind without thinking about security. machines are running all kinds of versions of IE, sometimes back to 6.0, often unpatched.

You should call the government then and step forward to collect your million dollar whistleblower bonus then. Cell phones aren't connected to the network, and as to anything being plugged in via USB... I happen to know for a fact that any unrecognized devices that are connected to any workstation generates a security alert in realtime. The offender usually has a visit by security accompanied by his/her manager in a matter of minutes. And speaking as someone who works in software packaging and deployment, There is no "all kinds" of anything on the network. As soon as a new version is approved for use (the approval process is extensive, I admit) , it is deployed to all workstations as quickly as labor resources can handle it. There is no "IE6" running anywhere in production here.

everyone visits any website that pops into their mind without thinking about security.

Which is why there are numerous proxies and realtime scanners. I'm sorry if you've been living under a rock these past eight years or so, but google "Intrusion Detection System" sometime. Internet access is something any office worker demands, and worker morale is very negatively affected if it's unavailable. This is a happy medium for most corporations. You're right that an airgapped network would be "more secure" but then so would unplugging the computer and locking it in the closet. I work with security reality, not the security fantasy you're laboring under.

nobody understands even the basic principles of computer security - and despite the banks strong profits,

"Nobody" is standing right in front of you telling you that we not only understand them, we exceed them by leaps and bounds. And in a recent article, those "strong profits" only came about in the last few months. In Fantasy Security, a large business with over 130,000 workstations spread across over 5,000 retail locations can simply push a button and revamp their security because the money is now available, but in Realworld Security, the budget is approved in January, and the plans are made the year before. Everything we're doing now is based on last year's "profits". And by profits, I mean... in the red. Something about a subprime mortgage crisis we're just getting over, I suppose.

the bank branches are full of minimum wage employees who have something like 90% turnover for a year,

Dude, lay off the cheap $3 crack. It's

The details were covered on Slashdot at the time, but here it is again: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/02/16/how-google-tracked-safari-users/

Funny I don't remember the 2nd giving you the right to bear RPGs and IEDs.

1) Nor does it withhold the right. The simple fact is that it does not mention any particular types of "arms". The 2nd Amendment doesn't "give" anybody any rights. It prohibits the federal government from infringing on a right asserted to exist naturally. The distinction matters. The entire constitution is a document limiting what the federal government can do, not "allowing" citizens certain rights.

2) Small arms fire will do quite nicely in the absence of RPGs and IEDs, if case you didn't notice. So far this year [Sep 2012] more than 50 coalition troops—most American—have been gunned down by Afghan police or soldiers, or nearly one out of every seven coalition fatalities. That is gunfire, not RPGs or IEDs. Rifle fire can penetrate a kevlar helmet, and not every part of the body (the face and the legs containing the femoral arteries, for example)

3) If civil war breaks out, it won't matter much if ownership of weapons is infringed. The fighters will acquire weapons the same way insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan and countless other places have; the same way drug lords do. It is the attempted criminalization of law abiding citizens in a time of domestic peace which is offensive.

Yahoo answers? Really?

This is the site that gave us How is babby formed? and about a million other absolutely ridiculous questions and answers. Any answer you read there is very likely to be wrong.

Try a more reputable source like this and you'll find better information.

"There was a time when wide-body international captains worked a few trips a month and earned $300,000 or more a year. Economic pressures have choked that golden goose."

"At the top end of the airline scale, Southwest Airlines has a first-year minimum of $49,572. Southwest typically hires more-experienced pilots than other airlines do, so it can demand thousands of hours in the logbook - enough to qualify to fly as a captain - from its applicants."

"On average, starting pay at major airlines is $36,283 - about double where many regional airlines start pilots, but darn low for mid-career professionals who likely take a pay cut from regional airlines to latch on to a major carrier."

"The only airlines offering higher pay right now: UPS and FedEx. Their captains max out at a minimum of more than $200,000 a year."

And all that was three years ago. The economy has gotten significantly worse in that time.

The simple fact is that there aren't many pilots making $200k a year and none of them are making $250-$500k a year as you claimed in your original post.

I think your numbers are a little high. This article indicates pilot salaries are much lower. Pilots in the U.S. can start on the low end at $16k-$23k. This comparison between factory workers and pilots would also apply to the U.S. There are a lot of factory jobs in the U.S. that pay as much as pilots get paid.

"Society still needs ditch diggers."

While my chemistry teacher in high school was just trying to emphasize how important it was to take our studies seriously, it's easy to forget that there are labor-intensive jobs out there required for society to function, and the more we focus on education, the more we deprive the labor market of people willing and able to do these jobs. Hilariously enough, while we should be automating the most tedious, backbreaking labor we instead focus on replacing jobs that require training instead...

Of course, since we live in a capitalist society that values labor over quality of living, there's always this memorable quote:

At one of our dinners, Milton recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which Milton replied: “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”

Im not clear here, unlocking is specifically for joining a new carrier, correct?

Incorrect, or at least partially so. When travelling internationally, it's not uncommon (for smart people) to hook up with a local carrier in the country they're visiting. This allows the visitor to get a country-local phone # as well as avoid issues with obscene international roaming fees.

The contract with the original carrier would still be intact (they're still getting paid), you're just temporarily using a local carrier until returning home.

A locked down phone doesn't give you that option, which leads to bill shock issues while roaming. As most contracts already have a hefty fee built-in for early cancellation - often based on the amount of time left in the contract - there's no legitimate need to load down phones.

One of the reasons the people are so poor is because they spend so much on their military.

The main reasons they are so poor is incompetence, corruption, and hardline Stalin era communist economics that even the Chinese "to get rich is glorious" Communist Party has abandoned, and their unfortunate policy of "self-reliance." They then take the results of that mess and channel resources into the military on a high priority basis, including priority for food. They could get away with it while the Soviet Union was underwriting them, but not anymore, not without an enormous price.

In the days of Chairman Mao Zedong, capitalists were considered enemies of the state. Some business owners were persecuted and most enterprises became government property.

That changed in the 1980s and in the early 1990s when paramount leader Deng Xiaoping was said to have declared that "to get rich is glorious." A 2002 constitutional amendment established that the Communist Party henceforth would consider valid the contributions of private enterprise, therefore providing a place for private entrepreneurs in the party system. -- Defying Mao, Rich Chinese Crash the Communist Party

I am all for better, more targeted ads. They will just make my search for relevant goods more accurate and efficient.

Sure they do.

? lol. What sort of expert does one have to be to recognize science? It's a fairly simple question. It's not like they give out PhDs in science recognition or something.

I can give you examples. Look at this article, written by scientists. Is it scientific? The first two paragraphs are an ad hominem. The third paragraph presents the results of observations and computer models, which is scientific. Then they close out with an appeal to authority. Since you doubt my expertise, I will let you decide whether ad hominem and appeal to authority are scientific.

Here is another example. Now it is your turn. Can you figure out which parts are being scientific, and which parts are not?

Now, it is important to remember, just because you are being scientific doesn't mean you are right. Either of those letters could be completely wrong, and some people have pointed out mistakes in the second letter. That is ok: by being scientific, eventually you will come to the right answer (or at least, a better and better answer).

? lol. What sort of expert does one have to be to recognize science? It's a fairly simple question. It's not like they give out PhDs in science recognition or something.

I can give you examples. Look at this article, written by scientists. Is it scientific? The first two paragraphs are an ad hominem. The third paragraph presents the results of observations and computer models, which is scientific. Then they close out with an appeal to authority. Since you doubt my expertise, I will let you decide whether ad hominem and appeal to authority are scientific.

Here is another example. Now it is your turn. Can you figure out which parts are being scientific, and which parts are not?

Now, it is important to remember, just because you are being scientific doesn't mean you are right. Either of those letters could be completely wrong, and some people have pointed out mistakes in the second letter. That is ok: by being scientific, eventually you will come to the right answer (or at least, a better and better answer).

Then you have an inability to read
Australia Violent crime rose when guns became more controled (note snopes does not debunk this and doesn't even address it so stop citing it as a response) http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=17847/
England gun crime rose 35% as of 2003 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-154307/Gun-crime-soars-35.html/
and had doubled as of 2012 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323777204578195470446855466.html/

The subtitle of that article said it, but for some reason they left it out of the body. Here's a better article.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914805204099085.html

the cable internet companies don't make much money which is what this article is about

O, RLY?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204792404577224844011375490.html

That seems extremely profitable to me.

What's the cost of the hostage situation in Algeria? You know, at the BP plant? And who is paying? For once the Wall Street Journal article does not delve into the economics at all.

http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2013/01/17/donald-trump-buys-shares-of-boeing-a-great-company/

Someone is getting rich out of this

And the SEC is starting to investigate

Link to the full 424 page paper is here.

Link to the (probably paywalled) WSJ article is here although the Yahoo version in the summary above appears to be exactly the same.

Same thing happened in India also last month - http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/11/19/facebook-comment-tests-freedom-of-speech-in-india/

Disability is way up in USA, people are transferred from the EI to disability. It is a strange thing, the manufacturing in USA is at lowest levels in centuries, so is farming and fishing and yet there are all these "disabled" people. Curious. I see this is a way for the government to fudge the numbers on unemployment and nothing else.

Foodstamp program is now known under a snappy name.... SNAP! You don't need actual stamps, there is no more stigma attached to it, it's advertised as a way to improve your life and you pay with a debit card so nobody knows you are using food stamps. It's no longer a shameful act to be subsidised that way (as it used to be when the program started). Of-course that subsidy is part of the overall agriculture subsidy, it should all be ended.

As to cell phones, actually government gives out free cell phones. People hoard them, probably sell them to criminals who need phones they can get without any registration.

The problems that I see are that labor is not appreciated in the US any more.

- clearly you are not seeing anything, it's not labour that's not appreciated, it's savings and capital investment that's not appreciated. Labour in USA? What labour in USA? In USA people now expect to tax top few percent more than ever before and to live off of a subsidy. Of-course it's immoral to steal from minority by vote of majority, it's unconstitutional, it's not a rules based society when the majority can simply impose their will upon a minority with threat of gov't violence. But hey, it's democracy.

Productivity in the US has steadily increased over the past 40 years, but real wages have been stagnant.

- productivity that you are talking about, do you know what it means?

The Walmart owners are more productive. Companies that still produce stuff are more productive, especially if they find more ways to cut costs and produce more with less (like Apple does). But what does that have to do with any general worker in USA?

A USA based worker is LESS productive than ever because of all that government that he votes for and which makes him less productive. A USA worker is less productive, there are more and more government rules around employment, an employer can't hire, can't fire people the way he wants to. Never mind just the minimum wage nonsense, it's about all the expectations of how people must be hired, how they can't be fired, what kind of benefits they must get, how the employer is liable for anything now, including behaviour of other employees, etc.etc.

If the workers aren't getting the benefits of increased productivity, then who is?

- those who actually are more productive. A company like Apple IS more productive because it found ways to cut costs and do more with less. So the investors, owners, management of the company are more productive.

You don't understand money and you don't understand productivity either. Productivity is a function of applying capital investment to a worker. So if a worker gets a new tool he can do more than before, that's what makes him more productive. A person with an excavator is much more productive than a person with a shovel. The difference is the capital investment into the excavator and training.

How do the companies become more productive? They figure out ways to do more with less, they use their savings and capital investments abroad, where governments are not as involved in employment regulations, that's how.

As to earned vs unearned income, it's a freaking misnomer that income is 'unearned'. Real investing is hard work. Putting money into a stock market without learning e

You are living in a fantasy world. The top 2% of USA income earners pay much more taxes than what can be reasonably construed as 'fair share', much more than the similar top income earners even paid when top nominal tax rate was 91%.

You are paying basically nothing compared to the top income earners and it's funny that you are saying that you are getting nothing from government for all the taxes that the top 2% pay. If you think you are getting nothing then the top 2% have a much worse deal than you, they are paying all those taxes (41.5% of all income taxes) and they are not getting more than you are.

They are pulling the wagon, you are riding in it.

sig

You are an immoral person, you have no problems using threat of government violence to discriminate against a minority as long as you are not that minority and you benefit from that discrimination.

That's what "progressive taxes" actually means: discrimination, mobocracy.

The top 2% of people today pay much more than their so called "fair share", especially given the fact that they are the ones that actually create most of the economic activity. They are disproportionately taxed even when compared to the years of American history when top tax rates were as ridiculous as 91%.

So long as we have an income tax (that's another conversation...) I say with a resounding YES: the ultra-rich (>10 million "net worth") should pay much more (as a percentage) of their income in taxes than do the working poor ($0 "net worth"). It's called progressive taxation, and it's ABSOLUTELY necessary so long as there is such a HUGE chasm between the top 0.1% and the bottom 50%, financially speaking. Granted, the culture of greed that dug that chasm is a social issue, and cannot be solved politically. Progressive taxation is treating the symptom.

That's great. Just one problem, the US tax system is already the most progressive - two different studies.

U.S. Taxes Really Are Unusually Progressive

Income taxes in America are more progressive than in other rich countries--according to an authoritiative official study which, to my knowledge, has not been contradicted. The OECD's report "Growing Unequal", on poverty and inequality in industrial countries, includes a table that provides two measures of income tax progressivity in 2005. This is evidently the source of de Rugy's numbers. Here they are in an excel file. According to one measure, America's income taxes were the most progressive of the 24 countries in the sample, except for Ireland. According to the other, they were the most progressive full stop. (A more recent OECD report, "Divided We Stand", uses different data, a smaller sample of countries and a different measure of progressivity: the results are similar.) . . . more

America has industrialized world’s most progressive income tax, says The Tax Foundation

America leads the world in many fields, but for those keeping score, the nation apparently has yet another superlative to add to its column. According to The Tax Foundation, the U.S. currently can lay claim to having the most progressive income tax among all industrialized nations.

In the mid-2000s, the top 10 percent of households in the U.S. were responsible for 45.1 percent of all income tax revenues, according to numbers compiled by the foundation. That same decile, however, only earned 33.5 percent of the market income – which makes the ratio of income tax paid to market income earned the highest of any industrialized country, at a whopping 1.35. For comparison, France stands at 1.10, Belgium at 0.94 and Switzerland at 0.89.

American Enterprise Institute economist Alan Viard told The Daily Caller that while America’s tax code is extremely progressive, it is not as redistributive as many other nations because the overall tax system is smaller.

“As a country imposes a larger volume of taxes and as the public sector gets bigger, it is almost certain that they are not going to remain as progressive in how they raise their revenue,” Viard said. “Progressivity has certain economic costs. It tends to undermine incentives to work and to save It will be more and more costly for a country to stay that progressive as their tax system gets bigger. ” . . . more

Will raising taxes pull in more revenue? Not necessarily.

Why 70% Tax Rates Won't Work

The intelligentsia of the Democratic Party is growing increasingly enthusiastic about raising the highest federal income tax rates to 70% or more. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich took the lead in February, pro

What was it that Mitt Romney said he paid? 15%? Their tax rate might be 35% but they're not paying 35%

This is an argument about the share of total tax revenue, not the share of income paid in tax. Those aren't quite the same thing. I can't find a reference for the 1% share of tax revenue, but WSJ claims that the top 5% pay 40% of total tax revenue and receive 25% of total income, so it's at least plausible that the 1% are paying tax in proportion to their income.

They also claim that average 1%-er pays a little under 29% of income in taxes. Mitt Romney's tax rate is low even by the standards of the very rich.

(And, yeah, the WSJ does have a bit of a slant here, but that's mostly in what they report on and how they choose to spin it; the actual statistics in the journal are usually pretty good.)

If that is true, and the only factor, then how did the Democrats lose control of the House? Democrats had control of the House for 40 years, and lost it during the Clinton administration . I'm sure you've heard of that famous and popular Democratic president? If you are going to try to claim that the Democrats didn't structure districts to their advantage, would you at least have the common decency to throw up a little as you type it?

The GOP has now won control of the House in eight of the past 10 congressional elections, dating back to 1994. When I began following politics it seemed like that would never happen. Republicans failed to win a majority in the House in the 20 elections between 1954 and 1992. Political scientists wrote articles about how the Democrats would always have a lock on the House. . . more

More American voted for Democrats than for Republicans in the house. The only reason the kept the house is because of gerrymandering.

The author of that article you link to is also either badly confused, or trying to mislead the reader. Elections for representatives in the House are on a per-district basis only, it isn't based on some sort of national tally. A heavy Democratic party vote in a couple of large states could easily result in an aggregate house vote count nationally for Democrats well above that for Republicans, but that is meaningless nationally since each district votes to elect its own representative. A million to 1 Democratic votes in San Francisco, California, doesn't help a Democrat running in Reno, Nevada.

There is a lot more to it than that. Of course, even then it isn't quite so fun when the shoe is on the other foot, it is?

Michael Barone: Republicans Find Refuge in the House

The GOP has now won control of the House in eight of the past 10 congressional elections, dating back to 1994. When I began following politics it seemed like that would never happen. Republicans failed to win a majority in the House in the 20 elections between 1954 and 1992. Political scientists wrote articles about how the Democrats would always have a lock on the House. . .

Democrats seem to have a structural advantage these days in the Electoral College. . .

The House is another matter. Here the Republicans have some structural advantages which, with good luck, have given them House majorities eight of the last 10 times. That is important, because since the mid-1990s Americans have become straight-ticket voters, seldom voting for candidates of different parties.

One structural advantage is demographic. Democratic voters tend to be clustered in black, Latino and gentry-liberal neighborhoods in metropolitan areas. Republican voters are more spread out. In 2008, Mr. Obama carried 28 congressional districts with more than 80% of the vote. John McCain carried zero congressional districts by that margin; Mr. Romney may have gotten that much in a couple of districts in Utah.

Those heavily Democratic neighborhoods contribute to the landslide margins candidate Obama has won in states like California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Illinois. But their voters don't do as much to elect Democratic House members as they would if they were spread randomly through the population. In addition, many such areas have been losing population and therefore representation in the House.

On top of this is another Republican structural advantage: the Voting Rights Act. The prevailing interpretation of this otherwise benign law is that redistricters must maximize the number of "majority-minority" congressional districts. That means packing blacks and Latinos into certain districts and keeping them out of adjacent districts that tend to go Republican. This results in districts with grotesque and elongated boundaries to fit the bill of majority-minority. . .

A third Republican structural advantage used to belong to the Democrats: the South. . . . The Solid South helped Democrats maintain House majorities in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. . . But as the Democratic Party became more liberal, white Southerners started voting Republican for president in the 1960s, and in the straight-ticket 1990s Republicans replaced white Southern Democrats in droves. . . more

More American voted for Democrats than for Republicans in the house. The only reason the kept the house is because of gerrymandering.

The author of that article you link to is also either badly confused, or trying to mislead the reader. Elections for representatives in the House are on a per-district basis only, it isn't based on some sort of national tally. A heavy Democratic party vote in a couple of large states could easily result in an aggregate house vote count nationally for Democrats well above that for Republicans, but that is meaningless nationally since each district votes to elect its own representative. A million to 1 Democratic votes in San Francisco, California, doesn't help a Democrat running in Reno, Nevada.

There is a lot more to it than that. Of course, even then it isn't quite so fun when the shoe is on the other foot, it is?

Michael Barone: Republicans Find Refuge in the House

The GOP has now won control of the House in eight of the past 10 congressional elections, dating back to 1994. When I began following politics it seemed like that would never happen. Republicans failed to win a majority in the House in the 20 elections between 1954 and 1992. Political scientists wrote articles about how the Democrats would always have a lock on the House. . .

Democrats seem to have a structural advantage these days in the Electoral College. . .

The House is another matter. Here the Republicans have some structural advantages which, with good luck, have given them House majorities eight of the last 10 times. That is important, because since the mid-1990s Americans have become straight-ticket voters, seldom voting for candidates of different parties.

One structural advantage is demographic. Democratic voters tend to be clustered in black, Latino and gentry-liberal neighborhoods in metropolitan areas. Republican voters are more spread out. In 2008, Mr. Obama carried 28 congressional districts with more than 80% of the vote. John McCain carried zero congressional districts by that margin; Mr. Romney may have gotten that much in a couple of districts in Utah.

Those heavily Democratic neighborhoods contribute to the landslide margins candidate Obama has won in states like California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Illinois. But their voters don't do as much to elect Democratic House members as they would if they were spread randomly through the population. In addition, many such areas have been losing population and therefore representation in the House.

On top of this is another Republican structural advantage: the Voting Rights Act. The prevailing interpretation of this otherwise benign law is that redistricters must maximize the number of "majority-minority" congressional districts. That means packing blacks and Latinos into certain districts and keeping them out of adjacent districts that tend to go Republican. This results in districts with grotesque and elongated boundaries to fit the bill of majority-minority. . .

A third Republican structural advantage used to belong to the Democrats: the South. . . . The Solid South helped Democrats maintain House majorities in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. . . But as the Democratic Party became more liberal, white Southerners started voting Republican for president in the 1960s, and in the straight-ticket 1990s Republicans replaced white Southern Democrats in droves. . . more

yeah, we might actually get something tangible for our money if we did that, and how would the bankers feel?

hey, actually, let's just knock off a tenth of a basis point on the interest if Europe just gives us their old signs. it's not like we'll see any of it anyway.

Imitation firearms only include guns that fire pellets or guns that fire blanks, blanks are quite deadly at close range and well airguns were used to conquer the Louisiana purchase so I think it's quite well established that they're deadly (as well as battle Napoleon). Those stats are both from before and after the gunlaw changes, so you'd have to remove them from both sets of numbers if you want to remove their "skew", and according to the wall street journal,, gun laws in australia were quite strict at the time of the massacre. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323777204578195470446855466.html

This move seems totally contrary to Google's corporate ethos thus far

I have to beg to differ; it may go against what they've said (and I've been exercising my sarcasm rights over the whole "don't be evil" thing for years, and catching much grief for it here on Slashdot), but their actions have been putting the lie to that mantra for a long time. It's just getting more obvious and harder for their fans to defend.

I didn't see this (There's no avoiding Google+) reported on Slashdot, but I may have missed it. (Or maybe nobody thought it was particularly interesting.) Wall Street Journal talks about how Google+ has been a non-starter so far, so now Google are wielding their might and forcing people to sign up for Google+ accounts as they use other Google services. Create a GMail, YouTube, Zagat review, etc., account - automatically get a public by default Google+ page.

I've posted several times on Slashdot about how and why I use Yahoo Mail, Yahoo search, MapQuest or Bing maps, etc. Part of it is convenience and preference - I like Yahoo Mail and have had the same account for, oh, 15 years or so now - but another major part of it is because I don't trust Google. And I'm increasingly glad that I have almost ceased using Google for the last two or three years.

The US government isn't spending 40% of the GDP.

Yes it is. OECD lists US government spending as around 40% of GDP:

http://tinyurl.com/ad6r4nw

So does Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending

The numbers you're quoting our specific acts by individiual policies. There is a general baseline that the article doesn't cover but is neither here nor there at this point.

I pointed you to an article on fiscal multipliers; it provides both general ranges across all policies and specific values. If you want a nice discussion of aggregate impact of fiscal multipliers, look here:

http://www.voxeu.org/article/determining-size-fiscal-multiplier

Note that even in the best of cases, that rises only to about 1.6.

Here is a good discussion in the context of US policy:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258618204604599.html

You've provided no data to support your ludicrously implausible claims. I think it's clear you don't really know what you're talking about.