The value of a theory is in its ability to predict. And to the best of my knowledge, Keynesian economics (and what you might call proto-Keynesian, which used many of the same principles but before Keynes made it a formal school of economics), over the last 80 years, has failed to predict even ONE major economic event. Even when economists in other schools did.
In fact, some of the failures of followers of Keynes' theories (or principles Keynes later adopted) have been rather spectacular: the claim by Irving that the economy was doing wonderfully, the very day before the crash of '29, their utter failure to predict what the economy was like immediately after WWII (they were 180 degrees wrong), their claims that what we now call "stagflation" was impossible (until it actually happened in the 70s), its failure to predict any problems at all around the 2001 recession or the 2008 crash (both times saying "Come on in! The market's fine!")
I mean, it's almost laughable. It's time we got rid of government officials who insist on following provably failed economic policies, and get somebody in there with some actual sense.
No, I haven't made that mistake. What I am wondering is: if their userbase is (arguably) not going to expand by many more multiples, then what kind of new exploitation of their user data will they come up with? There are only so many, after all.
"This causes inflation, and unless everyone else's salary is immediately changed to compensate, money indeed end up being stolen from everyone in the long term."
Precisely. That time factor is why government and banks are not nearly as bothered by inflation as everyone else: when they get and spend the money, it is at current market value. It isn't until later, when it is in the hands of others, that inflation devalues it.
I think that is one of the primary reasons why government and banks have been clinging so tightly to Keynesian economics, even though Keynesian policy has time and again (for many decades now) been proven to damage the economy.
I mean, seriously: that's kind of like saying that people have more of an emotional reaction to a bridge falling down, rather than staying up, the way it's supposed to.
Correct. If you figure that my time is worth, freelancing, the same as what I was getting as a salary (actually, freelancers usually charge more, because they don't have health coverage, etc.), then the amount of time studying for the last 3 exams would not have been worth my time. It's grade-school math. Sorry if you have trouble with that. Your own example covers only your own situation; my exams were not taken in the same order, so you have no basis for pretending you know how many hours it might have taken. Nor did I have easily available free time to study; it had to be done in snatches between other obligations. And lastly, as I already explained, it wasn't just the $1000. My boss was being a jerk, and did not even offer me 10% of the value he stood to gain, solely from my effort. If he had just been reasonable I might have gone ahead.
And as for my "pompous ass" remark, it was very similar to what others here also replied to you, just slightly more direct. Obviously I am not alone in my opinion. But it's only opinion.
"The fortune 500 I worked at paid the non-programmers better than the programmers, so I was on the right side of the floor doing networking, and the MCSE helped me land that job, as it showed some "roundedness" with the other certs, like CCNA I held at the time."
But you were pursuing an IT career... I wasn't any longer. Further, you DON'T work there anymore... which was the whole major point I was getting at. My comment about my own MCSE situation was only an aside. I am quite happy with that decision because, as I say, it simply did not fit the career direction I had chosen to go in. You also didn't account for opportunity costs: I didn't mention it, but where do you get off assuming that I did not have better things to do with my time?
So I am curious (although I based on your math I don't expect a straight, honest answer): how much are those certs worth to you now? How much do they determine your income? If I were hiring IT staff, I wouldn't pay a dime extra for someone with those certs, today. Obviously some people still do: lots of companies have large capital investments that they need to support for a few years more, until they can afford to buy truly modern hardware from companies that do not assist third-world nations in oppressing their populations.
On the other hand, I am still doing fine with my programming.
"I quickly discovered that it was worth exactly nothing unless you were already an IT worker..."
Precisely my point. But apparently some people think that being smart enough to stop pursuing something that is a waste of your time equates to being unable.
I don't much care what it sounds like to you. I had already taken a job in the software field by the time I was halfway through my MCSE. My boss offerred to reimburse me for my tests and pay me $1000 bonus if I finished. I considered it. But then I found out that the company stood to save $20,000 annually in software licences if they had an MCSE in-house.
If the bastard had offered me even 10%, I might have said yes. As it was, I told him it wasn't worth my time. If I really saw any career advancement in it, anywhere near the direction I was going, I would have finished it. But it wasn't, and in fact as it turned out it wasn't worth my time. Considering how things have turned out since, I'm glad I had that foresight.
And by the way, you pompous ass, I "worked for a living" too. Before I took that software job I was the highest-paid hardware tech in the region, which encompassed most of several states.
So take your assumptions and stuff them. I'm doing just fine.
"Degree bubble"? That's hardly how I would describe it. The fact that government has driven up the cost of an education is rather the opposite of a "bubble".
The fact that "Many trades require licensing" is very, very far from making it "not a big issue".
I mean, even aside from the fact that in this case it appears it is being done for political reasons. State licensing has gone a long way toward ruining some professions, at least from the point of view of the public at large. Look at lawyers, just for one example.
Here's what happens as soon as a profession gets "licensed" or "certified". (I saw this happen gradually in the field of networking, after they started offering network certifications, like Novell CNE, and MCSE:
Some self-proclaimed licensing or certification body (if it's not the state) comes up with a certification exam. (Or, in more egregious cases, several to many exams that must be passed.) Not long after, tech and publishing companies begin to publish "Study courses" on how to pass the exam. When I was studying for my MCSE, I had several complete sets of books, some of which retailed for as much as $400 per set.
Soon -- very soon -- lots of big companies have a huge investment in this certification. And they lose lots of money every time the exams change. Also, the certification bodies rarely keep up with new technology. And worse... certification becomes the only indicator of who is "a professional" in that field. And so everybody who has already passed it has a stake in making sure that certification is difficult to get. Further, those who have passed certification feel they have earned their wings, and consider themselves tenured professionals. They don't feel they need to constantly study and keep up with everything new anymore.
As a result of all this, innovation in the field begins to slow. People who have licenses usually get paid well. But as time passes -- at least in tech fields -- they become less and less relevant. Sooner or later, they find that industry has passed them by and they have become dinosaurs. So they get a job flipping burgers or something to pay to go back to school (which no longer works, by the way: school is far too expensive).
So, no. I am sure there are exceptions, but in general, at least in tech fields, licensing or certification tolls the slow but sure death knell of your profession. To be replaced by something similar but not quite the same, 10 or 20 years later.
(Anybody remember CNE or MCSE? I never finished my MCSE, by the way: I saw the writing on the wall and went for a software career instead.)
Don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to be a smartass, I am just curious. Why engage in the conversation at all, if you don't know the situation and won't look it up?
In my area, a judge who let another judge get off lightly on a DUI charge, was himself charged with DUI a year or so later. People were so pissed off, they had to throw the book at him or there would have been a riot.
Remember that laws are supposed to represent the will of the people.
They are wasting taxpayer dollars on this because big corporations told them to. Did you miss the part about the only "evidence" against that site being unsupported word-of-mouth by an RIAA official?
See my comment above. It is not necessary to SUE the government. Government officials can be criminally prosecuted under 18 USC 242. This was a statute passed by Congress that was specifically aimed at government officials who abuse the law, and nobody is immune.
So far in 2011 there have been 41 prosecutions under 18 USC 242, and of those, there have been 39 convictions.
By the way, I should also point this out: although not long, the wording of the statute can be a bit confusing. What it says is that depriving anyone of their Constitutional rights for any reason falls under the law, PLUS treating people differently due to race or alien status. The law does not just apply to discrimination cases.
"... they appear to have been wrong about copyright being infringed in this case, but they DO have the power to enforce it."
This is about the most egregious straw-man argument I have ever seen.
Congress has the power to pass enforceable laws, but it does NOT have the power to unconstitutionally enforce laws, or, for that matter, to otherwise constitutionally enforce unconstitutional laws.
See United States Code, Title 18, Section 242 (18 USC 242).
The person who misrepresented probable cause to the judge CAN be prosecuted. Even if it was mere negligence. In fact, even the judge could probably be prosecuted, for signing a warrant that allowed property seizure without sufficient evidence. That statute has real teeth, and there is no exception in 18 USC 242 for judges. They are government officials like any others.
Slashdot Mirror
The value of a theory is in its ability to predict. And to the best of my knowledge, Keynesian economics (and what you might call proto-Keynesian, which used many of the same principles but before Keynes made it a formal school of economics), over the last 80 years, has failed to predict even ONE major economic event. Even when economists in other schools did.
In fact, some of the failures of followers of Keynes' theories (or principles Keynes later adopted) have been rather spectacular: the claim by Irving that the economy was doing wonderfully, the very day before the crash of '29, their utter failure to predict what the economy was like immediately after WWII (they were 180 degrees wrong), their claims that what we now call "stagflation" was impossible (until it actually happened in the 70s), its failure to predict any problems at all around the 2001 recession or the 2008 crash (both times saying "Come on in! The market's fine!")
I mean, it's almost laughable. It's time we got rid of government officials who insist on following provably failed economic policies, and get somebody in there with some actual sense.
"WTF? Having a cert oppresses people?"
That is not what I stated. Try reading it again.
No, I haven't made that mistake. What I am wondering is: if their userbase is (arguably) not going to expand by many more multiples, then what kind of new exploitation of their user data will they come up with? There are only so many, after all.
"This causes inflation, and unless everyone else's salary is immediately changed to compensate, money indeed end up being stolen from everyone in the long term."
Precisely. That time factor is why government and banks are not nearly as bothered by inflation as everyone else: when they get and spend the money, it is at current market value. It isn't until later, when it is in the hands of others, that inflation devalues it.
I think that is one of the primary reasons why government and banks have been clinging so tightly to Keynesian economics, even though Keynesian policy has time and again (for many decades now) been proven to damage the economy.
I mean, seriously: that's kind of like saying that people have more of an emotional reaction to a bridge falling down, rather than staying up, the way it's supposed to.
"People have been shown to have a higher emotional reaction to a negative event than to a similarly positive event (-50K vs +50K)."
Perhaps, but that doesn't mean that it's an irrational emotional reaction: investments are supposed to go up, not down. That's what they're for.
How does Facebook have "strong growth potential"? I suspect that the majority of people who want to be on it, are by now.
Remember MySpace? The same kind of reasoning was used on it.
Mod up as ROFL.
Or cities. Or in the path of semi-annual hurricanes.
Hear that, Florida? Louisiana?
And as for my "pompous ass" remark, it was very similar to what others here also replied to you, just slightly more direct. Obviously I am not alone in my opinion. But it's only opinion.
"The fortune 500 I worked at paid the non-programmers better than the programmers, so I was on the right side of the floor doing networking, and the MCSE helped me land that job, as it showed some "roundedness" with the other certs, like CCNA I held at the time."
But you were pursuing an IT career... I wasn't any longer. Further, you DON'T work there anymore... which was the whole major point I was getting at. My comment about my own MCSE situation was only an aside. I am quite happy with that decision because, as I say, it simply did not fit the career direction I had chosen to go in. You also didn't account for opportunity costs: I didn't mention it, but where do you get off assuming that I did not have better things to do with my time?
So I am curious (although I based on your math I don't expect a straight, honest answer): how much are those certs worth to you now? How much do they determine your income? If I were hiring IT staff, I wouldn't pay a dime extra for someone with those certs, today. Obviously some people still do: lots of companies have large capital investments that they need to support for a few years more, until they can afford to buy truly modern hardware from companies that do not assist third-world nations in oppressing their populations.
On the other hand, I am still doing fine with my programming.
Yes, but even most "other" Student Loans are Government-guaranteed, which is the heart of the problem. They're still part of it.
You said it.
"I quickly discovered that it was worth exactly nothing unless you were already an IT worker ..."
Precisely my point. But apparently some people think that being smart enough to stop pursuing something that is a waste of your time equates to being unable.
It takes all kinds, I guess.
I don't much care what it sounds like to you. I had already taken a job in the software field by the time I was halfway through my MCSE. My boss offerred to reimburse me for my tests and pay me $1000 bonus if I finished. I considered it. But then I found out that the company stood to save $20,000 annually in software licences if they had an MCSE in-house.
If the bastard had offered me even 10%, I might have said yes. As it was, I told him it wasn't worth my time. If I really saw any career advancement in it, anywhere near the direction I was going, I would have finished it. But it wasn't, and in fact as it turned out it wasn't worth my time. Considering how things have turned out since, I'm glad I had that foresight.
And by the way, you pompous ass, I "worked for a living" too. Before I took that software job I was the highest-paid hardware tech in the region, which encompassed most of several states.
So take your assumptions and stuff them. I'm doing just fine.
That's what they get for putting all (or most of) their eggs in one foreign basket.
I mean, sheesh. It's not like "single point of failure" is an unknown concept or anything.
See my own comment above. We agree, but for different reasons. Our arguments somewhat reinforce each other.
"Degree bubble"? That's hardly how I would describe it. The fact that government has driven up the cost of an education is rather the opposite of a "bubble".
The fact that "Many trades require licensing" is very, very far from making it "not a big issue".
I mean, even aside from the fact that in this case it appears it is being done for political reasons. State licensing has gone a long way toward ruining some professions, at least from the point of view of the public at large. Look at lawyers, just for one example.
Here's what happens as soon as a profession gets "licensed" or "certified". (I saw this happen gradually in the field of networking, after they started offering network certifications, like Novell CNE, and MCSE:
Some self-proclaimed licensing or certification body (if it's not the state) comes up with a certification exam. (Or, in more egregious cases, several to many exams that must be passed.) Not long after, tech and publishing companies begin to publish "Study courses" on how to pass the exam. When I was studying for my MCSE, I had several complete sets of books, some of which retailed for as much as $400 per set.
Soon -- very soon -- lots of big companies have a huge investment in this certification. And they lose lots of money every time the exams change. Also, the certification bodies rarely keep up with new technology. And worse... certification becomes the only indicator of who is "a professional" in that field. And so everybody who has already passed it has a stake in making sure that certification is difficult to get. Further, those who have passed certification feel they have earned their wings, and consider themselves tenured professionals. They don't feel they need to constantly study and keep up with everything new anymore.
As a result of all this, innovation in the field begins to slow. People who have licenses usually get paid well. But as time passes -- at least in tech fields -- they become less and less relevant. Sooner or later, they find that industry has passed them by and they have become dinosaurs. So they get a job flipping burgers or something to pay to go back to school (which no longer works, by the way: school is far too expensive).
So, no. I am sure there are exceptions, but in general, at least in tech fields, licensing or certification tolls the slow but sure death knell of your profession. To be replaced by something similar but not quite the same, 10 or 20 years later.
(Anybody remember CNE or MCSE? I never finished my MCSE, by the way: I saw the writing on the wall and went for a software career instead.)
Honestly, that would be nice. I think it's about time they got what they've been dishing out.
But I'm not holding my breath.
Then why were you bothering to comment?
Don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to be a smartass, I am just curious. Why engage in the conversation at all, if you don't know the situation and won't look it up?
There is that. But it happens.
In my area, a judge who let another judge get off lightly on a DUI charge, was himself charged with DUI a year or so later. People were so pissed off, they had to throw the book at him or there would have been a riot.
Remember that laws are supposed to represent the will of the people.
They are wasting taxpayer dollars on this because big corporations told them to. Did you miss the part about the only "evidence" against that site being unsupported word-of-mouth by an RIAA official?
See my comment above. It is not necessary to SUE the government. Government officials can be criminally prosecuted under 18 USC 242. This was a statute passed by Congress that was specifically aimed at government officials who abuse the law, and nobody is immune.
So far in 2011 there have been 41 prosecutions under 18 USC 242, and of those, there have been 39 convictions.
By the way, I should also point this out: although not long, the wording of the statute can be a bit confusing. What it says is that depriving anyone of their Constitutional rights for any reason falls under the law, PLUS treating people differently due to race or alien status. The law does not just apply to discrimination cases.
"... they appear to have been wrong about copyright being infringed in this case, but they DO have the power to enforce it."
This is about the most egregious straw-man argument I have ever seen.
Congress has the power to pass enforceable laws, but it does NOT have the power to unconstitutionally enforce laws, or, for that matter, to otherwise constitutionally enforce unconstitutional laws.
See United States Code, Title 18, Section 242 (18 USC 242).
The person who misrepresented probable cause to the judge CAN be prosecuted. Even if it was mere negligence. In fact, even the judge could probably be prosecuted, for signing a warrant that allowed property seizure without sufficient evidence. That statute has real teeth, and there is no exception in 18 USC 242 for judges. They are government officials like any others.