You use a non-standard definition of pyramid, then pretend like it's the standard one. You use a subset of the population's rate of change to indicate a population trend that is contradictory to the actual trend, and you meet my arguments with accusations of my being a troll and ignoring anything I said about the weaknesses in your statements. When you say things that give them impression that's the opposite of reality with the deliberate goal of misleading, that's a lie. From the dismissal, I took that to be a recognition that you were purposeful in your statements. If you were not (and this time you responded more verbosely) then it wasn't a lie, just an error.
And I apologize again for the troll comment. I became a little emotionally invested and took it personally. I may not be using the standard definition of a pyramid scheme. A pyramid depends completely on new people joining and making contributions to pay everyone who had joined, and SS does not meet the pure definition of that, you are right.
My belief on the population has nothing to due with where we are right now, but what the trend will look like in 20 years. I may very well be wrong, but judging from the trend in Europe where the birthrates are falling bellow 2%, I believe that our birth rate is headed that direction. IOW I believe that the derivative of our birth rate is negative. If the population does continue to grow at a linear rate, then SS should have no problems surviving. If I am correct that the birthrate lowers to a point that over a 30-40 year period the population has a net decrease the future strain is massive. I believe that may have been major miscommunication in what I had written, that I see this as a likely future problem, not the situation we are currently faced with.
You spent more time calling me a liar and insinuating that I'm a moron than you did on any inaccuracies that I may have had. I apologize for calling your post a troll as that was a personal attack, which is something I wanted to avoid. So I will promise to not bring any personal attacks against you.
BTW, the IRS and the government call the SS and Medicare deduction from payroll a tax. If the surplus buys US treasuries, that is paying for the rest of the government spending, even though treasuries may be an "investment". I would give both of us 50% on that.
SS pays out more from what is collected from the tax than what it collects from the US treasuries. So more of the money coming in pays to the beneficiaries than what the beneficiaries "investments" are paying to them. That is what makes it a pyramid scheme. I stand behind this belief.
You make lies about the population of the country (very specifically crafted to not be factually false, but to give the opposite impression as the truth, which makes them a lie). It's increasing, not decreasing. To claim otherwise is a lie. Sure, the white people are procreating more slowly than some others and immigrants are mostly non-white, so if you are a racist xenophobe, then that will matter to you. But the actual population of workers is increasing and remains increasing for all projections I've ever seen. To imply otherwise is a lie.
Currently the birth rate in the US stands at 2.1%, which is exactly the replacement rate according to most anthropologists. In 2008, 1,046,539 individuals were naturalized as US citizens. In 2009, the population was estimated to be 307 million, going by those figures we have an addition to the population of 0.3% from immigration each year, which is insignificant and doesn't truly change the figure of the birth rate. I based by opinion from these figures which shows our population to be at the replacement stage right now. A drop in birthrate would mean, according to my understanding, that more people would end up dying than would be replaced over the long term, which eventually in this scenario, would end up with more people leaving the work force than would be in it. Trends point to this being the case. Just because I interpret the data this way doesn't mean I'm a liar. I believe my interpretation to be correct.
Perhaps if you stopped lying, people would stop calling you on it. Thanks for playing, but you are the real troll. A liar who claims anyone who demonstrates their lies are false is somehow the troll. Otherwise, you might have addressed one or two of my points, but you know I'm 100% right and you are lying troll.
You have been the first person to have called me a liar in my adult life. I apologize again for having called you a troll, I shouldn't have done that, but to claim that I am a liar because you do not agree with my conclusions is poor form at best. Brilliant people, and I in no way claim that I am brilliant, can look at the same data and come up with very different conclusions. I read your arguments but still feel long term it is not a sustainable system as it stands.
Social Security is a pyramid scheme. While the individuals paying the social security tax, it is a tax btw, may not have borrowed, the system completely relies on more people paying into the system to pay for those exiting the work force. An unbalanced amount of individuals drawing money from the system (baby boomers) cause the pyramid to crash. If it actually was a trust where money was saved in some account and drew interest, it might have been a real retirement fund. The money is consumed completely each year by paying out to those drawing benefits and government spending on the rest of the budget.
The birth rate in this country is falling. If we hit a net decline in the birth rate, as much of Europe has, the population will have a steadily decreasing work force. Unless we push the benefits drawing age out to the average life expectancy of people in our country, the system will fail.
You speak as though you fought along side with the confederacy. I agree an accurate portrayal of history should be used, but you did not fight for the south. You did not know anyone who did, as they died before you were born. I bet that you probably have relatives from the north as well, unless you happen to have a family tree that doesn't branch. The truth is, there is no north or south anymore as people have moved, transportation is faster, and everyone has become intermingled.
Your righteous indignation is waited and futile. You have not been wronged by the acts of the civil war. Perhaps some of your ancestors, but not you. There is plenty to be upset about with our current government but spare me the anger over a war that happened over 100 years ago.
Your point stands, but is off topic to the question. The US court system can not be trusted but that doesn't answer the question if the CCP can be trusted.
There are certainly problems with "hard currencies" as was seen when private individuals were able to corner markets on physical gold when much of the world currencies were based on the gold standard. However, the argument about how the current Federal Reserve system works in the US right now, is factually correct. All debt, when you count lending by banks to businesses and individuals, as well as government debt, could not be paid off as the debt in total is greater than the money supply. That is just one of the side effects of fractional reserve accounting.
The question is, can the overall system be sustained without succumbing to hyperinflation and collapse. If gradual inflation can be maintained the system is sustainable and the paradox of more debt than can be paid off is not disastrous. If on the other hand the debt grows too large too fast, hyperinflation can set in and the system collapses, resets, defaults, or what ever poison you want to pick.
This leads us to consider if the current pattern employed by our government, and population, in the US has already hit the point where hyperinflation is now inevitable due to the debt load. Going by WWII debt to GDP numbers, it would appear that collapse is not a foregone conclusion. How ever individual debt at that point was not at current levels. The US at that time was a net producer while now it is a net consumer. I myself am not very worried about a collapse. The Federal Reserve owns approximately 50% of the total debt. It is within the authority of Congress to dismantle the Fed and discharge all obligations to it, and I have no doubt that if faced with certain collapse emergency actions would be taken.
Umm, the drugs you are talking about were developed by the pharma corporations, not a US tax payer funded research lab. If you have an example of something that was developed in such a facility and is patented which you are paying royalties for you would have a very strong counter example. As it stands, you are off topic and missed the point.
It's not even remotely the same. Microsoft is a for profit corporation. If you had enough shares you sure could prevent them from enforcing their copyright against you, but that is a different story. You might buy MS products but you do not have money automatically taken out of your pay check to go to Microsoft so that they may provide protection and basic services for you.
The State of Oregon is a state GOVERNMENT, not a corporation. It exists to serve the people of Oregon. If tax payer dollars payed for the creation of that text, it should not have a copyright assigned to it. If it was a private work by a state employee, then they should be able to sell it outside of the office but not through it.
No government, Federal, State, or Local should be able to hold copyright on a work.
I'm willing to listen to the facts, and I never modded you a troll. What code in Unix was placed into Linux? I want the file names and line numbers of the Unix code, and the file names and line numbers where it was injected into Linux. If SCO presented that evidence in discovery, please point me to the filing.
I most certainly would condemn that, as I think everyone else on this thread would. How about you cite your source for this crime taking place. People were not defending the CIA or anyone for torturing persons, you accusing everyone in the US of being guilty of this crime and supporting it, if it did occur, is what has made people angry. I am a US citizen and I don't support this activity and I have never taken part in it.
Wrong. Students do have those rights. They should not face punishment from the government for their exercising free speech. The school, however, can punish them in the form of detention, suspension or expulsion.
Have you ever had a broken leg? I haven't looked at the statistic in a while but I believe that about 1 in 50 children will have had a broken bone by the time they turn 18. That's only a 2% chance, but if you are one of the lucky parents that has that happen and you don't have health insurance some very bad things happen.
If an ambulance took them to the hospital, with no insurance you will probably incur a $1000 charge for that ride. Emergency room admittance is probably another $500. The doctor will charge $3000 for setting the bone, the hospital will charge $800 for putting on the cast. If they keep them in over night assume $700 in additional fees. If they need prescription pain relievers and anti-biotics, with no insurance you could easily incur another $200 just to buy those. From my rough guesstimate this would result in a $5200 charge and I'm afraid I might be on the low end of the estimate.
There are lots of things besides just getting sick that health insurance saves you from disaster with. Any type of accident requiring medical care could bankrupt you right then and there. It might be a lottery but the reward out weighs the price. I know that I have already benefited from having my family insured. If we had opted to save money by not having insurance we would be bankrupt and would no longer have our home.
Why? Is Obama really that much better than McCain? Would McCain have been worse than Bush? I just saw two complete liars campaigning. Obama just got away with telling bigger lies. The only thing I can hope for is that the Republicans can filibuster the Democrats' bills. Not so much to push a Republican agenda, but to keep either party from screwing us any more than they currently do.
This makes little sense. Using your logic, working for a failed software firm should disqualify one for further software employment. I would wager that a fair number of the rank and file had no idea what was going on at Enron, even if they were assigned to the case, and do not to deserve to be labeled negatively just because of bad decisions higher in the company.
If a developer worked for SCO after they started their case against Linux, they should be black listed and never allowed to develop software again IMHO. Who knows, MS might hire them but I know if I have anything to do with the hiring decision that would be an automatic disqualification.
$20-25k? What is this position for? A hard drive formatting whipping boy? Hell, I know people who make more then that without a college education as medical assistants and that's in Augusta, GA which has a pretty darn low standard of living. If this is a software engineering position and you are located in a major metropolitan area, $45k for an entry level position might still be hard to fill.
So you will only hire people with the technical skills you need already? I hate to break it to you, but training someone to come to work on time, and how to deal with customers is not training them. You want someone that already knows the job. You will not get that for what you are asking for. If you can not deal with the economic realities of the SV area, then perish and STFU.
Many times, MS has come out and said that Linux makes users very vulnerable to patent law suits. What about the problems MS has been having with companies suing it for violating a patent? Isn't Windows more vulnerable to this type of assault because the centralized entity of MS has more money to bleed from a litigation company?
Taken directly from http://www.thescogroup.com/scosource/eula.html
You may not assign, sublicense, rent, lend, lease, pledge or otherwise transfer or encumber the SCO IP, this Agreement or Your rights or obligations hereunder
The SCO group is now distrubuting the kernel with additional restrictions, and thus are violating the GPL. They are truely now in violation of all the kernel developer's copyright on the code.
Slashdot Mirror
You use a non-standard definition of pyramid, then pretend like it's the standard one. You use a subset of the population's rate of change to indicate a population trend that is contradictory to the actual trend, and you meet my arguments with accusations of my being a troll and ignoring anything I said about the weaknesses in your statements. When you say things that give them impression that's the opposite of reality with the deliberate goal of misleading, that's a lie. From the dismissal, I took that to be a recognition that you were purposeful in your statements. If you were not (and this time you responded more verbosely) then it wasn't a lie, just an error.
And I apologize again for the troll comment. I became a little emotionally invested and took it personally. I may not be using the standard definition of a pyramid scheme. A pyramid depends completely on new people joining and making contributions to pay everyone who had joined, and SS does not meet the pure definition of that, you are right.
My belief on the population has nothing to due with where we are right now, but what the trend will look like in 20 years. I may very well be wrong, but judging from the trend in Europe where the birthrates are falling bellow 2%, I believe that our birth rate is headed that direction. IOW I believe that the derivative of our birth rate is negative. If the population does continue to grow at a linear rate, then SS should have no problems surviving. If I am correct that the birthrate lowers to a point that over a 30-40 year period the population has a net decrease the future strain is massive. I believe that may have been major miscommunication in what I had written, that I see this as a likely future problem, not the situation we are currently faced with.
Molog
You spent more time calling me a liar and insinuating that I'm a moron than you did on any inaccuracies that I may have had. I apologize for calling your post a troll as that was a personal attack, which is something I wanted to avoid. So I will promise to not bring any personal attacks against you.
BTW, the IRS and the government call the SS and Medicare deduction from payroll a tax. If the surplus buys US treasuries, that is paying for the rest of the government spending, even though treasuries may be an "investment". I would give both of us 50% on that.
SS pays out more from what is collected from the tax than what it collects from the US treasuries. So more of the money coming in pays to the beneficiaries than what the beneficiaries "investments" are paying to them. That is what makes it a pyramid scheme. I stand behind this belief.
You make lies about the population of the country (very specifically crafted to not be factually false, but to give the opposite impression as the truth, which makes them a lie). It's increasing, not decreasing. To claim otherwise is a lie. Sure, the white people are procreating more slowly than some others and immigrants are mostly non-white, so if you are a racist xenophobe, then that will matter to you. But the actual population of workers is increasing and remains increasing for all projections I've ever seen. To imply otherwise is a lie.
Currently the birth rate in the US stands at 2.1%, which is exactly the replacement rate according to most anthropologists. In 2008, 1,046,539 individuals were naturalized as US citizens. In 2009, the population was estimated to be 307 million, going by those figures we have an addition to the population of 0.3% from immigration each year, which is insignificant and doesn't truly change the figure of the birth rate. I based by opinion from these figures which shows our population to be at the replacement stage right now. A drop in birthrate would mean, according to my understanding, that more people would end up dying than would be replaced over the long term, which eventually in this scenario, would end up with more people leaving the work force than would be in it. Trends point to this being the case. Just because I interpret the data this way doesn't mean I'm a liar. I believe my interpretation to be correct.
Perhaps if you stopped lying, people would stop calling you on it. Thanks for playing, but you are the real troll. A liar who claims anyone who demonstrates their lies are false is somehow the troll. Otherwise, you might have addressed one or two of my points, but you know I'm 100% right and you are lying troll.
You have been the first person to have called me a liar in my adult life. I apologize again for having called you a troll, I shouldn't have done that, but to claim that I am a liar because you do not agree with my conclusions is poor form at best. Brilliant people, and I in no way claim that I am brilliant, can look at the same data and come up with very different conclusions. I read your arguments but still feel long term it is not a sustainable system as it stands.
Molog
You do a very nice job with subtle personal attacks. Very nice troll.
Molog
Social Security is a pyramid scheme. While the individuals paying the social security tax, it is a tax btw, may not have borrowed, the system completely relies on more people paying into the system to pay for those exiting the work force. An unbalanced amount of individuals drawing money from the system (baby boomers) cause the pyramid to crash. If it actually was a trust where money was saved in some account and drew interest, it might have been a real retirement fund. The money is consumed completely each year by paying out to those drawing benefits and government spending on the rest of the budget.
The birth rate in this country is falling. If we hit a net decline in the birth rate, as much of Europe has, the population will have a steadily decreasing work force. Unless we push the benefits drawing age out to the average life expectancy of people in our country, the system will fail.
Molog
You speak as though you fought along side with the confederacy. I agree an accurate portrayal of history should be used, but you did not fight for the south. You did not know anyone who did, as they died before you were born. I bet that you probably have relatives from the north as well, unless you happen to have a family tree that doesn't branch. The truth is, there is no north or south anymore as people have moved, transportation is faster, and everyone has become intermingled.
Your righteous indignation is waited and futile. You have not been wronged by the acts of the civil war. Perhaps some of your ancestors, but not you. There is plenty to be upset about with our current government but spare me the anger over a war that happened over 100 years ago.
Molog
Your point stands, but is off topic to the question. The US court system can not be trusted but that doesn't answer the question if the CCP can be trusted.
Molog
There are certainly problems with "hard currencies" as was seen when private individuals were able to corner markets on physical gold when much of the world currencies were based on the gold standard. However, the argument about how the current Federal Reserve system works in the US right now, is factually correct. All debt, when you count lending by banks to businesses and individuals, as well as government debt, could not be paid off as the debt in total is greater than the money supply. That is just one of the side effects of fractional reserve accounting.
The question is, can the overall system be sustained without succumbing to hyperinflation and collapse. If gradual inflation can be maintained the system is sustainable and the paradox of more debt than can be paid off is not disastrous. If on the other hand the debt grows too large too fast, hyperinflation can set in and the system collapses, resets, defaults, or what ever poison you want to pick.
This leads us to consider if the current pattern employed by our government, and population, in the US has already hit the point where hyperinflation is now inevitable due to the debt load. Going by WWII debt to GDP numbers, it would appear that collapse is not a foregone conclusion. How ever individual debt at that point was not at current levels. The US at that time was a net producer while now it is a net consumer. I myself am not very worried about a collapse. The Federal Reserve owns approximately 50% of the total debt. It is within the authority of Congress to dismantle the Fed and discharge all obligations to it, and I have no doubt that if faced with certain collapse emergency actions would be taken.
Molog
Umm, the drugs you are talking about were developed by the pharma corporations, not a US tax payer funded research lab. If you have an example of something that was developed in such a facility and is patented which you are paying royalties for you would have a very strong counter example. As it stands, you are off topic and missed the point.
Molog
It's not even remotely the same. Microsoft is a for profit corporation. If you had enough shares you sure could prevent them from enforcing their copyright against you, but that is a different story. You might buy MS products but you do not have money automatically taken out of your pay check to go to Microsoft so that they may provide protection and basic services for you.
The State of Oregon is a state GOVERNMENT, not a corporation. It exists to serve the people of Oregon. If tax payer dollars payed for the creation of that text, it should not have a copyright assigned to it. If it was a private work by a state employee, then they should be able to sell it outside of the office but not through it.
No government, Federal, State, or Local should be able to hold copyright on a work.
Molog
I'm willing to listen to the facts, and I never modded you a troll. What code in Unix was placed into Linux? I want the file names and line numbers of the Unix code, and the file names and line numbers where it was injected into Linux. If SCO presented that evidence in discovery, please point me to the filing.
Molog
I most certainly would condemn that, as I think everyone else on this thread would. How about you cite your source for this crime taking place. People were not defending the CIA or anyone for torturing persons, you accusing everyone in the US of being guilty of this crime and supporting it, if it did occur, is what has made people angry. I am a US citizen and I don't support this activity and I have never taken part in it.
Wrong. Students do have those rights. They should not face punishment from the government for their exercising free speech. The school, however, can punish them in the form of detention, suspension or expulsion.
Molog
Have you ever had a broken leg? I haven't looked at the statistic in a while but I believe that about 1 in 50 children will have had a broken bone by the time they turn 18. That's only a 2% chance, but if you are one of the lucky parents that has that happen and you don't have health insurance some very bad things happen.
If an ambulance took them to the hospital, with no insurance you will probably incur a $1000 charge for that ride. Emergency room admittance is probably another $500. The doctor will charge $3000 for setting the bone, the hospital will charge $800 for putting on the cast. If they keep them in over night assume $700 in additional fees. If they need prescription pain relievers and anti-biotics, with no insurance you could easily incur another $200 just to buy those. From my rough guesstimate this would result in a $5200 charge and I'm afraid I might be on the low end of the estimate.
There are lots of things besides just getting sick that health insurance saves you from disaster with. Any type of accident requiring medical care could bankrupt you right then and there. It might be a lottery but the reward out weighs the price. I know that I have already benefited from having my family insured. If we had opted to save money by not having insurance we would be bankrupt and would no longer have our home.
Molog
Why? Is Obama really that much better than McCain? Would McCain have been worse than Bush? I just saw two complete liars campaigning. Obama just got away with telling bigger lies. The only thing I can hope for is that the Republicans can filibuster the Democrats' bills. Not so much to push a Republican agenda, but to keep either party from screwing us any more than they currently do.
Molog
This makes little sense. Using your logic, working for a failed software firm should disqualify one for further software employment. I would wager that a fair number of the rank and file had no idea what was going on at Enron, even if they were assigned to the case, and do not to deserve to be labeled negatively just because of bad decisions higher in the company.
If a developer worked for SCO after they started their case against Linux, they should be black listed and never allowed to develop software again IMHO. Who knows, MS might hire them but I know if I have anything to do with the hiring decision that would be an automatic disqualification.
Molog
Like how ABC news had permission when they showed that they could sneak box cutters onto a plane, just 1 year after 911?
Molog
$20-25k? What is this position for? A hard drive formatting whipping boy? Hell, I know people who make more then that without a college education as medical assistants and that's in Augusta, GA which has a pretty darn low standard of living. If this is a software engineering position and you are located in a major metropolitan area, $45k for an entry level position might still be hard to fill.
Molog
So you will only hire people with the technical skills you need already? I hate to break it to you, but training someone to come to work on time, and how to deal with customers is not training them. You want someone that already knows the job. You will not get that for what you are asking for. If you can not deal with the economic realities of the SV area, then perish and STFU.
Molog
Excuse my ignorance, but what is I.B.? Is that like the AP classes that I took when I was in high school?
Molog
Didn't you mean that their lawyers cannot see their reflection in a mirror or something like that?
You don't want to know. Trust me.
Many times, MS has come out and said that Linux makes users very vulnerable to patent law suits. What about the problems MS has been having with companies suing it for violating a patent? Isn't Windows more vulnerable to this type of assault because the centralized entity of MS has more money to bleed from a litigation company?
Molog
What happens when there is not another company down the street to work at? That has nothing to do with work ethic, and that is where we are headed.
Molog
I would say it is a parasitic relationship. Sun needs IBM, but IBM doesn't need Sun.
Molog
Taken directly from
http://www.thescogroup.com/scosource/eula.html
You may not assign, sublicense, rent, lend, lease, pledge or otherwise transfer or encumber the SCO IP, this Agreement or Your rights or obligations hereunder
The SCO group is now distrubuting the kernel with additional restrictions, and thus are violating the GPL. They are truely now in violation of all the kernel developer's copyright on the code.
Molog