Actually, I buy American whenever possible, even when it is more expensive. I avoid Wal Mart altogether.
"Lower prices" is a major deception; at some point, lower prices mean nothing when you have no job.
I've no problem with offending greed-is-good Libertarians and pushing for nosebleed high tariffs on offshore-produced goods. Especially from China and other sweatshopping bad actors.
And I am willing to deal with the aches and pains of adjusting to an economy without China. Last time we had an economy like that a single worker could support a family. Oh wait, I know, that was horrible.
...women getting preferential treatment, at least online.
Men will always buy women gifts or give them gifts in video games. At least in this case, men have a counter weapon: the ability to send out drones (their avatars) that look like women, and take advantage of the system, and inevitably achieve a tragedy of the commons effect in which too many advantage-seekers spoil the fun and inevitably exhaust men's desire (via mistrust; "are you REALLY female?") to coddle women players.
Either that, or men will continue to coddle female players and more men will take advantage of that into perpetuity.
So this means that this culture will eat its own tail into extinction or will feed some resources to the side of the tracks that doesn't get coddled - men.
The ants will never stop raiding the picnic, or the picnic will go away.
Seeing as the coddling of women is an ingrained genetic trait in men and women, I foresee the ants raiding the picnic being the new reality.
"What garbage. You're calling free market enterprise a zero-sum game."
Actually, it's a negative sum game. How so? Because America's poor class is growing faster than the rich class, and the middle class is shrinking. Aside from the filthy rich, consumer buying power is shrinking. Wages are currently falling against inflation.
Offshoring has reduced the amount of jobs in this country in relation to the growing populace. No new industries are coming to provide the number of well paying jobs that tech and manufacturing did. Biotech is already on its way out, just in case you were planning on countering with that example.
BTW bite me, looneytarian mods. Nothing I say can be countered with facts because they ARE facts.
I call you out now. Put aside your theories and back up your "plus sum game" with hard documented facts. I'll even let you cheat: feel free to use Fox News and the Heritage Foundation if you feel you need to.
Well, while the absolute majority of people have done nothing wrong, most do have 'something to hide'.
Actually, there are more vile lawbreakers than you can imagine. Did you know there are people flaunting laws against receiving hummers in Alabama? I shit you not, man. Lawbreakers, the lot of them! Maybe with more surveillance in place, people will shape up and act normal. Shame and public humiliation is society's greatest weapon against deviancy, much less crime!
[end parody]
As the old Soviet Era saying goes: "There's a line in the book for everyone."
Back in the days, the Salem witch hunts were used primarily as a weapon to steal another's land or do away with someone you didn't like (or to put down disobedient women). The war on terror is shaping up to be much the same thing, with secret imprisonment and denial of airline flight priviledges being the new fire & stake.
Privacy is for terrorists. Law abiding, God fearing citizens should be proud of people knowing what they're doing. Only wicked people hide their activities.
Would you rather be free or be safe from terror? (end right wing satire)
Like I said, and you missed it, America's overworking results in severe health problems for its citizens.
IOW it's a health hazard. But then health hazards are libertarians' ambrosia. Which is why libertarians raise hell whenever the evil Kommunist Gub'mintmonster passes laws to prevent profit hungry businesses from poisoning the streams and wells that you libertarians drink from.
You're not Libertarians... you're corporate statists. You prefer a nation governed by and for the corporate elite. I've talked to Libertarians who even prefer that voting rights be removed from the masses and restricted to the landed gentry. I've a link to the forum if you don't believe me.
You can go overseas and get an engineer. Or bring in an H1B.
And yeah, managers are replaceable. I could lose this job and bump back down to a network engineer, programmer or tester.
Take a second to blink. Bam. Somewhere out there a CEO is being replaced, too. That's not going to be so uncommon when those offshored workers start plying their engineering and IT knowledge to form their own companies. Low paid workers + low paid managers + low paid CEOs = bye bye American competitor.
Oh yeah and I can't wait to hear the "you're a software engineer, what a loser!" "you're a network engineer, they're a dime a dozen!" "civil engineers? we can replace you with robots!" ROTFLMAO let the maturity and civility commence.
You mean, like referring to IT workers as the "clerks of the data industry"?
I've been on all sides of those train tracks and now I manage people like Bing Tsher every day. He's not as much as he thinks he is.
If my boss were like the dweebs that you guys work for, he could replace you engineers just as easily as any IT "clerk".
Next, you stuck up fools will be locked in an insult contest between Mechanical engineers and Civil Engineers. What a joke. All of you are just wage rats waiting to be eaten by the offshoring/redundancy monster, and all you can do is sit here yapping about who's the alpha rat and who's the beta rat.
Bite me, mods. You, too, work for someone who sees you as expendable as the next person. You can't mod that fact down, but it can mod you down to the unemployment line.
There's only so much you can do in a given day, and Americans are already the most overworked nation in the world.
This contributes seriously to health problems which libertarians like you would hope the worker pays for and not you.
Eventually this work ethic costs you your family and your marriage simply because you can't be home to see your wife and kids. Oh wait, in your universe, that doesn't happen. Ok, anyways.
5) You can reinstall Windows behind a firewall to access the tapes. 4) I work with government and corporate customers 9-6 every day... they use HPUX, AIX, Solaris, BSD and some Linux, too, as well as AS/400 and Windows. 3) You have a point there.
The EU wouldn't collapse. 5) MS couldn't fry their backup tapes. 4) What makes you think they all use MS? Consumers would be rocked badly, however. 3) They have paper records and the ability to switch back to it for the short term. 2) MS would be afraid of going bankrupt after losing access to the EU, and then having the US economy take a major hit as a result of MicroSoft's subsequent collapse, and then having to hire police protection from their fellow citizens with whatever monopoly money they have left to spend. 1) MicroSoft has no killswitch function! The mention of one has no doubt already caused world Governments using their software, to plan accordingly. You just know they already have firewalls set up and Windows Genuine Advantage blocked.
Hardly. Europe will brush themselves off, and switch to Linux.
MicroSoft will be unable to sell anything in Europe after that, and the US itself probably won't, either. MS will go bankrupt and Dubya will be impeached by a newly elected Democratic Congressional majority and a liberal leadership will in short order repair America's relationship, since Europeans know a ton of us Americans hate Dubya, but MicroSoft? OTB or penny stock by December. Worthless security by New Year's Day.
She promotes a way of life that no civilized society would touch with a ten foot pole.
If she's such a genius then why wasn't she smart enough to harness people's inherent greed enough to make her dreams a reality?
The Libertarians - you know, the guys waving their mod points in anger when I posted this - don't even come close to her as far as enshrining selfishness is concerned.
I don't get the problem is with companies volunteering your browing history to the Government. You people don't seem to understand what it takes to ensure our national security.
So what if warrantless searches of phone and internet records is 'unconstitutional'? Our safety is more important than our rights. I'd rather every phone call, web browser click and private conversation be made a matter of instantly-available public record. In fact, I imagine everyone having access to this information. Imagine a beowulf cluster of vigilant people listening in on everyone else? Terrorists could never hope to hide! This'll also weed out criminals like pedophiles and drug users. Imagine the possibilities!
This'll also weed out disagreeable people, gays, pagans, communists, and of course little male geek crybabies sobbing at night about being stuffed into lockers.
Come to think of it, the total loss of privacy will ensure that society is more homogenous and harmonious. No more deviants would be allowed to fester unchecked in dark corners of our society. Trolls would be wiped out.
In the name of the Libertarian Party, I would like to speak on this issue.
I'm appalled by all the anticapitalist rhetoric that is being spewed on Slashdot regarding the corporate use of your personal information and the occasional leak of your SSN into the wrong hands.
You people talk like you want absolute ownership over your personal information. Like you want a corporation - an entity that only exists for the purpose of maximizing net profit - to take responsibility for handling your personal information. Then you'll be holding them liable for mishandling your info. Do you realize what damage this will do to corporate profits?
That utterly reeks of communism. What's next? Treating your personal information as your own property to be handled on your terms and not theirs? Heck, if we follow that line of reasoning, the Government will have to intrude even further into our lives and implement a law to treat personal information brokers like Choicepoint and Unicru as potential data pirates. I can see it now: the Digital Millenium Privacy Act.
Corporations made America, and now you pink commies are about to create a kleptocracy in the name of your overzealous attack on public access to personal information. Sheesh.
Slashdot Mirror
The implication is that he treats everyone the same way. Whether he sees them as men or sees them as women, he treats everyone the same way.
He's not an attorney like you.
Wishing a pox on someone over some split hairs is more of a sign of a deranged mind than anything he said.
Actually, I buy American whenever possible, even when it is more expensive. I avoid Wal Mart altogether.
"Lower prices" is a major deception; at some point, lower prices mean nothing when you have no job.
I've no problem with offending greed-is-good Libertarians and pushing for nosebleed high tariffs on offshore-produced goods. Especially from China and other sweatshopping bad actors.
And I am willing to deal with the aches and pains of adjusting to an economy without China. Last time we had an economy like that a single worker could support a family. Oh wait, I know, that was horrible.
$8 Trillion of debt is so much better.
...women getting preferential treatment, at least online.
Men will always buy women gifts or give them gifts in video games. At least in this case, men have a counter weapon: the ability to send out drones (their avatars) that look like women, and take advantage of the system, and inevitably achieve a tragedy of the commons effect in which too many advantage-seekers spoil the fun and inevitably exhaust men's desire (via mistrust; "are you REALLY female?") to coddle women players.
Either that, or men will continue to coddle female players and more men will take advantage of that into perpetuity.
So this means that this culture will eat its own tail into extinction or will feed some resources to the side of the tracks that doesn't get coddled - men.
The ants will never stop raiding the picnic, or the picnic will go away.
Seeing as the coddling of women is an ingrained genetic trait in men and women, I foresee the ants raiding the picnic being the new reality.
I know of a worker just like you in our data/call center. Natomas area. Does that sound familiar?
"What garbage. You're calling free market enterprise a zero-sum game."
h ronicle/archive/2004/04/18/BUGAI66E7I1.DTL
/ business/business_nation/article_489293.php
Actually, it's a negative sum game. How so? Because America's poor class is growing faster than the rich class, and the middle class is shrinking. Aside from the filthy rich, consumer buying power is shrinking. Wages are currently falling against inflation.
Offshoring has reduced the amount of jobs in this country in relation to the growing populace. No new industries are coming to provide the number of well paying jobs that tech and manufacturing did. Biotech is already on its way out, just in case you were planning on countering with that example.
BTW bite me, looneytarian mods. Nothing I say can be countered with facts because they ARE facts.
Shrinking middle class, growing poor class: http://www.factcheck.org/article249.html
Biotech being offshored: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c
Wages not keeping up with inflation: http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/2005/04/21/sections
So, yes, this IS a negative sum game.
I call you out now. Put aside your theories and back up your "plus sum game" with hard documented facts. I'll even let you cheat: feel free to use Fox News and the Heritage Foundation if you feel you need to.
Removing employment opportunities from the country where the actual customers are, is quite evil.
Let India create its own employment opportunities. American citizens should have the jobs that serve our market.
Your sister is ALREADY in danger of becoming no better off than the Janitor.
Because of OFFSHORING.
Actually, there are more vile lawbreakers than you can imagine. Did you know there are people flaunting laws against receiving hummers in Alabama? I shit you not, man. Lawbreakers, the lot of them! Maybe with more surveillance in place, people will shape up and act normal. Shame and public humiliation is society's greatest weapon against deviancy, much less crime!
[end parody]
As the old Soviet Era saying goes: "There's a line in the book for everyone."
Back in the days, the Salem witch hunts were used primarily as a weapon to steal another's land or do away with someone you didn't like (or to put down disobedient women). The war on terror is shaping up to be much the same thing, with secret imprisonment and denial of airline flight priviledges being the new fire & stake.
What have you got to hide, citizen?
Privacy is for terrorists. Law abiding, God fearing citizens should be proud of people knowing what they're doing. Only wicked people hide their activities.
Would you rather be free or be safe from terror? (end right wing satire)
I don't want marketers knowing about me personally, and that's my right.
Business arrangements - especially the trading of ANY information concerning me - should be done entirely with my knowledge and consent.
What part of "it's my life to know about and control, not yours" is so hard for so-called "libertarians" to comprehend?
What, so they can go into college student loan debt only to find that the industry they're learning a skill for, has gone overseas?
MBA's, I'm talking to you. Come back in 5 years and see if you aren't next. 5 years. Mark this post.
So 40% of the population is ok to disenfranchise?
Like I said, and you missed it, America's overworking results in severe health problems for its citizens.
IOW it's a health hazard. But then health hazards are libertarians' ambrosia. Which is why libertarians raise hell whenever the evil Kommunist Gub'mintmonster passes laws to prevent profit hungry businesses from poisoning the streams and wells that you libertarians drink from.
You're not Libertarians... you're corporate statists. You prefer a nation governed by and for the corporate elite. I've talked to Libertarians who even prefer that voting rights be removed from the masses and restricted to the landed gentry. I've a link to the forum if you don't believe me.
You can go overseas and get an engineer. Or bring in an H1B.
And yeah, managers are replaceable. I could lose this job and bump back down to a network engineer, programmer or tester.
Take a second to blink. Bam. Somewhere out there a CEO is being replaced, too. That's not going to be so uncommon when those offshored workers start plying their engineering and IT knowledge to form their own companies. Low paid workers + low paid managers + low paid CEOs = bye bye American competitor.
Oh yeah and I can't wait to hear the "you're a software engineer, what a loser!" "you're a network engineer, they're a dime a dozen!" "civil engineers? we can replace you with robots!" ROTFLMAO let the maturity and civility commence.
"You know, developing some social graces, "
You mean, like referring to IT workers as the "clerks of the data industry"?
I've been on all sides of those train tracks and now I manage people like Bing Tsher every day. He's not as much as he thinks he is.
If my boss were like the dweebs that you guys work for, he could replace you engineers just as easily as any IT "clerk".
Next, you stuck up fools will be locked in an insult contest between Mechanical engineers and Civil Engineers. What a joke. All of you are just wage rats waiting to be eaten by the offshoring/redundancy monster, and all you can do is sit here yapping about who's the alpha rat and who's the beta rat.
Bite me, mods. You, too, work for someone who sees you as expendable as the next person. You can't mod that fact down, but it can mod you down to the unemployment line.
There's only so much you can do in a given day, and Americans are already the most overworked nation in the world.
This contributes seriously to health problems which libertarians like you would hope the worker pays for and not you.
Eventually this work ethic costs you your family and your marriage simply because you can't be home to see your wife and kids. Oh wait, in your universe, that doesn't happen. Ok, anyways.
5) You can reinstall Windows behind a firewall to access the tapes.
4) I work with government and corporate customers 9-6 every day... they use HPUX, AIX, Solaris, BSD and some Linux, too, as well as AS/400 and Windows.
3) You have a point there.
The EU wouldn't collapse.
5) MS couldn't fry their backup tapes.
4) What makes you think they all use MS? Consumers would be rocked badly, however.
3) They have paper records and the ability to switch back to it for the short term.
2) MS would be afraid of going bankrupt after losing access to the EU, and then having the US economy take a major hit as a result of MicroSoft's subsequent collapse, and then having to hire police protection from their fellow citizens with whatever monopoly money they have left to spend.
1) MicroSoft has no killswitch function! The mention of one has no doubt already caused world Governments using their software, to plan accordingly. You just know they already have firewalls set up and Windows Genuine Advantage blocked.
Hardly. Europe will brush themselves off, and switch to Linux.
MicroSoft will be unable to sell anything in Europe after that, and the US itself probably won't, either. MS will go bankrupt and Dubya will be impeached by a newly elected Democratic Congressional majority and a liberal leadership will in short order repair America's relationship, since Europeans know a ton of us Americans hate Dubya, but MicroSoft? OTB or penny stock by December. Worthless security by New Year's Day.
I for one hope MS does just that!
you won't be buying their product.
Who are they? I won't be buying from them either.
Let's boycott the fsckers until they bring the jobs back.
She promotes a way of life that no civilized society would touch with a ten foot pole.
If she's such a genius then why wasn't she smart enough to harness people's inherent greed enough to make her dreams a reality?
The Libertarians - you know, the guys waving their mod points in anger when I posted this - don't even come close to her as far as enshrining selfishness is concerned.
Ayn Rand says something right for once. Given how much she'd written, it was bound to happen eventually!
Can that be done yet?
Just call me 'Pat'.
I don't get the problem is with companies volunteering your browing history to the Government. You people don't seem to understand what it takes to ensure our national security.
So what if warrantless searches of phone and internet records is 'unconstitutional'? Our safety is more important than our rights. I'd rather every phone call, web browser click and private conversation be made a matter of instantly-available public record. In fact, I imagine everyone having access to this information. Imagine a beowulf cluster of vigilant people listening in on everyone else? Terrorists could never hope to hide! This'll also weed out criminals like pedophiles and drug users. Imagine the possibilities!
This'll also weed out disagreeable people, gays, pagans, communists, and of course little male geek crybabies sobbing at night about being stuffed into lockers.
Come to think of it, the total loss of privacy will ensure that society is more homogenous and harmonious. No more deviants would be allowed to fester unchecked in dark corners of our society. Trolls would be wiped out.
Go, AT&T! For a stronger, secure America!
[...end right wing parody]
In the name of the Libertarian Party, I would like to speak on this issue.
I'm appalled by all the anticapitalist rhetoric that is being spewed on Slashdot regarding the corporate use of your personal information and the occasional leak of your SSN into the wrong hands.
You people talk like you want absolute ownership over your personal information. Like you want a corporation - an entity that only exists for the purpose of maximizing net profit - to take responsibility for handling your personal information. Then you'll be holding them liable for mishandling your info. Do you realize what damage this will do to corporate profits?
That utterly reeks of communism. What's next? Treating your personal information as your own property to be handled on your terms and not theirs? Heck, if we follow that line of reasoning, the Government will have to intrude even further into our lives and implement a law to treat personal information brokers like Choicepoint and Unicru as potential data pirates. I can see it now: the Digital Millenium Privacy Act.
Corporations made America, and now you pink commies are about to create a kleptocracy in the name of your overzealous attack on public access to personal information. Sheesh.
[...end Right wing parody]