You do realize that right now there are two choices for the future of Medicare and Medicaid on the table. There is the Paul Ryan (Republican) plan. This plan will distribute the money to states as block grants allowing those who will not enter the program for another ten years to choose which of several competing options to use the money for, while leaving it completely unchanged for those older than that. Then there is the Obama (Democratic) plan. The latter plan will set up a government agency that will decide what types of treatment will be covered so that Medicare and Medicaid expenses do not exceed a specified percentage of GDP (I forget the number, but Medicare and Medicaid will exceed it under the current configuration by 2014). This agency can only be overridden by 2/3s of both Houses of Congress.
So, neither party is calling for the end of Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. However, the Democratic plan calls for the more drastic curtailment of benefits to those who are beyond the point of being able to (without great difficulty) develop alternate plans for their retirement.
Being sued is expensive. Most companies will go to quite extreme lengths to avoid getting sued by the Federal Government (the NLRB is an agency of the Federal government). If the NLRB decides that a company fired an employee for trying to form a union and that it wants to make an example of that company, it will get quite expensive for that company if they fired the guy who tried to form a union. Also, note that this guy works in San Francisco, San Francisco is noted for giving employees the benefit of the doubt when they have disputes with their employers. If it was any company other than Apple (or ones owned by certain politically connected individuals), I would say that it would be in serious trouble for firing this guy, even if they caught him selling merchandise out the back door and pocketing the money.
In the U.S., a union is an organization that takes money from your paycheck in order to fund election campaigns for Democratic politicians and let union officials live high on the hog. I don't know about other countries, but in the U.S. the union is just another boss you have to kowtow to in order to work at certain places.
Boeing is being sued by the NLRB for opening a new plant in a right-to work state (workers cannot be required to join the union and generally don't) while increasing the number of workers in the unionized plant at the same time because the NLRB says that it is in retaliation for strikes by the union in the past.
The answer isn't to try and get those people to figure it out. The answer is to get those people to stop voting at all. If they don't care enough to do the work necessary to elect good candidates, then they won't do the work necessary to understand the issues either. If we stop encouraging people who are too lazy to understand what is going on to vote, then the people who understand will be able to change things. Most of what is wrong in this country is a result of people who vote for sound bites.
It is not enough to only pay attention to politicians during election years and then only at the national level. If you want to have an impact on the way this country is governed, you need to be involved locally. And not just at election time, go to school board meetings and township supervisor meetings. Listen to what is said, speak up when public comment is asked for. Talk to your neighbors about what the local government is doing, why it is good, or why it is bad. And when in doubt, vote the ins, out.
Of course this is why politicians like laws that make it easy for people to register and vote. That way they can increase the share of voters who only pay attention to the sound bites during the campaign and thus are easily manipulated.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the U.S. system is designed to make it so that major change takes a lot of time. This is a good thing. It means that people have to really, truly want the change and people have a chance to see how the change is going to effect things before it is fully implemented. I have come to realize that any time some group claims that a major change must be done in a hurry it means that they know the majority of Americans won't like it one it is implemented.
I am unconvinced that Natural Monopolies exist. I know of only one monoply that developed without direct government intervention (Microsoft) and it is not usually considered to be in one of the "Natural Monopoly" industries. The theory of "natural monopoly" has been used as an excuse to create the very monopolies that are giving us the problems we have with Internet service (cable and telephone).
Generally, city water costs more than digging your own well. Digging your own well is pretty close to a one time investment. The reason for city water services is because in densely populated areas there may not be enough ground water for all of the people living in the area and/or it may be difficult to drill wells that will not be contaminated by sewers (if you aren't providing water, you quite likely aren't providing a sewer system either. If you are going to go to the effort of putting in a city sewer system, you might as well run a city water service at the same time.).
The FACTS are that DUI checkpoints are only legal in the U.S. if the police department informs the public in advance where and when they will be. So, in order for a DUI checkpoint to not be considered a violation of the Fourth Ammendment, the police department MUST provide such data to the public.
That's fine. The PSAs mentioned in the article ONLY list the agency that contracted them. I would be fine if the PSAs listed both NBC and the government agency, then people would know that the policy they are presenting was bought and paid for by NBC.
Says me. You are free to disagree, but if a PSA is going to present the corporate line (NBC's in this case) I would prefer that that be stated in the PSA (especially if the PSA is also presenting government policy).
Please feel free to recommend the economic system you prefer. However, limit yourself to actual economic systems not purely theoretical ones that have never existed in the real world.
OK, having read the one blog post about Rakofsky, I have just one question. After he gets pummelled in court, what is he going to do for a living now that he has made sure that just about everyone knows what an incompetent lawyer he is?
What "problem" did the interstate highway system fix? You do realize that the evidence suggests that the Internet does not solve the problem it was created to address (allowing the government to maintain communications in the event that a nuclear war knocked out other communication technologies--telephone and radio)?
As to whether or not people adopted automobiles because it solved the "excessive horse manure" problem, it depends on how you look at the problem. A significant reason that people adopted automobiles was because you didn't have to feed them when you weren't using them and because you didn't have to clean the manure out of the stables (garage). So, no, they did not adopt them to address the problem of excessive horse manure on the streets, but they did adopt them so as to not have to clean up horse manure.
Well at least I favor thinking for myself as opposed to wanting the elites to do it for me.
What you don't seem to understand is that the problem you referred to is not a "capitalist system" problem, but a human nature problem.
If it is government policy information I should be able to use it without violating copyright (under U.S. law, government publications are public domain). However, since this was created by NBC and NBC retains copyright on it, I need their permission to use it.
Second, this means that NBC is making government policy on copyright.
The difference is that the Ad Council is a non-government organization. None of the examples you give are government organizations. When those organizations broadcast a PSA, you know that it is going to reflect the bias of that organization. The problem is not that NBC made and broadcast PSAs. The problem is that the government is taking PSAs created and owned by NBC and broadcasting them as the official government position without even telling people that this position was crafted by NBC.
What this amounts to is that the Department of Homeland Security is not even pretending that government policy on copyright infringement is not made by NBC.
It is not a law. It is a court ruling and the court ruling is that the police have to notify the public in advance of where and when DUI checkpoints will be set up. Which means that these apps actually make the job of the police easier, by publishing this information for them. DUI checkpoints are probably unConstitutional (according to the Supreme Court), but the Courts have decided that they serve a public good that outweighs the amount they violate the Constitution (Ok that is an interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling).
So, basically you think the only solutions for a problem that counts is one that people devloped for the express purpose of solving the problem, as opposed to a solution that was developed for other reasons that people adopted because it solved another problem?
Please point out a major problem that was effectively dealt with by government or industry plan that funded R&D to come up with a solution to the problem.
Actually, if I remember correctly, they are REQUIRED to advertise them. I believe there was a court ruling that said DUI checkpoints were only Constitutional if they were well advertised in advance.
Slashdot Mirror
You do realize that right now there are two choices for the future of Medicare and Medicaid on the table. There is the Paul Ryan (Republican) plan. This plan will distribute the money to states as block grants allowing those who will not enter the program for another ten years to choose which of several competing options to use the money for, while leaving it completely unchanged for those older than that. Then there is the Obama (Democratic) plan. The latter plan will set up a government agency that will decide what types of treatment will be covered so that Medicare and Medicaid expenses do not exceed a specified percentage of GDP (I forget the number, but Medicare and Medicaid will exceed it under the current configuration by 2014). This agency can only be overridden by 2/3s of both Houses of Congress.
So, neither party is calling for the end of Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. However, the Democratic plan calls for the more drastic curtailment of benefits to those who are beyond the point of being able to (without great difficulty) develop alternate plans for their retirement.
Being sued is expensive. Most companies will go to quite extreme lengths to avoid getting sued by the Federal Government (the NLRB is an agency of the Federal government). If the NLRB decides that a company fired an employee for trying to form a union and that it wants to make an example of that company, it will get quite expensive for that company if they fired the guy who tried to form a union. Also, note that this guy works in San Francisco, San Francisco is noted for giving employees the benefit of the doubt when they have disputes with their employers. If it was any company other than Apple (or ones owned by certain politically connected individuals), I would say that it would be in serious trouble for firing this guy, even if they caught him selling merchandise out the back door and pocketing the money.
In the U.S., a union is an organization that takes money from your paycheck in order to fund election campaigns for Democratic politicians and let union officials live high on the hog. I don't know about other countries, but in the U.S. the union is just another boss you have to kowtow to in order to work at certain places.
Boeing is being sued by the NLRB for opening a new plant in a right-to work state (workers cannot be required to join the union and generally don't) while increasing the number of workers in the unionized plant at the same time because the NLRB says that it is in retaliation for strikes by the union in the past.
The answer isn't to try and get those people to figure it out. The answer is to get those people to stop voting at all. If they don't care enough to do the work necessary to elect good candidates, then they won't do the work necessary to understand the issues either. If we stop encouraging people who are too lazy to understand what is going on to vote, then the people who understand will be able to change things. Most of what is wrong in this country is a result of people who vote for sound bites.
It is not enough to only pay attention to politicians during election years and then only at the national level. If you want to have an impact on the way this country is governed, you need to be involved locally. And not just at election time, go to school board meetings and township supervisor meetings. Listen to what is said, speak up when public comment is asked for. Talk to your neighbors about what the local government is doing, why it is good, or why it is bad. And when in doubt, vote the ins, out.
Of course this is why politicians like laws that make it easy for people to register and vote. That way they can increase the share of voters who only pay attention to the sound bites during the campaign and thus are easily manipulated.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the U.S. system is designed to make it so that major change takes a lot of time. This is a good thing. It means that people have to really, truly want the change and people have a chance to see how the change is going to effect things before it is fully implemented. I have come to realize that any time some group claims that a major change must be done in a hurry it means that they know the majority of Americans won't like it one it is implemented.
I am unconvinced that Natural Monopolies exist. I know of only one monoply that developed without direct government intervention (Microsoft) and it is not usually considered to be in one of the "Natural Monopoly" industries. The theory of "natural monopoly" has been used as an excuse to create the very monopolies that are giving us the problems we have with Internet service (cable and telephone).
Generally, city water costs more than digging your own well. Digging your own well is pretty close to a one time investment. The reason for city water services is because in densely populated areas there may not be enough ground water for all of the people living in the area and/or it may be difficult to drill wells that will not be contaminated by sewers (if you aren't providing water, you quite likely aren't providing a sewer system either. If you are going to go to the effort of putting in a city sewer system, you might as well run a city water service at the same time.).
The FACTS are that DUI checkpoints are only legal in the U.S. if the police department informs the public in advance where and when they will be. So, in order for a DUI checkpoint to not be considered a violation of the Fourth Ammendment, the police department MUST provide such data to the public.
That's fine. The PSAs mentioned in the article ONLY list the agency that contracted them. I would be fine if the PSAs listed both NBC and the government agency, then people would know that the policy they are presenting was bought and paid for by NBC.
Says me. You are free to disagree, but if a PSA is going to present the corporate line (NBC's in this case) I would prefer that that be stated in the PSA (especially if the PSA is also presenting government policy).
Having seen what has happened every time they've been tried.
I am pretty sure that Ad Council PSAs say that they are Ad Council PSAs, not government PSAs.
And following your preferred economic models we would return to the stone age.
Please feel free to recommend the economic system you prefer. However, limit yourself to actual economic systems not purely theoretical ones that have never existed in the real world.
If the government didn't pay for it, then it should be broadcast as an NBC PSA, not as an ICE PSA.
OK, having read the one blog post about Rakofsky, I have just one question. After he gets pummelled in court, what is he going to do for a living now that he has made sure that just about everyone knows what an incompetent lawyer he is?
What "problem" did the interstate highway system fix? You do realize that the evidence suggests that the Internet does not solve the problem it was created to address (allowing the government to maintain communications in the event that a nuclear war knocked out other communication technologies--telephone and radio)?
As to whether or not people adopted automobiles because it solved the "excessive horse manure" problem, it depends on how you look at the problem. A significant reason that people adopted automobiles was because you didn't have to feed them when you weren't using them and because you didn't have to clean the manure out of the stables (garage). So, no, they did not adopt them to address the problem of excessive horse manure on the streets, but they did adopt them so as to not have to clean up horse manure.
Well at least I favor thinking for myself as opposed to wanting the elites to do it for me.
What you don't seem to understand is that the problem you referred to is not a "capitalist system" problem, but a human nature problem.
As opposed to every other economic system, where the people who make the rules get all the money?
If it is government policy information I should be able to use it without violating copyright (under U.S. law, government publications are public domain). However, since this was created by NBC and NBC retains copyright on it, I need their permission to use it.
Second, this means that NBC is making government policy on copyright.
The difference is that the Ad Council is a non-government organization. None of the examples you give are government organizations. When those organizations broadcast a PSA, you know that it is going to reflect the bias of that organization. The problem is not that NBC made and broadcast PSAs. The problem is that the government is taking PSAs created and owned by NBC and broadcasting them as the official government position without even telling people that this position was crafted by NBC.
What this amounts to is that the Department of Homeland Security is not even pretending that government policy on copyright infringement is not made by NBC.
It is not a law. It is a court ruling and the court ruling is that the police have to notify the public in advance of where and when DUI checkpoints will be set up. Which means that these apps actually make the job of the police easier, by publishing this information for them. DUI checkpoints are probably unConstitutional (according to the Supreme Court), but the Courts have decided that they serve a public good that outweighs the amount they violate the Constitution (Ok that is an interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling).
So, basically you think the only solutions for a problem that counts is one that people devloped for the express purpose of solving the problem, as opposed to a solution that was developed for other reasons that people adopted because it solved another problem?
Please point out a major problem that was effectively dealt with by government or industry plan that funded R&D to come up with a solution to the problem.
Actually, if I remember correctly, they are REQUIRED to advertise them. I believe there was a court ruling that said DUI checkpoints were only Constitutional if they were well advertised in advance.