Think Tanks: How a Bill [Gates Agenda] Becomes a Law

theodp writes: The NY Times' Eric Lipton was just awarded a 2015 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting that shed light on how foreign powers buy influence at think tanks. So, it probably bears mentioning that Microsoft's 'two-pronged' National Talent Strategy (PDF) to increase K-12 CS education and the number of H-1B visas — which is on the verge of being codified into laws — was hatched at an influential Microsoft and Gates Foundation-backed think tank mentioned in Lipton's reporting, the Brookings Institution. In 2012, the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings hosted a forum on STEM education and immigration reforms, where fabricating a crisis was discussed as a strategy to succeed with Microsoft's agenda after earlier lobbying attempts by Bill Gates and Microsoft had failed. "So, Brad [Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith]," asked the Brookings Institution's Darrell West at the event, "you're the only [one] who mentioned this topic of making the problem bigger. So, we galvanize action by really producing a crisis, I take it?" "Yeah," Smith replied (video). And, with the help of nonprofit organizations like Code.org and FWD.us that were founded shortly thereafter, a national K-12 CS and tech immigration crisis was indeed created.

Comments

he's just a bill on Capitol Hill

[turkeydance]

with More Money than God.

Re: he's just a bill on Capitol Hill

[garyisabusyguy]

Yeah, that makes no sense since the gop Congress just got Netanyahu re-elected

Re: he's just a bill on Capitol Hill

[hidflect]

Not to mention the $3Million Madame Walmart successfully sought in donations from Tata and Infosys. If you want to spend the last 2 weeks at your current job training your H1-B replacement then vote for the Pantsuit.

Re: he's just a bill on Capitol Hill

[whistlingtony]

yeah, because presidents write law, not congress..... look, I don't like Hillary either, but let's not be stupid about criticisms, eh?

Orwell

[Livius]

Funny how little thinking goes on at think tanks.

Re:Orwell

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Schtink tanks think, whatever the person who is funding the Schtink tank thinks, that they should think. You get what you pay for.

I met a guy in the US from IBM India who was working for their "Global Services" division. There were four of them living in a two bedroom apartment. I ask him out to lunch, but he said that they always cooked at home, because they couldn't afford to go out for lunch.

Yep, that the way American managers would like to keep us, as well.

Re:Orwell

[Livius]

Also funny how people assume I mean only the think tanks they personally disagree with rather than all of them.

Re:Orwell

[sgt_doom]

Not really, me thinks, since those klepto-psycho-greedheads only dwell on money and their greed.

Given that all those so-called think tanks were founded and financed by the super rich, and whenever they claim one is "liberal" --- like the Brookings Institution (where one finds the Hamilton Project, founded by Robert Rubin, to privatize EVERYTHING), nothing could be further from the truth!

Then when you consider that former psychos from various bloody dictatorial regimes are employed at these so-called think tanks, since the Wall Street-owned American gov't invested in criminal elements to overthrow their various democracies (Iran, Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Chile, etc., etc., etc.), and then when the psycho-crooks there fall out of power, they have favored immigration to the USA, whereby they immediately are senior fellows at these stink tanks, and that almost daily our news is provided to us by various newsy whorescum interviewing swine from these stink tanks defining what the so-called news is --- Amerika is soooo over.

While I probably don't agree with this fellow's political beliefs, I do confirm that he is on the right track, i.e., One World Bank, which owns One World Corporation and One World Financial Exchange, said One World Bank controlling the One World Currency, of course:

http://personalliberty.com/eco...

Bill Gates is a benevolent philanthropist

[Anonymous Coward]

He's giving 90% of his wealth away before he dies[1], feeds the hungry in Africa[2], vaccinates populations at risk who don't have access to vaccines[3][4]. How can you say anything bad about the man? He only wants the best for the next generation of Americans.

[1] .. to buy products from the very companies he owns which increases their value and dividends
[2] .. with GMO produce that sterilizes rats after a few generations, gives cows and pigs organ problems, etc.
[3] .. using live polio virus (unlike what we get here), causing almost 50,000 children to be paralysed leaving the population worse off than before brushing it off as a statistic, part of keeping our society safe from disease.
[4] .. giving only one half of the vaccine for free, requiring the governments to buy the other half from his company

Re:Bill Gates is a benevolent philanthropist

[JonWan]

He's buying a stairway to heaven. It's legacy thing. He isn't going to leave his kids and grand kids broke.

Re:Bill Gates is a benevolent philanthropist

[Anonymous Coward]

Citations needed.

Re:Bill Gates is a benevolent philanthropist

[JustNiz]

>> He only wants the best for the next generation of Americans.

Ahh so thats why he's trying to directly engineer mass unemployment of home-grown US engineers, and replace them with a dependency on a 3rd world country where the academic system is a complete sham that is based on widespread cheating and the sale of degrees as standard practice?

Re:Bill Gates is a benevolent philanthropist

[Insanity Defense]

He SAYS he is giving away 90% of his wealth. Most of what he has "given" away so far is in his charity - which he controls. Tax free and growing. Much of what he gives away is to promote his own interests like when the Indian province had its education system going Linux till he gave them money to buy Microsoft stuff. His charity has also lobbied in support of patent laws that Microsoft likes and against those that would allow cheaper drugs for places like Africa. When you still control it and use it for your own benefit it hasn't been given away.

Re:Bill Gates is a benevolent philanthropist

[Anonymous Coward]

He also invested in eduction in our country, he invested 150 million euro worth of MS licenses... or in other words, the schools could buy MS licenses for only 75% of its normal price. Wow, what a great investment, they just generated a couple of pages with registration keys and did as if every single bit in every single copy of their programs had to be manufactured by hard working people on a production line. In return he got an extra law in his honor, a law that made his illegal practice of dumping XBoxes for a price below its original cost legal and this meant that the few start ups that could not subsidize each console they sold went out of business in only half a year.

Re:Bill Gates is a benevolent philanthropist

[Platinumrat]

Remember, Bill wasn't one of those Engineers, having dropped out of Harvard. So was probably snubbed by them early on. This is Pay-Back!!!

Re:Another right-wing attack

[Anonymous Coward]

Left, right, so what. Is what they are saying true? That is all that matters.

More like a diversion for more H-1B

[Anonymous Coward]

There isn't an US IT shortage, there is a shortage of US IT that will work for less then they are worth. Companies game H-1Bs and treat them more poorly than they could get away with. If one pushes laws to support this corruption don't be surprised when IT unions form to fight it.

Re: More like a diversion for more H-1B

[garyisabusyguy]

No, it is the difference between nationalistic and global free markets

If America is constrained by their national boundaries (and citizens) for IT workers, the supply will be less than demand and wages will rise

Id America is free to engage a global market, then there is a glut of IT workers and wages will fall

FYI, no other country, including India, allows foreign IT workers to create a glut and reduce the value of their own workers

Re:More like a diversion for more H-1B

[ranton]

There isn't an US IT shortage, there is a shortage of US IT that will work for less then they are worth. Companies game H-1Bs and treat them more poorly than they could get away with. If one pushes laws to support this corruption don't be surprised when IT unions form to fight it.

People who complain about H-1B visas usually have a misguided view of what the real options are in this debate. They see an option where companies don't use H-1Bs and simply hire more US citizens instead. The reality, however, is that the real options for companies are:

1. Bring in H-1B visas so corporate IT teams stay in the US
2. Build corporate IT teams in other countries

Option #2 is essentially outsourcing, and it is not just some boogeyman intended to scare US workers. It really happens. Entire industries have already moved overseas in the past century, and the software developer and other engineering industries are not immune to it.

If US citizens cannot compete with foreign labor that live in the US, with a similar cost of living as US citizens, we have no hope of competing with foreign labor abroad with a much lower cost of living. There has been a push back against outsourcing software development jobs in the past decade, but if we start practicing protectionism the trend can easily start moving in the other direction again.

Re: More like a diversion for more H-1B

[Anonymous Coward]

In the U.S., any restriction of immigration is racism.

In Asia, it's just business as usual. Just ask all those immigrants in Japan... er... South Kor-, uh, Chin-hmm...

The lack of immigration means there's no one to complain about racism. It's ingenious really.

(Do ex-pats in Thailand and the Philippines count as immigrants? I don't know if they can gain actual citizenship.)

Re:More like a diversion for more H-1B

[sharkbiter]

Actually, If you look at the whole "contractor thing", you'll find that the employers treat contractors and H1-B's like shit. HR is nothing but a rubber stamp for the power-mad "executives" who get off on firing "because they can".

Re:More like a diversion for more H-1B

[garyisabusyguy]

Welcome to business school circa 1998, where 'we'll send it all overseas and $profit$' was taught as a viable business practice.

You manage to ignore many of the failures of outsourcing, such as language and cultural divides between customers (business and consumer) and the offshore workers, and the tendency for outsourcers to provide their A team at the beginning of the contract, then shifting their B and C teams into place as they attempt o land more contracts

And, even if you decide that you are going to take the whole kit and kaboodle offshore, that may work for canned existing services that are fully commoditized, but it completely ignores that American tendency to innovate and create new services and companies

As much as you seem to hate Americans, we are still fucking cool and continue to create what the rest of the world wants to buy

Re: More like a diversion for more H-1B

[garyisabusyguy]

So, are you suggesting that either Sony or Phillips 'left' America, when they are both brands that were originally from foreign lands?

In fact, Phillips runs Phillips Electronics out of Andover Mass, presumably for American talent, and Sony runs Sony Entertainment out of Los Angeles, again for that 'American cool'

Thank you for buying products created by Americans

Re:More like a diversion for more H-1B

[ranton]

You manage to ignore many of the failures of outsourcing, such as language and cultural divides between customers ...

I am not ignoring anything. My post was not a detailed analysis of every pro and con of outsourcing labor and I didn't claim it was. I merely stated that outsourcing exists, and that industries can and do move overseas. Neither of these claims are false.

There are plenty of complications that still allow massive discrepancies in pay between the developed and developing world, but no complications are impossible to overcome. My father in law travels to China a half dozen times per year to fix these kinds of problems in his company's Chinese based manufacturing plants. These problems are very expensive, but overall it is still far cheaper to manufacture overseas. Many of the problems you mention make it very difficult to offshore IT jobs as well, but there is always still a cost point where it is better to deal with those problems and offshore anyway.

And, even if you decide that you are going to take the whole kit and kaboodle offshore, that may work for canned existing services that are fully commoditized, but it completely ignores that American tendency to innovate and create new services and companies

Plenty of companies offshore services that are not completely commoditized, although yes they rarely offshore the core and most innovative aspects of their company. But just as there are plenty of engineering related jobs that shifted overseas when a large amount of the US manufacturing industry moved offshore, there are plenty of other STEM related jobs that are not that innovative as well. I wouldn't doubt that the US could lose half or more of its STEM related jobs without moving much of the innovative sectors of the industry offshore.

Also, it is not a given that the US will continue to be the center of most innovative aspects of the economy. The Large Hadron Collider is one high profile example of the US dropping the ball and letting some of the most innovative physics research in the world leave the US. Many if not most of the greatest large scale engineering achievements in the last couple decades have been accomplished in Asia, not the west. China's total R&D spending has already eclipsed the EU and probably will beat out the US within a decade.

While the US still has a lot going for it, simply assuming it will always be the world's leader in innovation is naive.

As much as you seem to hate Americans, we are still fucking cool and continue to create what the rest of the world wants to buy

I am a native born US citizen (with 3 native born grandparents if it matters) who works in the IT industry. I just don't have any naive ideas about American exceptionalism that make me believe my country is untouchable by the rest of the world. I want our country's economy to stay strong for my children and other future descendants and simply feel that protectionism is not a good path for the US.

Re: More like a diversion for more H-1B

[ranton]

In fact, Phillips runs Phillips Electronics out of Andover Mass, presumably for American talent

Philips runs 59 R&D facilities across 26 countries. It takes advantage of talent in all of these countries, including the US. The fact that two of its many subsidiaries are headquartered in the US is no indication that Philips is a US company at heart (like you insinuate in the last statement of your post).

Sony runs Sony Entertainment out of Los Angeles, again for that 'American cool'

Sony also has various headquarters in many different countries. It is no surprise that its movie and music subsidiaries are headquartered in the US, but that is no indication that Sony is a US company that just happens to be headquartered in Japan.

Re: More like a diversion for more H-1B

[dryeo]

FYI, no other country, including India, allows foreign IT workers to create a glut and reduce the value of their own workers

Canada does lately. MS built a campus here in Vancouver, got a lot of tax breaks and then announced that less then 20% of employees would be Canadian. Sounds like it is basically a back way in to the States for E. Indian workers.
Shit we even bring in McDonalds workers through our equivalent of H-1B visas. Got to keep that cup of coffee at a $. Actually employers really seem to like the power of having foreign workers, they have to work at one place and can be easily deported and are happy to work weird shifts for minimum wage.

Re:More like a diversion for more H-1B

[garyisabusyguy]

Yes, 'American Exceptionalism' is the sort of hubris that let our auto industry fall back on their heels and let their lunch get eaten by Japanese manufacturers
And, I will even go on to agree that protectionism has had a pretty horrible track record for building aggression between nations and probably helped to lead to the first two world wars

However, the IT industry in America forms (and will continue to grow as) a significant portion of the middle class. This middle class is expected to educate their young and continue to provide economic leadership in years to come. The way that I see it, the US can choose to 1. protect domestic IT jobs by avoiding policies that allow US workers to be undermined by foreign workers, or 2. provide a level of social and educational support to Americans that most of the European nations provide (education being number one on the list)

I would go on to argue that protectionism of jobs it not similar to protectionism of trade such as we saw in the early 20th century. Providing some level of support to US jobs by either supporting education or supporting workers provides money to engage in trade and prevents economic sluggishness that would lead politicians to attempt to enact trade protectionism

Right now America has an edge in risk tolerance that gives us an advantage in innovation and business creation. We need to leverage this edge while it exists, and I do not see selling out our middle class for short term quarterly profits as the right was to accomplish that. China continues to demonstrate itself as a very capable competitor and reducing our competitiveness for short term profits at this time seems foolish

Re:More like a diversion for more H-1B

[worldthinker]

The fallacy of a Libertarian believing that a single worker can bargain for their living wage with a UNION of Capitalists. No, the wage that everyone should at least be paid should be enough to live without desperation to feed, clothe and house their family and protect their health and savings.

Re:More like a diversion for more H-1B

[sgt_doom]

But it isn't really about progress or innovation or creation, it is about the dismantling of the economy, while extracting as much profit as possible until the sad end. With every job, so goes a piece of the GDP, and now, in dramatic comparison to the 1950s and 1960s, the bulk of the tax base of America derives from payroll taxes, which the super-rich certainly don't pay, i.e., Amerika is so very effed!

Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

We need a system less easily manipulated by people with money or hordes of mindless cultists.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way to get that is to fracture the system. You will never ever eliminate the power of money and charismatic personalities. No matter how much money someone has, barring very few people, everyone always wants more. And charisma is just one of those things that you can't account for. Even highly educated people have been taken in by a charismatic person with an agenda. The only way to make the system less easy to manipulate is to fracture the system into smaller more autonomous segments. A strong shift to a more anti-federalst system would do a lot of good on this front. Don't get me wrong, I am well aware of how corruptible small-town politics can be, but it's much easier to escape and route around the damage caused by small town corruption than the same damage caused by federal corruption. Yeah, it might cost someone millions of dollars to buy off a few congressmen, but those millions only have to be spent once or twice and you buy national power as opposed to spending thousands to buy off local politicians and having to spend those thousands in every city and every state across the nation to get national control. Worst of all, those millions are spent buying someone that takes millions of dollars to replace. It's a whole lot easier to beat out and replace an incumbent city council member than it is to beat out and replace an incumbent congressman.

We acknowledge the wisdom in reducing single points of failure in technology. Why don't we acknowledge the same in government?

Re: Our democracy is broken

[jd2112]

It's called a revolution. Problem is it only changes (somewhat) who has power and influence, and the newly powerful are rarely better than the old. And the 'Golden Rule' (who has the gold makes the rules) sill applies.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[NicBenjamin]

The problem with that plan is that so many aspects of the way the system is designed give people with money and/or time an advantage that you'd basically have to scrap it.

For example, we have a bicameral Legislature and an independent Executive chosen via staggered elections. The Legislators are independent actors. That means policy-making tends to the crowd-sourced-cluster-fuck when things are going well. It also means intricate stratagems of getting Rep A to trade horses with Senator B, while bribing Subcommittee Chair C, etc. become possible. And Bill Gates is the guy who has the time/money/employees do engage in such stratagems. The staggered elections mean that the people in power are looking at vastly different electorates, which in turn means that the guy whose worried about being elected in a non-Presidential year has to worry more about older, whiter, more conservative voters who tend to vote every time; whereas the guy whose next up in a Presidential year is going to be much more concerned with younger, browner, leftier voters who are much more likely to only show up once every four years. If you add in our campaign finance system, and large districts (our smallest House District is a half-million people), it just gets worse.

Compare this to Canada. They have a lot of the same trappings we do like a Senate, but their Senate is toothless. Half the bullshit that allows the wealthy to out-manuever the rest of us is gone because nobody gives two shits what a Senator says. One of their core principles is called "Responsible Government," which means the government is designed so that it's virtually impossible for anything of note to happen without everyone knowing precisely which two to three people to blame if it turns out to be invading-Iraq-level-dumb. See the Commons choose the Executive, the Prime Minister, chooses the Cabinet. If the Commons fail to agree with a PM they will vote against the bill they don't like, forcing a new election, and the next PM will agree with the next Parliament on that particular issue. That means that the only people who can really be blamed for fuck-ups are the PM, the relevant Minister, and possibly (but extremely rarely) somebody else for bullying them. There is very little space in the system for a clever person to game it by clever maneuvers, which means that clever people can't sell access to their clever plans to game the government.

Don't get me wrong. The wealthy will always have more influence then their numbers indicate because a) they vote, and b) many of the not-wealthy figure "a poor man never gave me a job" and out-source their policy preferences to rich-ass-mother-fuckers. But the system we got amplifies that a huge degree.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[currently_awake]

You need a system where you know who to blame for problems. Try eliminating the presidential elections and just have the Legislature choose the president instead. That means his (her) party has 2 of the three, meaning responsible for everything that happens. Also a Senators vote should be weighted by the number of voters in his/her riding, so small states can't hold the country hostage.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

I offered no plan.

as to your notion that the parliamentary system is less vulnerable... I've seen no indication of that in fact. To the contrary, I've seen them just as beholden to such interests as anyone.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

My thoughts are that the Clintons are well known to be manifestly corrupt. Even democrats know it and they accept it on the basis that the Clinton are their criminals.

The republicans also have similar arrangements with their own corrupt politicians. So I'm not nailing either side.

The Clintons however are so corrupt that even the New York Times and Hollywood are turning on them. I wouldn't worry about Hillary. Her campaign is already over.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

A system that does not reward bribery or the manipulation of chanting frothing lunitics.

A society run by either faction is not especially rational or desirable.

On the one hand you have people that will manipulate the system using their wealth to get whatever they want. And on the other you have a system where cult leaders use their chattel as fodder to get whatever they want.

I want a society of free people by free people for free people. A society of bribery very quickly leads to one where we are bought and sold... doesn't sound very free to me. And a society ruled by chanting cultists isn't especially free either since they require utter obedience to their dogma and cult leaders or they start throwing people onto bonfires.

If you value freedom or human dignity... how can you support either one?

As to money, we can do more to control and monitor the way in which public officials receive money or gifts. And of course establish stiff unconditional penalties if they break the rules.

As to cultists, part of the problem is that our system counts us as individuals in some places and values money in others. Where it counts us as individuals we're all equal when really we shouldn't be all equal. Some laws and rules effect some people and not others. What is more many laws are about giving someone something but not someone else. That means someone profits and not everyone. That means there are conflicts of interest because the laws do not effect everyone equally.

Something should be done to weight the votes on various things so that those the law applies to have more of a say in it then those that do not. And possibly if someone profits by a law they might have reduced influence.

If there is a law to give money to Tim, then maybe Tim should recuse himself form the vote. And if there is a law to make Tim pay for something but not Jerry... why does Jerry get a vote? Jerry isn't paying regardless.

Take an issue like abortion... do men deserve a vote on it? I don't see why. But if we had a vote on parental rights then obviously men and women would get a vote. So on and so forth.

Keeping track of who does and does not have an interest in everything for 300 million people would be complicated. I don't know if that is logistically possible or if it would even be a good idea. But that would control the cultist issue where political parties say "vote for X and anyone that doesn't is EVIL". Everyone that voted would have their vote matter to the extent that it should matter. If you don't own a house, then why are you voting on property taxes? If you don't have a car, then I don't see why you're voting on gas taxes. If you don't have a child, then why are you voting on schools?

I am to be clear a libertarian. It is just a word. I don't think I fit into any ideology perfectly. But I do feel the government especially at the federal level should be stripped of nearly all its responsibilities. The only thing I feel comfortable with them maintaining are the Federal courts, Federal law enforcement, Federal prisons, coast guard, border patrol, and the various military forces. Nothing more. I'd be happier if everything else were state based. And the states especially in the west need to be subdivided. California and Texas being the prime example of states that probably need to get broken into 5 or 6 small pieces just so the people living in them have any say in the government.

California is very corrupt in large part because it is so large. The reigning politicians can do whatever they want so long as they keep most of the state happy. That can bend any portion of the state over a rail and fuck it raw, take pictures, and sell them as rape porn on the internet and nothing happens to them because they have a few cities that will vote for them regardless. Nothing matters so long as they keep those cities happy. And they don't even need to really keep them happy at that. Just keep everyone unwilling to vote for the opposition. And thus having a choice between the corrupt poli

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

The means are the ends. You can't stop something by doing the same thing. A thing is the product of the actions that created it. The means are the ends.

That was the logical error made when someone said "the ends justify the means". Morality doesn't come into it. The ends = the means just as the means = the ends. One is the other.

To create a different system you must play by the rules of the system you wish to create.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

I agree, going to a more state centric system would be less prone to this manipulation.

The frothing cultists don't like that though. All glory to Cthulhu, apparently.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

I don't think the solution is giving the people less power over their government or empowering career politicians with more power.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

Well, while that is possible, I don't think that has happened to the US as yet. I think some parts of it work that way. There is a mixture of corruption in everything and I don't want to conflate corruption with cultishness because they're different concepts.

For example, you the rabid apple people that will buy a literal piece of shit if it has an apple logo on it and then get the new version of it every time one comes out. And then you have people that are being paid do something or say something or not do something or not say something.

My issue is that both aspects are a problem and they're not the same thing.

The virtue of the money is that you can shift people in positions of power or influence to do anything you want so long as you meet their sellout price.

The virtue of the cult is that you can get hordes of fucking peasants with pitch forks to burn people out or book burn or kill people... literally or figuratively.

Both things are a problem but it isn't the same thing.

The saddest thing is when you see one of these things being cited as the solution to the other.

Don't like corruption? Get a cult together that will burn it out.

Don't like the mob? Bribe some people in places of power to quietly kill it.

When you use something evil to fight something evil... you're not leaving good behind.

Sometimes there is no option. The only answer to war is war. You can't throw candy at people genociding your people. But evil is to be avoided if possible. If you can't do it then you can't. But I think often people don't consider alternatives.

I am a big believer in reason. Literally a believer in it. Logic is what I bow to. And it is sad to me that we can't just sit down and work things out in a reasonable fashion.

I am a big believer in win win situations. People sitting down and saying "okay, I need these things, I want those things... what do you need and want from me that would make you give me those things?" And often as not there is an exchange that can be made that makes everyone happy.

Now sometimes people are not reasonable. They say "I need to rape your wife and I want your dried genitals as a trophy to hang around my neck"... I mean... you deal with that and fine... lets just kill each other. But even then, it is important to establish who is being unreasonable and who is not being unreasonable. Who is causing a problem where none needs to exist and who is not.

It is possible that both sides if we want to be binary about it are causing problems. And if that's what is going on... then again... yeah... kill each other. But even killing each other is more productive then a lot of the crap going on. There is just so much mindless shit talking. And it is that mindlessness that offends me the most.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[hidflect]

You'll need a lackey. My resume has 20 years of corporate cringing experience.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

Hey, Bingo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Our democracy is broken

[drinkypoo]

The problem with that plan is that so many aspects of the way the system is designed give people with money and/or time an advantage that you'd basically have to scrap it.

This is a problem?

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Hognoxious]

That's the first time I've ever seen a post consisting entirely of bumper sticker slogans.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Gavagai80]

If you're going to make senate representation proportional, what's the point of the senate? Just eliminate it.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

I've never seen any of those as bumper stickers in my life.

What is more, the repetition was to make clear the logical distinction of it because it sounds like something else that is completely different.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

I just searched to see if I could buy any of those as stickers... none exist anywhere according to google.

Thus I conclude that you must eat at least one bucket of dicks to repent.

You may use your condiment of choice.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

I like the idea you're suggesting and it was actually something that people used to say the US had to some extent. The US was called a "laboratory of democracy" in that we had 50 largely independent governments that could do things in their own ways. And you could judge the success or failure of any given idea just by looking at the before and after data. And you could even see other states doing contrary things and again look at before and after data... and then there would be states that did nothing at all and again you could see before and after data.

So much of it is federal now that there's way to do any of that. It is everyone or no one with no control group.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[NicBenjamin]

Ever heard of Matty Moroun and the Ambassador Bridge Company?

They own the biggest border crossing between Detroit and Canada. Since it's about 80, and it was a bit small before NAFTA, there's a significant need for more capacity at that border crossing. They want a second bridge, owned by them, at the same location. Nobody else wants that because they're so crazy the Forbes profile of Moroun was entitled "the Troll Under the Bridge." He's got political legs because he's got a lot of money, and he's very skilled at rationalizing his behavior until it fits into whichever ideology he thinks will be most helpful in getting the particular politician he's talking to at this exact moment vote for his current scheme. One of the first signs that made me question Kwame Kilpatrick's ethics, was Kilpatrick's status as a Marounie.

The Canadians had this figured out in the late 90s, and no Canadian pol has associated with Maroun since then. This is because it's a much more centralized system, so the PM or Provincial Premier will get asked about Maroun before an MP or MLA from the other side of the Province starts submitting Moroun-approved bills. In the US, OTOH, Michigan's State Senate voted the not-second-span idea down in Committee/a>, largely because a bunch of Senators didn't know/care that Moroun is one of the most hated figures in Detroit, and the dude has money. The Canadians out-manuevered the Senate by agreeing to pay for the entire cost themselves*, so Moroun put a Constitutional Amendment on the ballot banning publicly financed bridges...

There's no such thing as a system that keeps the wealthiest 10% with 10% of the political power. But if you think that our system is as bad as theirs you probably haven't been much attention.

*They'll get the money back eventually. They're the only ones allowed to charge tolls on the bridge.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Gazzonyx]

The problem with that plan is that so many aspects of the way the system is designed give people with money and/or time an advantage that you'd basically have to scrap it.

This is a problem?

Well, it does typically take more than a strongly worded letter. Come to think of it, last time we sent one of those to our king his reaction was much less than accommodating to our requests.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

I don't see how any one incident of corruption proves anything. Do you honestly think that it doesn't exist in your system. You think you have no corruption?

http://www.thestar.com/news/ca...

Found that in about 5 seconds of looking.

Re: Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

In a real revolution, the distinction between right and left will be meaningless. It isn't logistically viable because most states are somewhat purple... often big cities are blue and literally everything else is red. A war on a right vs left division wouldn't work.

You'd have to have regional disputes between groupings of states. What actually binds large regions together isn't right vs left. It is money and power. Mostly the issue is who gets the money and who gets the power.

So it is less an issue of right versus left and more an issue of who you want to share money and power with...

Re:Our democracy is broken

[NicBenjamin]

I ain't Canadian. I learned about Matty Moroun because my Mom was one of the people who organized legal challenges to his more interesting plans for years.

I apologize if I was unclear, but I'm not talking about corruption. Corruption is by definition illegal, what Moroun does is perfectly legal*. He tries to manipulate the political system so that it favors his companies. In the US, with it's intricately designed system of Checks and balances and numerous important political players; he has a lot of room to maneuver. And that's actually intended behavior of the political system. Americans like it when systems reward people who put time and energy into figuring out how they work, which means sometimes an asshole who puts time and energy into the US political system gets major rewards. And that's WaD, or Working as Designed, to quote some most excellent game developers.

OTOH, in Canada the system is specifically designed so everything has to go through one of two people (the Provincial Premier or the Prime Minister). Once they figure out that you're Matty fucking Moroun your career as a political player is over.

*Most of the time. He tried some blatantly illegal campaign ad buys in Canada recently, but only after he moved all his employees and seizable assets to the US side of the bridge.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

My point stands that the parliamentary system has corruption as well.

As to this notion of running things through multiple people... you say that like the US doesn't do that already.

We have a congress and a senate and the you can't pass a law unless both agree and then the president can veto it.

Then in the states things often have to go through the state senates and governor's office.

The system used to have more checks and balances but a lot of our anti corruption systems were stripped out in the name of 'democracy'.

For example, the federal senate used to not be elected by the people but instead by the states. This meant that the politics of the senate were very different from the politics of the house. And that meant for something to pass it would have to make sense to the politics of both the senate and the house.

Lots of other checks and balances... again mostly removed over the years for various reasons.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[NicBenjamin]

You're completely missing the point. Again.

We run everything through EVERYONE. Literally. Every single fucking politician gets a say on anything that is of any importance. These Iran negotiations? 535 members of Congress have bullied their way in despite the fact that the Constitution is quite clear that the President is the one who runs foreign policy.

I interned in Ottawa. One MP spent most of his day at Parliament sleeping in his office because nobody noticed when he was not doing his job.

And let me repeat: I have said nothing about corruption in this thread. That's all your imagination. I have said that the ordinary working of the system, where EVERYONE is important to EVERYTHING means that the wealthy have more shots to get their preferred policies enacted because odds are they can bribe one guy/install a shill/etc. and they only need that one fucking guy.

In Canada the Provincial government runs through one guy. The Legislature matters to precisely the extent it decides not to fire that guy. The Federal government runs through a different guy. His Legislature checks him to precisely the extent it is willing to fire him. You can't prevent the Civil Rights Act in Canada by coopting some random Committee Chair, because their Head of Government (the PM) has a lot of power over who gets to be Committee Chair. You can't block universal health care by reducing the Head of Government's percentage of the Senate from 59 from 60.

You don't get to shut down the government as part of your strategy to out-stubborn the Head of Government on deficit reduction via spending cuts you refuse to name, because if you did that the Head of Government (aka: the one guy we've been talking about) has lost a confidence vote in p-arlaiemnt, and Her Majesty the Queen's representative in Canada is legally required to call a new election. Which you have to fight on the basis that you really want to reduce spending but you don't know exactly how. Etc. etc. etc.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

So you're holding up the idea of running things through people in canada as a good thing but saying it is bad when US congressman try to do it in the US?

What is more, the constitution is quite clear that treaties are to be ratified by congress. As such, while the president may negotiate on behalf of the American people, the agreements are not binding unless ratified.

For example, Bill Clinton wanted to sign the Kyoto Treaty and Congress refused to ratify it. The result was that the agreement was not binding on the US government.

So your US civics are shotty.

As to you not saying anything about corruption, then we're having different conversations. You might as well start talking about rare insects or your favorite recipe for cookies.

Okay, so it sounds like you're saying running things through more than one person is a bad idea and we should just have the power concentrated in as few hands as possible.

Why have a senate or a congress than? Just have an elected dictator.

As to shutting down the government, congress has a right to make laws and set the budget. If they feel their laws are being ignored or their budgets are being ignored they have an obligation to try and get their power respected.

For someone that has such a high regard for the rights of the executive to make foreign policy, you don't seem to respect the legislature's right to make law or fiscal policy. Why is that?

Anyway, it sounds like this is going no where and you're getting erratic. So... please either make more sense or I'll bid you good day.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[NicBenjamin]

For awhile I thought you might be a confused American, but you're well into troll territory now. I've been arguing, for several days, that the Canadian system has one ultimate decision maker. The US System has hundreds. Whether these numbers are humans, hyper-intelligent ants, or your mother is irrelevant as the the question of how many of them there are.

As for Civics, you really need to graduate to the Seventh Grade. Treaties are binding, even if unratified, during a President's tenure. This is because Treaties that are ratified are only part of US Law to the extent that a) they are within the President's purview anyway (ie: he can decide to open or close border crossings himself), or b) Congress has passed a statute to enforce them. Which leads inevitably to c) if Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto Treaty, then anything in his purview governed by the Kyoto Treaty has to comply with the Kyoto Treaty; which is exactly the same effect as if it was ratified by the Senate but the House refused to pass the legislation changing US Statutory law to comply.

In the case of the Iran deal, since it's foreign policy it's all the President's decision. He's talking about lifting sanctions, and all Statutes authorizing sanctions include clauses saying the President can lift them under certain circumstances.

As for elected dictator, what do you think a Prime Minister is? The checks on his power are three-fold: 1) He can't make a law that breaks the Constitution, 2) he has to retain the confidence of Parliament, and 3) His Parliamentary majority is subject to reelection every five years. That's it. In some ways they're real checks (all Canadian PMs who have ever lost power have done so because a) they lost a confidence vote, or b) they lost an election), but it's pretty much the minimum checks you could have and still have a Democratic system. Yet somehow Canada is not a dystopian hellscape.

As for Congress's power, I'm not arguing they don't have the power to shut down the government. I'm arguing that their power -to shut down the government leads to a high-BS, extremely decentralized political system where the wealthy have a major advantage on normal people.

As for being erratic, you're the guy who keeps throwing sentences to the wall to see what will stick. My argument is the same as it has always been. If you think that the problem with our political system is the wealthy have too much power, that's really fucking hard to fix because a decentralized system with checks and balances designed into it for the sake of designing checks and balances into it is very easy for a wealthy person to manipulate and very difficult for a working class schlub to manipulate.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

As to trolling, I'm not trolling you.

As to hyper intelligent ants, I've seen no compelling argument for why the parliamentary system is superior. You've also contradicted yourself in a few places saying it is both good and bad that something is run by more people.

As to the binding nature of treaties... without ratification you really don't have much. Lets look at Kyoto again and how could that treaty work without congressional ratification? How are you going to limit emissions for example without passing a law internally within the US? And no such law will be binding unless the US congress passes it. So no.

As to Iran, no there are sanctions etc which prohibit US businesses from engaging in business with the Iranians. You can't lift that without the cooperation of congress.

As to dystopian hellscapes, the president is largely in the same position, he just has additional checks on his power. And the US is hardly a distopian hellscape either... so you can jam that bit of hyperbole right back into your shithole.

As to your notion that decentralization makes it easier for the elites to control things, you got that backwards. The more centralized a system is the easier it is for elites to control it. That is why elites like centralization. Those that want to control everything want everything controllable by as few people as possible... aka them. A decentralized system is harder to control because you have to control more people to wield the same power and it is just less effective.

As to your arguments being the same... Your arguments have a bipolar nature to them that is difficult to parse. You switch between two contradictory extremes without any notion or explanation leaving me to try and figure out what the fuck you were thinking.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[NicBenjamin]

As to trolling, I'm not trolling you.

Considering you have yet to present a single argument that a) actually disagrees with my thesis, b) isn't based on a misreading of what I've posted I'm quite skeptical of that.

As to hyper intelligent ants, I've seen no compelling argument for why the parliamentary system is superior. You've also contradicted yourself in a few places saying it is both good and bad that something is run by more people.

Dude, I'm playing the engineer here. This whole "good" "bad" thing you're doing is partly an artifact of your own sick obsession with proving that our system is great,l and partly due to the fact that when an engineer sees a system is better at thing A then thing B, and people say "I want to maximize A" he will say that system is better.

Our system sucks at reducing the influence of the wealthy to something like their proportion of the system. It is specifically designed to suck at that. The Canadian system isn't actually good at keeping the to X% to only X% of the power, but when the competition is us, and the goal is to give some single mother making $20k as much influence as Mitt fucking Romney; pretty much all you have to do is show up.

As to the binding nature of treaties... without ratification you really don't have much. Lets look at Kyoto again and how could that treaty work without congressional ratification? How are you going to limit emissions for example without passing a law internally within the US? And no such law will be binding unless the US congress passes it. So no.

Please try to actually read my posts. I answered this. In detail.

Under US Law the President has certain powers. When he signs a treaty he binds himself to use those powers to enforce the Treaty. Which means that new regulations he can promulgate using his Presidential powers are supposed to happen the second the Treaty is signed, and actual ratification is irrelevant as to whether it is binding in this sense until another President comes along and says "fuck that." Which is why Dubya actually had to say "fuck that" and formally withdraw.

Congress has other powers, which are related to and intertwined with Presidential powers, but are nonetheless irrelevant to treaties. If Congress ratifies the Treaty then the regulations promulgated by the President can't easily be undone by the next guy, but other that that it's totally irrelevant.

What's relevant is the statute Congress passes to comply. In extreme cases (like ACTA), since US statutes already complied, and the treaty was mostly about making Poland as horrible as us, Obama didn't even bother with ratification.

Ratification of Treaties is, like Declaring War, one of those powers we gave Congress in 1789 that has become less useful every damn year.

As to Iran, no there are sanctions etc which prohibit US businesses from engaging in business with the Iranians. You can't lift that without the cooperation of congress.

Why?

Seriously. Every bill on sanctions I've ever read includes a clause allowing the President to lift them if he rules certain things are true.

Even if they insisted on "this penalty is forever" clause, there's this little thing called "Prosecutorial Discretion." When an officer of the Executive Branch, sees someone breaking the law he is allowed to ignore it as long as he can provide some compelling state reason to do so. That's why traffic cops aren't legally required to nail you for going 66 in a 65.And it means that if Obama decided to not arrest people for violating Iran sanctions it would be very difficult for Congress to convince the Courts to force him to do so.

As to dystopian hellscapes, the president is largely in the same position, he just has additional checks on his power. And the US is hardly a distopian hellscape either... so you can jam that bit of hyperbole right back into your shithole.

Dud

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

As to your ironic statement that I am not contradicting you at any point and this is all due to misreading... actually I have on many points and you could only have missed that due to your own misreading.

As to the parliamentary system reducing the power of the wealthy, that is asinine since the system was literally designed to protect the interests of English Lords. The system concentrates power in fewer hands than what you see in the American system which you assume means the system is less corruptible. Contrary to that point, the more hands the power is distributed amongst the less susceptible to corruption the system becomes.

As to your belief that the Congress has no role in the ratification of treaties... do a fucking google search before you dare contradict me on something like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
""Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, includes the Treaty Clause, which empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements, which must be confirmed by the Senate, between the United States and other countries, which become treaties between the United States and other countries after the advice and consent of a supermajority of the United States Senate.""

The senate must ratify the treaty. If you bring this issue up one more time, I'm going to call you a fucktard and just skip over any further references to your fucking delusion.

As to morality, YOU were the one that used the term "hellscape", all I did was give it back to you. Complain and you're a hypocrite.

As to your Canadian references, it isn't making any sense. We've not outlawed the voting of anyone since black slavery and we reversed that.

As to your citation of majority black states outlawing black voting, that's such an absurd reference because blacks had no political agency at the time. Any group in any political system with no agency can have the political powers that be vote against their interests because they have no representation.

This was a big part of why the US broke off from England in the first place. The English Parliament was voting on things that effected the Colonies and the Colonies had no representation in Parliament. And certainly not proportional to our population. Had England extended that to the Colonies, there never would have been a revolution... though quite a few political interests in England might have been forced to horse trade with their Colonial cousins.

As to your continued slander that I am aruging on a moral basis, I am not. This is also a contradictory point you're making because you accused me of being an engineer at one point and now you're saying I'm being some wishywashy moralist.

Which is it? For the record, my positions are not based on morality but on what is optimal.

You somehow have gotten it into your head that concentrating power in the fewest possible hands reduces the possibility of corruption. That's silly. The more power that is distributed around the less extreme any corruption can be because the ability of anyone to do anything really out of control is limited.

A background level of corruption will occur under this system but you'll find a background level of corruption in dictatorships where all power is concentrated in one person. So arguing from the basis of the background level of corruption is not especially credible.

The issue is you want to make it hard for anyone to do anything extreme or anything quickly. If actions are kept moderate and everyone has time to respond to it then they can't really get that out of control.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[NicBenjamin]

As to your ironic statement that I am not contradicting you at any point and this is all due to misreading... actually I have on many points and you could only have missed that due to your own misreading.

As to the parliamentary system reducing the power of the wealthy, that is asinine since the system was literally designed to protect the interests of English Lords. The system concentrates power in fewer hands than what you see in the American system which you assume means the system is less corruptible. Contrary to that point, the more hands the power is distributed amongst the less susceptible to corruption the system becomes.

You do realize that the British system has changed in the past 250 years? Like a lot? The Canadian system, never had Rotten Burroughs, wealth-based voting requirements, or a hereditary upper house; which were the features that allowed the Gentry to dominate English politics prior to the reforms of the 1830s and 1910s. Moreover you're bringing up that straw-man "corruption" again. If it's not illegal it is (by definition) not corruption, and I;m arguing that in the US it is simply not illegal for the wealthy to buy influence with support/ contributions/knowledge of how the system works/etc.

As to your belief that the Congress has no role in the ratification of treaties... do a fucking google search before you dare contradict me on something like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
""Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, includes the Treaty Clause, which empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements, which must be confirmed by the Senate, between the United States and other countries, which become treaties between the United States and other countries after the advice and consent of a supermajority of the United States Senate.""

The senate must ratify the treaty. If you bring this issue up one more time, I'm going to call you a fucktard and just skip over any further references to your fucking delusion.

As to morality, YOU were the one that used the term "hellscape", all I did was give it back to you. Complain and you're a hypocrite.

Your reading comprehension skill suck. I specifically said that ratifying treaties was one of several powers Congress had that is no longer particularly relevant, and I'll quote the paragraph here:

Ratification of Treaties is, like Declaring War, one of those powers we gave Congress in 1789 that has become less useful every damn year.

The reason I refuse to believe you aren't arguing morality is you're treating this as a question of theology. You don't present evidence that the system actually works, you present evidence that your logic says the system should work.

As to your Canadian references, it isn't making any sense. We've not outlawed the voting of anyone since black slavery and we reversed that.

I wasn't referring to slavery. I was referring to the period right after, particularly 1877-1965, where much of the South had legal bans on black voting. At the start of the period the South as a whole was 40% black, and several states (South Carolina and Mississippi) were majority black. That could not happen in Canada, and while it's unlikely to happen here the simple fact is it did actually happen. In two states.

As to your continued slander that I am aruging on a moral basis, I am not. This is also a contradictory point you're making because you accused me of being an engineer at one point and now you're saying I'm being some wishywashy moralist.

Which is it? For the record, my positions are not based on morality but on what is optimal.

You're making up the engineer quote. That word was not mentioned on this thread until I described myself as taking an engineer's perspective.

You s

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

As to reforms in the parliamentary system, if you want to believe the parliamentary system has no means for the elites to manipulate it then you just keep believing that. There is no way that is true. They always have a way. If you don't know what it is that just means you don't know what it is... and frankly the elites tend to like it that way.

As to things not being illegal not being corruption, bullshit. Wallstreet for example is a master of legal corruption. Are you saying that if I just keep my corruption complicated and fresh enough that it is ethical? Give me a break. Are you saying that if I exploit loopholes in the law that I bribed politicians to put into the law that I am thereafter not breaking the law when I use those loopholes to continue to bribe politicians? The legality is not the issue.

Corruption is an ethical question and not a legal one unless you intend to prosecute. For example lets say we have a dictatorship and there are no laws against bribing public officials and it is if anything part of the culture and an accepted part of the the way things work. Is the bribery corrupt or not? It remains corrupt regardless of its legality. When the corrupt run a government than corruption becomes legal.

How can you note know this?

As to theology, I have cited the law to you. The law is as written. Don't like it, change it. I will hear you out as to why you want to change the law to reflect your own interpretations. However, if you don't change the law then the law is the law and those wishing to enforce the law are to be regarded as in the legal right and those not following the law are to be regarded as in the legal wrong.

As to corruption being morally loaded, no it is ethically loaded. Morality and ethics are different concepts. Being professional for example is ethical. Being professional has nothing to do with morality.

The issue with corruption is that it undermines law itself. Corruption is the process of getting things done through influence, money, and favors... typically secretly. The entire concept when applied to the government undermines the rule of law. And any society run by corruption ceases to be a Republic... Republic literally means "Rule by Law". Instead what you have in a corrupt society is the rule by those with the most influence. Typically this is results in an oligarchy.

That is my reason for opposing corruption. It is lawless, inherently unjust, and just puts us back in the pockets of the elites. That is not a moral objection.

Ah, now I see... you want a socialist/progressive agenda and you believe that won't happen unless you centralize power, dominate the power shutting out all opposition, and impose your will on everyone.

You're right. You do need to completely subvert democracy and the Republican governance (the legal concept, not the political affiliation) to do that. However, the ambitions of your ideology are not really justification for anything.

As to the last time I responded to a low level government official, I've gone to city council meetings and I vote on those people in office the same way I vote on the president or a Federal Senator. So... your comment makes no sense.

As to moderates, I didn't say anything about moderates. You're changing the subject again. :)

Re:Our democracy is broken

[NicBenjamin]

Dude,

I have never said there's no way for elites to manipulate a Parliamentary system. I've said there are fewer ways then in the US. And you have presented no evidence that any method the elites of Canada use to manipulate their system are not present in the US.

On theology: you;re still arguing theology. You hasve no examples of how the actual system works in the real world, you just repeat the theories (now raised to theological precepts in what non-Americans call our :"Civic Religion") that the Founders believed centuries ago.

Your Latin is shaky. "Rule by Law" would be something closing to "Rex Lege" then "Republic," "Republic" is actually derived from "Res Publicus," or "Public Affairs."

If your definition of corruption is that it's how the wealthy gain power secretly, how can Canada equal a country where we have a) secret political campaigns with unlimited donations, b) numerous elected officials who can all owe favors, etc.? Your argument is perfect theology, but has no relation to reality.

If you think you've got my political affiliation pegged from this thread you;re remarkably dumb. OTOH, you did just claim that the well know "Res Publica" actually meant "Rule of Law" so brains clearly ain;t your forte. I listed some things that would be in the majorities best interest. Quite a few of them would win referendums, yet the government doesn't do them. Why? Because the wealthy elites have numerous veto points, an ideological predisposition to oppose all spending that is not tax breaks, and a strong material interest in thew current system.

As for moderates, to quote you: "The issue is you want to make it hard for anyone to do anything extreme or anything quickly. If actions are kept moderate and everyone has time to respond to it then they can't really get that out of control."

Your entire case is a defense of moderation.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

As to their being fewer ways than in the US, I don't know what. I'd like to talk to an expert on Canadian corruption because corruption is always something that happens in the details. I don't think you're such an expert.

I'd have to do research on the topic to feel I had a handle on it.

As to my Latin, actually you're just looking at wikipedia and not reading it properly from the wikipedia article you should have read deeper into:
"Hence a literal translation is, âthe public thing/affairâ(TM)"

The "Public Thing" is actually what we're looking at here. And what is the public thing?

The law.

Next issue.

As to how canada can match the US with its various problems. I don't know. I don't know the canadian system well enough to know how to exploit it. It takes experts in the US system to learn how to exploit it. Why would I be so arrogant as to assume that the canadian system could be corrupted without any deep knowledge of it?

You're holding out as the central feature of the canadian system that power is more centralized. That is the only reason you're saying it is less corruptible and centralizing power makes corruption easier. So your whole premise makes no sense.

I am sure there are things that work in the US system that do not work in the Canadian system. There is no doubt. However, saying that the canadian system is less corrupt cannot be substantiated by simply saying that power is more centralized.

I have no idea how corrupt the Canadian system is and frankly I doubt that you have the first clue either.

A problem you run into with Canadians and Northern Europeans is that they have such a deep belief in their lack of corruption that they don't actually look for it or suspect it. I ran into this with a Danish friend of mine that was telling me how uncorruptable his government was... It took me about 5 minutes to find serious corruption that he said didn't exist.

They don't look because they arrogantly assume they don't have it.

Now, I've never really bothered with the Canadians. But I suspect if I made any effort, I could find lots of corruption just reported in the fucking news.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[NicBenjamin]

On Canada's version of what you call "corruption," that's never been what I'm talking about. It's your pet strawman. I'm talking about the ease with which the wealthy can manipulate the system legally to gain an advantage on the working class.

Sometimes this is widely considered corrupt (ie: campaign donations), but most of the time it's just how it is. If Matty Moroun knows precisely which locally elected official to go to to advance his agenda, then that's not corruption. It's smart politics. In the US he can dance around the system like a pro, manipulating people for months or years until they are a) jailed (Kwame Kilpatrick was always a Morounie), b) lose an election, or c) wise up. n Canada he did that a few years, then the big bosses heard of his activities.

State-side most of the elected officials don't care that he's a destructive asshole because there's no doctrine of Responsible Government forcing rural, out-state, pols to care what happens in Detroit. But in Canada the PM and Premier are both responsible to the people of Windsor, ON; which means that when the people of Windsor make a credible case that a local businessman is a huge dick who should only get his extra bridge if he promises to be really good in an enforceable way, the PM/Premier will hear that case (probably at Question Period, on national TV, where he can't dodge), and the Bruce County MP/MLA will get marching orders to not touch that businessman.

On Republic, I actually took two years of Latin in college. Res, rei is an irregular pronoun that has meaning so broad it cannot be truly translated to English. "Thing" is the closest you can get, but iot';s a very broad view of "Thing" that no English-speaker would consider. Publica, -us, -um is an adjective loosely meaning "Public." It is res publica because irregular res is nominative feminine, and publica thus takes the -a rather then an -us (masculine) or an -um (neuter). The Republic, therefore, is the "Public Thing." You're the one whose basing his Latin on wikipedia and poorly remembered propaganda.

BTW, you wouldn't like the Roman version of the Law. The Decemviri turned an action movie plot into real life*, with a side of daughter-slaying because it's Rome and this shit happened. "Dictator" was actually an official job in the Roman Republic, which existed because the normal guys who ran things (the Consuls) came in pairs and occasionally had a tendency to veto each-other (in an extreme case the Army marched West on one Consul's orders, then the next day it would march East on the other Consul's orders, and repeat). In emergencies they'd just say "fuck it, this guy's got all the power until the emergency is over."

*One of them arranged for a pretty woman to be ruled as highly in debt to him, which meant she was a slave, and thus a sex slave. Her father was a retired Centurion, who restored the pre-decemvir-regime. But, of course, he had to kill her to restore the family honor.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[Karmashock]

As to the distinction between legal and ethical corruption, I am referring to ethical corruption which stands indifferent to the law. One can be both legal and unethical.

As to strawmen, my unwillingness to take the 180 degrees opposition to your position is not a sign of intellectual dishonesty on my part. My argument is my argument. You can't define my argument. You can define your own and I am able to define mine. You do not get to say "you're not taking the 180 degree opposition to my position so you're breaking some rule"... that's just stupidity.

I am talking about corruption and you are talking about influence. So be it. However, our issues intersect at several key points and on those issues we're talking about the same thing in that context.

You say the Canadian system has fewer legal opportunities to apply influence? That may be but I'd need to do an in-depth analysis of the system. A would not expect a foreigner to understand the US political and legal system in detail and I am a foreigner to Canada. So I can't speak to their corruption or influence peddling. I am cynical on the subject and unless I have evidence to the contrary, I will assume they have lots of issues.

That is my bias and I am entitled to them.

As to the meaning of republic... How can someone have so much education and be so fucking silly? I am literally giggling now.

Explain what is a "public thing"... what does that mean. Process "public thing" into a contextually coherent concept.

You're going to come up with law. And then I'm going to laugh at you because you apparently took a big course in latin and some jackass on the internet... which is me... was able to process the meaning more clearly.

I know I know... you're full of lots of retard rage. I get that. The spittle flowing over your lips is apparent and does not impress me. Please... tell me what public thing mean, little one.

And while you're doing that, lets look at the definition of the word Republic:

"A republic (from Latin: res publica) is a form of government in which power resides in elected individuals representing the citizen body[1][2] and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law. "

So, the first part of the definition is the same as a democracy where in everything happens by some sort of majority vote, but what is this thing we find at the end? Law? what the fuck!

Go through some other definitions of governmental models and you'll find that they stress something else with "law" often not even being mentioned prominently.

As to your final statement that you'd prefer daughter slaying and dictators... I gathered that from your previous praising of centralized power.

You're a funny little monkey. :D

*gives cupcakes*

Run along and play nice. :)

Re:Our democracy is broken

[NicBenjamin]

Your insistence on talking about corruption is irrelevant to my argument. It's like bringing up prostitution in a discussion of excessive campaign spending. I'm not talking about the things people do that are illegal (and almost everything you find online will be about somebody being charged for a crime).

I'm talking about maneuvers that can be done behind closed doors, perfectly legally, with no exposure ion the press whatsoever because they're routine. Those tend to provide advantages to the wealthy because they have the time to figure that shit out and/or the money to hire someone who did it already; and they're very difficult to pull off in the Canadian system because a) everything runs through one guy, and b) he gets questioned by his opponents on national TV for an hour a day.

As for public thing:
Call it people's thing, or public affairs. Translating Latin to English is tricky because we tend to have three+ words for concepts that have a single word in Latin. "Public Thing" is literal, but "Public Affair" would be accurate as well. The silliness is all in your head, and caused largely by poor reading comprehension.

For example, you're the one whose claiming that the Roman Republican model is a good idea; therefore if the Roman Republican model is that Centurions execute their daughters for being raped, and periodically the Constitution is replaced by a Dictator; you are the one who is arguing those are good things.

Re:Our democracy is broken

[NicBenjamin]

I'm not trying to get you to take a 180 degree position. I'm trying to get you to explore the idea. Right now your argument that the US is not better then Canada consists of a) a point you freely acknowledge has nothing to do with my claim to the contrary, and b) you don't believe me because you've done no research.

BTW, if you were actually interested in this topic you'd know that one area a PM has less power then a President is in debate. In Canada every day, for an hour, the PM gets peppered with questions by the guys who want to fire him. The choice bits get on the national news. People still talk about the time the Attorney General called Sheila Cops "honey" during Question Period in the early 80s. Which I mentioned at least once on this thread.

Congratulations, the Right Honorable, the Prime Minister of this thread, the Honorable Leader of the Opposition thinks your argument is bonkers.

Re:Fabricating a Crisis?

[Anonymous Coward]

"bring awareness"? Yeah right, you mean "bring cheap student loans into university coffers"?

Re:Fabricating a Crisis?

[theodp]

MR. SMITH: "One of the things I've learned from all of the various anti-trust and intellectual property negotiations I've handled over the years is this, sometimes when a small problem proves intractable you have to make it bigger. You have to make the problem big enough so that the solution is exciting enough to galvanize people's attention..."

FWD.us is spelled...

[Anonymous Coward]

FUD.us.

These are similar in style and lack of ethics or engineering rigor to the manufactured "compatibility" that got an ISO standard published despite the shrieking of every sensible, competent, non-Microsoft funded voter at the conference. Numerous attendees and members of the IFC committees resigned in protest, and even Microsoft is incapable of following the actual spec. The result is that Microsoft continues to violate the spec they sponsored even in their own software, but bureaucrat without technical awareness or who were already buying Microsoft products can check off "standards compliant" on their checklist of software requirements.

They fight dirty. Take a good look at what happened in Massachusetts to the CIO who demanded software have actual API's so that people would be able to read documents in the future. They did a political hatchet job on him.

          http://www.infoworld.com/artic...

Re:Fabricating a Crisis?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also this...

MR. WEST: So, Brad, you're the only who mentioned this topic of
making the problem bigger. So, we galvanize action by really producing a crisis, I take it?

MR. SMITH: Yeah, I think we have the opportunity to do two things.

That alone just sounds bad.

Re:Fabricating a Crisis?

[theodp]

And from the linked-to Code.org PowerPoint slide: "We CAN make this an issue like climate change." Btw, in a Reddit AMA at the time of Microsoft-backed Code.org's launch, CEO and Founder Hadi Partovi noted that his next-door-neighbor is Microsoft General Counsel and Code.org Board member Brad Smith, whose FWD.us bio notes is also responsible for Microsoft's philanthropic work.

Re:And your problem is what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody has to manufacture a crisis to promote their agenda? Okay then...

why the hell does billg want to teach these kids

[swschrad]

and then hire a bunch of Tata Indians to do the work for half price, leaving all these students with new diplomas no way to pay their student loans?

damn stupid program he's pushing. jump one way or jump the other way, but get off the barbed wire fence. that's electrified, too.

Re:why the hell does billg want to teach these kid

[garyisabusyguy]

He has to pay lip service to the 'lack of skilled US workers', even though the H1B workers will undercut the demand that is supposed to drive people into those careers

If you believe in free markets. then you have to let there be a vacuum in workers to create a demand for people to want to work those jobs because they will be worth more money

Supplementing the supply with H1B workers reduces the demand, which would drive US workers to seek those jobs

Re: Another right-wing attack

[garyisabusyguy]

Um, yeah, never seen emotion driven diatribes on the right either. Unless Hannity and O Reilly are libs now

Re:Fabricating a Crisis?

[dmiller1984]

MR. SMITH: "One of the things I've learned from all of the various anti-trust and intellectual property negotiations I've handled over the years is this, sometimes when a small problem proves intractable you have to make it bigger. You have to make the problem big enough so that the solution is exciting enough to galvanize people's attention..."

That actually makes my point. The summary states that they fabricated a crisis, but what you just posted shows that they thought it was a smaller problem that just needed to be made bigger to find a solution.

Re:Fabricating a Crisis?

[dmiller1984]

I don't think the powers behind Code.org and the B&M Gates Foundation care about bringing more students into unviersities. They are trying to bring more CS students into universities. Those students would probably be going to college anyway so it would be revenue-neutral for the schools.

Demand and supply problem

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is a real demand and supply problem. If it is a real damand problem, just make it more expensive to hiring foreign workers. For example, the companies who claims that they can't find Americans for the job should pay a special tax like say $50,000 every year to hiring each foreign worker. This will go a long way to address America deficit problems.

How does this get modded insightful?

[rsilvergun]

Lots of thinking goes on at think tanks. It's just not the sort any decent person wants going on. You shouldn't underestimate your enemy. They are well organized, highly motivated and well funded. They're fighting the best kind of war: one where the other side doesn't know there's a war on.

Re:How does this get modded insightful?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're fighting the best kind of war: one where the other side doesn't know there's a war on.

And even when you try to tell them, they still believe hard work and grit is enough to win.

I mean conservatives, of course.

I'm not exactly a conservative myself, but I can't tell you how many times I've found myself defending them simply because I feel someone should try and give some arguments in defense of conservatism, if only for balance.

And I've tried to make it clear to some conservatives just how out-matched they are in the realm of ideas. They have no clue and they don't want to have a clue. They're completely dismissive.

When I talk about how politically unbalanced universities are, or the press, or art, or literature, or education, or technology, or the legal profession is, they think good ol' hard work and grit is enough to counter all that power.

When I talk about how there's a huge left-leaning subculture in place and that conservatives are essentially blacklisted from many culture-influencing professions, they tell me, and I quote, "quit the conspiracy theories and grow a pair!"

I need to stop defending those idiots. They just can't be reached.

Re:How does this get modded insightful?

[Anonymous Coward]

I often encounter the same when dealing with liberals/progressives, a common thing for me as of the 3 states I've lived in during my adult life, two have been solidly blue.

Maybe, just maybe there are those out there on either side who cannot well articulate what they believe and why?

Re:How does this get modded insightful?

[fredrated]

In the end their efforts are self-directed instead of directed to the greater good, thus a lack of at least deep thinking.

Re:How does this get modded insightful?

[Livius]

Rationalization goes on at think tanks. I suppose that could count as thinking.

Good luck with that

[rsilvergun]

our Constitution was written to keep these guys in power. That's why we have a senate & house instead of a parliament. But good luck changing that. Lots of people will agree with you until you suggest scraping the Constitution. They've had it pounded into them while they were young and defenseless that it's a sacred document and if only we just followed it none of this would happen. Nobody questions whether the deck was stacked from the get go...

Re:Good luck with that

[0123456]

No, the Constitution was written to prevent these people gaining power, by giving the Federal government so little power that there was no point trying to buy them.

Sadly, the 'Progressives' came along demanding that government must be given more and more power, and it's been downhill ever since.

Re:Good luck with that

[DaHat]

Actually our constitution was written to give both the people and state governments a say in how the national government was running things (making bribery a lot harder)... alas the 17th amendment threw much of that out the window, largely removing the need for a Senate.

More so the framers were also quite clear as to the importance of rotation in & out of office, the idea of a career politician was apocryphal to them, so much so that they didn't end up writing term limits (of any kind) in as they thought that elected officials would continue to have virtue.

They created a grand government which has lasted quite longer than they probably expected, was able to end slavery thanks to a few poison pills, but alas virtue is a rare thing in DC today.

Re:Good luck with that

[meglon]

I think you need to go back and learn a little history, instead of relying on the spoon-fed-from-a-fucking-right-wing-insurectionst bullshit you've apparently been living on. The US constitution was designed to empower the federal government because the whole "weak fed, strong states" position proved to be a complete fucking disaster in less than a decade with the confederacy... and the founding father knew that because they lived through it. Fucking idiots now who think that the "weak fed, strong states" is what the constitution is about have their heads up their ass, and are completely ignorant of American history between 1776 and 1787.

Re:Good luck with that

[Gavagai80]

If you think that the framers of the constitution believed that politicians had virtue, you're not understanding them or their historical context. Politicians back then were even more thoroughly corrupt than anything on this part of the planet today, and the constitution attempts to minimize the damage with checks and balances. Some of the framers wanted term limits as well, but it's debatable whether term limits produce more virtue.

Also, ending slavery was clearly not an accomplishment of the constitution since it took a civil war to do it and the USA was quite far from being the first country to do it.

Re:why the hell does billg want to teach these kid

[currently_awake]

The way to drive down wages and benefits is to increase the supply. The education and H1B both do that.

It likely is true

[ITRambo]

There are plenty of qualified American engineers in all fields. The public has been lied to about this, but doesn't care because there is plenty of entertainment to distract us. Gates may not be a different man from the early days of Microsoft when he was quite a cutthroat. He may be continuing an agenda that has been in play for decades. I don't know the man. I know he has no qualms about lying with a smile, as he did to Congress about H-1B wages almost a decade ago. He is still out for corporate interests, while he helps cure malaria in Africa. He is a complex person. He is simultaneously selfish and generous. I don't trust Bill Gates.

Re:It likely is true

[sharkbiter]

He never did... anything that was... illegal...

[pauses]

Unless you count all the times he sold dope disguised as a nun. He's nothing but a low-down, double-dealing, backstabbing, larcenous perverted worm! Hanging's too good for him. Burning's too good for him! He should be torn into little bitsy pieces and buried alive!

Re:Fabricating a Crisis?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

What episode of Lost in Space was that?

Re:And your problem is what?

[marcello_dl]

Yep, it's standard operating procedure. Ordo ab chaos. The hand that offers help first is likely the one who had created the mess.

Two replies. Butthurt much?

[Hognoxious]

I just searched to see if I could buy any of those as stickers... none exist anywhere according to google.

I guess they didn't sell very well.

Can't imagine why.

Re:Fabricating a Crisis?

[Notabadguy]

Am I the only one who read this and was searching their memory of the Matrix trilogy to figure out where Mr. Smith said that?

Re:why the hell does billg want to teach these kid

[Anonymous Coward]

He has to pay lip service to the 'lack of skilled US workers', even though the H1B workers will undercut the demand that is supposed to drive people into those careers

Have you ever noticed only Indians seem to have all the required decades of skills and experience despite the fact those Indians are under 25 years of age?

Re:Two replies. Butthurt much?

[Karmashock]

First, how are those dicks coming? Did they get cold because you left them too long? There's plenty more if you need additional helpings.

As to my emotional state... I'm not really offended at all. You just said something that was inaccurate and I went to the trouble to see if there were any validity to your position.

There wasn't. So I informed you that dicks were to be consumed in hearty quantities.

Eat up. :)

And supply & demand today . . .

[sgt_doom]

. . . only really works in the labor market we are told, since it is completely inoperative everywhere else!!!!!

And taken a bit further, with a bit more modern historical research, NAFTA was about the same thing: new regs allowing for foreign ownership of Mexican banks (within one year of the passage of NAFTA, or signing by Mexico, 90% of their banks became foreign owned), when then favor Big Agra, which speedily moves in to take over the agriculture industry, while payouts go to Mexican politicians favoring the privatizing of those farmlands occupied by Mexican subsistance farmers, who are then forced off their lands, and thus journey north to America, to continue the downward trend on wages at the lower levels, etc., etc., etc.

Re:Two replies. Butthurt much?

[Hognoxious]

You just said something that was inaccurate

No, that was you.

If you can prove that the means and the ends are the same thing - your original claim - then provide a reliable citation.

My dictionary says the opposite.

The slide about jobs-students gap...

[Undead Waffle]

So the link in the summary: https://farm4.staticflickr.com... has a line that says "Jobs-students gap = $500b over 10 years". What exactly do they mean by this? That the increased wages over 10 years will cost them $500b unless they find a way to suppress them? Or are they claiming it is some sort of lost productivity cost?

Re:Two replies. Butthurt much?

[Karmashock]

Now you're changing your argument. You said everything I said was a bumper sticker. You did not say anything I said was inaccurate.

Case closed. Enjoy your bucket of dicks. ;)

fMRI

[NewYork]

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

ponzi/pyramid scams

[NewYork]

Corporates are giant ponzi/pyramid scams in globlaization;
http://www.change.org/p/indepe...

Lobbying or not, the STEM shortage is real

[fatalbert1]

I'm pretty tired of the /. naysayers claiming that the STEM shortage is a fictional conspiracy fabricated by the tech giants. I agree that lobbying in the US is exhausting. I'm personally a big fan of removing lobbying from Congress. But you also have to acknowledge that not all issues being lobbied are necessarily "evil" or "wrong". So with that disclaimer out of the way:

Hiring software engineers in the US, UK and Australia (3 countries I have worked) is very very difficult. And retaining skilled engineers is even harder. Engineers have one of the highest voluntary turnover rate of any profession because the opportunities elsewhere are immense.

And before I hear you claim that it is because companies just aren't paying enough, lets consider this: STEM jobs account for 7 out of 10 jobs of the highest paying jobs in the country according to this survey on glassdoor: http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/.... The other three are lawyer, finance manager, and tax manager.

Re:why the hell does billg want to teach these kid

[fluffynuts]

So if the plan sounds insanely stupid... perhaps it's not the plan?

Perhaps it's time to stop hating on BillG just because he's not *nix-ey enough? Perhaps it's time to stop feeding the conspiracy theorists? Perhaps?

Naw, what am I thinking. This is /., home of the terminally insane.

You get a Pulitzer...

[MoarSauce123]

....for something that was common knowledge? Laws come to be based on which special interest group pays the most and which position will secure reelection. If you do not like this then advocate for term limits and only public lobbying. Anyone getting caught taking kickbacks gets fired from Congress. I know...won't happen.