TI'm just wondering why the average Joe has to work as hard as ever and still has a struggle to provide for his (ever retreating) retirement, when traders trade in more than enough for everyone.
I guess that makes me a socialist or something.
I am sorry, I don't work near as hard as my father did. I would have trouble convincing my grandfather that I work at all. Your question doesn't make you a socialist, it makes you an idiot who has no idea what life was like for people through most of history (and still is in much of the world).
I would recommend that patents for software and business methods be eliminated and merely rely on copyright to protect software. Patents should be reserved for things that have a physical component.
Thank you. I was wondering the same thing. There are two possibilities. The one you suggested, where some group (probably a law firm) is getting people appointed to the East Texas District Court in order to continue this pattern.
The second is that there is a small group of long serving judges in the East Texas District Court who have bias in favor of patent plaintiffs. If it is the second, a list of these judges should be published and Congress should be encouraged to impeach one or more of them. May I suggest that some group compiles such a list and then starts a campaign to get Congress to impeach the worst violator in the bunch.
There is no need to put quotes around country when referring to Europe (unless you do the same with the U.S.) as there is indeed a country called Europe now (European Union). Most of those who live in this new country don't realize that their former country has become a mere state in the larger country, but it has indeed happened and is probably irreversible.
Even with the "legislation enacted in response to the Great Depression", the market went through boom-bust cycles. Recessions in 1948, 1953, 1958, 1960, 1969, 1973-74 (special case-OPEC oil embargo, not just U.S. business cycle), 1980 & 1981 (probably the same economic downturn with an uptick in the middle), 1991, 2001, 2008. Notice that since that since 1973-74 they have occurred with less frequency than before. The thing that changed in the early 70's was the U.S. going off of the gold standard.
There is a link further up to study that found that the human eye can perceive a a 1 millisecond flash of 90 photons under ideal conditions. This suggests to me that what this study is dealing with is where the idea of physically perceivable psychic auras comes from. Someone with mystic tendencies (and perhaps exceptional sensitivity to low level light) observed this light and made some interpretations from it (some of which might have had some connection to the actual state of the person observed). Later others made further observations that built on the original. Unfortunately, since most people would not be able to observe this phenomenon, some (probably many) of these people were either frauds or hallucinating, so their observations and conclusions were contrary to the reality of what was going on.
We're not talking about what "could" have been, but what was. Capitalism was not the system back then.
In that case I have to challenge your initial example, because all of the early agriculture civilizations that we have any idea what sort of economic system they had were command economies (Sumer, Egypt, early China). So "free market trade" wasn't the system then either.
Indeed in medieval times, such a thing wouldn't be called "capitalism", but "usury", which was a sin for christians.
No, usury would be lending money for interest. Even in medieval times a person of wealth could invest in someone else's business. Usury (in medieval terms) is where I lend you $50 and you agree to pay me back $50 plus some specified amount. Investment is I give you $50 toward some profitable activity and receive some percentage of the profit generated by that activity. If the activity doesn't make $50, I lose money.
Even your example is capitalism. The farmer invested his capital (his seed and labor)in producing crops.
No, I never said anything about buying seeds. Seeds are provided free by nature. They only need to be collected.
I never said anything about buying seeds either. If the farmer does something other than plant his seeds (such as eating them--think wheat), he will not have them to plant. If the farmer plants his seeds, he won't have them to do something else with. If there is a drought and the plants die, he loses his investment of seeds.
The trapper invested his capital (his traps and his labor) in obtaining furs.
No, labour isn't an "investment" in the meaning of the word for capitalism. Capitalism is the system of living by investment NOT working. Investing labour for a later return is working, not capitalism.
And that is the flaw in so many people's understanding of economics, if I spend time doing X for $5 an hour, I can't spend that same time doing Y in exchange for a car.
Yes, when economists discuss the economic theories of Capitalism, they make a distinction between capital and labour, but that distinction is only relevant in a society that has a means of storing value (money). The same principles govern economic interactions in either case. Capitalism is the most efficient method of regulating economic activity. The principles that make Capitalism the most efficient economic system in Industrial Societies, make the same type of economic behavior the most efficient economic system in barter societies.
You know, you should read my initial post. The post you were responding to was part of a line of argument, not a stand alone comment.
It is unlikely that walking from where I am to public transportation and from public transportation will be faster than driving from where my car is parked to my destination. As I said in my initial post, in certain areas and for a certain level of population density, public transportation is the way to go, but I do not currently live in one of those locations.
Even in a barter economy it is possible to trade for some future consideration. In your example, the farmer could trade some of his excess food to a fur trapper who is about to go out on a trapping run in return for a share of the furs that the trapper obtains. That would be capitalism. No money changed hands, but the farmer invested in the trapper in expectation of return.
Even your example is capitalism. The farmer invested his capital (his seed and labor)in producing crops. The trapper invested his capital (his traps and his labor) in obtaining furs.
Are you saying that "free market trade" didn't happen before someone used that term? You are certainly trying to say that Capitalism didn't exist before someone created the term. Capitalism existed before the term was applied to it. The essence of Capitalism is that those who own the capital get to decide how it is used. Capital may be money, tools, property, labor, etc. Without the right to control my capital, there is no such thing as "free market trade".
If there is "free market trade", one of the things I can do is "trade" you money now in return for some of the profit you produce by doing work of some kind in the future. That is what investment is.
When I use a car, I can get off of the highway and get on the local road, I still have my car. When I get off of public transport, what am I supposed to use to get the rest of the way to my destination, my car is at the place I got on to public transportation?
"free market trade" is capitalism. Definition of Capitalism: : an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
The key element of capitalism is that economic decisions are made by individuals for their own reasons and motivations.
A second important point is that capitalism is not a political system it is an economic system. Capitalism as an economic system relies on a political system that has a "rule of law" ethos. One of the largest mistakes that people make when looking at the world is to look at governments and insist that they be democratic. The important thing is that they be a rule of law government. If the rules are fixed and apply consistently (and can only be changed slowly and gradually), people will be more prosperous and free. The ruling class must be as subject to the laws as the common person, even if different laws apply to the ruling class. If the ruling class can change the rules on a whim, freedom and prosperity will steadily diminish.
If you design a public transportation system that under normal conditions does not take more time to get an individual person from point A to point B than a car owned by that individual, said public transportation system will be no more efficient than that privately owned car.
Think about it, my car leaves my current location (or generally within a reasonably small approximation thereof) when I am ready to leave and arrives at my destination (again with a reasonably small approximation thereof) with only those stops that I choose. Public transportation leaves a pre-designated location that is a random distance from where I am (stops are placed to cover a certain amount of area/population) and arrives at a pre-designated destination that is a random distance from my destination with (in most cases) numerous stops along the way to pick up and drop off other passengers.
That being said, in certain areas and for a certain level of population density public transportation is the best way for an individual to get from point A to point B. The additional time for using public transportation is offset by the reduced stress and the ability to use the commute time for relaxation/rest.
Sorry, there is a glaring hole in your logic. Most cars require significantly more energy to move than a Prius or a Tesla. The reason that the fleet average fuel economy is only 20 mpg is because many of the vehicles in it are very heavy.
Actually, the amount of potential energy in a gallon of gasoline is variable. It depends on what refinery it comes from and what additives have been added to the fuel that comes out of the pump. Unlike propane or methane, gasoline is not a specific hydrocarbon (or even a specific mix of hydrocarbons). Gasoline is a mix of hydrocarbons of various sizes and composition (some of them are straight chain hydrocarbons, some contain benzene rings, some contain other characteristics that effect their energy content).
In summary, the amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline varies from batch to batch, even from the same refinery.
A customer of mine was skeptical about open source. Then one of their people started reading the Affero GPL, and was terrified ("this means they can do a surprise inspection on our premises!") now anything with GPL or open source is out of the question. They even bought an xserve for php
You mean as opposed to the Business Software Alliance? Which you agree to allow to do a surprise inspection on your premises if you buy software from their members (Microsoft, Adobe, etc). Yeah they better not use open source because, you know, those guys might launch a surprise inspection, not that I have ever seen a report of them doing so (unlike the BSA), but they might.
So they better stick to safe software from Microsoft and Adobe, they would never invade the privacy of their customers (except of course when they can make money from doing so).
Sorry, you are wrong. While there may be people who have no choice but be gay, I have met people who chose to be gay and argued very strenuously that it whether or not to be gay was a choice.
If you RTFA, you would discover that there does not appear to be any constituency in Ireland that particularly supports this law and that it is introduced because there is a clause in Ireland's Constitution requiring there to be laws against blasphemy. The Irish government doesn't want to go to the expense of running a referendum to amend the constitution to remove this clause (although they are quite willing to run a second referendum to try and get the Irish voters to support a stronger EU, since they voted it down the last time).
I have seen no proof of voting fraud to elect G.W. Bush. Several newspapers (that overwhelmingly supported Al Gore) did recounts of the Florida 2000 ballots and found that G.W. Bush won the Florida election by any reasonable method of recounting (the only method of recounting that gave Florida to Gore was if one gave him the votes from every ballot that was less than perfectly clear as to who was intended--even when there was no indication that they intended to vote for Gore).
But that was only possible because the election margin was razor thin. One thing that people have to understand is that elections by their very nature have a margin of error. That is no matter how you run an election if the margin between the winner and the loser is less than a certain percentage (I believe I read somewhere that it is 2%), there will be no way to know who really was the winner. This margin of error is the result of the fallibility of people, that is, people make mistakes (they intended to vote for A, but their hand slipped and they voted for B, maybe they notice, maybe they don't). In any election somewhere around 2% of the votes will be miscast (overvote or undervote). If the margin of victory is smaller than this margin, then it is easily possible to tamper with the election to influence the outcome. However, most elections are decided by significantly larger margins. The larger the legitimate margin of victory, the harder it is to tamper with the results so as to change the outcome.
Electronic voting will not change the margin of error in elections, just change the nature of the error.
The problem is that he is corrupt to the wrong people.
G
It rather telling the american press is all algainst a corrupt left leader but supported with money and weapons corrupt right wing leaders who killed thousands. It makes me highly doubtfull of any reports about south america.
I think the "true" story here is that this guy got ousted NOT for being corrupt or a crook or faking elections BUT for listening to the wrong people when in power. His replacement ain't any better, but he does listen to the right people.
Except for the single small paragraph about this in USA today, I have not heard of any reference to this in the U.S. media. So you might want to think about your interpretation of this event. Another factor you might want to consider is that the U.S. supported the OAS sanctions against Honduras for removing Zelaya from office.
But they did an half assed legal job to "impeach" him. If he made a crime, he sould have been impeached, arrested and sent on trial for his crimes, not simply taking him away ilegally -acording to the same Constitution than everyone is quoting. On something has important like the Presidency of a country, following the correct legal procedures is vital. If the current honduran government did it they woldn't be in this mess. Unless we must accept that on Constitutions, the only articles that apply are only the ones we like, like both parties did in Honduras.
There are no provisions in the Honduran Constitution for impeachment. However, the Honduran Constitution does call for any elected official who proposes to alter the term limits on President be removed from office...which is what they did.
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TI'm just wondering why the average Joe has to work as hard as ever and still has a struggle to provide for his (ever retreating) retirement, when traders trade in more than enough for everyone.
I guess that makes me a socialist or something.
I am sorry, I don't work near as hard as my father did. I would have trouble convincing my grandfather that I work at all. Your question doesn't make you a socialist, it makes you an idiot who has no idea what life was like for people through most of history (and still is in much of the world).
I would recommend that patents for software and business methods be eliminated and merely rely on copyright to protect software. Patents should be reserved for things that have a physical component.
Thank you. I was wondering the same thing. There are two possibilities. The one you suggested, where some group (probably a law firm) is getting people appointed to the East Texas District Court in order to continue this pattern.
The second is that there is a small group of long serving judges in the East Texas District Court who have bias in favor of patent plaintiffs. If it is the second, a list of these judges should be published and Congress should be encouraged to impeach one or more of them. May I suggest that some group compiles such a list and then starts a campaign to get Congress to impeach the worst violator in the bunch.
There is no need to put quotes around country when referring to Europe (unless you do the same with the U.S.) as there is indeed a country called Europe now (European Union). Most of those who live in this new country don't realize that their former country has become a mere state in the larger country, but it has indeed happened and is probably irreversible.
Even with the "legislation enacted in response to the Great Depression", the market went through boom-bust cycles. Recessions in 1948, 1953, 1958, 1960, 1969, 1973-74 (special case-OPEC oil embargo, not just U.S. business cycle), 1980 & 1981 (probably the same economic downturn with an uptick in the middle), 1991, 2001, 2008. Notice that since that since 1973-74 they have occurred with less frequency than before. The thing that changed in the early 70's was the U.S. going off of the gold standard.
And you are one of those people who insist on blaming the flaws of human nature on Capitalism.
There is a link further up to study that found that the human eye can perceive a a 1 millisecond flash of 90 photons under ideal conditions. This suggests to me that what this study is dealing with is where the idea of physically perceivable psychic auras comes from. Someone with mystic tendencies (and perhaps exceptional sensitivity to low level light) observed this light and made some interpretations from it (some of which might have had some connection to the actual state of the person observed). Later others made further observations that built on the original. Unfortunately, since most people would not be able to observe this phenomenon, some (probably many) of these people were either frauds or hallucinating, so their observations and conclusions were contrary to the reality of what was going on.
We're not talking about what "could" have been, but what was. Capitalism was not the system back then.
In that case I have to challenge your initial example, because all of the early agriculture civilizations that we have any idea what sort of economic system they had were command economies (Sumer, Egypt, early China). So "free market trade" wasn't the system then either.
Indeed in medieval times, such a thing wouldn't be called "capitalism", but "usury", which was a sin for christians.
No, usury would be lending money for interest. Even in medieval times a person of wealth could invest in someone else's business. Usury (in medieval terms) is where I lend you $50 and you agree to pay me back $50 plus some specified amount. Investment is I give you $50 toward some profitable activity and receive some percentage of the profit generated by that activity. If the activity doesn't make $50, I lose money.
No, I never said anything about buying seeds. Seeds are provided free by nature. They only need to be collected.
I never said anything about buying seeds either. If the farmer does something other than plant his seeds (such as eating them--think wheat), he will not have them to plant. If the farmer plants his seeds, he won't have them to do something else with. If there is a drought and the plants die, he loses his investment of seeds.
No, labour isn't an "investment" in the meaning of the word for capitalism. Capitalism is the system of living by investment NOT working. Investing labour for a later return is working, not capitalism.
And that is the flaw in so many people's understanding of economics, if I spend time doing X for $5 an hour, I can't spend that same time doing Y in exchange for a car.
Yes, when economists discuss the economic theories of Capitalism, they make a distinction between capital and labour, but that distinction is only relevant in a society that has a means of storing value (money). The same principles govern economic interactions in either case. Capitalism is the most efficient method of regulating economic activity. The principles that make Capitalism the most efficient economic system in Industrial Societies, make the same type of economic behavior the most efficient economic system in barter societies.
You know, you should read my initial post. The post you were responding to was part of a line of argument, not a stand alone comment.
It is unlikely that walking from where I am to public transportation and from public transportation will be faster than driving from where my car is parked to my destination. As I said in my initial post, in certain areas and for a certain level of population density, public transportation is the way to go, but I do not currently live in one of those locations.
Even in a barter economy it is possible to trade for some future consideration. In your example, the farmer could trade some of his excess food to a fur trapper who is about to go out on a trapping run in return for a share of the furs that the trapper obtains. That would be capitalism. No money changed hands, but the farmer invested in the trapper in expectation of return.
Even your example is capitalism. The farmer invested his capital (his seed and labor)in producing crops. The trapper invested his capital (his traps and his labor) in obtaining furs.
Are you saying that "free market trade" didn't happen before someone used that term? You are certainly trying to say that Capitalism didn't exist before someone created the term. Capitalism existed before the term was applied to it. The essence of Capitalism is that those who own the capital get to decide how it is used. Capital may be money, tools, property, labor, etc. Without the right to control my capital, there is no such thing as "free market trade".
If there is "free market trade", one of the things I can do is "trade" you money now in return for some of the profit you produce by doing work of some kind in the future. That is what investment is.
When I use a car, I can get off of the highway and get on the local road, I still have my car. When I get off of public transport, what am I supposed to use to get the rest of the way to my destination, my car is at the place I got on to public transportation?
"free market trade" is capitalism. Definition of Capitalism: : an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
The key element of capitalism is that economic decisions are made by individuals for their own reasons and motivations.
A second important point is that capitalism is not a political system it is an economic system. Capitalism as an economic system relies on a political system that has a "rule of law" ethos. One of the largest mistakes that people make when looking at the world is to look at governments and insist that they be democratic. The important thing is that they be a rule of law government. If the rules are fixed and apply consistently (and can only be changed slowly and gradually), people will be more prosperous and free. The ruling class must be as subject to the laws as the common person, even if different laws apply to the ruling class. If the ruling class can change the rules on a whim, freedom and prosperity will steadily diminish.
If you design a public transportation system that under normal conditions does not take more time to get an individual person from point A to point B than a car owned by that individual, said public transportation system will be no more efficient than that privately owned car.
Think about it, my car leaves my current location (or generally within a reasonably small approximation thereof) when I am ready to leave and arrives at my destination (again with a reasonably small approximation thereof) with only those stops that I choose. Public transportation leaves a pre-designated location that is a random distance from where I am (stops are placed to cover a certain amount of area/population) and arrives at a pre-designated destination that is a random distance from my destination with (in most cases) numerous stops along the way to pick up and drop off other passengers.
That being said, in certain areas and for a certain level of population density public transportation is the best way for an individual to get from point A to point B. The additional time for using public transportation is offset by the reduced stress and the ability to use the commute time for relaxation/rest.
Sorry, there is a glaring hole in your logic. Most cars require significantly more energy to move than a Prius or a Tesla. The reason that the fleet average fuel economy is only 20 mpg is because many of the vehicles in it are very heavy.
Actually, the amount of potential energy in a gallon of gasoline is variable. It depends on what refinery it comes from and what additives have been added to the fuel that comes out of the pump. Unlike propane or methane, gasoline is not a specific hydrocarbon (or even a specific mix of hydrocarbons). Gasoline is a mix of hydrocarbons of various sizes and composition (some of them are straight chain hydrocarbons, some contain benzene rings, some contain other characteristics that effect their energy content).
In summary, the amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline varies from batch to batch, even from the same refinery.
The GNU affero is an abomination.
A customer of mine was skeptical about open source. Then one of their people started reading the Affero GPL, and was terrified ("this means they can do a surprise inspection on our premises!") now anything with GPL or open source is out of the question. They even bought an xserve for php
You mean as opposed to the Business Software Alliance? Which you agree to allow to do a surprise inspection on your premises if you buy software from their members (Microsoft, Adobe, etc). Yeah they better not use open source because, you know, those guys might launch a surprise inspection, not that I have ever seen a report of them doing so (unlike the BSA), but they might.
So they better stick to safe software from Microsoft and Adobe, they would never invade the privacy of their customers (except of course when they can make money from doing so).
There aren't, but how many children under 9 years old died this year who weren't born in this century? See, the OP was right.
. Nobody chooses to be gay. .
Sorry, you are wrong. While there may be people who have no choice but be gay, I have met people who chose to be gay and argued very strenuously that it whether or not to be gay was a choice.
If you RTFA, you would discover that there does not appear to be any constituency in Ireland that particularly supports this law and that it is introduced because there is a clause in Ireland's Constitution requiring there to be laws against blasphemy. The Irish government doesn't want to go to the expense of running a referendum to amend the constitution to remove this clause (although they are quite willing to run a second referendum to try and get the Irish voters to support a stronger EU, since they voted it down the last time).
I have seen no proof of voting fraud to elect G.W. Bush. Several newspapers (that overwhelmingly supported Al Gore) did recounts of the Florida 2000 ballots and found that G.W. Bush won the Florida election by any reasonable method of recounting (the only method of recounting that gave Florida to Gore was if one gave him the votes from every ballot that was less than perfectly clear as to who was intended--even when there was no indication that they intended to vote for Gore).
But that was only possible because the election margin was razor thin. One thing that people have to understand is that elections by their very nature have a margin of error. That is no matter how you run an election if the margin between the winner and the loser is less than a certain percentage (I believe I read somewhere that it is 2%), there will be no way to know who really was the winner. This margin of error is the result of the fallibility of people, that is, people make mistakes (they intended to vote for A, but their hand slipped and they voted for B, maybe they notice, maybe they don't). In any election somewhere around 2% of the votes will be miscast (overvote or undervote). If the margin of victory is smaller than this margin, then it is easily possible to tamper with the election to influence the outcome. However, most elections are decided by significantly larger margins. The larger the legitimate margin of victory, the harder it is to tamper with the results so as to change the outcome.
Electronic voting will not change the margin of error in elections, just change the nature of the error.
The problem is that he is corrupt to the wrong people.
G
It rather telling the american press is all algainst a corrupt left leader but supported with money and weapons corrupt right wing leaders who killed thousands. It makes me highly doubtfull of any reports about south america.
I think the "true" story here is that this guy got ousted NOT for being corrupt or a crook or faking elections BUT for listening to the wrong people when in power. His replacement ain't any better, but he does listen to the right people.
Except for the single small paragraph about this in USA today, I have not heard of any reference to this in the U.S. media. So you might want to think about your interpretation of this event. Another factor you might want to consider is that the U.S. supported the OAS sanctions against Honduras for removing Zelaya from office.
But they did an half assed legal job to "impeach" him. If he made a crime, he sould have been impeached, arrested and sent on trial for his crimes, not simply taking him away ilegally -acording to the same Constitution than everyone is quoting. On something has important like the Presidency of a country, following the correct legal procedures is vital. If the current honduran government did it they woldn't be in this mess. Unless we must accept that on Constitutions, the only articles that apply are only the ones we like, like both parties did in Honduras.
There are no provisions in the Honduran Constitution for impeachment. However, the Honduran Constitution does call for any elected official who proposes to alter the term limits on President be removed from office...which is what they did.
Only 9% of the wood used to make books comes from old growth forests ( http://ecology.com/features/paperchase/ ), so there is some merit to his theory.