No, see when the USG buys a corporation, they don't get to actually run it or take any of the profits. Mostly they just end up absorbing that corp's liabilities, then letting the profitable parts go. The gov doesn't so much "buy" the corp as it "insures" it.
Well I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but iCloud (with the upcoming music service, if it comes) is exactly what I need. I don't need to store specific documents or edit them, I use Google Docs for that when I need it. Mozy handles my document backup/restore needs.
Just because you (or some analysts) don't see a use for it, doesn't mean that nobody can find a use for it. And further, although I like the idea of cloud services, I don't like putting all my eggs in one basket. Having choices is good, right? And not just choices in product, but in the way different products envision your usage, right?*
*Totally awkward sentence, written specifically to avoid using the word "paradigm.". Success? Failure? You decide!
I'm sorry, were the protesters "peacefully assembling" in someone's living room? Or on a public street? I missed that part. And by the way, I think you have herring in your teeth. Looks kinda red.
Er, they sent the neutrinos through solid rock. Invisible to neutrinos, rather more opaque to photons. Perhaps they can come up with some cheaper, less time-consuming way to test this one....
Yes and no, our financial sector was never in as much trouble, but our manufacturing is tied closely to the US economy (nobody buys Canadian more than the US does). We did better than the US because of the deficit spending in the form of stimulus projects. Now that the stimulus money is going away and the gov is tightening its belt again, we're seeing a dip in our economy. I think the government expected the US economy to have recovered by now, and it hasn't, and without the stimulus it's dragging us back down.
Actually I did study some philosophy. Formally. And law. And less formally, economics.
Large corporations only love regulations that crowd out competition. Regulations that protect workers, or break up monopolies (such regs do exist, shocking, I know) are anathema. Where I live, most big corporations don't get to administer social programs, the government does that. Big business accordingly hates those programs, because they have to pay taxes to keep them funded, and because those social programs put upward pressure on wages. Where government programs are managed by the private sector (utilities, mostly) the companies doing the management love it, but no other businesses like that arrangement.
If big business likes big government, why do so many big businesses outsource their labour to countries with little or no protection for workers? Why do people like the Koch brothers and the Waltons spend billions bankrolling the Tea Party movement? Ultimately, big business wants a government that's just big enough to make laws favourable to business and to be able to enforce those laws at the barrel of a gun. That's it. Anything else better result in a net profit on the balance sheet, or out it goes.
You don't seem to understand that America does not present a normal version of big government. Big business has controlled the US government for decades now, and they've crafted the kind of big government they want. In other countries, social spending on medicare, for example, means that medical suppliers have to accept the low prices the government sets, not the other way around.
Your specific examples are correct, but those conditions don't apply in most other Western countries (or at least, not nearly to the extent they do in the US, though that's changing).
(PS, if you do believe that natural reactions are always wrong, I'd suggest you've still got some learning to do)
Ironically, it's exactly in the short term, when liquidity trap conditions apply (like now, and unlike the 70's) that Keynesian policies work. In the long term, they lead to contraction. In stagflation conditions, ineffective. Krugman has been explaining, talking about, making predictions about, and refining his models of all of this stuff since 2008, and his predictions have been almost always right (he thought wages would drop, they didn't, that's the only thing he's missed as far as I can tell). No modern economist is arguing that Keynesian policies are a magic bullet.
And yet, there are governments in the world that do impose limits on themselves and make plans work. Something doesn't become logically impossible just because it's not within your experience.
My experience is that usually they do say "settle this", if it hasn't already settled by the time it gets before a judge. Now granted, my experience doesn't include large-scale corporate/commercial litigation, but I can say that the figure of 97% of civil law disputes being settled before trial seems totally reasonable to me.
Also, these surpluses were created under three different governments, of two different political philosophies: Chretien (Liberal), Martin (Liberal) and Harper's minorities (Conservative).
Not even the socialist NDP would risk running a deficit budget in good economic times any more.
I'm pretty sure they were real, not through personal knowledge but because funny bookkeeping seems to come out to the public sooner or later, usually sooner. The last government fell in part because of funny bookkeeping. Of course, they got re-elected with a majority, so what can you do?
There has often been related funny business that has gotten exposed. A few of our surpluses actually came out of the funds set aside for Employment Insurance, when employment numbers did better than expected. The government of the time (Liberal I think) just rolled those surpluses into the general funds where they went to debt repayment. Some of the opposition parties thought the money should be reserved in the EI funds or paid out in increased benefits. There was a minor stink about it. Having more than one opposition party is a great aid to catching bookkeeping cheats and tricks.
Does all of this mean the surpluses were real? Not really, but it suggests it strongly. Also, the surpluses in question were on the order of 1 or 2 Billion dollars. Not a huge amount compared to the total budget, but still big enough to be hard to "create" with bad accounting. Also, when the first surplus it, it was quite controversial: the conservatives of the time pushed hard to make it illegal to run surpluses, arguing that the money belonged to the taxpayer, and should go right back to him. But not allowing surpluses when there's a huge debt to pay off would be idiotic, wouldn't it? No civilized country would pass a law like that, right?
Canada. Googling "canada budget surplus history" turns up several relevant hits, including blogs referencing the surpluses, news stories talking about it, and this page at the Government of Canada website. Surpluses became the norm after Chretien and his finance minister Paul Martin balanced the budget in the 1990's or so, and remained that way until the last Harper government, who went into deficit spending as a response to the recession. And just as an aside, after Chretien did his budget balancing act, most if not all of the provincial governments had to follow suit. Voters simply stopped accepting deficit spending in good economic times.
That's funny, my government ran surpluses for years before the Great Recession. Now it's running a deficit, but apparently our own current great leader plans to run surpluses again by 2014.
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No, see when the USG buys a corporation, they don't get to actually run it or take any of the profits. Mostly they just end up absorbing that corp's liabilities, then letting the profitable parts go. The gov doesn't so much "buy" the corp as it "insures" it.
In fact, unless a company has outside participation, it is 100% owned AND MANAGED by the gov.
Which is totally incompatible with the American model, where the government is 100% owned and managed by the corporations.
Well I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but iCloud (with the upcoming music service, if it comes) is exactly what I need. I don't need to store specific documents or edit them, I use Google Docs for that when I need it. Mozy handles my document backup/restore needs.
Just because you (or some analysts) don't see a use for it, doesn't mean that nobody can find a use for it. And further, although I like the idea of cloud services, I don't like putting all my eggs in one basket. Having choices is good, right? And not just choices in product, but in the way different products envision your usage, right?*
*Totally awkward sentence, written specifically to avoid using the word "paradigm.". Success? Failure? You decide!
It's an extension. If you don't like it, or need it, don' t install it.
Why, he cited his sources, didn't he?
Or shut down randomly while you're out on the freeway.
I'm sorry, were the protesters "peacefully assembling" in someone's living room? Or on a public street? I missed that part. And by the way, I think you have herring in your teeth. Looks kinda red.
Er, they sent the neutrinos through solid rock. Invisible to neutrinos, rather more opaque to photons. Perhaps they can come up with some cheaper, less time-consuming way to test this one....
The Creationist, of course. Goodbye.
Amazon's all over that shit.
Yes and no, our financial sector was never in as much trouble, but our manufacturing is tied closely to the US economy (nobody buys Canadian more than the US does). We did better than the US because of the deficit spending in the form of stimulus projects. Now that the stimulus money is going away and the gov is tightening its belt again, we're seeing a dip in our economy. I think the government expected the US economy to have recovered by now, and it hasn't, and without the stimulus it's dragging us back down.
Actually I did study some philosophy. Formally. And law. And less formally, economics.
Large corporations only love regulations that crowd out competition. Regulations that protect workers, or break up monopolies (such regs do exist, shocking, I know) are anathema. Where I live, most big corporations don't get to administer social programs, the government does that. Big business accordingly hates those programs, because they have to pay taxes to keep them funded, and because those social programs put upward pressure on wages. Where government programs are managed by the private sector (utilities, mostly) the companies doing the management love it, but no other businesses like that arrangement.
If big business likes big government, why do so many big businesses outsource their labour to countries with little or no protection for workers? Why do people like the Koch brothers and the Waltons spend billions bankrolling the Tea Party movement? Ultimately, big business wants a government that's just big enough to make laws favourable to business and to be able to enforce those laws at the barrel of a gun. That's it. Anything else better result in a net profit on the balance sheet, or out it goes.
You don't seem to understand that America does not present a normal version of big government. Big business has controlled the US government for decades now, and they've crafted the kind of big government they want. In other countries, social spending on medicare, for example, means that medical suppliers have to accept the low prices the government sets, not the other way around.
Your specific examples are correct, but those conditions don't apply in most other Western countries (or at least, not nearly to the extent they do in the US, though that's changing).
(PS, if you do believe that natural reactions are always wrong, I'd suggest you've still got some learning to do)
Ironically, it's exactly in the short term, when liquidity trap conditions apply (like now, and unlike the 70's) that Keynesian policies work. In the long term, they lead to contraction. In stagflation conditions, ineffective. Krugman has been explaining, talking about, making predictions about, and refining his models of all of this stuff since 2008, and his predictions have been almost always right (he thought wages would drop, they didn't, that's the only thing he's missed as far as I can tell). No modern economist is arguing that Keynesian policies are a magic bullet.
And yet, there are governments in the world that do impose limits on themselves and make plans work. Something doesn't become logically impossible just because it's not within your experience.
What kind of fucking opposite-world do you live in?
I think I like your option better...attrition among the CEOs...but then, what about the natural selection? Only the most psychopathic would survive.
My experience is that usually they do say "settle this", if it hasn't already settled by the time it gets before a judge. Now granted, my experience doesn't include large-scale corporate/commercial litigation, but I can say that the figure of 97% of civil law disputes being settled before trial seems totally reasonable to me.
Also, these surpluses were created under three different governments, of two different political philosophies: Chretien (Liberal), Martin (Liberal) and Harper's minorities (Conservative).
Not even the socialist NDP would risk running a deficit budget in good economic times any more.
I'm pretty sure they were real, not through personal knowledge but because funny bookkeeping seems to come out to the public sooner or later, usually sooner. The last government fell in part because of funny bookkeeping. Of course, they got re-elected with a majority, so what can you do?
There has often been related funny business that has gotten exposed. A few of our surpluses actually came out of the funds set aside for Employment Insurance, when employment numbers did better than expected. The government of the time (Liberal I think) just rolled those surpluses into the general funds where they went to debt repayment. Some of the opposition parties thought the money should be reserved in the EI funds or paid out in increased benefits. There was a minor stink about it. Having more than one opposition party is a great aid to catching bookkeeping cheats and tricks.
Does all of this mean the surpluses were real? Not really, but it suggests it strongly. Also, the surpluses in question were on the order of 1 or 2 Billion dollars. Not a huge amount compared to the total budget, but still big enough to be hard to "create" with bad accounting. Also, when the first surplus it, it was quite controversial: the conservatives of the time pushed hard to make it illegal to run surpluses, arguing that the money belonged to the taxpayer, and should go right back to him. But not allowing surpluses when there's a huge debt to pay off would be idiotic, wouldn't it? No civilized country would pass a law like that, right?
Canada. Googling "canada budget surplus history" turns up several relevant hits, including blogs referencing the surpluses, news stories talking about it, and this page at the Government of Canada website. Surpluses became the norm after Chretien and his finance minister Paul Martin balanced the budget in the 1990's or so, and remained that way until the last Harper government, who went into deficit spending as a response to the recession. And just as an aside, after Chretien did his budget balancing act, most if not all of the provincial governments had to follow suit. Voters simply stopped accepting deficit spending in good economic times.
That's funny, my government ran surpluses for years before the Great Recession. Now it's running a deficit, but apparently our own current great leader plans to run surpluses again by 2014.
I sincerely hope that he does think he's funny. It's better than him being serious.
I didn't say it was a good reason.
...if we're lucky.
Which may be why Google is pushing so strongly (rightly or wrongly) for verified identities on G+.