Slashdot Mirror
Xerox "Routine Backup Test" Leave 17 States Without Food Stamps
An anonymous reader writes "People in Ohio, Michigan and 15 other states found themselves temporarily unable to use their food stamp debit-style cards on Saturday, after a routine test of backup systems by vendor Xerox Corp. resulted in a system failure. Xerox announced late in the evening that access has been restored for users in the 17 states affected by the outage, hours after the first problems were reported. 'Restarting the EBT system required time to ensure service was back at full functionality,' spokeswoman Jennifer Wasmer said in an email. An emergency voucher process was available in some of the areas while the problems were occurring, she said. U.S. Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Courtney Rowe underscored that the outage was not related to the government shutdown."
"[A politician] underscored that the outage was not related to the government shutdown."
These words should never have to be said.
Backups don't always work - that's why you test them. This time they did not work - much better that you experience problems when you anticipate them than when everything else is going wrong, too. It's unfortunate that the system was down, but it seems they got it back up in a reasonably quick time frame. Moreover, merchants are supposed to have manual means of recording EBT payments for just such a scenario.
Douglas Whitaker
Hahaha I was walking thru Kroger's yesterday and they kept announcing over the speakers "We cannot accept EBT today because our computers are having problems."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
People in Ohio, Michigan and 15 other states found themselves temporarily unable to use their food stamp debit-style cards on Saturday,
Why is it that a convenience -- our credit cards, are able to weather a failure like this by simply allowing all purchases, but our food stamp cards simply stop working? Credit card systems are, at every level, designed to cope with a failure by simply authorizing the purchase. Only a very small number of transactions would have been failed anyway for insufficient funds, etc., and these are reconciled when that part of the system is restored to service... meaning there's very little loss to the provider for this.
For that matter, if they've decided to design the system in this fashion, where were the redundancies? If a routine backup can result in failure on this scale, then it begs the question of where and how the backup of the actual systems, not just the data, got overlooked.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
The local Walmart was lacking in any backup method. They had at least 50 buggies packed full of food sitting around the registers and a lot of pissed off customers. Glad they got it back up, I don't look forward to that riot.
Some idiot said, "Hey, let's test the backup system on a production server."
There Are 3 Unemployed People Competing For Every Job Opening
At least Xerox does backups, and tests them. Sure beats not testing and risking catastrophe.
This situation could have resulted in violence (or worse) if this wasn't rectified quickly.
Moreover, merchants are supposed to have manual means of recording EBT payments for just such a scenario.
Those lead to fraud loopholes, and not just EBT. Someone can claim, "oh, my card doesn't work because the system is down, just fill out the paperwork for me, please." Thats more problematic when nothing distinguishes a "DECLINE-card has no funds" from a "DECLINE-system is broken" to the cashier.
John
It's hardly fair to expect people to get a job just to eat. Everyone is entitled to food, shelter and reasonable transportation. It say's so in the US Constitution.
It does? Where? Since when?? The closest my US Constitution comes is "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Backups don't always work - that's why you test them. This time they did not work - much better that you experience problems when you anticipate them than when everything else is going wrong, too. It's unfortunate that the system was down, but it seems they got it back up in a reasonably quick time frame. Moreover, merchants are supposed to have manual means of recording EBT payments for just such a scenario.
Exactly. Imagine a more catastrophic meltdown down the road and all of the Nancy Naysayers saying, "WhyoWhy didn't anyone test it?"
How does one stay alive without food or shelter?
WHAT ABOUT BLOWJOBS?
Let me remind you all of Senator Obama's words from 2006 regarding the raising of the debt ceiling. He voted against raising the debt ceiling at that time.
"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally."
Source
How true are those words? I only wish President Obama still believed what he did as Senator.
Routine means that is done more often, not that is is done correct or even approved....
I'll just leave this here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzspsovNvII
"[A politician] underscored that the entry of the US into WW2 was not related to the attack on Pearl Harbor."
I think you are confused, that is from the Declaration of Independence..
To be pedantic: life does, in fact, require food. One might even include shelter in that requirement given that much of the US climate can be considered deadly to the unsheltered at certain times of the year. Reasonable transportation is a bit of a longer stretch, but liberty would include at least the freedom to move about, and the pursuit of happiness could imply at least the ability to find transportation which enabled such a pursuit.
Personally, I'd like to see them starve, die from exposure, or - at the least - hear them complain about lack of efficient bus routes.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
That statement is no longer operative.
>It's hardly fair to expect people to get a job just to eat. Everyone is entitled to food, shelter and reasonable transportation. It say's so in the US Constitution.
Citation needed.
Food stamps? Why does your country need food stamps?
Is this a war-ravaged african country we're talking about?
Some neoliberal-ravaged western country perhaps?
... much better that you experience problems when you anticipate them than when everything else is going wrong, too.
So what you're saying is: if you make a 1 million dollar mistake, your response should be "Phew! At least I didn't lose 5 million!".
An outside observer might suggest that losing the $1 million is bad on its face. Mitigating the outrage by making false comparisons is the sort of thing politicians do, as a dodge for responsibility.
Should we be sanguine about these sorts of problems because they're not the worst possible scenario? Is that an acceptable excuse?
So increasing taxes to help government spending helps private employment?
Lets double the tax rates on everything if thats the case, or triple and then those 3 people looking for jobs will easily be able to find them.
In the late 1990s, the company I worked for was one of many processing EBT card transactions for grocery stores in New Mexico when they first switched to it from paper food stamps. The bank that was the approving authority for them (the next higher link up the chain from us) had a system problem and had been down for about 45 minutes.
I got a call from a very stressed sounding manager at a store in a bad neighborhood of Albuquerque and explained that the outage was statewide, and I'd already called the next highest level.
His response: "You don't understand! These people carry guns."
I really didn't have a good answer for that one, but certainly sympathized.
They later changed the rules so that when the statewide system was down, they could approve it at the store and then take out any overuse from later payments. That got abused, but it made some store managers a lot less nervous.
And libtards think employment is supposed to come from daddy government.
It's hardly fair to expect people to get a job just to eat. Everyone is entitled to food, shelter and reasonable transportation. It say's so in the US Constitution.
It does? Where? Since when?? The closest my US Constitution comes is "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Do you know what happens when people get desperate? They stick knives and guns in your face.
Yeah, sure they may get caught, but in the meantime, you're dead. Got your own gun? Doesn't work when they stab or shoot you in the back.
Get it? These social pograms are to prevent folks from doing some very desperate things.
But that's just practicality. Let's talk about just being a human being.
We can act like a human being or we can act like animals where it's the survival of the "fittest"; which means in this culture, making money.
But when you are someone who grew up not learning the skills - material or social - to get a job, it is very difficult if not impossible. And I can tell you from experience, nobody clues you in about any defects one may have - you hear nothing or "you are not a good fit". No one ever points out what one's difficiences are. Many of these folks grew up in broken homes, were abused, live in the shittiest areas and have no ability to move.
And the job market being so tight as it is, it is completely unrealistic to "just go out and get a job". We have college graduates - folks with degrees in nursing, engineering and CS let alone "worthless" degrees having a horrible time.
You people take your lives and your opportunities for granted. You grew up where you had the opportunities or at least the knowledge how to get those opotunites. I grew up in a working class family that didn't go to college. I was the first to go to college because I was fortunate enough that my parents were able to afford to live in a middle class town and I could go to a school with college prep classes. I was able to have friends that had college educated parents and knew the "system" - like there are folks to help you get into college and better your life. Many of these poor folks don't even realize sugh things exist - really.
And when you live a life of no hope, you may even give up. he thought of "why should I even try when the rules are against me."
Yeah, yeah, yeah, cue the folks who grew up in a log cabin and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. That's great that you knew how to do that. That - knowing how to pull yourself up by your bootstraps - is a skill in itself.
I myself am getting helpless too. I see the billionaires just rigging the game more and more. I don't beleive the American myth that one can work hard, take a chance, and make it big. In reality it is know someone in the right spot. I tried a couple of businesses and they failed. I'm tapped out at 50 and i'm scared about my future - it looks like SS and dog food in my retirement. Well dog food - SS is going to be confiscated by the student loan people. I stupidly went back to school for retraining. Yeah, no one hires 40+ year olds for entry level positions.
I mean really, when Mitt Romney was running, he said all he did was "examine reports" and made no decisions; like closing down factories or anything that cost people jobs. he made over $200 million by just examing reports - a $50K a year "analyst job". I could do that! But I don't have a well connected daddy to get me a cushy job that let's me make millions doing what a low level peon does.
Just count your blessings and stop judging other's lives and their characters because you are where you had opportunites that many others don't have.
Risk exists, and appropriate management of it is how the world moves forward. I'm not privy to the inner-workings of Xerox, and it is entirely possible that they were not following best practices and that a substantial portion of this is due to operator error. However, even routine tests have risk associated with them. My point is that immediately blaming Xerox is not a good reaction: making and testing backups is an effort to mitigate risks (with much worse outcomes). If minor problems arise from time to time in the course of protecting against a larger future risk, that should be accepted. How the short-term and long-term risks offset each other is a discussion for the 17 states, the USDA, and Xerox.
Douglas Whitaker
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Here you go. :-)
With various reports referring to it as a power outage and others as a test of backup systems, I'd guess this was a generator load test where something went wrong with the transfer switch. We do those off-hours monthly at the data center where I work and, being the nervous sort, I'm grateful they usually coincide with one of my days off, although ours have gone smoothly.
there is ABSOLUTELY NO SUCH STATEMENT in the constitution. according to the constitution, you have a right to life, liberty and property. you do not have a right to food, shelter, or even transportation. quit being a bum and get a job.
Did you just pull random speculation out of your ass? If the system works, the card gets used. Most people on the registers are not going to know about any backup system. Want to use your card? swipe it first. Doesn't work? swipe it. I need to know what the problem is so I can ask my manager.
Manager comes over. What happens when you swipe it?
Now, if you're talking about friend of the cashier, that would raise lots of red flags to have piles of swipes work, followed by a single transaction by the friend. It would work once.
What happens after the data is reconciled for manual backups? If you exceed your limit or the card is not authorized for you, some accounting will find you.
Xerox asked retailers to revert to a manual system, meaning customers could spend up to $50 until the system was restored.
That sounds like a reasonable compromise, once everyone is aware the system actually is down.
That addresses this for most cases, so you don't get fraud.
Sounds like they didn't just let people buy whatever they wanted, because the plan b was down. Now, why did you waste our time posting horseshit?
The local Walmart was lacking in any backup method. They had at least 50 buggies packed full of food sitting around the registers and a lot of pissed off customers. Glad they got it back up, I don't look forward to that riot.
Ye gods, the crowd could get ugly...
Too late.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Natural rights are those that cannot be taken away by others, not a declaration of entitlements. Someone else cannot take your liberty, but you are welcome to chain yourself to a fireplug.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I actually feel for the Xerox people working on this. I know what it is like to have a system with intense and broad functionality and you are frozen in fear every time you make the slightest change. Testing ahead of time is great but can you be 100% certain that you have 100% test coverage? If you are then you are a fool.
If I had to point any fingers it would be that they should have a multi-layered deployment system where they deploy to the test center, a small random group, a larger group, and then nationally. It sounds like they might be halfway there with this outage only affecting 17 states. Ideally it would only be affecting a few counties in a couple of states.
Plus you want to keep the domain of your test area down to the point where you can fix crap manually.
So you don't mind if they go hunting in the neighborhood? You're fine with it if your neighbors plow up the lawn, plant crops, and get a cow?
There Are 3 Unemployed People Competing For Every Job Opening
But is this a measure of people competing for jobs in good faith, or is it merely the number of people unemployed divided by the number of jobs? From TFA, I see it's the latter.
This doesn't take into account people like, for instance, my sister, who hasn't worked since the mid-nineties and is grimly determined to do whatever it takes to remain on government assistance for the remainder of her life. Justified by "I had bad things happen to me in my youth; society owes me a comfortable living in the manner and place of my choosing as a result."
I'm pretty sure she's not the only one.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Government spending != wages, unless you're talking about government wages, which I don't believe we were.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Another citation
How much are you paying? When and where should I report for work?
In other words, they don't exist. Because you may think you have a right to live, but anyone can take away your life. If the right to live isn't a natural right, nothing else is either.
How does increasing spending help employ people? Unless you just want everyone to work for the government and make everything state run....
Oh, wait....
Errare humanum est
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Should we be sanguine about these sorts of problems because they're not the worst possible scenario? Is that an acceptable excuse?
To some degree yes, mistakes happen, especially with large complex systems. We should count having avoided the worst cases scenario as a success and see what can be done to mitigate the failure mode that did occur in the future, and the answer to that question might very well be nothing or nothing less costly than the future number of anticipated similar failures.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Ugh! The only American made car uglier was the AMC Pacer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1975_AMC_Pacer_base_model_frontleftside.jpg
Go back and look, the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" quote (happiness not property) is from the Declaration of Independence.
It is exactly because natural rights are violable that it is important to protect them.
Your "right to life" is not a directive to the rest of us to keep you alive, it is a directive to the rest of us not to actively try to kill you.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The fact that we have natural rights does not preclude us from making other laws. Are you serious or trying to build a straw man?
By the way, I would like very much if someone would like to come safely hunt or trap the deer and rabbits that are eating my garden. I have a neighbor with crops in the front yard. Eclectic, but whatever. There are no cows, but one lady (same as the crops) does have chickens in a movable pen. Another guy moved up from Texas and had chickens for a while, but he seems to have given that up.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
So you don't mind if they go hunting in the neighborhood? You're fine with it if your neighbors plow up the lawn, plant crops, and get a cow?
I am fine with all of that. Although if you try hunting on my lawn, I'll consider you a poacher and a legitimate target.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Government spending on the construction and maintenance of roads and other infrastructure creates positive externalities for businesses located near the infrastructure.
One might even include shelter in that requirement given that much of the US climate can be considered deadly to the unsheltered at certain times of the year.
In that case, plenty of cities and states are violating the right to life by denying people the right to pitch a reasonable tent on public land.
Luckily, she's a statistical minority. She's only your sister, not mine.
> So you don't mind if they go hunting in the neighborhood? You're fine with it if your neighbors plow up the lawn, plant crops, and get a cow?
No, not really. I are proceeding from the false assumption that those of us that believe in personal property rights are flaming hypocrites.
Truth be told, there isn't much good hunting to be had in my neighborhood. That whole "urban" thing has scared off most of the wildlife. I am not sure how much you could make out of the few rabbits and squirrels that remain.
As far as "agriculture" goes, I don't have much tolerance for purely decorative landscaping anyways. I would much prefer it if all of the bushes and trees in the neighborhood provided something edible.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Where is the teaching people how to do needed work?
On the Internet, if Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project is to be believed.
Where is the work to be done as people have been taught?
In your own business that you started. Do you think Jesus's adoptive father Joseph was the equivalent of a W-2 employee, or was it more likely that he owned his own shop?
To be even more pedantic, the life mentioned in Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is not a right to live, but your right to control your own destiny or die trying. That is where liberty and pursuit of happiness come into play. It is only limited by your abilities and resources due to the life you created for yourself.
The concept of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not about what a person is entitled to. If that was the case, the very first congress would have instituted welfare. It wasn't until the early 1900s that it became part of the political landscape and that wasn't because the sudden invention of TV or Radio and congress somehow knew some of the people were in need. No, the concept is about what you can attempt to strive for and achieve.
Think about it. The money has to go somewhere. All money eventually ends up in the private sector. If the government contributes towards building a new research building, where does that money go? Private contractors, and private companies selling stuff. New permanent jobs are created when a new building is put up, and it also contributes to the number of employees needed for all the support companies.
A point to consider: How many hours was perishable food left in all these abandoned carts before being put back on the shelf? I'd steer clear of buying anything perishable from a store accepting EBTs for a while, at least.
The point is that that all of that has been made illegal in many places. Many of the means by which a non-lazy person might gather the essentials for living in the absence of offered employment have been taken away, but no suitable replacement seems to be on offer. That is at the least unethical.
Xicor was referring to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which does say "property".
I'll bet you'll find there are laws forbidding it where you live. You might should get those repealed since you are fine with the behavior. That or offer a suitable substitute.
But is this a measure of people competing for jobs in good faith, or is it merely the number of people unemployed divided by the number of jobs? From TFA, I see it's the latter.
1. To be counted as unemployed, you must be actively looking for a job. If you aren't, you are officially a "discouraged worker" and removed from the unemployment rolls. So, for example, if your sister hasn't worked since 1995, an hasn't even been trying to get a job, she isn't one of those 3 people trying to fill a single opening.
2. Even if, say, 1/3 of people who are counted as unemployed are really bums trying to mooch off the government, that still means that half of the people legitimately looking for work are coming up empty.
It was even worse a few years ago, when the ration was more like 5 unemployed people to 1 job. In that situation, you could be demonstrably good at your profession, and still not be hired because they could get the best-of-the-best for a pittance in that economy.
I am officially gone from
So the commons were closed. In most cases, agriculture beyond a small garden somewhere in the yard are forbidden. meanwhile, no reasonable alternative has been offered.
Well, I have to say that this might be good.
I was in Target last week, at the checkout, behind a woman who paid approx $330 with a benefit card. At least 90%, if not more, was processed or manufactured food, apparently 'acceptable' to the system. It beggars belief that so much money was spent on sugar
The article is vague as to what Xerox provides. I gather they're not just the hardware vendor. Do they supply the software? Do they handle clearance, like a credit card company? What exactly is their role?
thats not the constitution, thats the declaration of independence. also, being the declaration of independence, it does not actually grant ANY rights to anyone
And job openings don't actually mean potential hiring since many job openings are just a honeypot for HR to process resumes & justify their existence. The posted openings are also leaving open the possibility of finding a superstar for the position to replace a current mediocre employee. So of the 3 competing for every position, I'd guess 0.75 will get hired, meaning its really 1 in 4 who are going to find eventual success.
When i test failover, I announce the test in advance so people can have a plan ready in case the failover doesn't. It sounds like this was un-announced and nobody had any sort of plan to deal with a failure.
I seem to remember that it is written in UN Universal Declaration Of Human Rights , however I am not sure if USA has ratified it completely.
But as US laws are not compliant with UDHR ( allow torture, deny fair trial etc.etc. ) it does not even matters...
you increase the top earner's rates on income over a certain amount. In the 50s and 60s we had the highest growth in real wages and middle class incomes the country (maybe even the species) has ever seen with a 90% top tax bracket. How? Because that 90% wasn't a flat "Give us 90% of your income" it was "90 % over 1 Million" or about $9 million in todays money. So if you made over $9 million dollars in a SINGLE YEAR then you paid 90% of that to the gov't. This kept wealth inequality in check and forced top earners to really work for that money over $9 million. If you wanted to be filthy, stinking rich you really had to work at it (people still did). Meanwhile gov't programs redistributed the wealth. Maybe not evenly, but it's better than phoney job creators hording it and holding up human progress by sitting on their fat rears with all the money in the world...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I've known people on gov't assistance. It's a few hundred dollars a month and you have to be making about half the poverty line to get it. If you're sister is on gov't assistance for real then there's something wrong with her. I don't mean that as an insult. I mean there really is something wrong, and she needs the help. You don't get enough from the gov't to live, you get enough so that if your family is giving you a lot of help you can just barely eat.
Is this an astro turfer or something? I'd like to believe noone is this much of a jerk in real life...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
... and it's also why, when you do test them, you make sure to test them on the data affecting 17 different states!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I bet those numbers in the stamps were juggling around like hungry children running after US Aid truck delivering American wheat after teachings about contraceptives had been dropped from the curriculum.
Please take the time to read about the distinction between positive rights and negative rights. Wherever a positive right is claimed to exist, there must necessarily exist slavery in order to provide it, and thus there can be no valid positive rights, only negative rights. In modern America, we've simply decided that in order to indulge a lot of positive rights that we create by fiat, we will enslave wage earners. It neither makes it moral, nor rational. Claiming to have a right that requires the enslavement of others is no more rational than claiming to be a married bachelor.
...this has to do with government is the fact that, once again, a PRIVATE COMPANY that the government has to use because of the fascist conservatives in this country have forced privatization every chance they get... has screwed some people over. That, and the obligatory rants by said conservatives about how bad the government is (even though, once again, this was the fault of A PRIVATE COMPANY).
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
thank god the other 3 are at home watching TV!
You learn that in economics 101, if you lack common sense to understand why.
Because of this news story I learned a new term....Free Shit Army (FSA).
There Are 3 Unemployed People Competing For Every Job Opening
But is this a measure of people competing for jobs in good faith, or is it merely the number of people unemployed divided by the number of jobs? From TFA, I see it's the latter.
1. Is this a measure of jobs offered in good faith, or jobs which are being offered in bad faith which will be granted to no one in order to justify hiring an H1B or outsourcing?
2. Are these jobs you can live on? From TFA, I see it isn't. ("Not coincidentally, most of the industries with the highest numbers of job openings in May, according to the JOLTS data, were lower-paying sectors, including health-care services, retail sales and restaurants.")
3. The article expressly addresses your objection and explicitly states the opposite of your conclusion. This is a measure of people competing for jobs in good faith (11.8 million) and not the number of people counted as being unemployed (7.6 million back in June, per article linked from TFA.)
This doesn't take into account people like, for instance, my sister, who
...is neither statistically significant, nor relevant to this discussion as we are counting actual job-seekers and not just people who are eligible to collect unemployment benefits.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So letting someone starve violates no rights.is that about right?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They also outsourced their IT to EDS a long time ago (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=xerox+eds+outsourcing).
Every civilization since the dawn of time has requires taxes. Get out of your retarded fantas. Paying taxes is no more slavery than obeying speed limits is slavery.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Think about it. The money has to go somewhere. All money eventually ends up in the private sector.
And if the money stayed with the taxpayers from the start, where do you think it will eventually end up? Yup, you guessed it, the private sector, maybe. The big difference between government spending and individuals having less taxes is that less taxes allows people to save, and it allows them to have absolute freedom to choose how that portion of their money gets spent.
That is at the least unethical.
Fair enough. I'm afraid I didn't get where you were coming from. I think we agree - I'm not a staunch libertarian. Once you implement something like property rights (not to mention property tax!), you pretty much sign a social contract to help those who lose out as a result of your legislation.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
the health care system made so people where better off not work then working even an part time job with no health care or an plan that did not cover anything while they end makeing to much pay so they got kicked off there government assistance plan.
It violates no natural rights, but it's not very compassionate. I'm actually a supporter of government-sponsored charity, even though it involves coercion.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Letting someone starve does not violate their natural rights. Preventing someone from acquiring food to eat, and therefore starving, does. Sometimes the line is obvious, and sometimes it's pretty thin.
This isn't to say that we should have no compassion. Nobody has a right to be fed by society. Rather, as a society we'd rather not have people around us starve. There's a big difference.
You've already lost your liberty, you just haven't realized it yet. Open your eyes.
if your right is dependent on taxes then it's not a right. If you land on a uninhabited island and there is no state, your 'right' to a tax funded food disappears but you still have your self-ownership, right to speech, right to be happy, right to provide yourself with means of survival. What about natural disasters? same deal - people cut off from the rest of the world, no food on the store shelves, no water in taps... Suddenly the right to food goes poof. Call these things perks of civilization or whatever but don't mistake them for true rights which don't go away if you are alone and when the weather is bad.
Of course... it's "public" land. That means it simultaneously belongs to everyone, and no one except the government. It is essentially the government equivalent of Nelson's "Haw Haw" laugh, aimed at the poor and unfortunate.
Rights are in general what a society deems then to be. "Natural rights" are in essence a fiction western civilization has largely agreed are inherent, and ought not be violated save in very specific and limited circumstances. Other societal rules also come into play; in particular enlightened self interest, wherein you agree to certain basic protections in exchange for your potential (though possibly never realized) need of them at some future date. Along with that goes the idea that such programs means desperate people don't do what desperate people throughout history have done.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Fair enough, but just because most countries don't respect natural rights, doesn't mean there isn't a whole ideology built around them.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The only people saving money now are the rich 1%.
They put their money in Swiss bank accounts.
They are free.
The rest of us are wage slaves.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Point 1 is technically wrong. Discouraged workers are those that are not actively looking for a job OR those who have been unemployed for at least 12 months. That means that there are actually more than you think for each job.
Being hoarded by Murdoch or similar or getting blown on risky ventures by Trump.
Extended unemployment does that to a lot of people. It's called giving up hope. Some people recover from it and try to rejoin the workforce and others don't. Trying to force the issue just proves that some people can't get over it instantly even if they are threatened with the short brutal life of homelessness, so those who force it just end up with blood on their hands without any sign of success to show for it.
"'Restarting the EBT system required time to ensure service was back at full functionality,'"
See also: "One does not simply RESTART a mainframe.
"Have you heard a Whoooosssshhhhh! lately?"
Yes, and it sure applied to you missing the point big time because you "assumed".
One example of that was my uncle who had problems for many years with his rural town council because he had a lot of fruit trees in his yard and they declared that orchards were not permitted within town limits. It was a normal town block so couldn't have been more than a dozen trees of different types (apricot, peach, cherry etc), the place was tidy and he had his own bore for water, but the council made an issue of it for years.
That's what the rest of the world already thinks is the prevailing attitude in the USA of the homeless, mentally ill and hospitality workers that just about have to prostitute themselves to complete strangers to get the tips they need to live. That's good work at reinforcing the stereotype of barbarians that should only be treated politely while they have money.
The majority of money you call "hoarded" is actually just re-invested. That's due to everyone wanting to beat inflation, so they save their money as investments.
As for your "getting blow on risky ventures by Trump" comment. Well, if he loses it, it still goes somewhere. It pays for stuff, it hires people, it goes into someone's investment account, whatever. The point is that, either way, that money is getting used and circulated, somehow.
Any other misguided ideas?
The only people saving money now are the rich 1%.
I'm saving money, and I'm not part of the 1%. How do you mean?
They put their money in Swiss bank accounts.
It's their money, they earned it. If they wish to keep it there, then that's their prerogative.
They are free.
The rest of us are wage slaves.
If you don't like it, you're "free" to start you own business. It means you won't be a wage-slave anymore. Either way, why exactly do you have a problem with earning a wage? You are selling your labor. Why use the word slave? Sounds like you have some very deep-seated anger issues towards those that are somehow currently more fortunate than you.
Don't waste your breath. The tea party fools cheering for the ultra rich would have been the ones cheering for the British aristocrats back then. It's quite ironic that they label themselves as the rebels of the time, but look at what they say and it's all about taking the rights away from the people and giving them back to the aristocrats.
The money will go to the politicians instead. Costs a lot of money to get elected and the return on investing in some politicians is probably better then most investments.
I guess you can argue that the politicians will spend the money but it is sorta like arguing that breaking windows is good for the economy as it employs glaziers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
real admins NEVER test their backups. I mean what's the better blame game? sorry board, we had a perfectly good backup plan in place but the flux capacitor failed. or Yeah, Sven forced the tape in backwards and pressed ok to ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CONTINUE?
Luckily, she's a statistical minority. She's only your sister, not mine.
Agreed. I wouldn't wish her on anyone. But I'm not so sure people like her, (not just her) are a statistical minority. I'd like to think so.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Yes, the top rate was 90%. BUT NOBODY PAID 90%!!! There were all sorts of write offs, loop holes, etc and people paid close to what we paid today.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
To be even more pedantic, the life mentioned in Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is not a right to live, but your right to control your own destiny or die trying. That is where liberty and pursuit of happiness come into play. It is only limited by your abilities and resources due to the life you created for yourself.
It's a combination of the life you created for yourself and circumstances. For example my life is probably much better due to my parents decision to emigrate to a new land with much better opportunities.
The kid who was born to an alcoholic mother who was drunk throughout her pregnancy is at a huge disadvantage in creating much of a life for themselves due to brain damage.
The concept of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not about what a person is entitled to. If that was the case, the very first congress would have instituted welfare. It wasn't until the early 1900s that it became part of the political landscape and that wasn't because the sudden invention of TV or Radio and congress somehow knew some of the people were in need. No, the concept is about what you can attempt to strive for and achieve.
Actually one of the driving forces behind the American revolution was welfare in the form of land. Americans had a sense of entitlement to all that land to the west and the government made it possible to cheat or kill the occupants and take it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Most of the people I've seen on food stamps could quit eating for 2 months and still be fat.
80% of the taxes collected for helping people goes to the social(ist) workers and anything related to the administration of those programs. Most of the rest of the money goes to private organisations in the community operated by "connected" families to administor. They use it for themselves to help the economicically disenfranchised to quit their sinful ways and direct them to a church for guidance and care; something anyone could do for themselves for free.
In other words, the money is really used to finance a staff of directory personnel, their friends, and their relatives; over paid parasites living off the taxpayer who think they can do a better job of helping people with my money than I could.
Cool what's your address, my family and I will be over so you can provide us food and shelter, you are not going to deny us our rights are you? Also I want a Tesla, make it green please
Slavery implies no choice. You have chosen to take advantage of civilization and work and get nice stuff and now you don't want to pay. You could have chosen to not take advantage of civilization and not pay taxes. If you don't like paying taxes, quit working and don't pay them. Instead you sound like someone who went to a restaurant, ate a nice dinner and then bitched about getting a bill with the threat of prison if you don't pay.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Maybe they can blame their buggy copiers. Didn't this used to be a quality company?
Liberty in your lifetime
No point. I'm over twenty (40+ actually) so you obviously will not believe me.
I suggest taking a look at places with no functional government if you wish to see what you are advocating. I'm sure if you ask nicely the Taliban can show you a few areas.
I'll just make a note here... Anyone who makes a fucking party political issue about a story which is not a party political issue, I'm going to mod down as offtopic from now on in. I don't care whether you're replying to someone, if you're commenting on a topic which has no fucking relevance to party politics, you're the fucking dipshit.
It might help if the Dems quit importing competition for all those unemployed.
Who the fuck modded this AC "insightful" in a story about Xerox. Fucking kill these comments.
If you're going to plant crops, a straw man can be useful to keep the crows away - maybe he is building one. Last place I lived there was a "Lost Chicken" poster up on the telephone poles one week, funniest thing I saw all year.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Well put. But I despise government-sponsored "charity" because the extortion makes it not charity. Charity is giving your own money to the needy, and is perhaps the most good thing most of us get to do in our lives. Taking away that role in society from the individual to be replaced by impersonal taxation denies us the joy of giving, as well as building an unfortunate sense of entitlement in the receiver.
Well, there are plenty of needy in the world for those of us who have money left after taxes, so there are still plenty of opportunities for charity, but the distance makes it less personal.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
They are "worth it" if someone is willing to pay them that.
Or perhaps because they built a better search engine, or invented a new kind of anti-cancer drug, or did any of a large number of other things that benefit society to the tune of hundreds of millions or billions per year.
There are super-rich who manipulate government into giving them vast amounts of money. And you know why they can do it? Because of people like you, people who want high taxes and strong regulations, the two primary mechanisms by which government engages in crony capitalism.
The real question is: why do people like you pretend to oppose this and then do everything in their power to support it?
The people building search engines and inventing cancer drugs top out around $100,000 a year. A few big winners in the dot com bubble stand out, but by and large the habit of giving billions to people that make things has been gotten under control. Kinda like how Atari made it a point of not letting their game makers credit themselves (look up how Activision got it's start).
I'm sorry you had a falling out with your sister, but I don't think pulling her gov't assistance is the answer to her problems. People in her situation don't pull themselves up by their boot straps when that happens. They implode, and usually end up without a home. I'm glad your sister has held onto her house, and I hope she continues to.
I didn't say I support the super rich using the tool of gov't, rather I recognize that it's inevitable. The rich will use their wealth and power to build institutions that protect that wealth and power. We usually call those institutions 'Government'. They're going to do this whether I want them to or not. The only question is can I wrest those institutions from them. Kinda like how the house of commons gradually became more powerful than the house of lords...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
tried to drag us into conflicts in Libya, Egypt, and a completely bone-headed Syrian intervention that would have had us in a face-off with Putin over something Putin is every bit as committed to (Syria and his naval base there) as Obama is to "Obamacare"...... and all while DOUBLING the nation's debt.
Oh, and by the way, there never was a Clinton-era budget surplus; Politicians in both parties (Democrats AND "establishment" Republicans) love to pretend they have been fiscally responsible by simply leaving things "off the books". The so-Called Clinton surplus numbers were only projections and only valid if you pretended some of the biggest items on the books (Social Security and Medicare) had no future obligation (and therefore no need to actually save/invest the money coming into the programs, freeing that money up for current spending). Corporate executives who do their accounting this way (not including wall st bankers with Washington lobbyists) go to jail.
Bush inherited a mess too... a recession, the popping of the first internet bubble ("pets.com" anyone???) and years of no American response to terrorism accompanied by legal blocks preventing intel agencies sharing data with eachother.
EVERY president inherits things and some inherit very bad messes; Reagan inherited a crippled military, double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates, gas lines (people lined-up around the block to buy gas and only allowed to buy every-other day depending on your license plate#) double-digit unemployment...AND a Democrat congress that used the debt ceiling and the budgets to TRY to block his every action. Obama is LYING when he says the current situation has never been faced by a previous president - I remember it quite well. By the time Reagan ran for re-election he had every one of the economic indicators turned around and things were so good his campaign theme was "morning in America". Obama stepped into a much better situation than Reagan inherited by EVERY measure but the "mainstream"/Democrat press runs interference for him and he has become dependent upon their support; he's had FIVE YEARS and we actually have fewer full-time workers now than we did when he was sworn in. Oh, and Obama was no innocent bystander to the 2008 meltdown, he was a senator in the Democrat-run senate at the time which (working in concert with the Democrat-run House) wrote the laws and budgets in 2007 and 2008 after they pronounced Bush's proposals "dead on arrival"
It does not matter what you inherit..... what matters is what you make of it.
quit being a bum and get a job.
I would like your job, but it is not vacant. First, I must manipulate you into getting yourself fired. The 1st Amendment gives me the right to call you and tell you what I think of you. I'll do this right after you doze off to sleep each night, to make sure you never get any rest. That Amendment also gives me the right to publicize what a cruel louse you are, bereft of empathy. I think handing out flyers at places where you frequent should do the trick... and possibly draw you into a physical altercation where I can then press charges for aggrivated assault... anything to get you to miss work, and get fired. Perhaps a donation to the campaign of a local prosecutor will help with getting a felony conviction for you. While you're dealing with that, I'll see if there are any people in your past that are in the least bit unhappy with your treatment of them, and see if they'd be willing to bring lawsuits against you. I'll hire them attorneys with the fortune I make collecting unemployment. It doesn't matter if they win... what matters is you will be forced to spend to defend yourself, weakening your economic position. However it happens, eventually you will be unemployed and broke, and I will have the opportunity to take your previous job, and then I will be forced by principle alone to tell you that you should quit being a bum and get a job.
Bush's last deficit was $458.6 Billion. President Obama immediately drove this up to $1.4 Trillion (his 2009 "stimulus" ended up costing almost $1T in addition to the "regular" deficit) and then after 2009 the democrats stopped passing budgets (preferring to run the govt on "continuing resolutions" that locked-in the new high levels as the baseline while avoiding any embarrassing votes on budgets with massive deficits). Now with "sequestration" in effect the deficits are falling to about half of Obama's worst (but still FAR higher than Bush's worst) and Obama has the audacity to brag that he has halved the deficit! Blatant dishonest propaganda which he would be publicly challenged on if we had any journalists not connected to the Obama administration.
The situation is NOT improving as long as we are still deficit spending (we continue to go deeper into debt, just at a reduced rate) with each passing year we are heaping more and more debt onto our kids and grandkids and this will become a 1930's-style nightmare if interest rates go up to any degree (which they are bound to do given that they are currently at artificially-depressed rates AND the fed is printing money like a counterfeiter) Even with insanely low rates we are spending much more money every year in interest payments on the debt than we spend on NASA - just imagine all the cool things we could do with existing tax revenue if we were not already so deeply in debt and having to pay the lenders!
Xerox used to make printers, scanners copiers, etc (you know, all that old-fashioned real physical product stuff?) but now as a "service provider" they can mooch off the taxpayers by getting in on the "poor starving children" bandwagon (KA-ching! with each purchase on an EBT card) All of the incentives are there to grow the welfare state: more EBT card users = move voters supporting it, more crony capitalist corporate campaign contributions and lobbying to keep the ball rolling, more political power for the politicians running the gravy train, etc. The only person who loses here is the taxpayer... and he's outnumbered. Washington: meet ancient Rome... It boggles the mind that any young American who plans to still be here in 20 years is not absolutely frightened by the numbers; the US now owes approx $17 Trillion and has promised to pay-out another $100 Trillion in promised future benefits ..... more money than exists on Earth and SOMEBODY will have to pay it.
That which cannot be sustained, will not be sustained
You say you think 90% top bracket is unacceptable to you. So what percentage would seem fair to you? 50%? 60%? How do you propose state and federal income is generated if you lower that percentage? It's okay to say you think something is unfair, but you have to come up with an alternative that does seem fair to you if you want to solve things.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
How many jobs have they each applied for?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
People in her situation don't pull themselves up by their boot straps when that happens. They implode, and usually end up without a home.
I was homeless for a period of time once, after losing everything.
I investigated government subsidized housing, as was told the only thing they could do, was put me on a 2 year waiting list. 2 years, if you're homeless, to wait, for help from the government for housing, because the "sign up and take everything you can" social class, has all their kids signing up for it early, and are in line ahead of you. Its first-come-first-serve, not according to need, yet everytime they want to raise taxes on me, after not helping me when I needed it, they claim someone else needs it.
I did in fact, pull myself up, and worked my way out of being homeless, without government assistance, because there was none available for me, when I actually needed it. Now that I no longer need it, I'm sure I probably qualify for any number of programs.
The federal government sucks at nearly everything it does, because their is simply no real oversight to speak of, and no repercussions for anything it does. This is not saying that 'federal government employees suck at their job,' as I have high regard for people at the individual level, but the system itself and their job and all the constraints that go with it, is what sucks. It sucks the life right out of the hard working private sector people who fund it.
Obviously, you're unfamiliar with Silicon Valley bonuses and salaries even among technical staff, let alone among founders.
No, you don't say it, and you even fool yourself into believing that you don't want it, but in reality, you and people like you are primarily responsible for "the super rich" and a bunch of others being able to enrich themselves at the cost of everybody else, and you want to make it even worse than it already is.
You cannot. Government is always controlled by people who want to use it to enrich themselves. The more taxes you give it and the more power you give it to regulate, the more that power will be abused by the well-connected to enrich themselves. That's why raising taxes on the rich is like throwing gasoline on a fire. Why do you think that giving another trillion to the US government will result in anything other than that trillion being sent to more defense contractors and bailouts?
The way to keep people from misusing government to enrich themselves is to limit government to the absolutely minimally necessary functions, and to keep it as local as possible.
WTF? Pay attention who you are responding to.
Taking away that role in society from the individual to be replaced by impersonal taxation denies us the joy of giving, as well as building an unfortunate sense of entitlement in the receiver.
While I agree with that sentiment, I feel that it is warranted given the current state of regulation. The government seriously restricts what we as citizens can and cannot do to make ends meet... gone are the days where it is possible for someone to disappear into the bush to forage when times are tough. I'm not waxing nostalgic for the days of crop failures equaling widespread starvation, but there is something rather rude about telling someone that they cannot raise their own food and livestock on their own property - if they even have property - and then also telling them that they are on their own if they can't earn enough money to feed themselves.
Even the issue of property ownership... those with real estate get all sorts of government protection for their property. If they get this additional granted right from government, then why not all sorts of other granted rights? It's almost completely arbitrary once you stray off of the "protecting natural rights" path of limiting government.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"I'll just make a note here... Anyone who makes a fucking party political issue about a story which is not a party political issue, I'm going to mod down as offtopic from now on in."
User RedmanCometh has joined your bandwagon..
From the same article: There are always more job openings than there are workers to fill them
I was in a small town this weekend and practically every business had a 'looking for help' sign. If you want to work, you can work. I get offers all the time even though I'm not looking.
In the tech industry there are indeed always dozens of people applying for jobs but most of them simply aren't qualified. In the tech industry at least we've created an environment where we have given these kids degrees for minimal effort. There are thousands of kids graduating with some random tech degree they aren't interested in or qualified for but when they started their 4 year education, there was high demand (and there still is high demand). There is high demand for qualified workers, people that can think, half the college graduates can't think for themselves, most of them can't even do high school mathematics or have a clue about basic physics, heck half the population still believes in a magic sky daddy and that the earth was created 6000 years ago.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
So, you noticed the need is too great for the supply. From this input you take away that the whole system should be scrapped? Not fixed, not funded better?
Truly a man of compassion.
Cheap storage VM.
The situation is NOT improving as long as we are still deficit spending
Say you wanted to reduce deficit spending to $0.00 by December 31. Most of the difference would have to come from entitlement cuts. How do you plan to fix Social Security and Medicare?
Taking away that role in society from the individual to be replaced by impersonal taxation denies us the joy of giving
Won't someone please think of the more fortunate? Truly, they are the real victims here.
past $9 million a year then no. You're not 'working hard to earn more' any more then. You're riding on someone else's hard (that sounds dirty). Do you seriously think the Chinese billionaire that owns Foxconn 'earned' that? Or to go more extreme how about the southern cotton plantation owners in the 1800s? Yeah, I'm being inflammatory, but the point is still valid.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Backups don't always work - that's why you test them. This time they did not work - much better that you experience problems when you anticipate them than when everything else is going wrong, too.
That's also why you don't do a test restore into your production environment. Testing backups 101.
Check this out 2 Walmarts got pretty cleaned out when they let people use their ebts as if there was no limit on them. Watch the video it's amazing.
http://www.ksla.com/story/23679489/walmart-shelves-in-springhill-mansfield-cleared-in-ebt-glitch
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
Several years ago the majority of comments would have been about Xerox's inability to test software without causing mass hunger. Now every single comments devolve a rediculous policy debate written by a bunch of wannabe wonks who are obviously watching too much television.
the last one should recognize that he had a _lot_ of help along the way (which he did) and be willing to pay it forward.
In the real world kids from the projects don't make it big. In the real world they're crushed by daily life and their lack of education. Look up the unemployment rate and average income of project kids (especially the ones that speak Ebonics, which sadly makes them more or less unemployable outside of manual labor and fast food). It's not a fun read.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I'm also saving money. Some of it is for retirement, some in other investments (essentially also for retirement), some it is a liquid emergency fund, and some of it is for charity. I do this because smart people recommend it, and I, through study, have found it to be smart and moral. I am not in the 1%. Neither are the folks who write to Dave Ramsey, or call in to Suze Orman. There are people who make $45,000/year, and they still have 3 month emergency funds. Figure out a way to get it done. If anything is in your way, solve it, then get it done. BTW, the Swiss bank accounts were opened up years ago. Get a new meme.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Well, without food, the "Life" part is going away fairly quickly (a few weeks at most). Shelter? I guess it's a luxury in some places all of the time, and in some of the places some of the time, but probably not in all of the places, all of the time, unless you like expiring of hypothermia. And I'd dare say that reasonable transportation is a pretty big prerequisite to many who are looking for Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Not to mention that the stress of not having food, shelter, and reasonable transportation would tend to make maintenance of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness rather difficult. But then, I'd throw in access to clean water and clean air and to health care as fundamental rights, too... Just sayin'.
That is all.
1) No, you have to appear to be looking for a job. I've known many unemployed people and appearing to be looking for a job is pretty easy. For example I recall the requirement in my state being something like, apply for 3 jobs a week, which is easy, apply for the same four that rejected you last week, the extra job is in case one of those wants to move forward toward offering you a job in which case you don't report it and find another place that wont hire you next week. These were of course my more educated friends who wanted all their paperwork to be truthful and verifiable; they reportedly heard from other unemployed folks that you could just make everything up.
Of course, that's talking about unemployment benefits, there are other programs you can continue to take advantage, but in different ways and I suspect that GPP's sister is not applying for jobs and therefore correctly not counted as you pointed out.
2) Regardless of the ratios, as long as we offer aid, some people undeserving people will take advantage of it. Even if there are more moochers than deservers, we either have to accept the fact of moochers or obliterate the system, because moochers are far craftier than the costs to keep them out of the system.
Just because there are jobs, does not mean that the person(s) on welfare are qualified for any of those jobs and/or have the ability to even get to the job if they are qualified.
Some of those jobs pay so little that people on welfare can't afford to get the job. With the job they could not afford housing, food, transport to/from work, child care, medical expense, etc.
I am not saying that there is no fraud in the system, but the job situation is not that simple.
One way to improve the situation is to maybe do something like instead of benefits being a binary situation, ie you either qualify or don't to make it a graduated situation. You loose maybe $1 in benefits for every $2 you earn.
I'm also not sure how many of those jobs are not real, i.e., the advertized job may kinda exist, but the employer has no plans to actual hire anyone.
Good idea, I'll do the same.
If you want to blow your mod points moding down ACs, by all means be my guest!
Are the people of N Korea 'responsible' for Kim Jun Un? No, but they're powerless to do anything about it. The only thing that can stand up to concentrated wealth is a black plague that wipes it out or a strong central gov't. There's a reason we had a 'Dark Ages'
You once again state that I want the super rich to be able to abuse the gov't, ignoring my point that no matter what you or I want their going to, so same to you, my comment stands.
I'd love to live in a magic world of fairy dust and pixy farts where something as powerful as a central gov't doesn't get abused. Instead, I'd rather work around the inevitable abuse. It's kinda like floods. In 4,000 years we might have weather control. We don't have it today, so I'll build levies instead of just prayin' to god to make the water stop.
You seem to have grasped my point about gov't being controlled by people to enrich themselves while being completely oblivious to my point that _you_can_do_that_too? There's enough gov't to go around. Just like there's enough food, shelter and health care to go around. People like you perpetuating the lie that there isn't is what's wrong with the world...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
No, I do not state that. You clearly do not "want" the super rich to do that. I am saying that the policies you advocate enable such abuse, contrary to what you actually want.
We agree that government will get abused (it's called "rent seeking"). But the proposals you make for "working around the inevitable abuse" actually make the problem worse rather than better. Imposing 90% income taxes on "the rich" will not hurt the rich or diminish their power, but it will add large amounts of money to the coffers of government that rent seekers of all stripes then can enrich themselves further with.