The first question: is it consistent to include current US immigration practices under the definition of Corporate Welfare Nader uses. You can say that Nader's definition is a bad concept-the first question is it consistent to exclude those immigration practices from that term.
Also, the H-1b immigration rights _were_ sold. Congress sold their offices over the objection of over 80% of the US public. Now, you say all you want about "freedom"--but freedom that involves de facto bribery and subversion of the democratic process is a pretty questionable "freedom".
I'm familar with the economic arguments that you can have open borders and broad based economic prosperity. I see little truth to these arguments-the idea you can have open boarders between the US and India or Mexico without having negative effect on US wages is nutty(yet respeced economists suggest that is the case). From my perspective, open borders benefits larger property owners-many of whom use political means to defend their property at the expense of people that have little more than their labor to sell.
I find it curious that some "free market" advocates are so quick to defend property rights that tend to concentrated into the hands of few-and have relatively little concern for those infringements of freedom that tend to affect folks at a broader scale.
Actually, a degree of monopoly power starts to sink in with under 20 competitors according to the classic work down by Frank Knight at U of Chicago. Monpoly isn't a black/white issue---there are many shades of gray. The essence of a monopoly is they can set prices according to the degree of profitability rather than having prices dictated by market conditions. Microsoft is 80-90% the way towards being a "pure" monopoly-and as such needs substantial regulation.
That is kind of my point. In the public schools, we see dozens of products that have no real purpose other than servicing government agencies-but are closed source. I don't see that as a good use of tax dollars. I think the publc would get more bang for the buck by creating a pooled purchase that had as a condition that source was open.
Have you ever read _anything_ Nader, the man the coined the term corporate welfare, had to say about what corporate welfare is. Corporate welfare isn't just cash payments or subsidies-it includes preferential legislation that lets someone rich have something for nothing. Citizenship rights are at a certain level a funny kind of property rights--like property rights in land--and those citizenship rights include a share in various public lands and other public assets. Countries with sane immigration policies select for immigrants they see as benefiting their country as a whole in some substantial way--the expansion of the H-1b program gave corporations the right to make those kinds of decisions. The American public was overwhelmingly against the expansion of the H-1b program. Congress was paid over $113 Million in campaign donations to enact an unpopular policy that was specifically profitable to the corporations involved. Do you have any evidence that the H-1b program acted to increase the value of public assets in America as oppose to simply spread them around among more people? What I just see is a law that decreased the value of US citizenship for US tech workers-and let corporations use that value for their own benefit. That fits Nader's classical definition of corporate welfare.
The Ukraine is quite simply desperate for foreign currency. From what I know of the Ukraine, they are _well_ on the way to getting into a reasonable trade situation-which is more than I can say for the spoiled politicians and investors running the US and generating a $0.5 trillion annual trade deficit.
I've noticed an increased number of Open Source products in verticle market niches(i.e. specialized accounting packages). I can easily imagine that if some of the larger customers would band together and chance their purchasing practices we'd see dramatic change here rapidly. For example, i work with a large public school district. They've had closed source vendors that simply became unable to support their products any longer(basically the folks that understood the product refused to work with the closed source vendor management). Now, the bulk of money flowing into that closed source vendor was taxpayer money. If the school districts had insisted on Open Source up front, it might have cost a bit more money-but it would have saved a lot of hassle down the road.
One way this might be done is for large public agencies to pool their purchasing decisions. Basically they would agree to a large purchase from a vendor on condition the source be open.
Here is how H-1b visa expansion was bought. Basically the major computer/internet corporations massively expanded their level of donations. The big expansions happened in 1998 and 2000--and the donors got good return on their congressional investments. Basically a bunch of congressmen sold their offices-and major media said nothing.
Read the definition of corporate welfare as orginally coined by Ralph Nader. The idea is an asset is transfered for far less than its market value. If visas were sold at auction, they'd easily generate $50K each--and companies get them for simply being first in line. That is a giveway. The reason we know that these visas have a higher economic value: 1) the visas run out on the first day of quota coming available. 2) the young men that get these visas can easily
leverage possession of these visas into hard
cash(i.e. look at the dowry market in India).
I don't endorse everything on rense-but I don't see them as nuttier in the big picture than the NYT with their notion that immigration is the economic salvation of the US economy and stuff like claiming that Goddard's rocket would never work(yes they did that).
Most startups crater. Figure 1 in 5 makes it. The question is whether the companies that have good options programs do better than the ones that don't. Now, once a company gets past a certain size-it is a whole different ball game(because big companies have access to a much deeper pool of capital).
Now, saying that HP is doing "Well" is a bit questionable. I'm not impressed with their recent products. When I was a consultant there, HP had two product lines that were actually making money(big servers, printer supplies). I know HP looks good on paper-but if they hadn't gotten a massive injection of corporate welfare in the form of H-1b(which let them compensate employees in immigration rights instead of paying them like real businesses do), HP would have been in _BIG_ trouble.
Historically, the startups that have done the best are those with broad based options programs. The reason is that a good option program: 1) curtails employee turnover(i.e. folks like a winer and once a company hits its employees can move more easily).
2) Organizations with extreme economic inequality are unstable. The legitimacy of leaders who are doing well when noone else does comes into question _real_ fast. When an management has no loyalty to employees, lots of nasty behaviors become commonplace--broad based options can help contain that.
Checks out Rense for the latest on vote fraud accusations. Do democrats do vote fraud too? Sure they do. Both major parties are fundamentally corrupt and that is why we need to decentralize political power. I would enjoy seeing your references on Dem Vote fraud.
More precisely, winner take all elections assure that political power is very narrowly controlled. Third parties in the US _are_ immature--but under proportional representation they'd have to grow up real fast. Why do you hate a big chunk of the electorate so much you don't want them to have representation? What are you afraid of? Lani Gunthier is a Harvard professor who simply believes people have a right to choice their representatives-and that stuff like gerrmandering is unconstitutional-I don't happen to agree with her poiltical views(her father was Marxist)-but either let her and her followers have represetnation or have the integrity to admit you really don't believe in democracy at all.
Nader got 3% of the vote when he had no chance of election. In a two way race with Bush, he would have gotten far more votes--and that would become apparent with the type of data that IRV or condorcet voting would collect. We need leaders that can unite the country-not polarizing figures like Bush and Kerry.
Right now, much of the time of public officials is spent fundraising. That simply doesn't need to be the case. The airwaves really belong to the people-and the networks stole them by political maneuvering. It would be utterly reasonable that as part of their duties to use those airwaves, the networks provide airtime to political candidate and to political organizations. Why do you insist on supporting corporate welfare?
I _did_ vote-and have regularly. I don't think I ever voted for anyone that actually won-but I do vote. That said, I tend to think it is all a futile exercise. The GOP has now joined time honored organizations like the Daley machine and Tammany Hall in that fun game of _vote fraud_--and if that weren't enough, gerrymandering and antiquated election rules(no pro rep or IRV)--and campaign financing that would be considered bribery elsewhere make the US system utterly corrupt.
The way the system works: The companies that have the right lawyers-and get in line first-are the ones that get to use those programs.
In terms of corporate pornography: that is the phrase Nader uses to describe the typical fare on broadcast TV-which is really just one big infomercial for the corporate elites and their culture. Folks don't think of it as "porn"-but our ancestors 100 years ago certain would have been aghast. Personally I don't let me kids watch broacast TV. The whole value system sickens me.
If a H-1b visa were sold at auction, it would easily go for $50K or so. The companies pay nothing-just like networks pay virtually nothing to use the airwaves to spew their corporate pornography.
The H-1b expansion was essentially giving companies a $50K sign on bonus-at the public's expense-to offer anybody capable of displacing a US tech worker. The champs at this game were crooks at places like Enron that intensively used the program to hire a workforce that would go along with their criminal plans.
The official policy of the Bush administration is to give foreigners willing/able to displace American workers a shot at citizenship/permanent residency. Just look at the platform-the Republicans want to expand use of H-1b/L-1 visas to match "any willing worker" with "any willing employer".
This is all really a massive program of corporate welfare. Corporations pay _nothing_ for these immigration rights that have considerable economic value.
The hypocrites in the left don't care because they expect immigrants to vote democratic in time. The hypocrites on the right are being bought with promises of federal funds for faith based charities and educational vouchers.
What I think this article missed is that a lot of the "big money" does things like travel much of the year to avoid taxes. These folks are more likely to be found in places like Aspen or some of the nicer carribean resorts than cities. What really drives the cities are jobs that are located in cities for traditional or political reasons(i.e the New York Stock Market-the various political jobs in Washington DC). People with serious money have _choice_ and they usually don't for the most part choose to hang out in cities. Maybe some cites are doing better in the global economy-but with increased communication eventually the functions in those cities will move to someplace cheaper.
like the one on the dollar bill. Someone did this back in the 70's in San Francisco according to Zach Stewart(and old friend of mine who maintained an office nearby).
There are some rather strange effects of current international banking relationships that make the US dollar artificially high relative to the currency of of places like India and China. China has a clear, official policy of keeping their low relative to the dollar(this has an effect similar to a tarriff or export subsidy but gets around GATT rules).
I can easily imagine that under more market driven conditions, the Indian currency would be 4 times what it is now. Much of the rest of the difference in price may be related to regulatory differences, property value differences that haven't responded to policy changes--and to real or perceived differences in care.
10% of _any_ third party candidate would wake folks up. However, more folks stood by their principles with Nader last time than with Buchanan or the Libertarian combined. I expect the same this year. Nader will outpoll Badnarik and Peroutka combined.
Slashdot Mirror
The first question: is it consistent to include current US immigration practices under the definition of Corporate Welfare Nader uses. You can say that Nader's definition is a bad concept-the first question is it consistent to exclude those immigration practices from that term.
Also, the H-1b immigration rights _were_ sold. Congress sold their offices over the objection of over 80% of the US public. Now, you say all you want about "freedom"--but freedom that involves de facto bribery and subversion of the democratic process is a pretty questionable "freedom".
I'm familar with the economic arguments that you can have open borders and broad based economic prosperity. I see little truth to these arguments-the idea you can have open boarders between the US and India or Mexico without having negative effect on US wages is nutty(yet respeced economists suggest that is the case). From my perspective, open borders benefits larger property owners-many of whom use political means to defend their property at the expense of people that have little more than their labor to sell.
I find it curious that some "free market" advocates are so quick to defend property rights that tend to concentrated into the hands of few-and have relatively little concern for those infringements of freedom that tend to affect folks at a broader scale.
Actually, a degree of monopoly power starts to sink in with under 20 competitors according to the classic work down by Frank Knight at U of Chicago. Monpoly isn't a black/white issue---there are many shades of gray. The essence of a monopoly is they can set prices according to the degree of profitability rather than having prices dictated by market conditions. Microsoft is 80-90% the way towards being a "pure" monopoly-and as such needs substantial regulation.
That is kind of my point. In the public schools, we see dozens of products that have no real purpose other than servicing government agencies-but are closed source. I don't see that as a good use of tax dollars. I think the publc would get more bang for the buck by creating a pooled purchase that had as a condition that source was open.
Have you ever read _anything_ Nader, the man the coined the term corporate welfare, had to say about what corporate welfare is. Corporate welfare isn't just cash payments or subsidies-it includes preferential legislation that lets someone rich have something for nothing. Citizenship rights are at a certain level a funny kind of property rights--like property rights in land--and those citizenship rights include a share in various public lands and other public assets. Countries with sane immigration policies select for immigrants they see as benefiting their country as a whole in some substantial way--the expansion of the H-1b program gave corporations the right to make those kinds of decisions. The American public was overwhelmingly against the expansion of the H-1b program. Congress was paid over $113 Million in campaign donations to enact an unpopular policy that was specifically profitable to the corporations involved. Do you have any evidence that the H-1b program acted to increase the value of public assets in America as oppose to simply spread them around among more people? What I just see is a law that decreased the value of US citizenship for US tech workers-and let corporations use that value for their own benefit. That fits Nader's classical definition of corporate welfare.
The Ukraine is quite simply desperate for foreign currency. From what I know of the Ukraine, they are _well_ on the way to getting into a reasonable trade situation-which is more than I can say for the spoiled politicians and investors running the US and generating a $0.5 trillion annual trade deficit.
I've noticed an increased number of Open Source products in verticle market niches(i.e. specialized accounting packages). I can easily imagine that if some of the larger customers would band together and chance their purchasing practices we'd see dramatic change here rapidly. For example, i work with a large public school district. They've had closed source vendors that simply became unable to support their products any longer(basically the folks that understood the product refused to work with the closed source vendor management). Now, the bulk of money flowing into that closed source vendor was taxpayer money. If the school districts had insisted on Open Source up front, it might have cost a bit more money-but it would have saved a lot of hassle down the road.
One way this might be done is for large public agencies to pool their purchasing decisions. Basically they would agree to a large purchase from a vendor on condition the source be open.
Here is how H-1b visa expansion was bought.
Basically the major computer/internet corporations massively expanded their level of donations. The big expansions happened in 1998 and 2000--and the donors got good return on their congressional investments. Basically a bunch of congressmen sold their offices-and major media said nothing.
Read the definition of corporate welfare as orginally coined by Ralph Nader. The idea is an asset is transfered for far less than its market value. If visas were sold at auction, they'd easily generate $50K each--and companies get them for simply being first in line. That is a giveway. The reason we know that these visas have a higher economic value:
1) the visas run out on the first day of quota coming available.
2) the young men that get these visas can easily
leverage possession of these visas into hard
cash(i.e. look at the dowry market in India).
I don't endorse everything on rense-but I don't see them as nuttier in the big picture than the NYT with their notion that immigration is the economic salvation of the US economy and stuff like claiming that Goddard's rocket would never work(yes they did that).
Most startups crater. Figure 1 in 5 makes it. The question is whether the companies that have good options programs do better than the ones that don't. Now, once a company gets past a certain size-it is a whole different ball game(because big companies have access to a much deeper pool of capital).
Now, saying that HP is doing "Well" is a bit questionable. I'm not impressed with their recent products. When I was a consultant there, HP had two product lines that were actually making money(big servers, printer supplies). I know HP looks good on paper-but if they hadn't gotten a massive injection of corporate welfare in the form of H-1b(which let them compensate employees in immigration rights instead of paying them like real businesses do), HP would have been in _BIG_ trouble.
Historically, the startups that have done the best are those with broad based options programs. The reason is that a good option program:
1) curtails employee turnover(i.e. folks like a winer and once a company hits its employees can move more easily).
2) Organizations with extreme economic inequality are unstable. The legitimacy of leaders who are doing well when noone else does comes into question _real_ fast. When an management has no loyalty to employees, lots of nasty behaviors become commonplace--broad based options can help contain that.
Checks out Rense for the latest on vote fraud accusations. Do democrats do vote fraud too? Sure they do. Both major parties are fundamentally corrupt and that is why we need to decentralize political power. I would enjoy seeing your references on Dem Vote fraud.
More precisely, winner take all elections assure that political power is very narrowly controlled. Third parties in the US _are_ immature--but under proportional representation they'd have to grow up real fast. Why do you hate a big chunk of the electorate so much you don't want them to have representation? What are you afraid of? Lani Gunthier is a Harvard professor who simply believes people have a right to choice their representatives-and that stuff like gerrmandering is unconstitutional-I don't happen to agree with her poiltical views(her father was Marxist)-but either let her and her followers have represetnation or have the integrity to admit you really don't believe in democracy at all.
Nader got 3% of the vote when he had no chance of election. In a two way race with Bush, he would have gotten far more votes--and that would become apparent with the type of data that IRV or condorcet voting would collect. We need leaders that can unite the country-not polarizing figures like Bush and Kerry.
Right now, much of the time of public officials is spent fundraising. That simply doesn't need to be the case. The airwaves really belong to the people-and the networks stole them by political maneuvering. It would be utterly reasonable that as part of their duties to use those airwaves, the networks provide airtime to political candidate and to political organizations. Why do you insist on supporting corporate welfare?
I _did_ vote-and have regularly. I don't think I ever voted for anyone that actually won-but I do vote. That said, I tend to think it is all a futile exercise. The GOP has now joined time honored organizations like the Daley machine and Tammany Hall in that fun game of _vote fraud_--and if that weren't enough, gerrymandering and antiquated election rules(no pro rep or IRV)--and campaign financing that would be considered bribery elsewhere make the US system utterly corrupt.
The way the system works:
The companies that have the right lawyers-and get in line first-are the ones that get to use those programs.
In terms of corporate pornography: that is the phrase Nader uses to describe the typical fare on broadcast TV-which is really just one big infomercial for the corporate elites and their culture. Folks don't think of it as "porn"-but our ancestors 100 years ago certain would have been aghast. Personally I don't let me kids watch broacast TV. The whole value system sickens me.
If a H-1b visa were sold at auction, it would easily go for $50K or so. The companies pay nothing-just like networks pay virtually nothing to use the airwaves to spew their corporate pornography.
The H-1b expansion was essentially giving companies a $50K sign on bonus-at the public's expense-to offer anybody capable of displacing a US tech worker. The champs at this game were crooks at places like Enron that intensively used the program to hire a workforce that would go along with their criminal plans.
The official policy of the Bush administration is to give foreigners willing/able to displace American workers a shot at citizenship/permanent residency. Just look at the platform-the Republicans want to expand use of H-1b/L-1 visas to match "any willing worker" with "any willing employer".
This is all really a massive program of corporate welfare. Corporations pay _nothing_ for these immigration rights that have considerable economic value.
The hypocrites in the left don't care because they expect immigrants to vote democratic in time. The hypocrites on the right are being bought with promises of federal funds for faith based charities and educational vouchers.
What I think this article missed is that a lot of the "big money" does things like travel much of the year to avoid taxes. These folks are more likely to be found in places like Aspen or some of the nicer carribean resorts than cities. What really drives the cities are jobs that are located in cities for traditional or political reasons(i.e the New York Stock Market-the various political jobs in Washington DC). People with serious money have _choice_ and they usually don't for the most part choose to hang out in cities. Maybe some cites are doing better in the global economy-but with increased communication eventually the functions in those cities will move to someplace cheaper.
seems to have a design that is more likely to go orbital than what Rutan did.
like the one on the dollar bill. Someone did this back in the 70's in San Francisco according to Zach Stewart(and old friend of mine who maintained an office nearby).
There are some rather strange effects of current international banking relationships that make the US dollar artificially high relative to the currency of of places like India and China. China has a clear, official policy of keeping their low relative to the dollar(this has an effect similar to a tarriff or export subsidy but gets around GATT rules).
I can easily imagine that under more market driven conditions, the Indian currency would be 4 times what it is now. Much of the rest of the difference in price may be related to regulatory differences, property value differences that haven't responded to policy changes--and to real or perceived differences in care.
10% of _any_ third party candidate would wake folks up. However, more folks stood by their principles with Nader last time than with Buchanan or the Libertarian combined. I expect the same this year. Nader will outpoll Badnarik and Peroutka combined.
It should be noted that Japan's GDP (PPP Method) per person of working age has increased over 3% per year compared to the US's paltry 2% per year.
Ohio is _VERY_ close. This decision could easily change the presidential election.
The donation to the Wine Project above was from Syntropy Institute-which was the small non-profit of which I was the director.