You can't have it both ways. It's like trying to say "oh, secrecy is great, but not when it allows THE TERRORISTS to run amok!"--just find some reason to point out why secrecy allows some perceived ill to take place and then you can easily get rid of it for everything, because you can't have secrecy only for "good" things and "no secrecy" for "not-good" things. If you have secrecy, then yes, you're going to have people break the law to use that secrecy... and, being shielded by secrecy, people aren't going to know if you're being good or bad.
Also, I see no problems people allowing people to evade taxation "like the rest of us". Why shoot yourself in the foot?!
That hardly makes sense.
Regardless, the "amount" of taxation doesn't matter, per se; it's how's the money being spent, how cost-effective is it, and what on?
But it's NOT a problem with EVE. Everyone who says it is, doesn't understand the game.
EVE is like an online outer-space wild west. The economy, being player-driven, with little-to-no oversight by CCP, is working as planned.
This game has space piracy in it. Someone can come along, decide to blow you up, and take whatever survived in your cargohold. The game is brutal, and was meant to be--scamming in EVE is similar to space piracy. It's supposed to be a mostly unregulated system.
EVE is not a carebear game. You don't have Concord running around babysitting people in 0.0 regions for a reason. You can be blown up or you can be tricked out of your money and property if you aren't careful.
Your argument relies mostly on the fallacy that the law is morality (I'm not talking about what the law states)... I'm not speaking within the context of what the government simply says is and should be so.
It is at least hypothetically possible that a sole proprietorship could be as large as any corporation (I can't think of any)--they wouldn't, and shouldn't, have to deal with some nebulous concept of "public good"--you'd think providing something that people want, and pay for, is a public good unto itself, but sometimes people just feel entitled to more...
If the masses seek to dissolve a company because it has become too profitable, and its produce too desirable, then the masses must be stopped from their own barbarism.
The real problem is big business in bed with the government--and, simply, people are too stupid to vote for anything other than corrupt politicians. Do you want people who can easily fall for and continually elect the sleezebags to have a more democratic say in ANYTHING?
Splitting up media companies or preventing them from getting bigger isn't going to change anything. The other companies will, probably, be much the same, following the same time-proven formula used by the current media giants.
Ignoring the possibility of government machinations aside (I cannot think of any), big media became big media because People Paid Attention. And they still do. Maybe they're doing so less, with the advent of the internet, but we still have the big 5 or whatever the number is.
The "Big Media" from outside the world is outside of our control, yet we can still access it and if, we so cared, can get information from it and the government can't do a damn thing to stop it, no matter how big it gets.
What if a media company based itself outside of the USA, but operated on a global level, reporting the minute details of U.S. news much like CNN or MSNBC or other media conglomerates do? Should we block citizens from accessing their website or TV station, if they had one?
Turning knobs and hitting levers to try to make some sort of utopia where we play with other peoples' stuff to get what we want is never good or "fair" and often has unintended consequences. If people continue to watch CNN or FOX, it's their human failing.
I have news for you, people that talk about needing "diversity of opinion" to maintain a "healthy democracy" (whenever you lack a coherent, strong argument, always appeal to the fuzzy notion of a "healthy democracy"--apparently a buzzword for the person's own private little perfect world). Personally, I'd prefer an "unhealthy democracy" insofar that the giant massive will of Leviathan doesn't impose on me. Some of us would like to make deals and bargains on our own terms, even though this notion is disappearing in a time of "social responsibility".
I'd rather the world not be one big chain gang but instead composed of people more intent on using their wits and relying on their own brains rather than be given a state-subsidized set of training wheels to go about through life on. To do that, you need real education, motivation (and remember, you can lead a horse to water but can't make him drink--how many people have YOU tried to get into politics but refuse to care, instead deciding that America Idol is a far more interesting and relevant thing to spend their neural resources on?) and unfortunately, quite possibly an innate intelligence above that which is median.
Strange, though, that if it's so undesirable, people are patronizing big businesses and allow them to be big on virtue of the fact that they are choosing them.
What we need is customer education, not more training wheels for the masses.
The truth is, I think, is that you have your own biases and opinions you don't see echoed in the mass media; you think the best way to serve your agenda is by tearing down the big guy. Maybe that works; I feel the same way, but at the end of the day it's simply the selfish desire to control.
You talk about the "will of the people", but there is no "will of the people". Hell, when someone says "will of the people" my ears perk up because almost always I sure as hell aren't agreeing with whatever they're trying to sell with that rhetoric. Slavery was once the will of the people, as was the subjugation of women; in some parts of the world, that's still true.
If you want enlightenment and freedom, taking away certain freedoms from others, as if you were some sort of mastermind tinkering with knobs and levers to make the "best possible society" (a value-laden personal opinion on how the world should work) neither works nor is often fair.
Businesses are there to serve us insofar that we agree to whatever we're selling, and we serve businesses by patronizing them and giving the owners wealth. Even if you, technically, could get a better deal through wild machinations, in the end you're doing what big business often does with government--manipulating the rules to benefit you over another entity, or at least widen a perceived gap.
This may come as a shock, but businesses are not established "for the public good". Despite what most relatively-wealthy individuals cozy in their first-world homes might think or wish, people in general do prefer to look out for themselves before looking out for someone they don't even know, and might not even like. And many of us aren't keen on putting others lives ahead of the hordes' based on some principle that is very open towards crushing some to benefit "the greater good".
Thats really two not the same question - what a teacher is willing to work for, vs. what they are worth. And I'd like to start by asking who would really want their kids taught by someone willing to teach for only 20k? Shouldn't the wage for a full-time job be at least high enough to discourage the employee (the teacher in this case) from needing to seek out a second job to pay their cost of living? If you only pay a teacher $20k in a city where cost of living is $35, they'll have to make the other $15k somewhere. And that could well be a second or third-shift job that goes year round. This would of course eat into the time that the teacher should spend grading junior's homework and planning junior's lesson plan.
Sorry, but value is determined by market demand. Value is a subjective quality, not objective; your personal preferences or opinions are not universal law.
Regardless, he only gave a rough example; price doesn't necessarily equate "skill". Different people have different wants and some may think the 20k is a better deal than what someone who may reject it might think.
And on top of that, if a school hires at $20k, what kind of retention would you expect them to have? If one school hires teachers straight from college for $20k, and another school 5 miles away does it for $40, how long will any teacher worth their salt stay at $20k? This is a big part of why inner city schools (and even first ring suburbs in some areas) end up with sub-par teachers; they're only willing and able to pay sub-par rates.
However, the union assisting the wage floor actually helps this problem. I say this because if the poor schools don't have the option to hire teachers at $20k, they will subsequently need to raise money to pay the base wage.
Sometimes businesses hire low entry wage and raise the salary if they wish to keep the employee. Imagine that! And If some schools don't have the option to hire teachers at $20k, they don't magically pull the money out of the hat. Sometimes, without money... they close down!
Additionally, it might not necessarily be simply sub-par teachers causing an education gap in schools, but the students themselves. Often inner-city school kids don't WANT to be smart or get good grades, because they don't want to give in to "the man". Another factor is the socioeconomic and family background of the students.
We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I don't think that the executives at HMO's or airlines deserve multi-million dollar annual bonuses, nor do I think that any athlete alive or dead ever truly earned a multi-million dollar annual salary. And thats to say nothing about the people who contribute orders of magnitude more to society and the world at large who are paid so much less.
Again, your personal thoughts and opinions are not universal law. Supply and demand rules who makes what; if you don't like how much they pay their executives then don't do business with them. Or do you think you have a right to their services at a price you like?
Are you going to king yourself and hand out salaries based upon your personal preferences, based on your value judgments who contributes to the world better?
Athletes, etc, make a lot of money simply because of market forces. If you don't like it, then tough; that's the way it'll always be, because of supply and demand. Your only recourse is to cry into a pillow, if you haven't already.
Then by that statement, the teacher's union is not partaking in price fixing. They don't set the rate. They set the minimum rate. You can pay a teacher as much over the minimum as you want, and the union won't stop you. They just want to ensure that you're not ripping off the teachers and cheating them out of a livable wage for full-time work.
Of course, this is all your personal opinion. The parallels between yours and Marx's philosophies are pretty clear. If a teacher doesn't take a job at 20k, then the job isn't worth 20k, and they must raise the price.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't have it both ways. It's like trying to say "oh, secrecy is great, but not when it allows THE TERRORISTS to run amok!"--just find some reason to point out why secrecy allows some perceived ill to take place and then you can easily get rid of it for everything, because you can't have secrecy only for "good" things and "no secrecy" for "not-good" things. If you have secrecy, then yes, you're going to have people break the law to use that secrecy... and, being shielded by secrecy, people aren't going to know if you're being good or bad. Also, I see no problems people allowing people to evade taxation "like the rest of us". Why shoot yourself in the foot?!
Honest answer? You're a noob. John Carmack is extremely well-known.
That hardly makes sense. Regardless, the "amount" of taxation doesn't matter, per se; it's how's the money being spent, how cost-effective is it, and what on?
But it's NOT a problem with EVE. Everyone who says it is, doesn't understand the game. EVE is like an online outer-space wild west. The economy, being player-driven, with little-to-no oversight by CCP, is working as planned. This game has space piracy in it. Someone can come along, decide to blow you up, and take whatever survived in your cargohold. The game is brutal, and was meant to be--scamming in EVE is similar to space piracy. It's supposed to be a mostly unregulated system. EVE is not a carebear game. You don't have Concord running around babysitting people in 0.0 regions for a reason. You can be blown up or you can be tricked out of your money and property if you aren't careful.
Your argument relies mostly on the fallacy that the law is morality (I'm not talking about what the law states)... I'm not speaking within the context of what the government simply says is and should be so. It is at least hypothetically possible that a sole proprietorship could be as large as any corporation (I can't think of any)--they wouldn't, and shouldn't, have to deal with some nebulous concept of "public good"--you'd think providing something that people want, and pay for, is a public good unto itself, but sometimes people just feel entitled to more... If the masses seek to dissolve a company because it has become too profitable, and its produce too desirable, then the masses must be stopped from their own barbarism. The real problem is big business in bed with the government--and, simply, people are too stupid to vote for anything other than corrupt politicians. Do you want people who can easily fall for and continually elect the sleezebags to have a more democratic say in ANYTHING?
Splitting up media companies or preventing them from getting bigger isn't going to change anything. The other companies will, probably, be much the same, following the same time-proven formula used by the current media giants.
Ignoring the possibility of government machinations aside (I cannot think of any), big media became big media because People Paid Attention. And they still do. Maybe they're doing so less, with the advent of the internet, but we still have the big 5 or whatever the number is.
The "Big Media" from outside the world is outside of our control, yet we can still access it and if, we so cared, can get information from it and the government can't do a damn thing to stop it, no matter how big it gets.
What if a media company based itself outside of the USA, but operated on a global level, reporting the minute details of U.S. news much like CNN or MSNBC or other media conglomerates do? Should we block citizens from accessing their website or TV station, if they had one?
Turning knobs and hitting levers to try to make some sort of utopia where we play with other peoples' stuff to get what we want is never good or "fair" and often has unintended consequences. If people continue to watch CNN or FOX, it's their human failing.
I have news for you, people that talk about needing "diversity of opinion" to maintain a "healthy democracy" (whenever you lack a coherent, strong argument, always appeal to the fuzzy notion of a "healthy democracy"--apparently a buzzword for the person's own private little perfect world). Personally, I'd prefer an "unhealthy democracy" insofar that the giant massive will of Leviathan doesn't impose on me. Some of us would like to make deals and bargains on our own terms, even though this notion is disappearing in a time of "social responsibility".
I'd rather the world not be one big chain gang but instead composed of people more intent on using their wits and relying on their own brains rather than be given a state-subsidized set of training wheels to go about through life on. To do that, you need real education, motivation (and remember, you can lead a horse to water but can't make him drink--how many people have YOU tried to get into politics but refuse to care, instead deciding that America Idol is a far more interesting and relevant thing to spend their neural resources on?) and unfortunately, quite possibly an innate intelligence above that which is median.
Strange, though, that if it's so undesirable, people are patronizing big businesses and allow them to be big on virtue of the fact that they are choosing them. What we need is customer education, not more training wheels for the masses. The truth is, I think, is that you have your own biases and opinions you don't see echoed in the mass media; you think the best way to serve your agenda is by tearing down the big guy. Maybe that works; I feel the same way, but at the end of the day it's simply the selfish desire to control. You talk about the "will of the people", but there is no "will of the people". Hell, when someone says "will of the people" my ears perk up because almost always I sure as hell aren't agreeing with whatever they're trying to sell with that rhetoric. Slavery was once the will of the people, as was the subjugation of women; in some parts of the world, that's still true. If you want enlightenment and freedom, taking away certain freedoms from others, as if you were some sort of mastermind tinkering with knobs and levers to make the "best possible society" (a value-laden personal opinion on how the world should work) neither works nor is often fair. Businesses are there to serve us insofar that we agree to whatever we're selling, and we serve businesses by patronizing them and giving the owners wealth. Even if you, technically, could get a better deal through wild machinations, in the end you're doing what big business often does with government--manipulating the rules to benefit you over another entity, or at least widen a perceived gap. This may come as a shock, but businesses are not established "for the public good". Despite what most relatively-wealthy individuals cozy in their first-world homes might think or wish, people in general do prefer to look out for themselves before looking out for someone they don't even know, and might not even like. And many of us aren't keen on putting others lives ahead of the hordes' based on some principle that is very open towards crushing some to benefit "the greater good".
Thats really two not the same question - what a teacher is willing to work for, vs. what they are worth. And I'd like to start by asking who would really want their kids taught by someone willing to teach for only 20k? Shouldn't the wage for a full-time job be at least high enough to discourage the employee (the teacher in this case) from needing to seek out a second job to pay their cost of living? If you only pay a teacher $20k in a city where cost of living is $35, they'll have to make the other $15k somewhere. And that could well be a second or third-shift job that goes year round. This would of course eat into the time that the teacher should spend grading junior's homework and planning junior's lesson plan.
Sorry, but value is determined by market demand. Value is a subjective quality, not objective; your personal preferences or opinions are not universal law. Regardless, he only gave a rough example; price doesn't necessarily equate "skill". Different people have different wants and some may think the 20k is a better deal than what someone who may reject it might think.
And on top of that, if a school hires at $20k, what kind of retention would you expect them to have? If one school hires teachers straight from college for $20k, and another school 5 miles away does it for $40, how long will any teacher worth their salt stay at $20k? This is a big part of why inner city schools (and even first ring suburbs in some areas) end up with sub-par teachers; they're only willing and able to pay sub-par rates. However, the union assisting the wage floor actually helps this problem. I say this because if the poor schools don't have the option to hire teachers at $20k, they will subsequently need to raise money to pay the base wage.
Sometimes businesses hire low entry wage and raise the salary if they wish to keep the employee. Imagine that! And If some schools don't have the option to hire teachers at $20k, they don't magically pull the money out of the hat. Sometimes, without money... they close down! Additionally, it might not necessarily be simply sub-par teachers causing an education gap in schools, but the students themselves. Often inner-city school kids don't WANT to be smart or get good grades, because they don't want to give in to "the man". Another factor is the socioeconomic and family background of the students.
We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I don't think that the executives at HMO's or airlines deserve multi-million dollar annual bonuses, nor do I think that any athlete alive or dead ever truly earned a multi-million dollar annual salary. And thats to say nothing about the people who contribute orders of magnitude more to society and the world at large who are paid so much less.
Again, your personal thoughts and opinions are not universal law. Supply and demand rules who makes what; if you don't like how much they pay their executives then don't do business with them. Or do you think you have a right to their services at a price you like? Are you going to king yourself and hand out salaries based upon your personal preferences, based on your value judgments who contributes to the world better? Athletes, etc, make a lot of money simply because of market forces. If you don't like it, then tough; that's the way it'll always be, because of supply and demand. Your only recourse is to cry into a pillow, if you haven't already.
Then by that statement, the teacher's union is not partaking in price fixing. They don't set the rate. They set the minimum rate. You can pay a teacher as much over the minimum as you want, and the union won't stop you. They just want to ensure that you're not ripping off the teachers and cheating them out of a livable wage for full-time work.
Of course, this is all your personal opinion. The parallels between yours and Marx's philosophies are pretty clear. If a teacher doesn't take a job at 20k, then the job isn't worth 20k, and they must raise the price.