they withhold part of your money, invest it, and pay it out later to you
Unless of course you're in Illinois and the union bosses and the state congress work out increased pensions without actually finding money to pay for it. They aren't withholding pay to give you later, the money just doesn't exist. Of course, the pensions for the state representatives are always fully funded, and the union bosses plan to retire before the numbers catch up to them.
Demand your money up front
That would be better for everyone (taxpayers and state union workers), too bad those in power will never give up their favorite political bargaining chip.
If arbitration was better at punishing corporations when they do wrong, they wouldn't be moving to it in large numbers.
Not necessarily. It is possible that arbitration costs less than a court case, even if the results for the consumer come out the same. Also, having every case go through the same arbitration firm is sure to give more consistent results than coutrooms scattered around the country.
Realistically, corporations will seek out arbitration firms that are favorable to them, but if arbitration were to reduce the cost of lawsuits by enough, an "honest" corporation might even prefer a consumer-friendly arbitration firm over a coutroom.
Now, I'll admit this is pure speculation, but if anyone is familiar with the economics of arbitration I would be curious if there really is substantial benefit to arbitration regardless of how favorable the decisions are.
You should have some minimum time to file a suit against someone for using your patent or it should be invalidated
Or just your right to offensively use the patent should be revoked; if a company just wants to use a patent defensively there is no need to push them to sue people proactively.
Exactly. The problem is when H1B workers are hired in much the way scabs are hired during a strike. I only wish for the best for the H1B workers themselves, but I don't trust corporations to use the program in good faith (especially with the leaked videos explaining how to game the system to show a lack of qualified workers). We certainly need to keep the program, but there's a chronic need for more oversight to minimize abuse.
The concern isn't the error rate, but the ability to catch the error. Votes are counted openly, with observers watching to verify they are counted properly. If someone makes a mistake, it will likely be noticed and called out as such. If a machine makes a mistake, how would we know? Even if the machine was theoretically perfect, there is a value in having a verifible result, as the accuracy of the results only matters if people trust it is accurate.
We already have the estate tax, which takes a heavy cut of inheritance, so accumulated wealth can be addressed when the person dies. Taxing wealth directly feels like a retroactive tax, so as much as I support a more progressive tax system, I couldn't support a tax on wealth.
If you want to deal with low capital gains taxes, etc., I think the simple solution is if investment income is greater than your salary, that investment income is taxed as though it is part of your salary. Sure, CEOs would try to balance it so they get $1 more in salary than investment income, but that's an improvement.
To avoid collateral damage on this tax idea, income from a 401k or other retirement plan would be protected from this, but if any additional investment income exceeds 401k income, that is then taxed at the appropriate rate for a salary.
If a company with only 10 employees managed to rake in $100 million a year, it only makes sense they would get paid ~$10 million salaries. Along those lines, I am (generally*) okay with athletes making ridiculous amounts of money for playing a game, as their teams bring in those millions of dollars anyways, and the players are doing the bulk of the work that earns that money. If the players didn't get those 8-figure contracts, it would be even more money in the pockets of managers and owners, which would be no better.
*I do think sports teams/arenas need to stop getting subsidized by tax payers, but after the teams pay back their host cities they are free to pay their athletes as much as they can afford to.
Yes, a surveillance camera can invade privacy the way this guy does, but we tend to be okay with surveillance cameras because they don't actually do so. It's like saying if you're okay with an armed guard standing over there, you should have no problem with a random guy running around waving a gun in your face.
A good ask Slashdot question should have two qualities:
-Many/. readers would be inclined to ask the same question.
-There are many good solutions, or the one good solution is difficult to come up with/find.
Many Slashdot readers would like a better pen, or were unaware that better pens exist, so this isn't 1000's of people answering one person's question- many of the people reading these comments are getting the same benefit as the OP.
Also, because there is no one "best" pen, even those answering the question can learn something. They might pick up a tip about maintaining and cleaning a pen, or maybe someone else will suggest a pen that is a better fit for their work.
If the OP just went to Google with his question, we would all have missed a chance to learn a bit about a tool most of us use every day. I think this was a great Ask Slashdot question.
You missed the OP's point: he was claiming that a hacker might fare better in solitary than in the general population (based on the stereotype of the general prison population being largely abusive and dangerous). Combined with the above comment about the solitary confinement not being the deprivation of simulous you would expect, he could have a point. Even so, I doubt he's right unless the general prison population really is as bad to interact with as he suggests.
He's not claiming solitary is good, he just thinks its better than the alternative (being in the general population).
He said the capital gains tax would be eliminated for those making under $250k, so no change for the uber-rich investors.
That said, I think if capital gains make up more than 50% of your income, it should get taxed at the standard income tax rate (excluding 401ks, IRAs, etc.). If you can make investing pay like a full-time job, it should be taxed as such.
You've ignored some major details in your argument.
If twice as many people are working, there is twice the supply, so if households have twice the wages (twice the demand), the net change in prices is ZERO. If going from one worker to two workers per household had a net zero effect on the economy, it would mean worker productivity was cut in half (but genrally productivity has gone up).
If prices go up, it means businesses are taking in more money (you seem to assume higher prices = economic black hole). To keep purchasing power the same, that money needs to go back to the employees in the form of raises. Price fixing shouldn't be needed as wages should account for inflation (although there may be lag between the two).
Now, I'll agree that the median household is worse off relative to today's society, compared the the median 1950s household in 1950's society. This is because wages have NOT kept up with inflation. But the money must go somewhere- based on the increasing wealth disparity it seems to me that money is going to the pockets of the wealthy.The wealthy have taken those inflation-driven price increases and given themselves an increasingly disproportionate share, so their wealth grows ahead of inflation while everyone else slowly sinks down. This isn't a matter of the market forcing the median household to remain the same despite two incomes (as I said that doesn't make sense as supply has gone up), it's that there are people increasingly leeching off the top, independent of the two-worker-household phenomenon.
Price fixing could help in the sense that the wealthy could no longer use inflation to hide the fact that they are taking wages away from their workers, but price fixing eliminates not just inflation, but movement in the relative prices of goods to one another, which I feel is too important of a role of the market to lose.
As for your argument about prices in different regions, you are way off on your example of home prices. Yes, the two houses may be the same, but the price difference is the land. A lot out in a small town in Oklahoma is not the same as a lot in a wealthy suburb. If some place is a desirable place to live, prices will go up because of that increased value, not because the wages are higher- the higher wages are just because those are the people who can best afford the better land. Of course, land values (and their effect on the prices of local goods) is complex and inter-dependent, so there is sure to be a factor of "because they can afford it", but it's wrong to attribute regional price differences solely to local wages, so that they wipe out any apparant increase in wealth.
No, a sudden drop in participation would show a lack of public approval. The US already has relatively low voter participation, if it steadily declined over time it would just seem people don't care.
Also, if you got what you want and only 10% of voters show up, and the candidates were to actually realize the public is protesting the election by... doing nothing... what should they do? Sure, you don't want either candidate, but how do they decide who does win the election? Unless you want no government, I don't see how giving the government no direction whatsoever solves anything.
If you can get 80%+ of voters to now show up, you could easily get enough to actually show up and vote for what you actually want, instead of sitting at home whining about it.
Can we stop with the hyperbole? The balance is usefulness vs. harm. No one would suggest that amputating hands prevents more harm than good. But beyond using a weak laser to aid your powerpoint presentation there isn't much reason why the general public needs access to laser pointers*. When that is balanced against by the harm they can be (and are) used for, a lot of people will see lasers as more harmful than they are worth. Unlike guns (where the presence of illegal guns can justify needing a gun for self-defense), the presence of illegal lasers doesn't present a need for your own laser.
*Or please share why one would need to have more than a presentation-grade laser, maybe the problem is lack of awareness of their use. Yes, there is scientific use for lasers, but they can be controlled as scientific and medical devices with a ban on handheld devices.
The argument is whether a tax on pollution will cause pollution to go down or up. If smoking is to be held as a model for pollution, and smoking went down, why do we care about the tax revenue? Not that the tax isn't important, but you're not demonstrating that the tax would increase pollution. The government trying to dampen the effect of the tax still means less polution.
Modding someone down because you disagree is abuse, modding someone down because their post will derail the conversation is correct (that's why we mod down troll, offtopic, flamebait). Taken alone, the OP's comment could arguably seen as a troll, getting people to argue about a point that has nothing to do with the story at hand. Of course, the OP made an honest mistake, and even replied (as AC) admitting as such, so the parent tried to be nice and use "overrated" instead of "troll". I'm sure the OP would have deleted his post if he could, to save everyone some time. I know if I was in his position I would appreciate someone modding me overrated as the next best thing to deletion.
I'm picturing a Jenga tower, it has stored energy with all the pieces elevated above the ground. Removing pieces does reduce the total energy available, but depending which piece you remove you could calmly defuse the situation, or you could trigger a catastrophic event.
I have no reason to believe that induced mini-earthquakes are Jenga pieces taken off the top of the tower, rather than the middle or the bottom. Also, we may well be disturbing inactive faults (just as a Jenga tower doesn't fall over if you leave it be).
Is this a good analogy? If not, I would appreciate the chance to learn. All the comments I see dismissing the mini-earthquakes as a good thing just assume any energy removed can only help.
I think the main criticism is from questioning the need for the attacks in the first place. Arguably the Swiss military is doing the best job of avoiding civilian casualties. I'm sure the US military does put effort into minimizing civilian casualties when it does attack, but that only means so much if the attack was unwarranted.
Slashdot Mirror
they withhold part of your money, invest it, and pay it out later to you
Unless of course you're in Illinois and the union bosses and the state congress work out increased pensions without actually finding money to pay for it. They aren't withholding pay to give you later, the money just doesn't exist. Of course, the pensions for the state representatives are always fully funded, and the union bosses plan to retire before the numbers catch up to them.
Demand your money up front
That would be better for everyone (taxpayers and state union workers), too bad those in power will never give up their favorite political bargaining chip.
If arbitration was better at punishing corporations when they do wrong, they wouldn't be moving to it in large numbers.
Not necessarily. It is possible that arbitration costs less than a court case, even if the results for the consumer come out the same. Also, having every case go through the same arbitration firm is sure to give more consistent results than coutrooms scattered around the country.
Realistically, corporations will seek out arbitration firms that are favorable to them, but if arbitration were to reduce the cost of lawsuits by enough, an "honest" corporation might even prefer a consumer-friendly arbitration firm over a coutroom.
Now, I'll admit this is pure speculation, but if anyone is familiar with the economics of arbitration I would be curious if there really is substantial benefit to arbitration regardless of how favorable the decisions are.
You should have some minimum time to file a suit against someone for using your patent or it should be invalidated
Or just your right to offensively use the patent should be revoked; if a company just wants to use a patent defensively there is no need to push them to sue people proactively.
Exactly. The problem is when H1B workers are hired in much the way scabs are hired during a strike. I only wish for the best for the H1B workers themselves, but I don't trust corporations to use the program in good faith (especially with the leaked videos explaining how to game the system to show a lack of qualified workers). We certainly need to keep the program, but there's a chronic need for more oversight to minimize abuse.
Step 1: Buy an urban ISP.
Step 2: Buy a bulldozer.
The article is about taxes on corporate profits, given how profitable (and widely-known) Apple is, it only makes sense to use them as an example.
The concern isn't the error rate, but the ability to catch the error. Votes are counted openly, with observers watching to verify they are counted properly. If someone makes a mistake, it will likely be noticed and called out as such. If a machine makes a mistake, how would we know? Even if the machine was theoretically perfect, there is a value in having a verifible result, as the accuracy of the results only matters if people trust it is accurate.
Whatever happened to all those video games that used to be in the arcades back in the 1980s?
Why? Are you trying to game the election?
We already have the estate tax, which takes a heavy cut of inheritance, so accumulated wealth can be addressed when the person dies. Taxing wealth directly feels like a retroactive tax, so as much as I support a more progressive tax system, I couldn't support a tax on wealth.
If you want to deal with low capital gains taxes, etc., I think the simple solution is if investment income is greater than your salary, that investment income is taxed as though it is part of your salary. Sure, CEOs would try to balance it so they get $1 more in salary than investment income, but that's an improvement.
To avoid collateral damage on this tax idea, income from a 401k or other retirement plan would be protected from this, but if any additional investment income exceeds 401k income, that is then taxed at the appropriate rate for a salary.
If a company with only 10 employees managed to rake in $100 million a year, it only makes sense they would get paid ~$10 million salaries. Along those lines, I am (generally*) okay with athletes making ridiculous amounts of money for playing a game, as their teams bring in those millions of dollars anyways, and the players are doing the bulk of the work that earns that money. If the players didn't get those 8-figure contracts, it would be even more money in the pockets of managers and owners, which would be no better.
*I do think sports teams/arenas need to stop getting subsidized by tax payers, but after the teams pay back their host cities they are free to pay their athletes as much as they can afford to.
Yes, a surveillance camera can invade privacy the way this guy does, but we tend to be okay with surveillance cameras because they don't actually do so. It's like saying if you're okay with an armed guard standing over there, you should have no problem with a random guy running around waving a gun in your face.
A good ask Slashdot question should have two qualities: /. readers would be inclined to ask the same question.
-Many
-There are many good solutions, or the one good solution is difficult to come up with/find.
Many Slashdot readers would like a better pen, or were unaware that better pens exist, so this isn't 1000's of people answering one person's question- many of the people reading these comments are getting the same benefit as the OP.
Also, because there is no one "best" pen, even those answering the question can learn something. They might pick up a tip about maintaining and cleaning a pen, or maybe someone else will suggest a pen that is a better fit for their work.
If the OP just went to Google with his question, we would all have missed a chance to learn a bit about a tool most of us use every day. I think this was a great Ask Slashdot question.
The world's largest scientific project
In what sense is that?
The size of the science, clearly.
You missed the OP's point: he was claiming that a hacker might fare better in solitary than in the general population (based on the stereotype of the general prison population being largely abusive and dangerous). Combined with the above comment about the solitary confinement not being the deprivation of simulous you would expect, he could have a point. Even so, I doubt he's right unless the general prison population really is as bad to interact with as he suggests.
He's not claiming solitary is good, he just thinks its better than the alternative (being in the general population).
He said the capital gains tax would be eliminated for those making under $250k, so no change for the uber-rich investors.
That said, I think if capital gains make up more than 50% of your income, it should get taxed at the standard income tax rate (excluding 401ks, IRAs, etc.). If you can make investing pay like a full-time job, it should be taxed as such.
You've ignored some major details in your argument.
If twice as many people are working, there is twice the supply, so if households have twice the wages (twice the demand), the net change in prices is ZERO. If going from one worker to two workers per household had a net zero effect on the economy, it would mean worker productivity was cut in half (but genrally productivity has gone up).
If prices go up, it means businesses are taking in more money (you seem to assume higher prices = economic black hole). To keep purchasing power the same, that money needs to go back to the employees in the form of raises. Price fixing shouldn't be needed as wages should account for inflation (although there may be lag between the two).
Now, I'll agree that the median household is worse off relative to today's society, compared the the median 1950s household in 1950's society. This is because wages have NOT kept up with inflation. But the money must go somewhere- based on the increasing wealth disparity it seems to me that money is going to the pockets of the wealthy.The wealthy have taken those inflation-driven price increases and given themselves an increasingly disproportionate share, so their wealth grows ahead of inflation while everyone else slowly sinks down. This isn't a matter of the market forcing the median household to remain the same despite two incomes (as I said that doesn't make sense as supply has gone up), it's that there are people increasingly leeching off the top, independent of the two-worker-household phenomenon.
Price fixing could help in the sense that the wealthy could no longer use inflation to hide the fact that they are taking wages away from their workers, but price fixing eliminates not just inflation, but movement in the relative prices of goods to one another, which I feel is too important of a role of the market to lose.
As for your argument about prices in different regions, you are way off on your example of home prices. Yes, the two houses may be the same, but the price difference is the land. A lot out in a small town in Oklahoma is not the same as a lot in a wealthy suburb. If some place is a desirable place to live, prices will go up because of that increased value, not because the wages are higher- the higher wages are just because those are the people who can best afford the better land. Of course, land values (and their effect on the prices of local goods) is complex and inter-dependent, so there is sure to be a factor of "because they can afford it", but it's wrong to attribute regional price differences solely to local wages, so that they wipe out any apparant increase in wealth.
Needless to say, that particular group stopped dumping.
...on your street.
Talking about percent changes to a percent tends to be ambiguous, no need to be a jerk about it.
No, a sudden drop in participation would show a lack of public approval. The US already has relatively low voter participation, if it steadily declined over time it would just seem people don't care.
Also, if you got what you want and only 10% of voters show up, and the candidates were to actually realize the public is protesting the election by... doing nothing... what should they do? Sure, you don't want either candidate, but how do they decide who does win the election? Unless you want no government, I don't see how giving the government no direction whatsoever solves anything.
If you can get 80%+ of voters to now show up, you could easily get enough to actually show up and vote for what you actually want, instead of sitting at home whining about it.
Can we stop with the hyperbole? The balance is usefulness vs. harm. No one would suggest that amputating hands prevents more harm than good. But beyond using a weak laser to aid your powerpoint presentation there isn't much reason why the general public needs access to laser pointers*. When that is balanced against by the harm they can be (and are) used for, a lot of people will see lasers as more harmful than they are worth. Unlike guns (where the presence of illegal guns can justify needing a gun for self-defense), the presence of illegal lasers doesn't present a need for your own laser.
*Or please share why one would need to have more than a presentation-grade laser, maybe the problem is lack of awareness of their use. Yes, there is scientific use for lasers, but they can be controlled as scientific and medical devices with a ban on handheld devices.
The argument is whether a tax on pollution will cause pollution to go down or up. If smoking is to be held as a model for pollution, and smoking went down, why do we care about the tax revenue? Not that the tax isn't important, but you're not demonstrating that the tax would increase pollution. The government trying to dampen the effect of the tax still means less polution.
Modding someone down because you disagree is abuse, modding someone down because their post will derail the conversation is correct (that's why we mod down troll, offtopic, flamebait). Taken alone, the OP's comment could arguably seen as a troll, getting people to argue about a point that has nothing to do with the story at hand. Of course, the OP made an honest mistake, and even replied (as AC) admitting as such, so the parent tried to be nice and use "overrated" instead of "troll". I'm sure the OP would have deleted his post if he could, to save everyone some time. I know if I was in his position I would appreciate someone modding me overrated as the next best thing to deletion.
Not that this is a competition or anything, but the EPA standards for emissions use grams NOx per horsepower hour. Not sure what other countries use.
I'm picturing a Jenga tower, it has stored energy with all the pieces elevated above the ground. Removing pieces does reduce the total energy available, but depending which piece you remove you could calmly defuse the situation, or you could trigger a catastrophic event.
I have no reason to believe that induced mini-earthquakes are Jenga pieces taken off the top of the tower, rather than the middle or the bottom. Also, we may well be disturbing inactive faults (just as a Jenga tower doesn't fall over if you leave it be).
Is this a good analogy? If not, I would appreciate the chance to learn. All the comments I see dismissing the mini-earthquakes as a good thing just assume any energy removed can only help.
I think the main criticism is from questioning the need for the attacks in the first place. Arguably the Swiss military is doing the best job of avoiding civilian casualties. I'm sure the US military does put effort into minimizing civilian casualties when it does attack, but that only means so much if the attack was unwarranted.