You're not legally allowed to get an employer subsidy for a plan bought on an exchange. Congress and staff will be buying plans on the exchange next year, but are (illegally) still getting the subsidies (they also get exceptions reserved for companies smaller than 50 employees). Of course, they could just change the law to make special exception for themselves, but then everyone would be talking about it. Hopefully more people will notice this and be talking about it anyway.
Stereotype much? I first saw this on right-wing sites, were it was very clearly point out that this wasn't in the actual EULA and was just some copy-paste thing.
But sure, go on believing that the only reason people disagree with you is because they're stupid, that way you don't have to consider their arguments: saves time and all.
Well, banks etc are used to being regulated, and so a legal solution would actually work there. I'm OK with my bank knowing a lot about me, they do a good job of not getting hacked and so on, but there should simply be no legal way for them to use that for marketing purposes. Opt out doesn't cut it.
In this instance, for the first time in many years, I agree with RMS. I now believe companies should retain the minimum possible data about customers, and lets solve the usability problems that come from that separately.
Don't like to re-enter your credit card and shipping info every time you buy from Amazon? It's just not that hard to solve that problem without Amazon keeping your data.
Recommendation engines? It's just not that hard to solve the problem of finding other products like this one without keeping customer data (remember when Netflix and Amazon had "lists" where customers would volunteer to group like items together - that was great!).
Targeted advertisement? Does anything think that has worked out well, rather than just being creepy and still failing to get the "time" aspect of targeting right?
Sure, I can accept that there is still info that a company needs to accumulate to do business well, especially for subscription-based businesses, but just like we now code with "least privilege" in mind, can we not also code with "least customer data" in mind?
You argued that forcing people to buy health insurance would be bad. I've never disputed that, but for good or ill democracy has already taken us over that cliff.
In John Galt's hidden mountain paradise, I'm sure there were people to clean the toilets - and I'll bet they were treated a lot better than Broadcom's employees...
If I ever found myself in Galt's Gultch that's what I'd do. Supply and demand would work out well for me, I think. (BTW, have you ever actually read Atlas Shrugged? It's rather a dystopian novel than the reverse, and it's OK fiction if you just skip the 100 page Galt speech towards the end).
You seem inclined to write as much as you can without actually making an argument. If we assume arguendo that universal health insurance is a goal, do you see a specific problem with using the car insurance model as a way to achieve that goal? Or are you ranting just to rant?
What would prevent the government fromstopping at whatever income you consider reasonable? Once your remove practical limits on spending, why would the government not spend infinity? Would they suddenly stop being corrupt? Would the guy who sets the "Basic Income" at $30k not beat the $25k guy in the next election? Not that it really matters, because the $25k would buy one loaf of bread, more or less.
You said more than that. You said the vile shit should not be lumped in together with other work in discussion - you made your opinion a premise to your argument.
Do we want everyone (protip: when normal people say "always", or "never", or "everyone", they might not be the obsessive literalist you seem to be, adjust accordingly) to have car insurance? Do we want everyone to have health insurance?
I take no stance here on those issues, all I'm saying is since we've decided to do both, why not use the successfully approach for the former as a model for the latter? Solve the "problem" of getting everyone health insurance with the least possible government involvement, instead of the selected approach of using health care as a transparent excuse to have the government take over part of the economy?
The Fed buys a significant quantity of government debt with "printed money", because that was the easiest way to just add money out of nowhere when it was in a hurry to do so. But that's a half measure - if you really believe in government money printing, why bother with such half measures? Just pay all government bills from accounts where, when the checks are cashed, the money is created on the spot (raise the depositor's balance without lowering any government balance). No taxes, no debt, what could possibly go wrong?
Why is it vile shit? Because it's not your personal kink? Every has their subjective prejudices and fantasies, but words on a page hurt no one in their writing. Proper content warnings are good, of course, but I suspect most people buying this stuff knew exactly why they were buying.
No, wealth is unaffected by inflation. Wealth is not a stack of dollar bills. You must me invested in the means of production to have wealth, and the value of that is determined by what's produced, not the currency in use.
Hyper-inflation destroys savings, not wealth. Usually, hyper-inflation also destroys economies and governments. And, of course, it would be hyper inflation: with no practical limit on how much the government could spend, it would try to spend infinity dollars on pork barrel projects and outright checks mailed to supporters.
I doubt people would but precious metals, though, there are several stable national currencies, easier to just us Canadian dollars or Swiss francs or whatever, if it came to that.
I'm not arguing about the "tax" that some justice pulled out of his ass - constitutionality is settled, for better or for worse.
I'm talking about: in practice, we have a proven working system for insuring high risk people with minimal government involvement. Why don't we freaking use it here?
Most states have this worked out pretty well for car insurance. There's a great market, you buy it just like anything else with no exchanges needed, it's just another service. If you're especially high risk, the insurers are required to take you as a customer at government-limited rates, but in return everyone is required to buy insurance. Seems to work well for all involved, and for 90% of customers the government is just not involved in the purchase process (nor is your employer, nor any other third party).
Just let the government create money (as banks do) to fund services.
So we don't need any taxes, then? Heck, we don't even need any government bonds for funding! Why half-measures, why not send $1M to everyone? I wonder how that would end: "since we adopted the leaf as the currency, we're all rich!". I can see no flaw in this plan.
How so? Advertising in general is just useless and annoying because it intrudes at an inappropriate time and place. But it does serve a purpose: to alert me of new products, or highlight existing products I might have overlooked. Doing that while I'm shopping for that specific item is a good thing.
It's the same discussion that's been rehashed many times about targeted ads on the web - they fail because they're poorly targeted: especially time-wise.
Same applies to the whole of capitalism, really: lazy people trying to convince you that if they can just take some of the fruits of your labour, everyone'll be better off. Somehow.
You might want to use a more specific word than "capitalism" to make your point. All "capitalism" means is that the means of production are "owned as an investment", as opposed to the two other common models: "owned as a result of military conquest" and "owned by a central committee with a 5-year plan".
Usually people rant against "free markets", but that doesn't seem to be your gripe here. Controlling the means of production as a result of a track record of successfully controlling the means of production just sound like the right approach to me, which capitalism approaches as nearly as any system is likely to. Perhaps you'd like a different measure of "success" in this context?
Well put. But I despise government-sponsored "charity" because the extortion makes it not charity. Charity is giving your own money to the needy, and is perhaps the most good thing most of us get to do in our lives. Taking away that role in society from the individual to be replaced by impersonal taxation denies us the joy of giving, as well as building an unfortunate sense of entitlement in the receiver.
Well, there are plenty of needy in the world for those of us who have money left after taxes, so there are still plenty of opportunities for charity, but the distance makes it less personal.
If you're going to plant crops, a straw man can be useful to keep the crows away - maybe he is building one. Last place I lived there was a "Lost Chicken" poster up on the telephone poles one week, funniest thing I saw all year.
Slashdot Mirror
You're not legally allowed to get an employer subsidy for a plan bought on an exchange. Congress and staff will be buying plans on the exchange next year, but are (illegally) still getting the subsidies (they also get exceptions reserved for companies smaller than 50 employees). Of course, they could just change the law to make special exception for themselves, but then everyone would be talking about it. Hopefully more people will notice this and be talking about it anyway.
Stereotype much? I first saw this on right-wing sites, were it was very clearly point out that this wasn't in the actual EULA and was just some copy-paste thing.
But sure, go on believing that the only reason people disagree with you is because they're stupid, that way you don't have to consider their arguments: saves time and all.
Health insurance isn't really insurance though (more's the pity), it's the powerful negotiator at the pricing table. Without it, you pay about triple.
Well, banks etc are used to being regulated, and so a legal solution would actually work there. I'm OK with my bank knowing a lot about me, they do a good job of not getting hacked and so on, but there should simply be no legal way for them to use that for marketing purposes. Opt out doesn't cut it.
In this instance, for the first time in many years, I agree with RMS. I now believe companies should retain the minimum possible data about customers, and lets solve the usability problems that come from that separately.
Don't like to re-enter your credit card and shipping info every time you buy from Amazon? It's just not that hard to solve that problem without Amazon keeping your data.
Recommendation engines? It's just not that hard to solve the problem of finding other products like this one without keeping customer data (remember when Netflix and Amazon had "lists" where customers would volunteer to group like items together - that was great!).
Targeted advertisement? Does anything think that has worked out well, rather than just being creepy and still failing to get the "time" aspect of targeting right?
Sure, I can accept that there is still info that a company needs to accumulate to do business well, especially for subscription-based businesses, but just like we now code with "least privilege" in mind, can we not also code with "least customer data" in mind?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arguendo
You argued that forcing people to buy health insurance would be bad. I've never disputed that, but for good or ill democracy has already taken us over that cliff.
In John Galt's hidden mountain paradise, I'm sure there were people to clean the toilets - and I'll bet they were treated a lot better than Broadcom's employees...
If I ever found myself in Galt's Gultch that's what I'd do. Supply and demand would work out well for me, I think. (BTW, have you ever actually read Atlas Shrugged? It's rather a dystopian novel than the reverse, and it's OK fiction if you just skip the 100 page Galt speech towards the end).
Car insurance rates might also have something to do with local risk, don't you think? They're pretty low outside of any big city.
You seem inclined to write as much as you can without actually making an argument. If we assume arguendo that universal health insurance is a goal, do you see a specific problem with using the car insurance model as a way to achieve that goal? Or are you ranting just to rant?
What would prevent the government fromstopping at whatever income you consider reasonable? Once your remove practical limits on spending, why would the government not spend infinity? Would they suddenly stop being corrupt? Would the guy who sets the "Basic Income" at $30k not beat the $25k guy in the next election? Not that it really matters, because the $25k would buy one loaf of bread, more or less.
You said more than that. You said the vile shit should not be lumped in together with other work in discussion - you made your opinion a premise to your argument.
Do we want everyone (protip: when normal people say "always", or "never", or "everyone", they might not be the obsessive literalist you seem to be, adjust accordingly) to have car insurance? Do we want everyone to have health insurance?
I take no stance here on those issues, all I'm saying is since we've decided to do both, why not use the successfully approach for the former as a model for the latter? Solve the "problem" of getting everyone health insurance with the least possible government involvement, instead of the selected approach of using health care as a transparent excuse to have the government take over part of the economy?
Well, that question answered itself.
The Fed buys a significant quantity of government debt with "printed money", because that was the easiest way to just add money out of nowhere when it was in a hurry to do so. But that's a half measure - if you really believe in government money printing, why bother with such half measures? Just pay all government bills from accounts where, when the checks are cashed, the money is created on the spot (raise the depositor's balance without lowering any government balance). No taxes, no debt, what could possibly go wrong?
Why is it vile shit? Because it's not your personal kink? Every has their subjective prejudices and fantasies, but words on a page hurt no one in their writing. Proper content warnings are good, of course, but I suspect most people buying this stuff knew exactly why they were buying.
No, wealth is unaffected by inflation. Wealth is not a stack of dollar bills. You must me invested in the means of production to have wealth, and the value of that is determined by what's produced, not the currency in use.
Hyper-inflation destroys savings, not wealth. Usually, hyper-inflation also destroys economies and governments. And, of course, it would be hyper inflation: with no practical limit on how much the government could spend, it would try to spend infinity dollars on pork barrel projects and outright checks mailed to supporters.
I doubt people would but precious metals, though, there are several stable national currencies, easier to just us Canadian dollars or Swiss francs or whatever, if it came to that.
I'm not arguing about the "tax" that some justice pulled out of his ass - constitutionality is settled, for better or for worse.
I'm talking about: in practice, we have a proven working system for insuring high risk people with minimal government involvement. Why don't we freaking use it here?
You may be joking, but I think you're right.
Most states have this worked out pretty well for car insurance. There's a great market, you buy it just like anything else with no exchanges needed, it's just another service. If you're especially high risk, the insurers are required to take you as a customer at government-limited rates, but in return everyone is required to buy insurance. Seems to work well for all involved, and for 90% of customers the government is just not involved in the purchase process (nor is your employer, nor any other third party).
Just let the government create money (as banks do) to fund services.
So we don't need any taxes, then? Heck, we don't even need any government bonds for funding! Why half-measures, why not send $1M to everyone? I wonder how that would end: "since we adopted the leaf as the currency, we're all rich!". I can see no flaw in this plan.
How so? Advertising in general is just useless and annoying because it intrudes at an inappropriate time and place. But it does serve a purpose: to alert me of new products, or highlight existing products I might have overlooked. Doing that while I'm shopping for that specific item is a good thing.
It's the same discussion that's been rehashed many times about targeted ads on the web - they fail because they're poorly targeted: especially time-wise.
Same applies to the whole of capitalism, really: lazy people trying to convince you that if they can just take some of the fruits of your labour, everyone'll be better off. Somehow.
You might want to use a more specific word than "capitalism" to make your point. All "capitalism" means is that the means of production are "owned as an investment", as opposed to the two other common models: "owned as a result of military conquest" and "owned by a central committee with a 5-year plan".
Usually people rant against "free markets", but that doesn't seem to be your gripe here. Controlling the means of production as a result of a track record of successfully controlling the means of production just sound like the right approach to me, which capitalism approaches as nearly as any system is likely to. Perhaps you'd like a different measure of "success" in this context?
The packaging on the product is already advertising at you. I don't see extra advertising on the shelves as any worse.
If I'm there in front of the product and considering a purchase, that's the correct time and place for advertisement.
Fuck that. Words on a page are words on a page, and never should that be censored.
It's the journey, not the destination. :) And I prefer a journey where I can cross bridges without fear of lurking trolls.
Well put. But I despise government-sponsored "charity" because the extortion makes it not charity. Charity is giving your own money to the needy, and is perhaps the most good thing most of us get to do in our lives. Taking away that role in society from the individual to be replaced by impersonal taxation denies us the joy of giving, as well as building an unfortunate sense of entitlement in the receiver.
Well, there are plenty of needy in the world for those of us who have money left after taxes, so there are still plenty of opportunities for charity, but the distance makes it less personal.
If you're going to plant crops, a straw man can be useful to keep the crows away - maybe he is building one. Last place I lived there was a "Lost Chicken" poster up on the telephone poles one week, funniest thing I saw all year.