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NYT: IBM PC Division Sold To Advance China's Goals
theodp writes "Back in 2005, Wharton's Michael Useem speculated that IBM's sale of its PC Division to Lenovo was more about ingratiating Big Blue with the Chinese government than getting top dollar for the assets. 'Government relationships are key in China,' Useem explained. Now, a NY Times article on outgoing IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano seems to confirm that Useem's analysis was spot-on. From the NYT article: 'In 2004, I.B.M. sold its PC business to Lenovo of China. Mr. Palmisano says he deflected overtures from Dell and private equity firms, preferring the sale to a company in China for strategic reasons: the Chinese government wants its corporations to expand globally, and by aiding that national goal, I.B.M. enhanced its stature in the lucrative Chinese market, where the government still steers business.'"
For once, a CEO thought beyond the next quarterly report. Be careful what you complain about.
So. You suggest to complain about neither China, nor CEOs, nor about IBM. You're taking the fun away from my daily engineer's life !
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
There's a book by Roger L. Martin called Fixing The Game which argues that the problem with large businesses today is that they are focused on the expectation market--maximizing shareholder value--as opposed to the real market--making good products and increasing customer satisfaction. For example, Enron was so focused on shareholder value that they manipulated revenues to increase stock price, while Apple was so focused on products that Steve Jobs was infamously dismissive the importance of his company's shareholders and joked that the one thing that kept him up at night was shareholder meetings.
Hey, they helped a communist tyranny. Feel free to complain about that.
They're implying that IBM took less money for it's asset to curry favor with the chinese. That would only make sense if IBM got more money then the difference between the two payments over time as a result of that good will.
Has that happened? I don't know... I think American business might have been too brash in it's oriental investments. Most of them seem to be backfiring in alarming ways. We seem to have taught our chinese business contacts just well enough to start competing with us directly where before our technological edge made that impossible.
In any case, it seems like many of the US multinationals have woken up to the issue. We'll see what happens.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Lenovo laptops are essentially same as the old IBM laptops. There has been zero progress... Unless you count the degeneration of the quality, that is. Nowadays running Apple & HP EliteBook, and I think they are both a lot better than what Lenovo has to offer.
Palmisano was not well liked within IBM. He was after all the guy who told IBM's US employees they could take a job in the third-world at third-world wages or stay in the US and get sacked. For this Palmisano will be forever despised.
http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/ibms-palmisano-techs-slumdog-millionaire-257
Sure, the business press has wet dreams about Palmisano and Gerstner who picked him as his successor:
http://www.forbes.com/2011/01/03/forbes-india-person-of-the-year-sam-palisan-ibm.html
But the truth was really quite ugly. You won't read this in Forbes, but you will read it in - of all places - the reader feedback at Amazon:
It is strangely ironic that, after doing his best to suppress all negative communication within IBM, it should be the reader feedback on amazon.com that alerts Gerstner to what the world at large really thinks of him.
In the last five years, Gerstner has reaped a profit of [$$$] million in the sale of awarded stock options. These stock options were awarded while he held the joint positions of IBM CEO and chairman. During that period, IBM spent [$$$] billion buying back its own stock to drive the price up so that executives could cash out at handsome profits. This is money that could have been spent on developing new products, attracting new talent and honoring promises made to employees and retirees.
Where did all that money come from?
Not from profit growth, which remained flat at about 2 percent per year when you strip out the retirees' pension fund surplus "vapor profits."
It came from selling off large chunks of the company and its assets, laying off tens of thousands of employees and slashing pension and health care benefits for employees and retirees. In 2002 alone, IBM has quietly cut 15,000 jobs. Health benefits, which were promised "free for life," now cost retirees a substantial amount of their pensions. Only one minuscule cost-of-living increase has been awarded pension recipients in the past 11 years.
The greed doesn't stop there. Now, Lou had not only been retained as chairman of the board, he has been awarded a 10-year consulting contract, with fully paid expenses at his previous salary of $2 million a year. These expenses have been conservatively estimated to be $100,000 annually.
Save IBM? More like turning it into just another money grubbing corporation while lining his pockets. I would love to see a rebuttal book. God help us all if Lou's management methods become benchmarks for future corporate leaders.
http://www.amazon.com/Elephants-Dance-Inside-Historic-Turnaround/product-reviews/0060523794/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt/185-5256096-7601530?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
For once, a CEO thought beyond the next quarterly report. Be careful what you complain about.
Hey, he's only following the example set by the US government.
The only difference is that the US government is selling the entire nation to the Chinese in the form of borrowing/debt to finance out of control spending on programs designed to produce citizens dependent on government for survival in order to help insure election/reelection with promises of more "free stuff", while simultaneously increasing their power over the populace in general through increasing control of ever more aspects of everyday life with ever-more intrusive and choice-limiting laws & regulations, government control of entire sectors of the economy, and the constant threat of removal of the "free stuff".
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
market" .............
so in the end didnt they end up selling it for top dollar ?
Read radical news here
I think that, at this point, China is fascist, not communist.
Although US and Chinese companies do business with each other, I'm not really sure that they trust each other. And both sides have good reasons for being so. US companies want access to a growth market, but are wary of their investments in a country whose government and legal system don't function like they are used to elsewhere. China is fearful that foreign companies want to get in to exploit their market and resources, while cutting not fostering local business growth.
But at the moment, business and government go hand-in-hand in China: you can't deal with one, without automatically dealing with the other. So yes, if IBM wanted to dump their PC business anyway, because it is now a commodity business, why not use it as a pawn it a greater game with China?
However, IBM still makes high end Intel blade servers. What will happen when Lenovo starts to wander up into that end of the market?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
IBM (and it's CEO), taking notice of the business climate in another country, accepted less short-term cash on an acquisition in order to help promote long-term sales. This is exactly the sort of decisions a CEO is paid to make; this is what we want them to do!
The word is totalitarian.
Communism does not, has not ever, nor will it ever exist.
The best way to fight communism is by bringing them over to your side and inviting them to participate in a market economy. Beats nuking people any day of the week.
Whatever the reason, the silver lining is they didn't sell to Dell. That would have been the worst possible outcome for the Thinkpad line. *shudder*
Except for the branding advantage of having a PC division, the blade market has nothing to do with the PC market. (And, that branding advantage was small enough that IBM took some cash and didn't look back when dumping it.) The design and manufacture of PC's has little to do with all but the lowest-end servers, except for the fact that they happen to use the same CPU instruction set. But motherboard engineers practically grow on trees, so that isn't much of an advantage at all.
I'm not saying Lenovo won't ever enter the server business, just that their acquisition of IBM's PC business doesn't provide them any technical skills enabling them to do so.
Whoa whoa whoa, first off, IBM did this years before Obama spent all the money on companies which the people needed to exist or they would totally rely on the government for money and help. This of course after his predecessor cut taxes on the rich, made banks give loans to people who couldn't pay them off, oh and that little "war" we had over in the Middle East, which we are still in even if we aren't in Iraq some what, 10 years later? China only owns us on paper, and what are they gunna do about it
I have to ask, are you a hipster Strat? You have that I like it, but only if I'm the only one that likes it
I think IBM did this so they would get kickbacks from the corrupt Chinese government. It's in the article and in the blurb: "I.B.M. enhanced its stature in the lucrative Chinese market, where the government still steers business."
Given the way many large US based multinational companies behave, they routinely put their corporate interests at odds with the US government and economy. They ship as many jobs as they can overseas and doge taxes. GE paid no federal income tax last year. GM invested in it's China operations while it was in a bankruptcy funded by the US Treasury.
But since they are still "US" corporations they don't get the kind of scrutiny that would be required if they were not US based. It would be a lot more realistic to recognize that they have no meaningful commitment to the US and they act on their narrowly perceived economic goals. It would be better for the country if their access to the US political establishment was limited, based on how their economic interests driven by non-US governments.
Why is Snark Required?
How about I complain about Corporate America and Corporate Globe whoring themselves to China?
Few if any corporations owe their past successes to China. These prostitutes are selling technology discovered by mostly the Western world, and Russia, and some from the third world to China for a short term profit. Yes, 5 years or 10 years is short term. China is the only frigging entity in the world with a long term goal. Assassin's mace.
Oh, but someone will post here again, telling me that's just a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theory my ass - we see it happening before our very eyes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_programme
It is their goal to dominate the United States economically, politically, and militarily. And, IBM sells out to China, just as they sold out to the Nazi's before the United States declared war on them.
HEY, IBM!! You owe your current economic position and success to the west!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Communism has existed. In communes. It can actually work, if you just want to run a village. It just scales really, really poorly.
IBM the behemoth of the computer industry. Intel and hynex recently license IBM's fast-track memory technology. HP's and its failed memresistor technology tries to claim ownership of fast-track technology. Solid-state drive using Flash are a huge disaster, so implement IBM's fast-track technology as so as possible.{Mr I Own Everything, invest 10 billion dollars. Why?}
Few if any corporations owe their past successes to China.
Except, maybe, the United States' Government...
Are you attempting to sell us a book from iTunes? This is a brilliant marketing strategy by Apple. They send Bonch in to forums to sell books on iTunes by trying to link certain books on iTunes back to a topic of conversation on a forum/social discussion site. Brilliant but very sleazy indeed.
Is the outrage because the country is China? Every laptop I've bought in the past five years have come from China.
I think the biggest fear we have is that China is now going to create companies that as the article says are global players. We have constantly dismissed China as a cheap labor pool where work would vanish if the wages went up, then as backstabbing reverse-engineers who dare betray the sacred trust of US companies of moving their operations to China for profit, and then to mindless cultural inferiors where American exceptionalism would outshine and blaze away anything the Chinese could do. Now, we're fighting the fear that Chinese could become global players with these thinly-veiled outrage stories.
As they used to say in the 80s movies, "are you afraid of a little competition?"
Not sure a significant enough amount of North American multinationals have woken up to the issue. Many business are crawling all over themselves to get a piece of the "emerging China market" and that is their focus while completely ignoring the fact that all China wants to do is learn so it can create its own to compete with them. I see it didn't go good for Google. It won't go good for Bing. GMs marketshare in China is dismal. And on and on. US companies will never gain a foothold in China unless they have a worldwide monopoly such as Windows. And even with Windows its mostly bootleg versions that MS did not get any $ for. The only exception I can think of is Boeing and even their tech is on the list for homeland replication. Once they start building big jets then Boeing is done.
Racetrack not Fast-track..
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/23859.wss
Nope. I have been writing here that IBM, GE, Dell, etc. are nothing but immoral companies. Heck, pointed out about the IBM's cooperation with NAZIs, and yet we get fools that scream that it was a one time thing. Most of AMerica's large businesses are worthless POS. What amazes me, is that most of the R&D that America paid for, is simply being handed over to China, but IBM wants America to pay them to do a super computer here, but have it built in China.
Just worthless POSs at IBM. I am glad that I am out of there now.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The IBM home page tells me about IBM's "responsibility" regarding things like:
societal issues
the environment
education
health
culture
(http://www.ibm.com/ibm/responsibility/index.html -- also click the links on the left, for example about politics)
But what's more important, is how to be good friends with chinese dictators who don't give a shit about any of the topics mentioned above, so as to make more $$$ by doing business with china.
I doubt that acting like this is going to turn this world into a "smarter planet".
I linked to the iTunes Preview web page because the full description is right at the top unlike Amazon, ya psycho.
You think that selling off you company piece by piece to the Chinese gov. is thinking strategically? Seriously?
The problem with this whole topic is that it seems to imply that China is different that other countries... in particular that the US government doesn't do basically the same thing by different methods. The most egregious example is of course the bank bailout, where the US government gave US banks trillions of dollars to cover the losses they incurred in the course of their own freely chosen business activities. Another example would be how the US government continues to buy billions of dollars of airplanes from US companies (Boeing in particular) mostly as a way of keeping people employed and not because there is any real need. So, I would say that any reasonably objective person would say the US government still steers business too.
if your life is such a big joke then why should I care?
Shame that someone in the US Government didnt smack down Big Blue for treason.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
WTH are you talking about? GM is perhaps the biggest of the China success stories.
"GM sold about 1.83 million vehicles in China last year [versus] 2.07 million cars and trucks in the U.S. But GM, already the leader in China with 13.4% of the market, is still gaining share. GM's market share was 11.3% in 2008."
http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/12/news/companies/gm_us_china_salesrace/index.htm
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I read Strat's post and found myself agreeing, kind of, and then I read yours and realized it's really a matter of Occam's razor. The chinese government is corrupt, the chinese government controls (at least to a degree) the chinese market, and IBM wants to make some *money*. Thanks for bringing me back from the edge!
Communism depends heavily on the people picking up the slack being within striking distance of the slackers.
paintball
>For once, a CEO thought beyond the next quarterly report. Be careful what you complain about.
Clever point about the longterm. I feel a bit ambivalent about this, since the longterm thingy may be good. The doing business with the oppressive regime is bad.
This reminds me of IBM selling the gassingadministrationsystems (or whatchamacallit) to the Nazis...
We should perhaps not blame the corporations, though, but also not expect any sort of decency from them. The solution should instead be outlawing genocide of millions and dictatorial oppression of other forms and other nastiness and the aiding of said nastiness.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Do it publicly, loudly, and in a way that their lobbyists can't object to witnessing.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
>Communism has existed. In communes. It can actually work, if you just want to run a village. It just scales really, really poorly.
If only there was some sort of magical machines to help us scale and decentralize information and decisions, so that utopia could be administered without hierarchy and more efficiently than a bunch of mentally ill despots/tyrants could muster a hundred years ago...
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Whoa whoa whoa, first off, IBM did this years before Obama...
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the things I described have only occurred recently, when in fact it's been a trend that has been accelerating for many decades.
...before Obama spent all the money on companies which the people needed to exist or they would totally rely on the government for money and help.
Wait, what? By that logic the people are made dependent on the government either way. Having the government direct the "money and help" through a third party doesn't change anything, except for increasing the levels of corruption in both the government and private sector. Never mind the fact that the government has no business giving/loaning taxpayer money to private business simply to prop them up if they would otherwise not exist. Doing so distorts and eventually destroys the free market and twists capitalism into a corrupt and extremely destructive amalgam of socialism and fascism.
"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy. - Thomas Jefferson"
A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take everything you have. - Thomas Jefferson
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. - Thomas Jefferson
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson
Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. - James Madison
The Utopian schemes of re-distribution of the wealth...are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. - Samuel Adams
The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. - Benjamin Franklin
In the main it will be found that a power over a man's support (salary) is a power over his will. - Alexander Hamilton
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
If you were aware of world history as it relates to China and western countries, you would know that "the west" owes its advancing to the industrial revolution and beyond directly to Chinese technologies (e.g., Paper, gunpowder, compass, and printing). So that China is going to inevitably dominate the West yet again is simply a return to the historical norm.
And that China is getting access to western technologies to do so is entirely justified based on history.
America would have probably been better off if the nazis would have finish destroying England. Now the U.K. controls every fuking thing in the world, and if your not in the family you'll be a slave grazing on poisonous food.
Neutralizing China economically or militarily is the only way to do it while denying them any foothold in the US.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Under communism as Marx thought it, everyone works according to their ability: you don't have the choice to slack off by allowing your capital to "work for you".
It's the essence of capitalism that you can slack off providing you have enough money and don't do really stupid things with it. In theory you are rewarded for wisely investing your money in businesses which deliver what people want. In practice you are rewarded for whatever method you find to increase your personal wealth, regardless of how much effort you put in or who benefits.
The average worker is better off in a commune / co-operative / partnership because he is working with people who want to work with him and share the load, not being seen as a tool to exploit. The bitter capitalist worker might see this worker as slacking because he is bitter that others do not have to work as hard as him. But he should be striving for better conditions for himself rather than pathetically allowing him to be divided from those sharing his interests, and conquered.
Since it is a mistake to allow people to aid and abet a foreign country that is actively hostile to the US - whether it is China or like-minded Third World countries.
My sig isn't there just for show, that's what I actually believe.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I read Strat's post and found myself agreeing, kind of, and then I read yours and realized it's really a matter of Occam's razor. The chinese government is corrupt, the chinese government controls (at least to a degree) the chinese market, and IBM wants to make some *money*. Thanks for bringing me back from the edge!
I would argue that IBM shares the same goals as those in power in the US government, so the comparison is valid. Those goals being power and wealth, which are simply two faces of the same coin. If you have plenty of one, you can obtain the other.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Hola
Ave you seen my partridge in a pear tree?
Section8
China is the natural master of Asia. The US has meddled there for no reason except missionary zeal.
Cede Asia to China and we have no quarrel.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Be careful with those Founding Fathers quotes, or people will label you a Libertarian, Crank, or Ronulan.
"cede poland to germany and we have no quarrel"
Fixed that for you.
Fiscal policy is one way to direct growth in the economy. Infrastructure projects, especially, provide the most bang for the buck in terms of value for money. The only problem is that infrastructure tend to require maintenance which means future funding is in essence commited. Social programs are also useful to ensure what is most fairly termed as equality of opportunity, to help alieviate the inherent unfairness of wealth distribution. It is not fair, as a matter of fact, to deny opportunity of advancement due to ones situation at birth. This is why we spend money on things like education so that we have a more inclusive society where advancement is based on merit, and not solely on whether you have the means to pay for advancement.
Monetary policy is another way to direct growth although it tends to result in bubbles when the interest rates are very low levels to spur investments mainly fueled by debt. When money is essentially cheap, banks and investers tend to do stupid things with all this surplus cash flowing around - like making mortgages to people who they know can't afford it (and then selling the mortgages off at a profit to relieve themselves of any risk), or private equity making leveraged buyouts incurring a large debt on the target company which brings on unsustainable interest payments when the money markets dry up.
Back to fiscal policy, the problem with the US is not that it is spending too much (compared to other advanced economies). It is mosty because public spending in the US is notoriously poor value. For example, the US spends ~8% of GDP on just Medicare and Medicaid, covering only a small proportion of the population. In total the US spends nearly 16% of GDP on heathcare. The UK for example, spends only 8% on its healthcare system that covers everybody, at all ages.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Actually I'd say that's true of all "isms" including capitalism as we see what a corrupt mess we have in DC now. The problem with scaling an ism to nation size is it lets power concentrate and where power is concentrated its more easily purchased. I do find it kinda funny though that the right uses the word socialist like kiddie fiddler when we've had socialism for the rich in this country for decades. just look at how the banks can treat Wall Street like Las Vegas and keep their profits win they win (using tricks like double dutch and Irish whip tax dodges) and pass the "losses" onto the American people with a too big to fail bailout. Being able to never lose money must be nice, too bad it doesn't work for the peasants.
As for TFA since every company that can is either sending jobs overseas as fast as they can close the factories, to the tune of 21,000 factories in a single decade or using the "how NOT to hire an American" as a how to video I really don't think it matters whether the Chinese bought it directly or they got it from Dell do you? Nearly 10% of the Chinese farmland is so poisoned by heavy metals the food coming from them is toxic, their rivers are so filled with toxins I'm waiting for one to catch fire, and 9 out of the 10 most cancerous places to live on the planet are in China, that last one on the list an abandoned Soviet chemical factory town. Ain't capitalism grand? Kinda hard to compete with those that will drink cancer straight from the tap and send their kids out to play wearing gas masks while taking $200 a month wages for the top workers isn't it? Welcome to the race to the bottom folks, enjoy your place in the unemployment line.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Quit sucking up to the Chinese for things they did centuries ago. How about giving credit to the Arabs for the camera, soap (unimportant to the average slashtard I know), and distillation? How about giving credit to India for crucible steel, the cotton gin, and the number zero? Every nation or society has made contributions, but insinuating that one group (the West) owes everything to another is racist, nationalist bullshit.
Be careful with those Founding Fathers quotes, or people will label you a Libertarian, Crank, or Ronulan.
Which says more about the ignorance and intellectual laziness of such people who are quick to attach convenient labels in order to dismiss opinions that they disagree with but are incapable of expressing why, than it does about my opinions.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Gunpowder, yes. Compass? " The earliest Chinese magnetic compasses were probably not designed for navigation, but rather to order and harmonize their environments and buildings in accordance with the geomantic principles of feng shui." Paper? Most definitely not - heard of papyrus? I believe the Egyptians came up with that first. Printing? I really don't think so. "The history of printing started around 3000 BC with the duplication of images. The use of round "cylinder seals" for rolling an impress onto clay tablets goes back to early Mesopotamian civilization before 3000 BC, where they are the most common works of art to survive, and feature complex and beautiful images. "
I rather like Wikipedia - but it's not the best source in the world for information. So, without claiming it to be an authority, the Wikipedia does support my views on the matters you mention.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
China is the natural master of Asia. The US has meddled there for no reason except missionary zeal.
Cede Asia to China and we have no quarrel.
"Natural master" - how do you say "Übermensch" in Chinese? What racist bullshit you speak.
Maybe the US should unleash Japan; they tend to keep China in check very well.
I've got your natural master - swinging, dude. WTF do you mean by "natural master" anyway? You are claiming that it is natural, right, or just, that one people should subjugate the people around them?
Yes, yes, I know that the US government thinks along those lines, albeit not in the terms you imply. And, yes, I am very sure that the Chinese government thinks the same way - and probably in the terms that you use.
But, I ask, what is RIGHT? Is it right that one people dominate the world, and subjugate all the rest of the peoples?
I say, "Fuck that!"
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Poor braindead fool. Take another look around, and tell us again who is controlling and/or taking control of the world. The US, UK, and Europe are slipping backward, while that old "Sleeping Giant" reaches for more and more control. DUHHH!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
China is the natural master of Asia. The US has meddled there for no reason except missionary zeal.
Natural master my big brown stnking ass...
Regards,
Rest of Asia (South, South east, south west (including but not limited to india, japan, korea etc.))
everyone downmodding this post will be prosecuted for reading my post without first buying a license!!!
Here is an article about the book. The article is free.
On the other hand if they keep poisoning themselves the whole thing is self-limiting.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
A commune (despite its name) / cooperative / partnership is a completely different beast from Comunism, as proposed by Marx. The most relevant difference is that the products of the commune / cooperative / partnership are sold in a capitalist market. While in Comunism, there would be no market at all.
Yes, in local initiatives comunism works, and often is the best choice. When you try to push it further, it fails.
Rethinking email
Please do yourself a favour and stop commenting, you utter fucking idiot.
It's the essence of capitalism that you can slack off providing you have enough money and don't do really stupid things with it.
Everyone in favor of sending the Kardashians, Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, Charlie Sheen, and Britney Spears to a Communist country say Aye!
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
I first read this as "NYT: IBM PC Division Sold To Advance China's Gaols".
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. - Thomas Jefferson
Don't believe everything you read on the internet. - Abraham Lincoln.
IBM needs to be dismantled. First the company actively helps the Nazi's execute **millions** of people in germany (all the while laughing and partying and making tons of money) and now they are helping China become a world power intent on the complete destruction of america. Why is this company allowed to continue to exist and why are its employees not serving time in jail or preferably guantanamo? Oh that's right, there is a democrat in the white house.
Where as in capitalism, the slackers just run the whole show.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
So U.S. companies which are controlled by the British royal family buy cheap product from china, for an ever increasing motive to increase profits and eroding the American workforce. Americans own nothing just lease the land from the royal family. The royal family controls America, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Iraq, etc..., Proxy war to solidify control of Mexico which is paraded through the media as a drug war. The Royal family controls the food supply in America, politicians, buying up all the land, and controls the media. China's not trying to enslave Americans its the British.
In what condition was this IBM PC Division, and the potential of it's products?
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
you are one seriously paranoid xenophobe.
Shame that someone in the US Government didnt smack down Big Blue for treason.
They're too busy prosecuting themselves for all of the war crimes and assassinations they've committed over the years.
"The computer is your friend. Trust the computer."
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Most communes are too small to be able to sustain themselves completely and too isolated to group with other communes, whence the need to trade. This doesn't make them "completely different", just necessarily compromising for the real world.
Every ideology "pushed further" fails and its leaders become corrupt. For example, we have nothing nearly resembling capitalism in the Western world, instead enjoying a hodge-podge of regulations to benefit various interests with state control, funding and other risk mitigation (e.g. research) to maintain stability and progress in almost every sphere. If what its leaders called communism has failed a dozen times, then what its leaders call capitalism has failed a hundred times.
But what has succeeded is the PR war by the rich that wage slavery is good in the long run and that the poor deserve their exploitable position. And the powerful throw around sacred terms like "free market" and "capitalism" and bogeymen like "communists", "socialists" and "terrorists" - which is why the West talks of capitalism succeeding and communism failing when in fact both are unimplementable ideals and all attempts to approach either on a large scale have failed. All that really matters to the men at the top is that the state of affairs is engineered to maintain their source of income, and they did this in the First and Second Worlds by making a religion out of a set of socio-economic principles.
China, meanwhile, has adopted Italian technocratic fascism in a completely open and matter-of-fact way and laughs at everyone else's need to engage in C19 hypocrisy.
It is their goal to dominate the United States economically, politically, and militarily.
Well, yes, but also the rest of the world. They want to be dominate. The same way that the USA does. And Russia. And, well, all nations. It's kind of their natural goal. (Except for Switzerland, but they're kinda freaks). The same way that corporations want to dominate their market (and all markets, really). They want to, you know, "win".
It only ever comes down to war when shit gets really bad. We're not anywhere near war. We're not at war with EastAsia or EurAsia. Get over it.
But yeah, dick move on IBM's part.
Yes, and placed the interests of his company ahead of his country. It would be great to see the US government display to IBM that they need to do a bit of relationship building here at home, perhaps through a complete absence of government grants or contracts in the future until they give us that sort of consideration.
How is this "treason"? The US government actively sought to encourage trade and investment between US and China, and IBM followed suit. If the US wanted to forbid business with China, we would've done so the same way we continued to embargo Cuba for many years.
Furthermore, selling for less so you can make more down the road, is part of good business strategy, no different from when milk goes on sale at the local supermarket, or when you change jobs to take a lower paying position in a growing company, or when software companies offer academic discounts, or when a credit card has an interest-free teaser rate.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
... I shudder to think what Dell's cost-cutting frenzy would do to the quality of the ThinkPad line.
IBM gambled almost the entire OS/2 budget on OS/2 for the PPC platform. They lost that gamble when the PPC version of OS/2 came back almost unusable because of poor performance. So after pushing Warp and pushing Warp hard, they led developers and OEMs into thinking that v4 was going to be the next best thing since sliced bread. But after blowing their budget on OS/2 PPC, they had very limited resources. The release of v4 included radically changed APIs and neglected to fix serious structural defects (synchronous input queue, anyone?).
From a business perspective, it was probably the right decision for IBM to cut it's losses when they did. But the way that they cut their losses led to quite a bit of ill will on the parts of ISVs and OEMs that had struggled valiantly to build their businesses around OS/2.
BusinessWeek: "The deal's advocates faced a barrage of questions. In addition to Mary Ma, Lenovo's chief financial officer, the lineup included people from consultant McKinsey and investment bank Goldman Sachs (GS ). The directors' chief concern: Were Lenovo's execs really capable of running a complex global business? The breakthrough came after three days. The directors concluded that if Lenovo could recruit IBM's top execs to help manage the company, this merger could succeed. "The board felt there were positive solutions," says Liu."
LA Times: "Also at stake in the deal are about $18 million in investment banking fees for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co., based on Bloomberg estimates. Merrill has advised IBM, and Goldman worked for Lenovo."
Fancy machines don't help when a problem is structurally inherent.
Communism's primary issue is not that it scales poorly, although it does. Communism's primary issue is that it works against basic human nature. It failed even in villiage-sized experiments back in the early colonization days of America. The Pilgrims tried their own brand of it and it failed miserably. And they had religious pressure to help the system along! IE: It was God's Will, they were building a new Jerusalem. WAY more pressure for them to work together and make it work than your average modern communist society. It still fell apart. Behold the writing of William Bradford, one of the Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower: (emphasis mine)
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Under communism as Marx thought it, everyone works according to their ability: you don't have the choice to slack off by allowing your capital to "work for you".
No, instead you have the choice to slack off and let productive members of society provide for your needs.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
There is a school of thought which holds that not only will advance in computer technology render communism practical, they'll also render it the only option by destroying the labor market that forms the foundation of a market economy - as computers and automation take over more and more jobs, there may come a point where unemployment becomes so high that a positive feedback effect destroys the economy completly. All it needs is advances in robotics enough to get them out of the factory and behind the till at McDonalds.
Hey, they helped a communist tyranny.
How does this sale help Apple?
And why should I a researcher, superior than a shit-cleaner, be rewarded for my much greater contributions to the world in general, and having a greater impact on every aspect of existence with me work, be rewarded as much as a shit cleaner? That is not fair, that goes against evolution. If nature were to have rewarded everyone equally, no matter how well the organism performed, we would have gone nowhere. No thanks, I would instead take my skills eslwhere, where they are properly appreciated.
Actually I'd say that's true of all "isms" including capitalism as we see what a corrupt mess we have in DC now.
Except of course the fact that the corrupt mess we have in DC now is not the product of capitalism at all. It is the product of attempting to centrally plan the economy (by whatever name you choose to call it--fascism, socialism, communism, "crony capitalism", or something else). Capitalism (as most people use the term) is the opposite of a centrally planned economy.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Nope, that would be Mongolia, which, after all, conquered China. China is crippled by being too easily united and ruled by a dictator, who's natural inclination is to stop all progress to preserve the status quo. Or perhaps it might be Japan, which has also shown considerable ability to adapt the best practices from foreign countries and even contribute back to the world culture.
Of course, as long as we're talking about "natural masters", the real Supreme Overlord would be Europe, which combines large food production potential, easy trade between regions and numerous chokepoints that make it impossible to unite and thus ensure constant ongoing competition.
Who's "we"? China isn't a democracy, so there's no one who can actually represent it; at best you have the currently dominant warlord.
Also, China is trying to industralize, which means getting oil, which puts it in direct conflict with the civilized world, at least until said world upgrades to non-dependence on fossilized oil.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Aye !
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
This is so amusing, I'll void my mod points to share a story about this deal, from another perspective.
I vividly recall that, despite state-run media all praising the deal as "historic" for Chinese companies, the overwhelming Chinese public perception (at least as seen on public online forums) was that Lenovo and the Chinese gov were using Chinese money to buy garbage asset from the Americans, which has been running a loss for years, to please their "American overlords". Or to put it your way, the Chinese complained about Corporate China and the Chinese gov whoring themselves to the US!
Some days I just wish for Universal Translators (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_translator#Star_Trek) to become a reality, and watch the Chinese and Americans complain to each other.
No
Essentially, the settlers in Plymouth Plantation were all working for investors back in London. It was the corporation, not the settlers themselves, who allotted the land. They had debts to pay, and sometimes providing a return on investment came before luxuries like food.
I suspect that whilst he gave the Chinese a relatively good deal, he was probably mindful of the narrow profit margins and intense competition in the field and decided to kill two birds with one stone...
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
In other news, I just lost The Game.
Too bad he didn't think so far ahead to see what happens when IBM makes inroads into China's market and China turns around and screws them. Which is basically inevitable.
"Furthermore, selling for less so you can make more down the road, is part of good business strategy"
It might be good business strategy, but selling an asset to anyone other than the highest bidder is a breach of fiduciary duty to the shareholders. Even worse, selling to someone other than the highest bidder, for the express purpose of creating a bribery transaction, breaks a number of federal laws.
IBM first broke the law by breaching their fiduciary duty to the shareholders. They broke additional laws by bribing public officials in the process.
The day fast food is run by robots such that my lunch was assembled entirely by machine, I will dance in the streets. I don't care about the lost jobs. I don't care about economic meltdown.
I care that I will actually GET what I effing ORDER at the drive through!
I am in the US. I never wait more than a couple of days to get in to see my doctor. Many times he can get me in the same day. My doctor does work short hours two days of the week because he volunteers at "Neighbor to Neighbor" those days. But Monday, Wednesday and Friday he can usually fit me in the same day.
When I broke my hand I was in to see a hand specialist the next day (I broke it after office hours and went to an "Urgent Care" place otherwise I probably would have seen him that day). I was in surgery two days later and went into physical therapy the day after my cast came off.
How long do people wait in the UK?
There are advantages to paying a lot for our medical care.
Ah, this old piece of copypasta. I've seen this one before. It's been circulating on conservative blogs for years, and sometimes even making its way to a news site. There is a small problem though: It's utterly false. Nothing but a piece of self-serving propaganda written to tell a target audience exactly what they want to hear: Communism makes people so lazy they'll starve, while a free market fixes all. The story actually originated in a publication called 'The Free Market' in 1985.
For one thing, it fails the common-sense test. In a colony on the edge of starvation, so you really think people are going to just laze around and not bother raising crops just because someone else might get to share them too? People are not that stupid, and most of them dislike starving to death. Like all really good pieces of propaganda, it is half true. The Plymouth colony was indeed founded on an initial seven-year collective-property system - that was a standard practice at the time, a simple practical way to deal with the extreme supply shortages in a new colony. After all, you can't run a farm if the owner of the plough refuses to let another use it, and you can't hope to build individual houses for every colonist before winter sets in and kills everyone. It was usual to share all non-trivial property long enough to get everyone settled in, houses built, tools made and industry established. Similarily, there was an initial food shortage. The mistake is in attributing the latter to the former. The actual reason was rather less interesting: European farmers, most of them not even very experienced, with unfamiliar crops and weather far worse than anticipated.
Look at the numbers. The great die-off was in the winter of 1620-1621, during which 45 died from a population of 102. That is the event of which your account speaks. Yet the ship only arrived in december 1620 - if, as you claim, the problems were caused by the use of a temporary collective ownership leading to a lack of hard work than the effects should not have been felt until the following harvest, rather then immediatly upon arrival. Unless you wish to suggest that people were standing around in the snow refusing to build housing because they wouldn't fully own it afterwards, which strikes me as unrealistic.
And of later events? Wikipedia has some figures on the growth of the colony:
December 1620, 99
April 1621, 50 (The first winter of which we spoke)
November 1621, 85
July 1623, 180
May 1627, 156
As you can see, once that first winter passed the colony florished - growth was rapid, and no food shortage around. In fact, this was a florishing economy: In november 1921, almost exactly one year after the arrival of the Mayflower, the Fortune arrived with more settlers - and departed with a trade goods exported to pay off the investors who funded the settlement. Doesn't sound like a communist nightmare to me.
The final damning line comes from your own testament: "The failure of the experiment of communal service, which was tried for several years." Several years. Yet the colony was already passed the intitial winter deaths and running successful exports after only a single year from the arrival of the mayflower - which means that, by the account you use, that great success was achieved *before* the abolition of collective ownership!
So while socialism may not have been the perfect solution for Plymouth, it wasn't an utter disaster either. It worked, for a time, well enough to get them established, growing and exporting.
Nature doesn't reward everyone equally. It rewards the ape who will smash your skull in with a rock and take your females. Nature really isn't a good guide on how to run a society.
The only difference is that the US government is selling the entire nation to the Chinese in the form of borrowing/debt to finance out of control spending on... [etc., etc.]
You'll have to forgive me for nodding off there, but the phrase "out-of-control spending" is repeated so often these days that the sight of it is enough to bore me asleep.
Anyway, that's off topic. What really bugs me is the whole "selling us to China" meme. What percent of public debt do you think china owns? 50%? 75%? The answer, if Wikipedia is right (and maybe it isn't, but I'm going to ask for a citation if you think so) was 8%, or about a trillion dollars, as of may 2011. The U.K., not for nothing, held over 900 billion dollars as well but I rarely see the same self-induced hypoxia over that. Isn't "selling the entire nation to the Chinese" a rather hysterical instance of sinophobic alarmism?
Selling the laptop business to Lenovo was probably a good investment--note the word "investment." An investment is a bet, not a sale. You can't measure its success by short-term results. Developing a good relationship with the Chinese government is intelligent. Developing a good relationship with the US government (ie, through doing business with them) is intelligent. They're your customers, or potential customers. Of course you want to cultivate them. Small businesses send customers a case of Scotch at Christmas. No immediate return on that investment, is there?
Just because you predicted someone would call you out for being a conspiracy theorists doesn't make you any less of a conspiracy theorist.
China has a goal to be the dominate world power economically, politically, and militarily? No shit, Sherlock. Why do you think the EU formed? Because despite their permanent Security Council status, France is too small to be the dominate world power on their own. So they corralled other European states around them for the economic weight to have a fighting chance against the U.S. and China.
The point is, every country that has the potential to dominate the world economically, politically, and militarily pursues that possibility. I don't see you complaining about all the things the U.S. has done since WWII to dominate the world economically, politically, and militarily. Look at all the havoc we've wreaked in the name of our political ideals: the Korean war, Vietnam, the Gulf wars. The Bay of Pigs. Operation Just Cause. The Iran-Contra scandal.
It's in China's best interest to try and be the best at everything. It's in IBM's best interest to maintain a favorable relationship with China. IBM doesn't owe anything to the west except taxes. Furthermore, IBM maintaining a good relationship with China may be in the west's best interests if you're looking at things in such a way. American jobs, an important American presence in the Chinese market, etc.
Also, the liberalization of China—culturally and economically—has been driven by economically integrating with the west. If we take this cold war attitude like the one we had with the USSR, then it just makes everything worse and widens the divide. Hardcore idealism to the point of making enemies of countries that don't share your ideals doesn't do anyone any good. The U.S., determined to prove the mettle of capitalism during the cold war, allowed all the negative aspects of capitalism take hold out of pure idealism. China's recent success has been contingent upon their flexibility with their old Marxist ideals. The U.S. needs that type of pragmatic flexibility if it wants to compete.
Things are much more complicated than Us vs. Them.
btw, China has already achieved that goal. They are the dominate world power.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
marx wrote mostly about capital and capitalism and very little about communism. he showed how capitalism would eventually destroy itself but never spent almost no time explaining how the communism that would follow would actually work.
OK, take your skills elsewhere. You won't be missed. And speaking as a researcher in a world of researchers, the chances are each of the "shit cleaners" in the world have contributed more to my well-being than you ever will. Some of my achievements are naturally recognised but any applicability to helping humanity is far from clear and TBH I am already getting more than I deserve for essentially sitting on my ass and applying the brain I was lucky enough to be born with.
For many decades, no significant problem in the world has been the result of lack of intellignet, educated minds. If you think you deserve something great for something seventy million others can do (assuming you're even in the top 1% by some metric) then you can fuck right off and see if you can win your prize. But the only sustainable way for the intelligent and the not-so-intelligent to get anywhere in the current world is to work together as part of a society.
The whole reward/punishment "cuz its liek nature" is specious nonsense repeated by useful idiots. We are part of nature and whatever we choose to further our aims is "natural". We can judge our work in terms of whether our behaviour causes suffering or alleviates it, but not much else.
I think IBM is just trying to balance out working for Hitler.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
ignorance and intellectual laziness
Yes, well that label does apply rather well to you, since you blindly copied and pasted all that from somewhere without any checking or thought, proved by the fact that the 2nd quote attributed to Jefferson was actually said by Gerald Ford, yes that intellectual titan.
There is a school of thought which holds that not only will advance in computer technology render communism practical
Wal-Mart is often cited as a real-life model of a de facto model national economy. Algorithms determine supply and demand so waste is in the single percentages.
All it needs is advances in robotics enough to get them out of the factory and behind the till at McDonalds.
They've installed machines at our Jack in the Box to take orders - totally Idiocracy style - "would you like an order of BIG ASS FRIES!?" Even more humorous was when a pack of stoner teenagers had trouble navigating the entirely pictorial UI whilst grunting and snorting periodically.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Everyone in favor of sending the Kardashians
Would this include Andrew J. Robinson and Marc Alaimo?
That's true. Buick is considered a prestige brand over there, comparable to lower-end BMWs and Mercedes models.
Historically, old Communist Party honchos like Zhou Enlai rode around in big black Buicks. Combine this legacy with GM's present-day aggressive marketing of Buick as a sexy luxury car makes it a very attractive vehicle for the Chinese upper classes.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
In your list of unjust diddling in other nation's affairs, you forgot a pretty important one. Operation Ajax has come back to bite us in the ass. And, the fallout is still falling, so it's impossible to say how badly we've been bitten.
I'm not blindly in love with my government, after all. My government has committed a number of heinous acts, including forced sterilization for women accepting medical aid in Africa, experimenting on black inmates with gonorhea, subjugating the Native Americans - and much, much more.
Nor am I in love with capitalism. I can only make the same excuse as people who grew up under the Soviet, or people who grew up under Chinese communism. It's pretty much the only thing I know.
That said - what pisses me off is, Corporate America is selling off the products of my grandparent's, greatgrandparent's, etc, sacrifices and efforts to make this nation what it is.
.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The day fast food is run by robots such that my lunch was assembled entirely by machine, I will dance in the streets.
Vending machines exist. Perhaps an ideal model for an automated fast food joint might be based on frozen entrees, not unlike those sold in a supermarket, in containers designed for automated microwave preparation. But you'd still need some sort of attendant to make sure that the customers eating in the dining room don't cause trouble.
I saw a video debate concerning Presidential power vs. Congressional power that had President Ford as one of the panelists. I was impressed by the coherence and logic of his arguments. If only people could debate in that manner today instead of the inane MSNBC/Fox News yelling and foaming at the mouth.
Consider the implications though. Machines replace humans for even more assembly line work, then attendant and cashier work, then store shelf-stacker, and cleaning, and so forth. It works just as it should: Costs come down, and (assuming sufficient competition) these savings are passed on to the customers. All is well, up until a vaguely-defined point. Then you hit a problem: There are a lot of people who are unemployed, and unemployable due to a lack of jobs. Unless you want them to starve or turn to crime to feed themselves, that automatically means a welfare state is the only option. Worse, those people on little to no income won't be able to spend much, which means they can't create much demand for goods and services, which means even fewer jobs to meet that demand... positive feedback. Total collapse of the labor market, and everything else with it. In such a situation, a technologically-enabled communism of some form may be the only option - no matter how bad it may be, it can't be any worse than an economic nothingness. The only other possibility is a basic income model where the government guarantees every individual some level of no-strings-attached money to at least keep them fed and housed - but such a system has never been tested on such a scale, and it's dubious if sufficient taxes could be raised to sustain it.
This is absolutely true. It is also an issue that very few people seem to recognize. It is a shame too because not only would recognizing it make the world a better place, it is inevitable, AND not planning for it is likely going to make things a lot worse before they get better.
Whether they realize it or not, it is a lot of what OWS is about.
Communism fails for the same reason democracy will inevitably fail. Corruption.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
You might just want to holster that big fat ego for a moment. From a purely objective view, that shit cleaner risks his life to prevent outbreaks of typhus, disentery, and a whole raft of sanitation related horrors that have haunted humanity for thousands of years. He may have a nasty job, but you better believe its a critical and vital task.
You on the other hand spend your day scribbling on paper. Unless your research leads to the immediate end of disentery forever, my vote goes to the shit cleaner, because his work has an immediate and tremendously higher impact on my life than yours. Have you seen the per hour wage of a journeyman plumberv these days? Me thinks the only thing shitty here was your choice of example.
Now if you want to compare yourself to a divorce lawyer or maybe a member of The House, I would absolutely be willing to discuss that for the most part you do no harm, while these high paid idiots proceed to tear down our society. The fact that these men and women are almost certainly better paid than you, and often through means of questionable morality or legality, would add all kinds of new and interesting nuance and resonance to your question.
Perhaps you would do better to compare yourself against another who scribbles all day, a medical bureaucrat or maybe a lab technician? All useful jobs that contribute eh? It does beg the question what do you research? Clearly some lines of research will have greater worth to society than others. This is not to denigrate pure research, knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a noble thing, its simply that its immediate or obvious worth to society would tend the be more philosophical in nature. That's a very hard thing to take to the bank.
Charlie Sheen although fallen far, at least used to be productive and Lohan and Spears did have to work their butts off for years. But Paris and the Kardashians? Complete wastes of sperm.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
India for crucible steel, the cotton gin, and the number zero?
The Mayans had a notation for zero centuries before the Indians.
GP sounds more like a comically paranoid xenophobe to me.
Isn't "selling the entire nation to the Chinese" a rather hysterical instance of sinophobic alarmism?
Yes. But pointing it out doesn't seem to help. At this point it's reached meme status and will be endlessly repeated ad nauseum. Plus it makes good rabble-rousing material for muck-rakers and politicians.
So yeah, expect to keep hearing "ZOMG! CHINA OWNZ US!!" pretty much forever.
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
Clearly your grasp of economics is as poor as your grasp of history. Here's an important bit of useful information. Look for the truth with an open mind. If you're simply cherry picking information to justify your point of view, you'll be doomed never to see what it actually so. Here's the hint, If you belong to one of those families of ideologues that continually submits some variation of the same old rehashed piece of ideological tripe, whose origin it is determined makes it of questionable value or veracity, then stop. You haven't justified your position, you just torpedoed it.
Give me ten similar but distinctly different thesis from renowned and reputable sources. That would be interesting and enlightening.
Communism and Capitalism are equally flawed by their very nature and for the same fundamental reason. They are human enterprises and left unchecked, human beings are arrogant, self obsessed, greedy, controlling, Machiavellian bustards who will gladly eat their own young and grind up their own parents for personal profit. If history tells us nothing, it tells us that power in the hands of a few is destined to precipitate the demise of many (including the original powerful few.) Either of these systems "COULD WORK" with the proper checks and balances, limits to personal power and some sane method for determining the wants and needs of the vast members of those societies so that those needs could be met effectively and ongoingly. Interestingly, modern technology makes either systems now more potentially workable than they were in the past.
What made America great was checks and balances. It made it possible for government to actually do the job of governing, because no one person could ever amass enough power to successfully hijack the entire system, so nobody even tried. Its only been over the last 30 years that business has had the means and the opportunity to plunder our government, by having laws restricting dangerous or unfair practices repealed, and in short shattering both the checks and balances and the Bill of Rights. The reason we are fine with China, is because we are quickly becoming a Fascist Totalitarian state, effectively meeting them in the middle. Recent laws passed or in the process of passing eliminate the cornerstones of American liberty and democracy. We are now a nation of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation. Because of this we have been watching an every growing succession of boom/bust cycles, each more devastating than the last. The signs are here now for all to see, they blaze like the noon day sun. Grotesque financial inequity. Absurd acts of greed and the wholesale raping of the middle class. An economic system so fragile it teeters on the edge of complete implosion. A world ravaged of natural resource and human dignity. Global policies ground not in benefit to human populations but benefit to global corporate interests. Businesses once served the nation to which they belong, now they suck their mother nations dry and bounce the proceeds around the world to manipulate tax and business advantage.
I fear this new fascist state far more than either constrained Capitalistic or Communistic systems. Its time to put the rods back in the reactor, and place strong constraints on economic and political systems before we all reap the coming catastrophe.
Anyway, that's off topic. What really bugs me is the whole "selling us to China" meme. What percent of public debt do you think china owns? 50%? 75%? The answer, if Wikipedia is right (and maybe it isn't, but I'm going to ask for a citation if you think so) was 8%, or about a trillion dollars, as of may 2011. The U.K., not for nothing, held over 900 billion dollars as well but I rarely see the same self-induced hypoxia over that. Isn't "selling the entire nation to the Chinese" a rather hysterical instance of sinophobic alarmism?
Well, if China, who owns the largest percentage of foreign-held US debt, suddenly dumped all or even a significant fraction of the US Treasury instruments of debt they hold, the results wouldn't be good for the US economy or the Dollar. Such a move by the Chinese would likely also trigger other foreign holders of US debt to dump their holdings as well. That Sword of Damocles gives the Chinese a lot of power over the US.
http://www.optimist123.com/optimist/2011/08/pie-chart-of-who-owns-the-national-debt-mid-2011.html
The UK is a supposed ally, so there's not much worry that 10 Downing would take steps to purposely wreck the US economy.
Point being that it's not necessary to hold a majority of the total US debt to have the power to use that debt to do immense damage.
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
ignorance and intellectual laziness
Yes, well that label does apply rather well to you, since you blindly copied and pasted all that from somewhere without any checking or thought, proved by the fact that the 2nd quote attributed to Jefferson was actually said by Gerald Ford, yes that intellectual titan.
Yes, because a single disputed quote totally discredits everything else that was posted and discredits the quote in questions' validity as well. Is said quote factually incorrect outside of attribution? Does bigger government mean better government?
Nice job finding one minor thing to focus upon in order to justify in your mind dismissing the entire post. That's certainly much easier and requires much less in the way of actual thought.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Have you any idea how complex the U.S. government is? The whole idea that it or its "leaders" share anything like goals of power and wealth is silly. It might be comforting to hold a 60's flower child view of government but it isn't realistic. Each federal agency has their own agenda pretty much laid out by statute. The judiciary is something totally different. The SS administration has the hardest job, they have to deal with Americans who stupid conspiratorial views like yours.
And the Mayans are responsible for the 2012 "we're all gonna die" industry. Got to give them credit for that, some slight references here and there, bit of mumbo-jumbo hieroglyphics and whallah, a new industry is born.
Fiscal policy is one way to direct growth in the economy.
"Directing" growth in the economy is not the job of the Federal government according to the Constitution. It causes too many unintended consequences as well as creates far too much corruption.
Back to fiscal policy, the problem with the US is not that it is spending too much (compared to other advanced economies).
That would depend on one's definition of "advanced economy". Looking at the current growing fiscal crisis in the EU, I don't think following their example is a smart move.
In total the US spends nearly 16% of GDP on heathcare. The UK for example, spends only 8% on its healthcare system that covers everybody, at all ages.
The US also does the most in creating and advancing new medical technologies, treatments, and drugs which all increase healthcare costs. There's also the question of comparative quality of care.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
We didn't quarrel over Poland. France and England did.
History. Read.it.
I defy you to articulate reasons why the US should sacrifice itself for Asia.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
China is large and powerful, moving to superpower status. The large and powerful naturally rule the small and weak.
No racism required, but thanks for the insight into your worldview template!
The US has broken itself financially with perpetual war for people who do NO THING FOR US. To say the US should sacrifice blood and treasure is to say Americans deserve nothing except martyrdom.
I'm not a Christian Jihadist or any other Jihadist.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Have you any idea how complex the U.S. government is? The whole idea that it or its "leaders" share anything like goals of power and wealth is silly.
No, the idea that those who have invested huge sums of money and years of work into obtaining large amounts of wealth and/or power, whether in government or the private sector, don't desire to increase the amount of either or both they own/control is "silly", and completely ignores basic human nature.
The SS administration has the hardest job, they have to deal with Americans who stupid conspiratorial views like yours.
Calling my views "stupid" and "conspiratorial", particularly in a poorly-constructed sentence, certainly refutes & invalidates all my points. GG
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Rights mean nothing, power is everything.
Rights do not confer power. Therefore, power does its will.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The US should let YOU handle it. Build nuclear weapons IF you want to contain China, otherwise you can't do squat.
The US has no place dying for Asians, or interfering there. If China takes power and you lose, not a US problem. If you spank China, again, not a US problem.
Asia does nothing for the US, at all, while much of Asia benefits from the US nuclear umbrella. Build your own weapons and field your own carrier battle groups. India has the right idea!
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
"We" is the US. Governments exist by consent of the governed, coerced or otherwise.
Sufficient Chinese are content they don't kill their masters. When they WERE NOT content, they did kill them.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Not really, after all the rich can afford water harvested from icebergs and food grown in protected greenhouses and if the peasants don't survive long enough to become a burden? So much the better. I have a feeling we are headed towards another dark age feudal period where the wealthy get to live a long time while gorging themselves to excess while the poor live in such squalor that they are lucky to survive to 40 which again is just about the perfect age for the corps as by then you have worked them to the point they can't output like an 18 year old can, better to just kill them and get a fresh new cog for the machine.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
"it's" = "it is"
"its" = "of it"
Well as a socialist going back generations (my grandfather was actually a card carrying socialist back in the 20s) I believe true socialism would work but I'll be the first to admit we've never actually had a socialist country anymore than we've ever had a capitalist country because again once you try it on a national scale here comes the bribes. look at what many would call the closest we have ever gotten to "true" capitalism, the 1800s. Even then a few at the top used their massive wealth to rig markets such as the gold manipulation scandal or standard oil, the "age of the robber barons" came about because all you had to do was buy a handful of men in the right positions and you ended up with a market where you couldn't lose, hell many of them even hired their own private armies to control the workers and end strikes with the barrel of a gun!
The problem with trying to scale ANYTHING to a national level is it concentrates power and makes it easy for the wealthy to rig the game. At the local or even state level what you end up with is "big fish in small ponds' because the simple logistics of having to bribe so many quickly makes it a losing proposition but on a national level all it takes is a few hundred checks and you've bought one of the three branches, one more check buys the second, and since judges are appointed in many areas that just gave you a percentage of the third. its just too easy at a national level with any ism my friend, that is why the end result no matter what ism you choose, from Nazism to communism to capitalism always seems to be corruption.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Quotes are intrinsically appeals to authority rather than intelligent argument, the quote in question is snappy but ultimately meaningless, the government controls the military so even if you have a hypothetical small government they will always have the power to take things from you via the police or the judiciary. All libertarians seem to forget a government is comprised of people, they do not become a hive mind, why do you think the phrase "activist judge" exists?
I wasn't dismissing your post I was highlighting your hypocrisy about "ignorance and intellectual laziness" when you committed exactly the same crime.
There isn't "economic nothingness", there's an enormous amount of goods produced at a price appoaching towards zero. "Economic nothingness" is no goods produced.
Directing growth is a necessary goal of government when economic crises threaten to pull a country apart. A country that is economically disintegrating will also politically disintegrate eventually. Economic policy is, and has always been, a major function of government since the dawn of the modern era.
The problem with the EU was arguably by design and the intention of the elite in Europe all along (for a more integrated Europe). It is well known that monetary union will amplify economic disparities within the union. The US, for example, has to make transfer payment through federal fiscal policy that redistributes wealth from the stronger economies of New York, Texas and California, etc. to states that are financially weak, such as Kentucky and Mississippi. The steps they are taking now to create a Eurozone budget approval mechanism is just the first step in integrating economic and fiscal policy (and hence more sovereignty ceeded to Brussels). There was no way to sell this to the electorate, so this has to be in in a roundabout way. Isn't politics exciting.
Your third point that the US contributes a disproportionate amount to medical breakthrough and innovation is a often repeated lie. There has been a proportionate number of breakthroughs and medical innovation from institutions and organizations outside of the US. Besides, even if it were true that the US produces more medical innovation disproportionately (which it does not), it is not a justification for the poor healthcare value for money that is being burdened upon Americans.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Yes, rather than genocide for everyone, now it's only for those who aren't Chinese. That's a 20% improvement, I guess.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
While outside my family we encourage democracy and equality, inside our family it is authoritarian communist dicatatorship - as it should be.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
In theory you are rewarded for wisely investing your money in businesses which deliver what people want. In practice you are rewarded for whatever method you find to increase your personal wealth, regardless of how much effort you put in or who benefits.
Also for taking the risks. Many people who aren't wealthy don't lack the hard work or intelligence to get rich, they just prefer to have a stable secure paycheck and prefer not to go through the years of thankless work trying to launch a business when you don't know when or whether it will succeed or fail.
And of course with the modern nanny state many simply prefer not to deal with the piles of regulations that must be followed when running a business.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Quotes are intrinsically appeals to authority rather than intelligent argument...
Then you're missing much of the value of quotes when they make a salient point regardless of who said it first, which the quote in question does.
...the quote in question is snappy but ultimately meaningless, the government controls the military so even if you have a hypothetical small government they will always have the power to take things from you via the police or the judiciary.
Which is why there are mechanisms in the Constitution for removing those in office, including the 2nd Amendment. It's the "four boxes in defense of Liberty".
All libertarians...
"No true Scotsman"?
All libertarians seem to forget a government is comprised of people, they do not become a hive mind, why do you think the phrase "activist judge" exists?
Small "L" libertarians are quite aware that government is comprised of people...people who are subject to the same greed, avarice, power-lust, stupidity, and ignorance as everyone else. This is why government should be allowed only the bare-minimum power necessary to accomplish *only* those things spelled out in the Constitution.
Government, like fire, must be tightly restrained & controlled, and for much the same reasons. History clearly shows that it is the nature of all government, because of human nature, to seek to increase it's power, wealth, size, and control over ever-more of it's citizens' activities, wealth, freedoms, and even thoughts.
I wasn't dismissing your post I was highlighting your hypocrisy about "ignorance and intellectual laziness" when you committed exactly the same crime.
Yes, because a single accidentally wrongly-attributed quote is exactly the same as whole screeds written out of ignorance and intellectual laziness.
It seems like you are looking for any excuse to ignore and dismiss the points made rather than post a reasoned rebuttal, which would tend to buttress my point regarding intellectual laziness.
Thanks for the backup, although I doubt doing so was your intention.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
If what its leaders called communism has failed a dozen times, then what its leaders call capitalism has failed a hundred times.
The difference is that when capitalism fails we have income inequality or we have government strangling innovation. When communism fails we have real slavery, massive imprisonment of dissenters, and countless executions.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Which is why the Framers of the Constitution wrote the Constitution to strictly limit the power of the Federal government. Unfortunately, over time people have dismantled those limits.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Directing growth is a necessary goal of government when economic crises threaten to pull a country apart.
Then it should be added to the Constitution. That it has never been argues against your view. It also depends on your definition of "directing growth".
If you meant it in the sense of assuring a sound monetary policy and keeping growth-limiting government interference in check, then yes, I agree. If you meant in the sense of propping up businesses that are unsound and cannot survive without government help, then no, I most certainly do not agree, and neither did the Founders.
The US, for example, has to make transfer payment through federal fiscal policy that redistributes wealth from the stronger economies of New York, Texas and California, etc. to states that are financially weak, such as Kentucky and Mississippi.
Which is totally unconstitutional and part of the problem, as it prevents natural economic forces from moderating the states' fiscal and spending policies. Redistribution of wealth has never worked out as ostensibly intended and always ends badly for citizens.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
IBM sold to Lenovo because IBM saw what HP did not: the margins on PC HW were dropping toward zero because there is nothing to clearly differentiate PC HW vendors when they are all running the same commodified OS (Windows, Linux, etc.). You want to see how blind HP was to this? Look back at their run-ins with Acer who was trying to disintermediate HP by re-introducing the Acer brand in the US about the same time IBM sold to Lenovo. Look at how HP dropped their Touchpad so quickly because they could not sell in quantity except by selling below costs. This is margin approaching zero. IBM saw the handwriting on the wall and HP did not. IBM make the only rational and smart move: get the hell out of a business that's about to become an "albatross around their necks" while the prices for albatross are still good. IBM called it right. HP waited way too long to see the obvious.
I don't know where you get your numbers from, or for that matter, your ideas about what "socialism" is, although I can guess that most of it comes from inside your head.
As for how polluted China is - I doubt it very much. Sure, it isn't pristine wilderness, but I think you are speaking more for effect than for accuracy. And I can understand that it somehow feels easier to slag off an external "enemy" than your own country; but you would be better off if you stuck to the facts.
So the great isms have failed? I am not really sure about that either. What has always failed throughout history is when ideology or religion becomes more important than people and reality - somehow "The People" is not quite the same as simply people. Both socialism and capitalism are in my view necessary ingredients in a good society, but only as guiding principles. That is why China now have success - because ideology no longer takes priority over reality, and that also explains why Soviet communism - and now American capitalism - must fail, eventually.
Is it possible to make Communism work well in a large society? I think so - but that is just my opinion, and I may be wrong. As far as I can see, we will one day have a society where owning land and companies seems like a rather pathetic concept. Hopefully I will live to see that.
Oh sweet tap dancing christ... a typo on the internet!
Thanks :P
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The constitution (of the US) is not the be all and end all of government. There are countries without a written constitution that run fine even. In fact, the constitution that you have written down is only the constitutional document, the real constitution is the structure and rules of government in practice that are acceptable by the political and judicial establishments. Not to mention the founders of the US lived in a completely different economic era and economic as a discipline was only in its infancy when the US was founded. Oh, and one more thing, monetary policy has changed drastically over the centuries.
BTW, natural economic forces also leads to a slew of unsavoury effects that you fail to mention. This discussion had been visited many times in history and there is no point in debating something which is established fact. The latest foray into deregulation of financial markets since the 1980s has only proven what was understood in the past. Technology has made possible now what was not possible before and the financial markets operate at a speed and at a scale that wasn't even imaginable half a century ago. Storms in this emergent system become more destructive, and this translates into lives destroyed when they happen, even to those who are without fault.
Your last point about federal fiscal policy is confusing. You do realise that without this wealth distribution the monetary union would not survive in a modern economy? You will end up with the same situation as the EU is in now.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Communism (soviet style) and fascism are actually two sides of the same coin.
The constitution (of the US) is not the be all and end all of government.
It is for the US government. It is the founding document that contains the core principles and limitations of US government. Without it there is no structure or rule of law.
In fact, the constitution that you have written down is only the constitutional document, the real constitution is the structure and rules of government in practice that are acceptable by the political and judicial establishments.
Not according to the US Constitution. Any laws, rules, and/or regulations must fall within the restrictions placed on the powers of government by the US Constitution. It is a list of negative liberties, i.e. it describes only what the government is allowed to do, and anything that does not fall within one of the powers delegated to government by the Constitution is prohibited to government.
Not to mention the founders of the US lived in a completely different economic era and economic as a discipline was only in its infancy when the US was founded. Oh, and one more thing, monetary policy has changed drastically over the centuries.
I've heard this "they were too primitive to understand the current modern world" argument before, and it's no more valid now than it was then. The Founders were quite aware that times change and they incorporated a method for updating the Constitution, the Constitutional Amendment process. It's been amended quite a few times already. I'd argue that the unconstitutional actions taken by the government are largely what is to blame for our current political and economic woes.
Your last point about federal fiscal policy is confusing. You do realise that without this wealth distribution the monetary union would not survive in a modern economy? You will end up with the same situation as the EU is in now.
We are already headed down the same path as the EU is now. If US economic and government spending policies aren't changed dramatically and soon, the US will be Greece in probably less than 4 years, no more than six.
Wealth redistribution by the government has never worked out well. It's one of the reasons why the EU is in economic trouble, and is one of the major contributing factors to US economic troubles. Failure to allow businesses to fail through the use of "bail-outs" and other similar government actions that "save" businesses that should fail and thus allow that capital to return to the system to be reinvested in other business, hinders the availability and increases the cost of capital to finance existing businesses and start new businesses.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I love this trope- self limiting. Not to imply you intended your comment seriously, branding something self-limiting is the conservatives nod to social Darwinism- no matter what the societal cost, up to and including the destruction of modern civilization itself, so long as something is srlf-limiting, self-regulating, self -governing', then it's all right.
The whole point of civilization is to escape "self-limiting" processes like starvation and mass societal upheavals borne or desperstion and inequity. Get it?
They don't believe in Darwinism, except as it applies to societal constructs, then it's the Grand Unifying Theory.
"No true Scotsman"?
You don't seem to understand the meaning of that argument, it's when someone tries to dismiss a member of their own group as not a true member of their own group, I couldn't make that sort of statement about libertarians, since I am not one.
:)
Keep trying to salvage victory tho
China is corrupt. It looks as if many sectors of US society are populated by money-hungry bastards. Not just medical services, also the legal, defense and financial sectors.
Apparently those shouting most loudly are those who have most issues.
Let me repeat my assertion - "In fact, the constitution that you have written down is only the constitutional document, the real constitution is the structure and rules of government in practice that are acceptable by the political and judicial establishments."
The interpretation of the written document is what is important - not the interpretation of you or me, but the interpretation of the courts and the political establishment.
The constitution is not a list of negative liberties. In fact, most of the constitution are articles defining the process and operation of government. Only parts of the constitution, esp. the second amendment, affirm certain negative liberties, for example, the freedom from state intervention in endorsement of religion, and the freedom from the state banning militias and from bearing arms, etc. In fact, the power of government is quite abstract and wide, even considering the limitations of article X.
I also have the feeling, hopefully mistaken, that you have a confused view of negative liberty. Negative liberty can be described as freedom to do something without the interference from others. Certain negative rights are cherished and necessary in a fair and just society, such as the right to free of speech and freedom of religion. However, all societies require individuals to suspends partially some of this liberty to ensure that one's actions does not cause harm to others. The criminal law, for example, is a massive restriction on individual negative freedoms to ensure that society can function.
On weath redistribution, you were confusing wealth distribution between states, and between different demographics. When government functions, it redistributes wealth, money goes in, and then it goes out to different people, you can't avoid that, that's redistribution between demographics. In fact, private enterprises redistributes wealth as well in essence- you might think you have a choice in the private sector, but I can give you many examples in which it doesn't. Natural monopolies and cartels for example redistributes wealth and people dont' usually have a choice - without any government aid or assistance.
What we are concerned about in this context is the redistribution of wealth between states in the EU, or in the US, which you have yet to address. The problem with Greece is that it is in the Eurozone, which mean that it cannot set its own monetary policy. In the US, fiscal problems with a weaker state is dealt with transfer payments from the stronger ones. In the EU there are states which are atill very strong fiscally - such as NL and D, and the question is whether they are willing to commit to the Euro by agreeing to back the risky debt of the weaker ones. That is the core of the debate - and the pressure is piling on Germany and the ECB.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
A friend of mine has always argued that US business was helping the Chinese at the expense of American workers. I argued he was just being conspiratorial. He was right! Un-befucking-lievable.
The interpretation of the written document is what is important - not the interpretation of you or me, but the interpretation of the courts and the political establishment.
No, in the US, as it was laid out in the Constitution, the will (and therefor the interpretation of the Constitution) of The People is what is important, as government and those that work for it are servants of The People. That this relationship has been turned on it's head is one of the greatest problems facing the US, and what is likely to be the root cause of an uprising by The People to replace those in power and reform the government so as to reestablish the role of servants, submissive to the Constitution and The People, for those in government.
The constitution is not a list of negative liberties. In fact, most of the constitution are articles defining the process and operation of government.
In this context it is still a statement of negative liberties, as those definitions describe the only powers and functions allowed to government, and anything not expressly listed is prohibited. Yet another area where the relationship between Government and The People has been wrongly turned on it's head.
On weath redistribution, you were confusing wealth distribution between states, and between different demographics. When government functions, it redistributes wealth, money goes in, and then it goes out to different people, you can't avoid that, that's redistribution between demographics. In fact, private enterprises redistributes wealth as well in essence- you might think you have a choice in the private sector, but I can give you many examples in which it doesn't. Natural monopolies and cartels for example redistributes wealth and people dont' usually have a choice - without any government aid or assistance.
Whether it be between the States or The People, wealth redistribution is unconstitutional. Just like individuals, States must stand or fall economically on their own. Just as with individuals, were this not so there would be no reason to behave in an economically-sound manner, as both individuals and States could rely on being bailed out by others when unwise decisions are made and avoid negative consequences for foolish behavior. This is yet another area where government acts unconstitutionally to the detriment of the nation and The People. What we have now is a system in which the Federal government takes in taxes a huge amount of wealth from the individuals of each State and doles out some portion back to State governments under conditions amounting to blackmail, when the States should be keeping that wealth to spend on their own infrastructure and programs as the citizens of each State see fit. Instead that wealth is used as blackmail to force States to cave to the wishes of the Federal government or face eventual bankruptcy and collapse. Please read the Federalist Papers for more on this and other subjects pertaining to Federal powers and limitations.
Private enterprise is where wealth distribution and wealth creation both occur. It is not the function of the Federal government to redistribute wealth between States, just as it is not the function of *any* part of government to redistribute wealth among individual citizens. There is no Constitutional authority for doing so. It is outside the powers granted the Federal government and thus unconstitutional. This is yet another cause of the US' domestic economic problems.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
The interpretation of the written document is what is important - not the interpretation of you or me, but the interpretation of the courts and the political establishment.
No, in the US, as it was laid out in the Constitution, the will (and therefor the interpretation of the Constitution) of The People is what is important, as government and those that work for it are servants of The People. That this relationship has been turned on it's head is one of the greatest problems facing the US, and what is likely to be the root cause of an uprising by The People to replace those in power and reform the government so as to reestablish the role of servants, submissive to the Constitution and The People, for those in government.
Writing "The People" in uppercase does not make what you say true. If you want to make changes to the political and judicial establishment, you are free to by persuading the voting public. Until that happens, your interpretations do not matter any more than Ron Pauls. Don't get me wrong, I never said politicians or judges are above the law - they are after all accountable to the people through the political process representative democracy. I just said that they make and interpret laws, and that's how government works (as defined in the US constitution). Campaign finance reform is a good thing if it can keep vested interests out of government and make decisions based on merit as opposed to lobbying. I believe that's something we can both agree on.
The constitution is not a list of negative liberties. In fact, most of the constitution are articles defining the process and operation of government.
In this context it is still a statement of negative liberties, as those definitions describe the only powers and functions allowed to government, and anything not expressly listed is prohibited. Yet another area where the relationship between Government and The People has been wrongly turned on it's head.
Sorry. There is a very specific meaning to negative liberty and your assertions simply do not fit with your choice of words. Negative liberties are rights for individuals to be free from control of others. This is the accepted meaning in both philosophy and jurisprudence; and hence not really related to the acutal machinery or process of government itself. The term was popularized by Isaiah Berlin back in the 60s but can be traced back much further to the works of Immanuel Kant in which he examines the different "senses" of freedom back in the 16th century.
On weath redistribution, you were confusing wealth distribution between states, and between different demographics. When government functions, it redistributes wealth, money goes in, and then it goes out to different people, you can't avoid that, that's redistribution between demographics. In fact, private enterprises redistributes wealth as well in essence- you might think you have a choice in the private sector, but I can give you many examples in which it doesn't. Natural monopolies and cartels for example redistributes wealth and people dont' usually have a choice - without any government aid or assistance.
Whether it be between the States or The People, wealth redistribution is unconstitutional. Just like individuals, States must stand or fall economically on their own. Just as with individuals, were this not so there would be no reason to behave in an economically-sound manner, as both individuals and States could rely on being bailed out by others when unwise decisions are made and avoid negative consequences for foolish behavior. This is yet another area where government acts unconstitutionally to the detriment of the nation and The People. What we have now is a system in which the Federal government takes in taxes a huge amount of wealth from the individuals of each State and doles out some portion back to State governments under conditions amount
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
"No true Scotsman"?
You don't seem to understand the meaning of that argument, it's when someone tries to claim a member of their own group as not a true member of their own group, I couldn't make that sort of statement about libertarians, since I am not one.
:)
Keep trying to salvage victory tho
Because there's plenty of people willing to do your job (able may be another matter, but probably more are able than have had the opportunity) while few if any willingly clean shit. Thus, in anything like a fair world that doesn't use force to 'keep people in their place', shit cleaners are a scarce resource. As such, in a truly free market, CEOs scrape by, researchers who work for a living do OK and shit cleaners are richly rewarded for doing what few have the stomach for and even fewer will do willingly.
Or would you rather die of cholera like in the good old days?
Writing "The People" in uppercase does not make what you say true. If you want to make changes to the political and judicial establishment, you are free to by persuading the voting public.
I wrote "The People" as a allusion to how it is written in the Constitution to communicate that the Constitution puts people over government, and empowers The People with the right to not only change the government by vote, but when that fails due to government ignoring the results of such a vote, or refusing to allow a vote, or otherwise ignore the will of The People, to remove it by any means necessary including force. I would argue the majority of the voting public is ready to make those changes. It's now up to the government to decide how it wants this to go down, hard or easy.
I guess you missed the part in my post that said transfer payments are necessary in a monetary union due to the inherent disparity in economic power and growth of states in such an arrangment, and the inability of such states to find equilibrium because they do not have control of their own monetary policy.
Let's get this straight. There are no "transfer payments" as such between the Federal government and the States. There is no provision for such a Federal power in the Constitution, therefor it would require a Constitutional Amendment be added, which is extremely unlikely to occur.
"Despite considerable differences in the abilities of states to generate revenues, there is no federal program in the United States that aims explicitly at reducing the disparities in state fiscal capacity."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments#United_States
And would you care to back up to your claims that private enterprise is the *only* place that wealth distribution should occur?
Wealth (re)distribution by government distorts and destroys a free market and Capitalist economy over time. A Capitalist, free-market economy depends on private sector distribution of wealth in order to function. Government generates no wealth, only consumes it, so it has to first confiscate wealth. The US capitalist economy functions only so long as there is a relatively free and fair market. Forcibly removing wealth that would otherwise go to capital to finance existing and start new businesses hinders that process, and removing wealth selectively destroys a free market.
Wealth distribution by the private sector in the US produces the greatest growth, generation of wealth, best efficiency, and fairest outcomes as compared to any other system yet tried on a comparable scale. It's why the US became the world's greatest superpower in under 200 years from it's founding, and why people from nearly every part of the world dream of coming to the US. They know that it's the one place where someone with nothing can create wealth and raise themselves from poverty to riches.
Sorry. There is a very specific meaning to negative liberty and your assertions simply do not fit with your choice of words. Negative liberties are rights for individuals to be free from control of others. This is the accepted meaning in both philosophy and jurisprudence; and hence not really related to the acutal machinery or process of government itself. The term was popularized by Isaiah Berlin back in the 60s but can be traced back much further to the works of Immanuel Kant in which he examines the different "senses" of freedom back in the 16th century.
By whatever terminology you wish to call it, individual Rights spelled out in the Constitution are not an exclusive list. Articles outlining the duties and powers of the Federal government, however, *are* an exclusive list, and any power not listed belongs to either States or The People as individuals.
I don't claim to be a Constitutional scholar. However, I'm 54 and I've seen the extremely destructive effec
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
So every family was assigned a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number with that in view, â" for present purposes only, and making no division for inheritance, â" all boys and children being included under some family.
So you're saying that the means of production should be granted to the common people at least to the level of the individual family in proportion to need and said means should not be inheritable?
You sound like some kind of communist!
Yes, it was regulation that forced those CEOs to stuff the silverware down their pants and palm the host's cufflinks on the way out the door. You Bet'cha!
No, but it was regulation that allowed them to do so.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Actually, things were going OK until they were DE-regulated.
When was that? I do not know of any industry that actually had the number of regulations they were required to comply with reduced, let alone eliminated. This is a favorite game of politicians and bureaucrats, change and increase the number of regulations that an industry needs to comply with and call it "deregulation" because they got rid of some high profile regulation, while imposing a bunch of regulations that they do not mention in the press release.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
All those problems can exist in capitalism also. Thankfully we have a culture that abhors slavery, and execution, although we are slipping on massive imprisonment. When Russia adopted communism, they were not so lucky.
Cheap storage VM.
That would have been the late '90s right up until the big crash. One of the very few things the Ds and the Rs can agree on is that regulations were loosened up on the financial industry.
I wrote "The People" as a allusion to how it is written in the Constitution to communicate that the Constitution puts people over government, and empowers The People with the right to not only change the government by vote, but when that fails due to government ignoring the results of such a vote, or refusing to allow a vote, or otherwise ignore the will of The People, to remove it by any means necessary including force. I would argue the majority of the voting public is ready to make those changes. It's now up to the government to decide how it wants this to go down, hard or easy.
On the contrary to what you assert, the constitution is a declaration of the delegation of power from "The People" into a government, recognizing the source of power of government is derived from "The People's right to self-determination", rather than from "The Divine Right of Kings". The mechanism of this delegation is specified in the constitution and is at the heart of the American political system. At the end of the day, the government is an aparatus like any other. It is not the government who is oppressing you, it is some of your fellow citizenry that are - sometimes through the use of unproper influence in government, sometimes through market manipulation, etc..
Let's get this straight. There are no "transfer payments" as such between the Federal government and the States. There is no provision for such a Federal power in the Constitution, therefor it would require a Constitutional Amendment be added, which is extremely unlikely to occur.
"Despite considerable differences in the abilities of states to generate revenues, there is no federal program in the United States that aims explicitly at reducing the disparities in state fiscal capacity."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments#United_States
Transfer payments in the US are not officially declared as such. They are achieved through fiscal programs - for example, building bridges, dams or military bases in certain states. This spending then makes its way up to the states through taxes. As I said previously, all fiscal spending is wealth distribution.
BTW, on that pages you linked from, you might of forgotten to quote the sentence after - "... Certain federal-state transfers, however, do contain equalizing elements. For instance, some formula grants consider a state's personal income in determining levels of federal support. However, most federal grant programs require that each state receive at least .5% of the grant money regardless of population, so large states end up subsidizing small states, thus enabling the small states to have low or no income taxes. ..."
Wealth (re)distribution by government distorts and destroys a free market and Capitalist economy over time. A Capitalist, free-market economy depends on private sector distribution of wealth in order to function. Government generates no wealth, only consumes it, so it has to first confiscate wealth. The US capitalist economy functions only so long as there is a relatively free and fair market. Forcibly removing wealth that would otherwise go to capital to finance existing and start new businesses hinders that process, and removing wealth selectively destroys a free market.
Wealth distribution by the private sector in the US produces the greatest growth, generation of wealth, best efficiency, and fairest outcomes as compared to any other system yet tried on a comparable scale. It's why the US became the world's greatest superpower in under 200 years from it's founding, and why people from nearly every part of the world dream of coming to the US. They know that it's the one place where someone with nothing can create wealth and raise themselves from poverty to riches.
Your economic claims require backing up with examples or references which you have yet
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
I guess that depends on your definition of "loosened".
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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Once is a typo. Three times (out of three attempts) means you need some education. You're welcome.