I had $30,000 in credit card debt. People claimed it would be impossible to pay it off and I should just declare bankruptcy and start over, but I refused. Instead I made it disappear in 1 1/2 years through massive spending cuts. If I can do it, so too can a determined Congress and president.
Like we Obama said: "Yes we can". You just have to take the first step.
Also I've worked for the government. You could lay off 3/4 of the staff and still get the same amount of work done. There is a LOT of fat that can be trimmed.... just like any large organization that restructures & cuts costs.
>>>if I write an app that uses that connection all the time
Why on earth would you do that? You definitely wouldn't get away with it though, since my phone only had $60 on it. It would drain dry in 5 hours and I would dispute the charge with my company as being "ridiculous; I wasn't talking for 5 hours today".
What reasonable explanation can exist for charging me an extra 50 cents per minute, just because I made a call from Maryland instead of Pennsylvania? I can't think of any. Cingular used to do that to me, but now I use Virgin Mobile which did away with that nonsense (I pay a flat 18 cents anywhere in the U.S.). That's how all cellphones should operate.
Good insight. With my salary a 15 minute loss would be $3000 lost per year. However shutdown time is not something I have to sit and watch, and it doesn't really take 10 minutes to bootup (more like 5), so that reduces the loss to one-third my original calculation - just $1000.
That does exceed the $25 in power savings.
This is why so few people choose energy efficiency. The money saved does not compensate for time/wages lost. Perhaps when oil hits $1000 a barrel, then people will be more mindful, but for now energy is just too cheap.
>>>we need to increase taxes across the board by about 50% to pay the debt down
Yes. Or even better: cut spending by 50% for the same effect. The excess unspent money (50 cents per dollar collected in taxes) can then be used to slowly but surely pay off the ridiculously huge debt we borrowed from the Chinese and other foreign nationals.
Once the debt is minimized from trillions to millions, we will better be able to service the Baby Boomer SS/Medicare payouts from circa 2030-to-2060 without going bankrupt.
>>>"Turning off PCs during periods of inactivity can save companies between $25 and $75 per PC per year"
How am I supposed to download last night's episodes of Smallville and Supernatural if I have my PC turned off during the day? Jeez. Insensitive clod.;-)
Perhaps the nation can not "save" like an individual, but they can certainly start by paying off the multi-trillion-dollar debt so the U.S. will be in a better position when ~40 million people start demanding SS and Medicare payments.
That means we need to axe a lot of programs, or (a) face potential bankruptcy of the whole country or (b) face the reality that we have to cut Medicare and SS benefits to a needs-based program rather than an entitlement. We have a huge amount of Baby Boomers about to retire, and don't have the money to support them all unless we start saving immediately.
The X million dollars was held for a set amount of time (6 months I recall) and then divided according to how many customers asked for refund. So if few asked I might $50, or if many asked I might only get $10.
By your reasoning the recalls on cribs where children get caught & choke to death are not the fault of the manufacturer. After all the bars were put there to hold children inside, and they achieved that goal. If the kid's head got stuck while he was trying to escape, then tough luck - the bars did their job of keeping him imprisoned. Anything else is incidental.
I disagree.
I think manufacturers should be held responsible when their designed products fail. If a game requires dropping the controller to register an input, and the strap fails causing you to break your toe when it lands, then Nintendo should be held responsible for that strap failure. The only time I think Nintendo should be "let off" is if the strap had been abused (the aforementioned chewing), but it the strap is still in like-new condition then it broke through the fault of the engineer, not the customer.
This is why another famous toy called "Jarts" was pulled off the market. That game was fine so long as everything worked okay, but if a gust of wind caught one of the jarts, they could land on a player or spectator and cause bodily harm. The Wiimote has the same flaw of potentially injuring a player or spectator when the strap fails during normal course of gameplay.
"The only reason you want to ban anonymity on the net, in the press, or in writing is because you wish to exert power & control over other people and censor them."
>>>Or do they weasel their way into spending $1M on anti-"Piracy" propaganda instead?
You're probably right. I recall when Tobacco companies were "fined" and forced to produce anti-smoking commercials. The problem was that the spokespeople for these ads were geeks & nerds, so the message sent was precisely opposite to what the government intended ("stop smoking and you'll be a geek like this guy").
IMHO the CD Cartel settlement was better - companies were forced to set-aside X million dollars and refund money to any customer who asked for it. (I received $20 and so too did my mom, my brother, and two nieces.) That's a real punishment that also benefits the people who were wronged.
A sexually-mature teenager with independent thoughts is clearly not the same as an immature child.
And yet the law treats them identically. Just as we allow teens to start driving at age 16, perhaps we should allow them to register on websites. After all it's certainly safer to "submit a broad range of personal information, together with date of birth" to mileycyrus.com than to drive a 4000 pound vehicle. We forbid the former, but allow the later??? Not logical.
Yes. As oil becomes more scarce, recylcing becomes more profitable. It's just basic economics.
Also in my humble opinion, diesel is the future not hydrogen. Diesel engines are the most-efficient method of moving cars, second only to solar which unfortunately has proven to be not practical (yet). So we'll trade-in our inefficient gassers for efficient diesel cars...... then sometime around 2030 diesel will be replaced with biodiesel made from home production (soybeans, corn, sugar cane, and waste products like scrap wood).
We will thus have eliminated most of our dependence on billion-year-old dead trees (oil), and instead fuel the economy using recently-grown plants or trees.
"Every Wii game displays a caution screen upon loading to warn the player to use the strap in order to avoid the remote slipping from the grip during erratic movements." - wikipedia
In other words, even Nintendo admits that the strap is there for safety.
I never even noticed the difference until just now!
To me the "dropdown bar" has been a standard feature on both Firefox 2 and InternetExploder for quite a while. I've always liked that it saved typing time. I can type www.s and then just select www.slashdot.org quickly and easily. That's not annoying; it's pleasant.
(Murdered by a 50% +1 democratic vote simply because they didn't like him.) The Law that protects the individual needs to reign supreme. We need a Republic, not a democracy.
As far as I know all U.S. phone companies offer multiple options:
- unlimited local calling where you pay a flat rate of ~$20 a month. ---My parents have this. - a prepaid amount for ~100 calls for ~$10 a month - metered calling of about 10 cents per call plus a $5/month service fee --- This is what I have.
>>>I have Verizon DSL without paying for telephone service. What you do is switch the internet payment to credit card instead of using the phone bill, and then terminate the phone service. >>>
Slashdot Mirror
I had $30,000 in credit card debt. People claimed it would be impossible to pay it off and I should just declare bankruptcy and start over, but I refused. Instead I made it disappear in 1 1/2 years through massive spending cuts. If I can do it, so too can a determined Congress and president.
Like we Obama said: "Yes we can". You just have to take the first step.
Also I've worked for the government. You could lay off 3/4 of the staff and still get the same amount of work done. There is a LOT of fat that can be trimmed.... just like any large organization that restructures & cuts costs.
That doesn't make any sense. My annual SS "report" says I will get back $8400 a year. Except that I PAY $14,000 a year. So doing some quick math:
$15,000 * 50 working years == $700,000 "paid in"
$700,000 / $8400 = over 80 years to get back what I paid.
Hmmm.
That is nowhere near the 2-3 years you falsely claimed.
I don't think that's accurate. As far as I know SS was always intended for everyone over a certain age.
>>>if I write an app that uses that connection all the time
Why on earth would you do that? You definitely wouldn't get away with it though, since my phone only had $60 on it. It would drain dry in 5 hours and I would dispute the charge with my company as being "ridiculous; I wasn't talking for 5 hours today".
Well Cingular owns virtually every tower in Maryland, so I shouldn't have been paying any kind of roaming charge.
What reasonable explanation can exist for charging me an extra 50 cents per minute, just because I made a call from Maryland instead of Pennsylvania? I can't think of any. Cingular used to do that to me, but now I use Virgin Mobile which did away with that nonsense (I pay a flat 18 cents anywhere in the U.S.). That's how all cellphones should operate.
Good insight. With my salary a 15 minute loss would be $3000 lost per year. However shutdown time is not something I have to sit and watch, and it doesn't really take 10 minutes to bootup (more like 5), so that reduces the loss to one-third my original calculation - just $1000.
That does exceed the $25 in power savings.
This is why so few people choose energy efficiency. The money saved does not compensate for time/wages lost. Perhaps when oil hits $1000 a barrel, then people will be more mindful, but for now energy is just too cheap.
>>>we need to increase taxes across the board by about 50% to pay the debt down
Yes. Or even better: cut spending by 50% for the same effect. The excess unspent money (50 cents per dollar collected in taxes) can then be used to slowly but surely pay off the ridiculously huge debt we borrowed from the Chinese and other foreign nationals.
Once the debt is minimized from trillions to millions, we will better be able to service the Baby Boomer SS/Medicare payouts from circa 2030-to-2060 without going bankrupt.
>>>"Turning off PCs during periods of inactivity can save companies between $25 and $75 per PC per year"
How am I supposed to download last night's episodes of Smallville and Supernatural if I have my PC turned off during the day? Jeez. Insensitive clod. ;-)
Perhaps the nation can not "save" like an individual, but they can certainly start by paying off the multi-trillion-dollar debt so the U.S. will be in a better position when ~40 million people start demanding SS and Medicare payments.
That means we need to axe a lot of programs, or (a) face potential bankruptcy of the whole country or (b) face the reality that we have to cut Medicare and SS benefits to a needs-based program rather than an entitlement. We have a huge amount of Baby Boomers about to retire, and don't have the money to support them all unless we start saving immediately.
The X million dollars was held for a set amount of time (6 months I recall) and then divided according to how many customers asked for refund. So if few asked I might $50, or if many asked I might only get $10.
By your reasoning the recalls on cribs where children get caught & choke to death are not the fault of the manufacturer. After all the bars were put there to hold children inside, and they achieved that goal. If the kid's head got stuck while he was trying to escape, then tough luck - the bars did their job of keeping him imprisoned. Anything else is incidental.
I disagree.
I think manufacturers should be held responsible when their designed products fail. If a game requires dropping the controller to register an input, and the strap fails causing you to break your toe when it lands, then Nintendo should be held responsible for that strap failure. The only time I think Nintendo should be "let off" is if the strap had been abused (the aforementioned chewing), but it the strap is still in like-new condition then it broke through the fault of the engineer, not the customer.
This is why another famous toy called "Jarts" was pulled off the market. That game was fine so long as everything worked okay, but if a gust of wind caught one of the jarts, they could land on a player or spectator and cause bodily harm. The Wiimote has the same flaw of potentially injuring a player or spectator when the strap fails during normal course of gameplay.
i.e.
"The only reason you want to ban anonymity on the net, in the press, or in writing is because you wish to exert power & control over other people and censor them."
:-* ----- "Kiss"
my ----- "my"
(_|_) ----- "overweight American ass"
>:-( ----- Okay now I'm stuck. What does this emoticon mean?
No. It's a winking smiley. Yours is not winking.
What lame-brain dummy would think that either :-( or ;-) are trademarkable symbols??? They both originated circa 1980 and therefore are public domain.
>>>Or do they weasel their way into spending $1M on anti-"Piracy" propaganda instead?
You're probably right. I recall when Tobacco companies were "fined" and forced to produce anti-smoking commercials. The problem was that the spokespeople for these ads were geeks & nerds, so the message sent was precisely opposite to what the government intended ("stop smoking and you'll be a geek like this guy").
IMHO the CD Cartel settlement was better - companies were forced to set-aside X million dollars and refund money to any customer who asked for it. (I received $20 and so too did my mom, my brother, and two nieces.) That's a real punishment that also benefits the people who were wronged.
A sexually-mature teenager with independent thoughts is clearly not the same as an immature child.
And yet the law treats them identically. Just as we allow teens to start driving at age 16, perhaps we should allow them to register on websites. After all it's certainly safer to "submit a broad range of personal information, together with date of birth" to mileycyrus.com than to drive a 4000 pound vehicle. We forbid the former, but allow the later??? Not logical.
Yes. As oil becomes more scarce, recylcing becomes more profitable. It's just basic economics.
Also in my humble opinion, diesel is the future not hydrogen. Diesel engines are the most-efficient method of moving cars, second only to solar which unfortunately has proven to be not practical (yet). So we'll trade-in our inefficient gassers for efficient diesel cars...... then sometime around 2030 diesel will be replaced with biodiesel made from home production (soybeans, corn, sugar cane, and waste products like scrap wood).
We will thus have eliminated most of our dependence on billion-year-old dead trees (oil), and instead fuel the economy using recently-grown plants or trees.
"Every Wii game displays a caution screen upon loading to warn the player to use the strap in order to avoid the remote slipping from the grip during erratic movements." - wikipedia
In other words, even Nintendo admits that the strap is there for safety.
I never even noticed the difference until just now!
To me the "dropdown bar" has been a standard feature on both Firefox 2 and InternetExploder for quite a while. I've always liked that it saved typing time. I can type www.s and then just select www.slashdot.org quickly and easily. That's not annoying; it's pleasant.
That didn't work for Socrates.
(Murdered by a 50% +1 democratic vote simply because they didn't like him.) The Law that protects the individual needs to reign supreme. We need a Republic, not a democracy.
As far as I know all U.S. phone companies offer multiple options:
- unlimited local calling where you pay a flat rate of ~$20 a month. ---My parents have this.
- a prepaid amount for ~100 calls for ~$10 a month
- metered calling of about 10 cents per call plus a $5/month service fee --- This is what I have.
>>>I have Verizon DSL without paying for telephone service. What you do is switch the internet payment to credit card instead of using the phone bill, and then terminate the phone service.
>>>
Ahhh. Useful advice.