You are just too funny! To tell a sovereign nation to "fuck off" on their own land and to bring some 'multi-national cooperation to take over' sound exactly like what it is - a military attack and occupation.
Driving is is not a freedom. Speeding is not a freedom.
- aah, yes. Yes, it is. Driving is not a 'privilege', it is a freedom.
The problem is exactly this: government shouldn't be in any business that has anything to do with driving or transportation in general. In fact government shouldn't be in any business.
Roads are not supposed to be government built and operated in the first place, it's a private infrastructure project built by private companies that figure that they can make money by building and operating roads and thus the rules of the road are only those, that you contractually accept by buying a pass on it.
In that case road operators can compete on everything, from safety to number of lanes, to quality, to various speed agreements.
In fact you should be able to pay more to go to a lane, where your speed is not limited by anything but your own car performance abilities and your driving skills.
The very first technology that people came up with destroyed some jobs, that's the entire point of labour saving devices - that we can enjoy the productive output while exerting ourselves less to achieve it.
This is not a bad thing, this is what we work for in the first place.
Funny enough, a few month ago I sent a letter to Ballmer, where I sort of predicted that this would happen to him if the company continues on this path and I offered to help (I know, I know, very funny, ha ha, what can some random guy do, yes?)
Anyway, I believe I have a good idea as to how to direct MS Windows platform to make it actually usable and what is more interesting, I have an idea about a new desktop that would be preferable for businesses.
Seriously, I have an idea as to what to do to a desktop to make it specifically business oriented that would actually give businesses a better way of working. Maybe one day I'll just do this myself, of-course MS has so much experience in the subject matter, they could churn it out quickly, but it would require certain change in the normal way they build software.
In any case, a standard response was given, something to the tune of: we don't take advices from nobody, go to hell.
So now I see almost exactly what I predicted in that letter to Ballmer happening in real life, but hey, that's what normally happens with me, I see stuff that is too obvious before others catch up.
I managed to read TFA and the submitter only mentioned the words "radioactive" once or twice and never considered the challenging environment that his device would have to be used in.
Personally I don't believe he considered that side of the problem. Would the design work at all? I think it would for some time, but it probably would fail after a short time period without hardening against radiation and humidity.
So this is fine when it concerns non-radioactive water, but this solution wasn't tested in an environment where the radioactive levels are higher than usual, there was no test case in the story for that. Will the electronics live long enough? Also what about humidity, how long before this stops working because of higher humidity levels?
Like I said earlier, as long as the silent or vocal majority wants government to regulate, tax, subsidise, print, there won't be anything left for real justice, real equality and real freedom.
Workers don't want to die, companies don't want to have a hand in more deaths, companies want to keep their workers, who are apparently in high demand. However all of the existing regulations, taxes, etc., all that burden prevents companies from growing, from hiring.
If government was interested in actually lowering unemployment, it would stop the regulations, taxes, inflation and subsidies, redistribution, welfare state. Instead there will be more regulations, what do you think that would do?
It would raise the costs obviously, but it would also further limit employment, it wouldn't provide more jobs with those companies, who are building this infrastructure, it will prevent jobs from appearing. I mean this is infrastructure, the kind of 'shovel ready' work that government officials cheer for supposedly.
In reality of-course they are only interested in government jobs, nothing else, government jobs are welfare, not real jobs.
Why am I talking about this?
Here, quoting:
"OSHA is taking a close look into factors that may be responsible for this tragic increase in fatalities and, based on those findings, we will initiate additional measures to improve safety in the cell-tower industry," said David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health.
OSHA has estimated there are roughly 10,000 workers in the U.S. communication tower industry. Ten deaths may not seem like a huge number, but it is enough proportionally to rank the industry among the deadliest in the country.
In 2008, citing data from 2006 when 18 tower workers died, OSHA said tower climbing was "the most dangerous job in America," ranking it above occupations such as fishing and logging. Fatalities had declined since then, with only one death recorded last year.
The rise in tower fatalities comes as preliminary data from OSHA show overall workplace fatalities are down in the nine months that ended in June.
Construction managers say there is so much work this year that many crews are working around the clock and haven't taken days off in weeks. One project manager said crews are working 12- or 16-hour days and, when they get tired, forget to clip on safety lines or clip them on improperly.
You think a welfare state, taxing, redistribution, regulating helps or prevents employment? If the companies need more workers because the ones on the job are overworked, why do you think companies don't hire more people? It's the costs associated with employing more people. It's not just salaries, it's all the costs added not by any market forces but only by government meddling, this of-course also factors in the cost of the economy that is hurting from inflation, which prevents real capital formation and real economy from restarting.
This is a serious story, Manning, however a sad person, actually did the right thing by releasing this information. He cemented his status is a martyr for a just cause, I consider him to be some kind of a real American hero actually. This judgement is a travesty, an authoritarian oppressive regime, crashing everything on its way to power and anybody who challenges that power, however illegal and unconstitutional.
But/. editors, they actually deserve, if not 35 years... then 35 lashes.
There is nothing that even a vocal minority can do to stop government from usurping power from the individuals as long as the government enjoys silent or vocal support for its powers to take away from some people and redistribute to others.
There is absolutely nothing, short of a bloody revolution, that can be done about that and it has been shown true in every case.
Basically once there is a large segment of the population that likes government taxing, regulating, subsidising, redistributing, money printing, 'insuring', supporting..... you can't do anything to remove that government, no matter how just your cause you may feel you have.
Even if a country falls apart due to complete economic disaster caused by various collectivist policies (USSR as an example), if large portion of the population wants subsidies for whatever lifestyle they have, then a Mafia will rule the place apparently, which will steal as much as possible and will provide just enough of a subsidy to keep the majority of the population on its side.
Dogs or pigs, somewhere in between there... People are in between there.
So is a computer banned from visiting a specific site or is it a specific person? There is a difference, the judge may not recognise it, but there is a difference. If a computer on a shared LAN that is visible through the same one external IP address is banned by craigslist, why are all other computers (and users) banned?
If a user is banned, then why are you banning an IP address? An IP address is not necessarily tied to one single person.
If a banned person goes to an Internet cafe or to his friend's house or to another place he owns or rents and uses a different computer from there with a different IP address, is that also the same 'fraud'? I mean, technically it's not, he is not using a proxy.
Is it the use of a proxy that is 'fraud' or is it that the person manages to access craigslist regardless of how he does it? If he does it by walking into a computer store and uses a networked demo machine from it to access craigslist, is that also 'fraud'?
I mean this is the same silly practice that/. is engaged in when it bans an IP address or a range, it's stupid, the/. crowd is exactly the wrong audience for this type of a 'technological solution' to a social problem.
Anyway, don't be mistaken, the only thing that it is, it's another power grab by the power hungry government and it will be used as designed - to punish you when it is politically expedient.
Well of-course they want to use that to spy on you, but that's just the beginning. They want to know your every thought, not only what you say on the phone or type, but what do you think, what do you feel about things. Even that is not enough, they want to control you completely. Not only do they want to know what you think, they want to force you to think what they want you to think and nothing else.
Almost anything can be used as 'means of production', so that distinction is both: irrelevant and wrong.
It's irrelevant, a table can be used as 'means of production' if it's used by an accountant or at a factory. It's wrong, because it tries to categories the ACTION (ownership and operation) by type of OBJECT (a tool or any other product).
As to what socialist countries, like the former USSR, they didn't prevent you from owning many things that could be used as means of production, they prevented you from selling and making a profit (and people still did, many went to jail, many didn't).
Capitalism is private ownership and operation of property, it's all it is. What you do with that property is your business.
Is government necessary for that? No. Anarcho capitalism is just as valid as the other versions.
The large ball crashed right through the table because it was made of Styrofoam. What was made of Styrofoam? (The alternative formulation replaces StryRofoam with steel.)
a) The large ball b) The table
I imagine using bad spelling would not deter computers today (Google checks spelling and offers auto-corrections), but understanding bad grammar is a harder problem to solve for computers, so never mind convoluted questions, how about just using bad grammar to figure out who the real people are vs. who the computers are?
Wait a minute, is that what all the bad grammar (and spelling and punctuation) on the Internet all about? All this time I thought people just can't write well most of the time and actually what it may be is a way to distinguish between the real people and robots.
Except that's nonsense. If FAA and USA government cared to keep American airlines in business, they wouldn't be blocking the merger of two of them at this point, which is probably the only way to keep at least one of them operational. I wrote about it here.
What you are saying is not true, it's not about "keeping American airlines in business", it's about creating a monopoly and keeping prices up artificially where consumers would be much better served if there was more competition. There is an insane amount of regulations, rules, taxes that are crammed down the throats of American businesses by the collectivist socialist/fascist government, which uses the lowest common denominator - the dumbest and the biggest crowd, the mob, to justify its power grab. The mob gives the government the ability to exercise unauthorised powers and then the top politically connected people and the bottom 50 or so percent gang up together against the people who are in between those two extremes. So the real middle class gets destroyed - the businesses that are not politically connected, the people who are in fact providing most of the real products and services and jobs, the ones who actually hold the economy together.
Eventually they will destroy that small fraction of the population and only the poor and the top 0.001%, those with the political power will remain.
All this protectionism does not keep American airlines running, it destroys all American business eventually. Of-course it starts with the Federal reserve, IRS, FDIC, FBI, NSA, all of the departments, from energy and education, to commerce and agriculture and interior and housing banking and war, you name it.
The government ends up destroying all of the economy in the long run and people believe that the government should be doing something to "protect US ran airlines and other businesses in the short run", this is the real short term thinking, the kind that/. crowd likes to accuse corporations of, not even understanding that they are absolutely complicit.
Do you know that FAA prevents international carriers from being able to fly people within national US borders?
So if you are a Swiss airline, as an example, if you fly to New York, let passengers off your plane, pick up some passengers and then fly to Los Angeles and pick up more passengers, if your plane has empty seats on that NY to LA flight, you are prohibited by FAA to pick up national passengers (people who just want to go from NY to LA).
Isn't it amazing? FAA allows commercial operation of drones in USA space, (eventually armed drones, of-course), but they will not allow competition to help people, when they are already in fact hurting with the insane amount of inflation created by the Fed, which translates into higher and higher prices in fuel, maintenance, etc.
It should be amazing. FAA shouldn't even exist, there shouldn't be a government agency allowing or preventing people from flying passengers OR from flying unarmed drones for that matter, but wait, the international lines will still be not allowed to fly passengers on national routes but drones will eventually have weapons on them.... for security, to fight the terrorists and for the children of-course.
You would know exactly where it is, wouldn't you? You are ready to sacrifice every individual on it that does not conform to your collectivist ideology.
While preventing a collectivist organisation, such as a government from having unauthorised power, does not require violence against any particular individual, preventing an individual from running his own life as he wants (which is your goal, that was your mission statement in the comment I replied to) requires any and all means necessary to stop that individual from doing what you consider to be 'too much' of whatever, this means restraining the individual and eventually it means lethal force of one type or another, as your enforcement mechanism would have to ultimately be able to exert to achieve your goal.
You constructed that altar below that pulpit, you would know where it is.
Capitalism is private ownership and operation of property, nothing else.
Free market is market that is no manipulated by the powerful governments that have legal and or illegal authority to take away your freedoms.
You are blaming private ownership and operation of property for government stealing individual freedoms by legally or illegally taking away personal freedoms (destroying free market). That is not an insightful comment, it has nothing to do with logic, it is based on emotion and lack of information or deliberate propaganda that is aimed at increasing the power of the state and taking away individual liberties.
Saying: we must BOTH limit powers of the government and limit powers of the individuals is complete nonsense or propaganda.
What must be done is limiting powers of the government and punish individuals for criminal activity (activity that is aimed at hurting other individuals, murder, rape, theft, other violence).
There is no such thing as: limiting both, power of the government and power of the individuals. Governments have awesome powers, that must be always kept in check. Government is evil by its very definition because it has huge power over any one particular individual. Government is a collectivist idea that puts an individual at a gigantic, immeasurable disadvantage compared to the collective (the mob).
As to "social democracy" - that's a disastrous idea with disastrous consequences. Democracy is dictatorship of the mob, which eventually reduces to the dictatorship of an individual. "Social" means collective, anti-individual. So in reality what you are in fact promoting is dictatorship and slavery.
WTF are you talking about? Government doesn't want more employment, government breeds unemployment and dependency.
If Cisco is cutting jobs it's not because the times are great, regardless of what their sale numbers indicate. As I mentioned here, there is a difference between nominal and real growth, so when gov't states that the GDP is up, what it really means today is that things are more expensive and people eat through their savings (and live on more credit) just to cover their basic expenses, so purchasing power is down.
Same is happening with the companies, companies don't exist to provide anybody with employment, they exist to make money. If Cisco, as a company could generate more profits with more employees, they would not cut but hire more employees. Apparently Cisco figures that more employees at this point do not generate more profits, they cost more, as it costs more and more to have employees in USA (and most other Western nations) due to high regulations, inflation and taxes. In fact it's the cost of the government that is destroying the economy, which translates to fewer sales and even if the dollar amounts of sales can be up, it does NOT mean that RECEIPTS are up, it does not mean that ITEMS are up, it simply means that PRICES are up and when prices are up, fewer people can afford those products.
Since the prices are up for most items that matter (of-course pro-government so called 'economists' and politicians will disagree that there is such a thing, probably they don't do their own shopping that often), people are buying fewer items, they are buying less energy. USA is exporting more energy than before and is importing and using less energy than at any time in the last quarter of a century. The economy is SHRINKING rapidly, the purchasing power is falling rapidly, the buying of Cisco and other products is falling rapidly.
The reality is that the government (and the mob that is used to hold the collectivist government in power) is destroying the economy and that is why companies fire people, they just can't use that many.
Same as with the airline industry, the US government just prevented a merger between US Airways and American Airlines, stating that this would limit competition and prices will go up.
Newsflash, the prices are already up and the services are cut down, with more and more charges, with less food and no entertainment in flight, with more people crammed into smaller spaces... basically the government destroyed the economy to the point, where the existing airline industry cannot justify its capacity, so the capacity needs to shrink to make the industry profitable again. Those airline companies are bankrupt already (at least one of them for sure, the other one is close), so them merging would be an attempt to save some of what can remain of their business. If their merger is prevented, there may not be a USA airline industry as you know it at all in the coming years, airlines will go out of business. With a merger, they WILL raise prices, because prices must rise at this point because services must decrease, fewer planes are needed, fewer pilots are needed. Again, all of this thanks to the government.
And you think that more government is the solution to the problems that are created by the government, it's astounding (but not really, you are a product of this collectivist brainwashing system that gauges your eyes out to the reality early on in your life).
Correct, that article is a thinly veiled pro-government propaganda hit piece designed to create a divide between the more libertarian minded and the more collectivist types, that want more government intrusion because they benefit from that theft and transfer of other people's resources.
It's a type of an 'article' that a more conspiratorial version of 'ISKRA' would have printed some time before the Russian revolution.
Isn't it hilarious how the government officials and fake mainstream 'economists' use absolute numbers to imply that their preferred narrative actually has any real meaning behind it?
Here is an example of what I am talking about:
A person makes 3000 dollars a month and can afford X amount of goods after paying the rent, food, energy and transportation costs and saves 10% every month. Next year prices go up by 5%, the same person on the same salary has to pay more for rent, food, energy and transportation and has at least 5% less left over for other spending. His savings rate falls and GDP seems to grow.
The question to all these politicians and mainstream economists: is that person better off, now that he can no longer afford to save even his miserly 10% (in countries like China, people routinely save up to 50% of their monthly income)?
The mainstream economists will point out the nominal GDP growth and say: this is a good thing.
Of-course he doesn't tell you that the reason prices went up and reduced the savings rate was government printing (figuratively) a huge wad of money, which is inflation and moves through the market players, from central banks, to commercial banks and various financial organisations, to money, stock, commodity, housing markets, etc. Eventually this translates into consumer goods and the nominal GDP grows while the savings rate falls, purchasing power falls and people are in fact left poorer off now then they were before.
Slashdot Mirror
You are just too funny! To tell a sovereign nation to "fuck off" on their own land and to bring some 'multi-national cooperation to take over' sound exactly like what it is - a military attack and occupation.
Driving is is not a freedom. Speeding is not a freedom.
- aah, yes. Yes, it is. Driving is not a 'privilege', it is a freedom.
The problem is exactly this: government shouldn't be in any business that has anything to do with driving or transportation in general. In fact government shouldn't be in any business.
Roads are not supposed to be government built and operated in the first place, it's a private infrastructure project built by private companies that figure that they can make money by building and operating roads and thus the rules of the road are only those, that you contractually accept by buying a pass on it.
In that case road operators can compete on everything, from safety to number of lanes, to quality, to various speed agreements.
In fact you should be able to pay more to go to a lane, where your speed is not limited by anything but your own car performance abilities and your driving skills.
Is there a line which gets crossed where every Snowden supporter would say "this has gone too far"?
- not a chance.
For all I care Snowden could fire bomb Washington DC and personally execute every government official in the world and NONE of that would be treason.
Treason is going against the people, government is going against the people, not Snowden.
The very first technology that people came up with destroyed some jobs, that's the entire point of labour saving devices - that we can enjoy the productive output while exerting ourselves less to achieve it.
This is not a bad thing, this is what we work for in the first place.
Funny enough, a few month ago I sent a letter to Ballmer, where I sort of predicted that this would happen to him if the company continues on this path and I offered to help (I know, I know, very funny, ha ha, what can some random guy do, yes?)
Anyway, I believe I have a good idea as to how to direct MS Windows platform to make it actually usable and what is more interesting, I have an idea about a new desktop that would be preferable for businesses.
Seriously, I have an idea as to what to do to a desktop to make it specifically business oriented that would actually give businesses a better way of working. Maybe one day I'll just do this myself, of-course MS has so much experience in the subject matter, they could churn it out quickly, but it would require certain change in the normal way they build software.
In any case, a standard response was given, something to the tune of: we don't take advices from nobody, go to hell.
So now I see almost exactly what I predicted in that letter to Ballmer happening in real life, but hey, that's what normally happens with me, I see stuff that is too obvious before others catch up.
Not bad, it's certainly not Van Gogh, but not bad.
Yeah well, they are not taking into account this concentration of rocket scientists in Arizona.
How about shielding the antenna with some metal or maybe using a cantena? What about grounding the antenna as well?
I managed to read TFA and the submitter only mentioned the words "radioactive" once or twice and never considered the challenging environment that his device would have to be used in.
Personally I don't believe he considered that side of the problem. Would the design work at all? I think it would for some time, but it probably would fail after a short time period without hardening against radiation and humidity.
So this is fine when it concerns non-radioactive water, but this solution wasn't tested in an environment where the radioactive levels are higher than usual, there was no test case in the story for that. Will the electronics live long enough? Also what about humidity, how long before this stops working because of higher humidity levels?
Like I said earlier, as long as the silent or vocal majority wants government to regulate, tax, subsidise, print, there won't be anything left for real justice, real equality and real freedom.
Workers don't want to die, companies don't want to have a hand in more deaths, companies want to keep their workers, who are apparently in high demand. However all of the existing regulations, taxes, etc., all that burden prevents companies from growing, from hiring.
If government was interested in actually lowering unemployment, it would stop the regulations, taxes, inflation and subsidies, redistribution, welfare state. Instead there will be more regulations, what do you think that would do?
It would raise the costs obviously, but it would also further limit employment, it wouldn't provide more jobs with those companies, who are building this infrastructure, it will prevent jobs from appearing. I mean this is infrastructure, the kind of 'shovel ready' work that government officials cheer for supposedly.
In reality of-course they are only interested in government jobs, nothing else, government jobs are welfare, not real jobs.
Why am I talking about this?
Here, quoting:
"OSHA is taking a close look into factors that may be responsible for this tragic increase in fatalities and, based on those findings, we will initiate additional measures to improve safety in the cell-tower industry," said David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health.
OSHA has estimated there are roughly 10,000 workers in the U.S. communication tower industry. Ten deaths may not seem like a huge number, but it is enough proportionally to rank the industry among the deadliest in the country.
In 2008, citing data from 2006 when 18 tower workers died, OSHA said tower climbing was "the most dangerous job in America," ranking it above occupations such as fishing and logging. Fatalities had declined since then, with only one death recorded last year.
The rise in tower fatalities comes as preliminary data from OSHA show overall workplace fatalities are down in the nine months that ended in June.
Construction managers say there is so much work this year that many crews are working around the clock and haven't taken days off in weeks. One project manager said crews are working 12- or 16-hour days and, when they get tired, forget to clip on safety lines or clip them on improperly.
You think a welfare state, taxing, redistribution, regulating helps or prevents employment? If the companies need more workers because the ones on the job are overworked, why do you think companies don't hire more people? It's the costs associated with employing more people. It's not just salaries, it's all the costs added not by any market forces but only by government meddling, this of-course also factors in the cost of the economy that is hurting from inflation, which prevents real capital formation and real economy from restarting.
This is a serious story, Manning, however a sad person, actually did the right thing by releasing this information. He cemented his status is a martyr for a just cause, I consider him to be some kind of a real American hero actually. This judgement is a travesty, an authoritarian oppressive regime, crashing everything on its way to power and anybody who challenges that power, however illegal and unconstitutional.
But /. editors, they actually deserve, if not 35 years... then 35 lashes.
There is nothing that even a vocal minority can do to stop government from usurping power from the individuals as long as the government enjoys silent or vocal support for its powers to take away from some people and redistribute to others.
There is absolutely nothing, short of a bloody revolution, that can be done about that and it has been shown true in every case.
Basically once there is a large segment of the population that likes government taxing, regulating, subsidising, redistributing, money printing, 'insuring', supporting..... you can't do anything to remove that government, no matter how just your cause you may feel you have.
Even if a country falls apart due to complete economic disaster caused by various collectivist policies (USSR as an example), if large portion of the population wants subsidies for whatever lifestyle they have, then a Mafia will rule the place apparently, which will steal as much as possible and will provide just enough of a subsidy to keep the majority of the population on its side.
Dogs or pigs, somewhere in between there... People are in between there.
So is a computer banned from visiting a specific site or is it a specific person? There is a difference, the judge may not recognise it, but there is a difference. If a computer on a shared LAN that is visible through the same one external IP address is banned by craigslist, why are all other computers (and users) banned?
If a user is banned, then why are you banning an IP address? An IP address is not necessarily tied to one single person.
If a banned person goes to an Internet cafe or to his friend's house or to another place he owns or rents and uses a different computer from there with a different IP address, is that also the same 'fraud'? I mean, technically it's not, he is not using a proxy.
Is it the use of a proxy that is 'fraud' or is it that the person manages to access craigslist regardless of how he does it? If he does it by walking into a computer store and uses a networked demo machine from it to access craigslist, is that also 'fraud'?
I mean this is the same silly practice that /. is engaged in when it bans an IP address or a range, it's stupid, the /. crowd is exactly the wrong audience for this type of a 'technological solution' to a social problem.
Anyway, don't be mistaken, the only thing that it is, it's another power grab by the power hungry government and it will be used as designed - to punish you when it is politically expedient.
I used to drive with a license plate that said "SOLARIS" on it. No, really, I liked the OS so much I put it on my effing license plate.
I wouldn't even think about using that license plate today, not with Oracle owning the software.
Well of-course they want to use that to spy on you, but that's just the beginning. They want to know your every thought, not only what you say on the phone or type, but what do you think, what do you feel about things. Even that is not enough, they want to control you completely. Not only do they want to know what you think, they want to force you to think what they want you to think and nothing else.
Almost anything can be used as 'means of production', so that distinction is both: irrelevant and wrong.
It's irrelevant, a table can be used as 'means of production' if it's used by an accountant or at a factory. It's wrong, because it tries to categories the ACTION (ownership and operation) by type of OBJECT (a tool or any other product).
As to what socialist countries, like the former USSR, they didn't prevent you from owning many things that could be used as means of production, they prevented you from selling and making a profit (and people still did, many went to jail, many didn't).
Capitalism is private ownership and operation of property, it's all it is. What you do with that property is your business.
Is government necessary for that? No. Anarcho capitalism is just as valid as the other versions.
While this was not deliberate (FTFA):
The large ball crashed right through the table because it was made of Styrofoam. What was made of Styrofoam? (The alternative formulation replaces StryRofoam with steel.)
a) The large ball
b) The table
I imagine using bad spelling would not deter computers today (Google checks spelling and offers auto-corrections), but understanding bad grammar is a harder problem to solve for computers, so never mind convoluted questions, how about just using bad grammar to figure out who the real people are vs. who the computers are?
Wait a minute, is that what all the bad grammar (and spelling and punctuation) on the Internet all about? All this time I thought people just can't write well most of the time and actually what it may be is a way to distinguish between the real people and robots.
Except that's nonsense. If FAA and USA government cared to keep American airlines in business, they wouldn't be blocking the merger of two of them at this point, which is probably the only way to keep at least one of them operational. I wrote about it here.
What you are saying is not true, it's not about "keeping American airlines in business", it's about creating a monopoly and keeping prices up artificially where consumers would be much better served if there was more competition. There is an insane amount of regulations, rules, taxes that are crammed down the throats of American businesses by the collectivist socialist/fascist government, which uses the lowest common denominator - the dumbest and the biggest crowd, the mob, to justify its power grab. The mob gives the government the ability to exercise unauthorised powers and then the top politically connected people and the bottom 50 or so percent gang up together against the people who are in between those two extremes. So the real middle class gets destroyed - the businesses that are not politically connected, the people who are in fact providing most of the real products and services and jobs, the ones who actually hold the economy together.
Eventually they will destroy that small fraction of the population and only the poor and the top 0.001%, those with the political power will remain.
All this protectionism does not keep American airlines running, it destroys all American business eventually. Of-course it starts with the Federal reserve, IRS, FDIC, FBI, NSA, all of the departments, from energy and education, to commerce and agriculture and interior and housing banking and war, you name it.
The government ends up destroying all of the economy in the long run and people believe that the government should be doing something to "protect US ran airlines and other businesses in the short run", this is the real short term thinking, the kind that /. crowd likes to accuse corporations of, not even understanding that they are absolutely complicit.
Do you know that FAA prevents international carriers from being able to fly people within national US borders?
So if you are a Swiss airline, as an example, if you fly to New York, let passengers off your plane, pick up some passengers and then fly to Los Angeles and pick up more passengers, if your plane has empty seats on that NY to LA flight, you are prohibited by FAA to pick up national passengers (people who just want to go from NY to LA).
Isn't it amazing? FAA allows commercial operation of drones in USA space, (eventually armed drones, of-course), but they will not allow competition to help people, when they are already in fact hurting with the insane amount of inflation created by the Fed, which translates into higher and higher prices in fuel, maintenance, etc.
It should be amazing. FAA shouldn't even exist, there shouldn't be a government agency allowing or preventing people from flying passengers OR from flying unarmed drones for that matter, but wait, the international lines will still be not allowed to fly passengers on national routes but drones will eventually have weapons on them.... for security, to fight the terrorists and for the children of-course.
You would know exactly where it is, wouldn't you? You are ready to sacrifice every individual on it that does not conform to your collectivist ideology.
While preventing a collectivist organisation, such as a government from having unauthorised power, does not require violence against any particular individual, preventing an individual from running his own life as he wants (which is your goal, that was your mission statement in the comment I replied to) requires any and all means necessary to stop that individual from doing what you consider to be 'too much' of whatever, this means restraining the individual and eventually it means lethal force of one type or another, as your enforcement mechanism would have to ultimately be able to exert to achieve your goal.
You constructed that altar below that pulpit, you would know where it is.
Capitalism is private ownership and operation of property, nothing else.
Free market is market that is no manipulated by the powerful governments that have legal and or illegal authority to take away your freedoms.
You are blaming private ownership and operation of property for government stealing individual freedoms by legally or illegally taking away personal freedoms (destroying free market). That is not an insightful comment, it has nothing to do with logic, it is based on emotion and lack of information or deliberate propaganda that is aimed at increasing the power of the state and taking away individual liberties.
Saying: we must BOTH limit powers of the government and limit powers of the individuals is complete nonsense or propaganda.
What must be done is limiting powers of the government and punish individuals for criminal activity (activity that is aimed at hurting other individuals, murder, rape, theft, other violence).
There is no such thing as: limiting both, power of the government and power of the individuals. Governments have awesome powers, that must be always kept in check. Government is evil by its very definition because it has huge power over any one particular individual. Government is a collectivist idea that puts an individual at a gigantic, immeasurable disadvantage compared to the collective (the mob).
As to "social democracy" - that's a disastrous idea with disastrous consequences. Democracy is dictatorship of the mob, which eventually reduces to the dictatorship of an individual. "Social" means collective, anti-individual. So in reality what you are in fact promoting is dictatorship and slavery.
WTF are you talking about? Government doesn't want more employment, government breeds unemployment and dependency.
If Cisco is cutting jobs it's not because the times are great, regardless of what their sale numbers indicate. As I mentioned here, there is a difference between nominal and real growth, so when gov't states that the GDP is up, what it really means today is that things are more expensive and people eat through their savings (and live on more credit) just to cover their basic expenses, so purchasing power is down.
Same is happening with the companies, companies don't exist to provide anybody with employment, they exist to make money. If Cisco, as a company could generate more profits with more employees, they would not cut but hire more employees. Apparently Cisco figures that more employees at this point do not generate more profits, they cost more, as it costs more and more to have employees in USA (and most other Western nations) due to high regulations, inflation and taxes. In fact it's the cost of the government that is destroying the economy, which translates to fewer sales and even if the dollar amounts of sales can be up, it does NOT mean that RECEIPTS are up, it does not mean that ITEMS are up, it simply means that PRICES are up and when prices are up, fewer people can afford those products.
Since the prices are up for most items that matter (of-course pro-government so called 'economists' and politicians will disagree that there is such a thing, probably they don't do their own shopping that often), people are buying fewer items, they are buying less energy. USA is exporting more energy than before and is importing and using less energy than at any time in the last quarter of a century. The economy is SHRINKING rapidly, the purchasing power is falling rapidly, the buying of Cisco and other products is falling rapidly.
The reality is that the government (and the mob that is used to hold the collectivist government in power) is destroying the economy and that is why companies fire people, they just can't use that many.
Same as with the airline industry, the US government just prevented a merger between US Airways and American Airlines, stating that this would limit competition and prices will go up.
Newsflash, the prices are already up and the services are cut down, with more and more charges, with less food and no entertainment in flight, with more people crammed into smaller spaces... basically the government destroyed the economy to the point, where the existing airline industry cannot justify its capacity, so the capacity needs to shrink to make the industry profitable again. Those airline companies are bankrupt already (at least one of them for sure, the other one is close), so them merging would be an attempt to save some of what can remain of their business. If their merger is prevented, there may not be a USA airline industry as you know it at all in the coming years, airlines will go out of business. With a merger, they WILL raise prices, because prices must rise at this point because services must decrease, fewer planes are needed, fewer pilots are needed. Again, all of this thanks to the government.
And you think that more government is the solution to the problems that are created by the government, it's astounding (but not really, you are a product of this collectivist brainwashing system that gauges your eyes out to the reality early on in your life).
Correct, that article is a thinly veiled pro-government propaganda hit piece designed to create a divide between the more libertarian minded and the more collectivist types, that want more government intrusion because they benefit from that theft and transfer of other people's resources.
It's a type of an 'article' that a more conspiratorial version of 'ISKRA' would have printed some time before the Russian revolution.
Isn't it hilarious how the government officials and fake mainstream 'economists' use absolute numbers to imply that their preferred narrative actually has any real meaning behind it?
Here is an example of what I am talking about:
A person makes 3000 dollars a month and can afford X amount of goods after paying the rent, food, energy and transportation costs and saves 10% every month. Next year prices go up by 5%, the same person on the same salary has to pay more for rent, food, energy and transportation and has at least 5% less left over for other spending. His savings rate falls and GDP seems to grow.
The question to all these politicians and mainstream economists: is that person better off, now that he can no longer afford to save even his miserly 10% (in countries like China, people routinely save up to 50% of their monthly income)?
The mainstream economists will point out the nominal GDP growth and say: this is a good thing.
Of-course he doesn't tell you that the reason prices went up and reduced the savings rate was government printing (figuratively) a huge wad of money, which is inflation and moves through the market players, from central banks, to commercial banks and various financial organisations, to money, stock, commodity, housing markets, etc. Eventually this translates into consumer goods and the nominal GDP grows while the savings rate falls, purchasing power falls and people are in fact left poorer off now then they were before.